Before the 1997 Major League Baseball season began, my family and I were invited to accompany my friend and his family to an exhibition game between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants. He and his family were huge A's fans and my family and I were huge Giants fans. My friend's family had season tickets and he got to go to games very often. He even had a binder full of autographed baseball cards. I was just twelve-years-old and had never gotten an autograph.