Glove: Legal or Illegal?

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

I am posting this on both the Baseball and Softball Forums because it is a situation that can happen in both baseball and fastpitch softball, and would like opinions per NFHS, NCAA, OBR/MLB, ASA, and USSSA. I will try to describe the situation as best I can; I just wish I had a picture of the glove because it would be worth a thousand words.

Point of Information: I assume that everybody know what a plastic zip tie is because that is the central issue of this thread. Picture the free end of the zip tie pushed throught the female end thereby completing the tie. The free end is then cut off about 1/8th of an inch past the female end of the zip tie. I think that everybody knows that as designed the zip tie is quite flexible, when it is cut so close the the locking portion of the zip tie, the edges of the tie are quite sharp.

Yesterday after MTD, Jr.'s and my last game in an ASA girls' fastpitch tournament I noticed that one of the player's gloves, rather than using leather laces to keep the glove's fingers to together, she used three zip ties instead. The female ends of the zip ties were on the outside of the glove's fingers and the male end of the zip tie was cut off about 1/8 of an inch past the female part of the zip tie.

My question is: Is this glove legal? And is it safe? The outside of the glove's fingers is the side of the glove that tags the runner about 99.999,999% of the time and if it came in contact with a runner's arm or face in a sweeping motion the sharp edges of the plastic could scratch or cut the runner.

What say you everybody?

MTD, Sr.