It just occurred to me this week:
I am left-handed. I am very clearly left-handed. I have always been left-handed.
Yet the first baseball glove my parents bought me as a child was for a right-handed player, thus dooming my future Major League career and (more importantly) forcing me to learn the most important sport in a young boy’s life with my non-dominant hand.
I was never a great baseball player, and yet as a child, I never understood why.
Of course I was never great. No wonder why I still throw (pardon the expression) like a girl. I was playing with the wrong hand.
What possible explanation is there for this kind of parenting decision?
Did they not realize that I was left-handed?
Was a left-handed glove too difficult to obtain?
Did it cost more?
They purchased a glove for my brother around the same time, and they bought him the requisite right-handed glove. Did it not occur to my parents (one of whom played in a softball league) that their left-handed son and right-handed son probably shouldn’t be using the same kind of baseball glove?
My parents made many decisions throughout my childhood that I didn’t like.
Leaving me at home on a Saturday night to babysit my brothers and sisters at the tender age of 9 until 2:00 in the morning.
Feeding me bologna and catsup on white bread for lunch for entire summers.
Never mentioning the word college to me once despite my excellent grades.
But this baseball glove thing might be the most egregious thing they ever did to me. Taking away a boy’s ability to play baseball at an adequate level and making learning the game so difficult seems like the worst thing you could ever do to a boy.
