The Slice: Now we finally know who’s really on first

Sometimes I fire up the HAL 9000 in the morning and see that a reader sent me a gift.

“Hello Paul,” emailed Ed Wagnild of Spokane Valley. “I am a longtime reader but first time responder. In response to your question regarding who has the most baseball cards with Spokane in the PCL shown on the back, I have many although I do not know the actual number.

“Many players are obvious: Tommy and Willie Davis, Maury Wills, Frank Howard, Steve Garvey, Bobby Valentine, etc. I thought I would share some of my ‘obscure’ list of players I have who are not so well known, by position. One might call it the ‘un-all-star team.’

“One would have needed to live in the Spokane area in the 1960s and have been an Indians fan in order to recognize most of these names.”

Here is Ed’s fun list.

1st base: Tim Harkness.

2nd base: Nate Oliver.

3rd base: Charley Smith.

Shortstop: Bob Lillis.

Outfield: Derrell Griffith, Earl Robinson, Cleo James.

Catcher: Choo Choo Coleman.

Right-handed pitcher: Joe Moeller.

Left-handed pitcher: Nick Willhite.

“With the exception of Bob Lillis and Charley Smith, who each played parts of 10 seasons in the majors, the remaining eight mostly played parts of four or five mostly lackluster years in the majors. In addition to playing in their first big league game, perhaps the biggest thrill of their big league career was being pictured on a card.”

A friend wrote this and I want to share: “Elderly dogs can be a challenge, but also so rewarding because they are just pure love even though their bodies aren’t cooperating anymore. When my dog Odin was dying from cancer, I had to carry him outside to go to the bathroom and we bought a steam cleaner for the carpets because he couldn’t control his bladder. But we saw him through to the bitter end and I was glad for that. You end up feeling like you’ve done right by a creature that never wanted anything more than to please you.”

Today’s Slice question: Is it possible for someone in retail to be an irrational viper when dealing with certain shoppers but have the boss totally fooled about his or her commitment to customer service?