"Nearly 70 years ago, Charlie Rose started repairing baseball gloves in his spare time at home as a sideline to his television repair shop. The TVs are long gone, but Charlie Rose Baseball in San Jose lives on as the go-to specialty store for everything you need to play and love America's great national pastime. With an expanded and refreshed inventory, the shop marked its Nov. 15 relaunch under new owners Wes Fahmy and Brandon Vallance. They've stepped in as proud stewards of this longstanding business and tradition of quality and service. "A lot of people have told us the store looks so much better," Vallance told San José Spotlight. "It's so much brighter, more vibrant, with so much more energy. It's a place where everyone can come and enjoy baseball.""
"Rose once served as mayor of Campbell and was twice elected to the Campbell City Council. But among the younger baseball players, he was known more for breaking in, mending and re-lacing gloves. "The guy was a character and loved the game of baseball," Steve Piechota, whom the new owners characterize as their mentor in the business, told San José Spotlight. "I run into people to this day who tell me, 'I used to go to his house to pick up my gloves.'" The service proved so popular that Rose decided to expand it into its own business and opened Charlie Rose Baseball in 1958. At that time, Fahmy said, no one else in the Bay Area was doing glove repair. The business swelled, allowing Rose to branch out into equipment and uniforms. When Rose died in 1986, the business was sold to Pat McCann, a sporting goods representative he had bonded with over their love of the game. But when organized sports suddenly halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the store suffered a severe loss of sales, already in decline as Amazon took more of the market away from independent retailers. "Pat shut down team sales and he never had the energy to start it back up," Piechota said."
Charlie Rose Baseball began with Charlie Rose repairing gloves at home alongside a television repair business and evolved into a 1958 storefront offering glove repair, equipment and uniforms. Rose became a local civic leader and was remembered for his hands-on glove mending and community presence. The business changed hands after Rose's death and later struggled as team sales declined and online retailers grew. New owners Wes Fahmy and Brandon Vallance relaunched the store with expanded inventory and brighter presentation, aiming to revive the shop as a welcoming, full-service baseball specialty store.
Read at San Jose Spotlight
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