NOAH LIBERMAN Book on gloves offers nostalgic trip back

By MARTIN RENZHOFER
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Brooks Robinson's glove -- like all modern gloves -- seems like a bushel basket when compared with gloves used by the players of Frank "Home Run" Baker's era.
Glove memories can be just as old.
A baseball glove can be a child's most important gift. Even now, the new smell of leather can recharge memories.
Noah Liberman, author of "Glove Affairs: The Romance, History, and Tradition of the Baseball Glove," had surprisingly strong feelings about losing his Wilson A2000. He bought it at age 11 or 12, and wasn't heartbroken about the missing glove -- at first.
Realization
"I thought, 'I'll just buy a new one,' " he said. "Then I had trouble finding one that was that nice and I began to miss it all the more.
"I liked my glove. I'd tighten up the laces and oil it up."
Liberman is not alone in his feelings about a treasured glove. Tom Gregorio, catcher for the minor-league Salt Lake Stingers, was 8 years old when he received his first baseball glove, a Rawlings-made Larry Parrish model.
"It was the best glove I ever had," he said. "It was black with an orange target in the pocket. I never left it alone."
Baseball gloves rekindle memories of youth. In his book, Liberman recounts the story of when former Utah Jazz coach Frank Layden needed a new glove.
This was when Layden was occasionally singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" for the Buzz (now the Stingers). The one-time Niagara University first baseman decided he needed a new glove and went to Fred Meyer to get one.
"I'm buying the glove and the lady says, 'Hi Mr. Layden, how nice, you're getting this for your grandson?' and I said, '[No] no! I'm getting it for me.' "