How to Break in a Baseball Glove According to Position
What's up? I'm Dan Blewett and I'm a former pro
pitcher and I'm going to tell you today the three different ways
to break in your new baseball glove. All right. So in today's video, we're going to talk
about breaking in a baseball glove. And we're going to cover
a couple of different things.
Number one,
the break points on the leather itself. Number two,
finger placement in your glove. Why you might go two fingers in the pinky
stall rather than one finger in each pinky stall or each finger
stall like you regularly would. And we'll talk about how infielders
break in their gloves versus outfielders and the merits of not really squeezing
your glove when you catch the ball. All right. So to get started here,
I have a 12 inch pitcher's glove. And this is an amazing glove. I love this glove so much. It's 12 inches
and it's got a pretty deep pocket. Now, the thing to understand about gloves
is they can sort of be made more deep or more shallow. Based on how they're constructed. This one
just has a pretty deep pocket in general.
But then the way you squeeze
the glove can make this pocket either effectively shallow or effectively deep. And that's the main thing
we're going to talk about today. So the first thing, this is what you need
to know about outfielders gloves. So if you're a pitcher like me
or if you're an outfielder or you just want to break your glove
in this way, if you're an outfielder, you absolutely have to closer
glove from thumb to pinky. And the reason you do that
and you'll see all outfitters do this is because when I do that,
it makes balls essentially disappear into the web like that.
You see how deep that is? That's what you want as an outfielder.
Because when you're running,
especially when the you know, the ground's not perfect,
you get be big clumps of grass or it's harder because the ground's cold. You live in a cold climate,
you're running or you're going to dive and you want that
ball really well trapped in that glove. So you want a really deep pocket outfitter
gloves are made to have this deep pocket, but they also are deepened by the thumb
to pinky squeezing style. Now, this is kind of uncomfortable
going thumb to pinky. If you have a pinky, if you have a finger
in each of the painting of the finger stalls. So what almost all outfielders do
is they put their pinky and the ring finger in the pinky stall,
and then they slide their middle finger over into the second
or into the ring finger. So your ring finger? Yeah, your ring
finger stall. So the middle goes in the ring stall
and the pinky and the ring
finger go in the pinky stall.
So when I hold it and you're
not really going to be able to see it. But again,
these two are in the pinky stall. This is here. And then my index finger goes
in the middle, fingers stall, and there's nothing here in the index
finger stall that is important. So if you're an outfielder, that is how
you want to break in your glove. And then when you've got both fingers
in the pinky stall here, it becomes very easy
to close your glove from thumb to Pinky.
That is really,
really important as an outfielder. And this is absolutely the way you want
to break in your glove as an outfielder. Now, as an infielder,
this is now we want to do. You do not want to have this deep pocket
of your glove, because when you're trying to get the ball out of your glove
quick or transfer on double play, you don't want to have to read too
deep into your glove to get the ball and find it
and then pull it out rather, you want your your pocket to be very shallow so that when you can reach in there, it's
right there and essentially you're not even squeezing it
that much is sort of like popping and transferring from your glove
right to your hand.
So what you'll see infielders do
and this is not a glove, it's built for infield.
So this has a deep pocket. Infielders, gloves in general
are going to have less leather here and it's going to be shallower. So they're already helping
to accomplish this effect. But the way you can shallow
make your glove pocket more shallow is having one finger
in each stall as normal, and then you want to work it
when you're breaking the glove in to get this breakpoint here.
Let me switch to get this breakpoint here to allow me to get my thumb across
at least three fingers. And sometimes you'll see infielders
squeezing their gloves all the way up here where it's one, two, three, four fingers are where the thumb crosses over. And that's making a really shallow pocket. And you can see the ball very easily because it's not very deep
and it's really accessible. Whereas again, if I go to Pinky too,
in the pinky stall now, that ball disappears
into the pocket of the glove and that's something that you don't learn
right away. And if you didn't play baseball yourself
as a parent or a young player, that's not obvious. All right.
So this is important stuff to know. When you're around higher level players,
they teach you all these little tricks, like how do you transfer the ball
so fast as an infielder? It's because their glove is helping them. It really does help. So as an infielder, you want to work
your glove by forcing it here to make that permanent crease
in this break point so that your thumb is crossing over three
or four fingers.
Okay. One other aspect. If you want your finger outside
to protect it from, you know, the sting of hitting the pocket,
that's a personal preference. It doesn't make a difference either way. That's completely up to you. But I think most position players
tend to not do that as much. But again, completely up to you. And then
the last thing to really consider, because the three things
I want to talk about were where you place your fingers in the stall,
breaking in as an outfielder and breaking them as an infielder.
And the last thing I want to cover is not squeezing your glove
when the ball hits it. And this is something that's important
when you're younger, you kind of like actively squeeze it
when you catch it, when you're older and you have a stiffer glove.
Like this is a Rawlings hard of the hide. So this was a really stiff
leather glove when I got it. I essentially don't squeeze it. I just let the ball hit the mitt
and it collapses around itself. And then I just sort of
like pop it to myself. A lot of players do that where they're
not really actively squeezing the glove. So if you want to keep your glove stiffer
for longer and say you're an infielder and you really want
to focus on transferring, you don't need to actively squeeze
your glove and like do this when you catch,
just practice laying the ball, hit it, It sort of collapses around it just gently
and then really you're just transferring it pretty much right away
as the ball hits your mitt. So that's just something to consider.
It's not really like a break
in technique per se, but it is something that lots of high
level players do where they just, you know, they're good at catching
and they're just like, hey, here's my mitt
and I'm just transferring it to my hand. And the squeeze part
is kind of irrelevant. So if you have a really nice glove and if you're a pitcher
and you want to keep your glove, you know, pretty like stiff and in shape,
like this glove is pretty old, but it's still in really phenomenal shape,
even though you can see some of the the the black ink has worn off or that the black dye has worn off,
this glove is still in great shape. I'll have it for
at least another five or ten years because I don't squeeze it too much. And I saw just let the ball hit it
and collapse around it.
So hopefully these three different tips
of breaking your glove in were helpful. Again, as an infielder outfielder,
your needs are very different. So your your finger placement in the other
stalls of the glove is important. And then again, where your thumb is going, whether it's thumb to pinky
is an outfielder or a thumb across is an infielder
that's going to really help deep in the pocket or make the pocket more
shallow, which is going to be important for you getting the ball out or trapping
and keeping it in there as an outfielder. All right. So if you enjoy this video, please subscribe shares with a friend
and I'll see you here in the next video.
