At Moon’s Rare Books, the past is in the present

I’m halfway through my interview with Reid Moon, collector of rare and cool artifacts, when he tells me about this game he likes to play when he’s talking to groups about his collection of rare and cool artifacts.

“I say, name a person, place or event, anything that’s happened in the history of the world since the printing press, and I’ll show you something that ties to whatever you say with no more than one degree of separation.”

“Have you ever been stumped?” I ask.

“Never been stumped,” he says.

So, being a skeptical journalist, I give him a name I think might stump him.

“My favorite baseball player from when I was a kid: Duke Snider of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers.”

Moon thinks about this for at least half a second. Then he goes to his safe, punches in the combination, spi