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Baseball Gear Thread

I'm a big baseball fan, but not much of a hardball player since I grew up playing basketball nearly my entire life. I was introduced to softball a few years ago by my best friend and have been playing ever since. I stay in the outfield though. I was playing 5 days a week plus tournaments on weekends but have cut back a bit since I tore my calf muscle in the middle of last year.

I started out using Whisker's because they were my everything glasses but finally realized last year that I should get some sport shades, so I picked up a pair of Fast Jackets, but now I want to try out some Flak & Half Jackets (possibly even some Radar's now after reading guys' take on them).

I'd have to agree with nalong, there's some good money to be made in softball if you play tournaments. For a lot of people who are good and like playing the game on the side (working a regular 9-to-5 or collecting a stead paycheck), it's a lot of fun as well as rewarding. You've still got a ton ahead of you TheOakleyConnoissuer so I can easily understand the appeal for hardball...

Interestingly to me, having been around softball so much the past few years, I've been seeing a lot more kids getting into softball (of course their parents bring them around weekly games and tournaments are probably a huge influence). In fact, a friend's sons, 12 and 14, came out to a "pickup" tournament (I use the term pickup very loosely because everyone there was a regular tournament player and it was an "off" weekend for tournaments in our area) and held their own against some very skilled players. They had been playing hardball for quite some time until recently; The 12 year old told me, "I don't see being able to make a big career out of baseball, but with softball, I can have any career I want and still be big with softball every weekend." And honestly, I could see it; The kid is going to be one helluva softball player when he turns 18, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him playing in the Border Battle some day. There's big money in sponsorship and playing at the "majors" level of softball. For me, I'll be fortunate if I ever get rated as a C chip in California.
 
Oh, and my first glove was a Rawlings GG135TSB - A great modified Trap-eze (double laced trap; the typical 'six finger' between the thumb and index finger, but it also had a 'trap' between the index and middle finger). I love the design of the double laced trap, but 13.5" is just way too short for with softball in the outfield. I now have a custom 14" that's a beauty (which really measures closer to 15") and I've gotten so used to the extra length that I just can't use the 13.5" Rawlings any more
 
I tried switiching to a larger softball glove when i started playing but I couldnt get use to the extra size. When i went to transfer the ball to throw i felt like i had search for the ball in the giant glove. I am still using a 13.5 inch baseball glove. I love rawlings trap-eze webs. Just a thing of preferance im sure. Its interesting how much of a transition there is from bb to sb. As a baseball player i always thought hitting sb looked like a joke. I was shocked to find out that to actually be a "good" sb hitter it takes some work. I play in both metal and wood sb leagues but i really enjoy the wood league. It adds more emphasis on defense which i really like.
 
nalong86 said:
I tried switiching to a larger softball glove when i started playing but I couldnt get use to the extra size. When i went to transfer the ball to throw i felt like i had search for the ball in the giant glove. I am still using a 13.5 inch baseball glove. I love rawlings trap-eze webs. Just a thing of preferance im sure. Its interesting how much of a transition there is from bb to sb. As a baseball player i always thought hitting sb looked like a joke. I was shocked to find out that to actually be a "good" sb hitter it takes some work. I play in both metal and wood sb leagues but i really enjoy the wood league. It adds more emphasis on defense which i really like.
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I suppose never having played baseball in my life helped me in transitioning to a bigger glove. I switched to a bigger glove after a few months of playing (I was new to the sport and didn't understand how to "field" properly, so I'd miss a lot of hits barely at the tips of my glove). Even now, there's been times I wish I had an even longer glove...

I play with a lot of ex-baseball players (and even some fast pitch players on the coed teams), and they've all told me that (slow pitch) softball is completely different, especially when batting. You have to generate _ALL_ of the power when you're batting, as opposed to being able to use some of the power of the pitcher in your hitting in baseball and fast pitch softball. And it's definitely more challenging the higher levels you play at; Sure, putting one of the fence is great, but in a lot of softball, there's home run limits, and being able to place the ball on the line in opposite field is far more difficult than just gripping and ripping when you don't have any more home runs to use =P

I love wood and metal bat leagues and tourneys, technology is an awesome thing and it's amazing how they produce softball bats (and what you can do with them), but there's definitely nothing that compares to the pure skill involved in playing with wood bats in softball; you quickly find out who is truly skilled and can really hit, and you get to find out who has been using technology in the sport as a crutch... We have a few wood bat tourneys around here, and a couple of leagues that have HR limit rules, so I reach for my metal or wood bat occasionally to mess with the outfielders after I've burned them a couple of times before =)
 
do you guys ever re-string your gloves? i strung a pretty sick pocket i call a four square. its like a + with little trapeze webs in between each of the spaces. and crazy, thats why i dont like slowpitch, i being not fully "developed" yet, i generate power off of the pitcher. played softball slowpitch, i could get it out of the infeild only because of the bats. some supercharged bats they use haha
 
TheOakleyConnoissuer said:
its challenging but really fun. plus you can swap the colors because you can buy colored rawhide lace
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That's exactly what I'd like to do with one of my gloves and create a double trap (between the index and middle finger), but it may be a while before I wear out either of my gamers right now...

Here's my custom I just got at the beginning of the year:

6539590509_e3620b3fc4_z.jpg
 

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