Youth Gloves

Akademapro.com You will find decent quality youth gloves there. I'm sure you can get them cheaper from other sites too.

I would highly recommend Miznuno youth gloves. They are already game ready and the kids are able to easily close their gloves, which gives them much more confidence in catching the ball. My son's first glove was stiff and he had a hard time closing it. Balls would not stay in the glove and sometimes would hit him. I replaced it with a game ready Mizuno and he became fearless as the glove was an extension of his hand. At the age of 7, don't worry about buying him a solid leather glove that will last for years but be extremely hard for a young boy to break in.

Isn't Breaking in the Glove part of the Learning process.
Leather will break in if you play enough catch?
EH

I just bought my 9 year old daughter an AKADEMA glove, and this from a man who has been a RAWLINGS cat all his life. The glove is phenomenal, but has been a little tough to get broken in. I was already to soap it up, but a note with the glove said not to do that to break it in. The simply recommended lots of use. My daughter is still having difficulty closing it, but given the weather out, we haven't used it a whole lot.

I was unaware that the Mizuno kid's gloves were already broken in. That is great!

quote:

Originally posted by theEH:
Isn't Breaking in the Glove part of the Learning process.
Leather will break in if you play enough catch?
EH

Most kids at the age of 7 haven't learned to catch the ball yet and have to overcome the fear of being hit with the ball. If their glove is stiff and won't close properly, they become frustrated. It also isn't fun for them when the ball hits off the glove and hits them in the face. Then they stab at the ball, keeping the glove at arm's length from their face. They will quit wanting to play catch before that glove is ever close to being broken in.

If you give them a game ready glove that they have confidence in, it is so much easier to learn the fundamentals of catching the ball. This is their introduction to baseball and should not be frustrating.

We don't buy our older kids new gloves and insist that they immediately use them in games. They will use the gloves that are already broken in and have confidence in them. They will gradually break in the new glove playing catch.

Once they have learned the fundamentals, go ahead and get them the next glove for the future and then they can learn how to break in a glove and prepare it to be ready to replace the old one.

Good call, LadsDad. I bought my youngest son a Mizuno Prospect glove a few years ago as his first (non hand me down) glove - he was probably six or seven at the time. The glove has a notch cut out in the pinky finger/hinge part of glove - this makes it easier to close the glove. The leather was game ready. My son no longer uses this glove, but we still have it. I always enjoyed using the glove myself and still do some today. The glove is not quite a full sized model, but is definitely not a downsized kiddy model (a lot of the kids' gloves are really too small for a child to effectively catch the ball). I would highly recommend this glove as a premium first glove for an aspiring ballplayer.

Our odd experience:

Bought my little son two nice gloves on sale half-off, a small one to use and an adult glove for him to grow into eventually. He never used the kids sized glove. He handled the adult glove without a problem immediately after it was broken in.

Some would argue that kids need learn to catch properly by not having a huge glove do all the work. (same argument was once made that kids should play barehanded early on...tho probably not by a butterfingered 7 year old!)

Anyone else have an experience like ours?

Visit my website Glove Medic for information about selecting a youth glove. My prices on Akadema youth gloves are competitive with other internet sites and significantly below the MSRP. My son has been using their gloves for 3 years now and they hold up very well.

Good luck and play hard!

quote:

Originally posted by LadsDad:
We don't buy our older kids new gloves and insist that they immediately use them in games. They will use the gloves that are already broken in and have

That's true of adults too. I play in an adult league in East TN and I am a true baseball glove junky. I always have a new glove in the process of being broken in. My gamers are at least 1 or 2 years old and only see action after extensive use shagging balls during BP and playing catch with my teammates. Even still, if I drop a flyball with the new glove chances are it goes back in the bat bag in between innings in exchange for the older "more experienced" glove. The error might indeed be mine, but the glove takes the blame for my misplayed ball. Just one of the superstitions that make this game "great".

Have fun and play hard!

quote:

Originally posted by micdsguy:
Our odd experience:

Bought my little son two nice gloves on sale half-off, a small one to use and an adult glove for him to grow into eventually. He never used the kids sized glove. He handled the adult glove without a problem immediately after it was broken in.

Some would argue that kids need learn to catch properly by not having a huge glove do all the work.

Anyone else have an experience like ours?

Your experience is shared by 100's of parent/kid pairs. However, that does not make it right. I coach a youth team and it is extremely hard for me to get the oversize glove off of a 10U player once they have become dependent on it. A couple years back, I had a kid playing SS on our competitive team with his dad's 12" glove. His hand was in the glove almost up to the elbow and he could not find the ball in the pocket for a quick transfer to the throwing hand to make a a routine 6-3 out on a quick runner. More often than not the ball sailed or was thrown in the dirt as he struggled to make the play. I finally gave him an Akadema 11" open web glove from my inventory to try out. I knew that he would never use it if his grandpa purchased it for him, so I "signed him" to an endorsment deal and he posed for his baseball cards with the glove on his hand. Needless to say he has been awesome ever since. I see way too much one hand fielding of flyballs, and off to the side ground ball fielding from players with oversize gloves to recommend the practice. My suggestion is to teach players to catch with "wiffle balls" jugs foam balls, or tennis balls 1st and then let them graduate to baseballs. I also use the bear hand, thumb to thumb approach to teaching players how to catch the ball out in front of their face with foam balls or nerf balls. I have not had too many failures with this approach.

Good luck and play hard!