An Unusual Obsession

Baseball is a sport that requires a bit of equipment.  At the bare minimum, a player needs a glove and a bat.  Add cleats, sliding shorts, batting gloves, a protective cup, a helmet, and a cap and you have a list of essentials that most players would consider complete.  J isn't most players.  My son has an obsession with owning as much baseball equipment as he possibly can.  Let's take a brief look at the list of equipment J currently owns:  two wooden bats, an aluminum bat, and a bbcor bat, a catcher's mitt, first baseman's mitt(this one is his pride and joy, it's a beauty)a fielder's mitt, a couple pair of batting gloves, an equipment bag large enough for A to take up residence in, numerous pairs of sliders, pants, socks, belts, caps, and jerseys, cleats, turf shoes, three titanium sports necklaces, numerous power bands and wrist bands, a shin guard, a wrist guard, a compression sleeve(that has permanently taken on the odor of a dead sea otter) a batting helmet, and a complete set of catcher's gear.  I think that's everything.  For the moment.

Does he truly need all of this stuff?  The honest answer is no.  And I would like to add that I am not the one who buys it all.  Yes hubby and I buy a fair amount of equipment for him.  But we tend to stick to essentials like bats, gloves, and cleats. He turns on the charm for my mom who buys him the rest of it.  I tell her he doesn't need it, but she enjoys doing it so I've given up.   J is like a little kid turned loose in a candy shop when new baseball catalogs arrive in the mail.  He pores over them, circling things he'd like to have, as well as some things he simply finds humorous, especially if he thinks an item will get a good reaction out of Coach C, who likes to give J grief over his equipment obsession.  There have been countless hours of amusement  over J's shin guard.  Coach C insists that there's no need for it since J has only once, in all the years he's played, ever taken a ball to the shin.  That happened just a few weeks ago and J gleefully told Coach C about it when we saw him.  J's argument is that there is a need for the shin guard now that he's been hit.  Coach C said it didn't count since he hadn't been there to see the ball hit J's shin.   The two of them enjoy going round and round on this topic.

So does J really use all this stuff?  Yes, he does.  He loves decking himself out in all his wrist bands, sleeves, necklaces, etc before a game. He has come to realize that Coach C is right in saying that all that stuff weighs him down running bases, so he usually takes a lot of  it off when a game actually starts.  He just enjoys the ritual of it all.  That and messing with Coach C.  As for his bats and gloves, those he does use with regularity.  In fact, he needs a new bbcor bat before spring season.  Since a new bat is a serious investment, I turned to Coach C for some advice and our conversation ended up being the inspiration for this post.  Christmas is coming and I'm sure J's stocking will be filled with baseball stuff.  Some of it needed and some of it just for the sheer pleasure it brings him.