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Show MITT Ffil CATCHEfl EV0LVE0 I1 1875 Frank McGunnigle Latest to Be Crerhted With Inventive Genius NEW YORK April 10 It was In 18T5 that alovea were first recognised as necessary nec-essary accessories to a catcher's kit Frank McOunnlgle famous ball player and manacer was then catching for Fall Rl er In a game against Harvard col lege. McGunnigle a hands were very sore, bu it was necessary that he should catch He sent out for a pair of bricklayer s gloves thick, strong things of hard leather In practice he found that n hi e the; protected the palms there was not liberty enough for the fingers to throw An Idea struck him. He wh pped out a jack knife bal placers were armed those da&) and cut off the f ngers of he right hand glo e Fine said Frank fine I ha e d scovered something But an in entor a real one was In the game Tyng of Harvard the real In ventor of the catcher s mask was behind the bat for his college Tyng had his eag e e e on MoQunnlg e e er watching how be bricklayers go es worked n a ball game catching baseballs Instead of bri ks Af er the game Tng got busy He bought a pa r and as a nrst Improve Vnent, had he palms 1 ned with th n sheet ead Th s glove was used for some time in that section of the countrj but when another gen us appeared on the ne d bear ng the name of Gu nnasso w th an mprovement his sugges on was adopted thlB mpro ement be ng he real or gin of the padded glove Gu nnasso was a p ayer on the Lowell earn and had used he McGunn gle Tj ng I one ad m tt Bu t was too much of a hand cap n p ay ng te. 1 so Gu nnasso bought a pa r of soft v, a k ng g o es w th a good th ck n ng He amputa ed the fing rs of bo h g oves and wore them under a pa of brick layer s and tle comblnat on worked like a charm Shortly after his the makers of base bal parapherna a turned the r atten on to glo es I was hard to oonv nee the manufac urers that the g o e or mitt fo he left hand shou 4 be th cker nan he one for the r ght but they flna s reached the po nt af er the most p om nent catchers of the per od demonstrated that he left hand had to bear the brunt of he shock consequent on the p tcher s de ve y The manufacturers thought hoy had rea hed the acme of pe feet on when hey p aced on the market a pa r of ca cher s gloves made ou of hea -y bucksk n 1 ned w th a th ek padding the fingers of e fft hand g ove re nforced by stiff eather t ps and the g ove for he r gh paw devoid of fingers and some what 1 ghter |