The Smell of My Baseball Glove
The Smell of My Baseball Glove
Grass was as likely to grow on the hood of our 1961 Oldsmobile as it was on the sports field of Wightman Elementary School, an acre or two of hard-packed dirt, scattered with sharp little pebbles and even sharper pieces of broken glass, most of them green fragments of 6 1/2 ounce returnable Coke bottles from the machine at Merge Motors, around the corner. In the summer, you wore shorts at your peril. Slide into second and you risked shredding a thigh and a shin, a badge of honor that took weeks to heal.
One day each spring, we stared out the huge Wightman windows, chicken wire embedded in the glass so they wouldn’t shatter when someone chucked a rock, and a truck appeared, squatting low to the ground, a cylindrical oil tank behind it, trailing a row of nozzles. The truck methodically circled the field, lumbering into tighter and tighter rings until the whole surface was coated with a layer of black oil, which was supposed to keep the field from turning to dust and blowing away.
As I write this, I can smell that oil.
When I watch the Pittsburgh Pirates on TV, I can smell that oil.
On a spring day, when the forsythias show their first yellow and the earliest daffodils are smiling at the world, I smell that oil.
When I glance beside my bed, last thing at night before shutting off the lamp, and see my bat, the same Louisville Slugger I got when I was ten, now standing guard as my home security system just in case my old bloodhound is snoring too loud to hear any intruders, then too, I smell that oil.
That oil is stuck inside my nostrils, way up where the bridge of my nose merges into my forehead, almost between my eyes, and there is nothing that can get it out. Nothing at all.
It was implanted for all time one June afternoon in 1963 when Miss McIllvaine’s home room played Miss Harrison’s for the fifth grade softball championship, Miss Star’s having been eliminated the Friday before.
The orthodox kids had Hebrew school Monday through Thursday right after school, so on the Sabbath we played softball, one homeroom against another.
Miss Harrison’s was the heavy favorite. They had the better athletes and wore skin tight white Levi’s, with the tags displayed from their back pockets. They had sleek new black three-speed English racers, with their seats up so high they had to mount them by getting a running start and then balancing on one peddle and swinging the other foot over while the bike was in motion. A couple of them even had the new Wilson A2000 glove.
We had the smart kids and wore generic blue jeans our mothers picked up wholesale on Fifth Avenue. We walked to school or had clunky red coaster-brake one-speed bikes from Horne’s, not so much as a Schwin among us.
My glove wasn’t even a Wilson. I got it for my birthday when I was seven.
I’d like to tell you what brand it is, but I can’t remember, and the letters are too worn to read anymore. I think it says, “F.M.C.” on the black patch on the strap over my wrist, but it could be “T.M.C.” or “F.M.L.” or something altogether different.
I loved that glove, and I still do. It lives in a special spot on my dresser. It works well enough for me to take it out for an occasional spin on a Sunday afternoon. My hand barely fits in it, but that’s okay. Old friends shouldn’t be forsaken so easily.
The glove hasn’t lost any of its smell, a smell different from any other kind of leather, a smell unique to baseball gloves, as though the years of dirt, balls, bats, sunshine, cheers, yells, laughter, competition, friendship, and most of all time without worry, are as soaked into the leather as the three-in-one oil I massaged into it to help break it in, along with the spit of a seven-year-old that I rubbed into its pocket as I crouched over waiting for a grounder to come my way.
The glove is my friend in a way few things are, and fewer people. I put my nose to it and suck in deep at least once every day. It’s part of what keeps me alive, part of what keeps me at one with the world, at peace with what I am, who I am, what I’ve become.
Because whenever I take in a deep breath of that glove, I know I am still that kid. I never want to be anything more. And yet, I don’t want to be stuck in the past. I want to live what I am now, enshrouded in the smell of that glove.
I was captain of my fifth grade team, of Miss McIllvaine’s homeroom softball team. This was the last game of the year, the homeroom championship, and as if we knew that memories were being made, everyone was playing his best. Ground balls to the shortstops were scooped up, and runners were thrown out at first base. Fly balls to the outfield were run down and caught. We even turned a double play, our first of the year.
The stage was set. Last inning (We only played seven unless there was a tie, or it was before five-thirty.) We were down by two runs. Runners on first and third. Two out. I was up.
There were no benches, no seats of any sort. The team that waited on the third base side had a hill to sit on, the hill that was the dirt road that the oil truck appeared on one day each year, slowly easing its way down from Wightman Street. The team that got the first base side had a short concrete wall to perch on, a wall put there to keep the hill and Solway Street from spilling down onto the field. There was no graffiti on it. Graffiti hadn’t come to Squirrel Hill yet.
We had the Solway Street side and were all standing around anxiously. I pulled out my sheet of paper with our line-up on it and checked it over. I didn’t know what I was looking for or why I was doing it, but I knew that Danny Murtaugh, the Pirates’ manager, did that at crucial times, so it seemed like a good thing for me, as captain, to do. I refolded the piece of paper and stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans. I always had Kleenex in my right front pocket and my change and house key in my left front pocket. I still do that.
I grabbed up a handful of dirt and rubbed it between my palms. All the pros did that. I had no idea why, but I did it too. I felt the grit and tiny rocks against my skin. A splinter of glass wedged into one of my fingers. I glanced down and saw a droplet of blood peek out from my skin. I told myself to ignore it and strode up to the rectangle of cardboard, torn from a Pennzoil box, which was today’s home plate. I rubbed the dirt back and forth with my sneakers, like the big-leaguers did, but not for long. I wanted to get to it. I stuck my tongue against the inside of my cheek so it would look like I was chewing tobacco. I tugged at my cap.
Bruce Thornall, a round-face kid with baby-fat arms, was pitching. We didn’t have an umpire to call balls and strikes, so the job of the pitcher was just to put it up there and hope the batter hit it someplace where his fielders could catch it. It was the least skilled position, the one where the kid who can’t play anywhere else got stuck. Catcher was the only one worse.
But even Bruce, klutz that he was, sensed the importance of the moment. He took his time, hitching up his pants, wiping his hands on his Levi’s, checking the runners. The runners weren’t allowed to take leadoffs, let alone steal a base, but he checked them anyway. He held up two fingers to show there were two out.
“Let’s get this guy,” Bruce yelled in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, which hadn’t so much as thought about adolescence yet.
“No batter, no batter, no batter,” Sammy Botsdale at first base took up a chant.
“Come on Bill, rip it out of here,” Warren Cohen called to me from third base. “Bring me home.”
Bruce held up the ball to show he was ready. He tossed it underhand. It bounced in the dirt two feet in front of the plate. I almost swung anyway, but managed to hold back.
“Give me a pitcher, not a glass of water,” Moose Rosenthal bellowed. He and the rest of my team paced, fists clenched, eyes riveted on the pitcher and on me.
Be Roberto Clemente, I thought. Do what he would do. Or Stan Musial. My stance was fashioned after Stan Musial’s.
I backed away from the cardboard home plate and tapped the bat against my sneaker. Stan Musial would have done that. I hit my toe. It hurt, but I ignored that. I held the bat up and examined it like a pool cue, making sure it was straight. I went over and tapped it against the concrete wall, listening carefully to the sound it made, to make sure there were no cracks. You could always tell if a bat was cracked by the sound it made.
The outfielders were playing me deep.
Left field was a contiguous ball diamond bounded by a chain-link fence, beyond which was the body shop of Merge Motors. No one I knew of had ever hit a ball over that fence. It stood like a challenge to immortality, the banging and drilling of the body shop taunting my inability to achieve greatness.
I readied myself next to the piece of cardboard. I should try to go to right. They were playing me to left. If I hit one down the right field line, it was sure to score at least one run, and if it got beyond the right fielder, it would win the game. Or maybe a line drive down the left field line, just over the head of the third baseman. Not as good, but easier, and sure to score at least one run, and maybe two to tie it.
Either way, forget the fence. The fence is for suckers, an idiot’s dream.
“No batter, no batter, no batter!”
“Out of here. Knock it out of here!”
Bruce floats it in. It’s high. I know it, but swing anyway. I’m gonna swing at anything that’s close. I can’t help it. I want to smack it. I bring my left foot back to my right, crank myself up, and step forward into it, just like Stan Musial.
I barely get any of it. It’s fouled back. Strike one.
I’ve never struck out. Never. Don’t even think about it. Not now. Forget the fence. Forget striking out. Relax.
I don’t bother to step away from the plate. I know I should. I know I should step back and rub more dirt on my hands, tap the bat against my sneakers, maybe pick up a different bat, drop it, go back to the same one I always use, tug at my hat a couple of times. Do all the things my grandfather always refers to as “animal crackers.”
He’s almost blind, but watches all the games on TV anyway. Did you see that, he says, did you see Clemente and all those animal crackers? Why doesn’t he just play ball? In my day, there were no animal crackers. They just played ball.
I should do all that, but I don’t. I want to hit it. I don’t want to think about striking out, but the thought keeps creeping into my head. Imagine the embarrassment. The ridicule. The disgrace. I’m the captain, and this the final game of the year, the championship, the biggest event of my life so far.
“No batter, no batter, no batter…”
“Smack that baby out of here…”
“Hum baby, hum baby…”
I can smell the oil. Feel the dirt. Taste the air.
Bruce lobs another. It’s way high, and I let it go. Stay in the batter’s box. Keep focused. I glance down at my feet. Pennzoil staring back at me, faded, caked in grease and dirt, pebbles embedded in the corrugation.
Fix on the pitcher. Stare him down.
“Give me a pitcher, not a glass of water…”
“No batter, no batter…”
Carl Goldstein at shortstop smacks his fist into his glove.
I can still hear it. I can see his eyes.
His hair is greased back with Brylcream. I have a crew cut.
Bruce wipes his hand on his white Levi’s and arches a pitch. It’s gonna be low. Very low. That’s okay. I can step into it. Golf it out into right field. Over the right fielder’s head or down the line. I twist my body around, move my left foot toward Solway Street, get ready and lunge into it, making sure my feet are aligned toward right as I put everything into the swing.
I miss. Strike two. Everything goes quiet for a second. No one can believe it. I’ve never completely missed a pitch before. This is softball, not baseball. My teammates are stunned. Hands and mouths freeze in whatever they’re doing. The wind seems to stop. There’s silence from the body shop. Not a car moving on Wightman Street.
Then Miss Harrison’s homeroom erupts for all they’re worth. Whooping, shouting, and laughing. At shortstop, Carl Goldstein falls to his knees and beats on the ground, laughing. Bruce is grinning ear to ear. His hands go up in the air. He turns and bows to his infielders. They applaud.
You must step out now. Collect yourself. Get some dirt, tap your shoes, spit, do something, anything.
But I don’t. I’m rooted where I stand. I’m scared shitless now. One more miss and I strike out. My life as I know it would be over.
Larry Lebowitz, their third baseman, yells, “I’m freezing, I’m freezing. Did you feel that breeze?”
Carl Goldstein taunts back, “Who turned on the fan? Strike him out Brucey.”
Somebody on my team gets up the nerve to scream back at them, “Oh fuck you. Go fuck yourself.”
It sounds hollow, silly, downright stupid. Miss Harrison’s homeroom breaks up into guffaws again. Bruce takes another bow and then turns to face me.
Okay, this is it. I dig my right foot, my back foot, into the dirt, pivoting it on my toes, feeling where the rubber strip across the front of my sneaker is peeling off. My tongue is against the inside of my cheek. I try to spit, but my mouth is too dry. I feel the house key in my front pocket. I am aware of everything. I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be aware of anything but the ball. The ball and my bat.
My mind is racing, spinning, sorting. Make contact. Hit the ball. Don’t strike out. Don’t strike out. No. Forget that. You’ve never struck out. Don’t just hit it. Hit it hard, deep, far. The fence. The fence is daring you. Impassive. Immobile. Immutable.
No. Forget the fence. Swinging for the fence is a sucker’s game.
Bruce is ready. I wave the bat at him in a practice swing. He’s about to throw. I move the bat slowly through the air at him. He pauses. He’s ready.
“No batter, no batter, no batter…”
“Strike him out!”
A loud laugh and another.
The pitch is going to be low again. I start for it, my right foot planted, my left foot stepping forward, toward it, into it, like Stan Musial. I start to bring the bat around. My weight shifts from my right foot coming forward onto my left as the bat starts to come around.
And then I stop. The pitch is short. It doesn’t reach the plate. I let it go.
“He swung! He swung!” Carl Goldstein is yelling. “Strike three. He’s out.”
Bruce’s arms are raised in victory.
I didn’t swing. Not even close. I didn’t break my wrists, didn’t bring the bat across the plate. Definitely not a swing. Not a strike.
Carl is their captain. Miss Harrison’s homeroom is dancing in celebration.
I stand my ground.
“Pitch it,” I say, trying to yell. I’m not a good yeller. My voice doesn’t project. I could yell “Fire!” in a crowded movie and nothing would happen. People would munch away at their popcorn.
“Pitch it,” I try again, louder.
Carl Goldstein hears it. He hears it only because he’s glaring right at me, challenging me, daring me. He charges me and throws his glove down. I hear it smack the dirt. He spits, just missing my sneaker.
“Strike three, you’re out,” he sneers at me.
As empty as my voice is of authority, his is that full of it.
Carl is a tough guy of the fifth grade, even if he wears braces and goes to Hebrew school.
“I didn’t swing,” I say. I can hear the uncertainty in my voice. I know I’m going to lose this argument.
“You spaz. You swung. You’re out.” He’s glaring at me. The sun sparkles off his braces. “Faggot.”
“I didn’t swing. Pitch it.”
He shoves me in the chest, and I stagger backward. I can hear yelling, laughter, taunts.
Petey Fernandez steps in front of me. He’s the only Hispanic kid in Ms. McIllvaine’s homeroom. He’s the only one in the fifth grade. He may be the only one in Wightman School, the only foreigner of any sort. We aren’t exactly big on cultural diversity.
Petey plays left field for us and bats clean-up. He’s short and wiry. His father’s some sort of professor at Pitt. Petey transferred to Wightman this year. Nobody ever transfers to Wightman. Half the kids’ parents went here. We’re no bigger on change than we are on diversity.
Petey doesn’t have a lot of friends, and I don’t think of him as one of mine.
But Petey steps in front of me, in between Carl and me.
“He didn’t swing,” Petey says. He has a slight accent. His voice is quieter than mine. But kids listen when he says something. He has authority. Kids are scared of him.
Carl backs off a step or two. He turns, looks around at his teammates and then faces Petey again. Carl spits at the ground, making sure not to get too close to Petey’s feet.
“Want to make something of it?” Carl challenges Petey.
Petey’s fists are clenched, but his face appears relaxed. Carl’s eyes are full of fire. I wish I could make my eyes like that. Not a chance in a million. My eyes are full of fear and doubt no matter how certain I am that I’m right.
“Oh shit, pitch to the faggots,” Carl says. He grabs up his glove and trots back to his position.
In a minute, it’s as if it never happened. Bruce gets set to pitch. I take my practice swings.
“No batter, no batter, no batter…”
“Strike him out!”
My teammates are silent except for Petey.
“Hit it down their throats Bill,” he yells, followed by something in Spanish.
The pitch floats in. It’s low again, but not as low as before. It’s going to reach. It’s going to come in right over the cardboard, maybe a foot off the ground.
With the ball comes a breeze and with the breeze the oil, filling my nose and my head.
I can still smell the oil.
My right foot is planted. My left foot comes back and then forward, my weight shifting with it, carrying everything my eleven year old body has to give into a swing, into the bat, into the ball. There’s no better sensation than the way it feels when a bat makes perfect contact with a ball. It’s as though there is no resistance, no impact, no collision, just a smooth transference of energy, a sweet marriage of leather and wood, the two perfectly bonded for a split second, and then the ball sent alone on the honeymoon.
I nail it. Right down the left field line. I’m halfway to first base before it lands. It hits the fence in two bounces, a Chevy wreck sitting stoically on the other side. Everyone on my team is yelling. The sound is grander than thirty-five thousand fans at Forbes Field on their feet screaming. I round second and head for third. Two runs are in ahead of me. I am the winning run. Out by the fence, Isaac Hunt has the ball and is heaving it in with all his strength. I reach third. I know Isaac has the best throwing arm in the fifth grade.
Everyone is screaming. They’re screaming two things at me.
Half of them are yelling, “Go. Go. Keep going! Go on in!”
Half are yelling, “Hold up! Stop! Stay there!”
I can’t sort out who is yelling which. I’m not sure where the ball is. Kids’ arms are waving in every direction.
I round third and glance back toward left. Isaac has relayed the ball into Carl Goldstein in short left. He is letting it fly toward home.
If I score, we win.
Kids yelling, arms waving.
Oil and dirt and summer.
I run halfway home and stop. The ball bounces once and lands in the catcher’s glove. I would have been out. Dead. I made the right decision. Then he drops it. The ball dribbles away. If I had kept going, I would have been safe. I would have scored. We would have won.
But it’s too late. I’m at third. The game is tied.
I don’t remember who was up next, but he made an out. The inning ended with me still standing on third base, the score tied.
It was five-thirty. The rule was that my family ate dinner at five-thirty, and I had better be there. No matter what. No excuses. My parents granted no exceptions, accepted no excuses, meted out strict punishment.
It would take me at least ten minutes to ride my bike home. That meant I was already ten minutes late.
The game was going into extra innings. I was the captain of Miss McIllvaine’s homeroom softball team, locked in a tie in the game for the championship of the fifth grade. And I was already late for dinner — in my parents’ eyes the most heinous crime against all of humanity.
I made what was probably the stupidest decision of my life.
I got on my bicycle and rode home.
My team lost. I was the captain, and I wasn’t there.
But I came away with something far better than winning. I came away with the smell of the oil and the smell of my glove.
I wish I had been smart enough to enjoy those days more. If I could have them back now, I would know to savor every precious second. The past is always sweeter with the sugar of recollection and cinnamon of time, but even beyond all that, there was a perfection about a fifth grade softball game that merits enshrinement in my memory hall of fame.
Here. The glove is right here. I keep it on my dresser, so I can smell it first thing in the morning and start my day off right. Here, smell it. See what I mean.
The glove is my friend. My friends are my life. I am sheltered by their peace.
E.G. Silverman’s fiction has appeared in Confrontation, South Dakota Review, Cold Mountain Review, Beloit Fiction Journal and many other literary journals. See EGSilverman.com. His short story collections and novels have been finalists or semi-finalists for the Flannery O’Connor Award, Serena McDonald Kennedy Award, Tartts First Fiction Award, Big Moose Prize, DL Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, and the Blue Mountain Novel Award. This story first appeared in Pangolin Papers. It is also a chapter in a yet-to-be published novel The Mailbox Maker.
