Don’t know why, but I spent a good portion of this evening trying to do some research into Lajoie’s history with baseball gloves.
It’s pretty common knowledge that he was considered one of the finest fielding 2nd baseman in history and from what I can gather he was considered one of the most graceful and agile fielders of his day, even considering his large frame. Turns out he also had very large hands that had to be accommodated by his ball glove, which for him was a new one each season. The article you see below was put together by researchers for SABR and specifically references Lajoie’s glove….
“Over his final three seasons with Philadelphia, Lajoie matured into one of the game's best second basemen, using his excellent speed, quick reflexes, and soft hands to adeptly handle all the position's tasks. "He plays so naturally and so easily it looks like lack of effort," Connie Mack would later observe. "Larry's reach is so long and he's fast as lightning, and to throw to at second base he is ideal. All the catchers who've played with him say he is the easiest man to throw to in the game today. High, low, wide -- he is sure of everything."
Unlike his contemporaries, Lajoie preferred to break in a new fielding mitt each season, and he also parted from accepted practice by cutting the wrist strap off his glove, providing his large hands with added flexibility and control.” http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ac9dc07eIf you take the fact that Lajoie seemed to value new gloves...his gloves…that were flexible and modified for control, its very feasible that early in his career he might have preferred the more flexible webless variety that we see in the ad that Brett found in the Chicago Sporting Goods catalog.
Additionally, here are some collateral images that I found that might provide some more evidence that he used a webless model glove just like in the ad.
First off, I noticed that the letter head seen in the ad matches up to the letter head on this document from Lajoie’s own American League publishing company of which he was president:
These next couple images are also from that same American League Publishing Co. that we see in the glove ad…they are both from 1906 as well and one shows the same inset head shot of Lajoie that we see in the glove ad, along with a picture of him with glove on hand:
This last image…last only because it’s late and I’m tired and couldn’t search anymore…shows Lajoie in 1906 with his glove and it really could be a webless model. I do not see a web in this glove and believe that the angle of the glove shows the heel in the space where you might think you see a web…I’ll let everyone make up their own mind:
Pretty cool topic for discussion and one that I hope we can someday come back to when someone digs up the never-before-seen Lajoie glove.
Jonathan
http://www.dugouttreasures.com