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Take a bow.
Take a home run trot.
Take a sloppy kiss on the cheek and a big ole hug around the neck from a bunch of kids and special adults who give you a big thumbs up and a heart-felt thank you for sharing.
The "Glove with Love Drive" to collect used and new baseball gloves for kids and nonprofits who cannot afford their own has turned into a tremendous, still ongoing success, with not only dozens of gloves donated, but also a stockpile of other baseball and softball equipment.
Young boys and girls who want to play baseball or softball — but either have a hand-me-down old glove that is too big, or a damaged glove that is unusable for their tiny hands, or no glove at all because they do not have the financial means to get one — now have a chance, thanks to you.
What started as a simple request in a column written back in December, in which the humble suggestion was made asking you to go through your closet, garage or old ball bag and pull out those baseball gloves
Imagine coaching a youth team, and one of your bigger boys walks up with a plastic glove instead of leather, it has a crack down the middle of it, and it isn't much larger than the baseball.
Imagine one of your smaller boys being dropped off at the game by a third-cousin because there is no mom or dad who cares, and the only glove he has is one picked up at the flea market made for a giant and held together by fishing line and shoe strings.
Imagine an 8-year-old little girl in pigtails wanting to play softball for the first time, but has no one in the family able to help her or willing to invest in a real glove just for her whimsical notion of playing a game like softball.
Imagine an energetic, fired-up bunch of athletes whose only chance to play the game is in the Special Olympics, and they push their wheelchairs or limp on their bum legs as hard as their body will allow them so that they can make a play, even if no one bothered to provide them any gloves or equipment to use in their joyful effort.
That, my friends, is the love of the game.
It moves me just thinking about it, because each of the scenarios I have just described to you are based on true circumstances right here at home.
I've seen the same thing over the years in every other community where I've lived. Yet, I know that in my garage, the master storage closet for a family of five that was forced to learn the game of baseball before they were allowed a fork and spoon at the dinner table, we had bags of old gloves long ago outgrown and old balls long ago replaced by new ones.
Why not find someone who needs them?
And so we did.
And so did you.
After the initial column ran, and more so as follow-up requests were printed closer to spring and the baseball season, gloves by the bag-full were dropped off at our front desk here at The Daily Times.
Then came boxes, with old baseballs and softballs and bats and catcher's equipment and even one box full of old jerseys.
While my first job here at the newspaper is to be editor, our publisher, Sammy Lopez, graciously endorsed the effort and did not object to the time spent trying to oversee this little labor of love. The newspaper and interested staffers picked it up as a community service project.
E-mails were sent out, calls were made, and they all were returned; soon it became clear there are plenty of needy takers of the equipment.
Patricia Ziegler and Kay Wilson, for example, were sitting in my office one day to talk about the San Juan Center for Independence, which helps folks such as the elderly and disabled to live on their own. I was apologizing for my office smelling like a locker room when they mentioned, "We have quite a few participants in the Special Olympics, you know. And they don't have anything."
Collecting gloves that fit kids was the first goal, but what were we to do with all the donated adult gloves too big for kids?
Funny, isn't it, how the good Lord provides answers like that.
In this case, it was Patricia and Kay, who pointed out that all the adult gloves we could get are needed for the Special Olympics softball play, where most have absolutely no equipment such as a glove and must depend strictly on donations to change that.
You won't see many photos of young boys and girls who already received a glove this year, because we are working very hard to go through their coaches and not to single out anyone who has special needs and might be embarrassed to have it known they need help.
Not so for the Special Olympians. They're so darned happy and proud to play, they say just bring it on!
Wednesday, we dropped off a load of supplies, including used gloves, balls and bats, to a gathered group of Special Olympians at the Center for Independence, over on 30th Street in Farmington.
"Last year I played second base!" bragged Laura Sowells, 40, who plays in the Olympics along with two children, Sheriece, 11, and Nathan, 15. They all three needed a glove, but Laura wanted especially to try to take care of her children first. She asked me to share this quote with the community: "Thank you so much for supporting San Juan County Special Olympic athletes!"
I told her I'd be sure to tell you.
Debra Lisenbee, area director for Special Olympics, confirmed that there are at least four local teams that must rely on donations and have a big need when it comes to gloves and equipment. Right now, what few gloves they have must be shared. Debra hopes that some day they can allow the athletes the dignity and honor of being able to keep and take home their very own glove.
Such things are sometimes one of the bigger material treasures for those with special needs. Having their own baseball or softball glove to care for and maintain could be akin to owning a car or boat for others, who might take such a simple thing as a baseball glove for granted.
Ken Wright, who serves as the vice president for the 8-and-under girls softball league in Farmington, also confirmed a need for gloves.
He says there are at least a half dozen girls who need a glove now, and those are just the ones he knows about.
There also are several local nonprofit organizations on our target list for distribution that we haven't contacted yet because we need more gloves. They are organizations that help keep kids off the street, not so much those that provide fancy uniforms and organized league play.
Point being: There are more kids, and special adults, who need more gloves.
Several local youth coaches have emptied their team lockers and their personal closets to contribute, and some of you out there even went to the store and left at our front desk a brand new glove, tags still attached.
None of you demanded credit; most of you donated anonymously, yet another strong tribute to our community.
The original column about the "Glove with Love Drive" is still on our Web site, daily-times.com, if you want the background about the effort, such as the name, which comes from an old saying I learned long ago as a shortstop. "You go out there Troy and play hard with that leather. Spell glove with love, like you can feel it," one of my coaches told me.
From the time I was in Little League ball to the time I walked on with Bo Jackson at Auburn University to the times I helped coach high school and Division I college players in special clinics, I always remembered that command.
But never more so than when I saw the look in the eyes of the first little boy I handed a glove this spring.
That, my friends and neighbors, was my reward and is my biggest personal reason for saying thank you.
The thought of that child most certainly should serve as your biggest reward, too.
Who knows what a difference it might make with some kid who stays out of trouble by continuing to play the game, just because they got a real glove, with love, from you?
The kid will know.
Thank you.
Troy Turner is the editor of The Daily Times. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 450, Farmington, N.M. 87499; or at tturner@daily-times.com.
