Preserving mitts and memories

Dick Wilson has loved baseball since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in office. He attended his first professional game on Aug. 25, 1937 — yes, he remembers the exact date — at the Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants, who were on their way to the National League pennant, swept the Chicago Cubs in a doubleheader.

Wilson, now 84, has the same love for baseball he did as a child growing up in Lynbrook. He runs a business out of his apartment there called Ace Lace, relacing and repairing baseball gloves. Wilson said he gets work from people all over the country thanks to his website, www.theacelace.com. And thanks to the fact that restoring gloves is something not many people know how to do.

“My business now is snowballing because I think people are finding out that I’m one of the few people that actually restrings gloves,” he said. “Truthfully, every glove that I do, I do absolutely the best job that I possibly can.”

Ace Lace has a problem that any business would like to have: too much business. Wilson said he can only work on two gloves per day, but as of late orders have been coming out of left — and right — field.

In 1929, when he was 2, Wilson, who went by Richie as a kid, moved to Lynbrook with his parents and older brother and sister. His father, Sutton, loved baseball and organized teams for his children to play on, including Richie’s team, the Whirlwinds, on which he played shortstop.

Dick said that his father was out of work for a good portion of the Great Depression, but in 1936 he finally landed a job. After paying off a few bills, Sutton made sure every 10-year-old on the Whirlwinds had a uniform. Team members tried to sell $5 worth of chance raffles at 5 cents each, but when no one could sell that many, Sutton made up the difference.

Dick recalled that the team advertised in the hope of finding other teams to play from neighboring communities. When the field at Marion Street was being renovated, the Whirlwinds played their games at Greis Park, he said. “It was nothing like it is now,” Wilson said. “There was just the one field, and the infield was all sand.”

His father would look forward to daylight saving time because that meant it was baseball season. Wilson remembers heading down to West End Elementary School with his family to play pickup softball games with people from the neighborhood.

After serving in the Navy from 1945 to 1946, Wilson saw his first baseball game on TV in 1947 at Marion and Joe’s Stationery Store. He quickly ran home to tell his father, but Sutton was already a step ahead: The Wilsons had become television owners themselves.

The Giants won four National League pennants with Wilson watching. “That’s something that lives with me,” he said. “I think about it every day. I’m dying happy with the memory of it. Baseball is really emotional.” He said that his two favorite players ever are Giants outfielders Bobby Thompson and Willie Mays.

When the Giants left New York for Los Angeles after the 1957 season, a part of Wilson left too, he said. He attended the last home game the Giants played at the Polo Grounds, in part to see Mays play in front of the home crowd one final time. “We were there to say goodbye to Willie,” he said. “He’s the greatest ballplayer anyone ever saw, and now he’s leaving. I never got over it.”

That same year, Wilson and a partner opened a sporting goods store in Baldwin called Sportarama, which specialized in baseball, hockey and bowling equipment. It became the first store on Long Island to sell Bauer hockey skates — which Wilson said kept the shop in business. He used to drive up to the manufacturer, two hours north of Niagara Falls in Canada, on the weekends to load up his car with skates.

Wilson, who never married, retired from Sportarama in 1990, and started Ace Lace in the mid-2000s. Four years ago, his nephew made a suggestion to enhance his uncle’s website, and now people can find Wilson’s business under “baseball repair” on the Internet, instead of with just a general baseball search.

After years of experimenting, Wilson can now dye baseball gloves to make them look like new, as well as relace and repair any glove. He loves interacting with his customers over the phone or in person and enjoys talking baseball. His creed on his website reads:

It’s Those Good Old Gloves

We Love The Most,

We Lace ‘Em Up

From Coast To Coast!

We Give ‘Em Oil

And Color Too!

We Fix ‘Em Up

As Good As New!