I was scared, yeah, but I guess the adrenaline took over. I ran inside despite not being able to see through the smoke. I could barely breathe, and I could feel the flames singeing my beautiful, curly arm hairs.
A few minutes later I reemerged through a wall of smoke - in slow motion they tell me - covered in soot and cradling something precious in my arms.
I approached the hysterical woman and said, "I didn't find your cat, ma'am. Pretty sure your cat is dead. Probably burned to death in the fire. But I did find this ... "
And with that I dramatically pulled back the protective towel to reveal that I had, just barely, saved her 1996 Jim Edmonds baseball card. It was still smoking, but it was alive.
"Don't call me a hero," I said to the woman. "Just doing my job.
"I'm a baseball card blogger."
And with that I walked toward the sunset as the house burned down to the ground behind me. Then I turned around and said, "Oh - and sorry it's no longer in 'mint condition,'" and I did air quotes when I said mint condition. "I did my best."
Years later a really cool baseball artist would use a laser to etch an unintelligible baseball image into the burnt area. It was cool because it really represented how laser-y Jim Edmonds was as a baseball player. He was always like a laser, with the way he played baseball, and I think the laser artist did a decent job of capturing that.
This is a true story and if anyone would like to check, just Google something.
