Odd ends

A New Glove

  More than anything I wanted a new glove, because for me summer is baseball. This summer I moved up to American Legion sponsored baseball for the 11 to 14 age group. Every summer since T-ball I played second base with an old glove Uncle Norman gave me. It is old looking with a wide webbing pocket like a scoop and three short fingers, two middle fingers fit into one, and a thumb.

  This summer Dad promised me a new glove, but he got laid off a month before my eleventh birthday in February. This year's birthday was a chocolate cake and two new shirts for school. We get by on Dad's unemployment benefits while he looks for work, finds on a few small side carpenter jobs such fixing doors and windows, and Mom's part time job at the drug store. So, I kept quiet about a new glove, put my name fourteenth on the paper route list, and made a little spending money helping people clean up last year's flowerbeds and yards. As lawns greened I found four yards to mow besides ours and Mom holds my extra lawn money to help out on my clothes and supplies for the seventh grade in the fall. This summer I made second base on the Bobcats with my old shabby glove, found another yard to mow, and played passable ball still wishing for a new one. We won more than we lost.

  Early on a fog clearing Saturday morning I rode around town on my old Schwin bike just waiting for our two o'clock game. Down behind Gamber's Hardware Store I noticed a truck and rode down to say "Hi" to Louis Gamber hoping I might make a couple dimes for ice cream or a soda helping him load or unload.

  Hi Sam!"

  "Good morning Mister Gamber."

  "What's wrong? You always call me Lou, everybody does."

  "Lou, I hoped you might need some help."

  "Asking for work?"

  "I nodded for I was.

  "Good man. You asked politely. Bet your Dad told you that. Well Sam, I have only this truck to load. It's got a hydraulic dump bed; I've no money to pay you. The water pipe sprung a leak in the storeroom wall last night. I have to throw away all the stuff on the floor and take a loss. Tell you what. Help drag it up front in the truck bed so I don't have to jump up and down and you can have anything you like."

  "Thanks Mister Gamber."

  With a wave Lou headed back inside to load his cart again.

  After climbing up in the truck bed, I looked through wet boxes, carried them up front, and did that to each load Lou wheeled out. One box did catch my eye. It was a large wet box with the words Rawlings on the outside. Inside was a soaked new long-fingered black Rawlings glove. I laid it on the edge of the truck bed. When the job was finished Lou thanked me, let me wipe my hands on his towel, and shook my hand.

  "Lou, can I have that glove?"

  Lou just laughed and tossed it to me.

  At home I laid my new treasure outside on the picnic table to dry slowly in the shade while I played games with my old glove. When it was dry Dad and I rubbed it down with oil, inside and out each of three days, and tied a baseball in the pocket for a week. One thing the new glove did was let both of us have a glove to play catch with. I liked that.

  A week later I was ready for a big game against the undefeated league leading Swordfish team with my new black Rawlings glove. The day was good and bad. We almost squeaked out a win with Tommy Pearson's ninth inning double to bring us within one run. At the plate I managed only a weak little two-out single in the third inning just past the glove of the short stop, but to my shame I had my first two error game of the season.

  After the game Carl Spence, High School Coach and summertime Umpire, asked a question as I walked by with my head down. "Where's your old glove?"

  "Home," I muttered not wanting to talk.

  "Sam, I'll tell you a secret. Long-fingered gloves are for outfielders and pitchers. You try to use one in the infield and you will have days like today-errors."

  I nodded and muttered, "Thanks Coach," and walked on. Coach gave me something to think about on the bike ride home other than head hanging errors. It was the first time I realized that other players beside first base and catcher needed different gloves.

  After that the new glove stayed at home for playing catch with Dad or friends that stopped by. I even thought of it as "my other glove" and appreciated Uncle Norman more. Two good coats of oil rubbed into my old glove make it look better and feel softer. Another thing the new glove did was make me wonder what else I did not know about baseball? Not really fond of reading books, I checked out a library book on the fundaments of baseball, read it more than once, and even renewed it.

  Three weeks later we had a rematch game with the still undefeated Swordfish team. In this second big game I made no errors and managed one blooper hit over behind first that moved a runner to third. With two outs our runner died on third a victim of a terrific leaping line-drive catch.

  In the ninth, this time, we were one up. We got one out, but they had runners on first and third. People were yelling in the stands for us to stop them. In my book, it said that the second baseman with a man on first and third should run two steps forward before attempting to field the ball to slow the man on third. Make him think the ball was in front of the second baseman and make him stop or at least slow to take another look to locate the ball.

  Clark pitched a terrific game and kept us ahead. He threw a low outside fastball and their batter Robbie Coray hit it on the ground to my left.

  First baseman Leon yelled, "Sam."

  I charged two steps forward like the book said to do. The runner on third hesitated. I angled left sharply, stretched out, got a glove on it, and knocked it down. I bounced up, got lucky, found it, and threw a strike to home plate. Corky tagged out Chuck Poak, the sliding runner from third, and the stands went wild. Now, it was two-out and two-on, one on second and one on first. The next batter Philip Shea, their power hitter, had the bad luck to hit a long fly ball to left field. Farris caught it; they lost their first game.

  After the game Coach Spence motioned me over. "Good game Sam. Where did you learn to fake out a man on third?"

  "Read it in a book, Coach."

  "So, you want to learn the game. Keep on reading and I think you should talk to Reverend Anders. He's retired and should have time for you."

  "Talk about baseball?"

  "Yeah ... baseball. Brock Anders played second base too."

  "Thanks Coach. I will. Did he play in High School?"

  "Triple A."

  Eleven

  Youth Fiction: Hard times make it difficult for Gera. Her old gentle horse dies and hard times make it look like Gera will need to take room and board away from her family in order to go to school.