Compromise and effective budgeting are the name of the game when it comes to kids. Recently, my daughter outgrew her baseball glove—which seems to be happening fairly regularly with all her clothing and sports equipment—so we decided to buy her a new one. There was one condition though, the glove had  to be pink or purple—her condition, not mine. Fair enough, girls will be girls, but I also wanted a good quality glove that would last her for a while, so I went to Canadian Tire and browsed through the Rawlings gloves. There were a few with pink and purple, but all were too large for my daughter’s hand. Our neighbour’s daughter had a pink Rawlings glove, but my neighbours seemed to think they weren’t manufacturing that kind anymore. Well, I called up Rawlings Canada’s Customer Service line to make sure and got some very helpful people on the line who directed me to a few Ontario stores that might carry the glove. I called the store closest to us and they were willing to order the glove from the States, but it’d take three weeks to get there and included shipping costs, so I turned to the next store on the list- a Play It Again Sports in Burlington.

Burlington is a little out of the way for me, but, as any of you fellow parents know, you’re willing to go the extra distance for your kid. I called the store and got the store owner/operator on the line, Gord, who told me they had the glove. This was just before the Easter Weekend, though, and his store was going to be closed on Good Friday. Just my luck, I would be driving right through Burlington on Good Friday and wasn’t sure when I’d be out that way next. Did Gord ever step up to the plate. He told me he only lived five minutes from the store and gave me his personal number in order to call him when I got to Burlington so he could swing by the store and open it up for us. I mean, it’s Easter weekend, his day off, and Gord was planning on taking his family out for breakfast that morning, but he still made time for us. That’s excellent customer service if I’ve ever seen it!

We pulled into the store parking lot around 10 am and there he was waiting. He brought us into the store and showed my daughter three different gloves. She ended up settling on the size 11 3/4 glove with some pink trim around the edges and a pink centre. It took a total of ten minutes, Gord locked up the store and we headed on our merry way. For a sale that totalled forty dollars, Gord was willing to take time out of his holiday to help my daughter and I out and give us a great experience at his shop. The Burlington store is a little out of my way, but the next time I have a sporting goods need I’ll be sure to make the trek out to see Gord. He definitely hit a customer service home run!
Play It Again Sports
3450 Dundas Street Unit B19
Burlington, ON L7M 4B8
905-639-8872
www.playitagainsports.com