Endorsed gloves of today's game

[softball66]

New York Times carried a story last spring about how fewer endorsements for baseball gloves seemed to be the rule. Do kids care? Are endorsements too expensive and wouldn't pay out?
I wonder if we could put a favorite team of today of players who had glove signature endorsements say the current Yankees or the St Louis Cardinals.
Any takers?

[Cowboy7130]

First of all, can we even make a team, by position, of endorsers?

I can't think of very many off the top of my head ...

First base - Albert Pujols, Rawlings
Catcher - Pudge Rodriguez, Wilson
Short - Derek Jeter, Rawlings, "DJ2" line
Center - Ken Griffey Jr. Rawlings Trap-eze ....

... and then my lights go out!

[Mike_2007]

Scott Rolen or Chipper Jones at 3rd using MIZUNO gloves!

[Mike_2007]

For Pitcher I would say Dice-K. Nike is paying him upwards of 5 million dollars for endorsements. Remember that red Nike glove he wore?

http://nike.jp/jdi/

[GloveGypsy]

Wilson's A2kDW
David Wright
http://cgi.ebay.com/Wilson-a2k-a2000-Dw5-12-Brand-New-RHT_W0QQitemZ160204382824QQihZ006QQcategoryZ50805QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[MVALZ]

Scott Scoenweiss copies me and uses an old school Rawlings PRO-6XBCB

[BretMan]

I'm sure that by "endorsed", Joe is referring to the long-time tradition of having the player's name actually stamped right on the glove. While player's might appear in ads for a given company, buying a model that bears their signature is another story.

Manny Ramirez "endorses" glove for Akadema and is featured on their web site. Likewise for David Ortiz and Vlad Guerrero, both of whom push gloves for Nokona. But good luck trying to find a glove stamped with either of their names.

George Brett was a prolific endorser for Wilson "back in the day". I suppose that if you buy a glove today from his "Brett Brothers" line of equipment, you sort of get an endorsed model- the "Brett Bros." logo is featured on all their gloves and mitts, if not an actual stamped signature. But then you have the same dilema as with the old "DiMaggio" model gloves- are you getting a glove endorsed by George, or his lesser-known brother who was also in the majors, Ken?

It might be telling that of the few stamped-endorsement gloves on the market today, one isn't from a baseball player at all. Mizuno offers a full line of goods signed by Olympic softball gold medalist Jennie Finch, all aimed at the female fastpitch softball player. If you've seen Jennie, she's a darn sight better looking than the pink-colored gloves that bear her name!

[softball66]

Bret's right. These are gloves produced for retail trade (mostly youth) that bear stamped signatures of the current pros.
Just found, for instance, a Mike Piazza Rawlings RCM55. Mike's still with Oakland so he's a current staffer. I think, if we found some current catalogs, we'd locate more player endorsed gloves. Nocona had Todd Walker under endorsement for awhile but I'm not sure they put his name on a glove. Ditto for Guerro Ortiz et al yet for the Texas company. I'll ask Robby if those are planned.
Funny I just found not one but two almost identical Lou Pinella Spalding gloves 42-5425 gloves. Lou's still managing. One glove is virtually unplayed.
We know that 30-40 years ago we could find a ton of autograph models.
I could virtually fill out the Red Machine with Bench, Concepcion, Griffey Sr., Gullett (Rawlings) Rose, Perez, Morgan (MacGregor). Now something like that would be a very tough task these days.
Good posts guys and something to mull over.
What was the ladies softball pitcher who's name was on some gloves some 20-25 years ago?

[BretMan]

That was Joan Joyce and she appeared on Wilson gloves. Another softballer with a major glove contract was Eddie Feigner, who endorsed gloves for MacGregor in the early '80's.

[Cowboy7130]

I have been thinking about this ...
Among today's players, whose name still hase enough star power to sell gloves? Thanks to 24-7 coverage of every dirty detail of players' lives today, and the negative perception that too many ballplayers are overpaid prima donnas anyway, glove companies might consciously be steering away from stamped autograph endorsements. How many of y'all would buy a Rawlings HOH with "Alex Rodriguez" in bold script across the palm? Roughly half of you. The other half of you can't stand the guy and don't want anything that is associated with him.

Have any of you noticed how the number of references on ebay to "the glove that Barry Bonds uses on gameday" has slipped lower and lower this year compared to two years ago?

Do you think Roger Clemens can sell any more TPX gloves?

Back in the day, I think major league ballplayers were national icons, not just regional or local stars. And our national icons had a much better reputation, deservedly so or not. Mickey Mantle's name probably sold a kajillion Rawlings gloves over the years, and not all of them in New York or Commerce, OK. But, I would be willing to wager my one and only Cal Ripken baseball card that the popularity of his gloves took a nosedive in his later years, when it became well known that he was a philandering drunk. And then, his heroic facing of his demons in his last days "re-popularized" Mickey Mantle, and his endorsed gloves have been doing a brisk business ever since.

I have noticed that endorsements from certain ballplayers seem to doom a glove. On e-bay, compare the prices of Jose Canseco's endorsed gloves with the prices of Junior's, Ripken's, or Tony Gwynn's. I believe Reggie Jackson's gloves are less appreciated, because a lot of us didn't and don't like Reggie Jackson. You can get Mark McGwire first base mitts for little-o'-nothin'.

Rawlings probably noticed that we have lost our starry-eyed-edness when it comes to today's players, and while A-Rod may be very popular with half of the customers interested in new gloves, his name will be a put-off to the other half of potential glove buyers.

All of these theories of mine, of course, are based on circumstantial evidence, non-scientific casual observation, and my opinions.

[softball66]

Great posts Cowboy and Bretman! This gets us thinking. Joan Joyce, right!
And the great Eddie Feigner. Eddie, for years, had his red-white-and blue gloves made for him and his court at Nocona. I had the pleasure of watching him pitch twice and know a bunch of old softballers who batted (?) against him. He could bring it! One of a kind!
Cowboy's right. A-Rod, Clemens, McGwire, Bonds have fallen into the rabbit hole of steroid and/or obnoxious behavior. Denny Esken used to push for having an A-Rod close to gamer glove from Rawlings but this never came about.
I did like the series of 7 No Hitter and 300 Win gloves that Rawlings put out for Nolan Ryan. And I think there was a .390 glove for George Brett. Those are noteworthy.
Heck, maybe we've seen the demise of player endorsed glove collecting
from the 90s, early 2000s.