Since players started using them in the late 19th century, baseball gloves have been made of one thing: leather. The first gloves were not much to look at, they weren’t much more than your average unpadded driving glove. Over time, they have morphed into complex, computer-engineered works of art. Heck, you can even pay $500 for a glove made from the finest Italian leather. However, as with everything in this world, change is inevitable. Recent advances in synthetics, such as the ones we utilize at Jason Mills, have made it possible to produce high-quality ball gloves from something other than leather. A company out of the spiritual home of baseball, Cooperstown, NY (home of the Baseball Hall of Fame), is now making custom gloves completely out of nylon microfibers.
Why is this innovation so important? Why should you care about a baseball glove? Well, it’s a great example of how the world is becoming more and more reliant on high-quality polyester and nylon fabrics and textiles. If the iconic leather baseball glove can be upgraded with synthetic materials, it means that even the tradition-bound world of baseball can change. It is going to take a long time for nylon to supplant leather, but the process has begun. At Jason Mills, we don’t make baseball gloves, but we do make and distribute the industrial and custom polyester and nylon fabrics that are the future of manufacturing.
Who knows? You might well be seeing our nylon under glass at Cooperstown next to Ty Cobb’s leather glove in a hundred years from now.