In search for a simple blue ball

You can buy a car that parks itself. You can buy a telephone that has more computing power than the early space shuttles. There are apps that can control any part of your life you want them to, but can you find one simple ball?

This isn't the blue ball i am seeking.

I have been looking for Christmas presents for my grandson who will be all of three months old not too long before the day comes. There aren't many toys kids that age will play with, most of the ones I see are more for parents so they can entertain themselves with them thinking they are playing with the kid. It came up not long ago that the boy's sports education is going to fall to me and his uncle, his father never having been involved with them much. (I have been informed, quite cryptically that my son in law played hockey throughout his high school career. It was the insertion a ball that made the difference.) It's a responsibility I gladly accept.  Hope I can still dunk when I am 80.

The earliest toy I can remember having was a simple ball; it was hard plastic about the size of a baseball and blue. Oddly it was not a present from anyone or just a toy my parents bought me. I found it in a cabin my family rented on the Canadian side of the Niagara River one summer. I don't recall what I did with it but I remember the blue hard ball and I suspect is was the beginning of my lifelong interest and moderate success in sports involving balls. So, I have been looking for a simple hard plastic (read lightweight)  ball for this new boy in our family to give him a good start in the right direction, or at least the one I think he should go (that may be up for some discussion). I see it as something he can push around in his crib or wherever he plays and eventually I can start rolling it to him which might lead him to roll it back and then we are off on a grand journey. I would have better luck finding him a pint-sized AR-15.

Every time I get near a toy department I look through the aisles for such a thing. Oh, there are balls for sure, huge  balls, musical balls, knobby balls, balls with wings, balls that change color as they roll; you can even buy balls in lots of 100 to fill a home version of a ball pit. After several stores, I tried Amazon. No, Amazon says it has 400 pages when you search toys/balls. Four hundred pages and not one simple smooth plastic ball the size of a baseball.  There are non toxic, safe balls, Nerf balls a kid can take a good bite out of; kid sized soccer balls (soccer? this is an American kid).  But a simple ball that all it does is roll, nope. Some places have bags of 100, but what do you do with 99 plastic balls?

I have an idea. I have to see how much they weigh, but you know those wood balls they put on banister posts?  I can see that happening with a nice coat of paint.  It will matter how heavy they are.

If that doesn't work, those MacDonald's with the ball pits better be guarding their inventory because one of those balls is liable to be missing some time before Christmas.