Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Gloves and bats marked with the YMCA logo ?

First of all i have seen a 1" Web glove and 2

Hillerich & Bradsby bats. I'm not sure if the

glove was endorsed, but the bats were

endorsed by Lajoie and Joe Jackson.

The Joe Jackson bat is listed in an Ebay

store claiming by MEAR's and the seller to

be game used. Now my question.. Baseball

equipment marked with the YMCA logo, Are

they personally owned by the players for

a charity event? My thoughts would be that

they were made for the YMCA and at that time

those were the star players on donated equioment.

any thoughts?

I have white D&M 1" web with a YMCA logo on the thumb. My thought was that these were sent to soldiers during WWI. I've seen a number of Spalding National League balls from the same era with similar stamping, usually in red ink. I based my theory on the fact that some of the baseballs were signed by soldiers, some of which had added rank or similar war-time inscriptions. Also, there will occasionally be a FRANCE stamping above the YMCA logo. I'd be curious what others have to say about this as well.

Our Longtime glover John Popovich specializes in these World War I service club bats and gloves. These were purchased by these service organizaitons (YMCA, YWCA etc) and so stamped for our GIs serving during World War I, 1916-1918. The manufacturers catalogs from that era also boasted of these equipment pieces going into use for service men.

This is really strange - the bat they have pictured does not match up with the MEARS number in the MEARS database - they are different bats. There is YMCA bat endorsed by Joe Jackson in the MEARs database but it is different than the one pictured - the stampings on the MEARS site are deep and easy to read while the ones in the eBay auction are light and almost gone.. The MEARS number provided takes you to a different Jackson bat altogether - a 40K model. Hmmmmm...something is a little fishy.

i have emailed him several times over the past month

and asked him to email me a copy of the MEARS

documents. The only answer i got was that his Camera

is bad. He wont send me a copy of the MEARS paper work.

Regarding the 1" web glove, the seller told me basically

the same thing Joe mentions. Also there was a Lajoie bat

awhile back that i bid on. It ended @ around $1200.00

and was listed as made for the war effort. I'm confused

even more now. I'm thinking the Jackson bat is a bit

shady though myself.