What Do Your Gloves Tell You?

 

Both of these gloves are used by a  player who catches predominately with their finger tips. It's not a fault of the glove or latex but the
player's hand shape more resembled a clamshell than contouring to the shape of the ball. These players need to straighten the fingers more
to take the pressure off of the finger tips and let more of the hand (and glove) contact with the ball.

 

While not the greatest of pictures this is a player who pushes themselves off of the ground with the heel of their hand. More commonly
seen with indoor players but once again not the fault of the glove or the latex. Soon the seam between the wrist and the body of the glove
will tear. Players should try to not use gloves against the ground. It's a recipe for disaster!

       

 Attention should be paid to the gash out of the glove. It could come from a dry glove taking a pretty good shot but more than likely
it comes from the glove being pushed into the ground with great force. These gloves are latex foam, not leather. They are designed to
aid in catching a leather ball, not withstand the weight of your body being pushed off the ground. If you can see the thread in the picture
on the right - it's not broken. It was literally popped out of the latex. In a case like this the wrist bandage is clamped down extremely tight and
when the wrist is fully bent with all the pressure of the body on the heel of the hand something has to give. In this case it was some palm
and the wrist seam. Also of note here is that the back hand of the glove was PINK which means there was a detergent used to wash them.

   Another example of heeling. Notice the black on the wrist band is starting to pull off the latex. That is from the glove staying wet more than it does dry. Probably comes off the hands and into the glove bag, soaked down and back onto the hands. Not good for the latex. This is evidenced in the picture on the left where the threads have pulled through the latex which has weakened by being wet all the time. When you cinch the wrist band down tight it's pretty solid. When you put your heel of your hand on the ground and then move your wrist to 90 degrees (L) something has to give. The flexible part is down on your wrist so it puts all the stress on the seam.

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