Chris Mcgrath / Getty Images

Mark Teixeira and his glove: "When you get a new glove, you spend pretty much every day with it for the next couple of weeks."

Breaking up is hard to do

Cliff Lee shares a similar story to Braun’s.

Lee, who went to the Phillies in a trade with the Indians, doesn’t remember for certain, but his best guess is he got his first glove, old and worn, from his grandparents, who lived across the street. Lee knows exactly where his first new glove came from, though: Wal-Mart.

“It was a Regent,” said Lee, who was about 10 when he got it. “I used it until the palm of it started ripping.”

But long before his Regent went into the trash heap, Lee, who won the AL Cy Young Award last season, romanced his glove. At bedtime, he would stuff a baseball inside his glove, strap a belt around it to shape the pocket, shove the glove under his mattress and sleep on it.

His was true glove love.

Jensen Lewis, Lee’s former Indians teammate, fell in love with a glove when he was 4. Lewis said the glove was a Franklin model, and his mother bought it at either Dick’s or Toys-R-Us.

“It was kinda one of those things where I didn’t want to go anywhere without it,” said Lewis, a relief pitcher. “I put it in my backpack when I went to school. I guess I could say I thought it was my good luck charm for a while.”

To men like Lewis, a glove reflects a magical, carefree period in their life — a time when the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus were real. The thought of it brings back sun-washed memories of playing catch in the backyard, of hearing the pop of horsehide into leather and of falling madly in love with the sport itself. They look at their baseball glove as an extension of their hand or as a travel companion that bonds with them in ways no other piece of sports gear does.

It hurts to break that bond.

Lewis outgrew his Franklin glove before he wore it out. Yet he didn’t outgrow its memory — not even now. He wished he still had his first glove — or knew who did.

“I think I was in high school and went looking for it,” he said. “I asked my mom, “What happened to my glove?’ She said, ‘I think I gave it away to charity.’

“I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s my glove.’ ”

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