My First Fly Ball

Wesley Mabrey always had the most beautiful baseball gloves. He worked at the Bluefield Orioles club house and whenever a player was called from the farm club there in West Virginia to the big leagues, they often left quickly or felt that by going to the majors, they deserved a new glove. So they often left their old one behind in the club house.


That’s how Wesley was always able to provide first quality gear for us at our farm club. Our farm club really was a farm. In a pasture behind Don Harry’s house, we could play baseball. The infield was fairly level, but right field gradually sloped upwards to 20 or 30 feet higher than the infield. On the other hand, left field was lower than the infield by at least 10 feet. That meant that the outfield fence sloped upwards considerably from left to right. But it was a place to play ball and we just had to deal with it.

I was the youngest of four brothers and also younger than the Mabrey boys, except for Joel who was a little younger than I.

Joel and I were watching this particular day because the older boys were intently playing a “big boy” game that excluded us. We were hardly old enough for little league so we would get in the way. But I noticed that one baseball glove was lying on the ground. It certainly wasn’t one of Wesley’s good ones. It was an old first baseman’s mitt that looked as if it had seen its better days. When I put it on, it seemed as long as my arm, but worse than that, it was for a lefty. I was determined, however, to crash this game so I slipped out towards second base.

It was right then that I heard the crack of a bat and looked up to see a ball that seemed to be higher than the clouds. It was beginning its descent, coming right at me. Should I run and hide or try to be brave and face it down? “Keep your eye on the ball”, they always said, and I was trying. As I stuck out this huge old glove that was on the wrong hand, I must admit that I didn’t keep my eye on the ball all the way down. My eyes were closed when I felt the impact and heard the smack.

I had caught my first fly ball! Everyone began to cheer even though I should not have been on the field. Even the batter, Phylis Mabrey’s husband, cheered for me.

I’m sure that I am the only one in the world that remembers that historical moment, but it is indelibly imprinted on my memory. What a day! The beginning of my long and mediocre baseball career.