The Infield Dirt with T.S. O'Connell

Willie Mays shows his All-Star cred still shines

2008-07-22T10:42:55.1020000-04:00

The coolest thing I heard from the Bob Costas HBO special “Costas Now” taped during the All-Star festivities was Willie Mays talking about how concerned he was when the two teen-agers ran out onto the field as Henry Aaron rounded the bases after hitting home run No. 715 on April 8, 1974 in Atlanta.

   The whole show was really neat (and still airing on HBO if you get the chance), but I was struck by the Mays comment because I had the very same reaction myself 34 years ago. Though I was hardly a kid at the time and had been discharged from the Navy and in college for a couple of years by the time Babe’s record fell, I kept a scrapbook of Aaron’s exploits, dutifully cutting out articles from the New York papers with every home run.

   That kind of diligence also meant I was aware of the hate mail that Aaron had been receiving, although we would not get a fuller grasp of the extent of that until a couple of years later. So when those two youngsters ran out to (it turned out) congratulate him and escort him around the bases, I was pretty alarmed myself, though so thoroughly caught up in the moment that I didn’t take much notice of it at the time.

   But Willie (shown at right in artwork by Mike Schacht) brought it back, and overall came off very well for a guy who has suffered a variety of slings and arrows in our hobby over the last two decades. Having Willie and Henry on the stage together was a master stroke, and Costas worked hard trying to shed some light on who was the better player, but both admirably sidestepped a question that they have diplomatically been wrestling with for 40 years.

   Willie also got a rise out of fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson when he described Gibby as “a headhunter.” From the audience, Gibson mustered up his very best cold stare that must’ve terrified a generation of ballplayers, and Willie rectified the minor semantic faux pas later on, softening the description a bit.

   As might have been expected from anything Costas orchestrates, there was way more substance than fluff, especially in earlier and later segments when he cornered Angels owner Arte Moreno about why no MLB teams had shown any inclination to sign Barry Bonds this season. The verdict is still out on whether the owners have blackballed Mr. Bonds, but the ho-hum, evasive answer from Moreno did nothing to dispel the idea that there’s something of an orchestrated nature going on in that regard. And this from me, who’s not a particularly huge Barry Bonds fan.

   The show also had a neat segment on the Hall of Fame and the Veterans Committee voting, with Costas eliciting from Dave Winfield the belief that “people who vote (meaning the HOFers) probably will not vote for Pete while he’s alive.” And this Winfield provided with Rose’s visage prominently displayed live on the screen behind him. The camerman didn’t zoom in the way it had with Gibson, but I presume the Winfield opinion didn’t sit very well with Rose.

   Oh, and one of the other cool tidbits was Aaron pointing out that the two youngsters who initially startled so many of us in 1974 have both gone on to become doctors. I presume they’ve both got that historic photo of the three of them racing around the bases neatly framed in their waiting rooms. And maybe even signed by the man himself.

   Television may indeed be the “vast wasteland” that FCC Chairman Newton Minow described nearly a half-century ago, but broadcasts like this one offer a good reminder of what it can be on occasion.

Shocked that Favre would consider unretiring!

2008-07-15T12:15:52.0100000-04:00

   It has been nothing less than fascinating watching Packers fans over the last 15 years as the franchise enjoyed a resurgence due seemingly to a large degree on the abilities of a certain QB.
I lived outside Washington, D.C., for awhile in the early 1970s and was amazed at the fan fervor over the Redskins, but it pales in comparison to Green & Gold mania here in Wisconsin.

   So I gotta laugh when all the fussin’ and fumin’ began over news that – gasp! – Brett Favre has reconsidered his tearful March retirement and now wants to play football again.

   What makes me giggle is the fact that people seem so genuinely shocked over this development, even though anybody who would remotely call themselves a Favre fan should have known that this day would come.

   Should we now scold Favre for displaying the same love of football that we wildly praised him about for 16 years? He can be properly chastised for the seeming imperiousness of his March announcement and all the fuss that ensued (ie. commemorative special-issue magazines, newspaper inserts, etc.), but we ought not be too startled when sports heroes that we have pampered and gushed over for decades should act like spoiled, pampered children.

   Heck, we celebrated the child-like qualities of his play on the field, the enthusiasm and recklessness, both attributes that presumably brought a good deal more joy than the anguish attached to those pesky interceptions.

   So now what to we do? I think it’s great fun that the Packer Faithful – guilty as charged – can confront all of this with a different perspective than those old meanies who have to actually run the franchise. I want him back, because as long as a player that exciting can still do the stuff that made him famous, I want to watch it being done.

   The Packers and Aaron Rodgers have legitimate beefs about all this, but as a fan I want Favre to come back. I felt certain he would have second thoughts, and so the Packers must have, too. I was emotionally prepared for this awkward development, but I don’t know about everybody else.

   All the pundits and the great unwashed are embroiled in stating what they want to happen, but I think it’s more interesting to guess about what will happen. That ponderous intro is needed to make it clear this isn’t what I want, but it’s what I think is coming.

   The team will hold fast to its commitment to Rodgers, some kind of accommodation will be reached that allows for his release (or through a trade) without enabling the grisly image of Brett turning up at Lambeau in a purple uniform or some other icky color, and so we’ll be subjected to the unseemly scenario of an aging Favre trying to find the magic once again.

   My ex-wife used to explain that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. This is the way that many of the greatest players end up bowing out, having the particular ball or bat in question being unceremoniously wrestled from their cold, nearly dead hands.

   If I can survive seeing Willie Mays as a Met, I can probably get through this, too.

Mr. Mint's 'thumbs down' to film portrayal

2008-07-09T15:04:42.9870000-04:00

   Alan “Mr. Mint” Rosen will seemingly test that old bromide about there being “no such thing as bad publicity.” The man who was once portrayed as himself in an Archie comic book now finds himself featured – in a fashion – in a major motion picture starring Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen and Alan Alda.

   Mr. Mint (shown at right) is reserving judgment on the artistic merits of the film – he hasn’t seen it yet, since it hasn’t had wide national release – but he is offering a hearty “thumbs down” to the depiction of a certain fictional card dealer in the movie who rips off the Alan Alda character by buying an enormously valuable T206-like card for a mere $500.

   “Diminished Capacity,” which may be one of the lamest movie titles ever conceived, opened over the July 4th weekend at a handful of theatres in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. It’s the presumably heart-warming story of a Chicago journalist suffering from memory loss (Broderick) who takes some time off and ends up all warm and fuzzy with an old flame from high school (Madsen) and an uncle wrestling with more ominous diminished capacity in the form of Alzheimer’s disease.

   Bear in mind that what little I know about this movie comes from the theatrical trailer on the Internets (it’s fun to use the plural form), but the Alda character (Uncle Rollie) turns up a gem mint Wildfire Schulte card that the trailer makes clear is worth many thousands of dollars. Casual viewers might note that the card looks similar in style to the famed T206 Honus Wagner card; serious hobbyists will recongize it as a reprint of the actual T206 Schulte card, in this instance the one showing his back. One presumes that the script explains why the card of a non-Hall of Famer would be so valuable.

   Enter Mr. Mint, or in this case, The Mint-Mint Man, played by Bobby Cannavale, an easily reconizable actor from film and television. Calling his film character a thinly disguised version of Rosen would be charitable; describing it as a shameless ripoff would be more to the point.

   The real Mr. Mint was none to thrilled with the reel one, particularly because the movie version essentially swindles Uncle Rollie by giving him just $500 for his treasured card. Rosen was so mad he called lawyers, but ultimately wasn’t encouraged by their assessments of his chances in court.
“A guy used my character to make a movie. Let him get his own. I do care about my 30 years in the hobby and the millions of dollars I’ve spent on branding,” Rosen told me in an interview a couple of days ago.

   “How dare they use my name! If that’s not an obvious ripoff, I don’t know what is,” he added. Only days before, he made his case to Michael O’Keeffe of the New York Daily News, whom hobbyists will remember as the co-author, with Teri Thompson, of The Card, the book detailing the history of the legendary T206 Honus Wagner card, the one that sold for $2.8 million at auction a year ago.

   Rosen’s beef with the film was thusly recorded in the New York City tabloid on July 5 and 6. Director Terry Kinney told the Daily News that The Mint-Mint Man’s sign and nickname were inspired by a research trip to a card show, where he saw Rosen’s “Mr. Mint” booth and his trademark wads-of-dough portrait (the Mint-Mint Man’s show display features a photo of him fanning out a wad of cash, similar to images Rosen has used for years to promote himself at shows).
“They portray the character as dishonest and that bothers me,” Rosen says. “I am 100 percent honest. I don’t take advantage of old men like the guy in the movie. I’m a huckster, but I’m also an honest guy.”

   Though it’s hardly needed, I can vouch for that, having been with Rosen on a dozen or more of his famed buying trips. I don’t make any pretense of being impartial in these instances: I co-authored the book True Mint with Rosen a dozen years ago, and have known him more than 25 years dating back to the old EPSCC shows at Willow Grove outside of Philadelphia.

   I figure it’s not a conflict of interest if you clearly state the nature of any dealings with someone mentioned in one of my columns. Speaking of which, I will offer more detail on this odd entanglement with the film industry in my Out of Left Field column in the Aug. 1 issue of SCD, along with an in-depth look at what happens at a Mr. Mint buying trip, from the knock on the front door to the doling out of those $100 bills at the finish. It was nothing more than coincidence that the New Jersey dealer happened to be in Wisconsin to buy a collection at the same time he was trying to nudge his lawyers into action on the movie front. My young colleague, Chris Nerat, even recorded much of it on video, which you can access on his blog, Gavel Chat.

   I can assure you the seller got a whole lot more than $500 (160 times more, actually), and there wasn’t a Wildfire Schulte card to be found anywhere. Not even a Renata Galasso reprint of it, either.

   And if you’re wondering why I call “Diminished Capacity” the dumbest movie title ever devised, it’s because I can’t seem to remember it for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
The irony of that hasn’t escaped me.

You can't say nuttin' about nobody

2008-06-29T13:38:04.2210000-04:00

   Under the Rule of Threes, events in the sporting world converged recently to illustrate an important point about modern life: You can’t say nuttin’ about nobody.

   Just ask the extraordinarily clumsy Don Imus, who remarked about the continuing legal difficulties encountered by NFL star Adam “Pacman” Jones in a fashion that got him in trouble once again, though I am convinced from listening to the exchange that he really was simply employing sarcasm, which often gets lost in translation.

   Several weeks ago, a gal (whoops! politically incorrect) on the Golf Channel, noting the abilities of the seemingly invincible Tiger Woods, (shown at right in Michael Joseph original artwork) gushed that a lynching might be the only way for his fellow PGA Tour competitors to stop him.

   Shortly after that, Johnny Miller, NBC’s golf analyst, found himself in the middle of a storm following Woods’ amazing U.S. Open win over Rocco Mediate. Miller’s sin was opining that the 45-year-old golfer “looks like the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool,” and later added to his fellow commentator, “Guys with the name ‘Rocco’ don’t get on the trophy” at the U.S. Open.

   Well. Three seemingly unrelated incidents, but all linked by the common thread that there’s very little leeway granted anymore to public statements that can range from the obviously racist and inflammatory to the simply stupid or often grotesquely overblown.

   Imus’ comments generated a lot of heat, apparently as much from his track record as anything truly offensive in the remarks. Ironically, if you accept Imus’ explanation that his comments were intended to note his view that blacks can often receive undue attention from law enforcement quarters, it’s possible he could be in hot water with an entirely different group.

   It’s as though we have collectively lost the ability to evaluate comments and make nuanced decisions about what the speaker intended to convey. The Miller fiasco would be exhibit No. 1 in this department. Known for his often biting assessments of PGA players – particularly his solemn intonations about who might have “choked” at a particular moment in a match – Miller, like Imus, no doubt finds himself subjected to even more scrutiny than might otherwise have been the case.
Maybe we ought to simply attribute these things to the “Tiger Woods” effect. It’s hardly a coincidence that the two incidents that caused so much trouble both involved Tiger. Announcers and sportswriters get so caught up in finding new and improved ways to tell the great unwashed about Tigers’ greatness that it inevitably leads to problems.

   I watched the U.S. Open and took note of both remarks by Miller, realizing in a nanosecond that: a) Miller was going to be in trouble in both cases; and b) He shouldn’t be, because it ought to have been clear that he didn’t mean anything offensive about either colorful observation.

   Therein lies the rub. Colorful. If Miller had been more careful, he might have said something more suitable for a state police traffic report: “The subject (Mediate) does not exude the conventional traits of a professional golfer in this particular tournament setting.” Gee, that’s a lot better. (sarcasm)

   Of the remark about the name Rocco not traditionally winding up on the U.S. Open trophy, he could have rephrased thusly: “A perfunctory examination of detailed accounts of previous tourneys reveals that casual nicknames similar to the subject’s do not appear with any noticeable frequency.”

   It may appear that I am a Johnny Miller apologist, which would be wrong. He generally annoys me, especially with his pronouncements about who might have choked at a given moment in a tournament. He is widely applauded for that candor, with the implicit message that other analysts are too timid to offer such observations for fear of alienating the player so designated, but my view would be different.

   I don’t think anybody knows for sure when a player chokes, as the word is commonly understood. In this I consider myself something of an expert, having choked on a number of occasions at the pool table. And that’s my point: I think it would be laudatory and commendable were a player to simply admit that he choked at this or that moment (it has happened rarely), but ultimately I figure he/she is the only one who really knows. Everybody else, Miller included, is just guessing.

   All of this might be funny, except that there’s an insidious impact that eventually trickles down to just about anyone who talks or writes in a public forum, and in the Internet Age, that would appear to be just about all 300 million of us.

   The more people get spanked or otherwise scolded for casual remarks or commentary that seemingly don’t warrant all the hoopla, the more the rest of us bite our collective tongue just a little bit more.

   I intend to resist that temptation mightily.

Debunking the myth of Minnesota Fats

2008-06-25T17:21:00.7590000-04:00

   I ran across this cool signed photograph of one Rudolf Wanderone, aka Minnesota Fats. He is arguably the most famous pool player in the world, a point that severely aggravated a number of his contemporaries and left couuntless others at least mildly bemused.

   Irving Crane, whom I have written about in other columns, would belong in the former column; Willie Mosconi, whom Fats played in campy television matches in the 1970s, I would characterize as in the mildly bemused column. Thirty years ago when I spent the better part of four months mostly racking balls for Crane during practices sessions (her mercifully allowed me to shoot on the rare occasions when he missed) near his home in Rochester, N.Y.

   Hard as it is for me to imagine now, I was the young whippersnapper then, still under the dreaded age of 30, and Crane was all of 65. Short of questions directly related to the practice session at hand, decisions about idle conversation surrounding the afternoon were in his hands, but I was always particularly delighted when he would reminisce a bit about his storied history in the game.

   It was pretty rare when he talked much at all, since he took practice more seriously than anyone I’ve ever known, even though he was competing sparingly by then and would retire from the pro tour a couple of years later. He told me stories about Ralph Greenleaf, whom he admired but was also appalled by Greenleaf’s alcoholism; he also talked occasionally about Mosconi, and even more rarely about Fats.

   Mostly what I remember about Fats’ name coming up was Crane’s insistence that despite the flashy nickname and legendary self-promotion, Minnesota Fats couldn’t have competed with any of the top players at straight pool, which was Crane’s favored game. Fats was a nine-ball player, or more likely banks or one-pocket games that lent themselves to the gambling end of things. It was part of Crane’s mystique that he didn’t even care for gambling, which could be a real handicap for a guy trying to make a living in a “profession” so exquisitely involved with wagering.

   I only met Willie Mosconi on one occasion, I would guess around the mid-1980s when I got lucky and wound up having lunch with him at an billiards exhibition at a restaurant in the Philadelphia suburbs. The place, Williamsons Restaurant, is a local institution in Horsham, Pa., for old-time collectors just a couple of miles up the road from the site of the Eastern Pennsylvania Sports Collectors Club (EPSCC) shows in Willow Grove.

   I was clearly unworthy of sitting at the same table for lunch with Mosconi and the man he was playing against, fellow Billiards Congress of America Hall of Famer Jimmy Caras, who lived in nearby Wilmington, Del., and their wives, but simply hustled a bit (the generic use of the term) to snag the seat. I was with an old friend, a poolroom operator from Delaware who had played high school basketball with Dick Groat, and we simply figured out where we thought the guest(s) of honor would be planted and just plopped down in the other seats at the table. The worst that could happened is that we would be politely asked to move to another table.

   Instead, Mosconi and Caras just sat down and apparently assumed that the two reprobates at the table had some divine right to be there. Needless to say, we were thrilled. While we largely left the choice of table discussion topics to the actual dignitaries, I did mention to Mosconi that I had spent a good deal of time with his old archrival Irving Crane.

   While Willie didn’t precisely use the quote attributed to him in this autobiography about “Irving Crane wouldn’t take a shot unless his grandmother could make it,” he did confirm the conventional wisdom that Crane had been perhaps the most careful player he had ever encountered.

   And about Fats he was a bit more diplomatic than Crane had been a half-dozen or so years earlier, noting simply that while Fats hadn’t truly been one of the top players on tour – or even actually playing in the major tournaments – he had been an incredible ambassador for the game. He did tell us, however, that he would go to great pains to find ways to tune out the legendary Minnesota Fats shtick and nonstop banter, which even in exhibition matches could prove to be a problem for pool players more accustomed to relative serenity and quiet while shooting, two words that wouldn’t even show up in Fats’ vocabulary.

   But a couple of words that did allegedly pass from Rudolph’s lips always tickled me, whether he actually said them or not. “Irv Crane would have been the only guy to notice the horse under Lady Godiva.”

   Of such witty gems are legends forged.

All we are saying is, Give Pete a Chance

2008-06-16T11:06:09.9560000-04:00

   Our SCD crew braved tornadoes and floods this past weekend to hold the annual SportsFest Show for the second year at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center in suburban Chicago.

   The high point of the weekend may have been the return of Pete Rose for another autograph session. The all-time hit king has been a longtime friend of Krause Publications, having appeared at SportsFest and at our Hawaii Trade Conference a number of times. I’ve been intrigued by his low profile in recent months during a time when the steroid allegations (and admissions) have been coming faster than kiss a duck.

   Rose graciously allowed us some interview time prior to his public signing appearance on Sunday, and talked about steroids, the commissioner, Barry Bonds and a whole lot more. Whatever your opinion of Pete, it’s hard not to admire his dogged insistence on being himself on all occasions, even if his candor ends up seeming counterproductive to his long-range hopes of being reinstated into the good graces of Major League Baseball.

   The interview with Rose is featured in a video clip on Chris Nerat’s Gavel Chat Blog ... I’ll also be writing it up for my “Out of Left Field” column in this week’s SCD (July 4).

   Another former player from Pete’s heyday, Ron Kittle, turned up at the show in an informal capacity. The 1983 AL Rookie of the Year brought in a couple of artifacts to be evaluated at the “What’s It Worth” segement of the show, a regular component for the last three years that has proved to be popular with Chicago collectors. Kittle’s pride and joy (of stuff he brought to the show) was a 1983 All-Star Game signed bat that has the kind of povenance that can hardly be topped: he got all the signatures himself at the game.

   Kittle, whom I remember even from 1981 during his minor-league days when he was socking 40 home runs for Glens Falls (New York) in the Eastern League and I was the PR director for the Empire State Games in nearby Albany. Kittle said the nifty All-Star bat was headed for a charity auction; he’s also a prolific collector in his own right and the creator of spectacular hand-crafted Benches. We hope to have an interview with him later this summer.

Ortiz may end up putting a curse on the Yankees

2008-06-03T14:42:45.1680000-04:00

   David Ortiz and the Red Sox have pulled a remarkable triple play on their hated rival, the New York Yankees, and if the Gotham guys keep fumbling their end of this deal, it runs the risk of developing into a full-fledged curse. Not that I believe in such things, mind you.

   As you probably know, the Yankees spent roughly $50,000 digging up construction at the new Stadium because some enterprising worker entombed an Ortiz jersey within its walls; subsequent news reports indicate that additional memorabilia has also been sprinkled about the facility, which is slated to open next year. The Yankees had the right idea at the time, donating the jersey to the Jimmy Fund, which auctioned it for $175,000 a couple of weeks later.

   But now, along with reports of the alleged additional “burials,” comes word that the Yankees are bristling about a MLB-planned promotion for the Home Run Derby contest held the evening before the All-Star Game, which this year will be played at, gulp, Yankee Stadium.

   The State Farm Insurance “Call Your Shot” promotion would have Ortiz, the Sox’ jovial, midly rotund left-handed slugger, trying to hit a home run to a specified spot in the bleachers, thus mimicking (or paying homage to) Babe Ruth’s alleged called shot off Charlie Root of the Cubs in the 1932 World Series.

   As I write this, Yankees officials are grousing about the idea of Ortiz, who routinely clobbers Bronx pitching, being the centerpiece of a promotion held in conjunction with the final All-Star Game (there have been four) at the legendary stadium. There is talk of perhaps including a Yankee player in the promotion, but it seems to me that any modification of the initial plan would likely leave the Yankees looking like the crybaby wieners that so many National League fans have for decades have insisted that they, in point of fact, are.

   Laughingly, all the kibitzing about the “controversy” seems to center around Ortiz being selected for the role, without anybody bothering to note that the Bambino’s called shot – if it happened at all – took place at Wrigley Field, not at Yankee Stadium.

   As they did with the memorabilia items entombed in the new facility, this one looks like its going to wind up being scored E10 against the Bronx Bombers. The Red Sox, having reversed “The Curse,” seem well on the way to reversing the whole concept, and the Yankees seem to be unwitting enablers in the process.

Cool prizes added from the Topps Vault

2008-05-25T13:42:40.7720000-04:00

   I’ve playfully chided our friends at the Topps Co. over the years about being so preoccupied with the creation of each year’s mountain of new sports cards that they have little time left to pay attention to all the historic cardboard ancestors from the 1950s and 1960s.

   It was never a genuine criticism anyway, because it quite correctly was their job to pursue the sales of new cards, as opposed to immersing themselves in the glory of the old ones. That was our job, or at least part of it.

   But when when the company created the unique Topps Vault seven years ago, even that tongue-in-cheek charge lost its currency. If you’ve never visited the “Vault,” (www.thetoppsvalut.com) you’re really missing something. It offers the kind of archival material that was featured in the famous 1989 Guernsey’s Topps Auction (more details in my column in the May 30 issue of SCD as part of the first installment of the Topps Proof series written by Keith Olbermann).

   One suspects that if Topps officials had known in 1989 that something called the Internet was around the corner, they might not have held the historic auction at all, preferring instead to sell their archival items on their own website, which is what they do now with the Topps Vault.

   In conjunction with the Olbermann Topps Proof series, Topps has donated three items from the “Vault” that will be included as some of the top prizes awarded randomly later this summer to readers who take part in the Survey (see our home page). The top prize is probably a 1993 Topps baseball card contract signed by Nolan Ryan, a three-year extension at a cool $75 per. The other two are the original black-and-white production photo used to create Pete Retzlaff's 1957 Topps rookie card, and a circa 1970 baseball card point-of-purchase poster touting Topps Baseball Bubble Gum Cards as “A Great Gift Idea for Kids,” with the company logo surrounded by a Christmas wreath. Despite the sort of icky pea-green and purple colors, it’s a wonderful piece of memorabilia, including the odd drawing of a baseball card, with no logo on the cap and the name on the bottom turned into hieroglyphics so that no additional royalty payments would be needed for its commercial use. And still you can tell it’s Bill Mazeroski.

   The items come with three COA’s from the Topps Vault, though it’s hard to see how such redundant authentication would be necessary. If you haven’t sent in your survey form, I urge you to do so. It’s easy and fun, and gives you a crack at these prizes and several others, most notably a Topps Proof plaque created by the incomparable Ernie Montella.

   And whomever wins the point-of-purchase poster should give me a call after he/she receives the prize. I’ve already come up with a cool idea about how to display it with about a dozen 1970 or 1971 Topps cards. The survey appears in this week’s issue of Sports Collectors Digest (June 20) with the second installment in the Olbermann Topps Proof series.

* * * * *

This last item I included primarily because I just loved the image so much, along with my affection for all things billiards related. My colleague, Chris Nerat, turned this up, presumably an auction item from eBay, but I was fascinated by the charm of the photograph, most notably the inclusion of the hot babe dutifully watching the guy as he executes a masse shot. It reminded of the comically posed “action” shots painstakingly constructed by the Topps photographers in the 1950s and 1960s. If anybody else stood so close to a billiards table while somebody was in the middle of a shot, difficult or otherwise, he would have gotten his thumbs broken, but this winsome young lady – looking far more wholesome than any woman I’ve ever seen in a pool hall – presumably would get a pass on such an ostensibly inappropriate departure from normal billiards etiquette.

Milwaukee embraces Aaron a few decades too late

2008-05-19T12:33:30.4600000-04:00

   The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story on Sunday quoting Henry Aaron as saying, “I still consider myself the home run king.” The occasion was a commencement exercise at Concordia University in Mequon, Wis., where Aaron had lived when he was a member of the Braves in the 1950s and 1960s before the team’s furtive scamper off to Atlanta after the 1965 season.

   Ever gracious, Henry was quoted saying all the obligatory nice things about the beleaguered Barry Bonds, and he was just as diplomatic in commenting on the $45 million the Brewers just doled out to Ryan Braun, calling the youngster “a tremendous ballplayer” while cheerfully noting that his first salary in the big leagues had been $5,000 a year.

   It’s heartwarming that Aaron seems to get the royal treatment these days, but it’s worth remembering that it wasn’t always so. Going back to his time in Milwaukee, Aaron seemed underappreciated by both National League fans in general and even to a lesser extent Wisconsin fans in particular. It was pretty common in the early 1960s to see magazine and newspaper articles noting that Milwaukee seemed a bit more enchanted with Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn than they were with Aaron, a puzzling circumstance that could be attributed to explanations ranging from the benign to the more ominous.

   As a teenager back then, I took the precipitous decline in attendance at Milwaukee County Stadium as a personal affront to Aaron. Obviously, the passing of 40-plus years has helped me understand the drop-off was a wee bit more complicated than that, but the result was the same: the Braves scurried off to Atlanta and I was left to sort out the thorny question of team allegiance.

   The Journal Sentinel columnist, Michael Hunt, pointed out that Aaron could remember giving only one other commencement address, but that was apparently a good one: Harvard University. And he apparently has only one other honorary doctorate, from Emory in Atlanta. Once again, I was way behind the curve. I would have thought there had been dozens of addresses and a similar number of the ersatz diplomas.

   And I think I know where much of that came from, too. After he retired in 1976, Henry had a tolerable deal with Magnavox and not too much else as the all-time home run king. Though he largely steered clear of controversy both on and off the field for much of his career, by the time he hung up his spikes he was regarded as an outspoken critic on a number of topics involving the treatment of black ballplayers, and I am convinced that he paid the price in terms of post-career opportunities.

   I’m thinking President Obama will take care of all that early next year. How about Secretary of Defense? Aaron was a Gold Glover, after all.

* * * * *

Jeff Fritsch sent me three baseball cards the other day, one of which is illustrated here. The cards were created recently as a tribute to his famous dad, Larry Fritsch, who died last December.
I have been buying cards from Larry Fritsch Cards for nearly 40 years, with orders going back to the 1960s, so it was a treat to see how Jeff had come upon such a perfect vehicle to honor his father. The three “In Memoriam” cards can be had by sending a SASE to Larry Fritsch Cards, 735 Old Wausau Rd., P.O. Box 863, Stevens Point, WI 54481, with donations accepted for the American Cancer Society or the Stevens Point Youth Baseball Association.

If anybody ever deserved his own baseball card(s), it was Larry Fritsch. Nuff said.

New plaque for Jackie coming this summer

2008-05-05T18:06:21.7000000-04:00

   The Hall of Fame announced a couple of weeks ago that Jackie Robinson would be getting a new plaque at the baseball shrine in Cooperstown. It had been scheduled for unveiling on May 3, but a scheduling conflict for Jackie's widow, Rachel Robinson, prompted HOF officials to move it to later this summer.

   So how come the legendary HOFer needed a new plaque a full 46 years after getting his original? I feel like a dolt for not having known this, but the current plaque includes no mention whatsoever of Robinson's singular role in shattering the color line in 1947.

   As remarkable as that sounds, I think I understand how that could have come about in 1962, and in any event it's not something I'd want to bother newly anointed HOF President Jeff Idelson about in these first weeks after he assumed the new role.

   I can see how the tumultuous times in the early 1960s might have prompted HOF officials to use wording that amounted to "just the facts," and nothing more. What surprises me more than the original wording is the fact that it remained unchallenged for as long as it did.

* * * * *

   The slowdown that shows have endured over the last decade-plus has allowed – ironically – more time for those things that helped make the shows so special in the first place: interaction with other dealers and reminiscing about the good old days.

   At Kansas City, that meant things like Heritage’s Mark Jordan recalling the early 1970s in Los Angeles, appearing on Entertainment Tonight and promoting the hobby on local television at a time when it was in its infancy, to say the least. The nostalgia angle got another boost after Levi Bleam of 707 Sportscards collared me with his cell phone to talk with Tony Galovich, a name serious collectors and dealers will remember from the 1980s and 1990s when he was a fixture at shows around the country and a hard-hitting columnist with Tuff Stuff magazine.

   I talked with Tony long enough to pass on that I had recently visited with (electronically) a couple of other names he would remember: Don Lepore and Frank Barning. Both need no introduction to hobby old-timers: the former was a prolific dealer for much of the hobby’s heyday; the latter a similarly well-known face at early shows and the publisher for many years of one of the pioneering hobby publications, Baseball Hobby News.

   Such is the joy of what we do: celebrating the past with the very structure of our hobby and, at the same time, recalling the many names that once played significant roles that might have receded into the background over the years. I have found that any number of folks might not turn up at the National or in the pages of SCD as time goes on, but hardly anybody actually shakes off the hobby itself.

   George Starmer, another of the hobby’s major nice guys, emphasized that by regaling me with a story about selling a cool Tiger Woods Upper Deck Authenticated piece. “I hated to part with it,” said Starmer, illustrating the age-old hobby dilemma that dealers have to contend with: being a dealer and a collector at the same time. According to Starmer, the temptation to hang on to as the transaction was finalized was enormous. He resisted; I found the item, a Tiger shirt with original artwork on the front, proudly on display a couple of tables away at McAvoy Sportscards.

   But the neatest story of the weekend came from Mike Baker of Global Authentication, perched adjacent to the SCD table, who got the star treatment for much of the weekend as a number of dealers and collectors alike stopped by to tell him they had seen him on Judge Judy.

   Baker had appeared as an expert witness on the show a few days earlier, the result of a taping in Burbank, Calif., in January. A collector was trying to get his money back from the purchase of a clumsily counterfeited 1941 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio. The card came with the requisite yarn about having been handed down from generation to generation, but Baker’s detailed explanation to the Judge about the “card’s” obvious deficiencies (including RP initials on the back tagging it as a reprint), helped produce a quick decision from the judge confirming Baker’s expert opinion.

   “The guy who owned the card was convinced that it was real,” said Baker, alluding to the power of the narrative within our hobby to convince the uninitiated that something is real, despite all evidence to the contrary. Baker modestly conceded that the episode represented his “15 minutes,” something that’s likely to be extended as the syndicated program gets rerun over the years.

Wrapup from the Windy City PCCE show

2008-04-29T10:19:06.2750000-04:00

   I apologize to the readers for the long gap between blogs. I have been on the road for two weekends and shoving an SCD out the door in the intervening week tied up my time. What follows is my report from the Chicago PCCE show 10 days ago; in a couple of days I’ll blog again with commentary from Rich Altman’s Kansas City Show.

   By almost any measurement, it was a wonderful hobby showcase: The Premier Collectible Conference & Exhibition held April 17-20 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., did a bang-up job of presenting the vintage card and memorabilia industry in a positive, professional light, but unfortunately, not many collectors turned out for the consumer end of the four-day event.

   Jointly promoted by Mastro Auctions President Doug Allen and Ryan Friedman, the inaugural effort hosted more than 40 dealers for the combination of keynote speakers and panel discussions that featured some of the biggest names in the vintage end of the hobby.

   While the turnout had to be a major disappointment for both promoters and many of the companies represented at the show, both Allen and Friedman insisted the show would go on, so to speak, with plans already in place to return to the same site at around the same time next year.
“Overall, I would give it a B+,” Allen said early Sunday afternoon near the show’s closing. “A number of dealers said the traffic wasn’t great, but they loved the atmosphere and the fact that the people who did come in were serious and spent money.”

   Veteran dealer Bill McAvoy of McAvoy Sportscards in Omaha, Neb., who was also one of the panelists, was perhaps the prime beneficiary of that situation. “It was a fantastic show. It wasn’t well attended, but the people who came in did spend. We did twice as much here as at the National,” McAvoy said.

   Allen conceded he had some concerns about querying dealers about their sales after light attendance the first couple of days, but he said that by Friday, after hearing comments from dealers that it was phenomenal even though they hadn’t seen the traffic, they knew they were going to do it again.

   “I think we will completely revamp the schedule and we won’t have it open on Sunday,” Allen explained. “I think we’ll have more one-on-one interaction instead of the panels – more roundtables, things like that.

   (Shown at right is a cool photograph showing Babe Ruth and President Harding. It was at Andy Madec's booth at the show.)

   Allen also said that it was part of his plan with the conference to create another venue to do a live auction. “With other auction companies here, I don’t know that it would be fair to have this huge live-auction event, but maybe we’ll do something to try to get the other auction companies to participate. Maybe each one could do 15-20 items and we could do a multi-branded catalog. It might be kind of fun.”

   That would, indeed, be a unique undertaking in a hobby/industry that can often raise eyebrows as giant egos clash and cooperation and accommodation can wind up on the back burner. That’s another point that the Mastro Auctions president would like to see addressed.

   “People see this as a natural transition to having some type of trade association,” Allen continued. “I don’t know where that’s going to go, but I think personally – though I don’t want to carry the banner – I would be very supportive of it.

   Allen took the occasion of our post-conference interview to reveal the plans for Mastro Auctions’ role at the upcoming National Convention this summer. It has been a long-running tradition in the auction end of the hobby that the company takes great pains for prominent promotional events in conjunction with the National each year, and the ante gets upped every time the show returns to Mastro’s neck of the woods in Chicago.

   “We will have a live auction at the ESPN Zone in Chicago on the Friday night of the National,” Allen said, noting that they had rented the upstairs of the ESPN Zone for the occasion.
“It will be similar to what we did last year; I don’t know if we’ll do $4.3 million again, but it will be about 100 lots.”

   He pointed out that some problems had developed with the National Convention Committee over Mastro’s auction last year when they “inadvertently put the branding of the National Auction on our website, and we got called on it and we changed it,” he added.

   “So it’s not the official National event; it’s just our event that happens to coincide with the National.”

Ford Frick was the HOFer in the picture

2008-04-14T15:34:13.3890000-04:00

Ford Frick. That’s the Baseball Hall of Famer on the cover of the April 18 issue of Sports Collectors Digest. He appears in the upper right-hand corner of the cover, directly underneath the Sports Collecting Radio logo. Nearly a dozen readers had the correct answer, but Louis Chiappone of East Moriches, N.Y., was the fastest on the draw, phoning in only seconds after 8 a.m. Central time on April 9. I shipped the signed Bob Gibson postcard out to him that afternoon, in between taking phone calls that would last well into the following week.

As noted, a number of people had the right answer, but among the most popular wrong answers were Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. Some of the others most frequently mentioned: Hank Greenberg, Warren Giles, Sam Rice and Joe Cronin. Ironically, Cronin is actually in that photograph, but to keep it to a single Hall of Famer, I cropped him out of the right-hand side.

* * * * *

   Loyal SCD readers will know something big is up simply from the choice of topics: Keith Olbermann has turned in an extraordinary examination of Topps proof cards from four decades, and the exclusive five-part series launches in the May 30 issue of SCD.

   In a 13,000-word thesis that figures to instantly become the reference source on this fascinating and mysterious hobby segment, the MSNBC anchor and longtime SCD contributor and columnist will make available spectacular images of many of the Topps proofs from his own fabled collection.

   I haven’t been this amped up about a multi-part feature in our pages since the similarly imposing T206 White Border Series that we ran in 2006. This is neat stuff that we are going to extend well into the summer because each section is so elaborately detailed that we wanted to be able to provide sufficient space for every one.

   We even own one of those legendary Topps proof cards: the 1977 Topps “Rarest Reggie,” or, as we like to call it around these parts, the “Wherewist Wedgie.” That famous card, depicting Reggie Jackson as an Oriole on his 1977 Topps card, gets a section all to itself as perhaps the most significant proof of that decade, slated for the Aug. 8 SCD, one week before the National Convention issue.

   With each of the five parts, we’ll run a special SCD Collector Survey that will ask our readers to provide their views about the hobby, their collections and the players that they like to collect, and everybody who enters will be eligible for prizes that will be offered as part of the whole promotion.
Fasten your seat belt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and you’re going to get the chance to see a bunch of Topps “cards” unlike any that you might have ever laid eyes upon.

   Stay tuned.

Tiger's tussle with unrealistic expectations

2008-03-31T15:56:42.7040000-04:00

   For guys essentially paid to watch stuff as closely as possible and then report on what they’ve just seen, sportswriters can be a remarkably myopic group on occasion. Examples are fairly easy to come by, but rarely as stunning as the recent blather offered by the Ham Sandwich Brigade as Tiger Woods continued along an almost unprecedented winning streak that stretched all the way to last fall.

   As Tiger was running his winning streak to seven events worldwide, the sportswriters would occasionally allow themselves to muse about the possibility of Tiger turning in an undefeated season. Awww, geez, guys!

   I understand the underlying circumstances that make otherwise competent and rational people write silly things, but to even fantasize about something like that reflects pretty poorly on the writer, because it suggests he’s woefully unfamiliar with the elemental components of the game itself.
   (Tiger Woods artwork at right by Michael Joseph.)

   Even when Tiger Woods has been at his best (which we may well be witnessing at this moment), it’s still just goofy to suggest that anyone could win every tournament that they played in over the course of a whole season. I would contend that there has never been another player who dominated his sport as profoundly as Tiger has, but there are simply too many variables in the sport for a perfect season to be something that’s rationally considered.

   A twig, a bad bounce, the wind, a divot, the click of a camera at the wrong time, indigestion, you name it: even a player as dominant as Tiger has to face so many of these that talk of perfection is nutty. It may be flattering, but I’d be more inclined to think it does a disservice to the player, because it takes what would have already been probably unrealistic expectations and moves them up several notches to absurd and beyond.

   And at the same time that the golf scribes were falling all over themselves in cannonizing Woods, he was then roundly excoriated because he cussed out a photographer who clicked in the middle of his downswing. I know, I know, the fact that Tiger hauls in $100 million or so a year makes the public apply a higher standard, but if you think about it, it’s pretty unfair. We applaud Woods on the one hand because of his almost cosmic focus and intensity, then rush to spank him when those very same traits occasionally spill over when things don’t go his way.

   I certainly understand a parent’s discomfort if Tiger says naughty words that could rattle the youth of America, but just as certainly I understand the sacrosanct and symbiotic relationship between profanity and the game of golf.

   Of course, I myself have never actually had to resort to cussing on the course. And I never lie, either.

Barry and Godfather Willie back in the news

2008-03-24T13:50:35.2720000-04:00

   I came across a couple of news items recently that caught my attention in part because of the relevance to our hobby but also because of the link they had to each other.

   One report told how the Major League Baseball Players Association was at least taking the preliminary steps to examine whether MLB owners were somehow acting in-concert in their dealings with free agents this spring.

   Around the same time came news reports that union head Don Fehr was wondering about the status of one Barry Bonds, free agent extraordinaire, who has seemingly been left out in the cold, at least for the moment.

   All of this neatly coincides with the SCP Auction of the baseball that just might turn out to be the final home run of Bonds’ tumultuous career. That, of course, would also make the spheroid in question the one that marks the all-time home run mark.

   That auction closes on April 12, and SCP officials have speculated that the ball could sell for as much as $1 million. That would be a nifty hobby development, but it amazes me that the high rollers in this kind of situation would roll the dice on paying big bucks for a baseball that would seem to have some potential of becoming a rather pedestrian artifact (relatively speaking) should Bonds somehow return to the ballpark.

   I don’t pretend to have any inside knowledge on the matter, but I still have an unshakable belief that Barry is going to wind up playing somewhere this summer. I know he’s a major thorn in Bud’s rib cage, but it’s one of those odd areas where I still cling to a good deal of naivete, all evidence to the contrary.

   There’s very little precedent for a situation where a ballplayer had so much left in the tank but wasn’t allowed the opportunity to use it. Obviously, the old coot can’t run much anymore and has morphed from being a Gold Glover in the outfield to a defensive liability that probably can’t be tolerated by a National League ballclub.

   But with that goofy designated hitter thingy in the American League, he’s doesn’t really have to be able to run all that much or bend over for those pesky ground balls that leak past the infield. He just has to swat the occasional home run, and I suspect that he’s still capable of doing just that.

   I want to believe that our overriding sense of fairness wouldn’t permit MLB to blackball Barry when he hasn’t really been found guilty of doing anything that maybe a couple hundred of his contemporaries didn’t also do, admittedly to wildly varying degrees of success.

   Bonds is under indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice (indictment may be amended), but he hasn’t been convicted of anything and ought to get the benefit of the doubt until he is.
   Assuming that MLB would – as a group – decide not to employ him despite obvious reasons to do otherwise probably does a disservice to MLB officials and team owners. I won’t presume that those folks would be inclined to collusion; the Union and media watchdogs will doubtless be on the job in coming months checking out just such a possibility.

   I think he wants to play. I think he’s going to play. Stay tuned.

* * * * *

   Barry’s godfather, Willie Mays, finds himself in the news within the narrow world of our hobby. Willie’s 1972 Topps “In Action” card recently sold for $8,100. It’s supposed to be illuminating to point out that it was a PSA 10, but for old-timers like me, it’s still a Neverland kind of moment.

   It’s almost cosmically irrelevant, but the card is one of the lamest ever created of Willie in his 22 years of appearing on Topps cards. Obviously, the $8,100 price tag isn’t predicated on the design purity or the graphic elements of the card, or even the attractiveness of the photograph. But, gee whiz, this is one of the all-time great ugly baseball cards, with Willie seemingly mired in quicksand on a baseball diamond, with some other guy’s leg in the background and yet another in the foreground. And like so many Topps photos from the 1970s, the lonely leg in the foreground is in focus, while Willie, ostensibly sliding into a base, is not.

   Sy Berger, the legendary Topps VP who helped design many of the great sets of the 1950s and 1960s and who “negotiated” with a couple of generations of ballplayers for the rights to be included on baseball cards, used to tell me how Mays almost continually crabbed about some of his cards. Like Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Roberto Clemente, Mays, in fact, wound up on some of the greatest cards ever created, but if that 1972 Topps “In Action” card was one of his complaints, I gotta go with Willie on this one.

Maybe Henry gets an asterisk HR record

2008-03-18T16:03:27.0650000-04:00

   I have not blogged for a couple of weeks, but at least for once I have a fairly good excuse: I’ve been on vacation. Actually took four days off (plus a weekend) for a golf tour in Alabama, doing a swing between Birmingham, Montgomery and Auburn along what is called the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.

   I would never violate community standards of decency by subjecting readers to details of my golf game, but it was nice to get out of Central Wisconsin for nearly a week in the closing weeks of the ugliest winter I can remember in my 15 years here at Krause Publications (now F+W Publications).

   I managed to immerse myself in the vacation spirit enough to get behind on my traditionally voracious consumption of daily newspapers, but I did see a copy of The Birmingham News on Saturday, March 8, and quickly noticed two things I really liked: pictures of Henry Aaron and Billy Bob Thornton on the front page, and a second picture of the all-time nonpharmaceutically enhanced home run record holder on the inside of the front page.

   Thornton was pictured atop the fold as the star attraction of the 11th Annual George Lindsey Film Festival at the University of North Alabama. I don’t know about you, but I just sort of liked the idea of a film festival named in honor of a guy who played Goober Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show.”

   Henry’s front-page mention (and tiny photo) was to plug a contest coming in the next day’s paper that would have readers vote for Alabama’s Greatest Sports Legend. The Hammer was there on the next page, this time with wife Billye, attending the opening of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City.

   Now that’s my idea of a good newspaper.

* * * * *

   On the collecting front, I have started to piece together a set of the 2008 Topps Heritage Baseball issue, an undertaking I began primarily because of my fondness for the original 1959 Topps set.

   I’ve had a lot of fun over the years piecing together the Heritage sets, though I haven’t done every year. Topps is getting better at this Heritage deal every year, and that’s really saying something, because they nailed it almost from the beginning in 2001 with an issue that paid homage to 1952 Topps.

   The refinements over the years have mostly been nuances like matching colors and players with their counterparts in the original issues, something that really worked well with the bright color backgrounds of 1959 Topps.

   I know it’s a generational thing, but I can’t shake the idea that it would be more fun if the sets could be completed by buying packs (and boxes) rather than purchasing missing high numbers and short prints from dealers. The generational part is simply that the process of collecting has changed so much over the years, and the Heritage issues are genuine godsends for dealers in that they are huge draws for set collectors, a group that’s had a rough time of it in our hobby over the last 15-plus years or so.

   Still, you gotta admit I’m trying to adjust to new realities. Putting anywhere from $350-$400 or more into a new set takes some getting used to. For me, it’s jarring enough to make me end a sentence with a preposition.

Easy 'Roider

2008-03-03T12:42:19.3880000-05:00

   I got an e-mail the other day gently criticizing my decision to “have a little fun” with the ongoing steroid and HGH debacle, with the reader quite fairly noting that the devastation that ensues for both the game of baseball and the individuals touched by the scandal doesn’t seem appropriate for even subdued hilarity.

   Fair enough, but part of what I was trying to do with the Roger Clemens piece that dreamed up a Col. Nathan R. Jessup-like testimony was to offer my belief that athletes at that level didn’t really think using steroids or HGH was all that big of a deal, at least until the public uproar developed.

   I don’t think you could have so many players involved if the private attitudes about such use truly mirrored what is now politically correct condemnation of same. The enforced rigidity of political correctness annoys me big time, so I tend to push against it whenever I can, even in instances where my own opinion might substantially differ from what I appear to be defending.

   I don’t know if it’s clear or not, but I have a good deal of sympathy for Clemens, and to a lesser degree, even Barry Bonds. Regardless of the widespread condemnation that attaches itself to the idea of “cheating,” I can’t shake the nagging suspicion that the pair is being ganged up on.

   My favorite newspaper, The New York Times, has pretty clearly got Clemens outfitted for some kind of “Sombrero of Disgrace.” I don’t think anybody can look at the paper’s relentless coverage of the Clemens Saga without concluding that they want his scalp (Oops, even more politically incorrect). Heck, I’ve never been a Clemens fan, in part because I liked Doc Gooden instead, but I’m not sure what he’s done to warrant the avalanche that seems to be headed his way, aside from perhaps quite thoroughly bungling the public relations effort in the weeks after the Mitchell Report was released.

   There are only two possibilities: 1. Clemens is telling the truth, in which case he has been the victim of one of the great travesties of justice in our lifetime, with his reputation left in tatters right alongside his legacy in the game itself; or 2. Clemens is lying, in which case I could still suggest that the punishment already incurred and likely to follow is grossly disproportinate to the offense. Even if you decide that he must be flogged for perjury, it’s worth noting that if we are going to come down that hard on Americans who lie to Congress, it would at least seem less hypocritical if we were even remotely as outraged when the lying goes in the opposite direction.

* * * * *

   And speaking of political correctness, several weeks back, there was a thankfully brief media stir when a video made the Internet rounds showing Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal at a cockfighting match in the Dominican Republic. The outcry was mercifully muted, in part because while the distaste for the enterprise is fairly uniform in this country, there was apparently some allowance made for the realization that it might hold a different sway in another culture.

   Still, it got me to thinking about my own checkered past, and thus prompted a bit of long-overdue confession. I am pretty sure the statute of limitations has long since expired, but I was present at a cockfighting match nearly 40 years ago in the jungles of the Philippines.

   It was Thanksgiving Day 1969, and at 19 years old I was prone to go along with whatever adventures were proposed, within limits. I had been in the Philippines all of six months or so, with another year to go. There had been a rather pronounced resurgence of violence against American sailors from the Communist Huks, a group that had originally resisted the occupation of the Japanese in World War II and had grew into a genuine insurrection from 1946-54. The Huks had re-formed as the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968, and posed enough of a threat to unwary sailors on liberty in Olangapo City outside the Subic Bay Naval Base that the Navy had designated virtually anywhere outside the city as “out of bounds.”

   Thus our foray into the jungle that Thanksgiving held the potential of getting us into a good deal of trouble regardless of our role in the local sporting events. The final spot in the jungle was a good 20-30 miles beyond the narrow strip of seedy bars and hotels that served as perhaps the ultimate liberty destination for sailors of the 7th Fleet and GI’s on R and R from in-country duty in Viet Nam.

   It wasn’t anything fancy like the chaotic arenas in the videos, but merely a cleared area of the jungle. As I recall, there were maybe a couple of dozen spectators, no more than that, but I concede that copious quantities of San Miguel beer may have clouded the memory. It only lasted a few minutes, and was such a tumultuous affair with all of the screaming and shouting from the local enthusiasts that I can’t even recall whether I had bet on the winner or not.

   I do recall that we ate the loser, cooked right there in the jungle over an open fire. Tasted like chicken ... really tough chicken.

Clemens: You're damn right I did

2008-02-08T09:36:56.2380000-05:00

Woefully deficient is the writer who must await the actual occurrence of events before he/she is able to effectively recap them for the reader. In that spirit ...

Good afternoon, Rep. Waxman, Rep. Burton and the members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. My name is Roger Clemens and I have been a Major League Baseball pitcher since 1984. I will read this brief statement before taking questions from the Committee.

Rep. Waxman, we live in a world that has magnificent, multimillion-dollar baseball stadiums, and those stadiums have to be patrolled by men with baseballs and bats and gloves. Who is gonna do it? You? You, Rep. Kucinich? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep about all the folderol surrounding human growth hormones and steroids, and you curse the valiant ballplayers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the use of such potions, while ostensibly a transgression outside the accepted rules of the game, probably helped to save the grand old game from the malaise that enveloped it following the strike and the cancellation of the World Series in 1994. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, helped in that rescue. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at Foggy Bottom cocktail parties, you want me on HGH, you need me on HGH. We use words like Cy Young, MVP and Hall of Fame. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent earning staggering salaries to play a game that is nothing less than a secular religion to millions. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to an assemblage of politicians that gleefully accepts perks and free passes from MLB owners who have been mystifyingly exempted from the normal rules of interstate commerce and the Sherman Antitrust Act, and then questions the manner in which those perks and passes are provided. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a VIP pass at the Will Call window, and head to the buffet in the owner’s box on the mezzanine level. The pate de foie gras is to die for. Either way, I don't give a rat's ass what you think you are entitled to.

Rep. Waxman: Did you take steroids and human growth hormone?

Clemens: You’re damn right I did.

Remembering fuzzy details of Mantle's last triple

2008-02-05T15:06:56.9160000-05:00

   One of the things that gives so much power to the memories of Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio is that, unlike in the case of Ruth, Cobb, et. al, there are still hundreds of thousands of fans who remember seeing Mickey, Ted and Joe actually play the game. And those memories can be powerful, if often embellished to the point of being apocryphal. With that introduction:

   I saw Mickey Mantle hit his final major league triple in a mid-summer game in 1968 against the Tigers, a doubleheader, in fact, at Yankee Stadium in heat so sweltering we couldn’t drink beer fast enough. We tried, though.

   It was way over 100 degrees, and we had taken a bus from Upstate New York (Johnstown, west of Albany), a four-hour bit of Animal House type business years before the movie came out. The bus was chartered by the local Eagles club, there was no restroom and there were huge, shiny metal garbage cans filled with beer for the trip downstate Sunday morning. The facilities, as such, consisted of a single five-gallon gas can like the Army used (gerry can) that rested in the middle of the aisle. It was not for the faint of heart or for the squeamish.

   The Tigers were in the middle of a pennant race and, ultimately, perhaps the most glorious year in the team’s history. The Yankees were in the tank yet again, awkwardly trying to adjust to the end of their incredible 1949-64 dynasty, which didn’t bother me at all, because I hated the Yankees. I was a Mets fan. Still am. But I loved The Mick.

   We also figured this might be the last chance to see The Mick, which was reason enough to visit the otherwise reviled Yankee Stadium. It was in the first game, I don’t remember the inning or the pitcher, but I think he was batting left-handed when he rocketed one back over the mound and into dead center. As I’ve told the story for the last 40 years, the ball was struck with such ferocity that it never got more than 10-12 feet off the ground, yet made it all the way to the monuments in centerfield on the fly, back when they were actually on the field of play. And that’s what got Mick the triple. It was one of the hardest-hit balls I ever saw in my life, and certainly the hardest-hit ball that didn’t leave the park.

   As we screamed and dumped Ballantine beer on one another, Mantle hobbled around the bases. He seemed to barely make it to second, but as the ball clattered like a pinball between the plaques of Ruth, Gehrig and Miller Huggins, he didn’t have much choice but to limp on to third base. He made it standing up; it was the only triple that the hobbled Mantle would hit that season.

   I would join the Navy in a couple of months and be in the Philippines before Richard Nixon could set foot in the White House. The trip to see Mickey’s last triple was also the last chance before joining the military to do a bit of bonding with my father. We didn’t call it bonding in 1968.

   As to the reference to apocryphal above, I guess I would find it disconcerting if all the facts didn’t line up the way I remember them, but as the circumstances have been described, I’d have at least one really good excuse if they didn’t.

Topps book used to make ersatz artifacts

2008-01-29T12:58:47.5800000-05:00

   When Topps arranged with Warner Books in 1985 to publish Topps Baseball Cards: A 35-Year History, it was a really neat addition for the hobby. It is a wonderful book of several hundred pages, exact number unknown, because there are no page numbers and no table of contents. Just little pictures of the fronts of all the regular-issue Topps baseball cards from 1951-85.

   I know I liked the idea so much that my wife bought it for me as soon as it came out, paying full retail, which I think was about $85, an extraordinary amount at the time. It is a component of this discussion that Warner Books printed enough of the coffee-table tomes so that the book would eventually wind up in the bargain bins, reaching, as I recall, all the way to $20 or so, and probably less than that in some places.

   That’s hardly a reflection on the quality of the book, but merely an acknowledgement of the facts of life in the book-publishing biz. But the fact that it wound up at bargain prices was, no doubt, one of the major reasons that the various miscreants would soon descend upon the scene and begin performing their mischief.

   I mention all this because the other day I got an e-mail from a subscriber in New Mexico who had recently obtained five plastic rings that were “made for a child’s finger, that have on them very small representations of 1955 Topps cards, in this case: Dick Groat, Wally Moon, Al Rosen, Ed Lopat and Babe Herman.”

   He said he had been unable to locate a reference source to learn anything about the items or an estimated value. He also noted that the rings came in their own plastic bubble cases, according to him suggesting they were available through some kind of vending machine.

   Once I got a look at the five “cards” that he attached to the e-mail, it took a fraction of a second to note that they came from the aforementioned Topps book. Like so many reprints, there’s a discernible cast that just jumps out at you. I had to inform the guy of the bad news, something I’ve had to do from time to time in connection with these “cards” clipped out of the book.

   The other one I remember was quite a few years ago, maybe even as far back as the late 1990s. A collector sent the actual cards in, which made it even easier to figure out what had happened. The book had been chopped up, and in this instance it was the 1960 Topps section, with the images pasted on to gray cardboard backs. The collector told me that the cards had turned up in an estate sale, which would have helped lend an air of authenticity to them, except for the minor sticking point that they weren’t authentic.

   Honestly, I think it would be kinda cool to see a whole set of, let’s say, 1959 Topps in this mini fashion, but that also then places the onus on whoever created them to ensure that they don’t wind up in the hands of somebody who would try to pass them off as vintage originals.

   The bad news is that if you wanted to make a whole mini 1959 set, you’d have to cut up two books, since the pages feature cards back-to-back.

* * * * *

Sports Illustrated Jinx sinks the Packers

2008-01-23T11:41:55.8790000-05:00

   It’s been pretty gloomy around these parts, what with that icky NFC Championship Game on Sunday coming in the middle of a cold snap that makes me long for some global warming, or at least local warming.

   Once the disappointment of the Packers’ defeat started to ebb a little bit, I started thinking about finding someone or something to blame for the whole debacle, and fairly quickly came up with Sports Illustrated magazine.

   The infamous “Sports Illustrated Jinx” struck again, and this time it was a double whammy, since the Big Guy, Brett Favre, wound up gracing their cover twice in the range of about two months. The first one was for the “Sportsman of the Year” designation; the second was that neat image of his pitching in the snow against Seattle.

   I’m not bitter, but if appearing on the cover is enough to send somebody to the showers, what happens when it’s twice in such a short span?

   And just for the record, I fully understand that attaching a significance to something like that is yet another example of “selective perception” that human beings employ as a means of trying to make sense of a confusing and often forbidding universe. Essentially, we remember those things that support our underlying hypothesis – in this case a Sports Illustrated “jinx” – and simply ignore all of the other instances when they don’t.

* * * * *

   In the course of surfing around the TV dial during NFC Championship huddles, timeouts and commercial breaks, etc., I ran across something that at first blush appeared to be billiards on ESPN, but upon closer examination turned out to be a grotesque abomination of my favorite “sport.”

   “Speed Pool” involves players running around the table trying to sink balls as fast as they can, a putrid contrivance that has nothing whatsoever to do with what is still a grand and elegant game when played in some fashion remotely in accordance with normal rules. Comparable mutations in other beloved sports might be something like “Tackle Golf,” or adding a Karaoke round in the final two minutes of each quarter of an NFL game. Thinking those last two whimsical suggestions are any more ridiculous than “Speed Pool” amounts to little more than a distinction without a difference.

   I can’t blame Sports Illustrated for this one, or even ESPN, for that matter. The cable TV behemoth has to feed a voracious monster that requires ever-greater mountains of programming, but there are still villains to be fingered in this sad affair.

   Atop that list is the world of professional pool, which has never been able to figure out how to market a sport/game that is played by millions of Americans every year. We’re not talking about curling here, though we might as well be given the various professional associations’ tepid abilities in marketing their product. Despite a couple of significant bumps every time Paul Newman makes a movie showcasing “Fast Eddie” Felson, pool has languished for all of my lifetime, never able to even create an effective professional circuit, to say nothing of its inability to solve the riddle of bringing the game to television viewers.

   And for those who like irony – and who doesn’t? – it gives me a chuckle that the women’s professional tour has done a far better job at these things. I suspect that if you asked people in a poll to name their favorite professional pool player, the winning name might be “Minnesota Fats,” or slightly more encouraging, maybe Willie Mosconi. There are a number of wonderful players on the men’s circuit these days, but they play at a level of obscurity that is nothing short of embarrassing.

   And there has been nothing that has taken place over the last 40 years that would provide any reason to hope that this forlorn situation will improve in my lifetime.