MacGregor gloves

[awarsoca]

What is the difference between the black crown and the red crown patch? US vs non-US made (ala round vs oval rawlings patch)?
Thanks.
Clint

[softball66]

Clint, that's a good question. I don't think anyone's done a dating study on the MacGregor patches, but it should be fairly easy if you have the gloves and can date them to the catalog source book. I'll check the catalogs I have to see.
It also brings up the point of when did MacGregor drop its USA production for overseas production?

[robin_buckeye]

Are MacGregor brand gloves still available?

I don't seem to see them in the stores, and I haven't seen any of my LL players using one.

[awarsoca]

Wal-mart http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4429641

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A293581011%2Cp_4%3AMacGregor&page=1

[awarsoca]

I'm looking at a Willie Mays M2T, Hank Aaron HRK and Hank Aaron 715T
And if one of you fine folks is selling one of those, please hit me with a PM

[MTGLOVEGUY]

Hi, I have a Hank Aaron black HRK with the red patch that is available. Thanks!

[awarsoca]

MTGLOVEGUY,
Check your PMs
(c:
Clint

[Cowboy7130]

It seems like I remember this from the late 1960's- early 1970's era ...

AMF - American Machine and Foundry - was a huge conglomerate in the 1960's, with business ventures all over the world and all over the map as far as what they were doing. One of their business ventures was sporting goods. They acquired Brunswick bowling lanes, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Voit sports equipment and apparel, and I think MacGregor Sporting goods. The Harley-Davidson partnership was a disaster, with the quality of the motorcycles suffering terribly in AMF's attempt to catch up to the Japanese invasion by cheapening the bikes. To this day, Harley people scowl when they talk about AMF!

Harley brought themselves out of bondage, so to speak, but Voit and MacGregor never did. I think it is interesting that both of those sporting goods companies, which I remember as viable companies with respectable products in the 1960's and 1970's, have almost disappeared. The only "partnership" that flourished was AMF-Brunswick bowling equipment.

Now, this is just based on my memory, and my opinion, both of which are suspect and subject to change!

[BretMan]

Here is a quote from the MacGregor company history offered in the "Catalog Source Book":

"(After Goldsmith aquired MacGregor) athletic goods including gloves were still made at the old Goldsmith factory in the 1950's, but from that point its goods bore the MacGregor brand and labels. This lasted until 1958 when the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Corporation (bowling equipment) purchased MacGregor and the branding shifted to the name Brunswick MacGregor. Apparently, company morale was reported to suffer after this event and product quality appeared to decline over the next five years."

It's not really clear to me if AMF owned Brunswick, or it was the other way around with Brunswick owning AMF. But apparently Harley Davidson wasn't the only company to suffer a drop in quality while under the management of a bowling equipment company!

I do have a couple MacGregor gloves from that era with the stylized "B" logo of Brunswick prominently stamped on the palm of the glove and appearing on the wrist strap label.

[softball66]

Some of the information we got for the Catalog Source Book on this issue came from a golf source book and yes, I think AMF owned Brunswick (I believe that it was involved in bowling balls, pin spotting, etc. When AMF started buying these companies they unfortunately went into a quality cutting mode. I understand the glove designers from the old Goldsmith company got fed up quickly and departed. And if you've seen those Brunswick MacGregor gloves, they're stiff and way to overlaced, especially in the pocket area. Didn't know what they were doing.