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the first big league ballplayer I ever met, eight or nine years before. It was Eddie Mathews, and he played third base for the then-Milwaukee Braves. Somewhere in a box, I still have the fading, black-and-white photo of us together. Who knows what happened to the picture taken on prom night?

By the time I reached grade school, my love of baseball was well-entrenched. An ideal birthday gift was a new glove or bat, even though my birthday is in November. I'd spend the winter oiling, softening and shaping the mitt, or taking practice swings at imaginary pitches while imitating the batting stance of whichever player was my current hero.

It was about then that Papa my maternal grandfather made a business decision that possibly benefited his store but cemented my attachment to baseball. He sponsored a pre-game interview show on radio and at the end of the broadcast from the dugout, the player got a gift certificate for shoes from Papa's store. Nowadays, on a per pitch basis, baseball stars earn the price of a dozen pairs of shoes with a lone swing of the bat. They don't even have to make contact. Back then, it was a different story. Even stars got paid so little that many of them worked during the winter to support their family. They gratefully accepted freebees and made straight to Papa's store. When they arrived, they found me waiting.

As a result, I was the palest kid on the block. Whenever the Braves were at home, I'd forget my buddies and spend endless day waiting for a ball player to walk into Papa's store.

Because so few games were televised, I only knew what players looked like in uniform, either from their buddle gum card or at a distance on the field. Recognising one on the street was tough. Most often, Papa would have to slide next to me and whisper, "Know who that is?"

It was a baseball player!

Over the next several, glorious summers, along with meeting real, live major leaguers in the store, Papa and I took advantage of another benefit of his sponsorship: An endless supply of free tickets. Fred Haney, the club's manager, became good friends with Papa. Whenever we wanted to see a game, a call to the club house produced an envelop for us at the press gate. We'd see 40 or 50 games together each season. I went to my first World Series because when the Braves won the pennant, Haney walked into the store and handed him a clutch of tickets for each of the games to be played in Milwaukee.

But best of all, a big reason why baseball became my most faithful lover is

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