Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 15, 1993                   TAG: 9312150213
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BROWSERS RUN AFOUL OF BASEBALL

They were in the Roanoke Valley visiting friends during the Thanksgiving weekend and had stopped in Salem to browse through antique shops.

Juanita and Jigger Sirois had shopped separately for a while. While he was off by himself, Jigger found the baseball lying in the gutter along Main Street.

"It was perfectly round, not crushed or anything," Juanita said. "It hadn't been run over, it was just a little soiled from being out."

But the ball did have some unusual markings - it bore two autographs.

"They're the names of two known ballplayers," Juanita said.

Hey, Salem's a big sports town, but not that big. Autographed baseballs aren't so plentiful that strays roll into the gutter like tooth-size gold nuggets - too puny to be taken seriously - cast aside in the Klondike.

There still are people in Salem who would maim for an autographed ball - one of the reasons Juanita doesn't want to say whose autographs are involved. If she did, how would the true owner identify the ball? ("It's white, with red stitches.")

They didn't know it that day, but at the very moment that Jigger Sirois scooped the ball at curbside, there was a baseball card show under way a mile or so away at the Salem Civic Center.

Frank Howard, a former pro ballplayer, was selling his autographs at the show. It is starkly amoral that ballplayers and former ballplayers sell their autographs to the very people who give the autograph its value. That's a tirade for a different day.

Juanita doesn't know if the homeless baseball came from the autograph show.

"At first, I didn't think much of it," she said, "but I got home and figured that rather than throw it in a corner, I'd try to find the owner. Either some kid saved up his hard-earned money to buy it, or some parent or grandparent bought it as a gift. Maybe for Christmas."

Lose an autographed baseball Nov. 28 in Salem? (Could there have been multiple autographed ball losses that day?)

Call them evenings at (804) 220-8599, if you think it's yours; or call me at 981-3336, and I'll call them. They really would like to give you your ball back.