For an hour, Elyjah Blankenberg went through his collection. He wanted the perfect mix of Orioles and Yankees cards, but mostly Yankees, for his first mad dash to try to get autographs at a baseball game.
Blankenberg has a large collection of Yankees cards. He wanted a card that was good, but not great because it would be less valuable. Blankenberg knew that some of the melees along the rails can result in bent or banged-up cards.
Blankenberg took a lot of pains to find the perfect DJ LeMahieu card for the March 19 spring game in Sarasota, Florida. Blankenberg is an elite 11-year-old baseball player who teammates and coaches call "DJ" because of his ability to play anywhere on a baseball field and rake from any spot in the order.
John and Colleen Spencer took Elyjah to the Yankees-Orioles game at Ed Smith Stadium. They noticed how nervous Elyjah was. He was an shy kid and the idea of running up and down the bleachers to get players attention was something he wanted to do in the World Series Game 7.
He sneaked into a group of people around Josh Donaldson, held his ground and got a card signed.
He felt the butterflies grow as the company ended. Blankenberg has a very quiet voice, and often will say one or two short sentences, and then make eye contact with one of his parents, who will jump in and elaborate. When he asked how he was hitting this year so far, Elyjah looked at his dad, John, and then said "767" in a library tone.
If LeMahieu ever got within earshot, it would be that same voice that Elyjah needed. He waited and waited. No LeMahieu.
The Yankees had a big, 6-foot-4, do-everything infielder. He was lucky that a bunch of other kids started yelling at him. He heard himself yell. He almost didn't believe he was doing it.
As more kids and parents swarmed, LeMahieu came over and signed autographs. Like Donaldson, Elyjah held his card out. After a few minutes, LeMahieu's hand moved toward his, and Elyjah felt his card being pulled away. He was so happy and relieved when he saw LeMahieu sign the card and hand it back. He had done it.
The signed card was irrelevant to his parents. They wanted him to find his voice and give it a try.
Elyjah came back and said he wanted to get more autographs after the game. Elyjah was told how to set up near the players parking lot, where he could hang out and try to get signatures as the Yankees walked to their cars.
When the game was over, his parents followed behind as Elyjah hid among about 10 kids and their parents. The space was wide open and just pavement and a railing. The area was about the size of a basketball court. The Yankees started to leave when Elyjah began to settle in along the fencing.
Elyjah felt nothing but his shirt as he reached into his armpit. His head spun around as his hands went up and down. Nothing.
His autographs were no longer available.
For the next 60 seconds, Elyjah and his parents retraced their steps. As he ran up and down the same stretch of pavement he traveled, Elyjah checked his armpits 50 times. No luck.
They re walked the small area and the book was nowhere to be found. As his parents tried to hug him, Elyjah fell apart.
John and Colleen were losing their sadness as well. They summoned some nearby security guards and said they thought he dropped the autograph book and someone ran off with it.
By the three-minute mark, security had joined the hunt, roaming up and down the open area and even helping Elyjah and his parents dig through some shrubs that he hadn't even gone near.
The parents of the other autograph-hunting kids and their parents were turned away from the departing Yankees players to join the investigation, but they noticed a touching sight -- all of those other autograph-hunting kids and their parents were turned away from the departing Yankees players to join the investigation. A few kids went so far as to run into the nearby parking lot and stop the cars.
They yelled through the windows, "Have you seen a binder with baseball cards and albums?" They only got a bunch of sad head shakes.
Most Yankees players had left by the 15-minute mark. The autograph book of Elyjah Blankenberg was missing. He thinks he dropped it. Did someone accidentally pick it up and walk away? Is it possible that someone took it? Did someone throw it in the trash? His parents are certain about what happened, but he shrugs his shoulders.
Colleen starts by saying she hates to say this. She looks like she hates what she's thinking, and it looks like she might let that sentence hang out. She finishes her thought.
John and Elyjah were drifting over the same small piece of pavement. They both knew they had seen the last part of the book. But they kept looking. It was like lifting up the same couch cushion for the 10th time.
It wasn't the value of the cards or the autographs that mattered. And now it was gone.
The group didn't want to eat on the way home. John says he had to think hard about how to get home because he was so woozy and emotionally drained.
They collapsed that Saturday night, hoping that someone would turn in the binder to security and they would get a call the next day to pick it up.
Colleen sat with it for a long time. The three of them rode their mopeds around the house. Colleen decided to go to social media in one lastditch moment of Super Mommedness.
She posted a broken-hearted message around 7 p.m., explaining to the world what her young son had lost and what it would mean to get it back.
It was a half-court heave, and the whole family went to bed that night unaware that the internet was about to emerge.
A colleague flagged an interesting Facebook post from a nearby mom who was about to go shopping for groceries. Colleen Spencer's post caught the attention of McLaughlin, an anchor at the Suncoast News Network. Venice is a nice chunk of central Florida. McLaughlin thought that this could be right up the network's alley.
She made a mental note to check it out later that night to see if it had traction. Colleen's post had 1,300 shares on Facebook, and when she did, she saw that it had skyrocketed. A Cleveland-area photographer and autograph hound named Ryan Mossor had passed it along to the collector community, and Colleen's plea had exploded on both Facebook and Twitter.
Mossor feels like a lot of people felt the same way. We felt his loss.
By the time McLaughlin checked on her fridge, Mossor and hundreds of die-hard collectors had given Elyjah's story momentum that couldn't be ignored. McLaughlin asked Spencer if she could get the story. It was overwhelming, in a good way.
As long as she didn't have to be on camera, Spencer agreed to do the story. Elyjah said he would rather not be on camera.
He caved in and agreed to go on camera to tell his story, with his dad also appearing. McLaughlin's piece aired on March 22 and injected a new twist into the story: an address to help Elyjah rebuild his card collection and an email for anyone who wanted to return his album, no questions asked.
When Elyjah got ready for bed that night, he told his parents the interview had taken a lot out of him, and he was worried some of his classmates might goof on him, either for losing his autograph book or being Mr. TV Cool Guy. In his quiet voice, he asked, "Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"
If that sounds silly, close your eyes and visualize sixth grade again. He was able to skip after Mom and Dad debated it. Elyjah was hoping the whole thing would blow over.
Over the next 24 hours, the sad reality settled in. If someone stole the book, was that person going to see the broadcast, package it up and mail it in? Elyjah realized that he probably wouldn't be able to see his autograph book again.
But as he closed his eyes the next night, ready to return to school after the day at home, he resigned to the permanent MIA status of his autographs. I might not have Elyjah Blankenberg's autograph collection, but I have something I would like to give him.
In early April, Elyjah and his parents got a call from McLaughlin. Over the previous week and a half since her piece ran, SSN had gotten a steady stream of packages and even some visits from locals, all with something they desperately wanted Elyjah to have.
McLaughlin asked if they would be interested in a follow-up piece in which she and a crew could film Elyjah sitting down at a local card shop.
Colleen asked how much stuff it was.
McLaughlin said to empty out your trunk.
Elyjah didn't want to do it. He was nervous about being on TV again, and he wasn't sure how he was going to feel. The other kids were fine in school after the first TV piece, but he was talking about his lost autographs. He felt like he was taunting the gods.
He was told by his parents to set aside his individual worry and show gratitude for the amazing response. This was an opportunity to start a new collection from the gifts he had received. They said that one thought convinced him to agree to it.
On the day of the shoot, the crew was late and Elyjah was pacing back and forth in the card shop. McLaughlin and Co. loaded two giant plastic totes with different sizes of packages.
McLaughlin told Elyjah to sit at a table and read the letters out loud. He was nervous, but he also felt like he was getting a gift from somewhere far away that was full of intrigue. Every time, it is Indiana Jones opening up the tomb.
The biggest package was a rectangular box from New York. He ripped it open and found a framed magazine cover, a signed hockey puck and a bunch of signed baseballs. The sender, Neil Berliner, is a psychiatrist and comedy writer and lifelong collector and wanted to help Elyjah start over.
Elyjah began to work his way through the pile, one letter at a time. Many expressed sadness that the album had gone missing. Some people were devastated when their parents threw out their stuff. John said the letters were so personal that they lost a prized item.
Every one of those people included an autograph or two from their own collections, something for Elyjah to remake his collection. He received some boxes of cards. The Orioles gave him a third base with every player's signature on it.
The opening went on and on for almost two hours, and Elyjah was only halfway through the totes when McLaughlin and Elyjah decided to call it a night. The rest of the packages could be taken home by John and Colleen. Mom and Dad could not wait. They opened the last 75 or so packages at home.
Before they left the card shop, the entire crew paused as Elyjah read one last letter, a letter that would change his life more than any other he had received. The return address was 100 miles away in Florida.
He felt like he needed to give Elyjah something, something really important to him, something he had been given when his own tragic story went, and he looked down at all the scars running up and down his arms.
John says he felt his knees getting weak as Elyjah read the letter.
Steve Samples and his dad went to the beach in the summer of 1968. He spent most of his time in the water. He was one of the kids who was half fish and connected to the ocean in a weird way.
He saw a fin coming at him as he flopped around in the water. With only a second to think, Samples turned his back as a 10-foot bullhead shark exploded out of the water and bit into his body. The shark latched its jaw and pulled the boy to the ocean floor after attacking his back and buttocks. The bullhead was one of the sharks that bit Samples.
Two surfers sprinted through the water and got to Samples at the same time as his dad. The men waved their arms in fear of the sharks. The whole attack probably lasted 30 seconds.
They pulled the little boy out of the water, and Samples remembers seeing the blood spurt from his body like it was coming from a water gun. They pushed him toward the shore.
Within minutes, an ambulance took Samples to an emergency surgery to save his body. He underwent four hours of surgery, and the doctor told the family that they had stopped counting after 2,000 stitches. The sharks ripped apart his lower back and almost bit off his right arm.
Doctors saved his body. He had to have multiple tendon relocations to increase the strength of his drop foot and drop hand, and he only ever regained half his strength in one foot and the hand that had been in the shark's mouth.
The next few weeks were brutal. The Samples family found out that local shark fishermen baited the entire area the night before, drawing in the sharks that attacked him. He was set back over and over again by the stitches that continued to pop out. His friends started to call him "Shark bait", a name he didn't like at first, but has grown to love.
One day a package arrived. The New York Yankees took notice of the Samples story, which had gone viral by 1968, and had appeared in newspapers and newscasts all over the country. The team signed a baseball, packed it with a team book and sent it to Samples.
He hadn't been a big fan of the Yankees before that day. The ball was a special gift that he received at the right time in his life, when he needed something kind to offset what had happened.
The samples went back to the school with scars on their bodies. He was going to be okay, and the baseball had played a part in that. He has spent the next five decades living his life, working at Pratt Whitney testing rockets, getting married, getting divorced, getting married again, and he says he got married again the day before. He is leaving later in the day to go up the coast with his new wife.
The Yankees ball was the only thing that held together Samples' life. It helped him get past the shark attack, the scarring and chronic pain, and the ups and downs of marriage and divorce.
He knew what he had to do when he saw the newscast. Elyjah was the right person at the right time.
After getting all of the Elyjah fan mail, Colleen and John had their son focus on school, his Little League baseball season and writing thank you notes. So many thank you notes, that Elyjah was shaking his hand constantly.
Colleen and John needed the gratitude portion of the exercise. Colleen and John met 13 years ago when Colleen was working as a waitress at a local Perkin's. They went to Chili's and a Jeff Dunham show a few weeks later and have been together ever since.
On April 16 last year, the whole family got turned upside down when John began to have breathing issues. He had been having trouble breathing for a while, but it kept getting worse until he went to an asthma specialist who recommended X-rays. He was told by his doctor that he was one sneeze away from death when he got the X-rays.
The problem was not his lungs. His heart was leaking blood and ballooning to the point where it was suffocating him and he couldn't breathe. John was told by the nurses and staff not to let him move while he was in surgery. He had to lay in the bed until they took him to the hospital.
The surgery went well, but John was down for a while. Colleen spent long hours at the hospital and later at home taking care of John as her teammates and their parents stepped up to raise money to help the family.
After six weeks, John was able to use a cane, and he was able to watch Elyjah and his teammates win the league title, finishing 21-1 behind their star player. The kid they call DJ is a versatile player who played mostly shortstop while batting third and fourth in the lineup. There is a slight drop-off in his voice when he explains the link between his nickname and his favorite player. He is still thinking about the autograph that got away.
John is back to work as a window salesman. Colleen helps out a friend who runs a business that helps people organize their homes. Elyjah is hoping for a second straight league title.
Colleen wants to give the world an update via social media. She got a lot of messages from people who said they had a friend of a friend who might be able to get an autograph for Elyjah. One woman in Georgia said she tried to get something from DJ LeMahieu to replace a lost autograph.
Colleen was locked out of her Facebook account after it was hacked and she says the person changed her profile to be more adult.
The packages have been coming in from all over the country. McLaughlin might not do a third chapter in the Internet's quest to make Elyjah whole again, but she will get him another tote or two in the near future. Maybe the binder will be there. Maybe it won't. Elyjah had something happen recently that made him feel more content than ever, should he never get his autographs back.
A few weeks ago, after school and before a big Little League game, Elyjah walked through the front door expecting to have to write thank you notes before he put his uniform on. His mom said she had a surprise for him.
Elyjah found a package in the kitchen. There was a Georgia return address and a lot of tape. Elyjah needed scissors to slice through the tape. The note was short and sweet.
Elyjah had a DJ card and a signed ball. It was read to Elyjah, and he jerked his head toward his mom. That was DJ LeMahieu's signature, she agreed. The Georgia friend-of-a-friend was real.
Elyjah has redecorated his room. John says that Memorabilia is living within the piles.
His mom says they will sometimes come in his room late at night and find him asleep in his baseball uniform, with one of the Yankees balls beside him, and John will nod along before he jumps in to clarify which ball.
As his parents say that story toward the end of a video call, Elyjah's head moves back and forth as he listens to them talk. He has answered questions about his missing album for an hour or so, but he has often said only a few words and then left space for his parents to fill in the rest of the thought. They never interrupted him. The family has a love language in which Mom and Dad both gently put periods on his sentences, and if you look close, you can see him signal to them with his eyes that it is their turn.
Elyjah speaks a little louder when they finish telling the story about him sleeping in the piles. He seems to be processing all of it in real time, the ups and downs of the story of his lost autographs, and then the faith in humanity that came after it.
He said that he would be fine if he didn't get the album back.
He thinks about it for a second, and it seems like he might get some help from his parents. They are just looking at him and smiling, and he starts to speak again.
I'm ok.
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