Old Reliable

As a baseball card enthusiast and autograph-seeker growing up, I can recall nearly every player I've been fortunate enough to meet and shake hands with over the past 2 decades. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve standing in line with my father at card shows up and down the east coast, waiting to meet the heroes of my dad's past that I knew only through their cardboard likeness.

Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew...Not to mention I've still got my picture with The Mick hanging in my office as we speak. Sure, we had to shell out a few bucks for the opportunity, but I can't help but feel that it was worth every penny.

I bring this up because the most cherished memory I have from my many trips involved a man named Tommy Henrich, whom even the most ardent Yankee fan might have a tough time remembering.

I couldn't have been older than 7 or 8 at the time, but my father and I visited the New York Yankee fanfest at the Jacob Javits Center in the mid 90's, and had to fight our way through long lines to meet our heroes - most notably Donny Baseball, Joe Torre, and Bernie Williams.

As I walked up to Tommy Henrich's booth, my dad told me "Ask him to sign "Old Reliable"". Maybe 80 years on planet earth made him question whether or not an 8 year old knew his nickname coined some 50 years earlier, but when I muttered "Mr. Henrich, can you please sign my baseball "Old Reliable", Tommy stood up feigning a stern look and asked "who told you that?" After a smile, some good-natured ribbing, and an autographed "Old Reliable" Baseball that I still have to this day, Mr. Henrich, as I called him, showed me even at that young age, that ballplayers are just regular guys who like to mess around, but can appreciate the fans with the same level of love and admiration that we in turn show them.

A celebrated member of the "October Twelve" who rifled off 5 world championships in a row from 1949-1953, Tommy Henrich will be missed by all of us out there who appreciate baseball played the way it was meant to be played. R.I.P. "Old Reliable"