Baseball Glove Repair

The other day I was watching a very good Palomino team warming up before a game while I was talking with some of the parents again. This game, however, would not be played. The storm clouds rolled in and ended everything very quickly.

Right before I was getting into the car I heard my name called. It was one of the players. I had fixed one of his gloves about a year ago and now another player's glove just broke a few minutes ago and he told that player that I'd be able to fix the glove. I guess I was volunteered...again.

I didn't mind. The kid needed the glove for the next day and I never minded fixing the gloves for any of these kids. Which brings me to my main point:

If your glove breaks, or looks like it's close to breaking, why not learn and do a little Baseball Glove Repair yourself? What's in it for you?

Well,

• First, it's not real hard. Not like you think.


• It's going to save you time...a lot of time. If you send your glove away, even for the smallest repairs, it can cost you a week without your favorite glove. If you want it sooner, most of the time you'll have to pay big for fast service. And if you learn how to repair gloves, you'll find that many repairs take literally 10 minutes.


• Doing your own baseball glove repair will save you money...every time. Enough said here.


• Ultimately, you'll greatly increase the life of your glove if you know how to repair your glove and condition it to keep the leather soft so that it won't get brittle and crack and break. (especially the laces)


• And, if you want to, you can actually make a few bucks for yourself if you choose to charge a little for your services. And believe me, once word gets out that you can repair and restore baseball gloves, people will find you for your glove repair skills.

And what is so important about cleaning and conditioning your glove?

• You'll keep your glove looking and feeling new...not worn, dry and brittle.


• You'll keep your glove from aging too fast.


• Laces won't break as easily or as soon.


• You'll keep your favorite glove longer!

There might not be a better time than now for learning how to repair your own baseball glove. Why? Two reasons really.

First, you should know how to clean and condition your glove. Just doing this type of easy, routine maintenance will keep the glove in top shape and make it last a lot longer. Nothing is worse than having your favorite mitt break right in the middle of an important game because you just didn't take care of it. Then, if you don't know how to fix it, you might end up sending it away for a lot of money if you want a quick turn-around. If you don't pay for the "quick fix", you might lose the glove for a week. And, you still aren't guarenteed that the repair was done the way it should be with strong, quality laces.

If you know how to really keep your glove in great shape, the leather will always feel nice and soft. So many gloves have leather that is very dry and cracked. The laces are the same way, nearly ready to break. Gloves like this can be a safety hazard too. Many of us have seen a fielder attempt to catch a hard line shot or take a hard throw from another player only to have the ball go right through the glove. True, this might be good business for a doctor or dentist, but an unnecessary and painful event for the player. So, learn how to keep the glove laced up tight and looking and feeling new.

Second, save yourself money! It's funny how things can change when money gets tight. Before, glove maintenance and repair might not have been a big consideration for you. Now, with the economy the way it is, it just might be a consideration. You can literally do a repair job on your own glove for under ten dollars...five bucks for leather and a few bucks for conditioner. If you already have extra lace and conditioner from previous work, a job might not cost you anything that day. Way better than sending the glove away for $50.00 and a few days!

The thing is, once you learn the basics, fixing any glove is not really that hard and does not take that long to do. Most repairs will take you under a half an hour to do, really! You'll zip right through it. You'll spend more time cleaning and conditioning if the glove is in bad shape.

Finally, if you save yourself money, it makes sense that you can save other people money too by repairing their gloves. You can charge a little bit for this service and make yourself some extra cash and maybe at the end of the week you can take your family out to dinner or something. Believe me, people will pay you $10.00, $15.00 or $20.00 for an overnight fix instead of $50.00 or $60.00. The one thing that is true is that once you do one repair job for someone, word of mouth will get around, and get around fast, and before you know it there will be people approaching you asking if you would be willing to fix their glove because they need it in a day or two. And, some of these repairs might only take about fifteen minutes...do a little cleaning and conditioning and $20.00 later you make someone real happy when they see their favorite glove looking and feeling new again!

Baseball Glove Repair Learn how to do this...it's easy, saves time and money, makes people and kids pretty darn happy and can make you some money at the same time. Can't beat it! No better time than now!

Here is an old Rawlings Glove that I think is early to mid-80's. A neighborhood lady found out that I fixed gloves and needed her old high school glove fixed so that she could play softball for the company that she was working for. Well, a little baseball glove repair and restore and this glove turned out to be one of the neatest gloves I've seen. It just had nice colors that were brought out by some cleaning and conditioning. Once I fixed the broken laces, this glove looked and felt great and was ready for action...even after all of those years.

These little photos really don't do much as far as how good the glove looked after I cleaned and repaired it. If you click on Baseball Glove Repair and Restore and go to around the middle of the page you'll see a section where you can click on gloves and see the before and after photos. This glove is the ""Rawlings Early-Mid 80's" glove you'll see listed in the Before and After block. You can also look at the other gloves.

This glove is just one example of how if you can perform just a little baseball glove repair to almost any glove, you can get it looking and feeling great. I've done a number of gloves and nearly every time the people and kids are really surprised how different, how nice a newly cleaned, repaired and conditioned glove can be. And, they are always really happy with their "new" glove.

As I said before, this is not difficult stuff. You just have to try it if you're interested. I'm always surprised how people won't even take a shot at even the simplest baseball glove repairs.

Here is an Easton Glove that was very dry and dirty. The laces were so dry that they just started breaking...all at once it seemed. It was pretty clear that this glove really had no care at all during the season or in the off season. It is not an old glove either...the leather just couldn't take the dirt, rain, sun and snow any longer.
However, as you can see, after the glove was repaired and cleaned up it looked and felt great.
The main problem that this glove had was that it was so dry that the laces were very brittle in areas. Sections of the webbing were just breaking away from the glove. All of these laces were replaced with new ones. Then, the whole glove was cleaned and conditioned.

You can see more pictures of this glove also at Baseball Glove Repair and Restore. Just look at the "Before And After" section around the middle of the page.

The larger pictures below show the main problem with this glove which was the brittle, broken laces around the web. You can also see once the new laces were run and the glove was conditioned, the glove really looked brand new. Again, just another case of a little baseball glove repair and some cleaning and conditioning and your glove can look great, work like it used to and also last a lot longer than it would if you didn't take care of it at all.

Easton Dirty, Dry, Brittle and Broken Laces

Easton Repaired and Restored

From the beginning of spring through the summer playing season someone is always dropping a baseball glove off at "The Doctor's" house to get a little baseball glove repair done on their glove. Most of these repairs are usually the same...broken laces in one or more places on the glove. Every time I repair one of these gloves I'm always thinking the same thing, "If this guy would have taken just a little bit of care of this glove..." You don't have to go nuts with caring for the glove, but every little bit helps.

You see, by the time I get these baseball gloves they are, by definition, neglected! Here's what I usually see:

• They are usually dirty. Dirt is not so bad, though, because dirt is part of what the glove is going to see anyway. Dirt can always be cleaned off. It's the caked on, dried up mud that is in the seams and lace holes that should have been wiped off and cleaned out at some point by the owner. This usually never happens from what I see.



• The leather and laces on these baseball gloves are usually very dry. This is usually the most common problem with gloves because leather and laces in dry, stiff condition will lead to broken laces and ripped leather. Many gloves, especially those in the northern areas of the country, will experience rain, snow, mud and sun all in the same High School baseball season. Conditions like these are especially bad for the leather and laces on gloves.



• The laces of any glove become stretched and broken in over time. What owners should do is keep an eye on their baseball glove laces and tighten them up as they become loose. Loose, stretched laces are easy to see when the fingers of the glove start getting bigger and bigger gaps in between them as the laces stretch and become broken in. The thing is, though, these gaps shouldn't be there...this is not the normal intended shape of the glove when it was designed. Very loose laces result in the glove taking on a different shape as time goes by and again, this is not the initially designed shape when the glove was bought. Very large gaps can actually be dangerous as hard line drives can sometimes get through one of these gaps and can injure the player.

Nearly all of the baseball gloves that I repair and restore have all, or nearly all of the conditions mentioned above. I seem to do the same things over and over...Clean, Repair and Condition...Clean, Repair and Condition.

When I'm done doing a little baseball glove repair and restore to a glove that has just broken, it always turns out looking and feeling better than even I expected. The owners are always amazed at how the glove looks and of course, they are very happy with their "new" glove.

As I said earlier, the gloves that I repair are neglected as far as routine, general maintenance. They are dirty, dry, stiff and cracked. These gloves are just waiting for broken laces and ripped leather. Remember, all that you have to do is just do a little cleaning, conditioning and lace tightening every once in a while as you use your glove throughout the season and your glove will keep its original intended shape and you won't have those unfortunate lace breaks just when you can't afford to have them.

The best thing is to learn how to do a little baseball glove repair yourself so that when breaks do occur, you can fix them in as little as 10 or 15 minutes for a few bucks instead of sending your baseball glove away for a number of days and $50 later. But that's a whole new subject. For now, just take care of your glove as you are using it during the season. Believe me, every little bit helps!

Give some thought to buying a used baseball glove if you're just looking for another glove to use sometimes instead of your best or favorite glove.

You can pick up a used glove for next to nothing and sometimes even free, depending on where you find the glove. Once you perform any needed repairs and clean and condition the glove, you may be surprised at how good the glove looks and feels.

Below are a few shots of a glove that was obtained at a garage sale for only a few bucks. It was extremely dry and had broken laces, but once all of that was taken care of, the glove looked great and worked really well. Most people, though, would have passed on this glove considering it a piece of junk. Good for me!

So if you want another glove that is good and broken in, consider buying a used baseball glove. Just repair and replace broken laces and clean it up and you'll have a great glove for almost nothing.

Side Shot - Older Used Glove

Used Glove After Cleaning and Conditioning

Blown Out Web

Repaired Web

Used Glove - Before Repair, Cleaning and Conditioning

Used Glove - After Repair, Cleaning and Conditioning

Click on Baseball Glove Repair to see larger, more detailed images of this glove above. It's the Wilson A2000XL.

PNC Park in Pittsburgh Pa is definitely one of the nicest places to watch a Major League Baseball game. This small park, compared to the older Three Rivers Stadium, gives the feeling of watching a High School or College baseball game.

The views in the ball park are great. There really are no seating areas that are "bad spots"...you basically have a good view of the game no matter where your seats are.

The other neat thing about PNC Park is that you get the feeling that it is sitting right in downtown Pittsburgh because the view of the city out over the outfield walls is really nice...day or night.

The cost of tickets and food is not bad either, probably one of the least expensive baseball parks in the country. You can actually take a family of four out to PNC for a night and it won't kill you financially.

There are many different foods to choose from too and one of the nicest things that they designed into PNC...it seems like there are bathrooms...BIG bathrooms everywhere. It makes it real easy for people with small children to be able to get in and out of these facilities easily and quickly without having to fight crowds.

PNC Park is just a cool place to be, a cool place to hang out...even if you don't like baseball.

Click on PNC Park Pittsburgh PA for some more shots of PNC Park.

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