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Posted By: Neal

Baseball cards found in foul territory
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It was a short hop from pit stop to shortstop.

A man who paused for a break by the side of a Washington County road stumbled onto a box of baseball cards, some going back 40 years.

The man contacted state police. Trooper Frank Lewis found hundreds more baseball cards in protective sleeves at the bottom of a nearby embankment.

That was Thursday evening. So far, Trooper Lewis has struck out on turning up the rightful owner. He balked at revealing too much in order to shield key information from false claimants.

"They certainly are not trash," Trooper Lewis said yesterday.

The discovery was made along southbound state Route 18 in Morris. Trooper Lewis thinks the cards -- there are about 1,500 of them, dating from the 1960s to the 1990s -- were dumped there either after a theft or during a "lover's quarrel."

No police departments in a 50-mile radius have reported burglaries involving baseball card collections, Trooper Lewis said.

Currently the cards are under lock and key in the Washington barracks' property room.

"I can't even get to 'em," Trooper Lewis said.

If the owner can provide enough bona fides -- the types of cards found, how they were stored -- the collection will be released. If, however, they go unclaimed over the next few months, the cards will be destroyed, as per state police policy, Trooper Lewis said.

First published on October 16, 2007 at 12:00 am