A lost glove and a life’s lesson
A lost glove and a life’s lesson
By Dennis Anderson
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When I was 12, I lost a blue bicycle jacket with a red racing stripe down the front. This wasn’t a Kmart knockoff, it was the real thing. In a Brady Bunch kind of way, it was then the coolest piece of clothing I’d ever had.
At the time, it was also the most important thing I ever lost.
My mom never noticed the jacket was gone, at least she didn’t ask about it. For years I carried that guilt.
Nearly 30 years later, my son Eric, who was 12, felt that same pain.
He was at the local Little League field watching his younger brother, Thomas, play a game. Eric let his friend borrow our prized possession: a two-tone Wilson 1861 Pro 20 catcher’s glove made of Aztec leather. The two friends ran off to play catch.
I splurged on the glove the year before when Eric expressed interest in playing catcher after watching a documentary about one of my childhood heroes, Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench. I rationalized the purchase, mindful of how Eric’s fastballs were beginning to bruise the palm of my infielder’s glove.
A couple days later, I reached into Eric’s baseball bag for some gloves to play catch. The Wilson was missing.
“Where’s the catcher’s mitt?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Eric said.
“When’s the last time you had it?”
He mentioned his game of catch with his friend the other day. His friend may have let another boy use it. Maybe they stopped playing to get a Slush Puppie at the concession stand. Maybe they watched some of Thomas’ game and then…
Just like my jacket, the glove was gone. I had that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
My wife, Julie, was beside herself. She has gone through this with the boys daily, only it was over a misplaced pair of shoes or a toy that magically appears after a cursory investigation. But the glove was expensive.
Eric would learn a lesson, Julie declared. I sulked, but supported her. His $5 weekly allowance would go to cover the cost of the glove (that’s 14 weeks, three and a half months). He would have to do extra chores.
Eric put out an APB for the glove at the Little League complex and regularly checked the lost-and-found. Nothing.
The full extent of his inherited guilt was revealed one day when he told Julie about crying himself to sleep every night. My wife shared the story with a friend who had boys a few years older than ours. She deduced that Eric was developing a conscience.
Not long after the glove was lost, I took the boys to a ball field for a workout. While there, we found a rain-soaked Rawlings outfielder’s mitt someone had left behind. We inspected it and declared it was a quality glove. I put it back where we found it.
As we were leaving, Eric asked, “Why didn’t we take the glove?”
Just as he said it, I could tell he wanted those words back.
“Don’t you wish that when you lost the catcher’s mitt that someone had left it behind?”
Six days after our workout, Julie took the boys to a used sporting goods shop for skates, preparing for the new hockey season. While she was lacing up skates for Thomas, Eric walked up to her white as a ghost.
“Mom … our glove is here,” he stammered. “Look, it’s got our name on it.”
Sure enough, there was “Anderson” written in black Sharpie on the inside heel of the glove. A $39.95 price tag dangled from the mitt.
Whoever picked up the glove at the Little League field had sold it to the store.
Julie called me from the store. “You’re never going to believe this …”
I was giddy.
Julie told the store manager our story. He was selling the glove for $40, but had purchased it for $20, which is what he charged her.
She and the boys left with two pairs of skates and our two-tone Wilson 1861 Pro 20 catcher’s glove made of Aztec leather. It would be a long time before Eric would let that mitt out of his sight, and it’s still in our bag of gloves.
The boy learned a lesson about responsibility and, maybe, honesty.
Or maybe he was just growing up.
Dennis Anderson is a family and community engagement coordinator at the U-46 school district in Elgin, Illinois. He was an award-winning editor for newspapers in Illinois, New York, Connecticut, and Kansas for more than 30 years. He and his wife Julie live in Crystal Lake, Illinois, and they miss watching their sons Eric and Thomas play baseball and hockey.
Michael C. Paul is an illustrator, writer, and historian. He grew up outside of Kansas City, has moved around a bit over the years working as a history professor, illustrator, and occasionally an editorial cartoonist, and now lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and daughter. For more, visit https://mikepaulart.com or @MikePaulArt.
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