A Baseball Glove

In the Independence Day spirit, I thought I'd post this short piece that came with the Rawlings baseball glove I bought some years ago. This post, despite being five paragraphs of unrepentant glurge, is for all those who have had the joy of playing or watching baseball, the most beautiful game:

“A baseball glove is a beginning and an ending…a child’s first sure step toward adulthood; an adult’s final, lingering hold on youth. It is promise and memory.

A baseball glove is the dusty badge of belonging; the tanned and oiled mortar of team and camaraderie. In its creases and scuffs lodge sunburned afternoons freckled with thrills, the excited hum of competition, cheers that burst like skyrockets.

A baseball glove is Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Johnny Bench, Ozzie Smith and a thousand-and-one names and moments strung like white and crimson banners in the vast stadium of memory.

A baseball glove is the leather of adventure, worthy successor to the cowboy’s holster, the trooper’s saddle and buckskin lace of the frontier scout. It is combat, heroics and victory…a place to smack a fist or snuff a rally.

Above all, a baseball glove is the union of family recreation and togetherness; a union beyond language, creed or color.”

J.D.