A workout and Topps baseball cards

I did make it to the Wellness Center to workout Thursday.  For minutes on the treadmill, 2.18 miles at a 3.27 mph pace, and 506 calories burned according to the machine.  I think the machines are generous ‘re calories burned, but the number looked good to me.

 

A little more of what I think about when I think about baseball:

 

I remember plunking down my nickel a day allowance to buy

five Topps baseball cards. Five cards, five sticks of bubble gum. I can

still smell the sweet, rubbery, gummy smell of those cards. And,

believe that one of the great unanswered questions of our time is how

I could buy five such cards and two might be Camilo Pascual’s, but if

I bought one hundred cards  none would be a Willie Mays.  I

have forgiven my mother for throwing away my baseball cards.  She

denied doing so anyway, plus, how many kids ever had what

collectors call a “mint condition” card?  Mine were looked at, fingered

up-and full of dust, the kind of dust that only baseball cards in a shoe

box under a bed could acquire. Plus, most Camilo Pascual and Pedro

Ramos cards ended up attached to the spokes of my bike by a

clothes pin.  A lovely racket indeed.  I could never forget Willie Mays,

but from time to time I do wonder about what happened to Camilo

Pascual or Pedro Ramos.  

 

And not just Pascual or Ramos.  What became of Pirate’s

greats Vern Law, Harvey Haddix, Vinegar Bend Mizell, Smoky

Burgess, Bill Mazeroski, and Bob Skinner.  So many heroes.  Where

have you gone Joe Adcock, “a nation turns its lonely eyes to you,”

doesn’t sound right.  But, where have you gone Joe Adcock?  And

Walt Moryn?  Turk Lown?  Early Wynn?  Norm Siebern?  Bob Buhl? 

Moe Drabowsky?  And Roy Sievers too? Someone needs to write a

book about where they have gone.  I would buy it.

 

My plan tonight is workout at the Wellness Center and mow the lawn.

 

~ by Ron Meyer on June 28, 2008.