Payless Shoesource, Baseball Cleats

At its core, baseball is a simple game, a game that’s been played by kids across America in its purest form for generations.

All you need to play is a piece of wood, a ball, a field and of course a couple friends. Whether you’re playing with your neighbors on the street corner or in Wrigley Field, it’s still the same game. Just gather up those meager supplies and you can start playing in minutes.

But if you really want to play baseball then you need more than a ball, a stick and a couple of gloves. You need helmets, baseball cleats, jerseys, hats, flip-up sunglasses, pine tar for the bats and maybe a little eye black if you’re particularly old school like that.

Of those pieces of baseball equipment, the most important thing to have when it comes to performance is baseball cleats.

Due to the sometimes uneven surfaces of a baseball field, it’s imperative to wear the right kind of footwear when you’re trying to run down a fly ball or field a ground ball. The extra traction provided by cleats can effectively aid players as they chase balls all around the field on grass, dirt and sometimes even artificial surfaces.

Baseball cleats are often shorter and wider than their football and soccer counterparts, so if you want to play at the highest level it’s important to get your sport-specific kind of cleat.

This type of equipment is so important because failing to wear the right kind of baseball shoe can lead to poor performance in the form of slippage while trying to make a play, or even worse, injury. Cleats help players plant their feet after ranging to one side or another to corral a ball, and that can often be the difference between safe or out.

So now that you’ve decided you need your own set of cleats there are still many questions left to answer.

First you need to determine the playing surface that you will be playing the majority of your games on, as particular cleats are better for turf than actual grass and vice versa. Then you need to decide if you’d prefer metal or rubber cleats. In general metal cleats will be more effective, but rubber cleats could be better for safety reasons for younger players.

Next you need to pick out the color of your cleats. Some players like wearing cleats that match their uniform and others prefer more of a generic color for their cleats. For example, nike keystone baseball cleats are very popular this season. Once you have made a decision on the color, you can choose to add screw-in spikes to provide additional support, and it’s also advisable to find cleats that you will be comfortable running around a baseball field in.

Of course, players at all levels who wear baseball cleats must understand that they are essentially wearing weapons on their feet if they don’t take care to use their cleats only in a safe manner.

One of the holy unwritten rules in baseball revolves around the fact that players sliding hard into second to break up a double play shall never go spikes first. More than one bench-clearing brawl has been started after such a play, as it’s the type of play that a middle infielder just won’t tolerate.

Even worse is when a player loses his cool for a moment and doesn’t realize the kind of damage his cleats can do.

But so long as players take care to safely slide into second and third base and resist the urge to kick the catcher in the chest, baseball cleats not only are safe but as essential to a baseball uniform as a glove and a bat.

You wouldn’t think about playing ball without the latter two items and neither should you without baseball cleats.