I won’t be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat. - Babe Ruth
It’s a memorable adventure. It’s the mid-60’s. It’s glove day.
The sporting goods section at Sears and Roebuck is populated with hunters, fisherman and others in search of sundry pursuits. I’m on the verge of turning 11-years old. My memory is indistinct, but I can remember the shopping trip’s purpose: I’ve pestered my father consistently enough to buy a new glove; specifically, a top of the line Wilson A2000 model.
I promise Dad repeatedly that I’ll treat the glove with the utmost care. I surmise he knew I would. Concinnity!
Dad grabs the glove from the display, looks it over. He seems impressed. Then I move the glove onto my tiny hand—a transformation. I recall to this day the pungent leather of that fresh mitt.
Perhaps I didn’t have the context to understand the cost of the A2000 then, but jinxing its purchase didn’t seem wise. I willfully adverted my glance from the ‘lesser’ offerings on the shelf, so that only the A2000 filled my vision and attention.
“It was a new concept,” said the glove’s inventor, Ted Javor. “Everything you found in that glove had a functional value. But the most important thing is when you put it on your hand, it fit and was ready to use.”
Functionality, ha! Using the same gear of the players we collectively venerated was satisfaction enough.
The A2000 was the first glove to feature a deep pocket and snap-action hinged palm, the better to catch balls with, plus a triple-lock webbing and a reinforced shell, wrote former United Press International baseball writer Carrie Muskat.
“In the spring of 1957, members of the Wilson glove team traveled the nation, seeking feedback and guidance from players of all ages, including those attending Major League Baseball Spring Training, in hopes of revolutionizing how gloves were designed and used,” Muskat wrote.
“Everybody wanted one,” Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer Al Kaline said. “There was a mad rush when they brought them out in spring training.”
The accomplished Kaline was on the mark as to the glove’s appeal. Heck, I craved one myself, convinced that it would make me the star of my mediocre little league ballclub. After all, the glove has been playtested by some notable early adopters: Ted Williams, Ernie Banks and Nellie Fox.
The A2000 was mass-produced, and hardly an heirloom in the traditional sense. But each iteration might contain more personal meaning. My own mitt traveled close by for a decade. My progression, or regression in some instances, was inevitably accompanied by my A2000.
“When a tool in your hand ‘becomes part of you,’ it’s not just a metaphor. And it’s not just a statistical description of the motions of your body and the motions of the tool. It’s real. Your brain makes it real,” says Michael J. Spivey, author of Who You Are: The Science of Connectedness.
My glove is still with me, albeit distressed. It’s in a corner of my basement. Its halcyon days are past, yes. But it’s hard to forget a much-loved thing.
We got whatever the Navy EXchange sold. Until....My Mom stopped playing fast pitch and handed me her Catcher's Mitt. It was old but still usable for 1st Base and RF. Anything afterwards? was a Catcher's Mitt.