First Gloves: George Kell

There is a pretty good chance that George Kell owes his place in the Hall of Fame to the quirky timing of baseball’s rule book.

I’ll be honest, when I see George Kell’s name I think two things, and two things only:

1. The dude really doesn’t belong in Cooperstown.

2. He cost Ted Williams a third Triple Crown.

The two things are probably related, as I’ll show in a moment, and they comprise the full data set of my thoughts about George Kell, even when I ran across a social media post from the indispensable Jimmy Lonetti at D&J Glove Repair that included this fabulous glove endorsed by Kell:

It’s hard to see Kell’s signature, but trust me that it’s running up the pocket side of the pinkie. You can probably make our the “LL” toward the tip of it.