When I was 12 in LL, the buzz among the players on Opening Day was a sporting goods sponsor of another team would give a new glove to the player who hit the first HR of the LL season. It was Jimmy Raup who hit the League’s first homer on Opening Day to RCF! My dad and I went to the store to get my new glove, but they said “Oh, I am sorry for the confusion. We were giving a new glove only to the player on the team we sponsor who hit the first home run.”
To say I was disappointed is the Understatement of the Decade. I did not cry, but I felt like it. The store person saw my crestfallen face and said “Wait, it is not your fault the information at the ballpark was wrong. We will give you a new glove too.”
First game of LL coach pitch, one of my friends was somehow in CF (he was a bit of a larger kid), I’d never hit a HR in a game before, he was picking daisies, rocket to CF, he takes 4 steps back, reaches up and catches it over the fence.
My very first LL team was sponsored by the local independent sporting goods store, which was owned by an old high school friend of my Dad. He took me to the store to buy a new pair of cleats, my first pair. I’d wanted some my whole life, and felt like a real big leaguer. I remember being in sheer awe of the store. They have gloves, and bats, and real spikes, and catcher’s gear. It was the greatest store I’d ever been to in my life. Way better than Woolworth’s.
I was very skinny and very uncoordinated. My mom’s boyfriend said I looked like “a giraffe with a boner” when I ran.
I was so embarrassed that I think I swung the bat 4 times in 3 years.
I did get 1 hit though, a triple to the right-center field gap towards the end of my 1st year.
Mostly I struckout looking and walked a lot. But I did steal a lot of bases once on first.
In the field they hid me in rightfield and I didn’t get many plays but I don’t recall any embarrassingly bad ones.
I loved (love) the game so much it broke my heart. It also didn’t help that my best friend was the league All-star darling.
Sidenote- he actually got drafted by the Mets very late one year but decided to go to college on a golf scholarship until he dropped out to enlist during Desert Storm.
The first Barcelona I remember was at I10 and Durham. They had everything top end. They were THE place to go for baseball stuff. They opened a few more stores, that sold a lot of stuff, but a lot of junk too. I think they’re all closed now.
It looks like Barcelona sold out to this nationwide company Game One last year. The best baseball gear shop in town through at least the 80s and 90s was Budget Sporting Goods on Westcott just south of I-10… they’re still there. It’s probably been at least 15 years since I’ve been in there, but they still had all the good stuff.
I loved going to Budget… between me and three brothers, all usually playing multiple teams at any given time, my parents referred to it as “Blown-Budget”.
