by Ray Sanchez
I’ve met many collectors of baseball paraphernalia through my many years of sports writing, but El Paso’s Fernie Grado, the newly elected president of the El Paso Baseball Hall of Fame and owner of Gradco Packaging, takes the cake.
I mean he has items that go back to the 1800s and will make your eyes pop out.
Seriously, he could start a museum!
I WAS LUCKY recently to get a glimpse of his collection. Can you believe he has such treasures as:
• Gloves and bats and catchers’ masks and chest protectors going back to the early 1800s?
• Balls going back as far as 1840, including one signed by Babe Ruth and the other signed by Lou Gehrig?
• Jerseys and shoes before spikes were used and shoes with spikes that players actually wore from the time spikes started to be used?
• A closet full of first edition books written by some of the greatest baseball authors, including a first edition biography of Lou Gehrig?
• And need I say photos of just about every star ever to wear a uniform, most of them autographed?
GRADO, WHOSE packaging company has been extremely successful, started his collection 40 years ago. His business enabled him to travel far and wide which enabled him to go looking for baseball paraphernalia and auctions here, there and everywhere around the country.
Some items he picked up for peanuts, others he paid for dearly. But always, always he was picking up new items.
I wish everyone could see his collection. It’s like having a dream starting back in time and winding up in the present.
Wouldn’t it be great if the El Paso Chihuahuas baseball team could have a space for the collection at their new
stadium? It would be one whale of an attraction.
TRIVIA QUESTION: What were the first names of the two famous auto racing Unser brothers? Answer at end.
THERE’S A CUTE little story that has folks buzzing at Dos Lagos Golf Course in the upper valley, and it doesn’t have anything to do with golf.
One day a few weeks ago an average-sized owl started hanging around one of the pine trees along the entrance to the course. Soon, a bigger owl, obviously a male, started hanging around, too. There must have been a wedding because just recently three baby owls began to peep out of a nest.
Pepe Gallegos, who operates the Dos Lagos course along with Mike Olson, says he showed a visitor some of the improvements that have been made in the clubhouse and the course itself but what impressed the visitor most was – the owls.
THE STUNNING success of the UTEP women’s basketball team should be a big boost to the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame induction banquet which will be held April 30 in the Signature Room at Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino.
Miners coach Keitha Adams was voted into the Hall this year and one can only guess what a great ovation she will get when she is introduced along with the others.
You should be there. For tickets to the induction banquet: Bruce Reichman at (915) 373-9126 or Cindy Spitz at (915) 204-3366.
ANSWER to trivia question: Al and Bobby.