Republishing an Old Peanuts Cartoon with Me in It Is Problematic

Peanuts Collection republishes old Peanuts cartoons in some Sunday newspapers across our land. (See http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts.) Today, on May 15 2016, they republished one with me, MLB baseball player and television announcer Joe Garagiola, and hockey star Bobby Hull in it. (See below) It’s been done before, such as May 15, 2005, in such newspapers as the Chicago Tribune. I forget what was the original year it was published–it must have been in the early 1970s.

I didn’t deserve being mentioned in the same company as those two celebrity athletes. It happened because I played golf one day with Charles Schultz, the creator of Peanuts, in a practice round at Pebble Beach Golf Links in the Bing Crosby PGA Tour tournament. Both of us were Christians with a strong interest in endtimes biblical prophecies. We started talking about this subject and discovered a spiritual kinship. So, we sat down on the bench on the 15th tee talking about it and told the rest of our foursome that we were going to stay there and talk. So, they continued playing and we didn’t. Later, at lunch in the clubhouse, Charles drew a Peanuts cartoon for my young daughter Christy and signed it. That was a highlight day for me on the PGA Tour.

But republishing such an old cartoon has its problems–people forget who you are. Today, I read online some of the comments about it. One guy said, “Kermit Zarley, who’s that?” Another said, “I thought Kermit’s last name was Frog.”