The
Rawlings Gold Glove Award, usually referred to as the
Gold Glove, is the award given annually to the
Major League Baseball players judged to have exhibited superior individual fielding performances at each
fielding position in both the
National League (NL) and the
American League (AL), as voted by the managers and coaches in each league. Managers are not permitted to vote for their own players. Additionally, a
sabermetric component provided by
Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) accounts for approximately 25 percent of the vote. Eighteen Gold Gloves are awarded each year (with the exception of 1957, 1985 and 2007), one at each of the nine positions in each league. In 1957, the
baseball glove manufacturer
Rawlings created the Gold Glove Award to commemorate the best fielding performance at each position. The award was created from a glove made from gold
lamé-tanned
leather and affixed to a
walnut base. Initially, only one Gold Glove per position was awarded to the top fielder at each position in Major League Baseball; however, separate awards were given for the National and American Leagues beginning in 1958.