SAN DIEGO — San Diegan Jaxon Jabara is a glove guru. Jabara estimates he has about 65 or 70 gloves but admits he actually doesn't know the exact number.
A closet in his family apartment in Downtown San Diego overlooking Petco Park overflows with baseball mitts that come sprawling onto the floor of the home.
The 23-year-old doesn't just collect gloves, but he also trades them. "I'd compare it to like the shoe flipping business, you know. You can sell them you can trade them and collect them, stuff like that," said Jabara.
A rare and unique collection
After Jabara's collection grew large enough, he was able to chase after more rare, and unique gloves. "At the beginning I would try and go one nice glove and get five gloves from someone else," Jabara said. "But now I'm just kind of looking for those four from me, for one really nice glove because now I have the inventory to do that."
The Cathedral Catholic and Arizona state graduate now has a vast collection of really nice gloves. Among Jabara's collection are the game-used gloves of Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, James Paxton and San Diego State & World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg.
The baseball world took notice of Jabara's gloves, known on social media as Coachella Gloves. Soon his following would grow to over 20K and his videos gaining millions of views on Youtube, Instagram and TikTok.
From glove trader to glove designer
Jabara's love of leather blossomed into an incredible opportunity and future career path. "I got a really good opportunity from laser Pro. They're a great company in central California, and he gave me the full creative freedom to make my own designs and stuff like that and put them on the market."
So, Jabara went from glove trader, to glove designer. "It's very stressful at the time, but I made this first design called the JJ27 Aztec and it sold out in under an hour. That was a very big confidence booster for me knowing that I can do this and I'm confident in my career going forward."
Jabara lived in the Coachella Valley for a few years when he was younger. That's where he started all this and his social media pages Coachella Gloves.
In the future keep your eyes peeled for an MLB player wearing a "Coachella Glove" design. "I'd love to own my own company. Hopefully have some big league guys using them," said Jabara. "I'd love to start out at a glove company like Wilson Rawlings, any of the big ones and just get my foot in the door and show them what I can do and prove to the rest of the world."
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