First Gloves: Willie Wilson

While I will happily take note of anyone who posts online about their first baseball glove, and will guiltlessly steal the photos they post when I write about them, there really isn’t anything better than running across a cool older glove in the wild.

That’s what happened last weekend when I stumbled upon this gorgeous thing:

First of all, Willie Wilson had a great signature, and I wish they hadn’t altered it in the glove. I know sometimes players write so illegibly that the glove manufacturer has to clean it up so people can actually read it, but that wasn’t necessary in Wilson’s case. His actual signature is clear as a bell, and more distinctive than the generic version in this glove. Especially the way he wrote the “W” in both parts of his name.

I love how each W swoops up at the end, finishing much higher than he started. Sort of like how he’d field balls that required him to climb an outfield wall.

Anyway, they should have left his signature alone, but I’m glad the folks at MacGregor had begun using the slogan “The Athlete’s Choice” in their gloves, because that’s a particularly fitting term to appear on any equipment Willie Wilson used. The guy was an athletic marvel. A gifted high school football player who idolized Gale Sayers, he was all set to attend the University of Maryland on a football scholarship when the Kansas City Royals took him in the first round of the 1974 June draft. Though he was a catcher in high school who wanted to emulate Manny Sanguillen, the Royals pretty quickly realized that anyone who could run the way he could belonged in the outfield.