“In Japan, we take care of our instruments, our bats and our gloves,” Ichiro Suzuki once said. “We take care of them well because these things are very important.”
During a 1999 game in Japan, Ichiro struck out and broke his handmade bat in frustration. He regretted it so deeply that he wrote a letter apologizing to the craftsman who had shaped it from tamo wood.
Ichiro understood that his bat was more than a piece of equipment. It represented someone else’s care, skill, and effort.
Years later, he explained his philosophy simply:
“You never see a great carpenter throw his best hammer.”
Respecting the instrument meant respecting the hands that made it.
That brings us to this week’s guest: Marco Soto, owner of Soto Custom Gloves.
A Lesson in Leather
I learned Marco’s story after I ran across one of his custom gloves by chance. As I picked it up and began tugging on it, the obvious quality and leather smell were better than brands I had handled before. When I called to ask about stock, Marco answered. I bought one for my son and then learned that long before Soto Gloves was in Southern California, there was a craftsman.
The story begins in Mexico with his grandfather, Anselmo Soto, a leather craftsman who made saddles and whips. In 1964, a wealthy gentleman asked Anselmo to make his twins gloves, saying, “I’ll pay you whatever it takes.” He went home to tell his wife that he didn’t know how. She encouraged him to try. Those two gloves began it.
When Marco was a boy, his grandfather made him his first baseball glove by hand. It took about three days.
Years later, Marco brought that glove with him to the United States. While attending Long Beach Poly High School, teammates noticed something unusual about it.
The label says Soto.
They wanted to know where it came from. “My grandfather made it,” he said.
That family craft eventually became the calling. Marco started essentially from zero in the United States and built the business around the same principle his grandfather taught him — Make something with care.
That care is on my kitchen table.
Today, Soto is far more than a small hobby glove company. When ABC7 profiled the company in 2024, Marco’s team was was working through 1,800 custom glove orders.
But here’s something else. When you call, he picks up the phone. It’s not because they don’t have enough business. It’s because Soto is a family business, and families take care of each other. Marco still wants to talk with the player, parent, or coach on the other end of the phone.
There’s something our kids can learn from that, too.
Every Stitch Counts
We’re in Week Four of The Class, and our performance theme is LOCK—building focus. So we’re going to learn intention from someone who practices it for a living.
Marco will talk our students through the roughly six-hour process of making a handmade Soto glove. They’ll learn that:
Someone built it.
Someone finished it.
And somebody cared enough to make the stitches count.
That’s a baseball lesson.
But it’s also a life lesson.
Things arrive at our doorstep with one click. It’s easy for our kids—and for us—to forget about the people behind the things we use every day.
The farmer who grew it.
The teacher who prepared it.
The parent who paid for it.
The craftsman who made it.
Gratitude begins when we recognize the work somebody else did on our behalf.
Ichiro understood that.
Marco Soto lives it.
And Wednesday, our boys get to learn it.
Wednesday, September 23rd
6:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM ET
Week #4 — LOCK: Build Intention
In Case You Missed It
Last week, Gio Blanchette joined The Class and brought tremendous enthusiasm for the career he has built after baseball as a financial advisor. Joe Fangman shared the power of Roberto Clemente’s legacy — a great teammate.
It was another reminder that life after baseball brings the skills, habits and values shaped by the game.
Join us this week to add a stitch.
On the Adventure,
Greg Moore and Josh Hammer
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