I saw a picture of a kid on sebaseball.com:

Do you see what appears to be a long string hanging off his mitt? I have seen other kids with long strings as well.

What is the purpose of leaving a long string attached to your mitt like this?

Is it possible for the string to interfere with proper fielding of the ball? I would think so, but I don't really know actually.

quote:

What is the purpose of leaving a long string attached to your mitt like this?

It's like every other reason that kids do something - it's cool.

I think it would be very unlikely but I could see a string interfering with a play. Imagine the ball going into the glove and the string(s) flip over the ball. Now the player reaches in to get the ball and the string is between the ball and his hand. So when he pulls it out he is pulling on his glove.

With my son's old glove, he liked longer strings (not quite this long) so he could pull on them and "tighten" his glove. It might just be a mental thing, but he did it everytime he put his glove on, but doesn't with his new one.

I used to do that when I tightened my glove. It never got in my way. I still do that to gloves that I tighten for my players.

I always left mine long so I could loosen and tighten my gloves throughout the season. I liked a tight feeling glove and it just made it easier to tighten.

The glove is also flared, different than the way this old fogy trained and wore it...