They were selling the Ultimate Weapon for 140 and metal Worth for $80 so their prices are ridiculous but there's not too many options around here do that's where most people will go. They had spots for 3 HOH gloves, only 1 actually there, all were full 249.99 retail, no A2000. The 2 Mizuno MVP's were powder blue with orange lace & I immediately put them back when I noticed an extra piece of leather over the heal of the glove, like a hood to cover the heel laces, cut edge of the leather just hanging out there.
That's the current reality for brick & mortar operations. The inherent costs of operating such a business (employee's, utilities, rent, insurance, etc.......) dictate the price premiums on low traffic items (baseball/softball items fall into this category). The only items that you usually see discounted are high traffic items such as clothes or sneakers. Stuff that gets customers into the store......
That's what I'm talking about, they easily had >200 gloves there, 195 of them were pleather toys with neon or some gimmick, 4 $150 mediocre gloves, and 1 HOH. Can't believe there isn't at least some decent mediocre options.
Visited the parents yesterday, mom busts out the photo albums to show my little clone pics of when I was young. The Wilson glove I had for little league looked badass, beautiful orange tan with clean split welting between each finger stall and I know it had to be a cheap cheapie back then. I don't remember much about that glove but I do remember my Dale Murphy Rawlings. Had a small one, then a big one, both a pain in the ass to break in but tough as hell and the thought never crossed my mind that a ball might have a chance at bending the glove over backwards.
I felt like Ron Burgundy in that store, time just passed me by.
Different time, different era, different mentality............
I don't know how old you are but I can tell you that from my own perspective, a lot of things have changed & not all of the change has been for the better, IMHO. When I was of LL age, all serious gloves were made in the USA. Anything "plastic" was considered a toy for toddlers & made in Japan or China. All bats were made of wood. No tape on bat handles. No one wore batting gloves (callouses were a rite of summer). No one complained about their child being on the bench. You either practiced & got better or you stayed there! Nobody played down.........
My first A2000? Well, I was HS age & I worked & paid for it myself!
I had the 1st color TV in our house. Same story there as well!
Exactly, I used to think much over $200 was kinda silly for a glove but those customs aren't bad at all compared to the bricks and mortar around here. $250 for the one stock HOH they had there, absolutely ridiculous. I think $300 is my new $200 limit.
And herein lies the problem..........
Do you, as a consumer, accept it & continue to give your business to companies who are giving you a lesser product while continuing to increase the price or do you look for alternatives? I say, "Look for alternatives!" They're out there....... You have Glovesmith, for one, but there're many, many more (Kelley, Nokona, Vinci, Akadema, etc.......). Personally, I would rather search for an alternative & send a message to the big guys. It's the only thing they'll understand. Doing it your way by adjusting your pricing perspective plays in to what they want. Now's not the time to be myopic.
I'm a lowly E/Rec ball player but I hit about like you're buddy, there's a lot of guys around that hit every bit as hard as I do, and there's guys that hit harder. I couldn't imagine having to use some of those plastic gloves out there against the hot shots. I've had a couple guys comment on being afraid trying to field my hits, now I'm wondering if it was more their glove than my hitting. I have a $80 14" Rawlings GG from >5yrs ago that I didn't feel was safe and it's still better than what's out there now. Went back to my smaller quality gloves and never worried about it again.
It makes more sense to me now how the myriad of different Mexican customs have taken off around this area in recent years. They are a hell of a lot more solid option for the price than this box store stuff. Use to be able to buy high end gloves locally 20yr ago, my USA HOH's and Japan A2000's were all local purchases.
Is 37 too young to be old & crotchety or do I meet the age requirement?
There is little doubt that the current trend of the average rec player searching out higher quality gloves is related to the advent of "plastic" bats. Is it just coincidence that as composite bats became the norm, midrange gloves were dumbed down & the high-end glove market pushed upwards price-wise? First Worth tenuously entered the high-end softball glove market followed by LS & now Wilson. I wouldn't be surprised to see both Mizuno & Rawlings do something at some point.
Mexican gloves, especially in your area of the country, are nothing new. It's just that with the increase of OEM manufacturing almost anyone can now have a startup glove company.
Your being crotchety is not a function of age. It's more due to the inability of being able to walk into a store & handle a glove that you're interested in. It can be frustrating playing the guessing game on the internet.
I remember my first internet glove purchase in the late 90's. It was 2 Nokona's. An AMG600 & a BM76. Even then it was only after handling an AMG600 in a store first & I still wound up not keeping either one. Nowadays buying a glove is a bit like playing the stock market. You gather as much info as you can & take your chances..........
