The Infield Dirt with T.S. O'Connell - Thursday, December 03, 2009

   Here are a few odds and ends from the recent Chicago Sun-Times Show that I blogged about briefly the other day.

   I saw a wonderful piece (shown here) from famed artist and photographer Robert Riger. It was at Kip Ingle’s table, a stunning drawing of Red Grange, signed by the Galloping Ghost himself. The autograph is great, but I would have been nearly as taken with the piece even had it been sans signature.

   I remember being enthralled by Riger’s elegant drawings in Sports Illustrated magazine when I was just a kid; his pencil artistry and Willard Mullin’s pen-and-ink work probably had as much to do with leading me into a real appreciation of black-and-white art as anything else. That and a love for newspapers, and at time when daily newspapers couldn’t afford to routinely run four-color pages.

   But the dynamic impact of color can hardly be overstated, and if you don’t believe me, I would point to an artist who was at the Sun-Times displaying dozens of spectacular originals, prints and giclees at his table, all with the sanction of Major League Baseball.

   John Prince is a self-taught artist from London, England, and he paints with acrylics, portraying major league stars in an attractive style that presents the player in the foreground with his jersey and team logo as a backdrop.

   I’ve pictured a couple of his paintings with my column in this week’s issue (Dec. 25) of Sports Collectors Digest, but unfortunately the pages are black-and-white, and his work needs to be seen in full color.

   Easy enough: go to www.sportsartworldwide.com. The prints and giclees are huge, usually about 32-by-24 inches, and his originals are even larger, often 48-by-36 inches, and the impact is extraordinary, which I assume is why MLB signed on to the project.

   I asked him how his first foray into the hobby show business had gone, and I already knew just from checking his table several timers during the weekend that there had been a good deal of interest in his work. “Some folks said they wanted to wait a couple of weeks until they got their wage packets,” he said in a cherry British accent. I am pretty sure I couldn’t have said it better myself.

   At the other end of the show floor, the group of Negro League Legends that typically appears at the Chicago show was once again there signing autographs and chatting with fans, but this time they had added something new for sale.

   Triumph Books, the publishers of Few and Chosen: Defining Negro League Greatness, dontated three dozen of the books to the group as a fundraiser. That would have been cool enough, but Triumph also got the books signed by authors Monte Irvin and Phil Pepe, with the Negro League Legends adding their own signatures as requested (www.negroleaguelegends.org).

   This is Baseball Hall of Famer Monte Irvin's assessment of the greatest players from the old Negro leagues, and that's an extraordinarily worthwhile undertaking, given that modern fans have such a minimal understanding of the great players who were denied the opportunity to play at the major league level. Since statistical evidence remains so sketchy in trying to get a clear picture of these largely overlooked giants, the contribution from one of the few remaining Negro leaguers (Irvin) seems welcome indeed.

   Note I don't refer to him with the common yet redundant "former" qualifier, since there are no current Negro leaguers.

Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:57:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Snubbing Miller once again would be indecent ...
Posted by T.S.

   In less than a week, the Veterans Committee vote for the Hall of Fame is going to be announced, and I am here to tell you that Marvin Miller better be one of those duly honored.

   There are a total of 20 managers, umpires and executives on the two separate ballots, and I can easily imagine even a half dozen names eventually winding up with a plaque in Cooperstown, but if credibility of the voting process itself is the primary issue, then Miller needs to be the first one so enshrined. It’s not even a close call.

   I know I’ve griped about this for many years, but it’s worthy of protest until it is resolved. There may not be anybody at all who holds a HOF plaque via the executive route who has had as great an impact on the game as Miller. Maybe Branch Rickey, or even Judge Landis, but his total record is something of a mixed bag, what with his reactionary stances on important matters like labor equity and breaking the color barrier.

   And I know there are millions of fans who might feel that Miller’s role in restructuring how the game’s vast revenues are apportioned is a negative one, but that myopic view doesn’t change the reality of his impact.

   The committee charged with the vote on Miller consists of seven either current or former team executives, three longtime sportswriters and BBWAA members and two former ballplayers (Robin Roberts and Tom Seaver).

   After a preposterous vote total in 2003 left Miller behind Walter O’Malley (48 percent to 44 percent) and then a subsequent vote in 2007 again left Miller out in the cold (10 votes short), the voting procedure was altered yet again, leaving the decision to the 12-man committee.

   It’s that structure that has reportedly led Miller to protest that the process was “rigged,” and also to ask the Hall to remove his name from the ballot. I think I understand that frustration, but I’m still glad he’s on the ballot.

   I suspect that there’s going to be a lot of public and behind-the-scenes efforts to right this long-running travesty, and with Miller, now 92 and facing the kind of health issues one supposes you would confront if you lived that long, I’m hoping that decency will prevail.

   Initially, when his name first came on the ballot, it was a question of fairness, but it’s long since evolved to something even more elemental than that.

   It would be indecent to snub his candidacy once again.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009 3:23:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The bat is not real, but the DiMaggio autograph is ...
Posted by T.S.

   In November of 2004, I can remember walking around the Hunt Auction displays at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, Ky., and marveling at all the amazing pieces that were slated for that first-ever auction linking the auction house and the famed Kentucky bat makers.

   Bats, bats, everywhere, and the one that caught my eye wasn’t even real, although it certainly looked as though it was. Amid literally dozens and dozens of pricey game-used bats from everybody from Jim Thorpe to Babe Ruth, there stood a remarkable painting showing the barrel of a Joe DiMaggio model that looked so real you were tempted to reach out to feel the grain of the wood.

   Charles De Simone’s 20th-Century Art Collection marks the continuation of a two-decade odyssey by the acclaimed New York artist that has produced more than 100 one-of-a-kind pieces that celebrate the game of baseball and many of its most famous practitioners. I say “many,” rather than all, because of one of many unique aspects to his series: all of the paintings are signed by the players portrayed, always on a single-signed baseball on the canvas that, like everything else, looks so real that you want to reach out and pick it up.

   That would be enough to make any such venture intriguing, but having DiMaggio as the subject is even significant, since for so many years in the 1980s and 1990s he would refuse to sign original artwork.

   I mention all this because there is another such De Simone/DiMaggio treasure in our Collect.com Auction, which closes Thursday night. The DiMaggio piece (Lot No. 403) is one of three De Simone offerings in the sale: Cal Ripken and Mike Schmidt are the other two.

   I know I can be charged with a blatant bit of electioneering here (the metaphorical vote is done in dollars), but the fine-art lineup in the auction is once again extremely strong, with entries from a wide range of talented artists.

   And that DiMaggio piece from 2004 at the Louisville Slugger Auction? It sold for $1,840.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009 3:55:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

And Bobby Knight will not sign chairs, either ...
Posted by T.S.

   Just got back from Chicago and the Sun-Times Show, and our perspective on the venerable Chicago institution has shifted a bit if for no other reason than our table location did as well.

   After years of being at the front entrance, we found our table moved to an island unto ourselves adjacent to the autograph pavilion. It’s really just an autograph area, but it sounds cooler to say pavilion.

   Another change was that unlike previous years, our table was loaded with displayed items from our upcoming auction, so I couldn’t get around as much as I typically would, given the need for someone to be at our table at all times.

   Our new location provided greater proximity to the autographing festivities, but as noted it was still difficult to get away and loiter much with the dignitaries. It was neat to see former Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, who at 77 looks like he can still bring it.

   It was also fun seeing so many legendary Packers, including Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Willie Davis, Boyd Dowler and Jerry Kramer. It is always interesting to see what the various prohibitions are that players have about autographs; several players won’t sign jerseys unless there are already a couple of signatures on it. I understand the underlying strategy, but it seems like a Catch 23 or so, assuming that a significant number of players adopt the idea.

   Bobby Knight had restrictions about not signing any books by biographers Bob Hammel or Joan Mellen, and no Sports Illustrateds, either. Nothing specifically listed about chairs, but I think we can assume those would be verboten as well. I think it would be kinda fun to be a fly on the wall should somebody have the, uh, chutzpah, to actually step up in front of him with one in tow, but in the CIA-like security cocoon that engulfs autograph show guests, it’s not likely that anyone could ever get that far along.

   A goodly number of the autograph signers fell within the Mounted Memories program called Rollback Prices, a grouping that included perhaps the best all-time signer, Brooks Robinson. He’s the same price as his 1960s National League counterpart, Ron Santo, who was also at the show and signing on both Saturday and Sunday.

   I’ll have a bit more later as I talk about my relatively brief forays around the show floor.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 4:08:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

1984 Tigers get the royal treatment they deserve ...
Posted by T.S.

   I was tickled the other day to see a digital image (shown here) of a poster featuring the 1984 Detroit Tigers and used as a promotional giveaway for a two-part reunion show produced by Mark Dehem, owner of The Athlete Connection in suburban Detroit.

   The original artwork for the poster was created by one of my favorite artists, Paul Madden, of www.Maddenart.com. The artwork measures 24-by-36 inches, featuring 35 players, five coaches and manager Sparky Anderson. A very egalitarian total, apropos of perhaps the greatest post free agency blue-collar team, and an undertaking just as perfectly suited to Madden’s unique talents.

   While his incredible sports art is best known by our readership, Madden’s reach extends way beyond the various sports arenas. He has created pieces for Disney, other major film studios and any number of television series, usually crafting these intricate but exquisitely designed and constructed masterpieces that often portray literally dozens and dozens of individuals.

   Madden has done poster commissions like this one for years, and boasts a client list that includes dozens of major banks and corporations. This time, to honor the great 1984 Tigers squad, Legendary Auctions sponsored the printing of the posters, which was held to an edition of – you guessed it – 1,984 pieces.

   The first half batch of posters were given away to the first 992 paid attendees at the July Midwest Sports Collectors Show; the posters will be similarly distributed at Denhem’s Nov. 27-29 Thanksgiving Weekend show (www.Midwestsportscollectors.com) at The Rock Financial Showplace in Novi, Mich., also in suburban Detroit.

   Madden’s artwork is so meticulously created it leaves onlookers breathless; he works in a combination of colored pencil and markers, producing visuals at once stunningly realistic and just as compelling with faultless use of vivid colors.

   Veteran dealers and show goers no doubt have seen Madden over the years at shows in the Midwest and even on both coasts, most notably perhaps at the annual Sun-Times shows and the no defunct SportsFest shows that Krause Publications promoted for nearly a decade.

   And unlike the stereotype of the artist as hapless businessman, he can be pretty crafty in that regard as well. Several years ago at Sun-Times, he was set up a good seven or eight rows away from our Sports Collectors Digest booth, and facing away from us.

   Undaunted, he took his massive Henry Aaron original artwork and displayed it at the back of his booth, pointed directly at me. I stared at it for the better part of three days – and even visited it up close several times when he wasn’t looking – and by Sunday afternoon pulled the trigger.

Thursday, November 19, 2009 3:16:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Musings on 1959 and 2012 ...
Posted by T.S.

   Two things are on my mind, and one of them is not really related to sports, but I offer it anyway because there’s not better way to confirm my conclusion than to solicit responses from the readership.

   I’ll go in chronological order: 1959. I recently finished writing an catalog description for our upcoming auction, and one of the lots was a really neat run of 1959 Topps fifth series cards. Herewith a portion of the write-up:

   Do you own a NR-MT to MT 1959 Topps Baseball partial set, but for some reason you ended up without any cards from No. 375 to No. 440? Then your troubles are over, my friend. Here’s an absolutely spectacular run of 66 cards from that series, all virtually unimprovable. And the snowy white backs are virtually as nice, and so clean with the blazing bright red and green colors that I caught myself whistling “The Little Drummer Boy” as I typed this up.

   My question is: How does somebody end up with a segment of a series in this kind of condition? I am sure there’s a rational explanation – and, of course, I could ask the consignor – but it’s more fun to just pose the question to the readership.

   I once had a blazing run of the First Series from 1964 Topps Baseball, with a Mantle I’d kill to have back in my slimy little mitts, but that was a whole series that I purchased as a series from Larry Fritsch back in the late 1960s.

   This grouping of 1959s is so nice I’m wrasslin’ with myself about the possibility of bidding, even though you would technically have to be insane to considering upgrading my already NR-MT fifth series cards.

   Part II of this blog concerns "2012," the movie. I saw it last weekend, and while I won’t try your patience with a movie review (I liked it, though), I was most intrigued by a bit of reel customizing that was obviously done to the prints for theatrical release in Wisconsin.

   At three distinct points in the film, roughly in the beginning, middle and at the end, a line of dialog was included that clearly called for a state or city to be mentioned, and the structure of all three lines was such that virtually any state could have been mentioned.

When “Wisconsin” was the answer to the first installment, I already suspected that probably every state was getting its own custom print in theatres, and by the middle and final ones there could be little doubt.

   It seemed like a fairly innocuous invention, not unlike when newspapers create distinct editions for different circulation areas, but I’d never noticed it in the movies before.

   As might be expected, people were tickled to have their own state mentioned, even in this context of possible unimaginable calamity.

   Boy, am I going to look like a weeinie if it turns out that “Wisconsin” was the right answer to all three questions in every last one of the thousands of theatres nationwide.

   I don’t think so.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:12:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Adams lets fly coolest bird since Fidrych ...
Posted by T.S.

   It’s long been a rule of mine that old geezers (you pick the starting age, generally somewhere well past my 59 years and extending to Phyllis Diller range) ought to be able to get away with just about anything they do or say, provided, of course, that no actual laws are broken and no one is materially harmed in the process.

   With that tortured preamble, I hereby vigorously defend one Bud Adams, he of ambidextrous bird-flipping talents as he found himself in a frenzy after his Tennessee Titans routed their archrival Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

   Oh, I understand the necessity of a fine from the NFL, which naturally has to be aghast at such unruly behavior during a game where 100 rugged athletes do their best to annihilate each other over the course of 60 minutes of brutal collisions. Can’t have the kiddies asking mom and dad what those hand signals from the owner’s booth were all about: I concede that’s awkward.

   So the NFL had to sack him, but $250,000 seems a little outrageous for a pro football pioneer who got a little carried away in the heat of the battle. I presume that the NFL, which raises millions of dollars every year for a number of charities, would earmark that handsome stack of bonus revenue for some such worthy cause, but that still doesn’t make it right.

   One supposes that deterrence is the biggest rationale the NFL would trot out to explain the enormity of the fine, that and the previously mentioned part about parents having awkward moments trying to explain the nuances of such gestures to youngsters.

   But a certain amount of that kind of delicate dance is to be expected in raising children. I remember making a gesture (not the bird) to my sister at the dinner table nearly 50 years ago, and getting a little “love tap” from my father for my troubles. This felt like a grave injustice, since I was mimicking an elaborate, two-handed gesture from soccer fans that I had seen in Sports Illustrated.

   Naturally, my defense was that I hadn’t known precisely what the gesture meant, but that was hardly solid ground, since I should have been able to discern from the context of the photo (thousands of really angry soccer fans) that the sentiment conveyed was something other than, “Jolly good play, old sport.”

   But I’m not defending Bud Adams because of a grievous miscarriage of justice a half-century ago in Johnstown, N.Y., nor am I suggesting that anybody should be cut a little slack just because they have deep pockets. Nope, I merely want to believe that if you get all the way to age 86 and haven’t got any felonies, high crimes or misdemeanors on your record in all that time, you’ve probably earned yourself a pass if you get a little carried away at a raucous football game or in the passing lane of Interstate 95 just south of the Philadelphia Airport.

   And even though I’m not technically an old geezer yet, I’m not apologizing to the guy in the yellow Volvo.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 10:26:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, November 16, 2009

Divvying up Madoff auction proceeds ...
Posted by T.S.

   I’ll be more than willing to fess up to the charge that I’ve found a good deal of morbid fascination with all things Madoff over the last year, so it should come as no surprise that the results of the first auctions to liquidate some of his ill-gotten stuff would catch my eye as well.

   The initial idea was to track the sports end of it, but it turns out that the sports memorabilia end of it just wasn’t that big of a deal, unless you count $14,500 for a shiny blue Mets jacket with his name on the back.

   That Mets connection is kind of grating, since he was friends with Fred Wilpon, the Mets owner, who, in turn, was a childhood friend of Sandy Koufax. Initially I’d read reports that the Mets finances were imperiled by the Madoff madness, but in recent weeks I’ve read stories that suggest the Mets did OK and got out from under early enough to even turn a profit. That last part isn’t quite as cheery as it might sound, since there’s a very real possibility that prosecutors could try to pursue such windfalls as part of the effort to reimburse victims.

   The other thing that made me giggle a bit was the apparent disdain that some of the auction and antique experts felt about the level of sophistication in his collecting habits. It wasn’t exactly as though he had black-velvet Elvis paintings or Dogs Playing Poker, but aside from an impressive pile of hideously expensive watches and other pricey jewelry, there seemed to be some implicit disappointment that his collecting bent hadn’t been a bit more spectacular.

   A New York Times columnist even invoked the nearly hackneyed phrase about “the banality of evil.” Maybe. At the very least he probably merits being included in a club that has Adolf Eichmann as its charter member.

Monday, November 16, 2009 8:10:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Library of Congress book is a grand slam ...
Posted by T.S.

LOC 1944.jpg

   For a hobby that sailed along handsomely without much of a literary archive for a long time, ours has turned around in spectacular fashion in recent years with an extensive array of important reference works that now constitute a significant library all by itself. At such a moment, who better than to weigh in with yet another major-league keeper than the Library of Congress?

   Maybe the trend got its official start in 1999 with the still other-worldly Halper Collection Catalog, but even that marvelous piece of work owes its own heritage to any number of massive auction catalogs in the 1990s that so impressively displayed in full color all the classic cards and memorabilia that would typically move on the auction circuit. Just by their nature and their utilitarian role in the hobby/industry, such catalogs usually found the writing constrained by the demands of commerce.

   Obviously, the Halper tome took it a step further with a more literate feel to the text, along with an attendant nod to baseball history that would have been impossible to keep out of its pages in any case. Then, just in the last five years, there have been wonderful books that clamor for spots on the most elegant coffee tables as well as demanding library shelf space, most notably the Stephen Wong epic Smithsonian Baseball in 2005.

   Well, it's time to nudge that volume over a few inches on your coffee table to make room for Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress, authored by a Murderer’s Row of baseball historians, to say nothing of a nifty foreword by noted baseball fan George Will.

   The erudite Mr. Will sets the table for Harry Katz, Phil Michel, Wilson McBee, Susan Reyburn and our own Frank Ceresi, a longtime SCD columnist and a former consultant at Sotheby’s. That lineup conspired to produce a remarkable 240-page classic that lays claims to more than 350 illustrations – many never before published – including first-generation vintage photographs to die for, newspaper clippings, magazine covers, sheet music, advertising display pieces, chromolithographic baseball cards, WPA photographs and a whole bunch of cool stuff that you’ve never seen before. Even if you had a front row seat at Sotheby’s in the fall of 1999, this thing is going to be a treat and a surprise.

   Turns out that, by its own assertion, the Library of Congress boasts the largest collection of baseball material in the world, but because the vast majority of it is securely salted away, getting a look at most of it isn’t quite as simple as in a more traditional museum setting.

   As Ceresi explained to me in a phone interview, it’s not that the stuff isn’t accessible for the general public, but more prominently that well-honed research skills come in handy in poring through the archives and finding it.

   “We rolled up our sleeves and went to rare books, prints and photographs and newspapers and began pulling out some wonderful things,” Ceresi said in describing the beginning of a process that took several years.

   With the incredible website (www.loc.gov), the Library of Congress has already done much to expand its reach beyond the Beltway, and the elegant Harper Collins book represents another important step in that direction. “The LoC publishing offices want to get the stuff out there for the people to see and enjoy. The online presentation is the most visited on the Worldwide Web, but it’s a mere smattering of what we saw,” Ceresi added.

   The amazing book will be the cover subject in this week’s issue of SCD (Dec. 4), but I’ll close here by adding one more note. Have you ever seen an uncut sheet of 1887 N172 Old Judges? It’s on page 59, and while we traditionally refer to the N172’s as being from 1887-90, saying 1887 works OK here, since the Library of Congress copyright stamp is included on the bottom of the page. How cool is that?

   Don’t bother to answer: it was rhetorical.

Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:29:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tales of regional rivalries or, Who mailed my cheese? ...
Posted by T.S.

    I got a press clipping the other day mailed from a reader in Metro New York and it was a photo copy of a New York Post article from Jan. 19, 2008, talking about how New York had upended the favored Wisconsin in the 2007 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest.

   The article was timed for the day before the NFC Championship Game between the Packers and the Giants and was obviously part of the carpet-bombing coverage strategy that overcomes editors of all stripes at such moments.

   Scrawled across the top was a notation about “Something to share with your Wisconsin friends,” which I took to be a fun poke at our legendary cheezenfreude. Doesn’t work for me personally, since I have nearly as much emotional attachment to Chateaugay, N.Y., as I do to Madison, Wis., the home of the cheese that had been expected to take the top prize. That tiny little Upstate New York village is just on the fringe of the circulation area that included my Saranac Lake, N.Y., bureau 30 years ago, near Lake Placid, the site of the 1980 Winter Olympics.

   I also found it fascinating that the tattered photo copy was reaching me nearly two years after its publication. I am not sure what prompted the mailing at this particular moment, since our Green & Gold don’t play the Giants this year in the regular season.

   The next day, the Sunday New York Times ran a full-page feature chronicling all 27 of the Yankees World Series titles, and then on the facing page ran a small story about Chicago’s legendary inability to nail down a World Series crown in more than 100 years. That, I presume, had to sting a little, from the juxtaposition and timing, if nothing else.

   And then they had to push it a little by implying that the Cubs could conceivably lift the infamous curse by inviting Steve Bartman throw out a first pitch or maybe coach first base. Ouch!

   From what I recall of that debacle – and our own National Convention’s quasi-serious invitation to Bartman to show up at the Chicago National two years ago – that winds up being a kind of cruel taunting of both the Cubbies and Mr. Bartman.

   Call me old fashioned, but I think we New Yorkers could have graciously celebrated yet another World Series triumph without feeling compelled to remind the beleaguered fans in Chicago that this is a particular bit of joy that the baseball gods have apparently conspired to deny them.

Geez, and me a Mets fan, feeling sorry for frustrated Cubbie lovers. Whoda thunk it?

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 4:31:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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