I never was good at baseball, but I sure tried. I wanted people to take my picture. I wanted to be on that front page in my uniform with the headlines praising my victory. Our team was a motley mess of misfit vagabonds looking for a few dollars to buy a hot meal. We traded our knees and shoulders for a handful of dimes. I traded my shoulder and my skull integrity. I can thank a Babe Ruth line drive for the cracked skull. He got famous later on, but nobody remembered my cracked egg.

The war came soon after my departure from pro ball. The War Department didn’t dig too deep into medical records and the doctor didn’t dare shy away another willing bag of meat for the trenches. Another chance at having my picture taken for the front page which ended badly. An errant friendly artillery round detonated in our lines, leaving me a few fingers shy of ten.

Ten fingers or not, I can still handle this Tommy Gun. Times are tough and people are broke. Robbing banks will make me a front page Robin Hood for all to see.