Posted By:
JoannI've always assumed that the disportionate size of the gloves in these cards was an artistic anomaly - nowhere near representative of the actual size or even that there were oversized gloves in use.
But last week I picked this up from the BST (from 1913 - still need to post this and a few others in the RPU thread). Check out the gloves on the two players on the ends of the back row. These look to me to be about the size I thought gloves were then. Now look at the one on the player seated far right, front row. Wow. It's an actual big glove!
It is definitely not the same as the others on the team. Proportionately, I think it looks about the size of her forearm, similar to the Bailey and Miller cards. I assume some of the major leaguers also used gloves this size. Does anyone think that the cards with big gloves are actually that way because the gloves were big, or were they just drawn that way?
I suppose I should leave the question as to what these may have been used for to the Memorabilia side. The fingers weren't laced together, as far as I know, so I don't think I see the utility of having the gloves be that big.
Joann