I suppose the upcoming presidential election is going to cost the federal, state and local coffers hundreds of millions of dollars, and given how tight we are for cash these days, it would be a godsend if we could find a way to save a few bucks along the way.
  
   So naturally I am here to offer help in any way I can. Mastro Auctions has one of its Classic Collector sales slated to end on Oct. 29-30, and included in it are four lots each related to the two presidential candidates. I’m thinking the timing is probably something other than just coincidence.
  
   Three of the four lots match up perfectly for evaluation: PSA 9 single-signed balls (2 lots), and two original paintings by Darryl Vlasak (shown here) of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. SCD readers will no doubt remember Vlasak’s spectacular work, which has graced several of our covers over the years, and many of his original paintings have sold in previous major auctions.
  
   So how cool is that? On the morning following the auction’s Oct. 30 close (Halloween. Boo!), there is going to be a clear-cut winner from three decidedly nonpartisan polls. I guess people could quibble about the potential margin for error in such a markedly unscientific poll, but to that I say, Phooey!
  
   About the only thing we have to worry about is a possible split decision, like one painting topping the other, but some differing numbers with the single-signed balls. Naw. It’s going to be a landslide.
  
   And the winner will be ...

   The hobby gets another boost next spring when Rob Lifson of Robert Edward Auctions offers yet another of the hobby’s famous T206 Honus Wagner cards.
  
   This time it’s the Wagner that was once owned by actor Charlie Sheen, who had put it on display at the All Star Cafe in Times Square in New York City in the 1990s.
  
   In 1998, three Cafe staffers conspired to steal the Wagner from the display case, replace it with a reprint that could easily pass muster from a distance, and then sell the real one.
  
   The plan worked for awhile, but then the trio struck again after a display case broke at the restaurant, providing an opportunity to snatch another of Sheen’s treasures, the highest-grade known of a 1934 Goudey uncut sheet with the 1933 Nap Lajoie on it.
  
   The crew cut up the sheet (groan!), but without a suitable ersatz version to conceal the crime, the deed was revealed, and then the Wagner switch also came to light.
  
   The FBI arrested the thieves and the stolen cards were returned to Sheen. He would sell the card at auction three years later for $78,000, which according to Lifson was a record price at the time for a lower-grade Wagner.

  
   I marvel every year at the vast array of calendars that show up in bookstores every year, and I used to spend a good deal of timing perusing them, but not so much over the past decade or so.
For at least that long, The Hallowed Ground Calendars produced by Bill Goff Inc. (www.goodsportsart.com) have served nicely in that capacity.
  
   And this year’s calendar (2009) hits even closer to home, since my friend, and SCD contributor Andy Jurinko, is the featured artist for the whole calendar, an honor never before bestowed on any single artist.

   Ebbets Field is on the cover (and June), but other headliners include Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, both of which are slated for demolition as the teams move to brand-new parks in 2009. Also featured: Crosley Field (Cincinnati), Griffith Stadium (Washington D.C.), Sportsman’s Park (St. Louis), Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles), Fenway Park (Boston), Comiskey Park (Chicago), Tiger Stadium (Detroit), Polo Grounds (New York), Veterans Stadium (Philadelphia), and Forbes Field (Pittsburgh).

   Jurinko needs no introduction to SCD readers, who have enjoyed his work in our pages from even before I started here full time in 1993.

   The 2009 edition of Hallowed Ground is available at www.goodsportsart.com for $17 each plus $6 shipping and handling, or by calling 1 (800) 321-4633.  

   I give the Hall of Fame a lot of credit for almost obsessively tinkering with the various voting procedures in an attempt to make the process as fair and credible as possible. Ultimately, it still comes down to subjective decisions about who belongs in the elite ranks of the game’s historical record, but you can’t fault the organization given that lofty charge for trying so hard to refine the selection process.

   In recent weeks, the Hall released the ballots for Veterans Committee voting for 2009, broken down into two separate votes for pre-1943 players and those after World War II. As readers know, I love the Hot Stove League aspect of HOF voting, but I gotta admit that it just isn’t the same when considering guys I have never seen play.

   I could crunch numbers and probably make a tolerable case for a couple of the 10 guys on that ballot, but the zeal just wouldn’t be there. I suspect the numbers are right there (or close) for Carl Mays, Allie Reynolds and Bucky Walters, and even closer for Mickey Vernon, but the fact that I didn’t see them play makes it hard for me to get worked up about it. For Deacon White, who played before the turn of the century, I wouldn’t have a clue how to put his numbers into a useful context.

   If I were part of the 12-member voting committee that will render a decision (announced Dec. 8), I would feel compelled to do the homework and vote accordingly.

   For the post-war guys, it’s a snap because I saw all of them play, many of them in person. The Hall of Famers have the say on this one, which I think makes it tougher to get to that 75 percent threshold because you’re dealing with five times as many ballots.

   Without blinking (Remember, Sarah says no blinking allowed), I would enshrine Dick Allen, Gil Hodges, Tony Oliva, Ron Santo, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre and Maury Wills, and feel a wee bit guilty about passing on Jim Kaat. Torre shouldn't be bothered with, since he was a decent candidate just based on his playing career, and now its locked up with his manager numbers. So he's already in, but we can probably wait until he actually retires.

   That’s a lot of new bronze, but, of course, it’s not going to happen anyway. I still haven’t given up hope on Gil, and while I realize Allen is a long shot, it doesn’t change the fact that he was the most feared hitter in the National League in his prime. Oliva, Santo and Tiant may never make it either, but I suspect people who saw them play would feel otherwise.

   Ironically, one of the guys who had perhaps the greatest impact on the game of baseball may not get there either, but Maury Wills’ contribution is hardly diminished by the fact that its singular quality doesn’t translate effectively into statistics.

   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.