We just finished a glove last week and the customer asked us straight up: “How do I keep this from getting junked up again?” Short answer: ball in the pocket, upright on the fingertips, and keep it out of the car. That's it. Those three habits do more for a glove than anything else you'll read on the internet.
Longer answer below. Everything in this post is what we actually tell customers when they drop a glove off at the shop in Prosper. No conditioner upsells, no hundred-dollar glove kits. Just the parts that matter.
The one-sentence rule
If your glove spends more than a day away from your hand, there should be a ball sitting in the pocket, and the glove should be standing upright on its fingertips. That's the move for the car ride home from the game, the week between practices, the four months between fall ball and spring.
Here's why. Composite leather has a “memory.” Whatever shape the leather sits in for a while, it starts to default to. Fingers folded closed around a ball means the pocket stays deep and the break line stays engaged. Fingers splayed flat means the pocket flattens out and you lose everything we just worked for on the Mitt Master press.
Two positions that work
- Upright on the fingertips, ball in the pocket. Our favorite. Add a soft wrist band or a bungee strap around the closure to hold it shut. You can leave a glove like this for the entire winter and come back to the same shape in the spring.
- Flat on a shelf, ball in the pocket. Totally fine. The one rule here is: nothing on top of it. Not another glove, not a bat, not a bag. Padding shifts under weight and never fully bounces back.
That's really it for daily storage. Everything else people worry about is downstream of these two choices.
Where it dies: three habits we see all the time
1. Crushed under gear
The bottom of the bat bag. The bottom of the gear bin in the dugout. The bottom of the pile in the garage. Weight on top of a glove flattens the pocket, shifts the padding, and bends laces into creases they shouldn't live in. If the glove has to live in a bag, it goes on top with a ball in the pocket. Not underneath.
2. Hanging by a lace
Looks tidy. Kills the glove. All the weight pulls down on one lace, the lace stretches over weeks, the fingers droop uneven, and the leather creases wherever gravity decides. If you want it hanging for visibility, hang it by the wrist strap, not the laces. Better yet, don't hang it at all.
3. Left in a hot car
This one is a Texas problem. A trunk in a Prosper parking lot in July hits 140°F easily. At that temperature, the oils in the leather separate out, the fibers dry out, and the laces get brittle. We've seen more gloves killed by June through September trunk storage than by any other single thing. Grab it out of the car when you get home. Every time.
The climate it wants
Leather is happy in the same range you are: 60 to 75 degrees, 40 to 60 percent humidity. Below 30 percent humidity dries it out and the leather gets stiff. Above 70 percent invites mildew. Neither of those are usually a problem indoors in Prosper. The problems are outdoors or in uninsulated spaces: garage, attic, shed, trunk. Keep gloves inside the climate-controlled part of the house and you're done thinking about this.
Should you oil it before storing?
This is where we part ways with a lot of other glove shops. The honest answer depends on how old the glove is.
If it's a new glove or one we recently broke in: no. Not even a little. Oil bonds permanently to leather collagen and never comes back out. Over seasons it changes the weight, the feel, and the color. We've written the full case against oiling new gloves here.
If it's an aged glove that's getting dry and brittle: a very small amount of real glove conditioner (not neatsfoot oil, not Vaseline, not anything from your kitchen) is reasonable. Rub a dime-sized amount into the palm with a clean cloth, let it absorb overnight, wipe off excess. Once or twice a year. Not every month.
If you're not sure which category your glove falls in, text us a photo at (972) 433-5618. We'll tell you honestly.
The 30-second end-of-season checklist
After your last game of the fall, before the glove goes on the shelf:
- Brush off dirt and dried infield dust with a soft brush or a dry rag. Don't use water.
- If there's sweat on the leather, let it air-dry at room temperature. Never a heater, never a hair dryer, never the oven. (Yes, people put gloves in ovens. Don't.)
- Check the laces. Loose ones should be re-tightened or replaced before next season, not after a lace snaps mid-game.
- Put a baseball or small softball in the pocket. Secure it with a wrist band or bungee if you have one.
- Stand it upright on a closet shelf, fingertips down. Or lay it flat with nothing on top.
Done. See you in February.
Steam, oven, microwave: don't
Every six months someone on YouTube re-discovers the microwave trick. Short list of things that destroy a glove: steam, boiling water, ovens, microwaves, pressure cookers, leaving it in a bucket of warm water. The leather fibers come apart, the padding migrates, the pocket collapses. We've seen it. We can't fix it. Full writeup on why steaming kills gloves.
If a glove needs real break-in work, the only way we do it without wrecking it is the Mitt Master pneumatic press. 90 PSI of controlled compressed air, no heat, no water. Fielding gloves are usually ready in a few hours.
If you're in DFW
If you want to drop a glove off instead of ship it, we meet at 1180 N Coit Rd, Prosper, TX. Order the Local Drop-Off / Meetup service, text (972) 433-5618 when you arrive, and we come out within a few minutes. Most fielding gloves are back the same day.
Mail-in works nationwide. Full details here.
Questions on your specific glove? Text us a photo and tell us the brand, model, and how long you've had it. We'll give you a straight answer, no upsell. (972) 433-5618.