About three years ago, when my baseball glove repair service (volunteer!) was kicking in, I came across a classic example of how you can repair a baseball glove that most people would consider trashed and have it end up looking ten years younger.

I was watching one of the coaches throwing BP and he was using probably one of the worst gloves I've ever seen someone use. He could only catch the ball right in the palm, basically, because just about all of the finger lacing was broken or gone and the glove was really just flopping around. It was a little stupid looking, but he'd been using it like this for a while so no one really thought about it.

After he was done throwing, he threw the glove down on one of the bat bags and went to get something to drink. I couldn't resist so I picked the glove up. I just had to give it a look. It was an another old Rawlings from the early 80's...a lefty.

I gave it a quick inspection and realized that this glove had a ton of potential. Below are some important inspection tips that I use to help determine if a glove is really still good. Here's what I saw.

• Although the glove was extremely dry, one of the driest I had yet seen, there were no parts of the leather that were extremely cracked, very hard or looked rotted out.
  
• Although most of the lacing was broken or missing, the "eyelets" (the metal rings where the leather laces go through) were in good shape and did not have rips in the leather where they were attached. The other leather holes were in equally good shape.
  
• And last, it was, of course, just a little dirty and dusty...years of that, really.

And that's it! That's all that was wrong with the glove. I knew this was going to look cool when it was done.

When the coach came back I asked him if he wanted me to see if I could make his glove a little more useful. (didn't want to make any great promises yet). He kind of laughed, but said, "Go 'head, if you want." I did, and I took the glove home.

That night I cleaned it up, got all of the dirt off. The next day I replaced all of the lacing...full glove. I then conditioned it. The glove was so dry it was sucking up conditioner like crazy. Even to this day, it holds the record for me. I let it dry for two more days. I couldn't believe how it now looked and felt.

When I gave the glove back to him four days later, I just tossed it at him as he walked toward me. He caught it and I could tell as he looked at the glove that he didn't really recognize it. When he realized that it was the old High School glove that he used years ago, he just blurted out some stuff that I won't repeat here, but you can guess. In any case, he was shocked at how good the glove looked.

It now had all new lacing. The color was totally different because the leather was so dry before that it was much lighter than what it originally was. The glove was now a dark tan. The leather was soft and flexible. It really looked and felt great. The guy was very happy with the glove and I could tell he couldn't believe that it could look and feel like that again. Two years later I saw the glove laying in a bat bag again. I picked it up and again inspected it. It still looked great, even two years later. That's good stuff!

This is just one glove out of many that I repaired with similar results. This one probably had the most dramatic results, though. With a little baseball glove repair skills under your belt you can make a lot of gloves new again and make a lot of kids and parents happy. Just remember, as a quick inspection of a glove that needs repair, look for the following:

• Check the leather. Make sure it's just dirty and dry and has no major damage.
  
• Check the eyelets and other leather holes. There shouldn't be large tears around eyelets or big rips in other leather holes.
  
• Get an idea of what lacing job lies ahead of you.

So before you throw an older glove out, or see someone giving up on their glove, take a look at it...give it a little inspection and see if you can work some magic too.

Good luck and have fun!