Glove Love

I have spent probably close to two hundred dollars in baseball and softball equipment for my son over the years.  If I have any say in it, he will always have a baseball glove. 

As a girl, I loved playing wiffle ball, but when my father introduced his girls to the softball, I had some serious problems.  For one, the very first time we played with it, somehow I missed one catch that was thrown hard enough that it left me with a black eye (my sister always was a powerful kind of person).  I began begging for a baseball glove, but was assured they were a waste of money.  I never excelled at baseball or softball in gym class.  No glove meant that it was painful to catch those hard driven balls, and only flys were something that were even worth considering.  I gave up.  Obviously, I was not cut out for THAT game.

 When I went to college, the boys in my dorm tried to get me to play softball with them.  God bless Joe.  He insisted on taking me outside and playing with me.  In part because I was a strong girl, and he could see potential that I didn't.  He found me a baseball glove and began drilling me on how to field properly.  Inside of an hour he was marvelling over the "vacuum" I was, and that I could throw the baseball from third to first base as readily as any of the guys he knew.  He then suggested batting practice.

"I can't bat."

That wasn't totally true.  Usually I could get a grounder batted right back to the pitcher, who immediately threw me out at first. 

"I'll pitch to you."

He began making suggestions regarding stance, the way I held the bat, and follow-through. 

"If it's a good pitch and your form is perfect, you'll line drive the pitcher every time," he assured me.

By the third pitch, I nearly took off his head.

In one afternoon of instruction, softball became a game I loved, absolutely loved.  I would be up for a game any time someone in the dorm suggested it.  There was a large, flat yard in front of our dorm, and we would lay out our diamond and play.  When Joe was a team captain, he would always pick me and put me on third base.  I chased one foul into a tree and came back with it in my glove.  He was thrilled.

I realized in the training he shared with me that day that as a child I was most limited by lack of equipment, not lack of ability.  As soon as J was old enough, we had our first bat and glove, and mom began teaching him the basics.  It was interesting when he began tee ball - he couldn't hit a ball off the tee to save his life.  He could hit a soft pitch, but he ended up knocking over the tee instead of getting the ball.  I still scratch my head over that one.

When we found his glove this year, he said it was too small.  I insisted that couldn't be so, it was a youth glove!  After a few days, though, it suddenly occurred to me that the glove was bought when he was six, and since then he's grown into a men's size 8 shoe.  It's very likely that he has grown into a men's size glove, too.  Another thirty-five dollars, but it's all for the dream, you know?

Springtime, batting practice, games of catch.  The heady hint of rain coming and the last few frantic minutes of attempting to get as much game in as possible before the fat drops begin their assault on the fleeting joys of childhood.  It's a game that ties many of us together with a common experience, and it would be a shame to not have my son grow up with it because I couldn't spend the money on the most basic piece of childhood equipment.

I share it with him, and smile to myself at my own memories, for the love of the glove.