The Mitt

I had just finished second grade in school and the summer was about to start when my Dad got me my first baseball mitt. We went in to a small store next to the Hornbeck Theater, not a sporting goods store, and I don’t even remember what merchandise they were selling, where they had an old-fashioned style baseball mitt for sale. This was not the modern style mitts that I had seen at Sears-Roebuck, nor the baseball equipment at Baptist’s Sporting Goods. It was unlike any baseball mitt I had seen, except in old pictures. It had short, big fat fingers that made your hand look like it was swollen. The leather was reddish rather than the tan colors you generally see, and it smelled wonderful. That was the only baseball glove I have ever owned and it served me well until I stopped playing baseball years later. I loved it.

I was too young to play on a little league team from the school as the school didn’t support teams for boys until we had finished third grade. But I was so obsessed with the idea of being on a team that my Dad went and spoke to the coach to see if an exception could be made. I got to be on the team that year, even though I was really too small, sat on the bench most of the time, and never hit anything but foul balls when I did get to play. Dad came and sat in the bleachers to cheer the team, even though I rarely got to play. But I did get to practice with the older boys and began to learn how to play the game. I was thrilled.

In the evenings, after Dad got home, we would go out to the back yard and play catch. I had my special mitt and Dad used my older brother’s mitt. We would spend time together talking about what was going on while we flung fastballs, popup fly balls, and grounders to each other until Mom called us in for supper.

I don’t know where my old mitt is, maybe in one of the numerous boxes in storage, but I have retained the memories I made with that mitt. Both Dad and I are too old to throw a baseball at each other these days, but we can toss ideas back and forth and still share the joy of being together.