Sports Illustrated Story on Nokona Replica Glove Revelation by Joe Phillips

The publication in June of 1991 of the story on Nokona glove making and our program to make reproduction of its gloves had the germination of a chance conversation with Jim Storey, then president of Nocona Athletic Goods. When we told him were looking for a direct mail marketing program, he mentioned that many old Nokona glove users often asked if the company could re-make its old gloves that they loved. So, the project began with many twists and turns.

Beneficially, it resulted in Nocona Athletic Goods being put back on the map as one of the last of the American Made glove makers and helped them out of a recession of sorts trying to compete with foreign made gloves which had simply shut down domestic plant after plant.

The shock immediate shock wave of the the S. I. story was tsunami in effect. We took 13,000 phone calls in a month. Nocona had about that many and were swamped. In short, we were swamped with requests that it took five or six months to fill.

It gradually segued into a new interest in old baseball gloves and eventually spilled over into bats and vintage baseballs through the decade of the 1990s.

A new era of collecting baseball gloves had dawned.