Baseball Gloves and the Cuban Embargo

[mikesglove]

During the 1950's, 90% of Cuba's sporting goods were imported from the United States. From 1959 to 1961, The Castro regime sought to nationalize their sporting goods interest by purchasing machinery to make their own sporting goods. The Embargo of 1961 stopped all imports from the US. Sporting goods manufacturing in Cuba was haphazard at best for a number of years following the Embargo. One entity that survived and flourished was Batos Sporting Goods, established in 1965.
The baseball gloves made by Batos were loose copies of US brands. Batos is still around today and export most of their sporting goods. They seem to be pretty well made and a number of them show up on ebay.

The example below is a glove from the 60"s with an early Batos cloth label.

The example below are newer gloves with a redesigned Batos cloth patch.

An interesting glove below with no wrist strap, one size fits all!

The initials LPV stamped on the heel stand for "Listos Para Vencer" (Ready To Win)