My son has had 44 Pro, Rico, and Bradley youth model gloves. They all had 1 flaw in common and that was poor quality laces. All of the laces were trashed within a season and the gloves became weak & floppy. If I could do it again I would go with Wilson A1000. He is now 11yo, and has been using a Wilson A2000 Pedroia Fit for 2 seasons (10U travel) and it has held up great. We broke-in the A2000 using the Wilson ASO hot water method and have religiously maintained and conditioned it. He should easily get another 1-2 years out of it before going into middle school. Another great option is the Rawling HOH Contour Fit. Geared to smaller youth hands and breaks in wonderfully.
Yup! I think they are almost made that way on purpose to allow for younger players to actually break them in. But in turn this also causes them to wear out more quickly. I also bought my boy a PD a2000 this offseason and am currently breaking it in
Yeah it’s hard to get 9 year olds to correctly take care of their gloves 😂 I have no gotten him a glove loop so he doesn’t just throw it in his bag and it get crushed haha. I have glove conditioner and such so going forward the gloves should be better taken care of haha
@@PerformanceFactoryBaseball I hear ya. My 2 have always been kinda crazy when it comes to glove care. When people get gloves from me, I emphasize the fact that good care goes a long way. Some will blame the glove. 🤦🏻♂️
Which do you recommend more based on the experiences your son had with both the Bradley and the Pro Youth 44... I have a soon to be 9yr old looking to get into a higher quality glove, actually even considering the new Valle custom game gloves, we love their training gloves, but not much info on the youth models... Thanks for the reviews. Seems like both are solid options, we are hoping to get thru 9 and 10u with the next glove and stepping up from his 11.25 to an 11.5
Honestly both have been good. I would maybe slightly give the nod to Bradley as far as quality goes, but obviously they have fewer custom options if that matters to you. Sadly, we have not tried Valle so cannot comment there. Break in process for both was very easy compared to adult higher end models.
