Five Lessons a Young Boy Learned from his Baseball Glove

“I really don’t want to go. It’s so boring. Do I have to go again, Mum?”  Chris asked his British-born mother.

“Yes, you have to go.”

A couple times a month, Chris and his mom boarded the blue and yellow city bus to travel to downtown Phoenix so his mother could shop. Chris experienced his usual “I hate this shopping trip” boredom until the day he walked into the L.L. Smith Hardware store. Nestled among the athletic equipment and camping gear was a Rawlings baseball glove. There it sat on the shelf, a model TG 60 Trap-eze—the only one in the store.  Engraved in the leather was the name Don Demeter, an up and coming player in the major leagues in 1958. The newspapers called him “Dangerous” and “Dazzling” Don Demeter.  

Chris already owned a glove that his mom had won somewhere. Not made of leather and falling apart, his cheap glove wouldn’t last much longer. A serious eleven-year-old who played baseball every day all day long needed a real glove. He liked the dark leather of the “six-finger” glove with its skinny finger and webbing in the middle. He slipped the Rawlings glove on his left hand. A perfect fit! He eyed the price tag. $15.00.

Lesson #1: Sometimes quality is worth the cost

But $15 was a lot of money. He thought about the glove the entire bus ride home. He knew the answer before he asked the question, but he asked it anyhow. “Mum and Dad, will you buy that glove for me?”

“No. We don’t have the money.”

His parents had no extra money, not even $15.00, even though his dad worked six days a week. Money was always tight. They never had extra money for anything. Never. Ever. He went to his room and sulked. His father sensed his disappointment, so he made Chris an offer.

“You’re old enough to start cutting the yard. We’ll pay you 50 cents for the front yard and a dollar for the back yard.”

Mowing the lawn in the summer heat in Phoenix, Arizona meant hard, sweaty work, especially since the family owned a push mower. With no motor it took all the muscle power that Chris could muster. After mowing the lawn, he raked the grass into piles and threw the grass clippings into the trash. He sat on the ground in the back yard under the shade of their huge grapefruit tree and wiped the perspiration from his forehead and neck. The heat prevented anyone, let alone a young boy, from mowing two lawns the same day, and each lawn had to be mowed weekly. Ten long weeks later he finally earned the $15.00. 

He squirmed with excitement as he rode the bus with his mom. He always wore shorts even though the ugly, worn blue plastic seats stuck to his thighs. And when he stood up it made that sucking sound. He had barely slept the night before. He hurried into the hardware store, took the glove off the shelf, laid it on the counter top and spread out every cent he had.  He could almost taste the leather.

The salesman rang the cash register. “That will be $15.65.” He pushed his glasses up on his sweaty nose and ran his hand through his black hair streaked with gray.  A small fan on the counter simply blew the warm air around.

“But the price is $15.00. It says right here,” Chris objected as he pointed to the white tag. “How come I need more money?”

Lesson #2: Taxes

The man politely explained everything to him and said he had to charge both state and city sales taxes. He couldn’t let him have the glove for less.

“You might also want a baseball and some neatsfoot oil,” he suggested.**

“I guess I need all of that,” Chris agreed. “I didn’t think about this other stuff. I have to earn more money.”

“The oil costs 50 cents and a baseball costs 99 cents. You may want to buy string, too, to wrap up your glove. So you’ll need at least $16.50 plus tax.”

Chris stared at the salesman. He couldn’t believe he’d have to do two more weeks of lawn mowing.

“What’s your name, son?”

He squeaked out his name as his lips quivered. He hung his head and looked down at the wooden floor. He thought for sure this would be the day he would buy his glove, a real glove. He turned away so the salesman couldn’t see the tears running down his cheeks. After he left the salesman took the glove, put Chris’s name on a piece of paper and put the paper in the pocket of the glove. He tucked the glove away in the back of the store, so no one else could buy it. 

Two more weeks of mowing the lawn in the hot sun assured him he had enough money for everything. He figured he wouldn’t pay for string and instead use a thick rope from home to wrap his glove. A thick rope wouldn’t cut into the leather. Chris gathered all his money and took it into the L.L. Smith Hardware store to buy the glove, a baseball and neatsfoot oil. The salesman rang up the items. He still needed twelve cents more.

“I’ll make up the difference,” the salesman told him, as he reached into his pants pocket and threw the coins into the register.

Lesson #3: Some people are very kind

At home he applied the neatsfoot oil to the entire glove. Then his mom smelled something burning.

“What are you doing? That stinks.”

“I’m using my wood-burning tool to put my initials in the glove by the thumb. Look! I created my own brand. I put the C backwards and I mixed it with the L for our last name. Now it has my initials burned into the leather.”

Leaving the glove on the shelf for another two weeks to condition it proved the hardest part of all, but Chris knew that softening and conditioning the leather and wrapping the glove with rope formed a good pocket which made a better glove.

Finally when the glove was conditioned he grabbed it and found a group of guys playing in a nearby sand lot. Chris recognized a couple of them, but he didn’t know most of them. Chris noticed one of the guys on the opposing team lacked a glove.

“Want to use my glove?” Chris offered.

“Sure,” he replied. He was skinny and had light brown hair about the same color as the sand. After Chris’s team was out, Chris trotted onto the field and extended his hand to the boy who borrowed the glove. But instead of handing the glove to Chris, the boy threw it onto the sandy field which scratched the brand new conditioned leather.

“Hey!” Chris yelled as he shook the dirt off, “That’s my new glove!”

Lesson #4: Some people don’t respect the property of others

The next time this same boy went out to the field he asked Chris, “Can I use your glove?”

“No, if you’re going to throw it on the ground and scratch it up, you’re not using my glove anymore.”

That’s when Chris realized this kid was a bully who had a big brother who was a bigger  bully. The brother walked up to Chris. “Give him the glove, or we’ll beat you up.” Since the big brother had at least three years on Chris and stood a lot taller, Chris handed over his glove. At the end of the game, the bully brothers started to leave with Chris’s glove. Chris ran after them and ripped his glove out of the younger brother’s hand.

“Give me my glove back!”

The older bully then snatched it from Chris and handed it to his brother.

“It’s my glove!” the younger bully claimed.

“What’s going on here?”  An older teenager came over when he sensed a potential fight. He was taller than the older bully and had a broad chest and big, muscular arms.

“He’s trying to steal my glove.”

“How can you prove that it’s your glove and not his glove?”

“I have an identifying mark in the glove.”

“Well, what is it?”

 “Make him tell you first. If it’s his glove, then he’ll know.”

The younger bully had no idea and couldn’t answer. He handed the glove to the teen.

Chris stooped down and drew his brand, the backwards C interlocked with the L, in the sand. “That’s the mark and it’s on the thumb.”

The teen saw the initials branded into the leather and gave the glove to Chris.

A week later Chris came across the same group, including the young bully who tried to steal his glove. The bully ran over and shoved Chris onto the sand. The bully yanked the glove off Chris’s hand as Chris stood up and brushed himself off.

“You’re not stealing my glove. It’s mine. I worked all summer for it!” The two tussled and when the bully reeled back the glove went flying in the air. Chris ran, picked up his glove and clutched it close to his chest. The bully ran from the sandy lot crying.

Lesson #5: Bullies are cowards. If a person stands up to them, they often back down

The bullies never messed with Chris again. He continued to play baseball with his Rawlings six-fingered Trap-eze glove through high school. He never forgot the life lessons he learned that summer.

**Neatsfoot oil is a yellow oil rendered and purified from the shin bones and feet (but not the hooves) of cattle. “Neat” in the oil’s name comes from an Old English word for cattle. Neatsfoot oil is used as a conditioning, softening and preservative agent for leather.