Awesome, great observation! You're right, the embroidery isn't completely parallel with the seam. It's not super evident, but definitely noticeable if you are really looking at it. The problem is finding Hi-Res pictures from that time period. The angles are always tough and most of the cards aren't really close enough to make a definitive match. This definitely helps a lot though!

I wish I could find some game or video archives from the 1999 season to see if I can't match them up; however, I can't hardly find anything prior to 2004 for the Cardinals. It's unbelievable to me in our day of internet-everything that there aren't archived pictures, game footage, videos, etc sitting out there somewhere. Maybe there is and I'm just not great at digging around, but all my searches have come up empty.

I think my saving grace will be able to show it to Rick in person. He still may not be able to 100% attest to the fact that this is the exact glove he broke into the majors with, but I'm fairly certain he will at least be able to tell me whether or not it is one of his legit gamers. I'm sure he's gone through many more gloves in his lifetime than me, but I feel like I could positively identify a glove that I used at any point in my life vs. a glove that wasn't mine.

Quote Originally Posted by aus10dixon View Post
What's immediately noticeable is the dirt, clay, wear, or whatever those red marks are above the Rawlings logo. That would be the main thing I'd look for in other media. Getty Images or AP Photos may have some better photos for a photo match.

Additionally, it looks like the custom embroidery isn't perfectly parallel to the seam on the thumb of the glove. If you look closer to the "ick" in his first name, there's a noticeable gap between the baseline of the type and the seam, but the "iel" of his last name is comparably closer to the seam. The ESPN2 screenshot seems to show this (see below). In your screenshot, his first name is clearly separated from the seam. Thanks to the video quality, the end of his last name looks like it's starting to bleed into the seam.

For the most part, embroidery like that tends to be unique on a piece-by-piece basis due to the fact that it's hard to apply it in the exact same spot on different items over and over. It could be a little to the top, bottom, left, right, or even rotated a couple of degrees differently.

Someone with more baseball expertise may want to chime in. Congratulations on picking up the glove!