The MLB rules I find say “Each fielder, other than the catcher, may wear a glove…” (There are separate rules regarding the size and construction of catcher’s mitts, 1st baseman’s ,and other fielders.) Glove, not gloves. However, 3.03 (1.11(g)) says
“on his shoe” when it obvious that what is meant is “shoe or shoes”.
As for why you would want to: You would be able to reach a bit farther. If the fielder needed to make a throwing play he could easily shed the other glove while on the move. Maybe you would only wear 2 gloves in situations where you knew you would not have to make a throwing play, like 2 outs.
You might still need to make a throwing play with two outs, if the batter hits a grounder to you. And having to take off a glove before you make a throw would probably give the runners time to tag up before the ball got to them. Even if it’s allowed, I don’t think it’d be a good idea.
Two out, bottom of the ninth, tied score*, man on third. A deep fly ball to the outfield wins the game if it’s not caught. The throw is irrelevant. Tagging up is irrelevant. The runner goes on contact.
There might be the 1 in million situation where the runner falls down so not catching the ball but throwing it might prevent the run. But you should ignore such rarities in making decisions.
The real issue is how good is a player going to be with two mitts? I’ve seen people make spectacular plays diving to their extreme right or left with equal skill. Jumping for the ball, diving forward? Same deal. Where is this ball going that a glove on their other hand is going to be the best tool?
I imagine that very few baseball players have much experience using their throwing hand for catching a ball with a glove, and that there are vanishingly few situations in which having a glove on your other hand would make any difference. Even if it’s legal, I just don’t see an advantage to it.
(Also, reported for forum change to The Game Room.)
A right-handed left fielder, running towards the foul line has to twist his body in a way that would be avoided if he had a glove on his right hand.
People like Pete Gray and Jim Abbott show that with practice, the action of transferring a glove with the ball in it to a holding location (in this case, a completely functional hand), grabbing the ball out and throwing, can be smooth and quick. Check out video of Abbott fielding on the mound.
Like a lot of innovations, it would seem strange at first. How about the issue of legality?
But not smoother and quicker than a fielder with a single glove. No matter how you frame it, two gloves are a disadvantage if you have to throw the ball. And discarding the excess glove on the basepaths would lead to player interference calls.
Gray and Abbott had, literally, many years of practicing that switch over and over again, because it was the only way that they were able to field. Someone who does it occasionally, for corner-case situations, simply won’t be that smooth or quick.
Assuming it were legal (and I don’t know if it is or isn’t), if the advantage of that extra bit of reach on one side of the body on the occasional play were enough to offset the issue of having to discard the glove in order to throw the ball every time you needed to throw the ball, I have to believe that, in over 100 years of baseball using fielder’s gloves, it would have been tried.
I played woman’s D-league softball for several years, and many years in the pony league as a child (I was told I was good enough to try out for Little League, and girls were a rarity then, but my parents thought it was too competitive, and said “No”). After enough drills and games, catching left is automatic (I imagine catching right for a lefty is the same). I think a player would have to be brought up through training with to gloves to do it effectively.
Worthy of note, though, is a one-handed pitcher (congenitally missing most of one forearm) who could pitch a ball, and then quickly slip on a glove clipped to his belt in practically one move, well enough to field pop-flies, or cover first. IIRC, he played in the minors for a few years. I saw him pitch and slip on the glove. It was pretty cool.
Interesting. The OP mentioned Jim Abbott, who only had a stub of a right hand (no fingers), which sounds like considerably more of that arm than the pitcher whom you saw. Abbott pitched in the majors for 10 years.
When he’d pitch, he’d “hold” the glove on his right hand (his hand in the “pocket” where a fielded ball would rest), then quickly slip the glove onto his left hand after pitching the ball.
He even played one year in the National League, for the Brewers, where he had to bat. He had 2 hits, and 3 sacrifices.
We see infielders now using one glove who occasionally bare-hand catch the ball. Why do they do that? To save time on the transfer to throw. Not to reach a ball with one arm that’s unreachable with the other.
A two-glove fielder would either have to learn to throw at MLB quality with his other hand, mirror image from his normal, or he’d have to learn to catch the ball in his typical throwing hand, then as with the one-handed players, jettison the glove without dropping the ball, then throw it with the hand that just caught the ball.
Bottom line: two gloves is a (bad) solution in search of a problem.
As to the narrow question of legality, I’d bet it’d fall foul (heh :)) of the general construction that respect for the game is paramount and this is making a mockery of the game.
I thought I recalled a specific MLB rule along those lines. The best I can find in the MLB 2016 rules is this paragraph in the foreward:
Said another way, rules-lawyering is frowned upon. IMO two glove play would fail that test.
It’s also worth mentioning that Grey only spent 1 season in MLB, and that was during WWII. When the war ended, and the original players returned, he wasn’t able to stick in the majors.
Jim Abbott had the advantage of being a pitcher. Even during his season in the National League, pitchers aren’t expected to be a major contributor on offense, so he was able to kind of hide his stats by either being a pitcher, or having a DH.
Official MLB rules (gloves, page 8), use the article “a,” implying only one glove is permissible. But even if allowed, no fielder would use two gloves for reasons I’m sure were stated above (haven’t read thread, just immediately reacted).
If two gloves were permissible, no matter how impracticable, you would have seen it at some point in the 100+ years of MLB history. Wearing one shoe in a baseball game, or at any time really, is impracticable (and probably against rules, for safety reasons if nothing else), so the plural “shoes” is implied, even by “shoe.”
As a right-hander, try writing with your left hand. It take certainly months, probably years of experience and you’d probably still be deficient. MLB teams don’t have time or money for that kind of training. Wearing a glove on your other hand is a detriment, not a benefit. Wielding and fielding with a glove on the off-hand, and all the intricacies that involves, is not the same as grabbing the ball out of a glove and throwing it, which are natural activities. We’ve grabbed and thrown all our lives, but we’ve rarely used our off-hand with a hunk of leather on it.
