I am 2 for 2!

I struck baseball gold again in 'Poundland'.
My son asked if he could spend some of his birthday money on Yu-gi-oh cards. My initial reaction of 'Don't you have enough cards already?' never leaves my mouth as I realise that the boys have seen the cupboard where I keep my card collection. This does mean a trip to the closest comic book store in Canterbury about 15 miles away, but there are shops in Canterbury that I wouldn't find elsewhere.
You may remember the 'I have dream' post about a certain shop in Canterbury. Like the sirens in Homer's Odyssey, Poundland lured me towards its jagged rocks once again.
I wasn't the one to discover the 'Obsessed with Baseball' quiz book, it was my eagle eyed son.
2500 questions and a module that will randomly select questions to test your knowledge of America's (favourite) pastime.
Its copious volume is broken down into 10 chapters of 250 questions.

A random selection of question from the book:

1. Who is the career leader with 4, 256 hits?
a. Ty Cobb
B. Stan Musial
C. Pete Rose
D. Wade Boggs

556. Who is the only player to steal home in an All-Star Game?
A. Nap Lajoie
B. Pie Traynor
C. Roberto Alomar
D. Rod Carew

1126. Which pitcher won the Cy Young Award with four different teams?
A. Randy Johnson
B. Pedro Martinez
C. Roger Clemens
D. Catfish Hunter

1967. Who was the first batter to get five hits in a playoff game?
A. Paul Blair
B. Rennie Stennett
C. Rico Carty
D. Sal Bando

2284. Which baseball owner once experimented with using orange baseballs in exhibition games?
A. Bill Veeck
B. Connie Mack
C. Walter O'Malley
D. Charles Finley

All this for just 1 pound. Possibly the best pound I have spent all year.
(There are no prizes for answering the questions correctly, just the satisfaction of knowing you are obsessed with baseball.)

It's baseball, just not cards.

Not a popular pastime in the UK, baseball or baseball cards. Without e-bay, COMC and trading the pickings are very slim.

I do however have a dream.

There are shops dotted around the UK called 'Poundland', where everything for sale, is not surprisingly a pound. There is always one joker who asks 'How much are these?'

There is an odd mix of items contained within these shops and I have this glorious dream that by some freak of ordering, a collection of baseball cards find their way into the storeroom. Not really knowing what to do with said items and not at the desperate stage of throwing anything on the shelves, they are kept deep within the stockroom.

I need to know and always ask 'Do you have any cards?'

I cannot walk past one of these shops without diving in, its drive my wife mad. I do the same with TKMaxx, imagining a bored shop assistant distracted, careless....bemused, taking delivery of a box or two of Topps or Bowman thinking it is a new brand of stomach medicine. As I said a dream but you never know.

On a recent shopping trip to Canterbury, a large Poundland beckoned me inside. A quick stroll down a few aisles, past hygiene items, gardening products and rows and rows of batteries my heart sinking as nothing remotely resembling baseball cards leaps from the shelves. Then I come across a selection of books - Wayne Rooney's autobiography, Unsolved Mysteries, The Worst Album Covers in the World...EVER, enough cookery books to cook for the rest of your life...

Hang on.

What's this? Tucked behind 'Being Jordan' ( the frank and open story of topless model , sorry glamour model, Katie Price's rise to fame and fortune) Is that a baseball bat? Why yes it is. A sole hardback copy of Stephen King's Faithful. A chronicle of the Boston Red Sox's historic 2004 season for a pound. I had to ask.

Yes...sir...it's a pound sir, everything in the store is a pound...sir. I pass over my pound.

The nearest I have been so far.

I will never doubt the dream.

Never will I walk past a 'Poundland' or similar discount shop again.

Soon I will walk away laden with a selection of baseball cards.

Very soon...