Yellow Cab makes red-letter day for Canadian boy who lost baseball glove

There's a special bond that develops over time between a kid and his baseball glove. Even if the kid is from Canada. So when 17-year-old Jake Polancic of British Columbia lost his glove in Henderson, he was distraught. That glove meant a lot to him. It had sentimental value.

As a right-handed pitcher, it also protected him from well-struck comebackers to the mound.

Luckily for young Jake, who was in Las Vegas for a tournament, he lost his glove in a taxicab. A Yellow Checker Star Transportation of Las Vegas taxicab.

A couple of years ago, somebody lost $300,000 in a taxi. A Yellow Checker Star driver found it; he returned it to dispatch. This was after the person who had lost the bag of cash had tipped him $5.

So it should come as no surprise that young Jake Polancic's baseball glove would turn up in lost and found at the Yellow Checker compound, after a fleet message was put out. Jake Polancic got his glove back.

Jake's parents sent a nice letter to the taxicab company.

"His glove is very important to him," the letter began. "We bought it for him after he made this team he is currently on. It was a challenge for him, as he was a talented player, but no one gave him a lot of credit because he was overweight. He decided to do something about it and worked really hard to lose weight.

"That glove has been with him ever since.

"He has since been invited to the Canada Cup (and) the Perfect Game in Florida, where he was named to the all-tournament team. He has accepted a full ride to Galveston Texas Junior College, and has attended a number of MLB workouts. ... Just three years ago, we never thought he would even make the local elite baseball team. He has really worked hard, and that glove has been with him the whole time.

"A player's glove is more than just equipment ..."

Michael Bailin, operations manager at Yellow Checker Star, said Margaret Perkins, who runs the lost and found department, does a heck of a job. Cellphones, cameras, bags of cash containing $300,000 in small, unmarked bills ... you never know what people are going to leave behind in the backseat.

That got us to talking about our baseball gloves.

I told him mine is on a shelf next to the computer, that when I have trouble putting words on paper, I put on my glove and toss a baseball into the pocket. You should see how well my glove is broken in, I said.

The man from the taxicab company said he could relate to that.

"I used to sleep with mine," he said.

Trotters lift the lid

Show of hands: Who thought the first sporting event in Las Vegas' new T-Mobile Arena would be a Harlem Globetrotters game?

Put your hand down, Horshack. Mr. Kotter isn't buying it.

The Trotters will play somebody resembling the old Washington Generals at the new building shoehorned between New York-New York and the Monte Carlo on April 19. Tickets start at $17. They end at $125. I think for $125 you get hit with real water instead of confetti from a pail.

In a related note, Globetrotter Scooter Christensen, who played high school basketball at Bishop Gorman, recently sank a field goal from 100 feet, from the balcony of Staples Center in Los Angeles. (https://youtu.be/bR5GacrylVM?t=12.)

Nobody had a hand in Christensen's face. Steph Curry probably still was impressed.

Scaling the Strat

A couple of years ago, I was on the observation deck at the Stratosphere Tower when a 37-year-old Yale grad and police officer from Santa Monica, California, named Erika Alufi came barging in. She had climbed the 1,455 steps of the Stratosphere Tower emergency stairwell in 8 minutes, 21 seconds. More than 600 eccentric running types had Scaled the Strat on that Sunday morning. Alufi was the first woman to the top.

When she got there, she wasn't even winded. She just went to the window and looked off into the distance. We were so high up you could almost see Santa Monica.

I remember thinking that if I was ever caught in a Towering Inferno, forget about calling Steve McQueen, like in the movies. I wanted somebody to send for Erika Alufi.

This year's Scale the Strat is this morning. There is expected to be a lot of heavy breathing around the 105th floor. It's all for a good cause: Scale the Strat — aka the Fight for Air Climb — is a primary fundraiser for the local chapter of the American Lung Association. For details, go to: http://tinyurl.com/hjrprhh

Three dots …

— At the recent Mayor's Cup youth soccer showcase, I was approached by a British football fan who wanted to chat about upstart Leicester City topping the Premier League table at this late date, and what were the betting odds at the beginning of the season of that happening? According to William Hill, a bookmaker based in England (with multiple Las Vegas outlets), it was 5,000-1 the Foxes would win the title; the Westgate Las Vegas had Leicester City at 2,500-1. How crazy is Leicester City leading the Premiership at this late date? According to ESPN.com, it's also 5,000-1 at William Hill that Elvis will be found alive, and that Kim Kardashian will become U.S. president in 2020.

— Email of the week: From Jay Richards, who used to cover horse racing for the Review-Journal: "On the rookie season of the Cubs' (and former Bonanza High slugger) Kris Bryant: The only other rookie in major league history to produce 26 homers, 99 RBIs, 31 doubles, 86 runs and 77 walks was Hall of Famer Ted Williams. Wow. I guess this Cubs fan should stop complaining about Bryant's 200 strikeouts."

— Heath Schroyer, a former UNLV assistant basketball coach under Dave Rice, had led the Tennessee-Martin basketball team to eight consecutive victories and a share of its first Ohio Valley West Division championship. Had Schroyer stayed around, one can now surmise he might have made a pretty good interim coach for the Rebels.

— Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski