Encyclopedia and some other neighborhood children were playing a game of baseball. Encyclopedia’s team was being whupped pretty badly. Encyclopedia’s teammate, Tim Gomez, struck out for the final out of the game. Encyclopedia and some of the other children were concerned with Tim, as he wasn’t playing at his normal level. They asked Tim if he was feeling alright, and Tim confessed that he was a little distracted because his uncle, Mexico’s greatest baseball player, Duffy Gomez, was being framed for robbing the National Bank of Mexico City.
NOTE: While professional baseball leagues have existed in Mexico since 1925, they’re minor-league level.
Tim suspected that his uncle was being framed by Pedro Morales, the guy who wanted to marry Tim’s aunt before Duffy came along. According to the story, two robbers made off with one million pesos in one-peso bills. Morales claimed that he was walking past Gomez’s house and heard Gomez arguing with someone else. Since the window was opened, Morales was able to hear what was going on.
According to Morales, Gomez told the other person that he had counted the money that afternoon and that his share was 1,000 pesos short. The other man then threw some money into Gomez’s face and told him to take the stupid money. Of course, one of the peso bills flew out of the window for Morales to grab. He took it to the police, who identified it as one that had been stolen.
Encyclopedia told Tim that Morales’ story was complete bullshit because counting one million bills would take much longer than a single afternoon. I’m going to go a step further and say that Tim’s story was complete bullshit, and that there wasn’t a bank robbery and his uncle wasn’t in jail. Tim was just making up a story to explain why his playing sucked that day.
First off, Mexico ceased production of the one-peso note in 1962. True, it was likely still in circulation a few years later (this story was written in 1967), but it would be difficult to find a single bank that happened to have been carrying one million of them on any given day. Even if it was still in production, why would they have one million one-peso bills? And why would any bank robber ask for one-peso bills?
I don’t know the size or weight of a single Mexican peso note would be, but let’s assume that it’s comparable to a U.S. dollar note. After doing some light Internet research, I found that a single dollar bill is 0.06890922 cubic inches in volume – you’ll have to trust me on that one – and weighs about one gram. That doesn’t sound like too much, but if you multiply both figures by a million, then we have almost 480 cubic feet in pesos weighing over 2,200 pounds.
Of course, Encyclopedia knew Tim’s story was a lie. Encyclopedia pointed out that counting a million one-peso bills would take days, and not a single afternoon. But he held off on pointing out how unlikely it would be for two men to leave a bank carrying a 6’ x 8’ stack of money just under 10 feet high weighing over a ton. Did they rob the bank with a forklift? Think about how long it would have taken to load that forklift. It would have given the police more than enough time to get to the bank.
There’s no way this story is true. I just feel that Encyclopedia is doing Tim a disservice by not pointing out how completely impossible any of this would be.
