Glove: Legal or Illegal?

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by Robmoz

May be an old post, but yesterday...I had a player use a glove with the leather laces extending about 12 inches on all fingers like tentacles. Other than looking ridiculous I was wondering IF it posed a safety risk that needed my attention or not? Any thoughts?

The ONLY issue I've ever heard when it comes to long leather laces is that they may pose a distraction when the pitcher has them. And that was in a LL Baseball game in my son's old local league, and it was done by a coach who looked for any excuse to get under the opposing team's skin.

As for it being a safety issue, I don't see how that's really a problem.

I suppose one could argue that 12-inch-long laces could give the defense an advantage when it came to tagging a runner. If on a swipe tag the fielder contacted the runner only with the laces while the ball was in the glove, would that be a legal tag? We do say a tag of a runner's ponytail constitutes a legal tag; how about when it comes to the glove? Hmmmmm...