glove glue

[Guest sonarr]

Would using stuff like "Gloveglu" on your baseball glove to catch the ball easier be illegal?

[beerguy55]

First - gloveglu would not, in any universe, help someone catch a baseball.

Second - it is illegal to put foreign substances on the ball, mainly in context to pitching - this would qualify...usually this is reserved for the pitcher, but any defensive player that causes a substance to get onto the ball that is then pitched at the batter would qualify.

You could probably legally use it on your batting gloves, no different than pinetar on the bat, for better grip of the bat.

[Mudisfun]

Barring the pitching issues which @beerguy55mentions, I can actually see this hurting a fielder. If the glue is tacky enough to hold a ball in which may have popped out, I can then see it becoming more difficult for the fielder to extract and get out of his hand on a snap throw back to a base or to the infield.

 

[Senor Azul]

Of the three major rule sets only high school rules actually address this question directly--

2019 NFHS rule 1-3 ART. 6 . . . Gloves/mitts made of leather shall be worn by all fielders and not be altered to create an adhesive, sticky, and/or tacky surface…

In addition the FED case book has a case play directly on point—1.3.6 Situation B. The case play also tells us that the penalty for use of a tacky substance on the glove is an award of three bases to the batter-runner (rule 8-3-3b).

Also the use of pine tar on batting gloves is legal as well as on the helmets.