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If there's one thing I'm passionate about, it's racquetball. I've been at it for almost 30 years, so when I learned my good friends down at Louisville Slugger were developing a new racquetball glove, I knew I had to have one.
So I got in touch with Rick Redman at Slugger, who gave me one for testing.
All the marketing hype on the new Bionic Glove is impressive -- developed by local hand surgeon Dr. Jim Kleinert, it has all these absorbent pads in it, their placement based on Kleinert's assessment of peaks and valleys in the hand.
Bill Clark, the Bionic Glove VP, told me all the technical info on the glove's development, how Kleinert has studied the way the hand works and developed gloves that are technically superior. Interestingly, it came about after the company started pitching a tennis glove to sporting goods retailers, who advised him that the technology would be perfect for racquetball. (By the way, I suggested this to Clark years ago).
Clark said the tennis market's potential is big, especially since no one really plays tennis with a glove. "But if you remember 10 years ago there were no football gloves. Now everyone wears one," he said.
The company is trying to get a professional tennis player to wear the glove. And it makes sense, because there's more pressure on the grip in tennis, that players would benefit from a glove.
Back to my test of the racquetball glove. The big thing with racquetball is moisture. Once a glove gets wet, you lose the benefits of being able to grip the racket, and have to change it out. I usually go through 4 of 5 gloves in an hour.
However, after playing with the Bionic glove four times, I haven't had to switch it out yet because it was wet. The sweat seems to be absorbed in the pads, which are like terrycloth sponges placed throughout.
Of course, all this technology comes at a price. The Bionic racquetball glove retails at $19.99, double the price of some of the average gloves marketed by Head and Ektelon.
The Bionic glove division, a relatively new part of the Hillerich & Bradsby operation, has become a significant part of the H & B business. The company started working with Kleinert a few years back, and has gotten into gloves for gardening, golf, equestrian, motorcycles, driving, baseball and even dress gloves.
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