The Glove of the Day

It was a quiet (not boring) saturday night in our home. My wife and I attempted to go out to the movies, drove to the theatre, parked about a half mile away (should have been our first clue) and stood in line as the movie we wanted to see flashed "sold out" . . . so we went home, opened a bottle of wine and watched Across the Universe.

Ok truth be told, I had baseball cards on my mind and was looking through my "vintage" cards while sipping wine, eating popcorn, listening to the music and the kaleidoscope of images from the movie. I do highly recommend this movie to all who like the Beatles music, can remember the sixties or just want to enjoy a glass of wine at home.

Anyhow, I came across two cards that made me think . . . and thinking on a saturday night with wine, popcorn and a movie is not a common occurrence but . . .

When were batting gloves first introduced into baseball and better yet when did they first show up on cards ? I looked through my "old" collection and the earliest card I found were these two from 1969:

Bill White (black glove right hand) and Joe Pepitone (red glove left hand), both are true lefties by the way.

Pepitone was more of a colorful character so that explains the red but shouldn't White be wearing Cardinal Red ? Both of these players had long and successful careers and I will do a longer post on them in the future.

Todays players are very often shown with one or usually two gloves but when did they become popular and when were the first gloves pictured on cards ? Anyone have an older card with a batting glove ?