THE GLOVEMAN

by Daniel DiPierro

I love history.  It’s all about people, places and things, and certainly, one’s personal history is a collection of the people, places and things that shape who and what you are.  I feel fortunate to have held on to a few important things that enrich and enhance the memories I have of some of the people and experiences that I’ve shared at various times and in various places throughout my journey in life for 61 years now. One of these special items is my childhood baseball glove, which I’ve owned since 1961.

The number 61 (without an asterisk) also has an important place within this reflection.  It provided significant inspiration for my choice of this particular baseball glove, a Spalding “1961 Roger Maris MVP” model, which I chose in large part because of the 61 home runs that Roger Maris hit that year as a member of the New York Yankees,

breaking the almost mythical single-season record of 60 set by Babe Ruth in 1927.   It seemed as if all of New York was captivated by the intense competition between Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle as they both challenged the Ruth record throughout that summer.  Mantle’s bid was stopped short at 54 home runs by a late season injury.  However, Roger Maris was able to achieve the historic feat in dramatic fashion on the very last day of the season, October 1, 1961.  It did not occur without controversy: there has always been an unofficial asterisk accompanying the Maris record because he hit his 61 home runs in a season of 162 games instead of the 154 games of the Ruth era.

I had just entered 5th grade, at the age of 10 years old, and I was as swept up in the frenzy as anyone.  To honor the new “Home Run King” I responded by buying my very first brand new baseball glove.  I selected the “Roger Maris MVP” model (I needed the left-handed version; although Maris did hit lefty, he threw with his right hand in the outfield).   I used all of my savings from summer lawn-cutting money to purchase the mitt, and it immediately became my most prized possession.  It also became my constant companion, year after year, on the sandlots and streets where I played hundreds of pick-up games with neighborhood friends, from the moment the last snow melted in early spring until the chill of the autumn air turned our thoughts to football (after the World Series ended). 

It had been just one year earlier at school when I had a teacher named Mr. Levine.  I can vividly recall listening to the radio in his classroom on an October afternoon, when Bill Mazeroski of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit the walk-off home run which ended the 1960 World Series; the underdog Pirates had defeated the mighty Yankees (a particularly heartbreaking moment for Yogi Berra as well as for all Yankee fans).  Mr. Levine instilled a celebration of baseball in me, for sure, but I’m forever thankful for a practical lesson he also taught me: how to break in a new baseball glove by treating it first with neatsfoot oil, then wrapping string around it tightly with a hardball stuffed inside to form the pocket, placing it under the mattress and sleeping on it for a month.  I methodically went to work breaking in my glove with loving care and it soon grew to fit my right hand comfortably, like a friend’s handshake.  It was all ready to take the field by Spring Training, 1962.

This baseball glove has accompanied me through many wins and losses in my life over the past 50 years years, along with an equally loved old Yankee cap that I got in the Bronx on “Cap Day” at the original Yankee Stadium in 1965.  Although the glove remained at the bottom of my closet for a few years during my high school days, I happened to grab it from its hiding place one day before returning to college after a visit home, and it began a new life with me as a young adult, always faithfully by my side at many rollicking beer-softball games during those wonderful carefree days in my 20’s.  I remember making sure to pack it carefully among the few things which I brought along with me when I made the big move from Long Island to California in the early 1970’s.

TO BE CONTINUED