I just bought my daughter the Rawlings Liberty Advanced catchers mitt and the Rawlings shut out series fielding glove. What’s the best way to break them in? Steam? Oil and mallet? What process/method do you recommend? TIA!!
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Don't do anything to the Rawlings Shut out except just play catch and just shape it with your hands, that's it.
On the Liberty, no steam, no oven, no microwave, NO heat! And it really doesn't need any conditioner/oil/shaving cream or any other product on it right now, that glove already has plenty of oil infused in it from the tanning process. BUT, as #7sDad said, a little Nokona NLT or some Lexol definitely won't hurt.......but applied very lightly. With Summer coming I'd be more worried about the lining/hand stall/finger stalls than I would be about the shell or pocket. Sweat is a glove killer so I'd go ahead and apply some Vaseline, or beeswax.....either Jobsite or Obenauf's to anywhere inside the glove her hand will touch. On this mitt, a ball mallet, or dumbbell to work on the break points and just play good old fashion catch.
Honestly, the slower the break in process is, the longer the glove will hold it's shape and the longer it will last!
Thank you so much! Would you recommend putting the oversized plastic ball and wrapping it when not being used?
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When you say oversized, is it larger than a regular 12" softball? If so, then no! All of my gloves sit palm down in the open position resting on the thumb & pinkie, now I know this is hard for players always transporting their gear from place to place, Anna keeps a 12" ball in her Heart of the Hide wrapped with one of the velcro Mizuno glove wraps and placed inside of her helmet, seems to work great and stays put inside of her bat bag. She always takes the extra 5 seconds to do it right, that way she don't have to hear my mouth
Rawlings has a kit you can buy that has the oversized plastic ball, wrap and oil so I was going to use the ball and wrap when she wasn’t using it. Since she is in 10’s do you recommend putting a 10U ball or a 12U ball to leave in there when she isn’t using it? Sorry for all the questions. I just don’t want to screw the glove up
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