baseball card

I woke up today and realized that I missed Pete Rose’s birthday. It was a month ago today, April 14.

I always remembered Rose’s birthday (4/14/41) because it was printed on the back of his baseball card many years ago—as birthdates always were and are—and for some goshdarn reason it stuck in my head. (I also remembered Frank Howard’s—8/8/36—but not the way I remembered Pete’s.)

We occasionally run a feature in the T-G called "People Around Town," in which we profile someone by letting them answer a series of questions. One of the questions has to do with "favorite possession," and the answer to this is almost always "my family," which I can never understand. The intent of the question was to get the person to talk about their old baseball card, or that comfy old sweater, or their grandmother's special ring, or what have you. To me, family isn't a "possession."...