For an outfit that provides a good deal of lip service to the idea of preserving the “integrity of the game,” one wonders how much longer Major League Baseball is going to permit the first round of its “playoffs” to be a three-out-of-five affair.
  
   Forty years ago, teams would play 162 games and be rewarded with a trip to the World Series if they managed to compile the best regular-season record in their league. With each expansion of the playoff system, the payoff for being the best team over a six-month season was diminished. The other effect that it had was occasionally making the first two levels of the playoffs, the Divisional Championship Series and League Championship Series, more exciting than the World Series. Hell, sometimes teams have endured thrilling – and gruelling – playoffs, only to find themselves in a World Series that turned out to be anticlimactic.
  
   But the principal argument for expanding the first round to (potentially) seven games is that the integrity of the game is imperiled by having such a short series determine who moves on to the next round.

   The four-of-seven format is at least a tolerable number with historical roots dating back more than 100 years, and in any event it provides a bit more cushion for a team that might stumble – for whatever reasons – in those early games. See how handsomely the four-of-seven format worked for the Boston Red Sox in 2004.

   And I am not talking about this year’s playoffs or even any particular year. As I blog this, the Cubs and Brewers are down 0-2, but I’m not a fan of either, despite the geographic proximity to Iola, Wis.
  
   I’m still a Mets fan. If only we could have expanded the regular season to 166 games, I think we could have been alright.

   I noted the passing of Robert Gartlan the other day, and it got me to remembering about the wonderful statues that his company produced over the last 25 years or so.
  
   Launched in 1985, the Gartlan statues were an instant hit in the hobby, with a Pete Rose version that I think was about $800 from the start (larger version, signed) and a Joe DiMaggio that was in the same ballpark. Those lofty mid-1980s price tags were enough to keep me from pulling the trigger back then on those two, but I did purchase most of the others that originally retailed for about $200-$300, plus my ex-wife got me several for Christmas and birthday presents.
  
   The company stopped producing the sports pieces in the mid-1990s, but continued to make striking statues of popular entertainment figures. I have never understood why the sports pieces aren’t wildly more expensive than at issue price; one theory is that issuing the miniature version of the statues caused some confusion in the marketplace, but that seems iffy.
  
   I do think that there was some drop-off in the quality of the molds later on, certainly enough to make me pass on Luis Aparicio and several of the Negro Leaguers after having collected all the others except for the aforementioned Rose and DiMaggio.
  
   But it says here that the passage of time is going to be more generous with the main body of statues, arguably some of the nicest ever produced of Musial, Bench, Brett, Carlton, Ford, Schmidt, Spahn, Teddy Ballgame and Yaz.
  
   And I’m not plugging it because I am hoping to cash in. I would have bought all these statues even had there been no signatures involved, plus my Ted Williams statue has a hairline break in the ankle that isn’t visible but is there nonetheless. I only mention that in case other collectors found a similar flaw. As near as I can tell, it came from the factory that way, and my half-hearted attempts to get them to replace it never really panned out.
  
   I was a little aggravated at the time, but now I am too old to worry about such things. These are wonderful statues, period. I never met Bob Gartlan, but it would seem his legacy is imposing.

  
   Two of my favorite things in the hobby are now linked in a fashion that seems utterly perfect. Hunt Auctions’ considerable reach into the sports memorabilia marketplace expanded once again this week with the announcement that the Exton, Pa.-based auction company had purchased the famed Philly Show and will move the venerable hobby institution to Valley Forge from its current location in Reading, Pa.
  
   Hunt Auctions, on the heels of its recent linkage with Upper Deck, now conducts annual auctions with Louisville Slugger and at the Major League All-Star Fanfest, in addition to its own annual sales. Company President David Hunt said the show, currently underway this weekend at the Greater Reading Expo Center, will move to the Valley Forge Convention Center in suburban Philadelphia, bringing it closer to the city and to its roots tracing back to the mid-1970s.
  
   “We are really excited about this,” Hunt said in a phone interview prior to making an official announcement planned for at the show on Friday evening. “We’ve been a part of this show with Bob Schmeirer for many years, and he did a great job,” Hunt continued. “We saw a need for a show, and this makes sense for the industry.”
  
   Hunt said their goal was to keep those elements that had made the show – in its 100th edition with the show this weekend – so rich in its tradition and legacy, and in turn, modernize a bit by, among other things, bolstering the autograph component. He stressed that nothing was off the table in terms of future plans, but that changes would be mindful of the show’s noteworthy elements, which include providing free autographs and a reverence for all things vintage. The show will be held twice a year, in March and September.
  
   The Philadelphia Sports Card & Memorabilia Show, initially linked to the Eastern Pennsylvania Sports Collectors Club, traces its roots back to September of 1975 and an inaugural show at Spring Garden College outside of Philadelphia. The show hit its stride first in Willow Grove, Pa. (1978) and later in Fort Washington, Pa. (1993). With two shows annually in 1978, it expanded ultimately to four shows annually by 1990, and had also included several editions on the Jersey Shore in the 1980s. I used to set up at both the Philly Shows in Willow Grove and the Seashore ones, and it was right up there among the most fun I've ever had in the hobby. Technically, it may have been work, but I just can't call it that with a straight face.
  
   The show had flourished at the Fort Washington site but was forced to move in 2006 with the closing of that facility. Schmeirer had been actively searching for several years for a more permanent location than Reading, which was regarded as a transitional location not ideally located close enough to the Metro Philly area. Schmeirer had plans under way to bring the show to a different facility in Valley Forge prior to the announcement of the sale to Hunt Auctions.
  
   For three decades, the Philly Show has been regarded as perhaps the premier vintage card show in the country, bowing only to the National Convention in that regard. It was also felt that the primary reason the National never was staged in the Philadelphia area was the strength of the Philly shows.
  
   This is cool stuff, having an auction house with this kind of a reputation now running a show of the same ilk.
 

 
   At the time of the O.J. Simpson acquittal in his awful 1995 trial, I quickly pocketed the $100 I had won in a bet and then took to wondering what the rest of O.J.’s time on the planet was going to be like.

   I didn’t win the $100 because I though he was innocent, but rather because I didn’t think that the jury would convict him, which, obviously, are two very different conclusions.
  
   What would it be like, I mused, to have been an international celebrity, a Heisman Trophy winner, an NFL Hall of Famer and even an admittedly schmaltzy actor, and rather suddenly be this world-class pariah? The only thing I could conclude was that his life was going to be so bizarre as to be unfathomable.
  
   Well, just as I was with the verdict, I was correct on this one, too. No need to recap all of the tawdriness of the last 13 years; suffice it to say that it’s gotten so pathetic that few but the most ardent of O.J. watchers have even bothered with it.
  
   Most notably, mainstream media seem to have largely taken a pass on Simpson courtroom drama Part III, now under way in Las Vegas. Either I am subscribing to the wrong newspapers and magazines or O.J. Simpson’s day-to-day soap opera is deemed unwatchable.
  
   That said, if Simpson gets acquitted yet again, I’ll pony up that $100 that I won 13 years ago and give it to the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust. Yeah, that’s the same outfit I mentioned a week or so ago as a possible recipient of my largess if the that goofy T206 Honus Wagner card could somehow be authenticated.
  
   Since there’s no chance of that happening, I think I was feeling guilty that I had offered a “fake” donation to a very worthy charitable organization.
  
   At least with O.J., they’ve got a prayer at getting the dough.

  
   When I was a teenager growing up in Central New York, I lived maybe 65 miles or so from Cooperstown. We got to the Hall of Fame a couple of times when I was a kid, but I really developed my love for the town a couple of decades later as an adult.

   During the years that I lived in Delaware and Pennsylvania in the 1980s, we used to travel to Cooperstown probably twice a year. Once I told my ex-wife about the story of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the possibly apocryphal story about the little kid saying, “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” she started to cry and was hooked on baseball for good, or at least the literary side and the stories about great players from the past.

   I sure would have liked to have been at Cooperstown this past weekend as the Hall hosted its third annual Baseball Film Festival. I am a baseball fan first and foremost, but I'll betcha my affection for movies isn't far behind. The theme was a 20th anniversary salute to the classic film “Bull Durham,” and stars Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were on hand for the festivities, along with Robert Wuhl, who played coach Larry Hockett, and writer/director Ron Shelton. That star-studded lineup was part of a panel discussion at the Hall of Fame that was moderated by NBC film critic Jeffrey Lyons, another well-known baseball fan of epic proportions. (in the photo above, courtesy of the Baseball Hall of Fame, from left to right: Wuhl, Robbins, Sarandon and Shelton.)
  
   In the HOF’s news release on their website, they talk about an idea that Robbins came up with for a sequel, picturing his character, “Nuke” LaLoosh in 2008 signing autographs at a card show after blowing out his arm during an up-and-down year in the big leagues.
  
   “I could see Crash (Kevin Costner) and Annie (Sarandon) finding Nuke and helping his comeback to the big leagues as a knuckleballer,” said Robbins.
  
   Robbins also told of going through training to make the baseball segments look believable. “We all had to audition as baseball players and prove ourselves,” Robbins said. “I had played baseball growing up and played third but never pitched, but I did have a pretty good arm.”
   
   I always tell people around these parts that a visit to Cooperstown would be a great idea even if there were no such thing as the Baseball Hall of Fame. I just can’t seem to convince these cheeseheads that Upstate New York (which to New Yorkers means anything above the City) is just as nice as Wisconsin. It’s like Wisconsin with mountains.
  
   I used to visit Larry Fritsch, too, at those odd times when you could catch him out there working to set up his baseball card museum as he wrestled (figuratively speaking) with the good burghers of Cooperstown. And now they’ve got film festivals about baseball, too.
  
   I rarely plug websites, but if you start our at www.baseballhalloffame.org, you can go on for a very long time.
  
   Put me in, coach.

   Well. After a summer’s-worth of entries pouring in via e-mail, online and in just good old-fashioned mail, we’ve finally closed out the sweepstakes held in conjunction with the Topps Proof Series of articles, and pulled the names out of a hat to award the prizes.
  
   For those of you scoring at home, I concede I am a couple of weeks late in picking out the names. No good excuse, except the crush of other matters that kept us from getting to the project. Finally, on the morning of Sept. 16, we huddled up and did the deed.
  
   We had, I believe, more than 700 entries, which is a spectacular number in that we asked our readers to include comments on a wide array of hobby topics as part of the sweepstakes. Our subscribers, as devoted a group of readers as you’ll ever find, outdid themselves in providing thoughtful observations on everything from their own collections to telling stories about their best or worst autograph experiences and their greatest finds in the hobby.
  
   So without further ado, here are the prize winners, listed in descending order and ending with the grand-prize winner of the Topps Proof “Rarest Reggie” plaque created by Ernie Montella of the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society. The (2) Topps factory sets and (2) boxes of 2008 Topps Heritage were provided courtesy of the Topps Co.; the 1957 Pete Retzlaff photo used to create his Topps card, 1970 Topps Baseball point-of-purchase advertising display piece and the 1993 Nolan Ryan-signed card contract were provided courtesy of the Topps Vault.

10   Bob Feller single-signed baseball
     James Baurle, Rome, N.Y.
9   2007 Topps Baseball Factory set
     Eric Carlson, Smethport, Pa.
8   2002 Topps Baseball Factory set
      Ed Ash, Hudon, N.Y.
7   2008 Topps Heritage unopened box
      Mark Stirneman, Benton, Ill.
6   2008 Topps Heritage unopened box
     Eric Hillman, Exeter, N.H.
5   Billy Martin 1979 Mitchell & Ness jersey
      Darrell Comstock, Monroe, N.C.
4   1957 Topps Pete Retzlaff photograph
      David Barnes, Schenectady, N.Y.
3   1970 Topps POP advertising display piece
      Kermit Tanzey, Bartlesville, Okla.
2   1993 Topps Nolan Ryan signed card contract
      Timothy Pulcifer, Pasadena, Calif.
1   “Rarest Reggie” Topps Proof Series plaque
      Chuck Heyman, Weston, Fla.

   Congratulations to the winners and our thanks to everybody who took part. I didn't dawdle on this one: the stuff was mailed out Wednesday (Sept. 17).