Weekend Project: TheTrap-Eze-ification of a Non-Trap-Eze Glove

Tim and I went to D.C. on Wednesday and, although we did not actually see a game, that was our game for the week.  No game this weekend.  So I needed a weekend project.

As can be seen in my entry from Wednesday, I have a black Rawlings Randy Johnson signature RBG10B glove.  (You can see me holding it in this picture).  I love Rawlings gloves.  They are one of the very few things in my life to which I am brand loyal.  But it hasn’t always been that way.  For a couple years in middle school and high school, I had a Spalding Dwight Gooden signature glove.  That was right at the beginning of Ken Griffey, Jr.’s career.  And with Griff’s help, I fell in love with the Rawlings Trap-Eze.

During my sophomore or junior year of high school — after a beautiful black Rawlings became my primary glove — I performed surgery on that Spalding.  I made it into a Trap-Eze.

This weekend, I decided to perform a similar glove surgery.  I decided to turn my Randy Johnson into a throw-back Mariners Trap-Eze.  Yes, I did hesitate in doing this because it is a Randy Johnson signature glove and he’s a future hall of famer.  But I figured who cares.  I want to maximize my enjoyment of the glove, and to do that, it needed to become a throw-back Mariners Trap-Eze.

Here we are at the beginning of the process:

The top picture shows the glove intact.  Its a fine looking glove.  But its no Trap-Eze.  When I made my old Spalding into a Trap-Eze in high school, I just cut certain portions of the webbing out and laced the remaining portions together in a Trap-Ezesque fashion.  But I wanted to do this one in a more authentic manner.

I made a glove by hand a couple years ago and (as shown in the top picture) I still have a big roll of black leather.  I used the black leather to fashion a sixth finger for the webbing.  I eye-balled it and tried to get it the right size and shape.  I then punched holes in it for lacing.

As shown in the top picture, I used royal blue lacings like some of the Mariners did back in the day (or some (like Griff) had royal blue gloves).

In the bottom picture, you can see that I removed the original webbing.  I kept it incase I was to change the glove back to its normal state some day.  But I don’t foresee that.  I like it too much.

I use this for all of my glove lacing needs:

That is actually a vein clamp.  My mom was a nurse and over the years, she got me several vein clamps — yes, used in surgery to clamp veins — to use for stringing gloves.  As a result, I was sorta the go-to guy for my baseball team when anyone needed a glove re-strung.   The vein clamp works great because it locks in place once clamped down.

The stringing of all gloves can be tricky if you’re not used to it.  The Trap-Eze is probably more confusing than any other glove because it has a lot more going on.  Lots of lacing all over the place.  But, the project turned out great.  I think the sixth finger turned out just right — or as close as I should expect to be able get it by hand and eye-ball.

Here are some before and after shots.  First, inside:

And the outside:

Finally, here is a shot showing some comparisons with a real Trap-Eze:

No too shabby, eh?  Much better than my original Trap-Eze surgery, in my humble opinion.

By the way, while at the Rawlings outlet to get the blue lacings, I picked up a face mask for Tim’s batting helmet.  He’s recently managed to foul a ball or two off of his face (how does that work?), so I figured a mask would help him avoid injuries.

Here is a look at this helmet/mask in action from this afternoon:

That is it for this weekend.  The Mariners are in Baltimore Tuesday through Thursday.  Tim and I will be there either Wednesday or Thursday.  Getting excited to see our M’s!

By the way, the M’s won today on Griff’s RBI double in the 8th — scoring Ichiro who had 3 hits on the day.  Excellent.