Baseball glove sparks memories for Legion member

Baseball glove sparks memories for Legion member

Some of the best and worst experiences of Nat Popolo’s life occurred while he served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

He didn’t talk about those times with his family over the last seven decades, preferring to keep the memories of the Jews he helped liberate from concentration camps quietly to himself. He rarely mentioned guarding German prisoners of war while they were forced to dig single graves for the bodies of countless victims of the camps that had been unceremoniously thrown together in mass graves.

That means that Popolo, now 89, didn’t talk much about the good times either. And there were a few, most of them centered around a catcher’s mitt.

Born to poor parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., Popolo idolized his hometown Dodgers. He played baseball whenever he got the chance, whether he had a glove or not. As a teen, he organized baseball social clubs, something he would do after his time in the service as well.

While serving during the war, the Army issued Popolo a catcher’s mitt, and as luck would have it, the mitt was the Mickey Owen-style glove.

Owen back then was known for an errorless streak as a catcher, but ironically his error cost the Dodgers Game 4 of the 1941 World Series against the Yankees. On a third strike that would have given the Dodgers the win and tied the Series at two games apiece, Owen dropped the ball and extended the inning, allowing the Yankees to storm back and take the game. The Yankees would win the next game and the Series.

Owen was blamed, but Popolo was a catcher, and nothing could keep him from loving his hero.

“When you’re a kid, you idolize a team, and the Dodgers were my favorite team,” Popolo said. “And Mickey Owen was their catcher.”

Popolo chokes up when he talks about the death and misery he saw in Germany, but his voice lightens when he talks about putting POWs to work building a baseball field (which he named Ebbets Field after the Dodgers’ home stadium) and teaching British and Russian troops to play America’s national pastime.

Baseball was the bright spot in a dark time for Popolo, and that glove was the focal point.

“In every picture I’ve ever seen of him in the Army, he’s got the glove with him because he’s a big baseball fan,” said his daughter, Carole van Almelo.

Besides photos, no one in the family had seen the glove. That’s because upon returning to the states, Popolo had to return it with all his Army-issued equipment. Like the difficult stories, Popolo packaged up the ones about his glove, his version of Ebbets Field and his days of baseball in Europe.

Joining The American Legion

Popolo was always introverted, but his family had become concerned about him a few years ago. He saw a doctor and was diagnosed with depression.

Living in a retirement community on Long Island, Popolo looked for opportunities to get more active and found American Legion Post 352. Being with people his age, many of whom had experience like his, did the trick.

“It snapped him out of his depression. It reignited a little something in him,” van Almelo said.

Popolo started talking a little about his time in Europe, and for the first time, his family heard about the glove he cherished back then.

When members of Post 352 went on an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., in 2014, Popolo signed up. And van Almelo thought that during the mail call, it would be great to give her father a glove similar to the Mickey Owen Army-issued one he returned (or that had been taken from him, as Popolo tells it).

She scoured the internet and eventually found one on eBay. It was wrapped and given to the flight’s organizers to hand to Popolo during the transport.

Reunited with the glove

Ask van Almelo and Popolo’s wife, Anne, and you can sense the slightest hesitation in their voices, but Popolo has no doubt.

When he was handed the package on his Honor Flight, Popolo pulled out the glove and knew it immediately. This wasn’t a glove like the one he had owned. This was the glove. The same glove.

Popolo will tell you that one of the laces had broken on the glove while he served in Germany, and he used one of his boot laces to repair it. This glove has a boot lace sewn in.

And while he can’t remember the exact serial number of his original glove, he knew it had the number 42 in it, something that stuck with him because when Popolo was discharged in 1947, the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, and he wore No. 42. This glove that van Almelo found has the number 42 in the serial number.

“When they gave it to me on the bus, it was the glove they took away from me,” Popolo said.

Van Almelo said she knows one thing for sure — seeing the glove kindled something in her father that had been sparked by joining the Legion. He’s happier than she’s seen him in a long time.

“He was like a little boy with a glove. When he talks about it, he gets so excited,” van Almelo said. “My dad is not a drama guy. He doesn’t like attention on him. When he saw it, he swears that it was his glove. To his grave, he says this is his glove. It’s good enough for me.”

The family has tried to trace the glove’s history, but the last owner — who coincidentally said his mother was liberated from the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp — said he doesn’t know where it came from.

Popolo talks a little more about his experiences in World War II, even though it’s difficult for him.

“Being in the Army then, you didn’t like it, but I look back and I am proud that I was in,” Popolo said.

And if those tough times creep into his mind, he’s not too far from one of his favorite memories.

“I think it’s unbelievable that it’s been somewhere for 66 years, and I got it back,” Popolo said. “It’s like a miracle.”