The Original

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

“During the war, the United States did some things for what looked like counter intuitive reasons. Ace Pilots were tracked and brought home when their number of kills got high, and Medal of Honor winners were brought home almost immediately, and the original Guardian team of Supers was based out of Baltimore, far from the front.”

“This was done for two reasons. One, morale. The stress of rationing along with loss of favored forms of entertainment in favor of the war effort. It was better to use them to stir up purchases of war bonds than to fight on the front lines, though all managed to get back to the fight eventually.”

“Even as strong as someone like Solaris was, the bombproof bombshell drew alot more attention when she was dressed pretty and visiting baseball games to stir up the public.”

Elizabeth had fallen in love with the house at first sight, it had plenty of bedrooms and space for offices. It had a pool house that would work for her house manager, a spot for a boat, and space to put in plenty of gardens and a greenhouse. With throwing a bit of money at the problem she’d managed to secure the house quickly. A few more calls had movers bringing in all her packed furnishings and the contents of her New York storage locker to her new home.

The blonde woman sat on the couch that had been her favorite perch in her apartment all those years ago, though the volume of the living room made it clear it was not going to be able to do the job here. She watched workmen carefully bringing more delicate items into the house, while appraisers examined things.

“Is everyone here yet?” She asked Penny, thinking it felt a bit like Christmas, opening and reclaiming her past. It was also strange that it’d been two weeks for her, but seventy years for the rest of the world.

"Except the art guys. They’re stuck in traffic. The people looking at your furs took them for cleaning and reconditioning, though they said they were fantastic otherwise." The lieutenant replied. “The baseball guys are downstairs in the bar, to be out of the way.”

“Let’s be naughty and visit the baseball people first. It will be nice to talk to other people who love the game.”

The team of appraisers, including one person from the Yankee’s own museum staff, greeted the two women as they entered. The oldest gentleman offered his hand, after removing a latex glove. "Good morning, I’m Jake Rizzo. Thank you for letting us look at your collection here." He said, waving his hand at the three other people, who were carefully shuffling through stacks of cards, slipping cards into binder pages they’d brought along. Several cards had already entombed in plastic cases that looked very secure to the time-lost hero. "Even as old as these are, most aren't going to be very valuable, but we've already seen some that are quite valuable, and we've just started." He said. "That’s ignoring the most significant cards, which we looked for first.”

Solaris smiled. “Looks like you haven’t gotten far in the collection yet. Somewhere in here are my framed sets.” She went over to a box, opening a small one at random “Penny this one is my photos! Myself with the St. Louis Browns!”

"Is it weird that pictures from St. Louis without a big arch in them confuse me? But what are the St. Louis Browns?”

“They moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles.” One of the experts said.

One of the movers slipped down. “You want the big walnut four poster and the matching set in the Master bedroom, right?” He asked. “They’ve finished examining it and said it’s in good shape to be used like you want.”

“Oh yes, thank you.” Solaris was peeking in other boxes “Ahh! Look my baseball uniform.” What she pulled out reminded the contemporary folk around her of the outfits from A League of Her Own, though in Yankee’s colors. It was in a box, well packed and displayed like a wedding dress. “I wore this when I went to the games. I had others for different teams during the war, but don’t know where all of them may have gotten too.”

"Oh lord, that was fortunate to be packed well." The collectables expert said, looking it over. "It looks like it's still in shape to be worn, even."

"They had the storage containers in climate-controlled conditions. There's been very little damage that we've seen, beyond just time." Penny said.

“I was worried about things getting wet and damaged. Nereid teased me about my very British need to catalog and store everything. Are the cards what you’re most interested in?”

“Not necessarily, but it’s a good starting point as we can look things up online easily.” The older man said. “Though considering your appearances during World War II, this dress would be appraised highly, I’m sure. That I’d have to research to estimate though.”

"That and the signed balls, of course." One of the others said, looking at one of the balls in question. "Though sadly, the cards and balls are both going to be below mint quality, but that isn't anything you did. You wouldn't have known how things would change."

“Somewhere there’s a couple of cases of cards I never got around to opening.”

"We found the sealed boxes. Topps 1952 series. I’d have called them crates more than cases. " The group chuckled. "We weren’t sure if we should suggest opening them, or leaving them sealed as a representation of fans' dreams."

"Schrodingers Baseball Card." Penny joked.

“You could find the most common of cards, or the more dear but no way to know which.” Elizabeth nodded. Then she giggled. “Penny, should I be very good and very naughty at the same time?”

"Well now I’m curious. Shoot."

“What do you think of taking a few of these cases and donating them to the Yankees so they can auction them for charity?”

"You could damn near give some to every team. That'd be a wild event in the off season."

Solaris looked thoughtfully, the tactician in her waking up, here was a way to do a lot of good AND get hours of entertainment. “Penny, can you make a note? I need a person to handle publicity.” “she began pacing, talking to herself. “ Don’t want to devalue the cards by releasing too many.” she muttered. “ Yes, there are sixteen teams.”

“Thirty teams. There have been some expansions since you left.” The Yankee’s representative said helpfully

Solaris stopped pacing and blinked “My it’s almost doubled! That changes the math, but we have more than enough. What I am thinking is each team will get Three packs of cards to raise money for their preferred charity, one of those fundraisers must be a raffle with… call it a one dollar per ticket fee so everyone can afford to participate. Then we will see which team and which league raises the most money and do some sort of extra benefit for them.”

The winning team gets to host your personal collection for display first?” one of the card sorters said.

“Perfect!” Solaris said. “Getting excited to do something big with the sport she loved.

"I'll look into publicity firms. It's more than a one-man thing, these days." Penny chuckled.

"I think that's fantastic, and doing something to kick the NFL in the balls during winter will be gladly grasped by MLB." the Yankee’s rep laughed.

Solaris waved that away. She didn’t care about the bizarre American rugby. She opened one of the larger crates. “Ah yes, this is my Yankees 51 complete set! It was hanging in the apartment.” She took it over to the evaluators. “Here you go, where would you like me to put this?”

"Yankees 51..."

"Oh wow, yeah, that's all of them. Including Bera, Mantle, and DiMaggio. Nice set. Very nice set. And that’s not just monetarily speaking."

“Yes, I told you I had all my sets mounted. White frames for the American League, black for the National league. If I had an office in a city with a team, it was done in their theme. I believe those boxes should be the rest of the sets, from forty-two to Fifty-one.” She pulled out another frame. “Ah, forty-five. This one was the Pirates.”

"I see why you planned to do your offices in that manner." he chuckled. "I want to find you a nice New York office to set you up in, just to display some of these," he admitted.

She laughed and nodded, I’ll probably set up my home office with the Yankees…mmm I’ll need to get a new frame with the current roster. she pulled out her phone and asked siri to make a note to go buy baseball cards. “I should go check on the furniture people, please let me know if you need any help.”

The Yankees rep laughed and looked at Penny. “I’ll talk to my boss, I am sure we can set her up with a Yankee’s dream office.”

“She’ll love that, we’ll make it a surprise.”

Solaris walked to the living room where more people were going over furniture, house wear and clothing. She frowned. “You were right Penny most of this just needs to go, it looks all wrong for the space.”

"It's all lovely, obviously quality when purchased and fine vintage pieces." one of the assessors said "but few pieces are of truly heirloom quality, with the exceptions are your bedroom set, this wardrobe which we were going to put in the back of the walk-in closet for more prestige items, and this China hutch. I actually have a dining room table and chairs in my showroom that would go well with these and the attending sideboard. It’s huge, but so is this dining room.”

Looking at a picture the woman offered, Solaris nodded. “Oh yes, those would look nice. I’ll take them, though I think I’ll be having you sell most of this as well.”

"Can do."

"I suggest getting a proper storage rack unit for your vinyl collection as well." She suggested, gesturing at the records, and the record player. “The player works, and the wax is all okay so far, and some of that you will just not be able to replace, especially the jazz.”

“Please get me one, the best for my needs. I would hate to lose my collection, though this Amazon music has been a delightful discovery on my phone.”

Solaris smiled as she noticed one of the clothing items being hung on a temporary rack “I got that particular coat when I was in Canada. It is delightfully warm and sinfully soft.” Her eyes went sad at a fine chocolate wool men's coat, neck edged in mink joined it. “That one can go. I thought I got rid of it. That was a Christmas present I bought for Reginald, there should be a matching hat and boots. I never got to give it to him. The maid must have stored it.”

"Um. Yes, of course." The woman said awkwardly, then at Penny's gesture from behind Solaris, she moved away, carrying the coat.

"Hey now, you okay?" Penny asked, slipping between her and the workmen "Funny how things like that can sneak out and bite you, no matter how many decades slip by, hmm?"

"You’re not wrong. It has been 6 years since I lost him by my personal timeline. Most of the time now I'm fine. I miss him, but I'm alright. I have even been on a few dates. But, well. nothing really came of them. Hard to match up to a man shot down a hero during the war. That…and other issues.” Solaris shook off the tears and looked at Penny. “Enough woolgathering, have you chosen a room yet?”

"I kind of figured you'd want me around, so yeah. Claiming the office in the basement, since you want to use the big one off the entry.”

“They obviously need furniture, but I imagine we are going to be dealing with that sometime soon. I went and got an air mattress, and it's really not bad, so I'm good till we go."

“Well I won’t let you suffer that too long- Ohh! My travel trunk! She darted over to a blue and rose gold patterned chest. “This has been all over the world with me.” She pulled it open, and the top drawer still had her old grooming tools, the vintage sellers were all drooling at the rare Louis Vuitton trunk, as she went through it pulling out her back up pearls, and putting them on, finding their cool weight comforting.

Penny chuckled and glanced at the vintage furniture seller. "Yeah, so... you aren't getting that. We both know it. It's likely going to get its own alarm system."

“I’m still annoyed that my trunk is too valuable to travel with.” She said “The new suitcases are nice but it’s not the same.”

Penny nodded absently, as a jumpy man came and whispered in her ear “Guns? Oh hell, show me." She followed him over to a rather large crate with US military markings, and inside were packing materials and guns. "Oh my lord, she really couldn't help it. Solaris, what do you want to do with the crate of german military weapons, which in this state starts with making sure you can own them.?"

“Oh, this is stuff I stole from the Nazis.” She said waving a hand carelessly before she poked around in the box a bit. “Looks like these are the smaller guns. These were at my storage in the Hamptons I think.” She shrugged. “I don’t really need them. Keep one of each type and sell the rest, unless you want something. The paperwork for them should be somewhere in the box.”

"Um, right. Move these to my room for now, put them in the walk in, along with any other weapons you find. I'll arrange for them to be sold." Penny said, needing to go through the box. She also made a note to order another safe, this time for guns, pre-ban WWII Machine guns were going to be worth as much as some of her baseball cards.

“There should be another crate with the big guns around here somewhere. We stole so much from the enemy; it was a game we all played.”

“Of course you did.” Penny said, shaking her head.