Once Upon a Sanchez...

CAUTION: The below tale contains fallacies beyond belief.  Blame Night Owl.

Once upon a time, there was a Sanchez.

A very Freddy Sanchez.  This particular Sanchez was born and raised in Denmark.  At birth he was known as Friedrich von Steuben, a descendant of great Prussian kings of ages past.  His father, being obsessed with his ancestry, told him countless stories of the great deeds of their family including one about some dude that killed Count Gerhard, completely destroying one line of their family in the process.

Friedrich's mother, on the other hand, was quite different.  She grew up admiring the United States and all of its culture and wealth.  In 1945, she actually met Dwight Eisenhower when she went down to Germany to help with relief efforts there.

As she grew older, she became enamored with the American game of baseball.  Though she barely knew the rules, she was sometimes able to obtain copies of radio broadcasts that were done in America.  She enjoyed trying to find paintings or pictures of players of the pre-war era like Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson.

Every now and then, she would attempt to teach her son Friedrich how to throw a ball, or even try to duplicate what it would be like to hit.  Friedrich simply wasn't interested.  He much preferred twiddling his thumbs and listening to classical music.

When Friedrich was 9, his father was viciously attacked by a Harpy Eagle while working on a cargo ship transporting drawn pictures of stick figures (what was then considered modern art).

 

He later died of his wounds because he could not receive adequate medical care at sea.  Harangel (yep... that was really her name) was heartbroken and decided that they needed to pack up and move.  Where else would she go except to the joyous land of America!

When they got to Ellis Island, it was determined that Lady Liberty did not approve of their surname.  von Steuben was not only un-American, but also didn't seem to make sense because the Americans could not decipher why there was a space in the middle of their name.  They were given the "option" of changing their surname to Sanchez or Young.  Harangel chose Sanchez, mostly because she didn't want to disrespect the name of a baseball legend.

Harangel became ecstatic that she could now watch the game of baseball in person.  She continued to try and get Friedrich into the game, but he wanted no part.  He continued to be a loner, constantly twiddling his thumbs and eventually getting quite large... too large for his own good.  Other kids would make fun of him for being slow, plodding around the schoolyard everyday in search of other thumbs to twiddle.

One particular day, Friedrich was plodding home from school, minding his own business, when a dog started barking at him. This was not just any old little yippy dog.  No sir.  This was a big, old, fat, mean, slobbery, wild, nasty American Bulldog.  And he was loose.

Friedrich was terrified.  He started to try plodding faster.  The bulldog thought this was great fun and started plodding after Friedrich.  What ensued was a glorious race between two very clunky looking mammals running as fast as possible.  Friedrich didn't win.

All 125 pounds of American Bulldog went pummeling into Friedrich's legs.  The huge dog would've slobbered all over him had it not been for another kid that was walking in the other direction.  The kid  noticed Friedrich and started calling out to the dog and taunting it.  He began yelling and running around and eventually the dog started chasing him instead.  

This kid was fast.

The dog began chasing him but never caught him.  After minutes of running in circles, the dog eventually collapsed in a heap completely exhausted and out of breath.  The kid walked over to Friedrich and introduced himself.

Ichiro lifted the kid up and helped him get home.

Eventually Friedrich changed his ways, got in shape, and started playing the game of baseball.  He ended being really good at it and eventually made the major leagues with his best friend Ichiro.  His mother was incredibly proud of her son and ended up adopting the bulldog out of gratitude.  When the dog finally passed on, she decided she didn't like all the slobber and got a husky instead.

THE END

Clearly my mind is going absolutely bonkers.  I blame March Madness and all the prep work I've been having to do.  In any case, all these cards were received from Night Owl who sent me a very generous package of Ginter needs.  He also included two more cards that I didn't want to throw into the story.

This card is not numbered.  It's some kind of SSP base card from the 2008 Ginter set.  I have no idea how rare they were, but I do know that I never pulled one in any of the '08 Ginter that I opened.  It's been on my want list for a while, and I'm glad I can cross it off.

Greg also sent me an actual OWL card.  His pride and joy.  In my collection!  It helped that I needed it to complete the set and Greg had an extra.

Thanks for the great trade NO!