Baseball guides from the first half of the 20th century.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
Story adapted from The Vancouver Sun by Patty Bossort LEVEL 1
Edward Bradford loved baseball.
He liked to save things. He was a “packrat”.
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Listen to “Baseball treasures found in the attic”
Reading by Patty Bossort
He kept old baseball programs.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
He kept old baseball manuals.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
He kept old baseball gloves.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
He kept old baseball bats.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
Bradford was born in1891.
He played baseball in the early 1900’s.
He played baseball in Queen’s Park, New Westminster, B.C.
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Bradford stopped playing baseball
Bradford joined the Canadian Army in the First World War.
He was wounded. He was shot in the leg.
He was not able to play baseball after the war.
What did he do?
He still loved baseball.
He became a scorekeeper. He kept score for baseball games for decades.
Bradford used this card to keep score.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
What did he save?
He saved things that were important to him.
He kept all the scorecards from the games.
He stored everything he saved in his attic in New Westminster.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
What did his grandson do?
Gerald Thompson is Bradford’s grandson. In 2014 he sold his grandfather’s old house.
He cleaned out the old attic. He found the collection of baseball stuff.
He did not know it was valuable.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
Where will they go?
Some items will be sold at auction.
Other items will go to local museums.
Some items will go to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
PHOTO – ARLEN REDEKOP / VANCOUVER SUN
What is memorabilia?
The collection of items he stored is called ‘memorabilia’.
It is valuable. His memorabilia was worth saving.
Vocabulary
Memorabilia – a collection of old things
Decades – one decade is 10 years
Attic – open space under the roof of a house.
Did you know…..
The first game of baseball was played around 1860.
The game was based on games from England called cricket and rounders.
Baseball is one of the most popular games in Canada and the United States.
Source: The U.S. Department of State and Wikipedia
IMAGE – Openclipart.org
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