The Glove

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Dodgers swept two games against the Arizona Diamondbacks, to open the 2014 Major League Baseball season. The summer pastime is here again, and it makes me want to grab my old baseball glove.

Like almost every red-blooded American boy, in my youth I had my all-time favorite glove. Nothing I will ever possess can ever hold more reverence for me, than that glove.

I received my prized possession for my 12th birthday. It was still February and cold, but that did not prevent me from trying it out to make sure it was perfect.

The night before, I had spent several hours just making sure everything was ready with my new Rawlings "Bill Dickey" catchers mitt.

I first loosened all the leather strings so that I could adjust them to fit my hand just right. The strap that covers your wrist had to be set just so, because I had learned to catch with my left index finger protruding through the slot opening, where it comfortably rested on the back fingers of the mitt. I am not sure if I saw someone else wear a glove this way or not, but even today, if I were to put on any baseball glove, it would not feel in any way comfortable, if that index finger was inside the glove.

Once I had all the strings retied to what felt right, I began to complete the task we called "working in the glove." This process had several steps.

The first step was to use a baseball to try and form a special area in the gloves interior we referred to as the "pocket." I would push a ball tightly into the glove's palm area, twisting and prodding, to try and form the perfect receiving location for a baseball.

Then I would forcefully throw the ball from my right hand into this newly formed "pocket" time after time, until it finally began to take the shape I was seeking. Between every few throws, I would stop and bend the outer parts of the mitt in an effort to loosen the glove so that it had a hinge like action, which made it easier to enclose the ball as it entered the "sweet spot" of the pocket.

Before I went to bed that night, I took my Dad's can of 3-IN-ONE all-purpose oil, and began to gently work some into the glove. The glove began to look and smell different right away. There is something vital about the smell of a ball glove after you "oil" it down. It gets softer, and has a worn comfortable feel to it. The smell of new leather and oil were quite familiar to American boys of that time, and would have been recognized anywhere.

Of course I had no plan to let the new glove get out of my control, so it was placed lovingly beneath my pillow when I went to bed, to be there and ready for the beginning of my baseball season the next morning.

My next door neighbor, Johnny Allison, and I were out early before school the next morning, so I could try out the new mitt. We began our "catch" slowly, so I could get the feel of catching with this new glove.

I was a bit disappointed that we did not have a better ball for our catch. I made a mental note to begin saving money from yard mowing when the grass started to grow, to buy a new ball. The one we were using was almost black from grass stains, and it was missing several of its laces. I had borrowed some heavy thread from my Grandmother, and did my best re-lacing job, but it was still an ugly thing in my mind, to have to catch with the new glove.

We played catch until we both were given a warning from our parents that it was time for school. Not wanting to let my mitt from my sight, we decided to ride our bikes to school, and take our gloves with us. We carefully slid our gloves onto the handlebars of our bikes and headed for school.

Once there, we scampered into the school, so I could show the new glove to the other boys in my class. We had a few minutes before school, and every one of my friends had to take his turn with the glove. Each of them expertly made a fist and pounded the pocket of the glove. Every boy knew how to handle a baseball glove, it was just a part of being a boy in those days.

I kept the glove in my desk all morning. All during that first session it seemed like forever, until mid-morning recess. Once we were on the playground, we all took turns catching a ball with my new glove. Another good friend of mine from my youth, Wade Mitchell, was a pretty good pitcher in Little League. He threw some fastballs to me, and I fell in love with the sound the ball made in my new mitt, as it snapped into the freshly molded pocket.

Over the next few days and weeks, I must have caught several thousand baseballs with that glove. We played every chance we had, and we all anticipated the end of school, and the beginning of Little League.

The glove remained beneath my pillow at night. During the day I never went anywhere on my bike, that it was not hanging from the handlebars.

It's been years since I had a ball glove on my hand, but I can still smell and feel that glove this spring, as if I was 12 again. If I had one right now, I would give the pocket a balled up fist punch, "right in the sweet spot!" "PLAY BALL!"