This Poem was Submitted By: JAMES H SCARBROUGH On Date: 2001-04-21 08:52:42 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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FRAGRANCE OF LEATHER

I'd walk home from the theater on Saturdays,   from town through all kinds of weather. Just to stop into Williams Sporting Goods,   to smell the sweet fragrance of leather. Snowflakes fell all winter long, melting   to baseball in April's fresh spring. Baseball season around the corner,   robin's sweet songs starting to sing. I'd step in the store to walk the aisles,   lined with baseballs, gloves and bats. Stare at major league pennants lined on   the walls and try on the big league hats. There's nothing like the feel or smell of   a baseball's fresh white horsehide cover. Or soft calfhide molded in a baseball glove,   a sweet feel and fragrance like no other. I picked out a Wilson fielder's glove,   the softest mitt my eyes had ever seen. Because it was an autographed model of   a favorite Detroit Tiger, Harvey Kueen. I saved my allowance and worked hard,   for every nickel and dime I could get. I shoveled snow and raked many lawns,   getting close to buying my treasured mitt. The Saturday before my birthday, cash in hand,   I ran to the sporting goods store. Found my glove gone from the shelf,   my day suddenly filled with a raging horror. I couldn't believe the very glove I'd dreamed,   had been purchased by some other. A few days later at a birthday party,   came the present from my father and mother. Oh, a happy kid I was, who for so long had   yearned, worked, saved and waited. Finding my autographed 'Kuenn' I recall   a proud ten year old became so elated! I took my pleasant fragrance of leather,   to show-off to my friends at school. But on this brink of a new season,   I tasted baseball's devastation so cruel. Home I raced to tune in the Tiger broadcast,   for their new season would start today. No longer was he a Tiger, to the Indians,   Harvey Kueen had just been traded away.

Copyright © April 2001 JAMES H SCARBROUGH

Additional Notes:
This is a very true story from my childhood. One I remember as though it was only yesterday. As a 9 year old kid, one of my baseball ideals was Tiger shortstop Harvey Kueen who won the American League batting title in 1959. On the very last day of spring training, Detroit traded him to the Cleveland Indians for the American League homerun champion in '59, leftfielder Rocky Colovito. I was not aware of that trade until I heard the opening broadcast on that opening day of the 1960 baseball season. Needless to say, I was devasted at the time, but Rocky eventually won my heart as well as all Tiger fans. Harvey Kueen went on and played for the Giants, Cubs and Phillies retiring as a player in 1966. He then coached and managed in the Major Leagues. In fact, managed the Milwaukee Brewers to a World Championship in 1981 after bouts with cancer and having a leg amputed. When he died, he was still one of my baseball heros, but was also one of life's greatest heros. As for the glove, I used it for years until one of my softball teammates stole it from the bench in about 1985 after one of our games. (I hope it gives him the same pleasures it gave me all those years, but I would gladly BUY it back at a far higher value than imagined!)


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