Welcoming an Old Cub

In my bedroom above where my TV sits is a large shelf that holds a ton of medals and trophies. Many of these are scholarly in nature; the old BookIt! program from Pizza Hut gave out medals if you completed your goal every month in a given school year, and I have several trophies from the reading program at St. Paul's Lutheran School in Aurora where I went from preschool through 8th grade. I also have several sports items, including a lot of medals and trophies from my park district T-Ball and soccer days, as well as letters from St. Paul's for my 4 years in both soccer and basketball.

I also have a few baseballs up there, some I got at various baseball games, other souvenir, non-game balls from different locales. Some are autographed by various Major League players like Jhonny Peralta, Scot Shields, or Shawn Estes, to name 3. My dad gave me a ball signed by the members of one or both of the Twins World Series teams. But there's one ball that sits front and center that means a lot more than all the rest put together.