Baseball catching means

A baseball catching means comprises a front ply defining a ball receiving area and a lining ply disposed over a back face of the front ply. The lining ply is provided with a padding material attached to a back face thereof.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to ball catching means including varied types of 
glove and mitt for use in baseball games. 
Generally, a baseball glove has a ball receiving side formed by a front ply 
defining a ball receiving surface and a lining ply disposed over a back 
face of the front ply and coming into contact with a player's hand. In 
order to ease a ball impact, a felt material usually is applied to the 
front ply or the lining ply except a portion thereof defining a pocket (or 
a palm portion). A heel portion of the glove contains a thick absorbing 
material. On the other hand, the portion of the glove extending from the 
pocket to finger pieces is provided with only a thin felt material to 
facilitate ball catching movements. 
It is, however, crotch portions of first-finger and second-finger pieces 
including no thick shock absorbing material that undergo the strongest 
ball impact. Therefore, according to recent practice, a hole is defined in 
a back portion of the first-finger piece to permit the player to keep his 
first finger out of the glove to ease the ball impact. However, such a 
modification is inadequate to ease the ball impact and has a disadvantage 
of slackening the ball catching movement of the first finger. 
An improved construction has been devised wherein a shock absorbing 
material is inserted between the front ply and the lining ply at the 
pocket portion of the glove. Normally the pocket portion contains grease 
between the front ply and the lining ply, and it has been found that the 
shock absorbing material and the grease tend to mix together and as a 
result the shock abosrbing material deteriorates in its function. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
It is the object of this invention to provide a baseball catching means 
which overcomes the disadvantage of the prior art as noted above and 
produces an excellent shock absorbing effect. 
In order to achieve the above object, a baseball catching means according 
to this invention comprises a front ply defining a ball catching area, a 
back ply defining a back side of the ball catching means, a lining ply 
disposed over a back face of the front ply and defining a back face, and 
padding means attached to the back face of the lining ply. 
Since the above padding means is disposed on the back face of the lining 
ply, namely the ply that contacts a player's hand, the padding means 
produces a sufficient shock absorbing effect in contrast with the case of 
the padding disposed between the front ply and the lining ply, which is 
prone to mixing with the grease to deteriorate its shock absorbing effect. 
Furthermore, since the padding means is attached to the back face of the 
lining ply, the padding means may be attached to any desired part of the 
back face in addition to the part corresponding to the first-finger piece. 
The construction according to this invention also has an advantage that 
the padding means may be attached without changing designs of the front 
and other plies and without changing a glove stitching process. 
Other advantages of this invention will be appararent from the following 
description.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
Referring to FIG. 1, a baseball glove comprises a back ply 1 defining back 
sides of a plurality of thumb and finger pieces. As shown in FIG. 2, the 
glove further comprises a front ply 2 defining a ball receiving area A and 
front sides of the thumb and finger pieces. The front ply 2 is backed by a 
lining ply 3 formed of a softer leather material than the back and front 
plies 1, 2. A shock absorbing felt material 4 is provided between the 
front ply 2 and the lining ply 3, which felt material 4 lies in the ball 
receiving area A except a pocket B, namely except a palm portion and 
crotch portions of a first-finger piece 1a and a second-finger piece 1b. 
The front ply 2 and the lining ply 3 contain grease 5 in a position 
therebetween corresponding to the pocket B. Number 6 denotes a padding 
stitched by means of a retainer member 7 to a back face of the lining ply 
3 and extending from intermediate positions inside the first-finger piece 
1a and the second-finger piece 1b to a portion corresponding to the pocket 
B. While in this embodiment the padding 6 comprises urethane, the padding 
6 may comprise any other material that has a shock absorbing property. 
The padding may have a double layer structure, with an additional layer 
shown by a phantom line 6' in FIG. 1. In this instance the additional 
padding layer 6' extends over a portion undergoing strong ball receiving 
impacts, other portions being provided with a single layer of the padding 
6 only. Depending on the type glove, the single layer of the padding 6 may 
have a varying thickness instead of providing the additional layer 6'. The 
padding, with or without the additional layer 6', may extend over a larger 
area than in the described embodiment. Furthermore, the padding 6 may be 
attached to the lining ply by using an adhesive instead of stitching.