I don't remember if the first baseball glove I had even had a name in it. It was an off brand. Diamond Star, Little Star, Little Leaguer? Something like that. Seems like in my poor/middle class line world we had a lot of off brands.

But I still have "The Spalding." It was a little small. But I had small hands.

"Tommy Helms" it said across the palm. Of course it was small, it was an infielders glove. But on my small hand it played left field just fine.

I didn't pitch or play shortstop, so no Little League or Babe Ruth All Star teams for me. I did have my name printed in the local paper as having the 10th best average in the league at mid-season as a twelve year old. But after seeing my name in print the average plummeted.

However, "Tommy" and I came into our own in High School. 13 stolen bases in 26 games (I wore a handmade leather protector on my hip to protect me from raspberries from sliding), decent handling of the bat batting second and knowing how to play left field after studying the game and being taught by ex minor leaguers got me on the All Star Team as a Junior while a sudden hitting streak and blue shoes freshly painted before each game got me on the All Tournament Team as a Senior.

Ahh, "Glory Days, Gone in the Wink of a Young Man's Eye."

Thanks Tommy!

Special Thanks to bmoynahan for inspiring this with his blog "Something You should Know Before Reading My Blog."  That man can write.  He deserves his recognition as one of the "Most Interesting Blogs" today based on this post alone.

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/bmoynahan/2006/12/18/Something_You_Should_Know_Before_You_Read_My_Blog