As a kid in the mid-late 1980s, I remember going to the ballpark and filling out the punch card ballot denoting my all-star picks for Major League Baseball's Midsummmer Classic.
I combined head with heart as I made selections from the west side confines of Cooper Stadium where the Triple-A affiliate of the Yankees, your Columbus Clippers, called home from 1977-2006.
Having watched Don Mattingly in Columbus during the 1982 and '83 seasons along with countless other future Yankees over the years, I automatically punched Donnie Baseball's name along with guys like Bernie Williams Steve Balboni, Otis Nixon and a host of other Clippers alumni while still making sure to reward the non-Yankees having worthy seasons like Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken Jr.