Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

I would like to collect gloves endorsed by my favorite modern players, one of whom is Cal Ripken, Jr. I found a really nice looking Rawlings RSE36 on ebay this morning and I was wondering, what are some of the differences between the RBG36 and the RSE36? Is one of a higher quality than the other? I know the RBG36 is one of the most common gloves ever built, or maybe I should say one of the best selling gloves of all time ( )

Cowboy,

I have one of each of those models, so I'll try to give you a side-by-side comparison- but it will have to be later tonight as I'm heading out to umpire a fastpitch tournament and won't be back until this evening!

The RBG36 I have is an early Ken Griffey model. It is a fairly thick and heavy glove, much nicer than what these models have morphed into in recent years. This one came from eBay a couple of years ago.

My RSE36 is also the Cal Ripken model. I bought it new from a department store around 1995, with the intent of having my daughter use it in her games. She liked her old glove and never even used this one.

At the time I was playing adult league baseball and using baseball-sized gloves. It was several years later that I got on a slow pitch softball team and needed a bigger glove. The Ripken glove had sat unused and grabbed it off the shelf. It has held up well for about eight seasons of use, with just a little chafing on the red palm pad inside.

I'll try to get them both together and see if there are any obvious differences.