There are many different reasons that players choose to pitch with both arms. Some are taught this way from a very young age, and encouraged to do so by their fathers as it makes them more flexible as a player. Others do it simply to switch things up and to give their dominant arm a rest, only to find themselves becoming quite good with their non dominant arm. Some players switch to their non-dominant pitching arm after an injury, and keep pitching with both arms even after the injury has healed.
In this article we are going to look at some of the different ambidextrous baseball gloves you will find on the market. Can you buy a glove that works equally well with both hands, or do you need to get separate right and left handed gloves? Keep reading to find out more.
What kind of gloves can you get?
It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but there aren’t a huge amount of these kinds of ambidextrous gloves for sale on the market. However, famous players such as Pat Venditte have made being ambidextrous much more popular, so a few models can be found here and there. Pat Venditte used a custom made glove designed by Mizuno in his earlier years, which was never sold to the general public as far as we know.
They released the Mizuno GMP 1A which was similar to the model Pat Venditte uses, which was a fairly large 6 finger reversible glove. However, this model has now been phased out so quite hard to find. Paul Venditte now uses a custom Louisville Slugger TPX glove, which again doesn’t seem to be available to the public. The initial design for this was a 6 finger version, which was phased out and replaced with a 5 finger version where the thumb hole on either end can accommodate both the pinky and the ring fingers.
Louisville Slugger then introduced the LHRHBBG model to the retail market for around $399, which stands for left hand right hand base ball glove. Sadly this model also seems to have been discontinued now, so your best option for finding one of these is on the second hand market.
These two models were the most popular ones at the time, but there are a few other choices below if you want a new glove.
Carpenter Trade Ambidextrous Baseball Glove
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It is made out of a tough synthetic material, which Carpenter Trade claim is far superior to traditional leather. This means it must be broken in differently to a leather glove, and this is done simply by using the glove as normal. We should note that you must not use heat or liquids to break in this glove, as this can damage the material. |
Akadema ABX-00 Ambidextrous Baseball Glove
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Akadema has gone for the 6 finger design, which works well enough. It is made out of Pro Soft leather which is good enough, and will certainly last a few years. At that price it is certainly hard to complain. |
Summary
That is a look at some of the various ambidextrous gloves you can currently get. The custom designed Carpenter Trade glove is the pick of the bunch if you can afford it, thanks to the customizability of the glove. However don’t discount the much cheaper Akadema ABX-00 which is still quite good, and really is great value for money. These are two of the currently sold models we could find, so if you have any more models to suggest please let us know in the comments below.