What's worth keeping?

For jerseys maybe turn them into quilts

And I thought I was the only one that would keep some broken wood.     Well, actually I had a reason in that I took to knobs to make a coat and hat rack.

 

When my sons where sent off, I had them go through there stuff and anything they didn't throw away was packed into boxes, including the massive amount of trophies) with their name on it and stored in the attic. A few things that sons actually just gave to me (e.g. glove, hats and HR balls, baseball cards) are kept in a small area kinda looking like a little shrine.  One ball for each step (e.g. one HR ball from league he played in, which shows the name and logo). I keep a used glove there too that he gave me and use it to play catch with him when he's around.  And I've got his first Pro bat, which has his name imprinted on it.  Lot's of hats stored in the closet and I often wear the most current one.   

 

I guess basically, I simply keep a few highlight memory items.  

 

I'm not much of a hoarder. 

I suppose I would live to have his college jersey someday if that comes to fruition.  He wants to save everything.  He threw one jersey away cause he had a bad experience with them.  Other than that it is hard to get him to part with things.  About half the home run balls have mysteriously disappeared.  Probably to the ball bucket.  I really don't care about any of it.  Maybe someday I will regret that but I doubt it.  I did make him finally throw away the broken bats he got from minor leaguers lol!

When our son went off to college, we kept the various HS trophies, awards, HR balls, he earned in his 4 years of HS ball on the shelf in his room.  There's also some other momentos from Cooperstown Dreams Park (two special made decorative bats) and fall league championships.  There's some LL medallions and maybe one or two items from his travel ball days, but not many.  Most of it is from HS.   The rest was packed up in boxes.  His catcher's gear is all packed up (recruited as a 1B for college - never caught at the college level). No broken bats though......

 

He has some of his awards from college with him, but Ma Ma is adamant about the rest staying here until he is done with school and out on his own.

My 2017 keeps some of his broken bats. Not sure how he decided on which ones to keep. I know he has the first bat he broke but after that I have no idea why he keeps some and not the others. 

When he left for college he took his "hs practice stuff" with him for fall practice; once he made the team all of it was tossed. He had a signed poster with all of his teammates from his HS senior year. He saved it and it is now in his home office. We made a quilt out of about 15 tournament T-Shirts that he collected playing during HS; it lasted two-years at college and got tossed. We had a bucket of baseballs, including quite a few "game balls" and "HR balls" that went to the kids next door when my son moved out.

 

We took all the plaques off all of the trophy's (the trophy was tossed) that he collected through HS, put them on a board and then framed it. He still has it but I think it is in a closet.

 

Once your kiddo reaches college all of the youth and HS ball is in the rear view mirror. As soon as he was on his college team it was all gone.

 

He has a few things from his college baseball career; a couple of framed jersey's and his all-American /Regional team "awards." That and his last mit, spikes & helmet which are all in a frame in his home office.

Absolutely not! I thought I had the only knucklehead who did that!

 

Broken bats - haha - we took the boys to AZ for one spring training - came home with 4 broken, pine-tar laden bats. Jammed them into the bat bags we had brought with us - looking back I think we were nuts taking the bat bags for a vacation. They stayed proudly displayed in the basement for years until...

 

We recently went through the triple whammy with this!  One out of the house on his own (in TX), two in college (both in NC), and us in NH...  So we took the plunge, started to box and purge our "stuff", had a couple of yard sales, sold our house, and moved. At least temporarily we're in NC closer to the one still playing (although on the shelf this year with a labrum tear) and about 2 hours away from the one in law school. Not knowing exactly what to do with all the kids "stuff" and "memories", we boxed it all up and took it with us. Well mostly all of it - those broken bats I got the OK to throw away ;-). I also was able to donate a bunch of other older bats to an inner city youth league. There were a couple that were hard to part with, but for all of them I got the OK to do the donation from their former owner.

 

Our plan is to let them decide what they want to keep. For the one in law school - we gave him all his boxes when we moved him into his own apartment and told him, don't tell us what you do with this stuff, but your choice keep or toss.  The oldest is coming here for Thanksgiving - guess what he gets to do... The youngest currently says he doesn't want anything, but he wants to make us throw it away - so it still stays until he decides how to handle it.  I don't want to be the dad that gets remembered and lamented for "thowing away" my sons gloves, baseball cards, memories, etc. 

Agreed, I just stared at my 2020 when he said he wanted to keep the bat he broke in the wooden bat tourney. Like we don't have enough baseball stuff, we now have to keep BROKEN baseball stuff?!?!?!?!

 

Memories and pictures, that's about it for me.  Grandma has almost all the HR baseballs and the kid has his perfect game/no-no baseballs, but I'd bet big time money he has no clue where they're located in his cave/room.

 

GHHS Jr will collect OTHER KID's broken bats....but he gives them to grandpa.  Grandpa turns wood and that maple/birch is outstanding wood!

 

For the kids we know, grandpa will usually take the bat and make a sort of ball trophy stand (knob becomes the ball rest, barrel becomes the base).  Looks awesome for those that have personalized bats.

When we moved about a year ago, my oldest had about 25-30 game balls he had gotten over the years.  He gave them to me to put in the ball bucket.

 

Now I use them at practices for my 10U team.  Most of the balls have why it was awarded written on them.  Since my oldest is helping coach the team, and he plays on the high school team - he has rock star status with the kids.  Whenever they get a "game ball" during a drill, they stop to read what it was for and announce it to the other players.  "He hit for the cycle for this one".  "He threw out 4 baserunners for this one".  It's kind of funny actually.

Son has about 30 baseballs from all levels sitting in his room.  There are at least 2 dozen bats scattered thru the garage/bedroom/basement and 3 or 4 batting helmets...one from 11U...lol.  He's given a lot of stuff to neighborhood kids over the years.  One thing I would love to know is how many baseballs have gone into that damned ball bucket over the years.  I've looked...and just can't seem to find the huge gaping hole in the bottom...but dammit, it's got to be there....lol. 

Interesting topic.  My oldest has kept very little.  A PG WWBA championship ring is the only thing he kept from his high school years.  From college, he kept one baseball (no-hitter), a team picture, an all-conference plaque, and a (big honking) conference championship ring.  That's it.  My other two son's kept baseballs, team pictures, Varsity letters, and Youth baseball trophies.

 

I'm probably the biggest offender in terms of hanging onto stuff.  I've got pictures and trophies from all the teams I coached over the last 20 years,  I did keep all of my oldest son's college programs (handouts) at all the games over the 4 years as we followed the team.   I want to put them alt together into a frame, but I haven't got around to it yet.

Not a lot of stuff, he has his ring from the CWS/Regional win.

We have two of his college jersey's and are going to have them framed in a box, one for him and one for us.

We have a few balls from here and there.

He has his CWS NCAA plaque on his desk and I have the one from the Regionals sitting here.

Probably most importantly I have a bunch of videos and pictures and I was going to edit them and put them out on Youtube for him and the rest of the family/friends to be able to go back and see. 

Broken bats make a really cool gear shift for your truck. 

 

All his old catching equipment has been handed down to younger players.

 

We have one relative that is saving his cleats. He thinks they will be worth something one day, SMH. 

 

We have a closet full of Southland baseball pants and old uniforms.

 

We still haven't cleaned out his room and he's been out of there for four years now. All the stuff that was on the walls or shelves is still there.  the rest is in the attic. 

Once he finished playing college ball, there wasn't much more to collect. They don't give out much in the minors. 

 

I need to sell the Southland pants before the elastic gets brittle

Please consider boxing up some of the mementos even if he doesn't seem interested in keeping them now.

 

My oldest son always liked to travel light and wanted to toss everything as soon as he got it. After he got married, my wife gave our daughter in law a bunch of plaques, certificates, and other items she had saved without son's knowlwedge or consent.

 

Daughter in law was thrilled to get them and find out about accomplishments her husband had never told her about.

 

The handoff from one woman who loves him to another was the most secure mode of intergenerational transfer.

It's an interesting phenomena.  Seems like, with each level they reach, all the stuff from the previous level becomes so much less important and most of the stuff they thought they'd keep forever gets tossed without too much pain.  Whatever level each son or daughter ultimately made it too in any given sport carries the most meaning, regardless of what that level was.

 

Wife is big on photography so memories are preserved in that way.  Some of the kids have lots of newspaper write-ups that are fairly easy to stow away without taking up too much room.  But trophies, bats, medals, jerseys, etc., are stubbornly hung onto for a few years and then shuffled off into the sunset.  Boy does my wife hate trophy clutter.  Kids would kick and scream one year that they have to be kept forever, then the next year when she asked about tossing, "yeah, that's fine".

 

The stuff that really holds value over time as "must keep" is pics of the kids with friends while playing all these sports together over the years.

Shoot, Swamp, now you tell me.  Great point.  Great story.

My wife is too.  We have nearly every HS game and about half of his Legion games on video.  Then there is about 20 or so college games preserved on video.  Would have been more, but we could not get to every game.

As it is it would probably take me the entire summer to view all those videos.

I wonder what a broken bat from Derek Jeter wood be worth from his HS days?

Whatever is important to you (or him)...someday he may have kids and its fun for them to dig through dads old stuff...i actually still had all my gloves,dating back to Tball....my kids got a kick out of the fact that my first glove was a JC Penney model..what can i say we were broke...i had my Rawlings HS glove refurbished and gave it to my daughter since she is a lefty...As a 10 year old softball player 1B she couldnt have been prouder to sport it.

While most people decorate their rec rooms or man-caves with their favorite professional sports teams, ours is decorate with all our kids memorabilia. 

Agree with those that said pics are the most precious items to keep. I have taken down the cage and used the net at the HS, gave the pitching machine to another kid that could use it, tossed some old hats and cleats, gave away a couple of helmets.... just not sure what to do with the rest of it.  May keep the last bat and glove he used, and I will prob keep the last bat bag he had with his name embroidered  on it. Tough call

As far as the trophies go, my wife got the idea to take the plate off of each one (i.e.2005 Little League Major Champions") and put all of them on one plaque to hang on the wall. That way you get the memory of the event without using up the space of all of those trophies. We'll donate the now blank trophies to Goodwill for someone else to do something with. I do agree it's important to let them decide what to keep (within reason). We've also donated equipment to Pitch In For Baseball. I'd rather it be in the hands of someone who can use it rather than it sit in a closet for years and years.

lhprhp - I love your wife's idea.  Smart lady.  Thanks for sharing, as I think that is the direction I'm headed.

 

d8 - I couldn't agree more...pictures are the most important.

I have saved way too much.

If it had keewartson's name in it, I kept it.  They will eventually get into a scrapbook.

 

In high school, it was fairly clear that there was a very special player 2 years ahead of my son.  I saved every newspaper article about him through high school and college.  He went 1st round this past June.  When I started cutting out and dating the articles several weeks ago, I realized this player needed his own scrapbook lol.  I also save newspaper articles about college players that he played with in high school/travel team.

 

I counted 54 baseball caps hanging on pegs in our utility room.  That isn't counting the hats in my kids rooms or the ones in the attic that I saved from each team he played on (along with a jersey from each team).  

 

We also have 3 poster-sized collage of pictures framed in our den.  They are of our boys taken at all the major league parks we have traveled to over the years.  (I am pretty sure I got that idea from this site).

 

 

 

While I used to live in Pennsylvania, people would donate old trophies (sans plates) to Special Olympics.

In answer to the original question...GET RID OF EVERYTHING!!

 

I gave up a while ago trying to corral all this stuff, and I'm counting down time so that I can RECLAIM PORTIONS OF MY HOUSE. I swear this stuff is viral: it just keeps spreading to uncluttered areas. 

 

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

So, this weekend was the big cleanup weekend in my home office.  Nothing was going to escape the wrath of the moving boxes....or so I thought.  I removed all the engravings (per LHPRHP's great suggestion)  and I'll make a special wall decoration from it.  

 

Everything went except one trophy that I just couldn't part with (I went back to get it), and I got a little emotional about it.  I gave up state championship trophies, national trophies and plaques. However, I couldn't give up this one small marble team trophy for Sportmanship (at a 2007 national tourney) that means so much to me.  It was awarded to my players and coaches, and to this day that thing is priceless to me as I look at what my players have become as current college juniors and seniors.  Some are playing D1, D3 and some aren't playing at all.  These are great kids & parents, and I'm still really proud of them and their character.