What Is A Rawlings HOH Mark A Pro Glove?

Over the years, JustGloves has been lucky enough to cultivate a relationship with a number of great brands. Through these relationships, we have had the opportunity to work with influencers within the baseball industry, meet some big leaguers and even attend some awesome events.

One of the things we enjoy most is when we get to collaborate with a glove brand to create a unique product for our website. And Rawlings is an outstanding company with which to work on a joint project. Over the last few years, we’ve had the chance to work together with Rawlings to design a number of HOH Mark of a Pro baseball gloves. 

Let’s dive into them and see what makes this exclusive line of gloves so great!

How Are The HOH Mark of a Pros Constructed?

The HOH Mark of a Pro line of gloves has one of the more unique stories regarding how it is built. When Rawlings creates the shell for their famous Heart of the Hide ball gloves, they usually have excess leather left over. And instead of wasting that material by discarding it, Rawlings has agreed to work with JustGloves to piece some of the excess leather together to create some exclusive ball gloves for us to sell. 

The shells of these gloves are going to be built with that pieced together Heart of the Hide leather (sometimes if it is available, Rawlings will even incorporate the kip leather they use on their Pro Preferred gloves). You are able to see the uniqueness of the glove when you take a look at the palm of one of these Mark of a Pros. Below you’ll see that the palm is composed of 3 pieces of leather that are stitched together (a thumb portion, a palm portion and a pinky portion):

Although it looks a little bit different, this design should not inhibit your fielding ability. In fact, a lot of players probably wouldn’t even notice the difference in design.

The Mark of a Pros will continue to differ from the regular Heart of the Hide gloves when you inspect their hand slots. Instead of having the Deer Tanned Cowhide palm liner, the HOH Mark of a Pros will have an inner lining that is a little more similar to what you might find on a Rawlings R9 glove. 

One of the best aspects of these HOH Mark of a Pros is the fun splashes of color that they provide. Ultimately, the colors come down to whatever excess leather Rawlings had after they built a batch of Heart of the Hides. Depending on the year, we might have blue gloves, red gloves, brown gloves, etc… included in this Mark of a Pro glove line up.

What Positions Are HOH Mark of a Pro Gloves Made For?

This is the fun part for us! We actually get to play a small part in determining the patterns of gloves that are made within this line. Our merchandising team is able to analyze which patterns of Rawlings gloves are best suited for the JustGloves site and send those over to Rawlings to see if they can build those patterns for us.

However, this line is a little unique since Rawlings is only able to use portions of Heart of the Hide leather in the building process. Because of this, they are limited in the lengths to which they can build the gloves and all of these gloves will be made as infield models. These Mark of a Pros should easily handle the demands of 2nd Base, Short Stop and Third Base.

But rest assured that Rawlings incorporates infield patterns that players have come to love over the years. Below are a few that are used on the HOH Mark of a Pro line…

• NP Pattern - This is one of the most classic infielder patterns out there. Overall, the pocket size is pretty shallow and this allows players to have extremely fast transfer times from the glove to the throwing hand. NP models close thumb to index or middle finger. See below for how a Rawlings NP glove closes…

• 200 Pattern - In recent years, the trend for infielders has been to get a glove that has a deep pocket. The deeper pocket gives fielders a little more room for error especially when it comes to fielding with their backhand or charging in on a slow roller. The 200 pattern gloves from Rawlings achieve this deep pocket by allowing the glove to close from thumb to 4th or pinky finger. See below for how a Rawlings 200 glove closes…

• YPT Pattern - The “YPT” stands for Youth Pro Taper. And these gloves are designed with smaller finger stalls and a fully cinched up wrist opening to allow younger hands to fit in them easily. This is a pattern for players as young as 7 years old.

How Much Does An HOH Mark of a Pro Cost?

This is one of the best aspects of shopping for an HOH Mark of a Pro. You are able to find these gloves priced considerably lower than regular Heart of the Hides. Since the glove doesn’t feature an entire design that matches a Heart of the Hide, JustGloves is able to sell these models at a more affordable price. We really believe that these can be a great option for a player in their early teens that wants a quality baseball glove, but isn’t feeling like they can shell out the big bucks for a top of the line Rawlings model just yet! As well, they’ll work excellently for high schoolers and even adults that just want something to use for a game of catch with their kids!

___

We hope that this article has enlightened you a little bit on the details of one of our favorite JustGloves Exclusives: the HOH Mark of a Pro. If you still have questions about this Rawlings glove or any other baseball, fastpitch or slow pitch glove we are carrying, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team of Glove Experts. The expert squad can be reached by phone at 866-321-4568. You can get ahold of them by email through experts@justgloves.com. Or by chatting with an expert right here.