For the glove of the game

Romantics often say that you never forget your first love. For baseball lovers like me, it's more like "you never forget your first glove."

I've always felt a deep, emotional attachment to my baseball gloves and have found parting with them next to impossible. Even when I'm working in a new glove, I've always found it difficult to throw out the trusty friends that have helped me enjoy my passion. While the days of catching baseballs has passed, each still held the memories of every game I ever played deep within its well-formed pocket.

The sizes and shapes of my gloves have changed over the years as my hand grew and I tried different positions. But being a baseball purist, the only "mitts" I have owned were the catcher's mitt I used when I caught for two years in Little League, and the first-base mitts I wore in rec league softball - the rest were "gloves."

I never bought the same model of glove two times in a row. Some had open webs, some were closed. One was red, another was black. The prospect of buying a new glove always signified a new beginning.

In my teen years, I also took up the science of breaking in baseball gloves. Everyone has his or her own method, but I developed a break-in method that to this day has never failed, and for which others have actually paid me to use on their new investments.

What does a glove-lover do in the cold months of a Midwestern winter? I would go down the baseball aisles of various stores and smell the gloves. With this simple tickling of my olfactory senses, I knew that winter was eventually going to give way to spring and baseball season. To this day, glove leather remains one of my favorite scents.

My playing days and Little League coaching days have sadly passed, but my last glove still sits on a shelf in my closet. Like the glove, my memories of all the others that came before it will never be discarded.

Craig Purcell is sports editor for Tri-County Newspapers. Contact him at 824-1036 or sports@tcnpress.com.