Pittsburgh (AP) – Andrew McCutchen has not yet sustained this conversation with his son Steel, 7. But the star of Pittsburgh pirates knows that the topic will probably be addressed at some point.
Steel, who already plays in a youth baseball league, will probably get home at some point and ask his father, five times chosen to the star game, if he can have a certain fashionable article that his teammates can be using during a spring.
McCutchen plans to please Steel to some extent. The oldest of McCutchen’s four children already has a sleeve in his arm, as his father does.
However, if Steel expects his father to buy him a sliding glove, many illusions should hardly become.
It is a padded glove that a player can put in one of his hands to protect it in case they step on the head towards a base.
McCutchen, who has stolen 220 bases at the level of the big leagues, has never used one of these gloves. And he quickly points out that the next time the spike of a field player crushes his hand will also be the first.
Even so, the 38 -year -old understands the situation. There was a time when it was a twenty -year -old that personified the freshness of baseball, from its dreadlocks (a long time ago cut) to its beard, its string chain and the occasional hat that it used under its batting helmet, all designed to accentuate the innate mixture of talent and charisma of McCutchen.
“Everything relates to style,” McCutchen said with a smile.
This style frequently emphasizes fashion about functionality, especially when it comes to gloves – which are a bit like those used to remove a hot pot from the oven. They are becoming as ubiquitous in the minor leagues as in the largest.
Security and expression
Scott Podsednik, former major league player with a total of 309 robberies in his career, has received the merit of “inventing” the glove to slide during the last stages of his 11 -year career.
Tired of stepping on his hand, Podednik worked with a therapist to find a solution. The initial gloves were relatively simple. A 2009 photo shows Podsednik sliding towards the second base with the left hand covered so it looks like a batting glove, modified and padded, all wrapped in black to coincide with the edge of his uniform of the Chicago White Sox.
Things have become considerably more complex over the years. If someone looks in Google “Sliding glove designs”, will find designs ranging from the US flag to an ice cream cone, through aliens and an excrement emoji (yes, really).
Scott McMillen, a lawyer in the Chicago area, had no plans to enter the baseball accessories business. He discovered the gloves to slide when his son Braydon, then 10 years, said that one of his teammates had one basically said: “Oh, hey dad, wouldn’t it be good if I had one too?”
They went to a local sporting store, where McMillen was surprised by the available variety.
That was around 2021. At the beginning of 2024, McMillen had launched “Goat’d”, a company specialized in baseball accessories with everything, from sliding and batting gloves, sleeves for the arms, head ribbons and more.
What were sales during your first full year? More than one million units.
“We were surprised how the market is,” said McMillen.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been surprised.
Infentile sports have rebounded since pandemia. The State of Play 2024 report of the ASPEN Institute indicated that the levels of participation in sports between 6 -year -old children of 17 were the highest since 2015.
Baseball figures have stabilized after a decline. Little League International told The Associated Press the past autumn that more than two million children played baseball or softball in organizations under their endorsement worldwide, an increase compared to 2019.
Many of these children are also sports fanatics, some of whom may have noticed that their favorite major league player uses a glove when it is in the bases. Yes, it was the case of Fernando Tatis Jr., Dominican star of the parents of San Diego, who swept on the plate (by the way with his feet ahead) with a bright yellow glove in his left hand in the ninth entrance of a 2-1 victory over Pittsburgh last weekend.
It is one of the many ways in which baseball has evolved over the years. When McMillen grew up, there was not much style to show.
“We had our baseball uniform and our glove (and) all looked the same, they were all the same,” he said. “Now, everyone wants to express themselves individually. The best way to do it without acting as a clown is to use something that shows people who you are.”
Self -expression, however, is not exactly cheap, especially in an era in which the front -line bates cost 400 dollars or more. This is equivalent to a basic level sliding glove can cost $ 40, but Goat’d and others have versions whose price can reach double.
That has not stopped the vertiginous advance of sales, and McMillen points out that it is not simply a luxury article.
“We do not play American football with security team of the 40s,” he said. “You feel better in the batting box when you have something that protects you, right? With a sliding glove, you also feel something like, ‘hey, this is fun. It’s great. I want to be like my favorite high school player, as my favorite player of the University’”.
It is becoming increasingly common for McMillen and other company staff members see Goat’d equipment in the field. In recent months, they have appeared in youth tournaments from Georgia to Las Vegas, sometimes in the rear pockets of players as young as 6 or 7 years. McMillen cannot avoid shaking his head to see how his product becomes part of the consecrated tradition of children who mimic their heroes.
Which is good for the business and, by the way, probably unnecessary.
The pressure to keep up
Here is the question: in most – if not in all – the children’s and youth baseball leagues, head landslides are prohibited that would require a player to stretch his hand to touch the base.
In small leagues, for example, it is rare that players 12 years or less steal bases because the player can only start after the ball has reached the batter. And even if they throw themselves towards the next base, they have to slide with their feet ahead.
The only times in the small leagues that a corridor can be launched heading towards a base is when he is returning to it during a persecution or a revyed – both cases are also rare.
That does not prevent players from wanting a glove to slide. Nor does he dissuade his parents to buy them, all as part of the pressure of “keeping up with others”, something that has practically been part of the youth sports culture since the first time someone came into practice with a batting glove or dolls.
It is a phenomenon that Chelsea Cahill and his family have known for years. The life of a lifetime who lives just east of Columbus, Ohio, has spent most of the last decade taking her three children to practices, games and tournaments.
What she and her husband have learned over the years is that some trends come and go, but the pressure for having the things that are perceived as necessary remains.
“There is always that feeling of ‘This is the next novelty’ or ‘This is what you have to get,” said Cahill.
They pleased their children, but only to some extent.
Last summer, his youngest son Braxton, then 11 years old, and the rest of the children in their team continued to insist on their parents to buy sliding gloves. Upon entering the final tournament, the team’s moms decided to give in.
In a way.
Instead of spending on something they really didn’t need, the moms went to a local dollar store and bought gloves of the type used to get dinner out of the oven. Average retail price? Less than a cup of coffee in the gas station.
The children loved, and used them during the game. Cahill posted a video of the boys playing with the gloves in their back pocket on Tiktok. The video now has 12 million views.
“They thought it was hilarious, but we really didn’t think they would use them for the rest of the tournament,” Cahill said. “We were wrong. They really hugged him!”
Among the spectators of that Tiktok, by the way, were the people of Goat’d, who sent Braxton a couple of gloves as a result.
The good news is that Cahill will not have to buy one for Braxton this spring. However, there is something else he has learned over the years: this time in the life of his children is fleeting.
For sample, just look at his calendar. Their two older children, who played baseball just like Braxton and asked for all the great things that their teammates had, left baseball when they reached high school.
Your advice for parents who could be feeling the financial pressure of what is needed to play these days is: relax.
“We have learned as parents to stop taking it so seriously,” he said. “They are children. Let them have fun.” ______
This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
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