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- <text id=90TT0875>
- <title>
- Apr. 09, 1990: Business Notes:Sporting Goods
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Apr. 09, 1990 America's Changing Colors
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 67
- Business Notes
- SPORTING GOODS
- Out-Mitting the Competition
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Ever notice how some North American baseball fielders seem
- to have gloves as big as bushel baskets? Not for long. This
- season major-league baseball plans to enforce an old rule,
- previously ignored, that bans any glove larger than 12 in. from
- heel to tip. The clampdown has sent glovemakers hustling to
- redesign mitts, some of which exceed 14 in.
- </p>
- <p> St. Louis-based Rawlings, which supplies more than half of
- all big-league mitts, believes it has beaten such rivals as
- Wilson and Mizuno to home plate. "We were in a much better
- position to respond quickly. We had new designs and new cutting
- dies within a month," claims Scott Smith, spokesman for
- Rawlings, the only glovemaker with a factory in the U.S. "There
- was a lot of initial resistance to the announcement from our
- competition. If they haven't satisfied the new requirements,
- we'll get more of the business." Glovemakers give big leaguers
- the mitts for free, but sandlot players have to pay $150.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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