Natural History Wanderings

Baseball fans collect souvenirs like squirrels collect acorns. There are the official ones: home run balls, foul balls, baseball cards (and the quest to get them autographed), commemorative pins, bobbleheads, hat-shaped ice cream bowls. Grown men and women exchange hard-earned pay for small scoops of “game-used dirt.” There are, also, the unofficial keepsakes. At the Athletics’ final game in Oakland last September, a smattering of jilted fans attempted to take home anything they could pry loose: hand soap dispensers, exit signs, 15-foot banners, entire seats from the stands. And outside, guerilla gardeners tromped through the banks of succulents between the stadium and the parking lot, pulling ice plant root and branch from the soil.

Read more We’ve Lost the A’s, But At Least We Still Have This Invasive Succulent