THE GOLDEN GLOVE

The Golden Glove, Jamestown, NC

I recently got up the ambition to clear out all the stuff that had settled into the garage loft 25 years ago.  You gotta believe that if you haven’t needed it for 25 years it just might not be of use any more.  As I was cautiously removing stuff for a critical decision of keep, give away or trash, I came across my old Little League baseball mitt that was still encasing one of my practice balls.  Both the mitt and the baseball had unmistakable signs that they had been “rode hard and put away wet”!  The baseball had multiple scuffs and grass stains along with the original price inked in at $2.22.  The mitt’s leather which I religiously oiled to keep it supple was well worn and the inside was even more distressed.

Since my main priority was to pull a Marie Kondo and release as much stuff in my possession as possible, I started walking the mitt to the trash tote at the curb.  The trucks would be arriving soon to embrace the totes lined in the street and whisk it away to the local landfill for recycling.  I raised the lid and slowly thought about all the good times we had enjoyed in those innocent times of my heartland youth.

In the course of a lifetime, we’ve all had thousands upon thousands of experiences in our daily lives. The vast majority are uneventful and mundane. They pass without notice almost immediately.  As we age, they pass with even more immediacy.  However, there are those milestone events in our lives that will stay with us forever. Somehow, our memory cells keep these on a short leash and we can recall them at a moment’s notice. 

For some reason, one of the early milestone memories for me occurred when I was probably around the age of ten.  I got good enough to finally make the All-Star game one season as a right fielder. The wild card for that game, however, was that it was played under the lights at night. I didn’t have a lot of practice catching balls at night.  

Right fielders don’t get a lot of action in a ball game. I had been moving around the outfield looking for four leaf clovers. But then the game got interesting as the next batter singled to left field. The next batter up was a pretty big kid, so we all shifted and backed up. It only took a couple of pitches before he found a pitch he liked and he hit a long fly ball to right field! I quickly maneuvered over about a dozen steps to my right and backed up another few steps with my glove over my right shoulder in anticipation of a throw to the infield.

The ball sailed up into the night sky and suddenly I was blinded by the overhead flood lights! I totally lost sight of the baseball that was hurling towards me. I had about two seconds to react. I could duck to avoid getting a concussion or I could trust my instincts and stay put. So, without much time to debate my choices, I held my ground and no one was more surprised than me when the ball smacked into my baseball glove. I quickly noticed the runner at first base running to second knowing that the skinny kid in right field couldn’t possibly make that catch. So, I fired a strike into first base for a double play. The stands erupted (as much as our parents could muster) and I trotted into our dugout amid shouts of “nice play!”

There’s been a lot written and discussed about the dreams we human beings have in life. Many of those dreams of course get translated into prayers. And much has been written about unanswered dreams and prayers because the answer can be no, or maybe, but let’s wait and see what happens. In the movie Field of Dreams, the old country doctor gets another opportunity to turn back the clock and fulfill his earlier dream of spending his life as a professional baseball player instead of a health care professional. 

As a young man, my dad had been asked to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals farm club. The scout hit him scorching line drives and grounders for a couple of hours with none getting past him. He then offered my dad the chance to leave home and join the baseball club. But times were tough, and he passed on the dream, stayed at home and helped the family.

That major decision in my father’s life quite probably resulted in our family’s creation. And mine. It’s good to have goals and dreams in life, but when life throws you a curve ball, it just might not be strike three. It might be ball four and a pass to begin a new path around the bases that leads to a new home. Only later after his too early death did I begin to also understand the time and patience he spent with me to teach me the baseball skills he had acquired. I didn’t become a professional baseball player either, but I learned that we’ve got to work hard at something to be really good at it, sportsmanship, a love for athletics, how to be a team player, developing lasting friendships with teammates, the thrill of competition, how to be a good winner as well as a good loser, and the love of a father to impart his dream to his child after he had chosen another path so that the dream remains alive. 

 And like the movie, the best times involved the simple act of playing catch in the backyard. It’s a very human act of “I give to you and you give back” connectedness, many times discussing something about life and many times in serene silence, with just the sound of the rawhide ball hitting the leather glove. The final act of redemption in the movie unfortunately doesn’t happen all too often in real life. The prodigal son gets a second chance to say, “Hey dad, you wanna have a catch”? And his dad replies, “I’d like that”.

I looked down at the well-worn leather glove I was about to discard and noticed the faint wording on the label.  It read “Geo. A. Reach Co. Inc., Philadelphia, PA.”  Here I was standing in the middle of North Carolina holding my old worn baseball mitt from central Kansas that was made in the area where my son-in-law was born and raised near Valley Forge.  He and my daughter are now raising my grandson and I have a chance for a game of catch now that they are living in the area.  So, I walked back into the garage and placed my “golden glove” in a place of honor in my man cave.  Destiny called.