Rawlings Baseball Gloves by Harry Latina in St Louis

[portobob]

Harry Latina was an employee of Rawlings in St Louis when baseball gloves were designed and manufactured in the states. His son was also a designer of gloves and other sports equipment. I think he also worked as a tool designer for Emerson Electric in a nearby Illinois plant. The two of them designed both custom gloves for big league ball players and they also did the production models for large scale manufacture. If memory serves they designed the 3 finger first baseman's "Trappers mitt" and the Playmaker models which were popular during the '50's.
P.S. I understand big league baseballs are manufactured in a plant in Haiti now, bound as tight as possible they fly off of the bats like rockets...ouch!

[Karen D]

And Harry Latina was my grandfather and it is so good to see his name live on in a Baseball forum. It wasn't my grandfather that worked at Emerson Electric. That was my uncle, Harry Jr. He also went on to work for Allis-Fiat, but sadly, he is now gone as well. My other uncle, Rolly (Roland), worked under my grandfather and carried on with the baseball glove designing after Harry Sr. retired.

I have wonderful memories from the baseball area of my family, lots of old newspaper clippings, old baseball gloves, etc.