Vegan Baseball and Cool Shoes

My 16 year old nephew Sammy and his team the Mira Costa All Star Mustangs just clinched the Western Regional Senior Little League Baseball Championship! Yay! Right now they are headed to Bangor, Maine to play in the Senior Little League World Series!  We are one uber proud family! Sammy has been a phenom from the time he was born. He was hitting and fielding before he was two and his first words were golf, hockey, ball and bat. Sammy is not vegan, but this got me to thinking. What if Sammy was vegan? Where would he get a cruelty free baseball glove? Are there even any around? This reminded me of how when I was a kid playing competitive tennis many of my racquets were originally strung with my apologies - cat gut - until I more compassionately switched to something called bluestar nylon which to me had a similar feel. Anyway, with some trepidation, (what if nobody cares), I decided to google vegan baseball gloves. Much to my surprise I found a small factory where they actually customize vegan gloves. Get this, the factory Carpenter Trade Company http://www.carpentertrade.com/material.html is even located right near the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Scott Carpenter the owner, a graduate of RISI, purchased glove making machinery from a Rawlings factory that was closing down. He studied gloves extensively at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and founded the company in 2001.Scott has supplied major league ball players with gloves and you can find a page on how to fit the perfect glove on this fascinating site. Below is a blurb about Carpenter Trade's materials. Thank you, Scott!

FOR THE CRUELTY-FREE CONSCIOUS:

We use synthetics based on their performance; nevertheless, some of our customers are drawn to us for the simple fact that our gloves have never been made with animal leathers. Some web sources advertise “vegan” gloves which are actually cheap imported vinyl gloves made with leather laces and wool. While our gloves never use leather we do use wool for padding. Those wanting absolutely no animal materials can request all-synthetic padding from us; such gloves are the only vegan gloves available anywhere.

I wonder if Scott could make me some groovy new lace up boots or some great new kicks.

Live Confidently by Vegan Chick

In the mean time I'm going to cook up some Vegan dogs and pop some nooch popcorn and get ready for tomorrow's game. Go Mustangs!!! You are the Best of the West!