Hitting Glory – A Baseball Bat Adventure
by Robert J. Skead
Ridgewood NJ, The heartwarming story about Lou Gibson, an 11-year-old boy who finds an old, wooden baseball bat engraved with the initials LG on its handle in his school’s basement. When Lou recalls that the most famous graduate of his school, Public School #132 in New York City, was Yankee great Lou Gehrig, he immediately sets off on a mission to prove that the bat once belonged to “The Pride of the Yankees.” Lou’s search sends him on a journey of triumph, tragedy and discovery when he finds out that when he uses the bat he magically becomes an amazing hitter.
THE STORY OF THE 100 YEAR OLD BAT
In April 2000, I was fortunate enough to purchase a 100 year-old, wooden baseball bat at a bargain price. When the old Spalding® bat arrived, I immediately displayed it on the wall in our family room. I never imagined the bat would generate a story. Here’s what happened:
The bat’s unique, old-fashioned shape and brown patina mesmerized me. I noticed there were initials – RM – carved on the bottom of the bat. I wondered who RM was. How old was he when he received the bat? Did he hit any homeruns with it? What if RM became a major league player later in life and this was his bat when he was a kid?
That last question hit me like a line drive between the eyes. I imagined that the bat once belonged to Lou Gehrig when he was a kid. I then imagined what would happen if a child had the bat today and started using it in his games. Could the bat have special powers in the hands of an imaginative child?
The result of all this imagining is HITTING GLORY – A BASEBALL BAT ADVENTURE
