Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

I picked up this Ewell Blackwell on eBay last week for $50. It was a bit of a risk, but the G110 was the top of the line glove in the '54 catalog so I took a chance.

When I received it yesterday I was happy to see it was a Spider Web model. The glove was incredibly easy to clean and looks very good to me. Re-lacing the Spider Web can be a tough task when there is no existing lacing in the glove. I have a number of others, but I didn't want to un-lace those to figure out the pattern. I did use two laces in the web, which I never like doing if I can avoid. Maybe it is just me, but it seems that there should only be one lace used in the web. Nonetheless, it worked out and looks good. This was also made tough because, even though the leather is in great shape throughout the glove, it is dry along the webbing on the index finger so I was afraid of it ripping. Things worked out pretty well.

I currently have five spider webs in my collection. This is one of favorites glove styles. I don't know if I could catch a ball with it, but I like the look and design. I'm thinking about making a list of spider web endorsers. The MacGregor catalogs don't have any type of designation, so I'll probably build it as they come up on eBay.

Here are the Blackwell pics...

How the glove arrived...



After cleaning...





After re-lacing

Beautiful glove! Aside from the "spider web", it's a very close design to one of the favorite MacGregor gloves in my collection, the Bob Doerr G111. (I have a picture of that one posted a ways back in the "Today I Found..." thread.)

Another unusual feature on these gloves is the "reverse" button wrist strap. The button is toward the thumb side, as opposed to being below the pinky. It's another one of those quirky features that seems to have appeared only on MacGregor gloves for a short time around the mid-50's, then disappeared as button fasteners lost favor to laced wrist designs.

From a functional, ergonomic standpoint, this alternative design always seemed to me to make it easier for the wearer to fasten and unfasten the button. And it might have caught on, if buttons hadn't entirely become a thing of the past by the early 60's.

And yet another unusual attribute of this glove (although it is not unique to this model or MacGregors) is the strap that is inside the glove, from the heel to the wrist strap. I suspect that these are often a casualty to sweat (and therefore rotting), or maybe even kids removing them from the glove. Fortunately, this one is firmly in tact.

It would seem that glove makers were on to something here, trying to narrow the fit (if not the actual glove) of the glove at the wrist. Comparing the design of the A2000 to that of the Playmaker style glove that preceded it, one of the obvious difference is the heel. The Playmaker is very wide, hardly narrowing at all, and the A2 of course is much narrower.

The inside wrist anchor- or, if you're a Nokona fan, "Ristankor"!- strap does add to the overall "cool-factor" of that glove. I have a Playmaker PM5 with, as Rawlings dubbed their version, the "Snugger Adjustment" and it really makes a tremendous difference as far as the fit and control of the glove.

Unlike the metal buttons of of days gone by, similar wrist-grabbing straps can still be found on some modern gloves. Of course, most of the ones found today are anchored with velcro- a material sure to raise the hackles of most vintage glove collectors! But they do afford an adjustable, tight fit.

While button fasteners and spider webs are long gone, it is interesting to note that MacGregor did use the "Spider Web" name to market gloves even some thirty years after that G110 was on the shelves. I have an early 80's MacGregor softball glove, a huge 14", three-finger model, with an unusual web that's similar to the old Rawlings "Big Wheel" webbing design.

In the center of the web there is a printed graphic of an actual spider web, about 3" in diameter, along with the logo "Spider Web Design".

Hi Burker, I like that Blackwell glove and you did a very nice job with the clean up and re-lace on it. I like the comination of the old solid web and the tunnel loop combination. I noticed in one of the pics you shared with the forum thread that you have several of the Macgregor Spider Webs. Very Cool.


Nice Job.

Dave