The Nocona Athletic Goods factory burned to the ground yesterday...
Story from the Wichita Falls Times-Record News
If any of you have toured the factory, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They made gloves in this same building for 80 years. Some of the workers are second-generation employees and others have worked there for over 30 years. Most of the equipment in the factory pre-dated the veteran workers; some of it was built in the 1940's and was still in use. The only computerized piece of machinery in the entire facility was the sewing machine that stitched the Nocona name and emblem on the gloves. Every piece of every glove they sold was hand made right there in that building.
They had an entire room filled with memorabilia and vintage baseball gloves, footballs, baseballs and leather football helmets. The employees could tell you the significance of each piece of equipment and colorful stories about the people who used them. Touring that factory was like looking through a window into the past.
I was fortunate enough to visit the Nocona factory last Friday. My 13 year-old had been mowing yards all summer long, saving his hard-earned money for a new glove and a new bat. After two months of watching him research, analyze and compare everything from cost, to durability, to leather strength and weight, he decided he wanted a Nocona AMG-100-BFC glove. He couldn’t find one at his usual Internet outlets, so he took it upon himself to call Nocona and ask if he could order one direct. They told him that they didn’t take orders or over the Internet directly from customers, but that there was a factory outlet inside their building that sold directly to the public. The lady told him that he could tour the facility, pick a glove and even have his name stitched onto it.
After three weeks of constant badgering, pestering, whining and begging, I took a day off from work and we made the trip to Nocona, toured the factory and got the glove. I think we both would have remembered this trip for different reasons; I got to see my son work hard and pay for something he really wanted, and my son because he learned an important lesson about the value of money and work ethic. After hearing about the fire, we’ll both remember the trip because we got to see a piece of baseball history that no longer exists, and that my son was fortunate enough to purchase a small piece of that history.
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When we moved to Texas, I added "tour of the Nacona factory" to my to-do list --- never made it. The news is indeed sad.