Falling in glove: Legion, ABL players heart their baseball gloves

The baseball glove is like an extension of the player's body. It's the tool that allows catchers to stop 100 mph fastballs and outfielders to snag home-run-robbing catches along the outfield wall.

For many Alaska baseball players the love for their glove gets priority over other important items, including their cellphones — an anomaly in an era of technology addiction.

"The glove is like the most important part of me," said American Legion pitcher Joey Becher of the Kenai Twins. "You can always get a new phone, but that glove, it's got some memories in it.

"I've thrown three no-hitters with it this year, so it's pretty crucial."

A nice glove can cost more than $300 and is basically custom fit to a player's liking once it's broken in. Add the memories players make during years of use, and it's no wonder they take such good care of them.

Anchorage Bucs outfielder Aaron Arruda said during bus rides and plane rides to games for Fresno State he and his teammates don't put their gloves in their carry-on bags or in the overhead bins. They sit with them in their laps for the duration of the flight or drive.

"(E)veryone brings their glove with them 'cause they don't want it to get crushed in their bag," Arruda said. "So everyone is babying (it) … You just hold it with you."

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Arruda owns two Easton MAKO gloves from Fresno State, where players get completely custom gloves, including colors and embroidered lettering.

Arruda's black and red gloves feature his nickname, Wiseman — a name given by a teammate because Arruda doesn't talk much, but when he does, he says, "you gotta listen."

Arruda said he received his first nice baseball glove in eighth grade — a Rawlings Pro Preffered that he used all the way through high school.

"I used that glove for four and a half years and it was great," he said. "It was always in my car, always in my room. I always had it with me, played catch with it constantly."

Playing catch is the most common way to break in a glove, but some players use other methods, some of them wacky.

Shortstop Parker Johnson, who plays for South's American Legion team, said he bought a new glove in the Lower 48, where one glove specialist had the task down to a science.

"If you buy it at a retail store instead of ordering it, sometimes they have these machines (that break them in)," Johnson said. "I recently bought a Nokona, and where I bought it … you give it to this guy and he puts it in a machine and steams it, sprays all this stuff on it and bangs it with this mallet, and it breaks it in a little bit."

Luke Ritter, a second baseman for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots, said some players also take their gloves to a batting machine and catch balls from the machine to help break them in faster.

Johnson said his infield coach at South likes to boil his gloves.

"He gets his brand-new glove and puts it in boiling water, takes it out, lets it dry and then it's broken in the next day," Johnson said. "But that's risky because you could mess up and just ruin your glove."

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Willy Homza, an Anchorage Bucs infielder from Anchorage, said he's heard of players putting their gloves in ovens or microwaves, but he avoids that method.

"I'm not totally about that," he said.

It's not uncommon for players to use glove oils or shaving cream to help soften the leather in a new glove, Homza said.

Some oils can be harmful if they're meant for other purposes, but Chugiak Chinooks catcher Spencer Lininger stole a trick from a Major League player that he said works pretty well.

"I use Lexol to condition my gloves," Lininger said. "It's just like a leather conditioner for cars, car seats. Old trick."

Lininger said he learned the trick from former MLB catcher Matt Walbeck, a friend of his father's who enjoyed a 10-year career in the majors.

Tips and tricks help, but breaking in a glove always goes back to just using it.

"I just play catch with it, try to catch it right in the pocket every time, thumb to ring finger," Becher said. "That's about it."