MATT'S MITT

Mix one part sentimentality, one part humor, several parts exaggeration—and, if the subject is baseball, you have a yam. And probably an audience. This tall-tale replay for minileaguers is about the worn blue mitt which Matt receives as a baby gift, holds onto through childhood though his parents try to substitute more presentable toys, and performs with later as the mitt continues to fit him and no one else. At last, in the tenth inning of the final game against the Yankees, his team, the North Dakota Beavers, wins the World Series with a triple-play, thanks to a spectacular catch by Matt—or was it the mitt? For "there are those who swear that when Matt could not leap up high enough to reach the ball, Matt's mitt left his hand and made the catch by itself." Now years later the two are still together in the Baseball Hall of Fame, where the retired player is both member and guide and his mitt rests in a case beside Babe Ruth's uniform. There's not a curve from beginning to end, but Hilary Knight's mugging figures do provide the obligatory action and Sachs' laconic telling a modicum of style.