Tim Anderson pulled an extra-large glove from the upper shelf of his locker in the Angels Clubhouse, slipped it on his left hand and started beating his right fist in the massive pocket.
“It’s weird,” he admitted.
Anderson started 946 regular season games in the major leagues, all except two at the Copstrame. But six seasons after leaving the American League in strike and three seasons after its last appearance in All-Star, Anderson, 31, fights this spring to list the angels.
To increase these chances, he learns to play the outside field. This explains the oversized glove, which for Anderson felt like a jai alai cesta compared to the modest mitrals that infielders use.
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“Ey put this in my locker, so I will play a little with that,” said Anderson, referring to the coach of the angels Eric Young Sr., who played the inner field and the external field during his star career.
“Why limit you? Being able to play several positions is pretty cool. “”
It also becomes quite necessary. With numerous teams now carrying 12 or 13 launchers, two wrestlers and a designated striker on their lists of 26 men, you do not need to be a mathematical sorcerer to know that versatility is now a must for bench players.
“Let’s say that your first base player obtains a base in a matching match at the top of the ninth round,” said Perry Hill, who trained Dylan Moore of Seattle to a Golden Glove as a public service player last season. “Well, the guy who goes to Pinch Run for him, he needs to know how to play at the first base so that the manager does not have to use a twinge runner and another player.
“It just gives the manager a certain versatility. He has a certain freedom to manage. »»
In recognition of the importance of this versatility, Major League Baseball began to allocate gold gloves for public service players three years ago. But this trophy should probably include several gloves, because playing several positions means dragging additional mittens.
The first players need to remove balls out of dirt so that their mittens are large and rounded, more like baskets than gloves. Middle infielders, which must quickly take out the ball from their gloves on double games, generally use smaller mittens with shallow pockets while the third basic player use larger and more fleshy gloves to cope with hot shots in the warm corner.
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In the outside field, on the other hand, where a thumb fraction can make the difference when you try a diving intake in the aisle or reaching the wall to bring a home run back, the gloves generally push the limits of the major league 13 inches in length and 7¾ inches wide.
Scott Kingery, who played all areas, but receiver and first goal for five seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies before being exchanged in the Angels in November, used three different gloves in one season. Moore, the Golden Public Service Man of the Mariners, who played all the employees, but the recipient, used four: two gloves on the ground, one first goal and another for the outside field.
“When you were a child, you just went with all the glove that your parents got you and you used this thing until it broke. Then you start using different in different positions and you must really determine which one works for you, ”said Moore.
“It’s much more technical now.”
But it doesn’t have to be. Hill, the naval coach in the inner field who helped eight different players win gold gloves during a 27 -year career, said comfort should be the most important factor.
“Use a glove that your hand can control,” said Hill, who used the same glove for six seasons of minor leagues, mainly in Mexico. “You can’t be a little hand guy like me and use a large glove. It is simply not practical. So I should use a small glove, it doesn’t matter where I play. »»
For many public services players, their gloves are like their children: everyone is special in their own way and they are all loved too. But they are not always treated too.
Kingery said that he uses the same 12 -inch glove on the inner field for at least two seasons before trying to break a new one while Moore likes her gloves, which are slightly smaller and made to measure by Rawlings, to be stiff. So he will change them in the middle of the season.
Then there are the players who were with gloves longer than they were with their women. The second goal player of the dishes, Jeff McNeil, used the same MITT since his writing in 2013, five years before his marriage. He still has ways to go to catch Cookie Rojas, an All-Star five times, who played each position with the same glove during his 16-year career, giving the beaten leather glove and broken to the renowned temple when he retired.
The breakdown of a new glove can take time, so Hill said that many players will take a new glove for the exercises and the practice of the striker, the softener to prepare the game. If they are in a hurry, said Hill, they will go to a stick cage and catch hundred balls launched by a throwing machine.
But there is more to play several positions than simply change gloves. Anderson played 18 rounds to the second goal for the White Sox in 2023 – making a six -channel error – and found it much less stressful than the stop.
“In short, I feel like I always have something to do,” he said. “It’s like the quarter-arre, you have to execute the ground. Second, it’s much colder.
There are also other shades, such as responsibilities on goals, double games and relays. Then there is the way the ball comes out of the beat. A dough on the right can hang the ball on the left side of the diamond and slice it on the right side. This means that Fielders must change the way they read a swing and what way they move on their first step.
This is why Anderson took additional rehearsals to the second goal and learned to follow the ball of the beat in the central field.
“There are different ways to survive the position on the position,” said Moore, who most often played in the second goal and in the outside field. “On the left side of the diamond, you move from right to left to go to the first base, then to the second goal, you could move from left to right to play the second base. There are therefore different mechanisms.
Anticipating the game before launching the field can help this. But even with that, said Moore, a public service player can be taken out of position.
“You get used to where you are in the field and what are your assignments and you know most of the time you should be,” he said. “But from time to time … this happens at the first basis. There are strange places that the first base player must be. »»
But the angels manager Ron WashingtonWho played the four field posts during a 10 -year -old career, said that the biggest obstacle that many players are faced with adapting to a role of public services had nothing to do with their sports tools or talents.
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The biggest challenge, he said, is often mental.
“If you don’t buy, it’s difficult. Because you just make an excuse not to do something, “he said. “It is not difficult if you are the athlete that these children are. Think about it. They are very good athletes, so why would they not buy?
“It only becomes difficult if you don’t want to buy.”
Look at him RidersFor example. They had four players playing four or more positions on their way to a World Series Title last season. Even Mookie BettsAn all-star eight times and old MVP played three positions.
For Betts, this versatility was a plus, not a requirement. However, for players like Moore, who appeared in a career summit of 135 games last season despite hitting .201, being able to play anywhere on the field is a necessity.
“It’s something that kept me in the big leagues,” he said. “To be able to be an asset and precious in a way that our manager can put me in any position, this allows you to make more bats.”
This also obtained a golden glove. Rightly so, the leather glove in gold in lamé mounted on the trophy is of different size from three of the four gloves that Moore transports with him to the canoe for each match.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
