Baseball glove

Mizuno Glove (Blue Cup)

Autumn/2014

In junior high-school, I was a member of the school’s baseball club.
I played as a shortstop. For quick fielding and throwing, the ideal glove needed to be small, with a shallow pocket. The glove I had used since elementary school was the exact opposite of that, and so after joining the baseball club, I wanted a glove that fitted my new position.

After fierce negotiations with my mother, I finally got the glove I had longed for, the Mizuno ‘Blue Cup’. And what a cool glove it was. I was delighted and kept scrutinizing it from every angle. I remember taking the glove to school every day, just because I wanted to take good care of it. This glove was my first experience of feeling a strong attachment towards an object.

I can only hope that our customers feel the same deep affection for our products that I felt for this glove — especially the younger customers, who may have saved up their pocket money to one of our lenses or cameras. As manufacturers, I want to be considerate of our products’ life, from their creation to the time they spend with our customers.

Come to think of it, there were other gloves in Mizuno’s line-up at the time. The regular ‘Red Cup’ and the ‘Green Cup’, which was produced for softball players. I wonder if, perhaps subconsciously, I was influenced by my memories a little when we created our current three product lines…

The Mizuno “Blue Cup” was an icon in rubber-ball baseball. The logo of a winner’s trophy was at one time the dream of many young boys playing baseball.

(text / Kazuto Yamaki CEO of SIGMA)

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