Baseball is an outdoor sport, and like every outdoor sport, sometimes you just have to tough it out and play through the rain. It’s unavoidable. And if you play in the rain, there’s a good chance that by the time the game’s over, your favorite baseball glove is soaked through.
Baseball gloves aren’t like soccer balls. You can’t just play in wet conditions and expect no repercussions afterward. Excessive exposure to moisture can and will damage the leather and shorten your glove’s lifespan pretty drastically. So that begs the question, how do you dry a wet baseball glove the right way?
I mean, you can’t exactly put it in the microwave or blast it with a hairdryer (bad idea, trust me). Air drying is the only safe way to go here, and you’ll also need to condition the leather while you’re at it. Long story short, there’s a bit of prep work involved.
I’ll walk you through the steps to dry your glove the right way and keep the damage to a minimum. Let’s get into it.
Is a Baseball Glove Ruined If It Gets Wet?
Before I take you deeper down the rabbit hole, let’s answer the question that’s probably circling your thoughts right now. Is this the end for your glove? If it got wet, is it time to say goodbye? Thankfully, no. But that doesn’t mean you can just toss it in your locker and call it a day. You need to dry it properly, condition the leather, and rehydrate it so it doesn’t stay soaked with rainwater. Otherwise, all sorts of issues can crop up.
One of the most common issues is that the glove gets heavier as the leather soaks up rainwater. Other problems that show up if you don’t dry a wet baseball glove properly include cracks in the leather and a misshapen pocket. Leave it wet long enough, especially if you toss it straight into a closed bag, and you’re also flirting with mold and mildew. If your glove ever starts smelling musty after a rainy game, that’s usually the first sign, and I’ve put together a separate guide on cleaning mold off a leather baseball glove if it’s already gotten to that point. So it’s best to tackle a wet glove as soon as you reasonably can.
How Long Does It Take a Baseball Glove to Dry?
Most gloves need somewhere between 24 and 48 hours to air dry fully, depending on how soaked it got and how humid your house or garage is. A light rain jacket of moisture might be dry to the touch within a day. A glove that took a full nine innings of steady rain can take closer to two full days before it’s back to normal weight. Don’t rush it. Rushing the drying process is exactly what leads people to reach for heat sources, and that’s the mistake that actually ruins gloves.
How to Dry a Soaked Baseball Glove
Now that you understand the risks of leaving it wet, let’s look at how to restore your baseball glove. Grab a couple of clean towels and a bottle of your favorite glove conditioner before you get started.
1. Soak Up the Excess Water
The first thing to do when your glove gets wet is pat it down with a clean towel. Get it as dry as you can, applying gentle pressure every so often to pull out any excess moisture. Once a towel soaks up enough water and gets damp, switch to a fresh, dry one.
Wrap a baseball in a towel and push it into the pocket of the glove. That way, the towel applies a bit of pressure from inside the pocket, helping the glove hold its shape while soaking up water at the same time. Then take another clean towel and push it through the wrist opening all the way up to the finger stalls. Finally, take a third towel and use it to wrap up the entire glove.
The main thing to remember here is not to let the towel get too damp. If it does, swap it out immediately. You can also use newspaper or paper towels in a pinch if you don’t have that many clean towels on hand.
2. Air Dry Using a Fan
Once you’ve soaked up as much water as you can with towels, it’s time to actually dry the glove. I’d suggest picking up an inexpensive box fan if you don’t already have a ceiling fan at home. You’ll find one at any local supermarket or hardware store without much trouble.
Put the glove on a table in front of the fan and turn it on, pointing it directly at the wet leather. Alternatively, you can lean the glove against the fan so the surface gets direct airflow. Just don’t let the glove get too cold either.
Try to keep the glove at room temperature, cycling the fan on and off every so often rather than running it nonstop for hours. Once you notice the glove has dried up a bit, you can move on to the next step.
3. Condition the Leather
So you’ve soaked up the moisture and dried out the glove. That should be enough, right? Not quite. If you stop there, you’ll notice after a while that the leather starts to crack. To prevent that, you need to rehydrate the leather using a glove conditioner. Now you might be wondering, isn’t the whole point here to remove moisture? Why rehydrate it, then?
Leather is a lot like human skin. Leave it wet too long and it starts to deteriorate. Let it dry out too much and it starts to crack. A leather conditioner helps you land in the sweet spot between too much moisture and too little.
Apply the conditioner to a piece of clean cloth and rub it thoroughly into the leather. Work it in gently, covering the entire surface of the glove. Don’t go overboard with how much conditioner you use, since too much can do more harm than good.
If you don’t have a specialized glove conditioner on hand, there are a few household baseball glove oil alternatives that can hold you over. They can work in a pinch as long as you apply them the right way and don’t lean on them as a permanent replacement.
4. Let It Rest
Once you’ve finished the steps above, it’s time to let the glove rest. Place it in a dry spot indoors and let it sit for at least 24 hours. Make sure the room is well ventilated, but keep it out of direct sunlight. After 24 hours, your glove should be back to its normal shape, weight, and color, and ready for regular use.
Once it’s fully dry and conditioned, resist the urge to just toss it back into your bag. How you store your baseball glove after this whole process matters just as much as the drying itself. A cool, dry, ventilated spot is what you’re after, not the trunk of your car or the bottom of a sealed equipment bag.
5. Repeat as Needed
If you think the glove still needs work after one pass, you can repeat the steps above until you’re happy with how it looks and feels. Personally, I wouldn’t repeat the full process more than two times in a row. If it’s still not right after that, give it a few days of normal use and reassess rather than over-conditioning it.
Things to Keep in Mind When Drying Your Wet Baseball Glove
Drying a wet baseball glove isn’t all that difficult once you know the right way to go about it. Here are a few good habits that’ll help keep your glove in good shape once you’re done.
Tip 1: Weigh the Glove
When a baseball glove gets wet, it gets heavier as it soaks up water. It’s a good idea to weigh your glove once before you start drying it and once again after you’re done. If you already know roughly how much it weighs under normal conditions, that comparison tells you how much moisture is still trapped inside after drying.
Tip 2: Do Not Use Direct Heat
You may have seen people microwave their gloves or blast them with a hairdryer to speed up drying. But if you want your baseball glove to last, that’s the last thing you should do.
If it gets wet, use towels to pull out moisture and let it air dry. Applying direct heat forces the leather to dry too fast, and that’s what leads to cracking. So no matter how tempting it is to speed things up with a heat source, don’t do it.
Tip 3: Do Not Wring It Out
If the glove is drenched, you might get the idea to wring it out the way you would a towel to squeeze out the last bit of water. That’s an extremely bad idea.
Wringing your glove won’t just leave it misshapen, it can damage the leather itself. You might not be able to reshape it at all once it dries.
Tip 4: Reshape the Glove if Needed
Once your glove is fresh and dry, you might notice its shape is a little off. In that case, you’ll want to reshape the glove using a wooden or rubber mallet, or by cinching a ball into the pocket with rubber bands overnight.
Parting Wisdom
Drying a wet baseball glove isn’t as complicated as it might seem at first. It’s a piece of outdoor sports gear, after all, so a bit of rain isn’t going to ruin it on its own. But leaving it wet won’t do it any favors either. My advice: after the game, take a few minutes to tend to your glove and dry it properly before you put it away.
While you’re at it, this is also a good moment to check whether your glove needs a deeper clean. Rain tends to drag dirt and grass stains along with it, and I’ve got a full walkthrough on how to clean a baseball glove if yours could use it once it’s dry.
I hope this five-step approach to drying a wet baseball glove helps you restore and preserve yours without much hassle. Cheers!
Tyler Wells
With 4 years of Division II experience, a .272 career batting average, .410 on-base percentage, and 7 home runs, I’m now in my fifth season. I’ve played baseball since age 3, alongside future MLB Draft picks, and I aim to pursue a career in baseball professionally, be it playing, coaching, or scouting.