Baseball Equipment
Fielding a baseball team requires a lot of specialized gear. First off, there’s the ball. Of course. Multiple balls will be needed. The same goes for bats. It may be that each player has a specific kind of bat that he or she hits best with. Each team would need nine uniforms and nine hats, assuming, of course, that there was only the bare minimum of players and not double that, as the case most likely will be. Each player would need a pair of cleats, special spiked shoes designed to give better traction on the sand and dirt of the baseball diamond. Each player would need either an athletic support or a protective cup. If they’re on base, each member would need a glove, of which there are actually five kinds: a thick catcher’s mitt for absorbing dead-on impact, a wide first baseman’s mitt for scooping the ball, three small infielder’s gloves for easy catch and release, three long outfielder’s gloves for catching the ball out of the air and a rounded pitcher’s mitt to hide his grip on the ball. To protect against the ball, the catcher also needs to wear thick, chest and stomach padding, a pair of shin guards and a metal facemask. If the team is batting, they’ll need to be wearing protective batting helmets and batting gloves, as well as having on special padded “slide shorts” to protect their thighs from the friction. There’s quite a lot of equipment. Attempting to fully supply a team “out of pocket,” as it were, would run an amateur ball club quite a hefty bill.
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Baseball umpires generally do not have any need for specialized equipment. All umpires on the “umping” team wear a standard dark blue uniform and cap, and only the plate umpire, who is stationed directly behind home plate, wears any kind of specialized gear, and his is meant to look and function similar to those of the catcher: a facemask, a pair of shin guards and a set of chest padding to protect against the thrown baseballs.
Discount Baseball Equipment
Baseball equipment can be bought fairly cheaply in the offseason, when there’s likely to be little demand. As it’s an incredibly popular sport, equipment can be bought pretty much anywhere, especially at major sporting goods chain stores like Dick’s or Big 5. There are even several websites like Baseball Express and Baseball Equipment that are solely devoted to selling baseball gear.
