Best baseball gloves for an 8-year-old

What size glove for an 8-year-old

Glove size is measured from the heel to the top of the webbing, along the outside of the fingers, and it is printed on the thumb of almost every glove. For an 8-year-old the answer is 10.5 or 11 inches. Rawlings sizes its Sure Catch 11 inch for 6U, 8U, 10U and tee ball; the 10.5 inch version it puts at 6U to 10U on the same chart.

The full chart by age and position, including what changes for 10- and 12-year-olds, is on the youth glove size chart.

The test that matters: can he close it?

Everything else about a youth glove is secondary to this. Put the glove on his hand in the store and ask him to squeeze it shut, hard, with nothing in it. If the glove does not fold in the middle, he cannot catch with it. A ball will hit a flat, stiff surface and bounce out, and after a few of those he will start turning his head away.

If you have inherited a stiff glove, it is fixable: a thin coat of conditioner, a mallet on the pocket, and a week of playing catch. The routine that works (and the oven trick that ruins leather) is on how to break in a baseball glove, and the products are ranked on best baseball glove conditioners.

Position does not matter yet

At 8 a kid will play four positions in a season and probably five. Buy a general-purpose infield-pattern glove in the right size, not a 12.5 inch outfield glove because he stood in right field last week. The one genuine exception is catching: a catcher needs a mitt, not a glove, and those are ranked on best youth catcher's mitts.

Left-handed throwers: check the listing carefully. Every glove on this page is sold in a left-hand-throw version, but stock in the small sizes is thinner, and a right-handed glove on a left-handed thrower is worse than no glove.

Before you buy

• Throwing hand, not catching hand. A right-handed thrower wears the glove on the left hand, so the listing says “right hand throw.” This is the single most common ordering mistake.
• Do not oil a new youth glove. Most of these arrive soft. Oil on a soft glove makes it heavy and floppy. Play catch with it first, and condition it only when the leather looks dry.
• Write his name inside the thumb. Eight identical black-and-red youth gloves in one dugout is the norm.
• Budget 40 to 75 dollars. Above that you are buying leather quality that an 8-year-old will outgrow before he benefits from it.
• Expect to replace it at 10 or 11. Kids move to 11.5 or 11.75 inches around then; the main youth glove roundup covers that jump.