When the Catcher's Mitt Was a Cage (1904)

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

 

In the history of baseball gloves--better still, in the history of the catcher's mitt--there are few ideas that are as singular as the glove/mitt that isn't a glove, or a mitt.  This was the patent report of the invention of J.E. Bennett in 1904, which proposed to replace the mitt with a cage.  The cage offered a receiving area easily double the size of a catcher's mitt, with padding at the back of the cage to cushion the capture of the pitched ball, after which the ball would somehow be collected and deposited via that pipe.  I'm not sure what the catcher would do with pitched balls that were low, or high, but the cage certainly did not have any real versatility, particularly when comparing it to a real glove. It seems as though this idea didn't go far, and that was a good thing. 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/may/14/imagining-the-future-turn-of-the-century-us-patents-in-pictures