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Thursday, October 11, 2007

I'm 45 And I Bought Myself a Baseball Glove Today...

There's a truism regarding books: girls will read books written for boys and girls, but boys will only read books written for boys. And, frankly, I can't blame the boys. Who in their right mind wants to read a book about a girl getting all weepy and moany because she likes a boy who doesn't like her, and all the little tricks and things she tries to do to get him to notice her?

I never read those things when I was a kid. I read mystery stories, like Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and the Three Investigators, science fiction books like Tom Corbett, and the Little League books of Curtis Bishop. My favorite book of his is Little League Double Play, and I still own a copy today. [Indeed, it's a pity his books are out of print, but you can buy themat www.abe.com]

I was born in 1961, and there was no Little League for girls when I was growing up. If there had been I don't know if I would have had the nerve to play, of course, as I probably would have been the only girl on the team. But I wanted to share the fun that was embodied in those books by Bishop. I played catch with my Dad, and brother, (sister was never interested), and with other friends, but that was it.

But I grew older and times changed, especially with the passage of Title IX. I was on a softball team for a summer youth league when I was 16 or 17. When I worked at a company in Minneapolis they had a softball team and I played on that for a year. I was an excellent batter, but couldn't judge a pop-fly to save my live, so I mostly played catcher. I at no point had the elite kind of skills that would have gotten me a scholarship to some college, but it was the type of activity I enjoyed.

About 15 years ago my gloves and other sports equipment were stolen out of my garage, and I never got around to replacing them.

But, every year, around playoff time, while I'm watching the games, I muse aloud to friends with whom I'm watching that I'd like to go into a batting cage and see if I can't hit against balls coming over the plate at 80-90 miles an hour, just to see what it's like.

Well, the batting cage is yet to come, but today I went over to my local Sports Authority and bought a glove. I'm left handed, so of course there were three columns of left handed gloves of various sizes, and 10 or more columns of gloves for righties.

I ended up buying a Unisex Youth glove for $25. They had an adult glove I liked, but it was $60, and while I'm in to nostalgia, $25 of nostalgia will be just fine, thank you.

I don't have anyone to play with - my boyfriend will watch sports but he doesn't play them, my friends prefer tennis or biking - but I've got a brick facing over my garage and when I got home today I rooted out a tennis ball and played a bit of catch with the wall. It certainly felt good to move around and catch the ball - I hadn't lost any of the old skills. (I've never had any problem catching the ball, thrown at any speed, anywhere from foot to eye level. It's just when it's over my head, I can't do it.)

And, who knows. I live in a townhouse and in the court in which I live, there are a few kids, as well as adults of course, and who knows, one of them might decide it looks like fun, get a glove of their own if they don't already have one, and we might get our own mini-team going.

I only spent about 15 minutes at it today, but it is fun. Out in the sunshine, moving around, getting the arm muscles of your throwing arm moving, judging where the ball is headed and gloving it with your ball... yes, I suppose a bit of the feel-good feeling was an onrush of nostalgia for my youth, but ... it's just a fun thing to do.

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