Witness Mr. Henry Thayer, a charter member of the fraternity of dreamers.It was a dark and stormy night.....How easy would that have been? At least if the atmosphere were something gloomy, ominous, portentous, Henry Thayer might not have been caught so off guard.
Truth is, it was actually quite a lovely weekend -- even the weather channel said so.
It was a sunny day in Midtown and the light shone through the yellowed storefront glass, making the entire shop glow, like wax. Henry was straightening up -- realphabetizing the comic book racks, stocking the candy display, and most importantly to Henry, polishing the Plexiglas card case. "Sure," Henry thought, "a few kids stop in every day for some penny candy or a Mars bar, and of course Superman and Spiderman still bring in the crowds once a month, but this," Henry said out loud, as he cleaned the card display, "this, is my bread and butter."
Henry was right. Anyone who took a look at the financial records of "Don't Hate the Thayer, Hate the Game-Shop" could clearly see that the vast majority of the store's profits came directly from sports card sales -- not just any sport though, amateur Softball, specifically. Yes, people paid big money for Softball cards -- Topps, Fleer, Donruss, they knew it too and had gotten into the game years ago. It wasn't unheard of for a New York City socialite to pay top dollar, two, sometimes even three figures for an entire Bayside Tigers Spring 2005 collectors set, complete with original grey/maroon design.
Every collector had their own favorites -- some collected Swingers quite exclusively, others looked for retro cards, searching for Mallrats first editions, or even some old Team Americas. Still others collected everything and anything DcCityball that they could get their hands on -- mint condition Myoclonic Jerks were a big seller, Burt Hills, pink shirt Masterbatters...hell, Henry could even recall selling a few UpperDeckers, back in '07.
Some collectors had everything Dc had to offer, and had moved on to Cityball's lesser known "indie leagues" -- Backdoor Sliders, The Checked Swings, the Jean Claude gran' Slams, you name it!-- all were big money in the big city.
But one card, one single card in particular was Henry Thayer's pride and joy. Umpire cards were rare indeed, but this one, a Brian Fitzpatrick umpire rookie card, was one of only three such artifacts in existence -- in the whole. entire. universe.
Henry owned one, the other two were owned by an Arabian sultan, and Lisa Bonet, respectively. The truth was, despite the fact that this card was Henry's most prized possession, he had a rather bittersweet relationship with the thing. Brian Fitzpatrick had risen through the ranks of DcCityball to become crew chief and as long as he was around, Henry Thayer could never be king of the Softball hill.
Henry had long since left the league, out of frustration and hope for new beginnings; resigned to forfeiting his first love, Thayer moved to New York to follow his second -- comics and memorabilia.
Though he had found joy in his new vocation, Henry's greatest goal in life still remained, buried deep in the depths of his heart -- to act as crew chief for DcCityball, even for just one game. Thayer stroked his mustache and gazed off into what might have been.
Henry could tell by the way the reddish gleam had entered the store that the sun was setting -- closing time. Before turning out the lights and flipping the "Come in, We're Open" sign, to read "Sorry, We're Closed," Henry had one last chore to complete -- safe storage of his prized card. It was too dangerous to keep such a valuable possession in the display case over night. No, this card got extra protection -- a double-walled, voice activated, solid steel, lead-lined vault. Despite the card's worth, Henry would never really sell it. Yet, more out of pride than financial greed, he displayed it each and every day for the customers to ogle. Some made ridiculous offers, others knew that it was a look, but don't touch, kinda deal.
As he put on his white cotton gloves, Henry Thayer had no idea that an overlooked Y2K-related computer error was about to short out all the world's home appliances.
As he removed the acid-free-Mylar-encased card from its display, and entered the lead-lined vault, he had no idea that the same error was about to do damage to all computer servers and delete all the pornography from the Internet.
As he placed the card safely in its nighttime resting place he had no idea that the subsequent complaining pornless men of the world would email the government simultaneously, thus overloading the Pentagon's servers and crashing its mainframe, and he certainly had no idea that all because of the tiny Y2K error computers would soon begin launching the entire world's nuclear weapon supplies....
But most of all, Henry Thayer had no idea that by the time he exited that lead-lined vault and closed up the small Midtown game shop, he just might be the last man left in DcCityball...or on planet earth.
Episode 2: The Fallout, coming soon!
Til next time, congratulations to the teams advancing into the next round of the playoffs! Should be some great match ups this Sunday! Good Luck! And thanks to all our readers for helping us get to 11,000 hits! Keep reading.
- Play ball!
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