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| One of thirty inset marker comps for a client ( Brian's glove! ) |
Baseball gloves... I love 'em. Next to guitars and model airplanes, they're the best. I used to go to La Canada's Sport Chalet every spring and mess around with the gloves. I'd check out the fit of a third baseman's A2000 or the Rawling's pitcher's gloves or some Nekossa's, Mizuno's and other models.
Love the new car smell, too!
Apparently, I wasn't the only one! At least, once a year, in the middle of the day, I'd run into Kevin Costner, who fancies himself a ballplayer, trying on this year's model and poppin' it a few times too.
But, that's a story for another time. This is about the travels and travails of my kid's Wilson A2000 second baseman's glove. At the time, I paid a pretty penny for that glove, but it fit his hand so well, and it really was a great piece of leathered sculpture. I felt it was worth it. The glove, now, is over twenty years old and has been restrung three times, and oiled and coddled for most of those years. My wife and I witnessed many a put out at second base with that glove. Many a swipe tag! Occasionally, it received gouges from the cleats of sliding players attempting to take out the second baseman... our son!
Four to six to three, six to four to three!
Many times the glove was left at a friend's house or the baseball diamond, in the dugout, overnight in the grass, baking in the sun. It traveled to minor league ball games across the California landscape, to catch a foul ball at a Padres game, have Dodger dog juice and mustard accidentally slathered across it. It traveled to see Oakland play, enjoyed both Pac Bell and Candlestick park. On one road trip to Seattle, our son insisted on getting his ground balls everyday, so everyday from Pasadena to Victoria, BC, we searched for a baseball diamond to shag some baseballs. He took it to Mammoth when we went skiing, on hiking and fishing trips in the Sierras and to Bishop when we left during the LA riots. It shook during all those late night earthquakes which, a few times, was knocked off his bookshelf or unzipped bat bag.
It has seen some things!
Yesterday, I found it on the floor of my adult kid's closet. I really hadn't seen it since the time I used it to model a concept for a client, "Palm Source" and that was over eight years ago. Call me silly, but I got a little choked up about seeing it... especially on the floor.
I am one of those guys that gets attached to material things, especially, if the money I paid for it's performance, was well worth it. This glove could tell some stories, and it was, well worth it!
So, I had no choice, I had to sketched it...
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| An old friend... Copyright 2013/ Ben Bensen III |
It would look nice in a shadow box or a frame of some sort. I hope that you still have it.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have it sitting on a shelf with a baseball in it. Too many great memories of a great little ball player to not put it somewhere special. I'll oil it come the late fall. We used to go to the Sport Chalet and a few other sporting good stores that sold pro gloves every late winter and early spring just to put a bunch of models on and test 'em with a fisted pop or two. To a ball player, the smell of new leather can be almost intoxicating!
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