9 ms·

The Last American Baseball-Glove Maker Refuses to Die

104 points by mcone 9y ago

randcraw 9y ago
A reality check: the retail price of a Nokona kid's glove is $170 to $280. Gloves by Rawlings, Wilson, et al go for $40 to $60, with the top of the line at $100. [Source: Baseball Warehouse .com]
- chasely 9y ago
  Yep, I always wanted a Nokona glove when I played, but couldn't justify the cost. They were somewhat of a status symbol in my high school playing days.
- mc32 9y ago
  As mentioned on another part of the thread, baseball gloves can be somewhat like Japanese schoolchildren's randoseru. You buy it once and maintain it well. It lasts forever and it's part of your identity.
  - nabla9 9y ago
    mc32 is correct. The extra price is not the product. They buy identity. It's sad but true. There is a fear that millennials become smarter than their parents and don't need to consume to build their identity.
    - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      That's not at all how I read the parent comment. Buying into the product, and into the quality of that product, is how they can get a glove that will last long enough to become a part of their identity. A cheap glove that gets replaced every season does not result in the same identification. You have the causality reversed.
      - JohnBooty 9y ago
        I feel like I'm going mad as I read these comments. Kids outgrow their baseball gloves every few years. How in the world is one supposed to buy some kind of "lifetime" baseball glove for a kid? I absolutely and unsarcastically adore the concept of buying things for life. I really do. When I read this article, my first thought was: "I want one of those gloves." However, that concept seldom makes any sense when it comes to anything that a child wears. I'm pretty sure most of the people expressing the "buy your kid a quality baseball glove for life!" sentiment have no experience with (a) baseball (b) baseball gloves (c) children.
        LeifCarrotson 9y ago
        I'm thinking of my high school glove, and the glove my dad used to play with me - his was from his high school days. I still have mine, and will play with my son (who is outgrowing his salvation army clothes as fast as we can buy them) when he's old enough. And when he's old enough, I'll teach him to take care of his glove, and when he's grown, I'll get him a good one.
  - JohnBooty 9y ago
    That's utterly impractical for a baseball glove that a kid will outgrow in a handful of years. Kids' baseball gloves last as long as they need to: a few years. Because that's how long it will take for your kid to outgrow it. Investing megabucks into an heirloom-quality glove for an 8 year-old kid is insanity. Now, maybe a baseball glove could be a treasured thing you hand down from kid to kid in the family or the neighborhood. But hand-me-down baseball gloves are a little nasty. Your hand, which is invariably covered in lots of unsavory stuff (dirt, sweat, spit, sometimes sticky substances from the baseball bats) gets stuffed inside the glove for loooong periods of time, during which it sweats profusely. Being "gifted" with an "heirloom" baseball glove as a kid would have grossed me out. I would have enjoyed such a gift about as much as a hand-me-down jock strap. I also hate to say this (because I like the idea of buying American) but unless you're playing a hell of a lot of baseball, $50-$100 gloves made in China also last a loooooooooooooooooooooong time if you oil them once a year or so. Unless you're playing baseball full-time, you do not need to spend hundreds of bucks to get something that will last you decades. Making a baseball glove is not rocket science. It's leather. Made into a glove.
    - Prefinem 9y ago
      I had one my father passed to me. It was 20+ years old and worked fine. (Needed a few leather threads) I used it when I was 10 and before that, I had a cheap glove. It wasn't gross. It was broken in, comfortable and much easier to use than a new glove. Also, a cheap glove doesn't last as long as you think.
      - JohnBooty 9y ago
        Yeah those leather ties also go before anything else, haha. My experience is that if oiled (I like mink oil, though some say it's too heavy) any reasonable grade of leather glove, stored indoors, will last at least a decade of occasional use. My Ken Griffey Jr. glove (Wilson? Rawlings? I forget) has lived such a life. I think I bought for around $40 in 2001; I remember it being roughly one tier up from the cheapest glove you could buy. I've admittedly not played a ton of ball with it, but the leather's in great shape, no cracking anywhere... this thing might outlive me unless I get off my butt and join an old man's league every summer. Recently threw out some gloves I owned as a kid in the 80s. The leather was dry but not cracked; I was tempted to oil them just to see if they could be brought back to life. What's your experience been? Not saying you do this, but I think a lot of people store their gloves in their garages or some other place where they bake in the summer and freeze in the winter. That'll kill a glove for sure and while ultra-high-quality leather will surely survive this kind of treatment longer than cheap leather, it's no way to treat a glove of any kind. I'm sure that inexpensive gloves that see plenty of honest use (2, 3, 4+ practices or games a week) don't live forever either.
- brew-hacker 9y ago
  As a newly ex-collegiate player, professional quality gloves are all priced typically the same -- doesn't matter if it Wilson, Rawlings, Nokona, etc. You will still pay out $300-$400+ depending on what you want. As for kids gloves I used the same gloves from when I was 10 until I graduated high school. If you take care of your gloves most quality leather will withstand yearly wear and tear. Moral of the story: take care of you stuff. Doesn't matter if you pay $170 to $280. Invest in quality.
  - vacri 9y ago
    You don't see a difference between $40 and $170 for a family that lives paycheck-to-paycheck?
    - p4lindromica 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_socio-economic_unfairness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci...
chasely 9y ago
A really good baseball glove is one of those "buy it for life" purchases. My dad played college ball in the late 50's and had a Nokona glove. When we played catch and he was teaching me baseball in the 90's, he used the same glove as in college. But, I would bet that the biggest threat to Nokona is not cheaper gloves produced overseas, but the decline in youth baseball participation compared to other sports. Though perhaps a rapid decline in the number of kids participating in football could mean some of them playing baseball instead. I suspect that my kids would end up playing soccer since it's the only sport I watch these days.
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  American Football and baseball are generally different seasons. Does participation in one have any direct effect on the other? Soccer probably has the best opportunity for growth from the demise of American Football.
  - chasely 9y ago
    > American Football and baseball are generally different seasons. Does participation in one have any direct effect on the other? I would expect only for those families who choose to have their kid participate in only one sport; football and baseball can both be pretty expensive, equipment and training wise.
  - timw0j 9y ago
    Most kids can/do play a single sport year-round. Yes football is primarily in the summer/fall, but there are spring leagues for those kids who want to play. Same thing with baseball. My nephew takes the summer off from little league, mostly because it's hot here and his family takes vacations, but otherwise plays the rest of the year in multiple seasons.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      It's not a good idea for a kid to play just one sport. It can lead to injury and burnout. You have pitchers blowing out elbows in high school or even younger because they have played baseball year round since they were 6. Kids should play a variety of seasonal sports and not just one. It is parents with unrealistic visions of scholarships or professional careers who push young kids to play a single sport year round.
slantyyz 9y ago
If you like this story, you might also find this one interesting: How Shigeaki Aso became baseball’s beloved Glove Guru http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/shigeaki-aso-became-baseballs-beloved-glove-guru/ http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/shigeaki-aso-became-bas...
IdontRememberIt 9y ago
When visiting NYC, I was a little sad to have so many issues finding some "made in the USA" souvenirs. So finally I bought some stuff online and had it delivered to the hotel. I did not want to bring back home (Switzerland) made in China things I can already find everywhere. Not a very convincing experience. :(
- ng12 9y ago
  By my reckoning it's like that everywhere. Just recently it took me an hour of walking and a good half hour of furious Googling to find authentic Venetian glass in Murano.
- damnfine 9y ago
  Thankfully not that way in my part of the USA. While we have shops that stock imported goods, there is plenty of local made wares, and not just crafty trinkets. In theory, I could go to one of the local leather crafters and get a decent glove made. Still, as the article states, this is not always economically feasable always, but the community thrives when we pay the 'local tax'.
- hammock 9y ago
  I felt the same way visiting Switzerland souvenir shops..
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- driverdan 9y ago
  Why buy tourist trinkets? Buy something the place is known for rather than junk that will eventually get thrown away.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    What is NYC known for?
jtraffic 9y ago
> Plus, modern factories rely more on automation than ever, so even if production comes back, it might be done by robots. I feel this is the most important sentence in the article. The important question is not about individual products for end-users, but about intermediate means of manufacturing automation. I really don't know which countries are most advanced in this area, but it makes the question of human labor less important. Or, at least it moves it up the skills ladder, from "making a glove" to "designing a robot".
- mi100hael 9y ago
  Disagree. This argument is a huge straw man. We are still a long way off from 100% lights-out factories being the norm for most industries. Even in IT manufacturing which is highly-automated, Foxconn employs hundreds of thousands of people in China. Most automotive factories employ several thousand workers.
  - jtraffic 9y ago
    That's fair. But I guess I think of it as a somewhat continuous transition from human to machine manufacturing. Yes, currently manufacturing uses lots of humans, but that is changing, and the pace of change has not, AFAIK, reached any plateau. What I think matters, is where we are going, not where we are. You give China as evidence of the human dominated state of manufacturing. I give it as evidence of the shift toward robot dominated manufacturing: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-a-robot-army-of-model-workers/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-...
  - mncharity 9y ago
    Many years ago there was a startup which did web-storefront on-demand laser-cut custom-fit khakis. They did the largely-manual stitching in the US, rather than deal with the cost and delay of shipping further. My fuzzy recollection is they sold out to Levi's, which mismanaged it into nonexistence. The patents prevented replacement. And the stitching factory used eventually died. So at least some partially-automated traditionally-low-margin industry is/was possible in the US. But the usual issues of losing needed industry infrastructure still apply.
savanaly 9y ago
I understand that the quality of a glove is important and people should have the option to pay more for a better glove. Leaving that aside though, what does it matter where it gets made? American workers are not specially more or less deserving than those in other countries, and that we have managed to coordinate it so the countries with comparative advantages in glove production are producing most of the gloves is something to celebrate, not bemoan.
- mc32 9y ago
  Ok, imagine Japanese primary school children using Randoseru made in Thailand, or somewhere. It's part of national identity. Imagine Swiss eating American chocolate.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    Since you want to bring up Randoseru, consider that children and young people in the Nordic countries have continued using and loving Fjällräven Kånken backpacks even as production moved from Sweden to Asia, and it wasn’t the end of the world. The iconic design still comes originally from Scandinavia, and as long as quality doesn’t decline in the course of outsourcing production, then who the hell cares where it is put together? The chocolate analogy isn’t quite comparable here. In that example, the Swiss presumably aren’t setting up their own factories in the US and dictating the recipe. The USA and Switzerland have different food labeling laws and understandings of what chocolate is, so if the Swiss just imported just any US chocolate, then sure, it would jar with the traditional culture.
    - mc32 9y ago
      Nestle is a Swiss company with choco factories in the US. If not, we can go with InBev AB. In addition, the arctic/ mountain fox brand is pretty new. It'd be like the north face shoppers not liking it since it moved prod abroad. Here we're talking about a national symbol as well as a sentimental item. Baseball gloves, Randoserus.
      - 9y ago
hammock 9y ago
Hari Mari, another Texas manufacturer, makes some cool sandals with Nokona leather for those interested: https://www.harimari.com/pages/hari-mari-x-nokona https://www.harimari.com/pages/hari-mari-x-nokona
penland 9y ago
Nokona gloves are almost comically well made. I've used mine for over 20 years at this point and outside of a once a year oil'ing it has held up remarkably well. My dad has his from the early 60's and while it looks worn ( he hasn't taken care of it ) it's still very usable.
brational 9y ago
Maybe author didn't do enough research? These guys are still around: http://www.glovesmith.com/ http://www.glovesmith.com/
- shanecleveland 9y ago
  Looks like only a small part of their line is US-made: http://www.glovesmith.com/glove-stuff/baseball-glove-manufacturing.htm http://www.glovesmith.com/glove-stuff/baseball-glove-manufac...
animal531 9y ago
Side question. Why do you guys play baseball with gloves? I'm from a Commonwealth country, so we don't really have baseball, only cricket. Growing up we never used any gloves (although typically we were poor and played only with old tennis balls). Usually in cricket only the keeper will use gloves. Is it just a surface area thing?

104 points by mcone 9y ago

A reality check: the retail price of a Nokona kid's glove is $170 to $280. Gloves by Rawlings, Wilson, et al go for $40 to $60, with the top of the line at $100. [Source: Baseball Warehouse .com]

chasely 9y ago
Yep, I always wanted a Nokona glove when I played, but couldn't justify the cost. They were somewhat of a status symbol in my high school playing days.
mc32 9y ago
As mentioned on another part of the thread, baseball gloves can be somewhat like Japanese schoolchildren's randoseru. You buy it once and maintain it well. It lasts forever and it's part of your identity.
- nabla9 9y ago
  mc32 is correct. The extra price is not the product. They buy identity. It's sad but true. There is a fear that millennials become smarter than their parents and don't need to consume to build their identity.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    That's not at all how I read the parent comment. Buying into the product, and into the quality of that product, is how they can get a glove that will last long enough to become a part of their identity. A cheap glove that gets replaced every season does not result in the same identification. You have the causality reversed.
    - JohnBooty 9y ago
      I feel like I'm going mad as I read these comments. Kids outgrow their baseball gloves every few years. How in the world is one supposed to buy some kind of "lifetime" baseball glove for a kid? I absolutely and unsarcastically adore the concept of buying things for life. I really do. When I read this article, my first thought was: "I want one of those gloves." However, that concept seldom makes any sense when it comes to anything that a child wears. I'm pretty sure most of the people expressing the "buy your kid a quality baseball glove for life!" sentiment have no experience with (a) baseball (b) baseball gloves (c) children.
      - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
        I'm thinking of my high school glove, and the glove my dad used to play with me - his was from his high school days. I still have mine, and will play with my son (who is outgrowing his salvation army clothes as fast as we can buy them) when he's old enough. And when he's old enough, I'll teach him to take care of his glove, and when he's grown, I'll get him a good one.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  That's utterly impractical for a baseball glove that a kid will outgrow in a handful of years. Kids' baseball gloves last as long as they need to: a few years. Because that's how long it will take for your kid to outgrow it. Investing megabucks into an heirloom-quality glove for an 8 year-old kid is insanity. Now, maybe a baseball glove could be a treasured thing you hand down from kid to kid in the family or the neighborhood. But hand-me-down baseball gloves are a little nasty. Your hand, which is invariably covered in lots of unsavory stuff (dirt, sweat, spit, sometimes sticky substances from the baseball bats) gets stuffed inside the glove for loooong periods of time, during which it sweats profusely. Being "gifted" with an "heirloom" baseball glove as a kid would have grossed me out. I would have enjoyed such a gift about as much as a hand-me-down jock strap. I also hate to say this (because I like the idea of buying American) but unless you're playing a hell of a lot of baseball, $50-$100 gloves made in China also last a loooooooooooooooooooooong time if you oil them once a year or so. Unless you're playing baseball full-time, you do not need to spend hundreds of bucks to get something that will last you decades. Making a baseball glove is not rocket science. It's leather. Made into a glove.
  - Prefinem 9y ago
    I had one my father passed to me. It was 20+ years old and worked fine. (Needed a few leather threads) I used it when I was 10 and before that, I had a cheap glove. It wasn't gross. It was broken in, comfortable and much easier to use than a new glove. Also, a cheap glove doesn't last as long as you think.
    - JohnBooty 9y ago
      Yeah those leather ties also go before anything else, haha. My experience is that if oiled (I like mink oil, though some say it's too heavy) any reasonable grade of leather glove, stored indoors, will last at least a decade of occasional use. My Ken Griffey Jr. glove (Wilson? Rawlings? I forget) has lived such a life. I think I bought for around $40 in 2001; I remember it being roughly one tier up from the cheapest glove you could buy. I've admittedly not played a ton of ball with it, but the leather's in great shape, no cracking anywhere... this thing might outlive me unless I get off my butt and join an old man's league every summer. Recently threw out some gloves I owned as a kid in the 80s. The leather was dry but not cracked; I was tempted to oil them just to see if they could be brought back to life. What's your experience been? Not saying you do this, but I think a lot of people store their gloves in their garages or some other place where they bake in the summer and freeze in the winter. That'll kill a glove for sure and while ultra-high-quality leather will surely survive this kind of treatment longer than cheap leather, it's no way to treat a glove of any kind. I'm sure that inexpensive gloves that see plenty of honest use (2, 3, 4+ practices or games a week) don't live forever either.
brew-hacker 9y ago
As a newly ex-collegiate player, professional quality gloves are all priced typically the same -- doesn't matter if it Wilson, Rawlings, Nokona, etc. You will still pay out $300-$400+ depending on what you want. As for kids gloves I used the same gloves from when I was 10 until I graduated high school. If you take care of your gloves most quality leather will withstand yearly wear and tear. Moral of the story: take care of you stuff. Doesn't matter if you pay $170 to $280. Invest in quality.
- vacri 9y ago
  You don't see a difference between $40 and $170 for a family that lives paycheck-to-paycheck?
  - p4lindromica 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_socio-economic_unfairness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci...

chasely 9y ago

A really good baseball glove is one of those "buy it for life" purchases. My dad played college ball in the late 50's and had a Nokona glove. When we played catch and he was teaching me baseball in the 90's, he used the same glove as in college. But, I would bet that the biggest threat to Nokona is not cheaper gloves produced overseas, but the decline in youth baseball participation compared to other sports. Though perhaps a rapid decline in the number of kids participating in football could mean some of them playing baseball instead. I suspect that my kids would end up playing soccer since it's the only sport I watch these days.

bluejekyll 9y ago
American Football and baseball are generally different seasons. Does participation in one have any direct effect on the other? Soccer probably has the best opportunity for growth from the demise of American Football.
- chasely 9y ago
  > American Football and baseball are generally different seasons. Does participation in one have any direct effect on the other? I would expect only for those families who choose to have their kid participate in only one sport; football and baseball can both be pretty expensive, equipment and training wise.
- timw0j 9y ago
  Most kids can/do play a single sport year-round. Yes football is primarily in the summer/fall, but there are spring leagues for those kids who want to play. Same thing with baseball. My nephew takes the summer off from little league, mostly because it's hot here and his family takes vacations, but otherwise plays the rest of the year in multiple seasons.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    It's not a good idea for a kid to play just one sport. It can lead to injury and burnout. You have pitchers blowing out elbows in high school or even younger because they have played baseball year round since they were 6. Kids should play a variety of seasonal sports and not just one. It is parents with unrealistic visions of scholarships or professional careers who push young kids to play a single sport year round.

slantyyz 9y ago

If you like this story, you might also find this one interesting: How Shigeaki Aso became baseball’s beloved Glove Guru http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/shigeaki-aso-became-baseballs-beloved-glove-guru/ http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/shigeaki-aso-became-bas...

IdontRememberIt 9y ago

When visiting NYC, I was a little sad to have so many issues finding some "made in the USA" souvenirs. So finally I bought some stuff online and had it delivered to the hotel. I did not want to bring back home (Switzerland) made in China things I can already find everywhere. Not a very convincing experience. :(

ng12 9y ago
By my reckoning it's like that everywhere. Just recently it took me an hour of walking and a good half hour of furious Googling to find authentic Venetian glass in Murano.
damnfine 9y ago
Thankfully not that way in my part of the USA. While we have shops that stock imported goods, there is plenty of local made wares, and not just crafty trinkets. In theory, I could go to one of the local leather crafters and get a decent glove made. Still, as the article states, this is not always economically feasable always, but the community thrives when we pay the 'local tax'.
hammock 9y ago
I felt the same way visiting Switzerland souvenir shops..
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
driverdan 9y ago
Why buy tourist trinkets? Buy something the place is known for rather than junk that will eventually get thrown away.
- DanBC 9y ago
  What is NYC known for?

jtraffic 9y ago

> Plus, modern factories rely more on automation than ever, so even if production comes back, it might be done by robots. I feel this is the most important sentence in the article. The important question is not about individual products for end-users, but about intermediate means of manufacturing automation. I really don't know which countries are most advanced in this area, but it makes the question of human labor less important. Or, at least it moves it up the skills ladder, from "making a glove" to "designing a robot".

mi100hael 9y ago
Disagree. This argument is a huge straw man. We are still a long way off from 100% lights-out factories being the norm for most industries. Even in IT manufacturing which is highly-automated, Foxconn employs hundreds of thousands of people in China. Most automotive factories employ several thousand workers.
- jtraffic 9y ago
  That's fair. But I guess I think of it as a somewhat continuous transition from human to machine manufacturing. Yes, currently manufacturing uses lots of humans, but that is changing, and the pace of change has not, AFAIK, reached any plateau. What I think matters, is where we are going, not where we are. You give China as evidence of the human dominated state of manufacturing. I give it as evidence of the shift toward robot dominated manufacturing: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-a-robot-army-of-model-workers/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-...
- mncharity 9y ago
  Many years ago there was a startup which did web-storefront on-demand laser-cut custom-fit khakis. They did the largely-manual stitching in the US, rather than deal with the cost and delay of shipping further. My fuzzy recollection is they sold out to Levi's, which mismanaged it into nonexistence. The patents prevented replacement. And the stitching factory used eventually died. So at least some partially-automated traditionally-low-margin industry is/was possible in the US. But the usual issues of losing needed industry infrastructure still apply.

savanaly 9y ago

I understand that the quality of a glove is important and people should have the option to pay more for a better glove. Leaving that aside though, what does it matter where it gets made? American workers are not specially more or less deserving than those in other countries, and that we have managed to coordinate it so the countries with comparative advantages in glove production are producing most of the gloves is something to celebrate, not bemoan.

mc32 9y ago
Ok, imagine Japanese primary school children using Randoseru made in Thailand, or somewhere. It's part of national identity. Imagine Swiss eating American chocolate.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  Since you want to bring up Randoseru, consider that children and young people in the Nordic countries have continued using and loving Fjällräven Kånken backpacks even as production moved from Sweden to Asia, and it wasn’t the end of the world. The iconic design still comes originally from Scandinavia, and as long as quality doesn’t decline in the course of outsourcing production, then who the hell cares where it is put together? The chocolate analogy isn’t quite comparable here. In that example, the Swiss presumably aren’t setting up their own factories in the US and dictating the recipe. The USA and Switzerland have different food labeling laws and understandings of what chocolate is, so if the Swiss just imported just any US chocolate, then sure, it would jar with the traditional culture.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Nestle is a Swiss company with choco factories in the US. If not, we can go with InBev AB. In addition, the arctic/ mountain fox brand is pretty new. It'd be like the north face shoppers not liking it since it moved prod abroad. Here we're talking about a national symbol as well as a sentimental item. Baseball gloves, Randoserus.
    - 9y ago

hammock 9y ago

Hari Mari, another Texas manufacturer, makes some cool sandals with Nokona leather for those interested: https://www.harimari.com/pages/hari-mari-x-nokona https://www.harimari.com/pages/hari-mari-x-nokona

penland 9y ago

Nokona gloves are almost comically well made. I've used mine for over 20 years at this point and outside of a once a year oil'ing it has held up remarkably well. My dad has his from the early 60's and while it looks worn ( he hasn't taken care of it ) it's still very usable.

brational 9y ago

Maybe author didn't do enough research? These guys are still around: http://www.glovesmith.com/ http://www.glovesmith.com/

shanecleveland 9y ago
Looks like only a small part of their line is US-made: http://www.glovesmith.com/glove-stuff/baseball-glove-manufacturing.htm http://www.glovesmith.com/glove-stuff/baseball-glove-manufac...

animal531 9y ago

Side question. Why do you guys play baseball with gloves? I'm from a Commonwealth country, so we don't really have baseball, only cricket. Growing up we never used any gloves (although typically we were poor and played only with old tennis balls). Usually in cricket only the keeper will use gloves. Is it just a surface area thing?