My daughter decides a few years back that she wanted to play softball. I was very excited. I played sports when I was a girl, so it made me proud that she was following in my footsteps. I didn’t play softball, I played lacrosse, but a sport is a sport.
In the years that she has played, I have bought her a lot of equipment. She has many catchers gloves. They are literally falling out of the hall closet. She plays with Nokona gloves exclusively these days. She tried different ones in the beginning, but liked these best.
This year her team needed a catcher and she volunteered. After I got over the fear, it was time for a crash course in catchers gear. We went online, our preferred way to shop.
She was going to need a face mask, shin guards, chest protector and most importantly, a catcher’s mitt for her catchers gear. Some teams supply their catcher with gear, but my daughter wanted her own. We found out quickly that it really was called a catchers mitt and not a catchers glove. I was looking forward to rubbing in the catchers glove error to my husband. It’s fun when he is wrong. I liked the fact that he was letting me research catchers gear with our daughter. He doesn’t get jealous of our sports bond, just as long as he gets to watch her play. He’s the loudest dad in the stands.
Anyway, we discovered that Nokona gloves make softball mitts too. They make a top of the line softball catchers glove. My daughter was really relieved when she saw that Nokona gloves had catchers mitts. They have a long history and a great tradition when it comes to gloves and mitts in general. We spent hours on their site looking at all the options for softball catchers mitts. We even looked into baseball catchers gloves. There really isn’t that big a difference between baseball or softball mitts as it turns out. Still girls who play softball get touchy about the name thing, so we only talked softball catchers mitts from then on. I like to keep her happy.
First, a little bit about catchers gloves in general. Catchers mitts have extra padding. The extra padding helps cushion the impact of the ball when it hits the mitt. No other player on the team is allowed to use a mitt like the catchers mitt. The same goes for the softball catchers glove. Since a catcher never tries to catch a fastpitch softball without the aid of the catchers mitt, you can see why mitts are the most important part of the catchers equipment.
So, some things to remember about catchers mitts if your daughter wants to try the position. Don’t call them a catchers glove. And don’t be afraid to let her play the position. She’ll be the most protected girl on the field.
