3 Steps to Choosing a Pitcher’s Glove

Pitcher’s Glove, 3 things you need to know.

As a pitcher, you’re the man on the mound, the man who sets the pace and leads the charge against the opposing team’s batters. You have the oppositions weakness in mind and you’re ready to exploit them with you sequence of pitches. You can do it alone or with the help of your team, you have the advantage of high, depth, sun, shade, wind, one can easily say that your a one man band.

A pitcher’s main tool is his throwing arm, so it’s normal that less attention is paid to what goes into a pitcher’s glove. In this article, we break downtime three fundamental features of a pitcher’s glove, which will help you make a better decision when it comes time to buy your new glove and prove to everyone that you go about your business like a boss with a glove to match.

WEBBING

As it’s a pitcher’s job to keep the ball he throws to the batter from being hit, or in other words, hit hard – he should focus on a web that helps him hide the ball from the beginning of his motion. As we have previously discussed, glove webs come in two types: closed and open web. For a pitcher, half the work of choosing a webs is eliminated as, most pitchers gloves are created with the closed-web style.

This webbing – the space between the index finger and the thumb is covered with a large slab of leather. This slab is functional as it allows pitchers to find their grip on the ball without the batter knowing what type of pitch they’re about to throw. The closed-web style of glove will also help the pitcher to play defence in a more relaxed manner as, he is more likely to receive harder hit balls with much shorter reaction time than any other position. With a closed web catching line drives and field bunts can happen in a more secure manner.

COMFORT

In terms of comfort, pitcher’s glove are more confortable than other positions, reason being they have a lot less padding than the other gloves or mitts. A pitcher’s glove is made to fit snugly on the hand, receive throws back from the catcher and other infield positions and stop the occasional ball that’s batted back.

Since a pitcher’s glove has less protective padding, this in turn drops the glove weight below an infielder or outfielder glove. Less weight on the hand will help a pitcher not feel held down by his glove and thus more comfortable on the mound.

SIZING

Their are industry standard recommendations for youth and adult pitcher gloves, these are:

• Youth (12 & under) glove size should measure between 11.5″ to 11.75″
• Adult (13/14 & up) glove size should typically measure 11.5″ to 12″

These are good recommendations to consider, especially when knowing that the pitcher will grip the ball in his glove pocket with his bare hand, thus a bigger glove will help to hide the ball and other movements of the hand that will tip the batter on what pitch to expect. There is also the fact that the wrist straps can always be adjusted for a more personalised fit in case the glove feels big on the hand. Click here for a detailed explanation of glove sizes per position.

IN CONCLUSION

As a pitcher you are the boss on the mound with an array of pitcher as your weapon but, any good offense should have a good defence and that’s where your glove come into play.
When looking into the specifics of a pitcher glove and what you need to know to buy a new glove is fairly simple.
A pitcher’s glove needs to have a closed web, it should not have a lot of padding that can eventually weight you down slowing down your quick reflexes and lastly your glove should be big enough to prevent batter from seeing the ball before delivery. A bigger size glove that can comfortably hold your bare hand griping your strike out pitch in the palm and web part.
If ever the glove feels big, no worries, you can adjust the wrist strap to your personalised size.

Once the decision is made and you got your glove, be sure to follow the step in the how to break in a glove article. If you already have a glove then check out the article on how to properly store your glove to find out what steps we recommend to protect your glove for as long as possible.