If you look at this picture of Juan Pierre leading off, you can see he has gloves in his hands. He’s not wearing them, and they aren’t his batting gloves. Since he came over to the Dodgers, I noticed that whenever he reaches base, he immediately removes his batting gloves, takes these other gloves out of his pocket and palms them the entire time he’s on base. I don’t know that I’ve noticed anyone else doing this.
I haven’t been able to figure out why a runner would do this. I could understand perhaps using gloves to protect your hands for sliding, but then why wouldn’t you just wear the gloves?
Does anyone know, or has he spoken about it? Are there other players who do this?
Some players (like me) were also taught to pick up a handful of dirt for much the same reason. It’s a good option for those that don’t wear batting gloves.
I think it’s fairly common, especially among basestealers, who will be sliding into base more often than most. Breaking your fingers may have been an exaggeration, but jamming a finger on a base can’t possibly feel good.
Carrying another pair of gloves for this purpose does seem bizarre.
It could be that he prefers to keep his batting gloves slightly tacky and fears the infield dirt will compromise their grip. Short of a reasoned explanation though, maybe it’s just something that’s worked in the past he prefers to stick with. Many are a very superstitious lot.
Manny Ramirez and Coco Crisp of the Red Sox have each done it within the last few years. I’m sure a google search would turn up other recent occurrences.
Decades ago I was in the audience when Dodger great Roy Campanella addressed our school.
He related how early in his career he had injured the palms of his hands in the dirt by putting them down when sliding into a base. He solved the problem by keeping small pieces of foam rubber in the pockets of his uniform (I don’t think anyone used batting gloves back then). When he got on base he would grip the foam in his hands to keep from injuring his palms the same way.
Who was the player who used to have extra gloves sticking out of his back pockets when running the bases? He claimed they were waving bye-bye to the other team as he rounded the bases.
Mel Hall, who’d chant “Wave, man, wave” as he rounded the bases. The gloves were probably the least egregious elements of his consistently outrageous behavior.
Certain announcers have speculated that some guys have managed to get double-booked on “batting” glove contracts and so fulfill their obligations by switching from one for batting to the other for running, but even as cynical as I am, I find that hard to believe comlpetely.
Seeing as how I’ve never noticed the brand of Juan Pierre’s batting gloves, let alone his running gloves, this would indeed be a poor marketing scheme.
