Wearing a baseball glove: Why is the index finger sometimes out?

A lot of players don’t like it. It’s a matter of preference. I think I started doing it, in part, to “be cool”. Frankly, with the index finger out you do lose a little bit of leverage on the glove, to be able to snap it back. I never found that to be a problem, though.

I started doing it because it felt like it was easier to snap the glove shut. I don’t know if it really was, but I didn’t drop a lot thrown/hit at me.