When I was a little boy, I was a baseball fanatic. Every year for many years Mom, who used to work for a grain elevator, received four free box seats because the company she worked for would give them to farmers as a premium for doing business with them. The best we ever got was behind third base, four rows up from the field. Living in southern Illinois it was destined that I would be a St. Louis Cardinals fan. I first saw the Cardinals in person in either 1970 or 1971 when my aunt and uncle took Mom, me, my brother, and a cousin to St. Louis. We stayed at a Holiday Inn and one thing I learned was that when you took a shower you put the curtain in the tub instead of keeping it outside the tub. Hey, we didn't have a shower until probably 1975 or 1976 when Mom remodeled the one bathroom the five of us shared, so what did I know from showers?
I watched Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Joe Torre, and numerous other players, but the one I always wanted to see was Hank Aaron. Of course, we never got to go when the Braves were playing. The biggest deal for me came when Aaron was going after Babe Ruth's home run record. When you talk about buying fabric, no one had anything on me when it came to buying baseball cards. Topps cards were a dime a pack for about ten or 12 cards (and a piece of gum), so a dollar and some change would buy ten packs. I had amassed about 1,500 cards. At the time, I had no idea about taking care of them making sure they were never touched or even taken out of the package. My next door neighbor and I would get together on Saturday afternoons, separate our cards into teams, and trade (anyone who watched "The Wonder Years" will remember an episode that saw Kevin Arnold and Paul Pfeiffer trading cards that reminded me of me and my neighbor).
When Aaron was chasing Ruth's record, Topps put out what they called a "Hank Aaron Special," which was one card with four pictures on them representing cards throughout his career. It became my mission in life to collect everyone I could. Here is what they looked like
71K-4Gq6oML._AC_SY445_.jpg
Today you can find these cards on Ebay for about $2 to $3, which isn't too bad a price. I don't know if I was able to get every one, but I did get several (and, of course, many of the same card). I even wrote to the Atlanta Braves begging for an autographed picture of Aaron. I'll never forget the day when I got off the school bus, opened the mail box, and saw an envelope with the Braves' logo on it. Of course, the picture I got was stamped with Aaron's signature, but I put it up like it was the most valuable picture in the world. I carried it with me to college and to my first apartment where somehow it got lost. The greatest night, however, was April 8, 1974 when Aaron finally did it. We had attended a 4-H meeting that evening, but my mind was on whether or not it would happen. As we drove home from the meeting, the radio station broke into the music with the news that he had done it. I watched the news that night to be able to watch it.
Years later I stopped following baseball. I hated the fact that players were charging for their autographs and that much of the fun I remember as a kid seemed to drain away. Baseball cards went from a dime a pack to about $1 a pack with less cards and smaller gum. I still had enough interest in the sport that when I first worked as a reporter a woman I wrote a feature on who had a small general store and had a full pack of cards (every card that Topps put out for that season) that I had always wanted to own but could never afford. Either she took pity on me or I wrote a pretty darn good story because when I stopped by to bring her some copies of the paper, she went to the shelf, pulled down the box, and handed it to me. When I said I didn't have any money she said "this is a gift." I ended up giving that box, plus all the cards I had left, to one of my nephews. I hope he still has them, but I doubt it.
What killed my love for baseball for all eternity was covering Pete Rose's stay in prison for tax evasion. Rose was supposed to go to the prison in Ashland, Ky., to serve his sentence, but something kept him from doing so. Federal prison officials try to place inmates as close to their home as possible, so family can easily visit. The closest prison after that was in Marion, Illinois, where I was working for the newspaper. I was there the cold, icy day in January when Rose was released. I did some freelancing for other papers and the wire services. The National Enquirer offered me $5,000 if I would get a picture of Rose in prison, which I declined, noting that once they left town I would still have to work with prison officials. They got their picture, but it never came from me. I broke the story that Rose was receiving preferential treatment from the guards and that his ID card had been stolen, which made national news and got me mentioned on the CBS Evening News. It also got me a warning from the nice ladies who worked in the office that if I was going to break a national story I had better have the good sense not to take the next day off when all the media outlets called wanting more information. What was really kind of neat in a "feed my ego" kind of way was that I had gone to a family member's house that next weekend that was a couple of hundred miles away when my cousin told the group that I was covering Rose's stay in prison. Not knowing it was me who broke the story, they asked if I had heard about it, and was it true? I just smiled.
I did have a picture in the Enquirer that they purchased for about $100. It was inside the dormitory where Rose was staying that I had taken month's before as a file photo. I was so embarrassed that I had a photo credit in it that I made Mom buy a copy for me. I never really cared for Rose as a player or as a person, but when I heard that he had actually bet on games where his team was playing, that pretty much killed any love I had for the sport. I haven't been to a game in years and doubt I could even afford it if and when games begin to allow crowds again.
But with the loss of Aaron, and the deaths last year of Gibson and Brock, a part of my childhood also died. I guess that's the way it goes for everyone, but it's not the thing that a wide-eyed boy of 11 thinks about happening. All I cared about was the smell of the hot dogs and the crack of the bat and dreaming about seeing Aaron in person. Those are the things that childhood fantasies are made of.
Rob
I watched Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Joe Torre, and numerous other players, but the one I always wanted to see was Hank Aaron. Of course, we never got to go when the Braves were playing. The biggest deal for me came when Aaron was going after Babe Ruth's home run record. When you talk about buying fabric, no one had anything on me when it came to buying baseball cards. Topps cards were a dime a pack for about ten or 12 cards (and a piece of gum), so a dollar and some change would buy ten packs. I had amassed about 1,500 cards. At the time, I had no idea about taking care of them making sure they were never touched or even taken out of the package. My next door neighbor and I would get together on Saturday afternoons, separate our cards into teams, and trade (anyone who watched "The Wonder Years" will remember an episode that saw Kevin Arnold and Paul Pfeiffer trading cards that reminded me of me and my neighbor).
When Aaron was chasing Ruth's record, Topps put out what they called a "Hank Aaron Special," which was one card with four pictures on them representing cards throughout his career. It became my mission in life to collect everyone I could. Here is what they looked like
71K-4Gq6oML._AC_SY445_.jpg
Today you can find these cards on Ebay for about $2 to $3, which isn't too bad a price. I don't know if I was able to get every one, but I did get several (and, of course, many of the same card). I even wrote to the Atlanta Braves begging for an autographed picture of Aaron. I'll never forget the day when I got off the school bus, opened the mail box, and saw an envelope with the Braves' logo on it. Of course, the picture I got was stamped with Aaron's signature, but I put it up like it was the most valuable picture in the world. I carried it with me to college and to my first apartment where somehow it got lost. The greatest night, however, was April 8, 1974 when Aaron finally did it. We had attended a 4-H meeting that evening, but my mind was on whether or not it would happen. As we drove home from the meeting, the radio station broke into the music with the news that he had done it. I watched the news that night to be able to watch it.
Years later I stopped following baseball. I hated the fact that players were charging for their autographs and that much of the fun I remember as a kid seemed to drain away. Baseball cards went from a dime a pack to about $1 a pack with less cards and smaller gum. I still had enough interest in the sport that when I first worked as a reporter a woman I wrote a feature on who had a small general store and had a full pack of cards (every card that Topps put out for that season) that I had always wanted to own but could never afford. Either she took pity on me or I wrote a pretty darn good story because when I stopped by to bring her some copies of the paper, she went to the shelf, pulled down the box, and handed it to me. When I said I didn't have any money she said "this is a gift." I ended up giving that box, plus all the cards I had left, to one of my nephews. I hope he still has them, but I doubt it.
What killed my love for baseball for all eternity was covering Pete Rose's stay in prison for tax evasion. Rose was supposed to go to the prison in Ashland, Ky., to serve his sentence, but something kept him from doing so. Federal prison officials try to place inmates as close to their home as possible, so family can easily visit. The closest prison after that was in Marion, Illinois, where I was working for the newspaper. I was there the cold, icy day in January when Rose was released. I did some freelancing for other papers and the wire services. The National Enquirer offered me $5,000 if I would get a picture of Rose in prison, which I declined, noting that once they left town I would still have to work with prison officials. They got their picture, but it never came from me. I broke the story that Rose was receiving preferential treatment from the guards and that his ID card had been stolen, which made national news and got me mentioned on the CBS Evening News. It also got me a warning from the nice ladies who worked in the office that if I was going to break a national story I had better have the good sense not to take the next day off when all the media outlets called wanting more information. What was really kind of neat in a "feed my ego" kind of way was that I had gone to a family member's house that next weekend that was a couple of hundred miles away when my cousin told the group that I was covering Rose's stay in prison. Not knowing it was me who broke the story, they asked if I had heard about it, and was it true? I just smiled.
I did have a picture in the Enquirer that they purchased for about $100. It was inside the dormitory where Rose was staying that I had taken month's before as a file photo. I was so embarrassed that I had a photo credit in it that I made Mom buy a copy for me. I never really cared for Rose as a player or as a person, but when I heard that he had actually bet on games where his team was playing, that pretty much killed any love I had for the sport. I haven't been to a game in years and doubt I could even afford it if and when games begin to allow crowds again.
But with the loss of Aaron, and the deaths last year of Gibson and Brock, a part of my childhood also died. I guess that's the way it goes for everyone, but it's not the thing that a wide-eyed boy of 11 thinks about happening. All I cared about was the smell of the hot dogs and the crack of the bat and dreaming about seeing Aaron in person. Those are the things that childhood fantasies are made of.
Rob
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