I just looked Kaline up on Wiki which reminded me that he signed with the Tigers as a ‘bonus baby’ as a highschool player for $35,000. When my mother heard about that, she immediately became a lifelong Tigers fan and kept hounding me to get better at playing the game so she could sell me as a bonus baby — but at that stage of my life my interests became more consumed with cars and girls. Oh well ...
Thanks for the memories by posting this, CC. I join the other FReeper fans in wishing Al a happy 80th birthday and many more.
$35 grand in the 50s was quite a chunk of change.