Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

As I drove up the drive yesterday, I was happy to see the USPS priority box setting on my front porch yesterday with my latest ebay find, an old Wilson A2002. You guys may know that me as a Nokona nut but I'm pretty tickled to be the owner of this Wilson glove. Being a bottomfeeder, I was able to get this glove at bottomfeeding prices, with it being a lefty.

Here are some pics before I go to work on it.








Something that struck me as I looked it over was the name on the thumb - "J. Key". Jimmy Key pitched at Clemson when I was there and went on to pitch in the bigs with Toronto and the Yankees. He was a lefty and I found pictures of him with a Wilson A2000 (not this one) but he also used a Rawlings at times as well.

Doubt I'll ever know if he owned this glove (although I coach basketball with another Clemson pitcher of that era and I'm going to show him the glove as well).

It won't make it a highly sought after or marketable glove but it is intriguing.

I guess there's nothing I can do about the patch. I'll clean, condition and relace it and display it.

For those of your Wilson A2000 afficionados, I'm guessing it's from the mid 60's (before the dual hinge) and the A2002 is the left hand version of the A2000. Are these assumptions correct?

Is there anything else anyone can tell me about a glove of this vintage or any suggestions on refurbishing it?

Thanks,
Scott

I'd look into the history of the glove before I started making repairs. If it is an early gamer it will have more significance if you leave it alone. I have a player address book, if you want I will look him up and perhaps you can send him a letter and a photo of your glove and see if he recognizes it. Who knows, maybe he'd be interested in buying or trading for it. I'd look into it.

I've decided to go ahead and work on the glove as I was going to keep it. I talked with my buddy who pitched with Jimmy Key. He said he pitched with a Rawlings in college so, if it is his, it MAY have been a glove he had early on. I tend to doubt it.

Nevertheless, I worked this weekend on relacing. Not a great job and for the purist, I didn't have thin laces so I used standard size Tanner's. It was a chore to work the thicker laces.

A couple of the knots aren't great and I haven't done the pinky or thumb yet.

I cleaned and conditioned it and worked to remove another name below the A2002 on the outside thumb.

It's o.k. Any critiques are welcome.

Looks great!

Looks pretty good to me. Nice job!