I found this at my parent’s house during my recent visit. My guess is I’m about 12 here. I was beside myself upon hearing that a personal player card option was being added to the usual team photo, which, if your parents were so inclined, could also contain a solo photo of you kneeling, wearing your over-sized glove, smiling like the world’s happiest baseball boy for the world to see.

In other words nothing that remotely looked like a baseball card. This new wrinkle was something I had to have. A baseball card of myself. Something to hang on the wall next to the Johnny Bench and Mike Schmidt cards I’d placed so carefully inside plastic card protectors, keeping them pristine for that future day when I would cash in my childhood memories and be rich enough to buy season tickets for whatever team playing in the city I was living in.

There was nothing to suggest that the card would be anything but the real thing. My teammates and I speculated which card company might be lending its presses to the cause — Topps? Or maybe one of the newer upstarts like Fleer or Donruss would want a piece of the action. We talked at practice about trading them amongst ourselves. Who needed a dumb team photo when you could have individual cards of each of your teammates?

I mean, what kid wouldn’t want his own player card? And the stats! Wouldn’t they use the real stats? Afterall, the coach’s wife pretty much meticulously kept them at nearly every game. Perhaps I’d finally get the vindication I deserved. Sure, my 70 lb. frame lacked home run power, but how many unsung doubles and triples did I have? And the SBs! Surely I led the team. I stole bases nearly every game — as best as I could remember.

In retrospect the first sign things wouldn’t turn out as I had hoped occurred at the actual photo shoot. As I was handed a bat I cocked my hands back and fell into the compact stance I’d learned from How to Hit Better Than Anybody by Pete Rose.

“Um, lower your hands a little,” the photographer said.

“Ok, now straighten the bat some.”

I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t holding a flag I was holding a baseball bat. Someone came in from the side and positioned the bat in my hand.

“Ok, now smile.”

I don’t remember going along with the whole charade, but the proof is in the photo. I also don’t remember spelling Cincinnati wrong under the “favorite team” category. I know I didn’t spell Eddie Milner’s name wrong, but to be fair, my ls and rs did look a little the same in those days (a precursor to living in Asia years later?). Regardless Eddie Milnel became my “favorite player” as far as posterity was concerned.

The stats? There wasn’t room. See, the typeface was a tad bigger than the usual baseball card. Plus it was black type on white photo paper. The coach’s son’s mother was kind enough to to print out stats toward the end of the year, but it wasn’t quite what I’d expected. While I’d managed to hit nearly .300 I didn’t have nearly the number of SBs I’d remembered. I’ll bet the coach’s kid was surprised as well — he was the team leader in all categories despite being the 4th or 5th best player on the team.

I think worst of all way the border. A rainbow frame with the company’s logo that took up a good 20% of the card itself. There would be no trading of these cards. You couldn’t even sign them. They were just photos. Photos to be put in a box and found some 20 years later.