by MVALZ » December 20th, 2008, 5:27 pm
*From the 1969 Rawlings catalog*
A baseball glove is a beginning and an ending: a boy's first sure step towards manhood; a man's final, lingering hold on youth; it is promise...and memory.
A baseball glove is the dusty badge of belonging, the tanned and oiled mortar of team and commaraderie; in its creases and scuffs lodge sunburned afternoons freckled with thrills, the excited hum of competition, cheersthat burst like skyrockets.
A baseball glove is Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle and a thousand and one names and moments strung like white and crimson banners in the vast stadium of memory.
A baseball glove is the leather of adventure, worthy successor to the cowboy's holster, the trooper's saddle and the buckskin laces of the frontier scout; it is combat, heroics, and victory...a place to smack a fist or snuff a rally.
Above all, a baseball glove is the union of father and son, boy and friends, man and men; it is union beyond language, creed or color.
- A baseball glove is a beginning and an ending: a boy's first sure step towards manhood; a man's final, lingering hold on youth; it is promise...and memory.