The baseball glove is one of the more unusual and therefore famous accessories in the sport of baseball. Unlike in the English created sport of cricket where fielders aim catch the ball with their bare hands, in baseball the players on the defending team are allowed to wear baseball gloves to protect their hands and also aid them in catching the ball. The baseball glove is larger than a usual glove, with an extremely large surface area or catching zone, designed to enable the fielder to make some incredible catches which can be real crowd pleasers.

However, originally the game of baseball was played without gloves just like cricket, but soon progressed to smaller gloves with finger holes through to normal-sized gloves and then onto the larger more commercial and indeed specialised baseball gloves of today. This progress is in part driven the commercialisation of the sport of baseball and the sponsorship and manufacturing opportunities that are provided by these advancements.

The baseball glove is made from leather, but there are also different types of baseball gloves depending on who is wearing them and what position they are in. There are catcher's mitts, first basemen's mitts, infielders' gloves, pitcher's gloves and outfielder's gloves, all of which vary slightly to be optimised for the role that the individual in that position plays. For example, a first basemen's mitts lacks individual fingers, like the catcher's mitts, and are very large to allow them to pick up bad throws by infielders. Also because first basemen are very often left handed, most first basemen's mitts are readily available for the right hand.

Naturally there are a lot of different baseball glove manufacturers, with Louisville Slugger, Akadema, Nokona, Rawlings (who incidentally sponsor 50% of the Major League Baseball players' gloves), Spalding, Wilson and Nike being some of the main players in the baseball glove market.

More baseball equipment: Baseball Hats