Benefits 1.
Baseball players wear batting gloves for several reasons. Batting gloves can guard against the formation of painful blisters that ballplayers acquire from hour after hour of swinging a bat in batting practice. The batting glove can improve a player's grip on the bat. It can provide a form of shock absorption when the bat connects with the ball. In the early spring and cold weather of fall the batting glove can keep a player's hands warm. While running the bases, batting gloves can provide protection to a player's hands when they slide.
2.
Most batting gloves used on the professional baseball level are made of leather that has been stamped with a design using heat and high pressure called embossed leather. These gloves are made by various sporting goods companies such as Louisville Slugger and Rawlings. They are specifically made to fit the contour of a batter's hands and to absorb moisture but dry out quickly. They have Velcro straps that keep them tight on the batter's hands.
3.
Batting gloves of some sort were being toyed with as early as the 1930s but did not come to fruition until years later. Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants was the first player to tinker with the idea of wearing batting gloves to protect the hands. Thomson, who would become famous for his pennant-winning home run in the playoff with the Dodgers in 1951, started wearing a pair of golf gloves during spring training in 1949. He never did wear them during the regular season but it put the idea into peoples' heads.
4.
Ken Harrelson of the Kansas City Athletics is recognized as the first major leaguer to wear a pair of batting gloves during an official game. Harrelson wore his out of necessity. He had played 27 holes of golf in the afternoon because he never expected to be playing during a contest versus the Yankees that night. But the Yanks changed starting pitchers at the last minute, bringing in lefty Whitey Ford, and the right-handed Harrelson was told he was starting. His left hand had developed a blister and he decided to wear his golf gloves to protect the hand. As luck would have it Harrelson clobbered two home runs and the idea of a batting love began to take hold.
5.
The first player to wear batting gloves in the majors on a regular basis was Rusty Staub, a career .279 hitter who had close to 1,500 runs batted in over 23 seasons. But despite their popularity not all players use batting gloves. Some notable exceptions over the years are batting champion George Brett of the Kansas City Royals, Yankee catcher Jorge Posada, and slugger Vladimir Guerrero of the Angels. Former Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra had a ritual that he performed before each pitch, leaving the batter's box to loosen and then tighten the Velcro straps on his batting gloves, an idiosyncrasy copied by thousands of kids in New England.
Features
History
Considerations
Expert Insight
Size chart batting gloves ANG – 2010
1
Size chart for batting gloves
KIDS Gloves and Mittens sizes Barnett Age (Approx.)
XXS
XS
S
M
L
XL
XXL
XXXL
6M 1Y
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
-
-
JUNIOR Gloves and Mittens sizes Barnett -
XXS
Circumference or lengh of the Hand in Inches
-
XS
S
M
L
XL
XXL
XXXL
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5
-
10.1 11.4 12.7
Circumference or lengh of the Hand in cm
14
15.2 16.5
MEN Gloves and Mittens sizes Barnett -
XS
Circumference or lengh of the Hand in inches
7
Circumference or lengh of the Hand in cm
18
Size chart batting gloves ANG – 2010
S
M
7½8½-9 8 20
23
M/L Golf 9½ 24.5
L
XL
XXL
9 ½ - 10 ½ - 11 ½ 10 11 12 25
28
30
2