The Mitt Trauma

The story I'm about to convey is one of my dad's most defining moments (to quote Dr. Phil). A story so traumatic, so filled with anxiety, that it brings up fear and embarrassment 52 yrs later. This is the tale of (du du duuuuu)...... the mitt. In 1957 my dad loved baseball. He played with the area boys all the time, but didn't have a mitt, so he would borrow some from his friends when they'd play. This was ok for just playing around town, but to join Little League, he needed a mitt of his own. He went to his dad and asked if he could buy him a mitt. He said sure and off they went to a store downtown. The nice mitts they had though were $5 and they couldn't afford $5. There was an old-style mitt there that cost about $2. But, this glove was flat, had shoestring laces, and was something you might have seen Ty Cobb using decades earlier. Dad did NOT want that mitt! He tried talking his dad out of buying it by saying they could look later or that he didn't really need one right then. Anything to get out of his dad buying that particular glove. How could he tell his dad that getting that mitt would be embarrassing to him? His dad was so proud!! Even with all those convincing arguments about why they shouldn't buy the glove, his dad bought the mitt and they took it home. Dad mortified about the idea of showing it to anyone. He was made to show his brother, who just laughed at him. Had to show his mom. But, the worse thing was knowing that he had to show his friends. His knew he would walk to the field with that mitt and be mocked by all his friends. Ridiculed for having such an awful glove. He was around 9 at the time and that kind of teasing really hurt him and he cried and cried over that glove. He couldn't tell anyone that he hated it. He didn't want to hurt his dad's feelings. Admit to his embarrassment over the fact that his dad didn't know enough about baseball to know that this mitt was a terrible one. He knew he would never be willing to use that glove to play Little League. He couldn't do it. So, he came up with a plan to "lose" it. There was a hatbox on top of a wardrobe in his room that he knew no one looked in. So, he hid it there and told his dad he lost it. Well, his dad wasn't about to buy him another one after having just bought him that one, so he went without a mitt - meaning he went without getting to play Little League Baseball. The mitt was hidden for quite a while and every time dad would look at that box, feelings of dread would come up. He was scared to death someone would find the mitt and return it to him and he'd have to once again use it. It was like the tell-tale heart - beating for him. But, no one found it. Months went by, even years! Five years actually until one day, still unknown to this day why, his brother Carl got out the hatbox and exclaimed, "Mark! I found your glove!!!" HORROR!!!!!!!!!!! The moment is seared in my father's memory like it happened yesterday. The panic, the fear...... he wept. Not the glove! Not the mitt he tried so hard to push from his mind. His dad was so excited for him. "You can play baseball now!" He couldn't believe it. He couldn't say to his dad that he hated the glove. That the glove was like the devil to him, out to destroy all happiness in the world. He didn't want to hurt his dad or admit to anyone that he was embarrassed by this glove. There was no one to tell. So, he kept the glove. He tucked it away and every time he'd get a glance at it, the feelings of terror would strike him again. The panic attacks, the cold-sweats. All associated with this glove. When he was 15 his friend Bob Bowers rescued him from mitt-hell and gave him his old one, so dad felt ready to finally try out for baseball. Having missed out now for 5-6 yrs. He played a couple years of Babe Ruth ball and was the first one drafted. But, he wasn't eligible to play in high school as a freshman (which freshman year I don't know, because he took that year twice) because he was failing too many classes. He wanted to try out the next year, as a sophmore, but again had 2 Fs and therefore couldn't play. It wasn't until he was a junior in high school that he finally got to play. His dreams of baseball stardom almost fully realized. It wasn't until the late 60s/early 70s - when dad was late into his college years that he finally told his dad all the sordid details about the glove he had bought years and years earlier. "Why didn't you tell me? I would've gotten you another glove." All those years he suffered, all the times he looked at that glove and cursed it's very existence, were for nothing. All he had to do at the time was tell his dad he didn't like that glove and he might have been the greatest sportsman ever to play the game. We may never know the true potential that could have come from a young Mark Drexler. He may have even rivaled the greats of the time - Richie Ashburn, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays. And, all because of that mitt. After their conversation the bad feelings that once haunted him for over a decade were put aside and the mitt now sits on display in his office. A mitt I once played with and saw throughout all my growing years, not knowing at one time that a 9 yr old little boy once suffered greatly at having ever owned it in the first place.