Di Fino: The weird and fascinating world of canceled check collecting
From Nando Di Fino at The Athletic on May 22, 2020:
A couple of weeks ago I was spiraling into a fascinating wormhole of canceled checks on eBay. These are very personal windows into the lives of players — mostly retired, mostly deceased — and the doldrums of their day-to-day lives.
Had I not already done so, for $15.95 (plus $3.95 shipping), you could have bought a check that Johnny Mize, a 10-time All-Star (including in 1953 at age 40) made out to Su-Ci’s House of Fashions, an impossible-to-Google store that has been, apparently, lost to time.
The autograph — the reason you’d likely want the check in the first place — isn’t authenticated, but the story the check tells is worth it even if it was his wife forging his signature. In August of 1991, Mize was 78 years old. The check lists Demorest, Ga., as Mize’s place of residence — it turns out, according to the Society for American Baseball Research, he returned to Demorest after his playing days and bought his childhood home. His wife, Marjorie H. Mize, was his second — his first wife died tragically in a house fire as she fell asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand.
Read the full article here (subscription required): https://theathletic.com/1804033/2020/05/22/the-weird-and-beautiful-world-of-canceled-check-collecting/
Originally published: May 26, 2020. Last Updated: May 26, 2020.