OT: Baseball historians -- a couple questions

[Potomac Yank]

I recall seeing the gloves being left out on the field during the late 1940's.

However, this is the first time that I've heard that they were left there for the other teams use ..... not everyone is a lefty, or a righty, and besides, gloves are a very personal thing to a ball player.

[Anthony S.]

Thanks for clarifying that, Joe. Just an erroneous assumption on my part.

[whitehse]

One of my favorite shows of all time is the series HBO did some years back called "When It Was a Game." This show featured home movies of different baseball era's and I remember seeing many times that players well into the 1950's would toss their gloves on the field while heading back to the dugout. I seem to recall this practice stopped in the mid to late 50's.

I have never heard that the gloves were available for the other team to use. I have heard many stories from former players where they would pull pranks on the other players by leaving various items in opponents gloves like frogs, and other objects.

[brickyardkennedy]

You reminded me Andrew, of Eldon Auker mentioning in his book, Oscar Mellilo's extreme fear of small animals (frogs, snakes, bugs) and how that would lead to them showing up in his glove, thus causing him to go into fits. : )

[FrankWakefield]

Gloves 1955ish, maybe 54 or 56. I have something on that somewhere... gotta dig around in some boxes to find it. The When it was a Game segment on that is neat.

Balls, that was a year or so after Chapman died. And my understanding is that it happened in the majors and took a season and a half or so to work its way down in the minors, just like you surmised.

[Butch7999]

Official rule changes of 1954 included the addition, "Members of the offensive team shall carry all gloves and other equipment off the field and to the dugout while their team is at bat. No equipment shall be left lying on the field, either in fair or foul territory." So '54 made it official, although the practise may already have been fading prior to that.
Curious to hear a definitive answer about the foul ball thing...

[Chris-Counts]

I can't answer the foul ball question, but I recently discovered umpires started started tossing out scuffed or dirty balls in 1921, an event that was likely related to the foul ball question. The spitball was also banned at the same time. These changes were clearly done with the intention of taking advantage of the live ball, which was introduced the previous year ...