On saturday night, the Pirates held their annual charity to raise money for adolescent burn victims. It's a cool concept; you pay $50 dollars and get to pick any one of about a hundred black and yellow bags. Within these bags are signed baseballs, though you don't know whose autograph you will be getting until you've made your purchase. Jessica Maholm (second from left) handled the transaction, and I opened the bag to find a ball signed by...Dave Cash. Neither Mrs. Maholm nor myself had any idea who he was, but the magic of Wikipedia tells me that Dave Cash is a former Pirates second baseman from the years 1969 to 1973. My dad was thrilled; in retrospect, I should have asked Mrs. Maholm to autograph the ball as well.
Mrs. Maholm was very gracious, assembling the wives for the above photograph and being patient while I tried to figure out how to take a picture in the dim lighting of the PNC Park concourse with a telephoto lens. I didn't actually find out who she was married to until right when I was about to head back to my seat.
I gave her my Brendan Baseball Blog Business Card before finding out that she's Paul Maholm's wife, and if she actually checks out this blog, hopefully she and her husband won't be offended by the gallery of Sad Paul faces resulting from his last two starts. Journalistic integrity being what it is, I have to set feelings aside in order to report the truth; otherwise I'd be no better than Bob Smizik.
I don't know the other wives' names; they were busy, and I had taken up enough of their time as it was. I shall consult the internet and see what it has to say. But I'll say this: regardless of one's opinion of this franchise, they sure do give fans unique promotional opportunities. I don't anticipate seeing Hines Ward's wife at Heinz Field handing out mystery signed footballs this year, for example.
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