Tips on how to relace a catcher's mitt?

[Moonlight Graham]

There's this really nice Rawlings catcher's mitt one of you sent me along with the other gloves for my baseball club. Whoever you are: THANK YOU! It's endorsed by Steve Yeager and part of the stamping says CM50T but it seems at least one letter has been erased by use and time. Here's the glove:





First of all, could you help me identify this glove once and for all? Then as you can see on the photos, the lacing is a real mess and some laces are missing, especially in the pocket, the web is also entangled, but the leather is still very smooth and soft, so I'm sure once I have relaced it entirely it will be as good as new. The trouble is the lacing pattern is really intricate. I couldn't find anything helpful on the web, so I was wondering if any of you who has the same glove at home could post photos here to help me give some life back to this glove.
Last, I'd like to measure the glove, but I don't know where to put the measuring tape. Could you help me with this too?

Thanks a lot !

[robin_buckeye]

I recently relaced a very similar Rawlings catcher's mitt (Johnny Bench was the endorser -- he and Yeager are contemporaries).
I just followed the old lace as I removed it. For the most part it really wasn't too difficult. I really struggled when lacing near the two hinges, it was really tight and hard to follow the old lace. Maybe one of the experts here can help.
By the by, I dated one of Yeager's cousins for a while many years ago (she and I are both a couple of years younger than Steve).

[ebbets55]

Speaking of Yeager, I loved him. He was number 7 on the Dodgers. My dad and the other sports writers called him Yang. My dad got him to come to my little league and sign autographs for all us kids in 1976 or '77. I was a star for the day. That's good because I pretty much sucked as a seven year old. He then came to the house for dinner. He had this van, sort of the style of the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo but it had the coolest paint job that I remember to this day. It had three big action shots of him painted on the side. I remember the one where he is flipping his mask off and looking to the sky to catch a foul and another one was him batting. He also had a cool Corvette back then.

I got my first catchers mitt from Santa Claus in 1976 and it was a Rawlings Steve Yeager model. I still have it.

I always liked Steve Yeager. He was a good guy and a true Dodger. Don't forget, he was Tim, the coach, in Major League.

JD

[Moonlight Graham]

Great story! (Your dating his cousin is pretty cool too, Robin )
Ebbets, do you still keep in touch with him in some way or other? This must be something to have a real pro sitting at your dinner table when you're 7 years old!

Could you post or send me photos of your glove? It's probably not the same model but it might help me a little. I spend quite some time yesterday trying to understand how the laces came and went in and out of the glove, I sketched what I saw, but as the laces around the web are broken in several places, big parts are missing too, it's really hard to understand what it looked like in its prime.

A snapshot or two might come in handy here...

One last thing, can anyone confirm it's a Rawlings CM50T or a Rawlings "something"CM50T?

[ebbets55]

Hi Moonlight,

I'll be happy to send pics. It probably won't be until this weekend though as it is packed away as a result of the recent fires we had here in So-Cal. Any Rawlings catchers mitt from the same era will probably do though.

No, I don't keep in touch with him anymore. Sure wish I did. I liked him.

JD

[BretMan]

Rawlings began using the "RCM" (Rawlings Catcher Mitt) model number designations around 1980. So that should be the first "mystery" letter on your mitt- the letter "R".

The "T" at the end designates this as one of their "Target" models- that is, one of the mitts with the orange trim around the perimeter, the intent being to serve as a highly visible target for the pitcher.

This model numbering system was quite evident on Rawlings gloves for the next couple of decades, and was common on their mid-to-lower priced gloves. I believe that they may even still use this numbering on some of their gloves today.

Besides the "RCM", they also offered the "RBG" (Rawlings Baseball Glove), "RSG" (Rawlings Softball Glove) and "RFM" (Rawlings Firstbase Mitt) models.

The glove catalogs from that era show an RCM50T mitt endorsed by Bert Campaneris, the All-Star catcher for Oakland, among other teams. The Yeager model was likely a variation, possibly produced for a regional market served by the Dodgers. That seems to have been a common practice in those days.

As for relacing this mitt, as catcher's mitts go this is one of the least-complicated models. Those missing laces in the palm go through the mitt from front-to-back. Usually, they go through at an angle to sort of "capture" the padding around the edge of the mitt. Similar models I've relaced actually have had holes in the padding that the lace must go through.

Hope that helps a little bit- it's kind of hard to describe through words. I know that some of the first catcher's mitts I ever worked on gave me headaches! It was through trial-and-error that I finally got the hang of working on these.

As for Mister Yeager- I remember him well! Back in those days Los Angeles and Cincinnati were in the same division and staged some epic battles for the division title. While I respected the Dodgers' professionalism- and they sure had some great teams and players in that era- they were, more often than not, the hated enemy!

[Moonlight Graham]

Thanks for the information and advice. I think I understand how the laces go through the palm. The most intricate bit for me is the web. I've discovered some bits of laces were added to the original lace in the places where it was broken, so the result is all entangled and nothing seems logical. I won't try to relace it until I have had the palm resewn sometime next week. Until then, I'm trying to get accustomed to those splitting headaches you're talking about! Be prepared, that's my motto!

[Moonlight Graham]

Well... here comes a problem that I hadn't thought I would face. I can't find decent leather laces here! Can you believe that? I guess I could find some in the larger cities, but my local shoemakers don't sell proper laces for baseball gloves! And they say it's impossible for them to get the right ones because wholesalers don't make that kind of laces available to them!!!

So if the American solidarity chain could work once more, that would be just grand. I'm actually looking for someone who could find good leather laces to relace the catcher's mitt above (and some of the other gloves I have received), and the proper lacing kit (I mean awls or other tools) for a good price and ship the whole package to France for again a good price.

This catcher's mitt is the only one I have, so I really need it fixed.