@Modesto Roadsters: Glove of the Series
Wilson A2000 EL3
by Kyle Robinson
I've spent most of this project writing about Rawlings gloves. Brooks Robinson. Bill Doak. Trap-Ezes. Heart of the Hides.
The deeper I get into glove history, the more every road seems to lead back to Rawlings. So if I'm going to make room in the collection for a Wilson, it has to be for a reason. Fortunately, I have one.
Long before I started paying attention to glove patterns, pocket shapes, or master craftsmen, I knew who Evan Longoria was. I knew Ben Zobrist too. And David Price. And James Shields. And Snellzilla. I could keep going... Those Tampa Bay teams were impossible not to root for. They weren't supposed to be there, they weren't supposed to compete with the Yankees, they weren't supposed to compete with the Red Sox. And yet somehow they kept finding ways to do it.
When I think about Longoria, I don't immediately think about gloves. I think about September 28, 2011. The final day of the regular season, and the Rays needed help. Boston needed to lose. Tampa Bay needed to win. For most of the night, neither looked particularly likely, as the Rays trailed the Yankees 7-0 and the Red Sox led Baltimore late. The season felt over, but for some reason I caught myself staying up anyway. Then baseball does what it often does, which is whatever it wants.
The Rays came back.
The Orioles came back.
Within minutes, everything changed.
Baltimore stunned Boston.
Then Longoria walked it off against New York.
One swing.
One of the wildest nights the sport has ever produced. The Rays were going to the postseason. That memory has never really left me. Which is probably why, if I was ever going to buy a Wilson, it was going to be a Longoria pattern. Those Rays teams had me long before I ever cared about glove companies. Long before I knew what an EL3 was, I already knew who Evan Longoria was.
The funny thing is that I didn't find this glove on eBay. I didn't find it on SidelineSwap. And I didn't buy it from a retailer. Instead, I reached out to the glove community I've spent the last few years getting to know through Instagram and other corners of the baseball world. Like most good glove stories, one conversation led to another. Eventually, it led me to exactly the glove I was looking for: a camel and tan EL3 from @gutgloves on Instagram. That feels fitting. Because this glove isn't really about a pattern. It's about a connection, connection to a player, to a memory. And now, a connection to the people who helped me find it.
The EL3 was designed by Wilson Master Craftsman Shigeaki Aso for Longoria and eventually became one of the company's most respected infield patterns. Like most great gloves, its reputation wasn't built through marketing. It was built through players, the people who used them kept recommending them, the people who tried them kept keeping them, the pattern survived because it worked. That's a story Wilson seems to tell better than anyone. Rawlings often feels like invention. Wilson feels like refinement. Wilson's defining idea wasn't simply building gloves for players. It was building gloves with players. The A2000 itself was born from listening, adjusting, and refining what already existed. The EL3 feels like the continuation of that philosophy.
Not revolutionary. Intentional. Not loud. Refined. And honestly, that sounds a lot like those Rays teams. Nobody remembers them because they were flashy. People remember them because they were smart. Prepared. Efficient. They found advantages where other teams weren't looking. They refined. They adapted. They won.
What I remember most about those teams wasn't that they were perfect, it was that they kept giving themselves a chance. They hung around. They stayed relevant. And when the opportunity finally appeared, they were ready for it. That's part of what makes this road trip feel interesting.
The Ballers head to Modesto with one of the most dangerous offenses in the Pioneer League. Scoring runs hasn't been the problem. Consistently putting together complete games has been the challenge. The first-half race is still there. The opportunity is still there. At the very least there’s building for the second half. The question is whether Oakland can do what those Rays teams did so well.
Stay close enough for something special to happen.
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
