Fathers and sons interwoven in glove story

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Terry Francona's father would sit in a lawn chair, way down in right field, as far away from home plate as possible. Even though he played 15 years in the big leagues, Tito Francona resisted the urge to offer special advice or batting tips.

"I think he thought I'd figure it out, if I was good enough," the Red Sox manager said yesterday, sitting in the dugout on a splendid Florida morning before the Red Sox played the Phillies.

My father also sat as far away from home plate as possible. Usually in his car. He, too, left us alone after the games.

Bill Shaughnessy didn't play in the majors or make a ton of dough, but like all good dads, he provided. With little extra money for baseball equipment, dad saved S&H Green Stamps and religiously pasted them into redemption books after each Saturday's food shopping. Fill up enough of those books and you could go to the redemption center in Fitchburg and get a real baseball mitt.

If you were 9 years old in 1962 and went to the Fitchburg warehouse with filled Green Stamp books, your first mitt was a Tito Francona G-250 Rawlings model. We didn't know much about the Cleveland Indians outfielder, but a lot of kids in Central Massachusetts were wearing Tito's glove on our small hands while taking our first grounders in the spring of '62.

Yesterday, an hour before the Sox played the Phillies, there was a reunion of Tito Francona and one of his 1962 signature mitts from the Fitchburg warehouse. I haven't been able to find mine, but a hometown friend furnished his old glove for Tito's inspection.

"This doesn't feel too bad," Tito said as he slipped the glove onto his left hand. "This looks like the gloves we played with. All I remember about this is that I signed with Rawlings, I don't know what year. I was making like three cents on every dozen gloves they sold. One year I made about $600, so you can imagine they had to have sold a lot of them. You think they would send you one, but they never did."

The glove he wore yesterday is spotted with paint stains and pancaked from storage, but it's perfect. Still smells great. It has my friend's name written on the pinkie finger: "Eric Monroe." Our moms always did that so we'd come home with the correct mitt. Underneath Eric's name is "Mary Lou," Eric's kid sister. One size fits all when you are using trading stamps to put gloves on your kids' hands. These things get passed down.

Tito chuckled at the obvious misrepresentation. Both Tito and Terry Francona throw with their left hand. All the Tito Francona G-250 Rawlings mitts were for righties.

He said the signature is phony, too. Just a generic Tito. He signed the old mitt to show us the difference.

Tito Francona played with nine teams over his career. According to Terry, his dad never made more than $30,500. There were no agents back in the day when Rawlings was offering a whopping three pennies per dozen gloves.

"If you brought an agent in, they'd throw you out," said Tito. "I signed with Hillerich & Bradsby and they gave me a set of golf clubs. I signed with Rawlings for the gloves, but as soon as things went bad, they dropped me."

Terry grew up in New Brighton, Pa., where he hit .769 his senior year in high school. He did it without a lot of hands-on instruction from his major league dad.

"He's my dad, always my dad," said the proud son. "Never my coach. Never. I'm sure he's very responsible for how I feel about the game. He and my mom taught me early to respect people. I'm sure I feel the way I do because of him. I respect the game. I enjoy the game. I really try to respect the people in the game itself and I know I got that directly from him.

"I was 11 when he was done playing, so I remember the last three years pretty good. When school would let out, we'd go there for the summer and I'd go to the park every day. County Stadium in Milwaukee and Fulton County in Atlanta. Sometimes you had to hide because owners might not want you around, but I always found somebody to play catch with. Al Downing would take me in the outfield. Diego Segui, Tommie Reynolds. They wouldn't mind having a catch with a little kid.

"I never for once thought that I wasn't going to play in the major leagues. That's what I was going to do. I had guidance counselors, say, `Terry, you have to put down a profession.' I'd tell them `major league baseball player.' There was no Plan B, and that used to frustrate people. Now that I've gone through it, I can certainly understand why. You can get derailed so easily, but I never felt for one second that anything would stop me. My dad just let me play.

"He and I would talk about baseball all the time. He'd watch when I played, but he wanted to stay away. And I really respected that. He wasn't leaning over the dugout telling me how to hold the bat like a lot of dads.

Tito smiled at the thought of his young son, the determined ballplayer.

"Terry asked me once why I never told him anything when he was doing something wrong, and I told him, `Terry, if you want to be a good ballplayer, if you learn these things by yourself, then when you go out and play you won't have to depend on anybody. I want you to figure it out for yourself and you'll be a better ballplayer.' "

Tito was right. The quiet man in the lawn chair way out in right field knew best. That would be Tito Francona, whose name adorned all those gloves on all those little hands all those years ago.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is dshaughnessy@globe.com.