The Dreams of Batting Gloves

It was a small, light package, and I wondered what could possibly be inside it.

It arrived in the mail on my birthday from my twenty-one-year-old son. I opened the plain brown paper, lifted the lid of the cardboard box, and discovered, wrapped in the layered clouds of white tissue paper, a pair of batting gloves. Mizuno. Black leather with grey piping. Size XXL. Excited, I quickly slid them on; they fit just right on my big hands, hands that were already dreaming of taking a swing with them later that afternoon.

Vintage Pro was scripted on the back of the glove’s thumb. As I read the words, the thought occurred to me. That’s me: I’m vintage, all right—but I’m far from a pro. Vintage amateur is more like it. And then a second, more sobering thought occurred to me: now that I’m getting older, how many more seasons will I be able to use these beautiful gloves?

I have to admit that, after years of playing baseball, I’ve slowed down slightly. Lately, when I do go out for pickup baseball with friends, my reflexes seem to be a little frayed from wear: my swing is less quick and powerful, my legs turn rubbery after chasing down a few fly balls, and my eyesight has faded a little, so sometimes, from the outfield, the baseball flying toward me seems tiny as a grain of sand. Mornings after workouts, when I slide out of bed, I can almost hear my knee joints creak a little, the rusty hinges of a warped door that won’t quite open or shut. My wife claims she can hear the sound from across the room.

The seasons pass as though you’re flipping quickly through a stack of vintage baseball cards. They pass with their dust and rain, their summer storms with sudden gusts of wind that tear the black nets from batting cages and loosen the aluminum 321 sign from outfield fences. Then the winter blizzards pile against bleachers and backstops, the corroded wires sighing in pain as the icy wind slivers through them. Every once-new baseball field eventually gets ragged. Their fences begin to lean like hunched shoulders, their home plates—gouged by cleats—turn pale beneath the staring sun. And if a well-groomed infield is used less often, stringy weeds erupt from its baselines. It’s the way of the things: Like some wild, careless creature, change encroaches every day with its teeth of rain and snow and wind, and it’s impossible to stop.

But these batting gloves I hold in my palm—with their solidly stitched top grain leather—will last a long time. After all, their attached label boasts Improved grip durability, so no bat will slip from my fingers and cartwheel down the third base line. Their Motion Arc Line mimics movement of skin, the label tells me, so when I wear them, I’ll feel them give my hands strength; I’ll believe I can swing faster and more accurately than I ever thought I could.

Lately, when I go to a ball field for a workout, I carry my baseball supplies in a Forever 21 bag. It’s a bright yellow plastic bag with black lettering. My wife thinks it’s a little weird to do that, and I suppose it is: to keep old, grass and mud-stained baseballs, a sweat towel, and a leaking bottle of Gatorade in a plastic bag from a store that caters to young girls. A bag that’s supposed to hold pretty neon tank tops and Estee Lauder Color-Glo Lipstick and sparkling necklaces. But I noticed the store in a mall once, and I liked the name, and besides, the bag is waterproof, in case it rains during an outing. Sometimes, as I carry it, I contemplate the idea of what it might be like to be forever twenty-one. Not twenty-two, just twenty-one. Held there, ageless. Foolish thinking, I know.

Once, on a field last year, I noticed that when a bat...