1887 Edward Redmond "Trap-door" catchers mitt

[mikesglove]

The "Trap-door" is my own play of words off the "Tra-pocket" and "Trap-eze". This model was invented by Edward Redmond in 1887. When I first saw the patent drawing, I thought this can't be right, it is a funnel emptying into a pail of water. Actually, the drawing shows a leather "Hand Protector for Ball Players". The top drawing shows a side view of a leather cone with two riveted leather "handles" to insert the wrist and hand. The bottom drawing shows a front view cross section with the little elastic trap door(B) and the tension spring(C) below. This device was to allow a ball to pass into the cone but not bounce back out because the tension spring closes the trap door. The patent document recommends lining the inside of the leather cone with india rubber and padding at the bottom to absorb impact of the thrown ball

I made a mock-up to see what the mitt would look like.

note the trapdoor and tension spring

[mikesglove]

A lot of interesting information can be gleaned from a search engine provided free by "Google" on Patents. Sometimes the correct wording has to be typed in to the search, such as: ball glove/mitt, baseball glove/mitt or simply glove/mitt. This particular patent was under "Hand protector" so they can be hard to find sometimes. The inventor or manufacturer can also be used to search. There are a lot off odd-ball inventions and is a lot of fun looking through them. Joe was mentioning in an earlier post about the famous inventors. They are all here!

[stockbuddy]

Mike,

That is one funny glove contraption. LOL Great find.
Dave

[Mike**Mize]

Pretty easy to imagine base stealers having a field day with this mitt/protector. Funny to imagine the catcher getting tangled up with the "trap-door" as the base runner cruises into second, standing up.

[mikesglove]

That is funny, because the patent description mentioned the mitt design would speed the game up by cutting down on the passed balls rolling to the backstop. No mention of the steal of second base. It would be tough for the catcher to get the ball passed the trap door quickly, for sure.

[okdoak]

I came across this odd invention in a book called "Banana Bats and Ding-Dong Balls". No mitt needed with this baby! Thought I'd add it to the list of oddball catching equipment.
Fig. 3 & 4 are from a different unrelated patent.

[mikesglove]

That cage is one weird looking device, almost cartoon like! I have been looking through my ads for early catchers gear and here is a patent illustration circa 1905 of a catcher with an accordion looking mitt grasped with two hands to catch a ball.