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Baseball Card Story in Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Baseball cards found in foul territory
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It was a short hop from pit stop to shortstop.

A man who paused for a break by the side of a Washington County road stumbled onto a box of baseball cards, some going back 40 years.

The man contacted state police. Trooper Frank Lewis found hundreds more baseball cards in protective sleeves at the bottom of a nearby embankment.

That was Thursday evening. So far, Trooper Lewis has struck out on turning up the rightful owner. He balked at revealing too much in order to shield key information from false claimants.

"They certainly are not trash," Trooper Lewis said yesterday.

The discovery was made along southbound state Route 18 in Morris. Trooper Lewis thinks the cards -- there are about 1,500 of them, dating from the 1960s to the 1990s -- were dumped there either after a theft or during a "lover's quarrel."

No police departments in a 50-mile radius have reported burglaries involving baseball card collections, Trooper Lewis said.

Currently the cards are under lock and key in the Washington barracks' property room.

"I can't even get to 'em," Trooper Lewis said.

If the owner can provide enough bona fides -- the types of cards found, how they were stored -- the collection will be released. If, however, they go unclaimed over the next few months, the cards will be destroyed, as per state police policy, Trooper Lewis said.
First published on October 16, 2007 at 12:00 am
Jonathan D. Silver can be reached at jsilver@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1962.


Comments

  • RoarIn84RoarIn84 Posts: 859 ✭✭
    screw that......i'd keep'em. some cop will now anyway.....just like found money. i once found tons of cards scattered all over the parking lot of my apartment complex when i was about 8. nothing but ugly friggin 82F and Kmart 20th anniversary cards.....all with gravel dents in them. started me a hobby tho!
  • clayshooter22clayshooter22 Posts: 727 ✭✭✭
    I seriously doubt it's state policy to destroy unclaimed property. That's just wishful thinking on the part of the person who ends up with the cards should someone later decide to claim.

    Imagine the unclaimed property was money.....Federal crime to destroy that.

    What if the cards are from a museum robbery....

    Time to set up a table in Pittsburg with a big sign "buying cards"

    Kirby Puckett Master Set
  • AllenAllen Posts: 7,165 ✭✭✭
    They sell all of the seized property in public auction, I have seen cards for sale in those before. Crazy some of the stuff they sell in police auctions. You could always be like Pac Man Jones and go to the police auction to buy back your Cadillac with the custom pacman headrests that was seized as part of one of the biggest drug bust in TN state history.
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