Abstract
There it sat in its position of honor, and, breathing a sigh of admiration, Eric Wilson once again sat down on his leather recliner to watch ESPN while intermittently eying his most prized possession. The players on the TV screen often faded into unimportance when Eric compared the intangible colored figures dancing on the screen with his invaluable team-signed baseball. On innumerable occasions, Mr. Wilson had picked up his ball to study it, and the image of the scrawled names on the ball was permanently etched in his brain's photographic memory. He knew without a doubt that he could list every player on that ball and trace, in his mind, the perfect outline of each legend's characteristic signature. Only the prospect (and fear) that frequent handling and examination would smudge away the thousands-dollar ink marks kept him from reaching for the baseball every other minute.
