I have always broken in my gloves with oil and practice. I decided to hurry this one along by using the suggested oven tip I have heard about in the past. “Oh, just put your glove in the oven!” I never believed them, because I feared it would catch fire. I thought I was wrong. My Easter was ruined today.
Edit: Here is the link that says 15 minutes at 350F: https://ecosports.com/blogs/vegan-athletes/how-to-break-in-a-baseball-glove
You must log in or # to comment.
So, uh. That glove isn’t leather. You don’t need to break in a glove that isn’t leather, because vinyl isn’t going to shape to your hand with oils, etc. the way leather will. Same goes for shoes; unless your shoes are all leather, there’s no break in period.
Yes, plastic will melt in the oven. And that’s what your glove is. Or was.
Never owned leather shoes an all of them had a “break in period”. Probably different to leather but they change drastically the first 5-10h you wear them.
With leather it usually takes weeks of wearing them at least 5-10h a day
That’s not beak-in, that’s wear/wearing out as the padding gets compressed.
Break-in for leather is where it’s molding to hit your hands, feet, body, etc.
10 hours doesn’t count as a break in period. Good leather boots can take a couple hundred hours. Good leather boots can also last thousands of hours longer than cheap boots.
Did you wear them in the oven though?
To add to that, the charred bits make me think they didn’t preheat the oven.
You gotta go low and slow. 12 hours (give or take) at 225°F until it gets to an internal temperature of 203°F and becomes fork tender. That way all the collagen and fat renders out.
I prefer to do mine on the grill with a few pieces of a louisville slugger Maplewood bat on the coals. Instead of 12 hours though I wrap mine in foil at about 7 hours when it hits the stall.
I hope you don’t throw that glove out. You take it home and throw it in a pot; add some broth and potato, baby you got a stew going!
I think I’d like my money back
Okay, Éowyn…
Hahahahahahahaa
RIP Carl Weathers
It’s not a lie, it’s a prank. I sympathize, but baking a baseball glove at 350 degrees is simply absurd.
I didn’t read about it online first, but a friend and I once microwaved some weed to speed up the curing process. It didn’t work at all.
At least OP didn’t first come across that story about microwaving your IPhone in order to charge it.
There is a microwave technique for drying weed if you want to smoke it quickly. It will taste extremely green though. There’s nothing you can do to replace a good cure.
Everyone knows you want to broil it
I sear mine on both sides first.
Rotisserie for best results
It’s supposed to be 350 minutes at 15f
LOL below freezing for 6 hours
That’ll break anyone
I’d still eat it. Just scrape off the burned bits with a butter knife, it’ll taste the same underneath. The texture might be a bit off though
I don’t play, and have never tried this. But from the instructions I’m seeing online, is either microwave method or heat up the oven and then turn it off before putting the glove in.
That’s also looks like it’s melting, is it actual leather?
Betting it’s not leather. Leather doesn’t melt. It will burn, but never liquify. It clearly appears that the outer layer liquified. Also this screams prank to me, but good quality, oiled leather should also hold up ok to 350 for 15 mins.
It might have been real leather. It smelled like it, as it burned. The online sites I read said nothing of turning off the oven. Everyone who swore by this said to put it in there at 350F for fifteen minutes.
I think you’ve been pranked.
I’ve never heard of this and I’ve got absolutely no idea if this is a real thing or if you got pranked as someone said. But assuming it’s a real thing, I can think of two possible explanations why it went so badly for you:
First option, you used a toaster oven instead of a regular oven. The surfaces closest to the heating elements in this case get exposed to a lot more heat than the rest of what’s in the oven. If the heating element is exposed, it’s a toaster oven.
Second option, your oven’s temperature knob isn’t calibrated well enough so it got way hotter than it needs to be. Honestly I’ve got no idea how well these are usually calibrated. I have the exact same model toaster oven as my parents and theirs gets way hotter for the same knob position. But it’s a cheapo brand (I can barely bring myself to call it a brand) so I hope it’s better in the broader market, and maybe proper ovens are better calibrated than microwave-sized toaster ovens.
On second look, the burn marks are obviously only on the top surface so I’m pretty convinced you used a toaster oven. The difference is like standing in direct sunlight vs in the shade. When you’re in the shade the only thing heating you is the air, when you’re in direct sunlight the sunlight itself is heating you. You can also feel a similar effect when sitting around a fire - your skin facing in the direction of the fire gets toasted while the rest of you, or parts of you that are blocked from it, are cooler.
TL;DR you toasted your mitt
It does look like a toaster oven did it, but it was just a regular oven. I set it on the bars and it actually began melting between them.
Leather doesn’t melt. You put a vinyl glove in an oven.
deleted by creator
The tag does not say the glove is made of leather, that’s simply the Franklin “leather series”, a meaningless marketing term meant to trick people.
The Franklin page clearly states those gloves are made of “synthetic leather”, e. g. Polyurethane, Vinyl etc.:
https://franklinsports.com/field-masterr-tan-series-baseball-fielding-glove#
Plus, the synthetic leather comes with a pre-formed pocket which is designed to break in exactly to your liking quickly and easily.
EASY BREAK IN: The soft synthetic leather material is lightweight and responsive […]
You put a plastic glove in your oven at 350. By the way, depending on the material, in particular when talking about Vinyl, burning it may release incredibly toxic fumes, although that mostly applies to PVC. Depending on the details, I’d still considered that oven ruined though, at least for food.
I get that this sucks in more ways than one, but how the heck did you not actually check the complete material composition… almost all modern items are a mix of different materials anyway.
The tag does not say the glove is made of leather, that’s simply the Franklin “leather series”, a meaningless marketing term meant to trick people.
Ugh, are there no consumer protection laws against this shit? Or just no enforcement?
Also who would believe they got an all leather glove for $20
I promise you full size ovens can have exposed heat elements.
Sure. Did I get the terminology wrong? In either case the exposed heating element toasts the contents, rather than just baking them, which may be undesirable depending on what you’re making. The size of the oven doesn’t matter.
I wouldn’t trust any oven based methodology because most have ancient barely functional electronics. Like the temperature control circuit could be orders of magnitude better for a total BOM cost of ~$1-$2, but they ship with absolute garbage instead. The overshoot, undershoot, and relative average are all wildly random. Every model and likely every unit are vastly different. Every unit I have taken apart is the same turd junk like electronics in a different dress.
That doesn’t help now. Sorry for the bad day.
What even is the thought process behind why this would ever work anyway? Would heat make the leather a bit more pliable or something?
It softens it. I put olive oil on it first, as many sites suggested, and other players have suggested. I used to break in my gloves with throwing after oiling them. I would also leave my gloves in a hot car to soften in the heat, with a ball inside of them. I am so mad right now. Today was ruined. I didn’t get to watch Easter mass online because of time zones, I missed watching (in person) my kids open Easter baskets I made, and then my damn glove caught fire. God, why?
Your glove caught fire because you put it in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes, when leather will readily burn at 210 degrees. I don’t know how other people are pulling it off, as googling around pulls up the same instructions you apparently followed.
I never believed them, because I feared it would catch fire.
Seems like you knew better, which must make this more frustrating. Nothing stings quite like a self-inflicted wound.
As for the Easter stuff, that’s really all about your personal situation and your belief system.
still looks a bit tough. are you sure you got it up to 190 internal?
Well I didn’t see a red, plastic, internal thermometer pop out, like you would see on a turkey. It made for one surprising Easter roast.
He didn’t wrap it at the stall.
I didn’t know anything about this, but was curious and looked it up. Most methods say to turn off the oven before you put it in, some say a lower temp. I found one result that said 350 for 15 minutes, but it said to watch it closely the whole time. I don’t think your glove would have burned if you were watching it, things just don’t burn so fast that you can’t catch them before they turn black if you are watching it the entire time. I don’t know if warming up a glove helps it, but it does seem like you didn’t follow the instructions properly, and after cross referencing should have done the oven off method.
When I used to play I’d just put a new glove under my mattress for a night or two and it was good enough. Sucks you were misled about the material it was made from.
That’s not a bad idea. I usually just put my glove in a hot car during the summer, but I didn’t have a chance to order a new glove last summer.
Did you see this work on Ticktok?
I have never used TikTok. In fact, I have refused to ever use TikTok, SnapChat, and Twitter (despite starting an account to enter some contest for The Walking Dead years ago). I just feel like some platforms attract certain personality types that I try to avoid when I’m relaxing.
Have you been diagnosed as being on the spectrum yet?
No. I’ve been evaluated and I was not diagnosed with autism.
he’s not wrong though. they are toxic cesspools.
I have a very hard time believing you didn’t smell this before it got to this point. It’s got holes in the fingers this shit was probably smoking out of the oven setting off the smoke alarm.
No, I smelled it burning. It still had 7 minuets to go.
I wouldn’t say this is mildly infurating. :/
