You probably have a friend or know someone who has a nickname. A nickname is essentially what the term BGs is. It stands for batting gloves, nothing more and nothing less. It isn’t exactly shorter or even easier to say “BGs” rather than “batting gloves.” However, it is one of those things that is usually trendy in high school and college and that most players have heard.
Not all players use batting gloves. Two of the more recent players that didn’t wear batting gloves were Jorge Posada and Vladimir Guerrero. These were two excellent hitters who never needed to borrow a pair of BGs from a teammate.
Speaking of borrowing, letting a teammate borrow batting gloves can be awkward and very uncomfortable. They are fitted and formed to your hand, and when someone else puts their hand inside it messes up the groove that you slide yours into. Not to mention, other players sweat too and when you get your BGs back they are damp, and you really don’t want to put them on even though you are about to go on-deck to hit.
One of my biggest pet peeves about batting gloves is when a player is going to the plate with a pair of gloves on and then has another pair in his back pockets. It’s usually one glove in each back pocket as well and not two gloves in one pocket. I find this flashy and unnecessary. I usually make a joke about how he has one pair to hit with and one pair to run the bases with, but I have never really understood why someone would actually NEED an extra pair of gloves with them.
The term BGs isn’t something you’re likely to hear a Major League player use. If for some reason there was a post-game interview that involved batting gloves, such as a player tripping over his batting gloves running to first base, only the trendy or witty ballplayer would refer to them as BGs. As stated before, it is more of a “cool kids” term than something that you would hear every day at the ball park.
That’s all there is to for this week’s baseball terminology. If you have a suggestion for a term that should or needs to be explained, then leave a comment below!
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