Home Team Handz gives baseball the clap

The Dugout is still waiting for Home Team Handz to announce its first contract with a major or minor league ball club. That wait shouldn’t be long.

For those yet to see the story on the main MinorLeagueDugout.com site, Home Team Handz debuted a nylon glove with plastic half-globes attached to the palms at the winter meetings in Nashville. The front and back of the gloves are pictured on the right.

Clapping your hands while wearing these gloves produces a sound significantly louder than skin on skin. The gloves, which may be a bit pricey for a minor league giveaway even with the spot for sponsorship on the back of the glove, should make their appearances at major league parks this season.

The Dugout, for one, doesn’t want to be at that game. They are loud. As Matt Moore, a friend of The Dugout, put it: They are a headache on a glove.

That doesn’t mean the product won’t sell. Look at ThunderStix. Those things are utterly annoying, yet they were the hit of promotional giveaways for, what, five years? Home Team Handz puts the thunder in your palms – which is actually a benefit to those sitting behind you.

The gloves are also more durable, therefore more usable, than the balloon-like Thundersix, which should help increase the amount of grade-school detentions if giveaway days precede school days. People who wear these clap-traps seem to love them. And they draw a crowd.

They are another example of a simple idea that thousands of people will wear and think, “How come I didn’t think of this?” So congrats to Marc Kohn and Craig Maniglia for executing a good idea. Fans of these sorts of promotional noisemakers should hurry to get a pair. Those who don’t like this stuff, well you should probably get your hands on some, too. Trust The Dugout, you may not be a fan of the noise, but you certainly don’t want to be the only fan without them.