A Thief's Journal

 

It was never my intention to turn to a life of crime.

            I’d always been a good kid. Or I at least tried to be. I did okay in school. I was good to my parents. I was a good and honest friend. I ate everything on my plate and went to bed on time...mostly.

            I loved my pet dog.

            I’m not sure where I went wrong.

            I guess you could say my life of crime started with this baseball card.

            You see, back when I was a kid, I’m talking little kid here, age six or seven, Ed Ott was my favorite Pittsburgh Pirate. Okay, Willie Stargell was my favorite Pittsburgh Pirate. But Willie was Pops. You couldn’t NOT love Willie Stargell. But Ed Ott was my 2^nd favorite, which, behind Stargell, made him my de facto, favorite Pirate.

            That all started when I pull this card (not the original one) out of my very first pack of baseball cards.

            Flash forwards a year later, and my family has moved an hour plus away from Pittsburgh to a town called Wellsburg, West Virginia. In an instant I went from city mouse to country mouse. I went from a neighborhood full of kids to my brother and I being almost the only kids in our neighborhood. There was one kid named Kurt who was my brother’s age, and another kid named Donny…who was twelve. A good five years older than me.

            Donny reluctantly let me pal around with him when none of his friends were around. His house was the first house where I’d ever seen a video game system. Or that cool electric football game. Donny had boxes full of baseball cards, and his bedroom is subsequently where my life of crime began.

            It happened when, you guessed it, I stole this card from Donny.

            I didn’t mean to.

            It just happened.

            Donny left his bedroom to use the bathroom, and the 1981 Ed Ott somehow ended up hidden underneath my clammy leg, where I’d been sitting cross-legged on Donny’s floor. Another trip to bathroom later by Donny, and the 1981 Topps Ed Ott card had made it safely into the pocket of my shorts, later to join the collection of 1981 cards that I’d been building at home.

            It wasn’t a proud moment for me.

            But Donny had so many 1981 Topps cards he wouldn’t miss an Ed Ott?

            Besides, Ed Ott was my favorite Pirate and not Donny’s.

            Of course, there’s a sad irony to being a seven-year-old kid with a favorite player on your favorite team. And that’s being a seven-year-old kid who recognizes players on cards more than he does on TV or scorecards. Ed Ott wasn’t even playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1981. He’d been traded that April to the California Angels with Mickey Mahler for first baseman Jason Thompson.

            And behind the plate in Pittsburgh, there was a new sherif in town.

            Sadly, 1981 was Ed Ott’s last year in Major League Baseball. He spent the 1982 season injured. The 1983 season mostly injured. And after a stint with the Angels PCL AAA team Edmonton in 1984, Ed Ott was out of baseball. At least as a player. He’s coached in the pros, the independent league and something called the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball.

            And, sadly, Ed Ott passed away on March 3, 2024.

            RIP OTTER.

            As for me, my life of crime last throughout the 1980s. A random, opened pack of 1983 Fleer from the RevCo Drug Store. A Super Powers D.C. Comics Robin doll from Hills department store. Couch change whenever I could get my hands on it. Handfuls of chips from someone else’s bag.

            That kind of stuff.

            But it all started that summer of 1981 in Donny’s bedroom.

            Thankfully I've been on the straight and narrow for years now.

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!