It takes time to get over your first glove — just ask Cyclones first baseman Cole Frenzel.
The second-year slugger has finally retired a mangled old mitt he put on when he started playing first base as a University of Arizona student in 2009 — and managed to maintain ever since with do-it-yourself fixes using tape.
Frenzel has a new glove in his life, but he still has feelings for the bandaged Rawlings “Heart of the Hide” glove, which he put aside in spring training this year when the team offered to buy him a new mitt of the same design.
“I wasn’t into it right away, and I was still playing with the old one,” the North Dakota native said. “But I played a little with the new one, broke it in, and now it feels like the old one.”
Even after moving on, Frenzel hasn’t forgotten the times he shared with his first glove — and he’s even gone back to the old mitt a few times.
“I still have it in my locker, and I put it in my bag before every game, and I still play with it once in a while,” he said.
So far Frenzel is doing okay using a glove held together with laces instead of adhesive strips.
He had one error in the first ten games of the season, meaning he’ll have to play hard to top his performance last year, when he led all first basemen in the New York–Penn League with a .997 fielding percentage, committing just one error in 371 chances.
His play has impressed Clones skipper Rich Donnelly.
“No one’s worked harder than Cole. He’s working on his defense, he’s working on his offense, and he’s playing with confidence,” Donnelly said.
