Troy Tulowitzki is apparently not the type of person who easily lets go of the past. Tulo has used the same glove for at least five years (or as many as eight, depending who you believe), and even as it was clearly deteriorating back into dust in last year’s ALCS, the Blue Jays shortstop stuck with it.
Yesterday, a ball got caught in the formidable gaps in his glove’s webbing, but he refused to blame the glove, saying:
“It was a play that should have been made,” he said. “I just reached in and grabbed it the wrong way.” In effect, he said, he pushed the ball too deep into the webbing when he tried to grip it. It was his fault, not the glove’s, he insisted.
Tonight, while Tulo was diving for a Logan Forsythe single in the first inning (which he maybe could have intercepted with a real glove), the glove apparently took structural damage. Tulowitzki was forced to acquire a replacement.
Of course, Tulowitzki is just a human being with flaws and he has a hard time letting go of the ones he loves. He got glove surgery on it, and by all accounts, he is still using it. If his stupid glove causes the Jays to lose a crucial game or some such, it will be the best and dumbest baseball story.
Someday, I will die and you will die, but Troy Tulowitzki’s glove will live forever.