My first baseball mitt was a poorly stitched together hunk of black and maroon pleather. My parents picked it up at some discount store, oblivious to the proper size glove a 12-year-old should deploy, and tossed it under the Christmas tree.
The mitt lacked a pocket and had no padding throughout. It was much too large for my pubescent palm, and my fingers were much too weak to firmly pinch its floppy sides together. Not only would the arriving ball sting my hand, but I couldn’t hold it in place either.