As a kid my brother took horseback riding lessons. When he was just starting they had group lessons - a bunch of kids on horses riding in circles, sometimes going over low jumps. My parents thought that I was too young to stay home by myself, so they dragged me along. It was sssooo boring. I spent most of my time throwing clumps of dirt at things, climbing trees, stuff like that. As it happens, Ed Whitson's daughter was in the same class as my brother, and apparently he also thought it was boring to watch kids ride horses in circles, so sometimes he'd hang out with me. Strangely, considering that I was a baseball-crazy kid and he was a major league baseball player (or maybe a recently retired one), we didn't talk about baseball much. Mostly we tromped around in the woods and did general outdoors-stuff. Ed taught me how to track deer, for instance. It was a lot of fun, although it didn't last long, probably just a few months. Then my brother moved on to individual lessons. But anyways, here's my contribution to the thread, and the only autograph in my collection. 1991 Fleer Ed Whitson.
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