What Pros Wear: What Pros Wear: Johan Santana (Glove, Cleats)

What Pros Wear: Johan Santana (Glove, Cleats)

Mike 06/03/2012

johan santana glove model, johan santana cleats, johan santana rawlings, new balance

The first Met ever to throw a no-hitter, Johan Santana wears a Rawlings Heart of the Hide glove and New Balance cleats.

This post has been updated. Find it here.

If you didn’t see it, Johan’s no-hitter was one of the classier moments in baseball that I can remember. Not only is it an incredible feat to get 27 outs without a hit against any MLB team, but he did it against the defending champs and a very good lineup, and while throwing a career-high 134 pitches. I checked out how often someone has no-hit a defending champion in MLB history, and after exhaustive research I found that it’s only happened 5 times since 1940 and the last time it happened was June 11, 1990, when Nolan Ryan no-hit the defending champion Oakland A’s, a team that would lose to the Reds in the World Series that year.

Mets Manager Terry Collins spoke of Santana being “his hero,” and when asked about his decision to keep Santana in, Collins joked, “Number one, the fight that would have taken place on the mound if I would have taken him out would have been a bigger story than the no-hitter.”

The bulldog Johan no-hit the Cardinals with a Rawlings Heart of the Hide glove with a Two-Piece Solid web and a finger hood. What we know is that in past years Santana has worn a PROPL9FB model with a mesh back (in the feature above), but has since changed out the Pro Mesh. He also changed the text on the glove. It used to say “El Gocho,” a term used to refer to a native of the Venezuelan Andes, but now it just says his name. We don’t know his exact current model, but it is exactly like the PROPL9FB aside from the absence of Pro Mesh. His glove is most similar to the Rawlings PRO10009JB, right down to the finger hood.

The gold accents for the 2-time Cy Young winner Santana. Screen from MLB.tv.

Johan is another recent addition to the New Balance team, having worn Adidas and Nike in the past. Santana wears the 1103 model (as seen in the feature photo), which is available online in several different colorways, just not Johan’s. Since Johan wears his pants draped over his cleats, I couldn’t tell if it was the high or low version of the 1103, but for the type of athlete he is, I would guess low.