The article below is from a May 7, 1904 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The hand held metal cage with spring loaded doors in front is meant to capture a pitch and deposit the ball to the ground through a tube at the bottom of the apparatus. The catcher is then free to lay the cage down, pick up the ball and continue the game. The text is difficult to read but it is mainly a satirical review of James Bennett's latest baseball catcher invention. The article states the baseball catcher device resembles a cage for a homesick bear or dyspeptic hyena. There is also the difficulty of retrieving pop-up foul balls and throwing out base runners. The major and minor league clubs were not sold on this invention and stated they were satisfied with going another season with real live catchers.
James Bennett was an industrial designer and inventor from Momence IL. and formed his own manufacturing company circa 1904. he had many industrial patents including early patents for wagon yokes and telephone linemen climbing gear. His later patents included vehicle drive trains and locomotives.
Below is the original baseball catcher patent and an improved version with slopped bottom to the cage and a curved face mask. The metal frame extending past the cage on each side were described as hand grips in the patent documents. There are shoulder and hip pads on the back of the device but no mention of straps attaching the apparatus to the ball player. It would be ridiculously heavy.
James Bennett designed somewhat more conventional catchers gear in 1905 but still wildly ineffective. Bennett's manufacturing facility came under hard times by 1918 an he resorted to placing newspaper ads offering all his patents for sale.
One page of the patent drawings above included a clever design for a conventional catchers mitt with a hinged break on one side of the mitt and top and bottom crescent padding. That would be figs. 5 and 6. and the design seems fairly innovative. The figs. 7 and 8 however retreat again into weirdness.