[Keith H. Thompson]

I am emboldened by the interest in an old man's memories to add one more remark about Wheaties and their back panels over the late thirties. But first, what man or boy among you, upon seeing this Gehringer panel, could resist them? If they were "aces on Gehringer's plate"," that was good enough for me.

My mother did let me get most if not all of the 1939 Centennial Wheaties panels when they came out. The history of baseball had (and still has) a special fascination for me because from my earliest memories I heard stories from my father about his uncles who played seriously for the Danville, IN Browns in the 1880s. One of whom was Sam Thompson (Detroit 1885-1888, Philadelphia 1889-1898, Detroit 1906, HOF 1974). My mother kept her sewing materials in the gold plated silver cup given to Sam by the Philadelphia fans in 1894 (I believe). Also in the cup was Sam's 1887 boxed Dauvray Cup Medal and a ball, which along with a bat of Sam's, my brother and I would use for play.

It was not my intention to detract this thread from the Wheaties panel discussion, so I will conclude with another story. I was deadly serious about not being allowed to buy Wheaties panels, other than the Centennial issues. I did have a Hank Greenberg and pasted it into a large childhood scrapbook along with newspaper cutouts from the Detroit News and Free Press. About 1954 on my return from Korea I went over some of my childhood "possessions" to decide what to keep and what to throw away. To my dismay I discovered that my younger brother had appropriated all of the sports pictures he coveted for his own scrapbook, and in particular had taken a razor blade and extracted Hank Greenbergs body (outstretched glove and all). The more I think of it today I wonder if Hank ever received a more personal touch of a fan's admiration.