I was looking for a new glove for my 8.5 year old daughter. She is small (4'2") and very athletic. She moved up to 10u for fall ball and has been using a Mizuno Prospect Finch Series 11.5" glove, but it was too floppy to handle some of the harder hits and throws. I'm a newbie at all of this so I did lots of reading on this site and came across a post by another father that had a small 10u daughter with small hands like my daughter. He was struggling to find a glove that fit and ultimately went with a Bradley glove after trying out several different ones. I hadn't heard of Bradley, so I did a little bit of research. They are a new company that started up late 2016 earlier 2017 with the goal of making gloves dedicated for kids from the young ones thru the teenage years. After trading emails with the company on some options, I ordered the Bradley Next Play Single Post Fast Back 11.75" and the Bradley FP Gold Open Back 11.75". The Next Play series is sold as a baseball glove, but the company says it is the same construction as the Bradly FP Gold Fast Back which was out of stock. For comparison I also bought a Vinci Fortus 11.5" which many on here really like. The Vinci Fortus was $85 and the Bradley's were both $125 each shipped to my door. The Vinci only has one web design to choose from, a "Net T-Web" where Bradley offered a single post and H-web in the FP Gold series and single post, H-web, I-web, plus web, and trap web in the Next Play series. I'm a newbie so I'm not sure at the 10u age how much the various web designs will help or hurt a player in a given positions, but having options is rarely a bad thing. Vinci glove comes in a 11.5", 12", and 12.5". The Bradley FP series only comes in a 11.75", but the Next Play series comes in a 11", 11.25", 11.5", 11.75", 12", and 12.5". Both Vinci and Bradley offer dedicated catcher and first baseman gloves.
Overall construction looks to be similar between all three gloves. All three had a fuzzy lining for the back of the hand. Not sure I'm too thrilled with the fuzzy lining as it seems like it would be a magnet for dirt and sweat and get pretty nasty quick, but my daughter really liked it. The Bradley Next Play has their Fast Back design which uses a mostly closed back side with a leather strap to adjust the wrist opening. The Bradley FP Gold has a traditional open back with Velcro to adjust the wrist. The Vinci Fortus has a traditional laces open back with two sets of holes to adjust the wrist opening. As expected the Bradley's, both 11.75", were taller than the 11.5" Vinci. Overall width of all three gloves was within a 1/4" or so. Out of the box the Vinci is a brick and will need a good break in period with a grown up starting it off as my daughter didn't have the strength to even flex the glove a little bit. The Bradley's advertise that they are 80% broken in from the factory and that seems about right. They were still on the stiff side, but my daughter was able to flex the glove enough to catch a call right out of the box. It will still need some work to form a good pocket and flex enough that she can get the fingers to close.
The fit on the hand was the biggest difference between the two. The spread on the finger stalls in the Vinci was just too wide for my daughters hand. She felt like it was trying to pull her pinky off. She has tried shifting her fingers over and doubling up, but she hasn't been able to get comfortable doing that. The Bradley gloves were much more comfortable to her. The spread on the finger stalls was narrower and worked well for her smaller hands. The finger stalls were also small on the Bradley's giving a tighter fit on the fingers than the Vinci.
I'm going to take all three gloves to practice and let our head coach lookat them. He has way more experience (on his 4th daughter in softball!) than I do. I'll also have a few girls of different sizes try them on and get their impressions.
Vinci Fortus 11.5"
Overall construction looks to be similar between all three gloves. All three had a fuzzy lining for the back of the hand. Not sure I'm too thrilled with the fuzzy lining as it seems like it would be a magnet for dirt and sweat and get pretty nasty quick, but my daughter really liked it. The Bradley Next Play has their Fast Back design which uses a mostly closed back side with a leather strap to adjust the wrist opening. The Bradley FP Gold has a traditional open back with Velcro to adjust the wrist. The Vinci Fortus has a traditional laces open back with two sets of holes to adjust the wrist opening. As expected the Bradley's, both 11.75", were taller than the 11.5" Vinci. Overall width of all three gloves was within a 1/4" or so. Out of the box the Vinci is a brick and will need a good break in period with a grown up starting it off as my daughter didn't have the strength to even flex the glove a little bit. The Bradley's advertise that they are 80% broken in from the factory and that seems about right. They were still on the stiff side, but my daughter was able to flex the glove enough to catch a call right out of the box. It will still need some work to form a good pocket and flex enough that she can get the fingers to close.
The fit on the hand was the biggest difference between the two. The spread on the finger stalls in the Vinci was just too wide for my daughters hand. She felt like it was trying to pull her pinky off. She has tried shifting her fingers over and doubling up, but she hasn't been able to get comfortable doing that. The Bradley gloves were much more comfortable to her. The spread on the finger stalls was narrower and worked well for her smaller hands. The finger stalls were also small on the Bradley's giving a tighter fit on the fingers than the Vinci.
I'm going to take all three gloves to practice and let our head coach lookat them. He has way more experience (on his 4th daughter in softball!) than I do. I'll also have a few girls of different sizes try them on and get their impressions.
Vinci Fortus 11.5"
