"Memorabilia Monday"

Another idea I came up with while brainstorming last week was "Memorabilia Monday". It’s another of my themed posts (see New Photo Friday) that I plan to do each week during the 'off season'. Each week I’ll share a piece of memorabilia from my collection. Obviously my collection has not grown much in the last few seasons as credentialed Media are not permitted to get autographs. Most of my collection focuses on the late 80's to early 90's.

In the future, I promise to keep the “Memorabilia Monday” posts to a few sentences or at the very most two short paragraphs. Unfortunately this one is a little long-winded.

As I was preparing to write this post I was conflicted as to whether or not this should fall under “Memorabilia Monday” or just a regular article featuring a past player. It is one of the most prized pieces in my collection but not because it has a high price value, but because of the story behind the player (and it has sentimental value). At the same time there is a good story behind the player. I decided to break it into two separate posts, one for “Memorabilia Monday” and another for a feature story on Jeff Banister (which will be posted at some point this week).

The story behind this piece of memorabilia does not lead to a baseball field but rather a Laundromat. I was attending Milton Hershey School (MHS) and my dad took me and my brothers ‘out’ for a visit one Sunday afternoon. Little did we know that our visit with dad would be to Morris Laundromat on the corner of 2nd and Calder streets in downtown Harrisburg. Also to my surprise it would net my first autograph. While waiting for my dad’s laundry to finish, in walked Jeff Banister. I had no clue who he was but luckily my dad was a Senators fan and pointed it out. After a short while my brothers and I went over and asked for an autograph (all we had was a sheet of paper).

Jeff was very nice person. My dad told him how much I enjoyed baseball and that I played ball as well. Jeff talked with me for at least 30-minutes about baseball. As a 12/13 year old baseball fan this was a huge experience.

Several weeks later my dad took us ‘out’ again, this time it wasn’t to the Laundromat but to a Senators game. To my surprise Jeff remembered me. He ended up hitting a home run that game.