Baseball glove care is a huge subject, and I love talking about it. When asked about how I take care of my baseball gloves, I find myself drifting towards glove storage techniques more often than not. But when you think about it, properly storing your baseball glove is a big part of glove care basics.
You see, even if you are extremely cautious with your glove – even if you clean and condition it every chance you get; it means little if you don’t store it properly. End of the day, the leather in your glove will start to degrade and crack, and you won’t even be able to figure out what went wrong.
Well, I can’t sit by and let that happen if I can help it. That’s why I will talk about how you should store your baseball glove so that it can serve you well for as long as possible.
Where to Store a Baseball Glove?
Before I get to how you store a baseball glove, let’s talk a bit about the prime locations. You see, the location matters, and if the environment where you are putting your baseball glove is not optimal, it can cause all sorts of issues with the leather. Long story short – the leather will degrade.
You need to think about two things – temperature and moisture. Both of these elements can mess with the leather, and you need to pick a spot where it doesn’t have too much of either of these things. Personally, I like to keep my baseball equipment, including my gloves, in a separate, well-ventilated room. I tend to play baseball from time to time, and having them in my spare room lets me easily access them any time I want.
Of course, you can use a locker if you want, but you need to make sure the locker is temperature regulated. For some added safety, you might want to consider tossing in a dehumidifier in the locker along with the glove to keep the moisture in check.
Frankly, you can store your baseball glove in just about any safe location as long as the temperature and moisture in the area are not too extreme. What matters more than the location, in my opinion, is how you take care of your baseball glove and the way you store it later on.
How to Store Baseball Gloves Between Games?
Summer, spring, and fall – are the three seasons of baseball. In these three seasons, you will probably have team drills or games every couple of days. So you would naturally want to spring your glove in a place that you can easily access without any hassle.
But that doesn’t mean you should overlook the importance of storing it in a proper location. During baseball season, I like to use a laundry loop to hang my baseball glove inside my house. There are two benefits to this. Firstly, the baseball glove air dries in a laundry loop, and the sweat and moisture from my hands leave little impact on it.
But the main advantage here is that it kills any bacteria that you leave on it as you play. As the glove has plenty of access to air and light (I hang it in a well-ventilated room), I don’t have to worry about any mold building up on the finger walls or the wrist area. It also prevents any weird smell in the glove.
I have also seen people keep their gloves in their equipment bags. Though I am not a huge fan of it, it is still a pretty viable way of storing your baseball glove. The advantage of putting it in your equipment bag is that it protects the glove against the elements.
But I would recommend putting a baseball in the glove pocket and strapping it down with a belt around the glove to help it retain its shape. There are instances when keeping a glove in the equipment bag caused the glove to become deformed.
How to Store a Baseball Glove Long Term
Baseball is not exactly what you would call a year-round sport. There’s a pretty long break during the cold winter months. So, during that time, you need to store the gloves in a different way than what I talked about in the above section. There are two things you need to remember here –
- Keep the glove in a cool, dry location at room temperature.
- Keep it seated on a shelf.
Now, the weather part is simple enough to understand. Since baseball gloves are mostly made of animal leather or some kind of organic material, you don’t want to expose them to extreme cold or heat. It will deteriorate if the weather gets too hot or too cold.
So leaving it in your equipment bag, near a heater, or basically, any location that has an unpredictable fluctuation in the temperature is a bad idea. Since you will be putting it away for a long time, the leather in your baseball glove will come out damaged when you finally take it out.
As for why you want to place it on a shelf – it’s to preserve the shape of the glove. Granted, the baseball glove might still require a bit of breaking in after you take it out after a while, but if you keep it on a shelf, it will mean less work for you.
You need to make sure the thumb and the pinky of the glove are touching the surface of the shelf. What that does is it keeps the palm of the glove facing downward, which means less exposure to the air.
Can Baseball Gloves be Stored in Shed?
One of the first questions people asked was whether it’s okay to store their baseball gloves in a shed. And while there is nothing wrong with storing it in the shed, there are a few things you must think about first. Is the shed regulated for humidity and temperature? Can you lock it? Have you had issues with pests or rats in the shed?
Moisture can be a real nuisance on your baseball glove, and without proper heat and humidity regulation, the shed is really not a good place to store your professional baseball glove. And if there’s a chance that rats can get into the shed, they can chew on the leather. Of course, if there are no locks in the shed, it might also get stolen.
With all these things in mind, I would not recommend using your shed as a storage locker for your baseball glove. A lot of things can go wrong here, and frankly, it’s just not worth the hassle.
Related Questions
Properly storing your baseball glove makes all the difference between it surviving two or more seasons or you needing a replacement glove mid-season. It’s understandable if you still have some questions about proper storage techniques for baseball gloves.
With that in mind, I will address some of the common questions I faced from people who were struggling with the same dilemma in this section.
Do Baseball Gloves Need to be Stored in the House?
Personally, I like to keep my baseball gloves close by in my own house. But you don’t absolutely have to do that if you don’t want to. If you have a baseball field where you regularly play, and there are lockers in the field, you can, of course, store it there if that seems more convenient.
How Do You Store a Soaked Baseball Glove?
You don’t – you should never store a soaked baseball glove without drying it first. A wet baseball glove needs to be dried and conditioned properly before you put it away. I have already discussed how to dry a wet baseball glove which should give you an idea of what to do before you put it in a locker.
Should You Put Your Baseball Glove in Your Bag?
While I am not a huge fan of keeping my glove in my bag if I can help it, you can definitely do so if you plan on using it frequently. Just make sure the bag is kept in a nice, dry place that stays relatively close to room temperature. You don’t want the bag to get too hot or cold, as that might damage the leather.
Almost Done
At first glance, you might think that storing your baseball glove is no big deal. But that sort of thinking will land your glove in the dumpster before you know it. Properly caring for your glove will ensure its long lifespan and glove storage plays a huge role here.
I hope my in-depth discussion on how to store a baseball glove could help you learn a thing or two about this subject. Cheers!
