Kelly Maxwell's New Best Friend Is Super Glue

STILLWATER – It’s not quite as dramatic as Rocky when the main character boxer can’t see out of his eye and tells his trainer (Mick), “Cut me Mick, cut me.” However, when Oklahoma State All-American left-handed pitcher Kelly Maxwell had to be doctored in the circle in the Cowgirls 6-5 come from behind 11-inning win over Baylor on March 23. Maxwell has a blister issue and on that night, she was determined to battle through it.

“It’s the last couple of years, we don’t really talk about it a bunch. Her finger blisters basically from the way she holds (grips) her riseball,” explained head coach Kenny Gajewski. “She has to spin the ball. It blisters, it peels, it bleeds, it cracks, it bleeds, so Super Glue is her friend.”

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Maxwell was talking Super Glue on Tuesday this week. 

“Yeah, it rips quite often,” added Maxwell. “It happened last year, and it is just part of it. I’m a spinning pitcher, so I glue my pointer finger every game and then in between innings to keep it together.”

“She Super Glues it shut and even Super Glue flakes off, so it is a constant process during games,” Gajewski continued. “It’s just a crazy thing.”

Maybe crazy, but not original. Texas Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson was known to use Super Glue to push through with blisters in his career. Of course, Major League Baseball frowns on foreign substances popping up on pitchers during a game. 

“I don’t do it as a way to cheat or get it to spin better,” Maxwell said. “I throw the rise a lot and it rips my finger, the seams, and how I throw it, I have to glue it to keep it together.”

Oklahoma State Athletics

Maxwell is easily one of the best in the ciccle ever for the Cowgirls.

Maxwell doesn’t need to cheat, throw a spitter, or ever doctor the softball. She has done plenty on her own. A huge career season last year with a 21-5 record and 313 strikeouts led to being not only All-American but also Co-Pitcher of the Year in the powerful Big 12. 

This season Maxwell is cruising along with a 13-2 record, 1.54 ERA, in 23 appearances, and 104.1 innings pitched. She has 171 strikeouts this spring to total 688 for her career and fourth all-time in Oklahoma State history behind only Melanie Roche, Jessica Hoppock, and Lauren Bay. 

Maxwell is a lefty, but owes more of her success to a wicked fastball and a very tough out pitch in her riseball. With the rise and the way she grips it the seams rub hard on the release against the side of her pointer finger and that is where the blister develops.

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Having several days off the finger looked better, still red.

“Yeah, it rips quite often,” Maxwell said matter of fact. “It happened last year, and it is just part of it. I’m a spinning pitcher, so I glue my pointer finger every game and then in between innings to keep it together.”

“My wife’s uncle is a Mohs doctor, which is the most elite skin doctor that you can see. He is in Austin, (Texas) so I had him look at it,” Gajewski said of last weekend’s road trip to Texas. “’I think rest would be number one,’ and he goes, ‘I know you’re not going to rest.’ It just needs to heal, and I think John Bargfeldt (pitching coach) made a great point last week when he said this is the first time that Kelly hasn’t had a break. She went right from last season to Team USA and then came back and we were going to rest her in the fall, and she got antsy and pitched. We will shut her down because it is going to have to heal.”

Maxwell when asked kind of agreed with that premise.

“Yes, I didn’t have as long a break and so yeah,” said the tall blond hurler from Friendswood, Texas and Clear Springs High School.

Flex Products

Maxwell and OSU started out with the two pack.

She said she has tried other remedies for the issue. Those failed options included athletic tape, liquid band-aids, dermabond and steri-strips. None of those either worked at all or held up as well as Super Glue

“It (Super Glue) was something I tried, and it is hard and durable enough that it lasts a while,” Maxwell continued. “We bought like two bottles for, I think, the Baylor game and it just ran out.”

She sounds like a spokesperson and in this day and age of NIL somebody needs to get ahold of Phil Swift, the famous inventor and spokesperson for Flex Seal and their version of Super Glue would love to have an attractive All-American softball pitcher pitching for his product and this likely unforeseen purpose for the product. 

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Maxwell and Swift: this is real NIL.

Kelly Maxwell could open up a whole new market for Super Glue. Maxwell said at Team USA she discovered that Alabama and Olympic standout Montana Fouts has a similar problem and think of all those young softball pitchers out there perfecting their riseball and needing to safeguard and deal with blisters. 

Kelly Maxwell here with my good friend Phil Swift for Flex Seal Super Glue and when my blister acts up I reach for Flex Seal Super Glue so I can keep striking out the opposition.

Come on, that is some true NIL.