The Rawlings Definition

[Moonlight Graham]

War Eagle... I wish you could see my face... How can you offer to send kids gloves just like that ?! It's just wonderful. I don't know what to say really, it's just great ! Thanks !

Well, as I already told you, I teach English to 10 to 15 year-olds and I chose baseball as a starter this year and some of the kids look really interested. But I don't know yet how many of them will turn up when I set up a baseball club. I still need my boss's approval which I know I'll get easily, but my worst concern is about equipment. So your offer is ... well it's Christmas in September !

To all of you who might be willing to help, I'd be interested in anything, I'm talking about papers, documents, comics, originals or not, or just references, things I might look up for help, A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G. really. Just a good word might help too ! I'll probably need more help when the club is up and running, I've never coached before in my entire life !

Hey Cowboy, I'm currently reading The Natural. It's actually my bedside book and I love it. I've also read Field of Dreams by WP Kinsella which I found absolutely wonderful. I'm also reading Glove Affairs, and Baseball from Ken Burns' miniseries you all know I suppose. I hope my experience with baseball and the kids (because the neighbourhood where I teach is pretty tough too) will turn out as fine as yours.

[wareagle34]

Moonlight, I think you'll find that this little fraternity that you have fallen into is full of some of the nicest and most down to earth people around. It looks to me like there are enough teachers and coaches in the forum that will be willing to help you out. I've never been to France, but I would imagine it would be hard to find a baseball glove at your local Walmart. I for one will do what I can to help and I'm sure everyone in the forum fells the same way.
So listen people, lets do what we can to help this man and these kids.
Moonlight let us know what you need in specifics, like how many southpaws will need gloves, if you need bats, catchers equip., etc.
The first step is getting them all gloves, then they'll be hooked.

Good luck with your team, and VIVA LA MOONLIGHT!


WAR EAGLE!

[robin_buckeye]

Moonlight,
I too have a few extra gloves that I could send you. Also, I organize a swap meet for our Little League every January. I usually take the leftover gloves to the local second hand store, but I could send them to you if you like.
I have an intersting article made up of some things I wrote and other stuff I got from the web about baseball and gloves. It's an MS Word doc that I can e-mail to you if you're interested.
Best,
Tom

[Moonlight Graham]

This is a great offer Robin ! Thanks a lot !! I'll take anything you'll send along. Here's my email address for those who want to contribute to my little class project and future baseball club here in France:

laurentcarpentier@yahoo.com

Just add a title to your mail that will help me identify you as not spam.

Just to keep you up-to-date with what happens in class, here is what happened today. I brought my 1952 split finger McGregor Goldsmith and a Mickey Owen catcher's mitt Brett helped me to identify a couple of weeks ago. I also had three baseballs and a wood bat in my bag and when I took them out of it, the kids' eyes just went out of their sockets ! I felt like I was Santa Claus ! It was terrific. The English lesson had gone pretty well and interesting as usual, good reactions, nice sentences and all, but then... wow ! I let them put the gloves on as you advised me to do and I knew I had just scored a home run with that ! Grand slam ! At one point, one of the boys took the glove and tried to catch a ball with it, I told him to send me the ball and I sent it back... You should have seen the joy on his face. So just before the end of the lesson, I asked how many would like to join a baseball game pretty soon. Guess what... The whole class raised their hands ! It's just great. And my colleagues want to join in too !

So whatever you have in store, gloves, documents, I'll take anything you send ! Now I feel I have a real project under way. Since some of you coach or teach kids, when my team is up and running in the spring I'd like to establish a twinning with one of your teams. If anybody's interested, just let me know !

[Moonlight Graham]

War Eagle, thanks again for your repeated offers. But honestly it would be a bit embarrassing for me to ask for gloves and bats and other pieces of equipment, because I know you guys paid for them and you'd have to pay for the shipment to France and I don't want you to think I'm using this forum to raise my team. It's not the case I can assure you from the bottom of my heart.

Anyway, whatever you can send - and I was thinking at first about first-hand documents, the sort that can only be found in the US for all the reasons you can guess - will be welcome and used in the best possible way I promise.

Thanks again. You know what, that would be a great talk to have over a fresh glass of beer someday. Take that as an invitation !

[leftygomez]

hey, um, oh yeah, i'm teaching my kids about baseball too, can anyone send some gloves to me. i need to teach them about mantle xpg6's, mantle xpg6h's, mantle dct's, mantle xpg3's, did i forget any, well if i did just send what you got in the way of mantle personal models and roger maris personal models also as we will be studying those next. thanks (p.s. this is meant as jocularity)good luck moonlight, i might just round up a box of oldies for you! post your shipping address.

[Cowboy7130]

Moonlight - I think you are going to find that the guys in this forum are not shy at all about spreading The Gospel of Baseball. Sharing gloves with kids is what we do here in America ... why not French kids? A few bucks for shipping is worth it to know that somewhere across the Atlantic some kid is going to feel for the first time the simultaneous uncomfortable sting in his palm and jubilant exhiliration in his soul of catching his first fly ball in a glove that needed a new home! So ... I have an idea ...

[Moonlight Graham]

Lefty, thanks for your good sense of humour ! Just so you know, I won't post my mailing address in this forum, you never know who might come across it and what they might send to me... (dead hands or spiders... ) But if you feel like helping, my email address is right above in one of my previous posts (laurentcarpentier@yahoo.com). Don't forget to identify your mail as friendly (just mentioning the word "glove" in the title will do the trick) and I'll send you my mailing address. I really appreciate the offer. This forum is so full of nice guys !

Now Cowboy, what is this idea you have ?! If what you say about sharing gloves is true, this is truly amazing because this does not exist in France. When people own things here, they don't part with them unless they sell them at a good price, or else they'd prefer throwing them away or destroying them to make sure nobody else uses them for free. So if all the offers I receive come true, then the first thing I'll teach my kids will be the generosity of American baseball fans. And that is a great thing to teach! Thanks for giving me this great opportunity!

(By the way I love the title you gave to your post! )

[Cowboy7130]

Moonlight, if you liked the title of the post, wait 'til you get a load of the thread I started this afternoon!

[Moonlight Graham]

Hey Cowboy, you're a Saint of the Baseball kind I tell you ! Or a pure genius of the human heart ! Your call.

[Cowboy7130]

aw, shucks ... now you're making me blush! I just took an idea and ran with it ... these other guys are the real saints!

[Moonlight Graham]

But I forgot to mention that the same compliment went to War Eagle who started this thread. So this place must be hosted in Baseball Heaven !!