One morning a few weeks back my wife and I were talking springtime chores over eggs and bacon. Bluebird houses require cleaning. Branches flung to the ground by the giant, careless silver maples must be gathered and stacked. Fences need mending.

I also admitted I was a bit sad. For almost half a century, I would welcome spring by taking out my baseball glove and untying the twine that had kept it wrapped around a ball during the long winter months. I’d then rub-in more of the oil that keeps the pocket supple, inhaling a scent that spoke spring to me more than the first whiff of lilac.

And then somehow over the years, my glove disappeared.

Growing up, I lived baseball. I spent so much time at the little riverside ballpark in Hudson the booster club hired me to run the concession stand when I was only 15 years old. The summer after I graduated high school I had the best job ever: assistant director of the whole baseball program.

I have so many memories tied to baseball. And lessons learned.

Lesson: Don't be quick to profile people.

Lesson: Don’t be quick to profile people. 1987 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals take batting practice before facing the home Minnesota Twins. I’m standing near the Cardinals dugout. Next to me is an older gentleman in a thread-bare sports coat and wearing thick glasses and a rather uneven morning shave. I peg him as the owner of some northern Minnesota weekly paper who copped a credential and traveled to the big city to take in the big game.

Then Cards manager Whitey Herzog spots the gentleman and calls out, “Jim, get down here,” clearing a spot alongside himself on the bench. I read the gentleman’s badge as he descends the stairs. “Jim Murray,” it says. “Los Angeles Times.” A man some consider the greatest sportswriter ever. Had I only just said, “Hello.”

Lesson: Take the time.

Lesson: Take the time. In the summer of 1965, the Milwaukee Braves were playing their last season before moving to Atlanta. Eddie Mathews, Henry Aaron and Joe Torre were my heroes, and my 12-year-old heart was breaking. My dad decided I should see them play before they absconded, so we boarded a train in St. Paul, made our way to Milwaukee and saw two games versus the St. Louis Cardinals.

I remember a few details of that trip, like how the passenger cars smelled musty, like the inside of my Grandpa Sam’s old car. I remember our downtown hotel room was small and a LONG way above the noisy street.

Henry Aaron homered in each game. I didn’t remember that, but my dad told me 20 years later as we sat in a bar car on train to Milwaukee to watch the Brewers play the New York Yankees. I was returning the favor. We talked a lot that trip, about baseball and railroads and the like. Never anything deep or really important. We just tried to be comfortable together in a way we maybe had lost over the years.

That’s probably why my clearest memory of the trip has nothing to do with me. During the first game, when Don Mattingly stepped to the plate, my dad leaned forward, focused.

“Donny Baseball,” he said, with something resembling reverence. “Best player in the majors.”

I’m glad he had that moment.

Lesson: It's probably too late, but still.

Lesson: It’s probably too late, but still. … After that breakfast a few weeks ago, my wife and I visited one of those eclectic consignment shops. No more than 10 steps in the door I come across table full of, yes, baseball gloves. I do some sorting. Left-handers were out, of course, as was the one first-baseman’s glove. Another three or so were discarded because they weren’t really BASEBALL gloves but those giant aberrations made for the game of SOFTBALL.

I settled on what to me is a classic, a Spalding Nolan Ryan model, Chrome Tanned Top Grain Leather. The glove has been neglected, so I’ll have to oil it up and wrap a baseball in the pocket to return it to form.

Please know, I have no plans to once again trot out to a field of the greenest grass you’ll ever see or step up to the plate and call my shot. But if lightning were to strike, at least now I’ll be properly equipped.