The Cards of Unknown Players: Digital Science Fiction Short Story (Ctrl Alt Delight) Read Online Free PDF

myself that it must be a counterfeit or something. A fake.
    “What, Dad?” Timothy
asked.
    “Nothing, Tim,” I
said. “I just never heard of this guy.”
    “So its not worth
anything?” he mumbled. I patted him on the shoulder, and wiped away the spittle
from his chin, thinking how sad it was that the only thing kids worry about
these days is the value of their cards and not the simple pleasure of
collecting them. Or attaching them to the spokes of their bikes.
    “I’m not sure,
Timmy,” I told him. “I’m just not sure.”
     
    During my lunch hour
the next day, after gobbling down a sandwich at my desk, I rushed five blocks
to the county library, hoping to solve the mystery of the Kevin Gleason card.
    I had taken it
with me to work and, that morning, showed it to one of the other associates in
my department, Chris Davis, a Cleveland Indians fan with a thorough knowledge
of baseball.
    Scowling for a
time as he examined the card, Davis finally looked up at me. With a shrug and
sheepish grin, he said he didn’t have a clue. He had never heard of the Gleason
kid either. Then, he snapped his fingers and came up with the idea of checking
him out in the current edition of the annual baseball encyclopedia. He advised
that they should have one in reference stacks at the main branch of the county
library just a few blocks from the office.
    A smiling,
matronly librarian led me to it, a thick, heavy tome, containing every
conceivable baseball statistic from the 1860s through last season. Most
importantly, anyone who had ever appeared in a major league game was listed
alphabetically in the player register of that fat book.
    Pulling it from
the reference stacks, I lugged it to a reading table and quickly flipped it
open to the Gs. There were four Gleasons listed: Adam, Harry, Kid, and Paul,
but no Kevin. I read that Harry and Kid were brothers, and that Kid had managed
the infamous Chicago “Black” Sox team which had thrown the 1919 World Series. But
not Kevin Gleason. I straightened my back and let out a sigh, more befuddled
than ever.
    I checked the
last two editions of the encyclopedia with the same results. Nothing.
    According to the
annual encyclopedia, at least, Kevin Gleason didn’t exist.
     
    Back at the firm,
I found Chris in his office, daydreaming as usual.
    “Nada,” I told
him. I held up the Gleason card. “He doesn’t exist. He wasn’t listed.”
    “But his card was
in a pack of other Topps cards,” Chris mused, scowling at the card. After a
time, he looked up. “Of players who do exist. It’s even got a number – 313.”
    I nodded and
mentioned that the encyclopedia did list the name of the other player from the
pack whose name I hadn’t recognized – that rookie kid who had played only a few
games for the Braves last September after the minor league call ups.
    After a few
moments, Chris suddenly turned to me. I could check with Topps, he suggested. After
all, it was a Topps card. And it seemed so genuine, so real. At very least, a
clever forgery. If anyone could solve the mystery, they should.
    He nodded to the
computer. They probably had a website.
    We had online
access and though it was reserved for firm business, everyone made personal use
of it from time to time. As long as you didn’t go onto a porno site, or spend
an inordinate amount of time surfing the ’net on company time, nobody got into
trouble.
    After connecting
with our internet browser, upon Chris’ suggestion, I typed in the obvious, “Topps.com,”
and a few moments later, the Topps Company Home Page came up. The page listed
twenty or so series of cards that had been printed last season. The banner ad
at the top of the page read: “STADIUM: Check out the NEW series.”
    With Chris
peering over my shoulder, I clicked on the “checklist sample” line for Topps
Series 1 and within a moment, a list of categories popped up on the screen. You
could search by number, alphabet, team, or category. I selected number and
scrolled