Liberty Glove + Pitching

[Bucket Mom]

My DD uses a Liberty glove while pitching and people have made comments that her glove is illegal to use while pitching. One umpire tried to call her on it and the others have said that it is fine since it is not the color of the ball. Does anyone know the real answer?

[sftballjnkie]

One of our pitchers uses that glove as well and we have looked up the rule to make sure there was no issue. As long as the glove is not the same color as the ball, it is OK.

[Bucket Mom]

That's all I could find in the rules too. Thanks, I just wanted to make sure I was not missing something since other people keep making comments about it.

[bucketdad96]

Is the color of the embroidered stitching, such as the green stitching on the Mizuno glove, considered to make the color of the glove the same as the ball?

[Sftbll4ever]

Depends on the blue. Most will say it is fine. Others will make you color it in or cover it with duct tape.

Again, I think it comes down to if the pitcher is kicking butt or not.

[Bucket Mom]

You are dead on. No one ever says a word about it unless the pitcher is shutting them down, then all of a sudden it is a huge distraction. We have seen this happen on more than one occasion.

I have seen umpires make the call on the Mizuno Glove with the neon green/yellow stitching, which still in my book is totally lame. If your batter cannot tell the difference between the ball and a Mizuno label then they probably should not be playing travel ball. We have also seen a pitcher called for the Gold label on a black Rawlings Gold Glove.

[Bretman]

Another thing that confuses the issue is that every sanctioning body has a different rule about the pitcher's glove.

The ASA rule is above. The high school rule says that a glove can be a maximum of two colors, unless otherwise judged by the umpire to be distracting. The laces of the glove and the manufacturer's logo are not considered to be one of the two colors permitted, so they can be a third color. Gloves may not be entirely white, grey or optic yellow (which means a mostly white glove, like the Worth Liberty, with a blue pocket should be okay).

The prohibition against white or grey gloves seems kind of archaic, with optic yellow balls being the norm nowadays. In high school baseball, a glove with any white or grey is illegal for a pitcher, even just a little white stitching in the glove logo.

If you play multiple sanctions- ASA, FED, NSA, USSSA, AFA, etcetera, etcetera- you will be dealing with a separate rule for each sanction. And, separate umpires with separate ideas of what constitutes "distracting", as well as ones who mix-up the rule from one to another.

What's a pitcher to do? Check the rule for the sanctioning body your game is being played under. Be prepared to defend your glove choice to a misinformed blue by citing the proper rule. And keep a back-up glove handy in the dugout...just in case!

[2bucketdad]

My oldest dd uses one and always has her back up glove in the bat bag. It really porks them up when they whine, and the pitcher just changes gloves with no arguement.

[Skarp]

I always love when it when the other team tries to nit pick something about a pitcher. You never hear them bring up those arguments when they are launching bombs off her, only when they are struggling.

Well duh....