When I bought my glove at the Sports Authority I bought a decent glove, under $50. Are the big leaguers going to the Secret Big League Sports Store and spending $500 on a glove where you have to show your MLB card to buy it? Or are they shopping at Sports Authority too?
The better players are given their gloves by the various manufacturers, the team buys the gloves for the rest.
Major League Baseball players don’t buy any of their own equipment. Manufacturers are lined up to get them to use their stuff, and they pay for the privlege.
Wilson, Mizuno, etc. have reps at every ballpark (especially in spring training) trying to get players to use their products.
The answer would be that MLB players choose what they like, and the manufacturers give them as many as they want, and most of the time they pay the player for it.
I doubt any professional player ever has to buy a glove if he needs one. But some players may have a favorite glove they’ve used since high school.
Pro baseball players aren’t responsible for buying any of their equipment or uniforms.
Now that raises an interesting question – nobody’s begging minor leaguers to endorse their equipment, so how do they get their stuff? Huge requisitions by the team’s organization? Each team does their own ordering? Do palyers have to buy anything themselves? Is there a price cap?
I would assume even most minor leaguers have a contract to use one company’s gloves/bats/shoes, etc.
Low level minor leaguers don’t make a lot of money for the most part, so the team’s will try to get them the best stuff they can afford. But even a Rookie League fielder is going to have a much nicer glove than the rest of us can find at our local sporting goods store.
Players may start off with some of their own gear like shoes and some shirts, but the teams will supply the rest.
Baseball players do buy some of their own stuff, or at least they order their own stuff (the company may provide them gratis or the club my reimburse/pay for the order.)
Since 1999 Barry has gotten his lacquered-maple bats (most bats are still made from ash) from [ulr=http://www.sambat.com/]Sam Bats. The Sam Bat company is pretty popular amongst a small collection of baseball’s elite hitters, and a lot of the special-made maple bats in use in the majors today have been made by them. Bonds has had a specific template made by the company based on exact specifications he’s reached (based on testing in the batting cages I’m guessing.) However, recently Sam Bats have become so popular that they’ve had massive back orders.
Apparently Barry has thus recently switched to bats made by a Japanese company called SSK.
While I’m sure baseball players get special-order made gloves, a glove doesn’t need to be as finely honed as a bat so that’s probably why players aren’t ordering those en masse from specialty glove companies.
OK, I guess I didn’t ask the right question.
Are the gloves used by the big boys the same ones that I can walk in and buy at any major sporting goods store?
No. Just like bats, there are company reps that work with the players to get them the equipment made according to their requests. Sometime it is a matter of as minor of a detail such as how long the laces are.
Your $50 glove is mass produced on an assembly line according to a set pattern. The big leaguers can have the pattern modified and each glove is made by a master glove maker. Gloves don’t break like bats and they are a PITA to break in so a player likes to stick with a comfortable glove.
Yeah, mostly. There may be some custom sizing going on for the big stars, but the basic equipment is either available now or soon will be.
The goal of placing product is to get the general shmoe public to buy it- so if a baseball star is wearing it, you can get it at retail. It’ll be the top-of-the-line product and cost a bit- more like the $300 gloves than the $50 ones.
You can buy the basic model of the ones they use- but probably not at Sports Authority, Modell’s etc. Their market isn’t people who are looking to buy $300-400 dollar gloves. You’d have to go to a store that specializes in baseball and perhaps one or two other sports.
My understanding is that the glove is the one piece of equipment that the club doesn’t supply to any player.