LOS ANGELES — When Seattle Mariners third baseman Eugenio Suárez misses a ground ball, he shoves his face into his glove and has a few choice words for his leather companion.
“I’ll say, ‘Come on, come on,'” he recently recalled in Spanish. “‘If I don’t eat, you don’t eat.'”
Yes, Suárez is talking to his glove. It doesn’t have a name, but he admitted it’s like a person to him. “It’s with me and helps me to do my best on the field,” he said. And as a result, he goes out of his way to make sure his buddy is comfortable.
Suárez, 31, doesn’t put him on the floor, but rather let him rest on a bench or rack. He said it in his locker always has its own shelf. In his travel duffel bag, he has a suitcase and a space of his own. But what if a teammate wants to touch it?
“That’s possible, but use? No,’ he said. “A hand inside? I do not like that.”
Baseball players are a headstrong and superstitious bunch. The Major League Baseball season is arduously long: 162 regular season games over six months, excluding six weeks of spring training and one month of the playoffs if a team reaches the World Series. So players naturally develop routines to add some semblance of order. And when they’re successful on the field, habits tend to stick — even if the difference is only in their head.
So Suárez, in his ninth major league season, is no different from many other baseball players who have, say, special relationships with their gloves.
“I care like it’s my wife,” Willson Contreras, an All-Star catcher for the Chicago Cubs, said with a smile. ‘It’s my baby. It’s the most precious thing I have in my locker.”
Santiago Espinal, an All-Star second baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays, also sees his glove as family: “It’s like my son. There are even times when I sleep with my glove on. If I buy a new glove, I sleep with it.” (Technically, he clarified, the glove sleeps on his nightstand.)
As a catcher, it makes sense that Contreras, 30, has deep feelings about his glove. But the elements (heat, dryness, humidity) and pitchers are throwing harder than ever (the average four-seam fastball was 93.9 miles per hour this season) wear and tear Contreras’ most essential tools quickly. He does his best to pamper him so he can get through the season, then he donates the glove at the end of the year.
“If I could use the glove for more than a year, I would,” he said. “But I have to change them.”
The same goes for Yadier Molina, the St. Louis Cardinals catcher who has won nine Gold Glove Awards over his 19-season career and plans to retire after the 2022 campaign. Molina said he cleaned his glove regularly, but that he still had to introduce a new one every year. His teammate, shortstop Paul DeJong, said he learned how to care for his 5-year-old glove with a leather spray almost every day, in part by watching Molina do it.
“I have to take care of them because they take care of me,” says Molina, 40.
Some players are so attached to their gloves that they will do anything to keep them in action. Trea Turner, the All-Star shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers, reluctantly admitted that this is the first season that his leather friend, whom he’s been using for at least four seasons, is starting to look “old.” Then he corrected himself: “It’s actually not that bad.”
(Note: It’s pretty bad.)
“I think it’s the West Coast because it’s a little drier,” said Turner, 29, who spent parts of seven seasons with the Washington Nationals before being traded to the Dodgers during the 2021 season.
‘Because on the East Coast,’ he continued, ‘that humidity keeps the moisture in the glove. So I’ve had to take more care of the glove this year and small holes are starting to appear in it. I’m trying to find patches for it. I try to keep it alive as long as possible.”
However, Turner plans to retire it before it reaches the level of a former teammate. Jordy Mercer, an infielder who was also at the 2021 Nationals, used a glove that was more than 10 years oldwas held together by stitches and looked like it belonged in a museum rather than a field.
“It was pretty nasty,” Turner said. ‘I’ll need a new glove before then. I don’t really like how he felt, so I’m trying to keep mine alive.”
Jeff McNeil, the All-Star second baseman for the Mets, disagrees that gloves have an expiration date. He has been using the same glove since 2013, the year he was drafted by the Mets in the 12th round. He originally had two, but he dropped one after his first season and turned it into a frame. The second is still going.
“It’s thin, and it’s not the best. But it works for me,” said McNeil, 30, who reached the major leagues in 2018. “It’s broken perfectly. Once an infielder gets that glove, they use it for a long time.”
McNeil said a ball once found its way through the loose weave of his torn glove, so he had it re-tied. He also had it “completely repaired” by a professional once, but holes remain. “It’s my baby,” he added.
Despite all that affection, McNeil isn’t perfect. When he makes a mistake, he admits – grinning – that he found an opportunity to throw his glove on the floor. And behind the back of his glove, he is secretly forming a new relationship.
“I’m in the process of breaking in another one now,” he said, “and it will probably be ready in two years.”
Several players said they didn’t have much to say about their gloves, no matter how often they use them. But even among those who insisted they weren’t picky about their gloves, there was a common third rail.
“Don’t put your hand in there and grab ground balls,” said Xander Bogaerts, an All-Star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox. Dansby Swanson, an All-Star shortstop for Atlanta, added, “I just don’t want people to stretch it.”
Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals third baseman to have won the Platinum Glove Award five times as the best fielder in the National League, has the same red line.
“A big no-no,” said Arenado, 31, who is in his second season wearing his current gauntlet. “If anyone wants to feel my glove, yes, go ahead. If you try to put your hand in it, I’ll say, ‘No man, don’t do that.’ I’ll stop them before they do. It’s not that their hand is bigger or smaller than mine. I just don’t want anyone to put their hand in my glove.”
Some find the rules about other players and gloves a bit extreme.
“Some guys love that, like they won’t let you put your hand in it or even barely touch it,” said Mariners shortstop JP Crawford, who won a Gold Glove Award in 2020 and normally wears a new glove every season. . “That’s a little too much.”
Some players – outfielders and pitchers – were not at all concerned about their leathers. “I’m a pitcher, so I don’t care, and I’m not a great field pitcher,” said Mariners reliever Paul Sewald. When asked about his habits, Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ superstar outfielder, didn’t even know where his glove was in his locker at the time.
“If I were playing infield, I would probably be a little superstitious there,” he said. “You take grounders, and you have to have a certain feel for it. It’s a different relationship. In the outfield, it’s like, ‘Catch the catch. Come on, friend.’”
Although he is an infielder, Minnesota Twins All-Star Luis Arraez said he wasn’t too concerned about his gloves, tossing them to the ground and letting them get a little damp. He said he would clean them and talk to them occasionally, saying, “Behave yourself, we’re going to play well today.”
However, Arraez reserves his extra attention for his bats. “My babies,” he said. He sometimes sleeps with a smaller bat that he uses for his pregame practice next to his bed.
“I’ll put it next to me,” he said, “and say, ‘Honey, we’re going to do my routine tomorrow, so behave yourself.'”