The Futility Infielder

My mother often chides me about being a pack rat, the kind of person who has a tough time throwing out anything. I've got a desk at my parents' house in Salt Lake City that she's been ribbing me about cleaning for, oh, about a decade. Fortunately, she knows better than to touch any of my baseball-related stuff. I've brought some of my old Salt Lake Gulls and Walla Walla Padres programs back to New York City, but I still have boxes full of cards resting safely in my SLC closet, some great Aaron, Mays, and Koufax cards, along with a complete 1978 Topps set that took me about nine years to finish.

One thing I'm extremely grateful that never got tossed was my baseball mitt, a Rawlings RBG80 Greg Luzinski model that dates back to my days in Little League. It's funny because not only was Luzinski a horrible fielder ("worst outfielder I ever saw, bar none" says Bill James), but he'd also graduated to his natural position as a DH by the time I was playing. Fortunately, I was at least competent with the leather, unlike the Bull (who could make up for his shortcomings with the long ball, unlike yours truly). I retrieved that mitt about five years ago, and regularly toss the pea around with friends (even my girlfriend gets into the act -- she's got a great arm). But that old glove is really starting to show some wear, especially on the inside, where moisture has led to cracking. Still, I'm horrified at the thought of having to replace it, because of how long it would take to break in a new one and because this thing still fits like, um, a glove.

That kind of relationship with a glove is something nearly everybody who's played the game at any level can relate (everybody except Edgar Martinez, perhaps), which is why it's surprising it's taken so long for somebody to do a book about them. My mom called my attention to Noah Liberman's Glove Affairs: The Romance, History, and Tradition of the Baseball Glove via this review in the Salt Lake Tribune. I haven't seen the book yet, so I'll let the linked review do the talking. But I'll be looking for Glove Affairs the next time I'm in the bookstore.