How to lace a baseball glove?

If you are an avid baseball player, pitcher or otherwise, you will more than likely own a baseball glove. If you are really into the sport for professional reasons or even play it for your high school team, you will want to know how to lace up your baseball glove.

This is a guide to help you do just that. Since you sometimes need to re-lace your baseball gloves, this is the perfect place to start.

How do I know I need to re-lace my baseball glove?

This is partly personal preference and also based on how damaged the lacing on the glove is. If you have left the glove for a long time and the lacing is looking worse for wear, you may want to buy some new lacing and start again.

If your lacing as simply come loose, you can go down the rethreading route with the same lacing.

I need to replace the laces, what tools do I need?

Chances are, you might already own some of these things around the house. But if not, here is a list of items you will need that are essential for re-lacing a baseball glove.

• Laces: these are obviously the most important part. If you are going down the route of completely re-lacing your glove you will need a fresh set of laces. You can find baseball glove laces in sports stores or even online.
• A wire cutter: this is to cut the excess lace off when you are done lacing, since the lacing is made from a thick leather.
• Baseball glove needle: this is specific to lacing a baseball glove, it looks like a typical sewing needle, except that it is thicker, and the eye is much wider to allow for the lacing to fit through.
• Conditioner: you can use this product to help lubricate the laces before you lace them into the glove. Also used on the rest of the glove.

Now that I have the tools, what do I do?

Firstly, you need to remove the laces from the glove, whether you are rethreading them or using completely new laces. This is the first step for both of those routes.

You can take the glove apart piece by piece instead of taking it all apart at the same time if you are nervous to re-lace your glove or it is your first time.

To make this step easier, you can take a picture of your glove, this way you can refer to the picture when it comes to re-lacing. Make sure that you use the conditioner liberally on all of the parts of your glove that you normally would not be able to reach, e.g. under all of the stitching.

Set this old lacing aside if you are not going to use it again or keep it to hand if you are relacing with it.

I’ve taken the laces out, how do I put them back in?

There are a few areas of the glove that will have different lacing patterns to them. So, we are going to section them off for ease. This way you can get a detailed description of each part when you are re-lacing your baseball glove.

Before we start the lacing process, take your old or brand-new lace and condition them with your leather conditioning product of choice. This will make sure they are lubricated enough to be malleable and easy to work with.

Re-lacing the palm

This can be the trickiest part of the glove to lace because you need to make sure you are getting all of the slots for your fingers correct and don’t cut them off.

• Take a piece of your leather lace and make a single knot.
• Thread the needle with the lace.
• On the back of the glove, insert the needle through the top pinky hole, then trace this down to the palm of the glove. Go in and out hole to hole.
• Make sure your lace is smooth side up, facing you and flat.
• The pattern here should be lace x3, space, lace x3.
• Make sure you do not lace over the pinky loop, pull it aside and lace under it.
• You will notice the end when you reach the webbing area, tie a single knot here to end the palm lacing.

Re-lacing the heel

• Starting at whichever end suits you, enter the needle from right to left.
• You are going to be making loops with the lacing, the excess can be sewn into these loops, so there is no need to tie knots. So, you re-enter the first hole to anchor the stitch.
• Then follow down the three holes (typical for a baseball glove) in a spiral stitch motion.
• Once you have left the area open for you hand to slide into the glove, you can reattach the rest of the glove with the same stitches following along the heel stitch holes.
• Make the same loop stitch at the last hole that you did for the first hole in order to secure the lace.

Re-lacing the webbing

• Put the needle through the top right hole of the I-web and leave some excess when you pull the lace through.
• Pull the lace through the bottom top hole of the glove once it is through the web.
• Then you need to pull the lace through the top part of the web, leaving a little bit of space between the web and the glove itself.
• You need to do this from the outside of the webbing to the middle and then on the other side.
• Once you have the two excess pieces, tie them together.
• Repeat this for the bottom of the web.

Re-lacing the fingers

• Tie a knot at the end of the lace.
• Notice the way that the spiral stitching points in your reference picture and start at the appropriate end at the top hole of the finger.
• Hole two will see your needle enter at the bottom hole.
• Return the needle to the first finger but this time go through the bottom hole.
• Repeat these steps making a cross shape at the back and front of the fingers.
• Once you get to the spirals, refer to the direction in your image and begin a spiral stitch.
• Tie a knot at the very knot to end the lacing.