Okay, so I got curious about Babe Ruth’s baseball glove the other day. Wasn’t really planned, just sorta popped into my head while I was looking through some old sports photos online. You see these iconic pictures of him, right? But you don’t always focus on the gear.
Getting Started
So, I thought, let’s figure this out. What did the guy actually use to catch a ball? My first step was just firing up the computer and doing some basic searches. Nothing fancy, just typing in things like “Babe Ruth glove” or “baseball gloves 1920s”.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much. Figured it’d be some old leather thing. But seeing the actual pictures and descriptions was pretty eye-opening.
What I Found Out
Right away, I noticed these things were tiny compared to modern gloves. Seriously, they looked more like thick work gloves sometimes. I spent a good hour just clicking through images from that era.
Here’s what jumped out at me about the kind of glove Ruth likely used:
- Small size: Barely covered the hand, not much of a pocket.
- Minimal padding: Looked pretty thin, especially compared to the pillows guys use today. Catching a hard-hit ball must have stung like crazy.
- Simple construction: Mostly just layers of leather stitched together. Not much webbing between the thumb and finger like you see now.
I found some discussions saying he used different models over his career, which makes sense. But the basic style from his main playing days seemed consistent with that early, simpler design. It wasn’t like he had one specific, famous glove model tied to him like some players do today, at least not from what I could gather easily.
Trying to Imagine It
Seeing those pictures, I tried to really picture using one. I’ve got an old leather garden glove downstairs, kind of stiff. I went and put it on, just to sorta get a feel. Obviously, it’s not the same thing at all, but it helped me appreciate how different the game must have felt. You’d really have to use two hands way more often, I bet. There wasn’t much of a basket to trap the ball.
You really had to feel the ball hit your palm back then, I guess. No hiding from it.
Wrapping Up the Search
So yeah, that was my little dive into Babe Ruth’s glove. It started as a simple question and turned into a neat look back at how much equipment has changed. It wasn’t some super deep research project, just me satisfying my own curiosity and looking at old pictures and reading bits and pieces online. Makes you respect those old-timers even more, playing a tough game with such basic gear.
It’s fascinating stuff, just thinking about the practical side of how they played back then. Definitely a different world.
