Shoeless Whoa

This piece was nothing short of a traveling circus below the leather shell. But one of only angry, drunken clowns… brooding carnies.

And therefore became one of my most extensive rebuilds yet to that point. As well as one I revisited and re-re-built as I progressed.

Deep cleaned and circa 6 stage light conditioning with Ballplayer’s Balm Products.

Almost certain it was a factory reject by Shoeless Joe Ball Gloves considering the large black ink stains on fingers and the fact that the inside palm was neither dyed nor sealed by any means. External leather was also not sealed and was way too raw for repetitive impact. Thinking the shell was tossed aside by one of the factories that assembles them and scooped by someone who rebuilt it with whatever they had on hand in an attempt to get near the boggling price tag of these pieces when new. I got it for an absolute steal, but that's only because I know what to do with them. If I didn't, it would certainly have been in rip-off territory and I have a feeling the person selling it for next to nothing had already been taken for that precise ride.

The internal felts weren't felt at all. It was literal car upholstery. Like the thick, rather sharp material battened flat by glue that line trunks and floorboards. This is something I've never seen, nor have any of my glove mentors and something I'll probably not ever come upon again. What makes me further think it was a reject scooped and restructured by maybe an employee is the fact that the upholstery felt was backed by scraps of the very plush, quality leather of the shell. Not at all cheap stuff and the pairing stands as one of the oddest things I've seen. Have actually since extracted that leather and used to great results in other projects.

Then there was the 'adhesive' used within palm. Normally that's some extraordinarily tacky stuff and generally along the destructive lines of chewing gum mixed with gorilla glue (dubbed 'Devil's Chewing Gum' by some of the elite glove pros). This stuff wasn't even that. Instead, I believe it was literal beeswax. Which is actually a better option than what most use, but the sheer volume used in this piece was astounding. Literally filled up a 4oz Dixie Cup with what I extracted.

First recreated internal felt using F5 quality. Noticed the play of the glove was a bit cumbersome and floppy so I went back and later installed F1 felt (highest grade) in fingers as well as F1 in thumb and pinky which slimmed them down though greatly increased rigidity. The plastic stays in the pinky and thumb were the typical Shoeless Joe ones they use across the board. These things should be catered to each glove, but they certainly don't do that. I first made rather small ones because I had it in my head gloves might play better in that manner. This may be true for infield gloves to an extent, but this piece is more meant for the outfield and the lack of stability had to be addressed. So I went back and replaced those as well with larger pieces I manufactured out of HDPE high grade plastic.

Top row: Felt padding’s first progression from car upholstery-like material to F5 felt. Second row shows my revisit upgrade from F5 to F1. On this revisit, I also extracted the upholstery finger padding and replaced with F1 for best balance of play.

Better look at the evolution of plastic stays within bound felt. Top left: Original Shoeless Joe stay with replacement that ended up being too small. Top right: Replacement of replacement stay with significantly larger stay to further stability. Bottom: View of replacement felt & stay evolution

This was also the first piece I added and modified actual lace patterns. Using a Dremel, I installed what yet another fine glove pro has deemed 'Drop-Knuckle Laces'. These are the laces you see going through the middle of the fingers to ensure a ball doesn't pop through the considering Outfielder gloves are longer and come inherently with that risk over time as the glove breaks in.

Drop Knuckle modification visible mid-glove. As well as a rather nifty re-organization of pinky side knots. Standard pinky run lace was laced in an offset from middle pattern to compensate for drop knuckle terminals.

The web pattern itself was set up in the 'Ken Griffey Jr. Style' wherein there are 6 terminals. Came up with my own pattern that reduced terminals to 4 as well as coming up with a bridge type system for the 'trapeze' webbing. All in all it forms a more singular web system and, in theory, this should better serve the glove as it moves forward considering the tension points aren't so scattered about. Jury's still out on the efficacy of that... but it makes sense to me.

I also installed a full 5oz oil-tanned leather palm pad insert that follows the pattern of Rawlings high-end Dual-Core pad design specific to outfielders gloves... which just looks so damn pretty as well.

All cleaned and conditioned with the glorious Ballplayer Balm products. Due to revisits, laces were a blend of Buy Fastpitch Gloves, Flatbill Baseball skived in appropriate sections. After conditioning deeply and realizing it still needed more protection, I treated the glove in Resolene by Fiebing Company to give it a proper seal and went back to buffing and conditioning until the sheen matched that of factory pieces. Pocket was also re-formed and suspended by GluvLuv oven-heated glove grease which -I can't say enough- is the only form of 'adhesive' one should ever put into a glove.

This thing has gone from clown-show to Showroom floor. With emphasis on the 'Show' aspect. Because this might be as close to 'The Show' level a typical Shoeless Joe is going to get. Must say, I'm kind of addicted to upgrading these things