How to Customize All-Star Catchers Gear

Making the All-Star Game as a representative from your league is anhonor. Although most players who make the All-Star Game look forward to showing what they can do in front of a national audience, it's a bit more of a responsibility for catchers, who have to handle pitchers they might not have worked with before. That makes it a huge responsibility. But in addition to the work, catchers have every right to feel pride, and they can show their pride by customizing their catching gear.

Instructions

1. Paint your shoes white. This has been a habit for top-of-the-line players in the All-Star Game since the mid-1970s. National League players would paint their shoes white as part of the honor of being in the game. Cincinnati Reds catcher Johnny Bench, the greatest catcher of his era and perhaps in baseball history, resisted the move. However, when Bench was replaced as an All-Star by Montreal Expos catcher Gary Carter, catchers finally started wearing white shoes in the All-Star Game.

2. Paint an All-Star logo on your chest protector. You don't have to do this yourself, but an All-Star logo from the host city can be painted or stenciled on your chest protector. It will give the announcers something to talk about and the fans at the game something to look at.

3. Have your catcher's mask decorated with the All-Star Game in mind. Since the early 1990s, many catchers have used hockey-style catcher's masks. These masks respond well to paint and designs.

4. Stencil the date and location of the game on your shin guards. This rather-sedate piece of equipment is jazzed up with an All-Star reference running down the front of the guards.

5. Get the All-Star logo stitched on your cap for the game. The player doesn't really have to do anything to make this happen because the game's administrators and your team's traveling secretary will make sure your cap gets the All-Star logo put on it.