By Matthew Adams, Fort Value Star-Telegram
There’s loads that goes into making Nokona baseball gloves stand out within the crowded sporting items market, however the factor that makes them most unusual is the little tag on every one that claims “Made in America.”
Being the final U.S.-made baseball glove firm left standing is a pleasant declare to fame, although it does include challenges at a time when each different glove maker is manufacturing abroad for a fraction of the price. Nonetheless, after some robust instances in many years previous, Nokona’s enterprise is robust as the corporate prepares to have fun its 100th year of constructing leather-based items in Nocona, Texas, a city of about 4,000 folks 90 minutes north of Fort Value.
The making of a mitt
The Nokona manufacturing unit is smaller than you’d think about, and that’s a part of the appeal. Half the constructing is stuffed with state-of-the-art machines to map and lower leather-based, and the opposite half is stuffed with a couple of dozen or so craftspeople who sew and type every glove by hand, just about the way in which it’s been accomplished for a century.
Sheets of leather-based are available in via the again door, and their first cease is an enormous examination desk. Steer hides are like another hides, together with yours, and so they’re generally coated with the scratches and scars of a life lived. A Nokona worker seems to be every one over, marking imperfections with a laser wand.
The usable portion of the cover — normally 70% to 80% of it — is mapped utilizing a pc program that overlays a template of all of the glove elements that may be lower from that piece of leather-based. From there, every half — glove fingers, webbing items, and so forth. — is lower utilizing a machine. And that, for probably the most half, concludes the mechanized portion of the method.
Every glove follows the identical steps. First, the linings are stitched collectively. Since that is the a part of the glove nobody sees, that is the place the newbies begin at Nokona.
One among Nokona’s homeowners, Rob Storey, the great-grandson of the corporate’s founder, mentioned it takes about 4 months to grasp stitching the linings. From there, workers graduate to stitching exterior parts of the gloves. Solely one of the best craftspeople find yourself doing the ultimate stitching and lacing.
Of the 340 million folks within the U.S., Storey mentioned, lower than 10 are expert sufficient to try this, and so they all work at Nokona.
The final step is breaking the gloves in. This was accomplished by hitting them with a picket mallet, the way in which you in all probability broke in a ballglove whenever you had been a child. As we speak, it’s accomplished with a pneumatic machine that kilos every glove into form, softening them because it goes.
Alongside the way in which, logos are stitched into the leather-based, embossing is finished utilizing scorching metallic plates and aptitude is added to the custom-made gloves. The pattern this season is wild colours, so that you’ll discover a variety of gloves with turquoise or Day-Glo orange laces and gildings. With Nokona’s {custom} ordering course of, you may be as conservative or as avant garde as you wish to be in designing your glove.
And if steerhide isn’t your factor, you may choose extra unique skins in your ballglove, too. Kangaroo cover is kind of presumably one of the best leather-based for a baseball glove, mentioned Storey. It’s sturdy and stretchy, with a rubbery sheen to it. The one draw back is that it’s a bit skinny, so you need to layer it.
Nokona additionally makes gloves utilizing elephant, alligator and python pores and skin, amongst others, all of which come from respected and sustainable sources within the U.S., mentioned Storey.
A storied historical past on the diamond
Nokona has specialised in baseball gloves since 1934. The corporate began in 1926 as Nocona Leather-based Items manufacturing purses and wallets. Then the Nice Despair hit.
“The one approach you might promote a pockets for a buck in these days was when you stuffed a greenback invoice inside it,” Storey joked.
Storey’s great-grandfather pivoted to sporting items and the remaining is historical past.
Regardless of the laborious instances of the Thirties and Forties — or maybe due to them, and the escape recreation provided — baseball was booming. Nokona caught the wave, and by the late Forties the corporate was outfitting the Brooklyn Dodgers-affiliated Fort Worth Cats.
In these days, the gamers would journey to away video games by bus up U.S. Route 81 and cease in Nocona to select up new gloves or drop outdated ones off for repairs.
Two of these Cats gamers made the massive membership in Brooklyn, and within the 1953 World Collection, legendary Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine wore a Nokona glove on the mound when he confronted the New York Yankees.
Quick ahead 70 years, and pitcher Ryan Pressly had on a Nokona gove when he recorded the ultimate out for the Houston Astros of their World Collection victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
There’s a signed Erskine jersey hanging in Nokona’s headquarters, together with pictures of Pressly and different large leaguers, like Nolan Ryan, who’ve used and endorsed Nokona merchandise through the years.
Two of MLB’s largest names, Pittsburgh Pirates phenom Paul Skenes and Royals star Bobby Witt put on Nokona belts on the diamond. The belts are a more moderen providing from Nokona, and so they have confirmed widespread with the professionals. Not too long ago, Nokona even supplied particular gold belts to a number of gamers within the 2025 MLB All-Star sport.
Glove economics 101
“Made in America” is one thing of a rallying cry as of late. The Trump administration has promised steep import tariffs to revive U.S. manufacturing. Some tariffs have gone into impact whereas others are on maintain.
For now, Storey mentioned, Nokona hasn’t seen a optimistic or detrimental influence. Whereas all of their leather-based comes from U.S. sources, some is tanned in Japan after which reimported to the U.S. That product has had the identical tariff for years, mentioned Storey, and it hasn’t modified.
When requested about protecting commerce insurance policies maybe serving to Nokona, Storey didn’t appear to suppose it will make an enormous distinction. Nokona gloves are identified and appreciated as a specialty product, with a price ticket commensurate with their repute.
You may stroll into any sporting items retailer and choose up a good Rawlings or Wilson grownup baseball glove for about $80 on the low finish as much as round $400 on the excessive finish. Nokona gloves begin at round that $400 worth level, and so they go up from there.
If Wilson and Rawlings need to cost just a little extra for a glove made in China due to greater tariffs, it’s in all probability not going to be sufficient to drive your common American client to purchase a Nokona glove.
It’s only a distinction in enterprise fashions. Nokona manufactures round 0.1% of all of the baseball gloves made annually. Whereas Rawlings and Wilson are mass producing tens of millions of gloves, Nokona makes about 500 every week.
Like with high-end automobiles or watches, loyal connoisseurs swear by the model. Storey opens the manufacturing unit just a few instances every week for excursions, and he’s had guys are available in with tears of their eyes, like they’re making a pilgrimage to a holy web site.
That’s to not say it’s all the time been simple. There was a time within the Seventies when Nokona was in peril. The opposite glove corporations had moved abroad, and with an power disaster and inflation working rampant, folks weren’t spending good cash on ballgloves.
Storey’s grandfather, Bob Storey, mentioned he’d “simply as quickly get a bucket of worms and go fishing” as transfer his manufacturing unit out of Nocona, so the household caught it out. The recognition of grownup slow-pitch softball within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties helped pull Nokona from a interval of decline.
Having weathered these tough years, Storey is able to go all out for the a hundredth anniversary. Nokona goes to start providing centennial-themed merchandise this fall. Subsequent summer time, Storey needs to host an enormous social gathering in Nocona to have fun the milestone. He’s a musician in his spare time, a drummer, so he’s eager about one thing involving bands, good meals and chilly beer. Perhaps even some sandlot baseball video games.
The centerpiece for the a hundredth celebration is already within the works: A 72-inch baseball glove, constructed by hand with elements made to scale, to show in Nokona’s new retail house on the manufacturing unit. Storey additionally needs to create a one-of-a-kind $100,000 glove constituted of elements of Nokona gloves going again to the Thirties, with added diamond inlays, to public sale for charity.
Nonetheless Nokona finally ends up marking the centenary, Storey is pleased with the place the corporate is and the place it’s going. In truth, he mentioned he’s already considering forward to Nokona’s two hundredth anniversary.
It’s that type of hope that has all the time coursed via the hearts and minds of baseball lovers. The hope that this’ll be the 12 months your workforce wins all of it. The hope that little leaguers harbor of at some point making the massive present.
If you’re the underdog, that type of hope sustains you, and within the baseball glove sport, Nokona is actually an underdog. They’ve all the time been and all the time would be the small market workforce competing in opposition to the massive boys with deeper pockets.
Besides in films, wealth and energy normally win in the long run. However generally, even in actual life, the little man comes out on high. And that, in a nutshell, is the story of Nokona.
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