Some summers arrive softly, with a slow build of warm evenings and familiar routines. Others arrive with a twist—an unexpected person, a strange gift, or a moment that changes everything in ways you don’t fully understand until years later. For Peter Scariano, the summer described in Good Fortune and a New Game was exactly that. A season shaped not only by baseball, but by the arrival of a quiet boy named Fred—and a glove that was more dream than leather.
By the time that summer rolled around, Peter was deep into his baseball life. He had moved up to Babe Ruth ball with his twin brother, Tony. He was catching more seriously, adjusting to longer throws, faster baserunners, and bigger fields. He still didn’t have the treasured Wilson A2000 glove—the one he had prayed for when he was ten, the glove that symbolized everything beautiful and unreachable about baseball. But the dream remained.
Then Fred arrived.
He wasn’t the sort of kid you noticed immediately. A little taller, a little thinner, with clothes that were almost always oversized or worn out. He never seemed fully put together, but he also never complained. There was a quietness about him—a kind of stillness that made him feel older and younger at the same time. His smiles were rare, brief, and soft. He didn’t stand out in the way the stronger or louder boys did.
Until he put on the glove.
Fred owned the Wilson A2000. The real thing. The glove kids dreamed of, the glove professionals used, the glove that didn’t just catch baseballs but seemed to absorb them. Deep pocket. Long fingers. Hinged palm that snapped shut like magic. A glove that felt alive.
The first time Fred walked onto a neighborhood field wearing it, everything paused. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Every kid’s gaze followed the glove like it glowed. In a way, it did. Baseball is a sport of symbols, and the A2000 was the closest thing to royalty a glove could be.
Most boys in the neighborhood didn’t have much money, including the Scariano twins. Gloves were hand-me-downs, patched, taped, and softened over years of play. But Fred’s A2000 looked like it came straight off a Major League field. No one knew how he got it. No one asked—not at first. It seemed like a question you didn’t have the right to ask. The glove felt almost sacred.
Fred wasn’t on any league team that year—he’d moved into the neighborhood too late to be drafted—but he showed up for every pick-up game. And baseball, being the great equalizer, gave him a place. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the strongest hitter or fastest runner. What mattered was that he had the glove and that he was willing—amazingly, generously willing—to share it.
Kids didn’t dare ask to borrow the A2000 for a whole game, but Fred often handed it over for an inning or two. If someone needed a chance in the field, he’d slip it off and offer it with a faint nod. He kept an eye on it, always, but he never denied a request. It was generosity with limits—open hands but careful eyes.
Peter rarely got his time with the glove. As a catcher, he spent most games behind the plate, and the A2000 wasn’t a catcher’s mitt. But every so often, he’d trade positions with someone, just to feel the leather settle into his palm. The first time he caught a line drive with it, the ball disappeared into the pocket like it had always belonged there. No sting. No struggle. Just the clean, satisfying click of perfection.
And yet, as magical as the glove was, Fred remained a mystery.
He lived in a small three-room shack behind a larger house, tucked away almost out of sight. If he had a mother, none of the neighborhood kids ever saw her. His father—missing a leg, likely from the war—worked long hours and was rarely home. Fred didn’t go home for lunch like the other boys. He was always waiting when they arrived and lingering when they left. It was as if he had nowhere else to be.
Then came the day that changed everything.
Tony—closer to Fred than most—asked if he could borrow the glove for the next day’s game. To everyone’s shock, Fred said yes. An overnight loan of the A2000 was unprecedented. It meant trust. It meant friendship. It meant more than any of them fully grasped.
Tony cherished it. He kept the glove beside him at dinner, beside him in bed, beside him while getting ready for the game. He played beautifully with it the next day. But the sweetness of the moment ended abruptly.
When Tony went to return the glove, Fred was gone.
He knocked once at the small back house. No answer. He knocked harder. Nothing. Then the old man from the big house came out and delivered the news with a dismissive shake of his head:
“They’re gone. Left early this morning. Didn’t pay the rent. Don’t know where they went.”
Just like that, Fred disappeared.
No goodbye. No explanation. No forwarding address. Only a ghost of a kid who drifted into their lives and drifted right back out.
But he left something behind.
Tony still held the glove.
It wasn’t theft. It wasn’t luck. It was something stranger—an inheritance of sorts. A sign of trust from a quiet boy who had very little to give except the one thing he cherished most.
Fred was gone, but the A2000 stayed. And so did the memory of a lonely kid who walked into a neighborhood with nothing but a glove and gave it more meaning than anyone expected.
That summer changed Peter not because he finally touched the glove he had dreamed of, but because he learned something deeper: that baseball is not just a game of bats, balls, and gloves. It’s a game of people—of friendships, brief or lasting, of gifts unexpected, of moments that settle in the heart.
Fred was a chapter, short but unforgettable.
And the glove, once a dream, became a reminder of how unpredictable and generous life can be.