Once again, Tom Bartsch pinch-hits for T.S. O'Connell:

When it comes to Bernie Madoff, one of the last things I would have associated him with is baseball cards. Unless, of course, he managed to steal those, too and sell them for his own gain.

But then comes this subject line in my e-mail: "Topps Issues a Trading Card of the Swindler as Part of the New 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Product Out in June"

I get the whole social scene inclusion in Allen & Ginter but the only thing I want to do with a Madoff card is burn it.
       
The Madoff card will be a part of Topps' Allen & Ginter inserts of cards that feature the "world's biggest hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles," including disgraced ponzi schemer Madoff. The cards feature 20 perpetrators of some of the most notorious pranks, dubious claims and outright frauds of the last two centuries. Other notables in the set will include: Charles Ponzi, Enron, D.B. Cooper and The Run Away Bride, found in 1:12 packs.
 
According to the release, Topps originally developed the idea of "world's biggest hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles," inserts earlier this year prior to the Madoff scandal.

And I suppose he's the icing on that cake.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter includes a 350-card set featuring Major League Baseball players and champions from other sports. Along with the "Hoaxes, Hoodwinks and Bamboozles" insert set, collectors can also find subsets featuring "Creatures of Legend, Myth and Terror" and "National Heroes" from around the world.
 
So who do you want in your first pack of Allen & Ginter – Madoff or David Ortiz?

The SCD Editor is on vacation for a few days, enjoying golf in the supposedly warmer St. Louis area. And just his luck, he got sick just before he left. Neer fear, nothing will keep him off of the course.

Pinch-hitting for T.S. is Tom Bartsch. Have a great week.

It's always fun when you stumble onto a fellow collector, be it your neighbor, person at the grocery store or a co-worker. You instantly have a connection and can carry on a conversation for any length of time.

When that collecting link connects to someone famous, it's even more fun. Such is the case with Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley, who just happens to blog about his collecting adventures.

You can read one of the latest posts here.

The story goes a little like this. Cooley has decided to start collecting cards again, and he can't stop. His wife also gets into the act (wouldn't that be nice?). Now Cooley isn't the first player to get back into collecting, or keep up a childhood love, but he's one of the few that I know of that also takes the time to sell on eBay the cards he doesn't want. Can you tell it's the offseason in football?

If trading card manufacturers were smart, they would ask Cooley to bust boxes on their websites, as long as he then didn't turn around and sell them (if received gratis from the companies). What better way to promote collecting than have an athlete bust open packs? They should be a coordinatd thing between the leagues and car manufacturers.

Having someone who actually enjoys the process, and can speak intelligently on the subject is much better than watching some canned stage show in which rookies open packs during Rookie Premiers, etc. Cooley's blog is more genuine and I think it shows.

   Business was brisk enough at last weekend’s Sun-Times Show in suburban Chicago that I wasn’t able to get away from the SCD table much to check out all the stuff. Because it was too far away from our booth near the front entrance, I did get to see that Andy Madec had some nifty vintage images of Philadelphia Athletics that he picked up at the Philly Show only the week before, and farther back on the show floor there was periodic episodes of the organized mayhem of “Card Wars,” this time orchestrated at the booth belonging to Big John & Little Debby’s of Chicago.
  
   Kip Ingle, one of the best-known golf dealers in the hobby, was displaying items slated for a golf auction nicely timed with a certain event planned for early April in Augusta, Ga. The lineup for that sale includes Masters badges, a 2009 Masters flag signed by Japanese phenom Ryo Ishikawa and about 300 other lots. For more information click here
 
   Kwik Mit Mania
   But for nonstop action at the show, aside from the bustling autograph area, it was hard to top the energy level at the Hartland Ohio booth and environs, where Mike Shuba & Co. were explaining (with a flourish) the attributes of the Kwik Mit, which they are hoping will catch on with an adoring public roughly in the fashion of the Pet Rock or the Hula Hoop.
  
   The genesis of the unusual idea came from none other than 1955 Brooklyn Dodger George “Shotgun” Shuba,” who asked son Mike one day why no one had ever devised something to aid fans in the stands in catching foul balls and home runs.
  
   “We hope it will become a fad for the ballpark and picnics,” Mike Shuba told me only minutes after a demonstration in front of the Legendary Auctions (formerly Mastro) booth near the entrance to the show.
  
   The “mit” is a piece of foam, roughly the diameter of a fielder’s mitt, that is sticky on both sides, with the American flag (and space for corporate sponsorships) on the front and a scorecard on the back. The idea is that fans peel off the protective strips from both sides, place the Kwik Mit against your chest and you’re ready for a foul fly or a home run. Once you jump up and spill your popcorn and beer, the idea is to slap your chest, adhering the the Kwik Mit to your hand, where you then engulf the ball with the sticky portion on the other side.
  
   All I can tell you is that it’s such a unique concept that you probably have to see one to understand it. The marketing plans call for a suggested retail price of $5; the Hula Hoop sold for all of $1.98 in 1958, and if you do the math, that makes the Kwik Mit a major-league bargain a half-century later.

   I saw a news item recently that said the Detroit Tigers were taking a bit of heat because of the scheduling of their home opener on April 10, more precisely noting that some Catholics were upset that the 1:05 p.m. start time came during the noon to 3 p.m. period when traditional Christian belief holds that Jesus was hung on the cross.
  
   It got me to wondering how this particular conflict hadn’t come up before, but of course it might have and simply escaped my attention. What didn’t get past me was the 1965 decision by Sandy Koufax to forego pitching in the World Series opener against the Minnesota Twins because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.
  
   I was just a 15-year-old kid, frantically following the approaching World Series in the New York Daily News, and I was just awestruck that somebody (actually my favorite pitcher) could take a pass on what I regarded as a secular assignment with near-religious overtones.
  
   Mostly it just impressed me with the seriousness of the Jewish faith; the decision only enhanced my view of Koufax, aided neatly by the later developments that saw the Dodgers win in seven games. By my way of thinking, it was no harm, no foul.
  
   (Sandy Koufax artwork by Arthur K. Miller; www.artofthegame.com)
  
   I also found it fascinating to learn years later as I became something of an amateur baseball historian that there was never really any major decision involved for Sandy. He had long since made it clear to the Dodgers’ brass that he would not play on Yom Kippur, so when the prohibition coincided with one of the holiest days in the baseball world, it was what we would later call a “no brainer.”
  
   That same thirst for reading about baseball history would lead me to Hank Greenberg’s decision to skip a game during the 1934 pennant race for the same reason. Scholars have debated the relative importance of the two; for me, it’s enough to note that I lived through the Koufax decision and yet fully understood the heightened significance of Greenberg’s choice because of the confluence of monumental historical events involving Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.
     

“Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

   With that Curt Schilling announced his retirement, sending off stage a figure who brought a lot to the game of baseball – including an outspoken persona – at a time when such unvarnished maverickiness was sorely needed.
  
   See, even in his exit from the spotlight he inspired me to invent a new word that is – like the man himself – equal parts nonsense and exquisitely annoying. That’s pretty much how I thought of him over the years and so I applaud his good theatrical instincts for always insisting on being true to himself.
  
   He also, I presume inadvertently, performed yet another public service in his choice of rhetorical device for his announcement, noting that, “To say I’ve been blessed would be like calling Refrigerator Perry ‘a bit overweight.’ ”
  
   The Fridge is, in fact, not a bit overweight at all these days as he struggles with Guillan-Barre syndrome, but I think it's fortuitous that Schilling called attention to the beloved Bruin. He was hospitalized last year for five months and turned up at the recent Sun-Times Show in Chicago with the aid of a wheelchair in order to take part in the reunion of the Bears’ 1985 Super Bowl Champions.
  
   Back to Curtsie. A week or so ago I raised the discussion point about evaluating players’ careers for Hall-of-Fame consideration and juggling the dual importance of statistics and postseason excellence. Schilling will present yet another strong element in that debate, with career numbers that might have made him iffy or simply a tough call, but mixed in with that sterling 11-2 October log he seems like a much stronger candidate.
  
   Me, even though I was never a huge fan, I’d be inclined to give him the Cooperstown nod based on the fact that he was one of the dominant pitchers of the period in which he performed.
  
   Plus, he was never boring, and I always like that, even if I don't agree with everything.

   As I have explained numerous times, I am working frantically to get
accustomed to this blogging business, and that includes understanding and
orchestrating the comments section at the end of each blog.
  
   Creating discussion is an important element in the interactive component
of modern media, but in the case of commentary on my blog, it needs to be at
least remotely related to the blog content.
  
   As the editor of Sports Collectors Digest, I have no role in determining
matters related to advertising, and thus am pretty careful about not
creating blogs that blur the line between editorial and advertising.
  
   I also understand that for the individuals who want to control the
direction of commentary on the site that is a point of frustration, but it's
the ground rules that we are faced with. Confronted with numerous posts
about matters over which I have no control, there's nothing that I can
provide in the way of discussion.
  
   I am subsequently charged with being a censor because some posts have
been deleted. Again, there's not much I can say about it, other than to note
that there's nothing in my history or background to suggest an affinity for
censorship or curtailing the free flow of ideas. With this understood, we
will continue to delete comments that simply are designed to harangue me
into discussing areas that fall outside the editorial end of SCD.
  
   Some of the comments related to the dissolution of the Mastro Auctions
behemoth do prompt this observation: the available information about what is
currently underway in the hobby is minimal to non-existent at the moment.
Even the initial reporting in the New York Daily News last summer was
virtually without discernible attribution, and nothing reported since then
has changed that situation.
  
   What moves through the hobby is recycled, second-hand speculation that
travels at the speed of light and takes on a sheen of legitimacy that wasn't
present at its birth. If I am going to be a party to disseminating something
that has such extraordinary impact, I would want to be convinced of its
unassailable nature.
   We ain't there yet.

   I spent the weekend at the Chicago Sun Times Show at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., and it’s hard not to notice that our hobby that’s so resistant to change finds a degree of it unavoidable at modern card shows.
  
   Just as its famous counterpart in Valley Forge, Pa., the iconic Philly Show has done for decades, the Sun-Times Show holds a unique position for Midwest collectors as a twice-annual reminder of how the hobby started and the powerful hold that shows have.
  
   Still, even a horse like the Sun-Times has had to make concessions to the current economic climate, this time with a show about 16 percent smaller in terms of the number of dealers.
  
   Show promoter Brian Schwartz insisted the attendance numbers were probably close to those of the November 2008 show, and noted a strong turnout from fans for reunion of the beloved 1985 Super Bowl Champions Bears on Sunday afternoon.
  
   Chronicling sales is even trickier, since such considerations can vary widely depending upon whom you ask. A number of dealers told me that collectors seemed a little slow to pull the trigger on deals, a perhaps understandable observation given the tenor of the times. For my part, it seemed to me there was a bit more sightseeing than I might have expected, with many collectors seemingly give short shrift to many dealers as they walked by.
  
   Still, there was a lot going on, from a serious buzz Sunday from all those lovable Bears to a Heisman Trophy that walked in the door Saturday afternoon, in a manner of speaking. Plus, all weekend long, the gang from Hartland and Mike Shuba (shown in photo at right), the son of George “Shotgun” Shuba, were hawking a unique “Kwik Mit” that is designed to give fans at the ballpark a big assist when it comes to catching foul balls and home runs.
  
   More on all of that later this week.

   I saw a news item in the New York Times the other day that said Mark McGwire had been working with four current major league players helping them on their hitting, which he clearly knows a little something about.
  
   According to the news report, McGwire agreed to the interview with the understanding that “it would focus on his work as a hitting tutor and not on other issues.”
  
   I was glad to see the story, in part because I was never comfortable with the public pasting that Big Mac took as a result of that ill-fated appearance in front of the chuckleheads in Congress. He took a lot of heat for declining to discuss the past, including seeing his initial Hall-of-Fame vote opportunities plummet, for essentially doing what every last one of us would have done had we been put in the same untenable circumstance.
  
   I don’t much like government compelling people to testify about stuff that they know ultimately puts them in serious jeopardy for their livelihood or even their freedom, or in this instance for well-deserved recognition (HOF) for a lifetime’s achievements.
  
   All the clamor about performance-enhancing drugs drowns out the reality that McGwire was as exemplary a major league ballplayer as we’ve had over the last 20 years, his treatment of the family of Roger Maris during the historic home run chase in 1998 being way up there on my list of stuff that helped remind me that some of the modern guys can be just as cool as my favorte old-timers.
  
   I’ve known a number of people in our hobby who have had considerable contact with McGwire and they pretty universally defend him as being one of the genuine good guys. He took a lot of heat even before that 2005 Congressional hearing because of the price of his autograph or even his willingness to sign in the traditional show setting, but I’m not sure that’s been fairly presented either.
  
   I also really liked a quote in the New York Times article from another modern ballplayer I’ve heard good things about, Matt Holiday. He was one of four ballplayers from the A’s and Cardinals that McGwire tried to help; the first one, Chris Duncan of the Cardinals, credited McGwire’s role in helping him to a .302 batting average last year.
  
   Holliday reportedly brushed off suggestions that working with Big Mac might affect his reputation. “I wouldn’t ever not want to have somebody in my life that could be a good friend or somebody I could really enjoy or learn from based on what other people might think about it,” he said, according to the Times.
  
   I won’t quibble about grammar in a sentiment that I so readily agree with, certainly not from a ballplayer who reminds me of McGwire in terms of the way he conducts himself as a teammate and as a citizen of the world.
  
   It says here that McGwire’s Hall-of-Fame prospects are going to turn around someday and eventually he’ll wind up where he belongs.
  
   Gee, I hope that’s not just wishful thinking.

   The changes that started to happen in Major League Baseball when the red light came on atop that first television camera have only expanded and accelerated in the ensuing half century, but one of the most profound is the all-or-nothing philosophy surrounding the postseason.
  
   The importance of the World Series was always enormous – and thus the failure to get there a significant disappointment – but it wasn’t until the Fall Classic moved into prime time in the early 1970s that the true distortion really took flight. Now, failure to get there is a cross to bear for individuals and teams, despite the fact that mere numbers make it so much tougher in 2009 than it was in 1959.
  
   Just looking at it as a question of raw numbers, without accounting for things like big market vs. small market, etc., a team today has about a 7 percent chance of getting into the World Series; that bald number would have been about 13 percent in 1959. So in the same span that we have grossly overemphasized the importance of the prize itself, we have made it twice as difficult to achieve it.
   
   I personally blame Brooks Robinson for all of this. His remarkable 1970 World Series upped the ante for ballplayers in terms of what the ultimate stage could mean to a career. I had never seen one player so completely dominate a Series in the fashion he did that glorious autumn; another Hall of Famer, Roberto Clemente, would have the same kind of extraordinary impact just one year later, this time as the game’s marquee event made its first-ever sorties into television prime time.
   
   Thus we have these annual rituals where we have to tolerate incessantly regurgitated blather about Cubs Curses, A-Rod’s October misses and related meanderings about this or that player who – gasp! – has never been to the postseason.
  
   One wonders if Ernie Banks would have been forgiven his career-long absence of October pay stubs enough to have still made his way to Cooperstown.