Baseball great Barry Bonds was on top of his game, but his glove wasn’t quite keeping up. Bonds was looking for a lighter outfield glove, but there wasn’t anything on the market that met needs without sacrificing pocket stability and performance.

SO HE PAID A VISIT TO THE GLOVE GURU, WILSON GLOVE MASTER CRAFTSMAN SHIGEAKI ASO.

Since becoming Wilson’s official Glove Guru in 1979, Aso has designed gloves for countless MLB players, including Greg Maddux and Kirby Puckett. Simply by watching a player in action, examining his current glove, and even feeling his handshake, Aso can develop or modify a glove pattern specifically for him. He is a master who could break in gloves with his eyes closed. However, he had never attempted to make a lighter glove.

BUT HE HAD AN IDEA.

I noticed some material on his desk that had been used for the Evolution Basketball. 

In Chicago at Wilson LABS, sitting a mere 10 feet from Aso’s workstation on his coworker’s desk was a material being tested on basketballs.

“I noticed some material on his desk that had been used for the Evolution Basketball,” explains Aso. “The Evolution Basketball was designed to wick away moisture to give players a better grip. And it was designed to be used on concrete, so I knew the material was durable. So I said ‘why not?’”

Aso borrowed a few sheets of material and went to work. The first glove prototypes made with the Evolution Basketball material were well-received, but they weren’t quite up to Aso’s standards of perfection. “The glove was still a bit heavy and it was picking up dirt,” he says. “So we had to keep working at it.”