Glove of the Series: Horween for the Hawks
Glove of the Series: Boise Hawks and Rawlings Horween KB17 Don Morton Exclusive
It’ll be ready when it’s ready
by Kyle Robinson
Baseball tests you in myriad ways.
One night, it asks you to win a 2-1 pitchers’ duel against the hottest team in the Pioneer League to end a seven-game skid. The next, it hands you a 10-10 slugfest that refuses to end until someone finally pushes across the winning tally in the third knockout round.
The Oakland Ballers answered both questions.
On Wednesday, Reed Butz returned to the mound and gave Oakland exactly what it needed. Six-and-a-third innings. One run. Nothing flashy. Just the kind of start that lets everyone else breathe. Twenty-four hours later, the game couldn’t have looked more different. The Ballers traded punches with Long Beach all night before surviving three rounds of knockout baseball to hand the Coast its first series loss of the second half and first ever at home. Only one common thread: Nobody was looking for a shortcut.
Reed Butz wasn’t trying to throw a no-hitter. Tristan Moore wasn’t trying to become an overnight hero when he lined his first professional hit into center field. Langston Burkett wasn’t trying to strike everyone out. He was simply trying to get the next out. Even in Thursday night’s offensive circus, Oakland never stopped playing the next pitch.
Which brings me to this glove.
When I bought the Rawlings Heart of the Hide KB17 Horween, I made myself the same promise: No shortcuts.
No hot water. No steam. No miracle conditioner. No microwave or oven nonsense, or running it over with a car. No pretending it had somehow become game-ready overnight. Just catch, open, close, repeat.
I’ve owned enough gloves to know every trick in the book. I’ve also reached the point where I’m not particularly interested in tricks anymore, and I'm certainly not in the rush for a replacement for any of my gamers. If Horween leather has earned the reputation it has, then I wanted to find out why, the old-fashioned way.
Now, I should probably admit something. I’ve become a bit of a Horween leather fanboy. At this point it borders on irrational. If Rawlings releases Horween, I notice. If Marucci does, I’m interested. When Easton built a Horween and Kip hybrid, I somehow convinced myself there was room for one more glove.
My wife has patiently watched this obsession evolve, and when we planned a trip to Chicago, I casually floated the idea of touring the Horween Leather Company. She smiled, then suggested approximately one hundred other things we could do instead.
But if you’re fascinated by baseball gloves, Horween isn’t just another tannery. It’s part of baseball’s vocabulary. Generations of professional players trusted leather that came from the same family-owned company on Chicago’s North Side. Before flashy colorways, before limited drops, before gloves became collectibles, Horween became famous because players kept wearing it until it felt like an extension of their hand. That reputation can’t be manufactured. It has to be earned.
What surprised me wasn’t buying another Horween glove; it was buying this one. I’ve never really been drawn to versatility, I like position-specific gloves. If I’m playing first base, I want a first baseman’s mitt. Behind the plate, I want a catcher’s mitt. On the infield, give me something smaller. I’ve always believed every position deserves the right tool. So why buy a pattern designed around a player who became known for moving all over the diamond? Because the more I thought about Kris Bryant, the more I realized I’d been asking the wrong question.
People talk about Bryant’s versatility as though that’s the remarkable part. It isn’t. The remarkable part is that he prepared well enough to make versatility possible. Third base. Left field. Right field. First base. The position might change, but the preparation shouldn't.
As I worked this glove every evening, something unexpected happened. I stopped wondering when it would be finished. Instead, I started looking forward to the routine. A few minutes of couch catch with a weighed ball, working the hinges listening to Zoom calls, curling the fingers and flaring the pinkie and thumb just the way I want. Maybe another round while watching television in the evening. I was building a habit and baseball has always belonged to people who fall in love with habits. Somewhere along the way, this stopped being an experiment in leather and it became an experiment in patience. That’s harder than it sounds.
We’re conditioned to believe that faster is better. Faster internet. Faster shipping. Faster results. Baseball isn’t immune to it either. Every struggling hitter is supposed to find a swing change. Every losing streak needs a blockbuster transaction. Every young player is expected to arrive fully formed. With the injuries derailing these past years of his career, Kris Bryant knows this better than most.
After Wednesday’s win, Reed Butz told Dispatches that his goal wasn’t to rescue the season: “Hopefully I can be a boost for everyone, teach where I can, help when needed, and just be the best teammate I can be. And help our guys by giving us a chance to win when I’m out there.” There’s something wonderfully ordinary about that answer. No declarations, No promises to carry a franchise. Just the quiet confidence that comes from doing your work and trusting it to matter.
That’s what drew me back to this KB17 every evening. Not because I expected to notice dramatic changes. Because I expected to notice almost none. Good leather rarely announces itself. It simply gets a little better every day until one afternoon you realize you haven’t thought about the glove in three innings into a game. It has disappeared, become a part of the fielders hand. That’s the highest compliment you can pay a baseball glove.
This glove also came with me to on our trip to Denver this week, first time I've ever done that. But I am committed to the process now, and not for nothing, Bryant is a member of the Rockies now. Denver isn’t just baseball memories for me, though. It’s where I met my wife, and my life was forever changed. Seeing those streets again, I thought about how strange memory can be. Buildings change. Restaurants come and go. Neighborhoods evolve. You find yourself standing in a place that feels both completely different and exactly the same. Maybe that’s why Kris Bryant’s career resonates differently with me now than it would have a decade ago.
When people remember Bryant, they often remember the versatility, The Rookie of the Year and MVP accolades, the breaking of a century-curse with the Cubs, and the unfortunate injury issues and what could have been.
I think they’ll remember the wrong thing. I’ve spent years collecting baseball gloves, at least that’s what I thought I was doing. Looking back, I think I’ve actually been collecting baseball ideas. Bill Doak taught me that one player could change equipment forever simply by asking a better question. Stan Musial reminded me that even Hall of Famers can reinvent themselves when they’re willing to learn something new. Tony Gwynn showed me that greatness usually lives inside the smallest details, the ones you can actually control. Now this KB17 has given me another lesson: Don’t rush what’s supposed to take time.
That’s true of Horween leather, it’s true of learning a new position, It’s true of earning trust inside a clubhouse, and it’s true of building a baseball team. The glove will be ready when it’s ready, and if the last two nights in Long Beach proved anything, it’s that the best baseball teams aren’t built on shortcuts, either.
Kyle Robinson is a transplanted Texan with a lifelong passion for the game of baseball. Residing in Oakland with his wife Randi, their daughter India, and a menagerie of pets. When he’s not slyly convincing his wife to name their pets after legendary baseball broadcasters (e.g. our corgi Milo Hamilton Robinson) he is probably balancing parenthood with trying to cram in as much baseball as possible. Whether it’s keeping the dream alive as a weekend warrior behind the dish, or on the sideline as a coach, volunteering, rest assured he has baseball on the brain. Find him on Instagram: @krob452
