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Baseball Glove Repair

Baseball glove repair would really not be a concern around this time of year if players and/or parents would just perform a little bit of “routine maintenance” on their baseball gloves right after the playing season is over and then maybe a little bit more right before the beginning of the next season. But this doesn’t seem to happen that much from what I can tell.So here we are…another High School Baseball and College Baseball season. I’ve already gotten a couple of baseball gloves in the last month or so that have broken. And it’s the same thing…very, very dry leather and laces. The laces on one of these baseball gloves were so dry, hard and brittle that they didn’t even feel like leather. The laces were so stiff that it was actually a little tough pulling these laces out of some parts of the glove.The condition of your baseball glove during and after a season will somewhat depend on where you live in the country. In the southeast and southwest you probably aren’t going to see a lot of snow, ice and mud. Your glove may face very strong sun and heat, though.The baseball gloves that I have just repaired were used in the northeast part of the country which can be terrible for leather. The leather can see snow and freezing temperatures. The baseball gloves will definitely get wet and muddy. This mud and water gets ground in sometimes day after day. This water eventually strips the leather of its original oils, softness and color. Then, summer comes. The sun beats down on the glove and dries it up even more. The laces become stiff, weak and brittle. They eventually break. Sometimes parts of the glove, like the eyelets and leather holes, rip. This even happens on the good, expensive gloves that are not cared for.All of these things can mostly be avoided. Simply try to implement some of the following tips:
Clean off your baseball glove during the season when it needs it. Just a warm, damp cloth will do. Don’t soak the glove. You’re just trying to get some of the dirt off.

During the season, if the glove has seen a lot of water and then a lot of sun, you should rub in a little bit of conditioner (not any kind of oil!) and let it soak in. This will restore some of the leather’s oils, softness and color.

Most importantly, give your glove a good cleaning and conditioning after your season is over. Wipe off all of the dirt and then after the glove dries rub a good coat of conditioner into the glove. Sometimes you may have to do this two or three times if the glove soaks up all of the conditioner right away. Wipe off any excess conditioner. Your restored glove will look and feel new during the off-season.

Tighten up loose laces and definitely repair broken laces or laces that you have a good feeling will break the next season. Do it now while you have the time.

And then, right before the beginning of your next season, inspect your glove again, tighten things up if necessary, put a light coat of conditioner on. There you are! Almost a new glove again.

Believe me, these simple baseball glove repair and restore tips work. I have taken care of a catcher’s mitt for three years now…and yes, it’s up in the northeast where a catcher’s mitt takes water and mud in great amounts in some games. But this glove, after three years, feels great and looks great. The laces and leather show no signs of weakness. This is all because I religiously follow the tips above.The kid who’s glove I fixed the other day…the real dry one, says his glove looks and feels new again. He actually likes the all-black laces better than the original gray ones too. I hope he takes care of it now. But I bet I see it again someday.And I bet I’ll repair a good number of gloves starting around now. These are all of the gloves from last season that were just thrown in garages or basements with no after-season conditioning or tightening or repairing of laces.So that’s where I’ll come in…again. Baseball glove repair and restore. I do it all of the time and never once have I advertised this. It all started with one glove, as a favor, and word got out. That was about six years ago and I’m still repairing gloves today.So try to keep in mind some of these baseball glove repair and restore tips. Your glove will always be in great shape and you’ll prevent those unexpected breaks during a game…and there will be no “down time” of your favorite glove.

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What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.

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What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

The results of this past election proved once again that the Democrats had a golden opportunity to capitalize on the failings of the Trump Presidency but, fell short of a nation wide mandate. A mandate to seize the gauntlet of the progressive movement that Senator Sanders through down a little over four years ago. The opportunities were there from the very beginning even before this pandemic struck. In their failing to educate the public of the consequences of continued Congressional gridlock, conservatism, and what National Economic Reform’s Ten Articles of Confederation would do led to the results that are playing out today.. More Congressional gridlock, more conservatism and more suffering of millions of Americans are the direct consequences of the Democrats failure to communicate and educate the public. Educate the public that a progressive agenda is necessary to pull the United States out of this Pandemic, and restore this nations health and vitality.

It was the DNC’s intent in this election to only focus on the Trump Administration. They failed to grasp the urgency of the times. They also failed to communicate with the public about the dire conditions millions have been and still are facing even before the Pandemic. The billions of dollars funneled into campaign coffers should have been used to educate the voting public that creating a unified coalition would bring sweeping reforms that are so desperately needed. The reality of what transpired in a year and a half of political campaigning those billions of dollars only created more animosity and division polarizing one extreme over another.

One can remember back in 1992 Ross Perot used his own funds to go on national TV to educate the public on the dire ramifications of not addressing our national debt. That same approach should have been used during this election cycle. By using the medium of television to communicate and educate the public is the most effective way in communicating and educating the public. Had the Biden campaign and the DNC used their resources in this way the results we ae seeing today would have not created the potential for more gridlock in our government. The opportunity was there to educate the public of safety protocols during the siege of this pandemic and how National Economic Reform’s Ten Articles of Confederation provides the necessary progressive reforms that will propel the United States out of the abyss of debt and restore our economy. Restoring our economy so that every American will have the means and the availability of financial and economic security.

The failure of the Democratic party since 2016 has been recruiting a Presidential Candidate who many felt was questionable and more conservative signals that the results of today has not met with the desired results the Democratic party wanted. Then again? By not fully communicating and not educating the public on the merits of a unified progressive platform has left the United States transfixed in our greatest divides since the Civil War. This writers support of Senator Bernie Sanders is well documented. Since 2015 he has laid the groundwork for progressive reforms. He also has the foundations on which these reforms can deliver the goods as they say. But, what did the DNC do, they purposely went out of their way to engineer a candidate who was more in tune with the status-quo of the DNC. They failed to communicate to the public in educating all of us on the ways our lives would be better served with a progressive agenda that was the benchmark of Senators Sanders Presidential campaign and his Our Revolution movement. And this is way there is still really no progress in creating a less toxic environment in Washington and around the country.