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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Golf Gloves, Kellogg's Cards and Hawk Harrelson

Ken Harrelson's baseball career ended early.  He switched to playing golf for about ten years.  In nine professional events he made one cut, winning $570.  He did play in the British Open in 1972.   He made over $3,000 in two Champions Tour events.

Hawk went from baseball to golf and then back to baseball.  He went from announcer to GM to announcer.  He's not well-liked as an announcer in Chicago.  I think he's great because he talks about the game and its history.  Even though other sports tend to ignore their past, baseball is all about its place in history.


 1970 Card with a glove!


When Harrelson quit to play golf I had the chance to caddie for him around 1980.  He was being sponsored by The Yellow Pages so he had this ugly bag, ugly golf balls and ugly black and yellow golf clothes.  The round was uneventful and he certainly had a strong golf game.  I didn't ever get autographs when I caddied since the fun was just hanging around with the athletes, actors and politicians that I saw many times at the golf course.

Harrelson's place in baseball history is quite secure, although probably not due to his time as a GM.  A few players experimented with golf gloves in batting practice to keep from getting blisters, but Harrelson is the first to have worn them in a game.  He brought that over from golf and the blisters that can form when practicing too much.

Rusty Staub is credited with being the first player to wear batting gloves on a daily basis.  He really looked different.  Now a player looks different if they don't use a glove.

I will take a closer look at this one to see about a glove 


Mike Schmidt helped make Franklin gloves popular.  They are now the official glove of MLB.  Players certainly have specific gloves now instead of golf gloves.  There are even base-running gloves.

There is the glove.  Is it a Franklin.  I need to zoom in.


In our Little League we were never allowed to use batting gloves or aluminum bats.  And we liked it!

In a future post I will check to see what other players are wearing batting gloves in their Kellogg's card photos.

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