The Infield Dirt with T.S. O'Connell - Wednesday, January 27, 2010

   I have more fun speculating about Hall of Fame related questions than just about anything I do in my role as editor of Sports Collectors Digest. I have always contended that election to the Hall is one of the defining elements – if not the defining element – of a player’s collectibility.

   The fact that I am on the mark in all this speculation only about half the time discourages me not at all, though almost every time I swing and miss I ended up being mystified that I could have done so. A batting average of .500 would sensational for a ballplayer, but not so hot for a pundit.

   And so I own up to being 0-for-2 in the 2010 Hall deliberations. Though I believed him more than worthy of election, I had thought that the wide range of choices on this year’s ballot might have diluted his support enough to make Andre Dawson come up just barely short.

   Then, to compound my error, I theorized that while Dawson had reportedly indicated a preference to having his HOF plaque show him in a Cubs cap, the arc of his career suggests that it should be as an Expo.

   So far so good, but that’s when I stumbled. I thought that since he had apparently indicated a preference, that might sway the HOF decision. And I was wrong (or possibly his alleged preference wasn’t quite as profound as it had been suggested).

   Either way, he’s going in as an Expo, and that’s just fine and certainly the correct choice in terms of accurately reflecting his career. While I was typing this blog, the Hall of Fame's official annoucement showed up on my e-mail, so in the spirit of embracing all this online immediacy, I'll include Dawson's quote about the decision and that of HOF President Jeff Idelson.

   "I respect the Hall of Fame’s decision to put an Expos logo on my cap, and I understand their responsibility to make sure the logo represents the greatest impact in my career,” Dawson said. “Cubs fans will always be incredibly important in my heart, and I owe them so much for making my time in Chicago memorable, as did the fans in Montreal, Boston and South Florida, my home. But knowing that I’m on the Hall of Fame team is what’s most important, as it is the highest honor I could imagine.”

   And Idelson: “Andre Dawson’s Hall of Fame career belongs to every one of his fans, in every city across the country,” said Idelson. “The logo selection is only important from an historical standpoint, as the Museum has a responsibility to properly interpret the game’s history. Every Hall of Fame plaque lists all of the teams where an electee played or managed. Fans of ‘The Hawk’ in every city in which he played should claim Andre as one of their own.”

   And the announcement immediately prompted all the cyber chatter about potential headgear for folks like Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Vlad Guerrero. More fun when the time comes.

   In the meantime, I noticed that Vlad – easily my favorite modern player because he reminds me so much of the Great Clemente – has never won a batting title despite having a lifetime average of .321. Wow!

   Imagine, in this day and age of everybody swinging for the fences and massive dinero, a guy could have a lifetime mark like that without so much as one batting title. Nobody in the postwar era has a lifetime average that high without winning a batting title.

   And I used postwar as a cutoff because the batting numbers from earlier generations just don’t mean the same thing. You understand how that goes: kinda like the home run numbers from say 1996 to 2004 or so.

   Maybe that's a good reminder that baseball fans can – over time – learn to adapt and become reasonably comfortable with statistical anomalies. I think we are going to have to do just that.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 4:06:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Buying unopened packs can be a risky business ...
Posted by T.S.

   An SCD subscriber sent me the picture you see here, illustrative of an ostensibly unopened box of 1971 O-Pee-Chee Baseball cards that he bought on eBay recently. As the image hints, the packs apparently weren’t all that uncirculated, and our subscriber ultimately got his money back.

   It’s perfectly understandable that a hobby niche with such a particular allure would be actively pursued by the unscrupulous, but it’s also worth noting that the kind of malfeasance portrayed here doesn’t always end up being quite so blatant and outrageous as having stats written in ballpoint pen on the front of a poor condition Cookie Rojas.

   As veteran hobbyists are aware, there are at least a couple of hundred “Christmas” themed rack packs that routinely circulate in the hobby that, while hardly as flagrant as the above-mentioned O-Pee-Chee ripoff, certainly raise a lot of eyebrows about their bona fides and lineage.

   The so-called Christmas Racks sell online and even in conventional big-time catalog auctions, with a wide spectrum of careful descriptions provided. The most reputable companies are more than a little careful in their catalog descriptions; the rest of the gang uses language that ranges from the awkwardly circumspect to the ridiculous.

   I get a kick out of some of the online descriptions, which in some cases exhort the winning bidder not to even consider opening the pack, noting that such an outlandish move would likely hurt the investment value. Translated: opening them would reveal that these are not uncirculated cards.

   There are plenty of hints about the questionable heritage of these racks, not the least of which is the selling price, which while not typically chump change is rarely in line with what you would expect to pay for uncirculated vintage material.

   Another telling point: the cards that are included in the racks are across several series, essentially unheard of in anything that Topps was involved in during those years (1952-63). If you need more, there’s also the curiosity of so many stars appearing in prominent “on top” position in the packs, frequently multiple Hall of Famers.

   If you need more incriminating evidence, there’s also the recurring theme of those very same Hall of Famers being substantially off center. Obviously, given all the off-center cards that Topps produced during that span, finding them in racks would be expected, but hardly in the kind of overwhelming percentages found here.

   I could add that a reasonable examination of the racks – I have seen several and looked at photographs of literally dozens – either screams or loudly mutters that these cards have some kind of a history in the hobby.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 4:15:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, January 25, 2010

Topps and Upper Deck could be back in court soon ...
Posted by T.S.

   In last week’s issue of SCD (Feb. 12), I wrote a feature article about 1963 Fleer Baseball cards, and somewhere in the middle of the undertaking realized that I was seeing similarities to the current licensing situation involving Upper Deck, Topps and Major League Baseball.

   After Fleer launched its first attempt at a mainstream MLB card set in 1963, Topps promptly took them to court claiming that the cards violated Topps exclusive contracts with the individual players. The court agreed and 1963 Fleer was finished after a single series, and the playing field – metaphorically speaking – was abandoned to Topps alone for nearly another two decades.

   Now obviously any such comparisons are inexact by definition, but there are eerie parallels between the two situations. With the 2010 version of Upper Deck Baseball expected to hit the streets within a couple of weeks, the almost complete radio silence from Carlsbad, Calif. about what it’s going to look like prompts the following bit of speculation.

   With Topps now the exclusive licensee for MLB, Upper Deck was faced with the daunting prospect of figuring out how to produce a card set that doesn’t run afoul of restrictions on the use of team logos, colors and insignias, etc. While Upper Deck officials have been mum on the subject, and visits to the company’s website offer no hint about what the cards will look like, it’s at least possible Upper Deck’s “solution” could end up being responsible for all this nostalgia about 47 years earlier.

   Under the assumption that 2010 Upper Deck Baseball will portray MLB players in some fashion in their regular uniforms – perhaps with some nominal airbrushing of logos here and there to provide some legal fodder for a defense – it would seem that Topps (and MLB) might quickly file suit and set the ball rolling for a rough-and-tumble tangle in the courts between the two archrivals.

   This speculation – and that’s all it really is – fits well with the paucity of information available about 2010 Upper Deck product thus far. If the idea is to get the cards out there and significantly distributed before Topps legal talent can rain on their parade, Upper Deck’s handling of this precarious topic over the last several months makes perfect sense.

Monday, January 25, 2010 2:56:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

How about a little help with 1958 Topps question ...
Posted by T.S.

   Here’s an admission you don’t get every day from hobby pundits: I am hardly the final word on virtually any topic you want to name in our beloved hobby.

   Being a member in reasonably good standing of the hobby press and having the kind of forum that Sports Collectors Digest represents in reaching avid collectors every week – or in online blogs virtually every weekday – may give a faulty impression.

   I have long understood that there are countless advanced collectors who have vast knowledge and understanding of their particular areas of expertise but simply don’t have the soapbox that others do.

   It is to these sages that I direct my question about 1958 Topps Baseball. After I wrote a story a couple of weeks back in SCD about that colorful issue, I got an e-mail from a reader asking if I was aware of the reason Topps selected that design that year.

   Easiest way to do this is just quote him directly: “You do know why Topps cut out the ballpark backgrounds and went to vivid colors for the 1958 set, right? Because they were all in, or from, Brooklyn, and they couldn’t bear the thought of the new cards depicting photos from Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds (except where unavoidable, as in the team shots and the multiple player cards).”

   I was startled, because I had never heard that theory, and at least potentially mortified because I should have. But at my age mortification is rarely a big deal, so I called a couple of old-timers who made me feel a bit better because they hadn’t heard of it either.

   And so I called Sy Berger, in part because I always like finding excuses to call him anyway. When I relayed the theory, Sy said, “Baloney.” Which seemed fairly unambiguous. “No truth to it at all,” he added. According to Sy, the switch to the cut-out backgrounds – I’ll paraphrase here – was based on finding a contrasting style to the previous year where photos were left intact to show the ballparks.

   Sy’s pronouncement may or may not put an end to the discussion, but I’d certainly love to hear from any readers who had heard such a thing, including any attribution, however sketchy it might be a half-century later.

   Either way, I think it’s a great bit of hobby lore.

   And in a personal aside, I’ll wish the Bergers a happy 64th wedding anniversary. How cool is that?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 3:33:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Homesick for The Adirondacks ... even in winter ...
Posted by T.S.

   A couple of things conspired in recent days to compel me to start musing once again about my beloved Adirondacks. One, the growing television promotional coverage to try to hype up interest in the upcoming Winter Games, and two, the re-running of a special on the Adirondacks on public television a couple of weeks ago.

   Seeing all those places where I rambled around in the late 1970s and 1980s makes me start thinking about a return visit, though I can resist a bit more easily in the dead of winter than I can in warmer months.

   But despite my aversion to actually partaking in winter sports that don’t involve the gentle click of billiards balls in smoke-filled taverns, I must tell you that if you’ve never visited the Adirondacks – regardless of the season – you’re missing one of the great American treasures.

   And we have a New York State Legislature that was arguably 100 years ahead of the curve in 1885 when it created a “Forever Wild” State Forest Preserve to thank for that. At a time when the giant business tycoons ruled the earth, or at least our little corner of it, New York State saw fit to set aside more than 6 million acres of land for special protection for future generations, creating a unique national park that encompassed – roughly speaking – equal parts of state-owned and privately held land.

   It was from the beginning – and remains today – an uneasy alliance of seemingly conflicting interests, but in truth both groups held/hold one prevailing joint interest: the preservation of one of the most beautiful regions in the country for generations to come.

   As I did the first time, I got a kick out of watching the PBS special “The Adirondacks,” which included interviews with a number of people that I knew 30 years ago when I was working in the Saranac Lake/Lake Placid area as a bureau reporter for a Plattsburgh newspaper.

   Starting with details about the Trudeau Sanitorium and the cure cottages for tuberculosis patients at the turn of the century – think Christy Mathewson – the footage included shots of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Parade and some of the spectacular ice castles that are constructed along the banks of Lake Flower every winter.

   That carnival, by the way, is the oldest in the country, dating back to 1897. Famed cartoonist Gary Trudeau, the creator of “Doonesbury" and the great-grandson of Dr. Edward Trudeau, used to create a pin design every year using many of his strip characters, with the pins then mass produced and used as a fund-raiser for the carnival. As you can imagine, the pins were collector items from the start; for all I know, he may still be doing it, though 30-plus years is a long time.

   I would have included a photo here of one of the pins but couldn’t easily engineer it. My ex-wife saved all the pins from those days, and that was only fair because she once was an official part of the parade, marching down Main Street in the sub-zero temperatures in a Billy BlueBird costume, the official Mascot of the Empire State Games.

   Those games are traditionally held within a couple of weeks of the Winter Carnival, and are sponsored by the New York State Department of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation.

   That seems appropriate enough; my old employers are also one of the sponsors of the Adirondacks special on PBS (www.pbs.org). As they say, check your local listings.

   I probably will blog a bit more about that grand area as I revive what memories I have left of the 1980 Winter Olympics over the coming weeks as the Vancouver version gets underway.

Thursday, January 14, 2010 5:25:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Bless me, America, for I have sinned ...
Posted by T.S.

I know that according to the Chinese Zodiac, 2010 is going to be the Year of the Tiger. Without succumbing to the obvious gag opportunities, I would suggest that in America it’s going to be the Year of the Confession.

   The almost equally zany worlds of politics and entertainment will, of course, provide their annual drip, drip, drip of such mea culpas, but my reference is more pointedly to the world of professional sports. I think Mark McGwire might have just opened the floodgates.

   My guess is that anybody who can do so without inviting legal peril is going to step up to the mike and make official what most everybody has more or less known all along. And hopefully they’ll do a little better job at it than McGwire, who performed handsomely in conveying how awful he felt about the whole thing but whiffed in a number of areas in terms of candor and believability.

   Just as Big Mac did, everybody else is going to have to pick their spots, but you can’t help but think that for most the sooner they come clean – no pun intended – the better.

   I liken this to Thelma and Louise as they started heading to that cliff and the dark finish of that 1991 film. Take, for example, the 100-plus guys on the “list” that the Major League Baseball drug testing regimen produced. If I were one of those guys, I think I’d be pondering a way to get it out there, because I just can’t imagine that list is going to stay under wraps forever. Frankly, I am amazed it’s avoided the light of day for as long as it has.

   I think those guys should ask MLB to covertly notify each and every last one of them on the list and create an amnesty day – how about June 6, 2010 – and encourage all 100-plus to fess up at one time.

   Gee, the more I think about that the better it sounds for all concerned. It’s huge national news, of course, but it’s remarkably blunted for each individual simply because of the volume. The shadow is removed from the other couple of thousand “clean” guys who played through the period, so I assume they’d be tickled with the idea as well.

   And from Major League Baseball’s perspective, it would serve to largely close a chapter that’s been as close to Chinese water torture as one can imagine, not that I am suggesting that waterboarding is torture. And I’m back to the Chinese again, who deserve their own apology for the water torture reference, because apparently there’s no historical evidence pointing to them aside from popular usage of the expression itself.

   I should add that urging those 100 ballplayers who participated in that testing regimen in good faith with the understanding that the results would remain under seal is a great departure for me. I have said all along that we have no right to know who they are; my change of tune comes from the belief that eventually they are going to be “outed,” and if that’s the case, a better strategy is to get out in front of it.

   Amnesty Day would naturally present the same opportunity for some of the more prominent names ensnared in the steroid debacle – Mssrs. Bonds and Clemens come to mind – but their eventual confessions are more complicated because of the legal proceedings already underway.

   And please, no scolding for the use of the expression “their eventual confessions.” Just like Thelma and Louise, they have to know that the edge of the cliff is out there waiting for them.

   And there’s at least one other big-time sports confession to come ... in the Year of the Tiger.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:25:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Steroids are an embarrassment only by proclamation ...
Posted by T.S.

   As you might expect, I don’t see a lot of point in adding my analysis of the Mark McGwire steroid confession. Everybody who might conceivably be heard from either has been or will be soon enough, all the way from Bobby Knight to the commissioner himself and points in between.

   I am, however, interested in the broader questions raised by the “news,” which of course isn’t really news at all. It’s just official now.

   One of the FBI agents, now retired, who was involved in a 1989-93 steroid probe did provide an interesting angle in noting that McGwire’s usage was discovered at that time, and that information was subsequently passed along to Major League Baseball.

   Like the admission itself, that’s not particularly surprising, but it is worthy of note to remind yourself that when baseball was seemingly resurrecting itself in that bizarrely glorious 1998 season, MLB officials knew – or at the very least should have known – that their historic home run blizzard was artificially enhanced.

   I know all the arguments about how MLB was pushing for testing and the players union was resisting, but none of that alters the reality that after shooting itself in the foot with a disastrous truncated season and canceled World Series in 1994, the game was revived on an illusion. And the checks were cashed. Lots of them.

   But to me, the steroid-enhanced 800-pound elephant in the room is the likely reality that players themselves probably wouldn’t give a hoot about using such things except that we – fans, media, Congress and even an occasional President – frantically insist that they must.

   Without debating the nuance of whether somebody started using to assist a return from an injury or merely to add muscle and thus maybe some long-ball ooomph to his resume, I can’t shake the suspicion that athletes making millions of dollars would seek any remote edge available to keep the paychecks rolling in.

   Call me cynical, but I think the primary reason you hear the right things from players about this topic is because the pressures of political correctness force them to be outraged, or at least to give that impression. I think the outrage is as phony as the home run totals from (insert your favored span of years here).

   And before anyone suggests I am minimizing the impact of “cheating,” I would say instead that we ought to be truly vigilant about how “cheating” is defined in a professional sport where so many billions of dollars are at stake.

   To do any less would just be incredibly naive, and we already know where that got us (think Summer of ’98).

(McGwire/Sosa artwork courtesy of www.goodsportsart.com)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:38:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, January 07, 2010

So which cap does Andre wear this summer? ...
Posted by T.S.

Carter art.jpg

Truth to tell, there wasn’t much that was surprising about the results of the BBWAA vote for the 2010 Hall of Fame Class, and I am relieved that Andre Dawson got the nod and that Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven got so close that it would seem induction in 2011 is virtually a lock.

   I haven’t heard a peep about which cap will be pictured on Dawson’s HOF plaque; my vote would be for Montreal, if for no other reason than to get another Expo into the Hall (Gary Carter (shown here) is by himself at the moment).

   Since Dawson played more than half his career there, it would seem like the probable choice by the Hall, but The Hawk’s MVP season did come with the Cubbies.

   Dawson played a handful of games at Jarry Park (Mon dieu, excusez-moi – Parc Jarry), which was a curious little local ball field that had been turned into an almost major-league stadium. Which was not to be confused with Olympic Stadium, where Dawson played most of his career, which was a monstrosity of the first order that was built for something other than major league baseball and thus was quite fairly cursed when it pretended to embrace same.

   I have been to both parks; the former was great fun because after growing up at Shea and Yankee Stadium, it was almost spooky to watch a major league game at such a yahoo facility. And the latter, Olympic Stadium, was an abomination unto the eyes of the baseball gods, and not just because the awful artificial surface helped to ruin Dawson’s knees, among countless others.

   Nope, it was just an awful joint, and it didn’t help that Montreal fans couldn’t seem to get the hang of rooting decorum for baseball. I had been to the Montreal Forum to watch the Canadiens, and though I wasn’t much of a hockey fan, watching that team in that facility with those fans could have been enough to bring anybody on board. It was a surreal experience.

   And yet you plant those same butts on the plastic seats at Olympic Stadium and all the rabid fan fervor would just disappear. Polite and reserved, which works well at Rotary Club meetings but sucks big time at a baseball game.

   Still, I lived close enough to the Canadian border for the better part of 10 years to develop some real affection for those funny-sounding little hosers. Since they had to endure the ignominy of having their franchise unceremoniously stripped away from them, I figure one more little nod from our Hall of Fame would be a nice gesture and sound international relations to booth, eh?

Thursday, January 07, 2010 4:02:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Naturally, Arthur Miller ends up on Broadway ...
Posted by T.S.

   While I poke around this a.m. waiting patiently for the Hall of Fame announcement later on, I thought I’d take the opportunity to plug some of the work of one of our favorite artists, Arthur K. Miller.

“Bride of Frankenstein”
2009
20-by-24 inches, acrylic on masonite

   As readers of Sports Collectors Digest are fully aware, Miller’s elegant work portraying many of the greatest players in baseball history has been gracing our covers for more than a decade. When I heard he had his own exhibition at OK Harris Art Gallery in New York City, I wanted to mention it even if only a segment of our readership would have the opportunity to actually visit.

   I wasn’t even surprised to learn that the exhibition was entitled: Arthur K. Miller – Classic Horror; Movie Monsters from the Golden Era, since I had talked to him a long time ago and he told me about his venture into this area.

   I doubt if I could improve on the promotional text so I won't try: “MONSTERS! VAMPIRES! WEREWOLVES! Come witness, if you dare, spirited living-color portraits of classic HORROR movie icons from an earlier black-and-white cinematic world! See melodramatic paintings rendered in stark, painterly realism, richly executed in acrylics! Frightful images so lifelike you’ll need to keep telling yourself, “It’s only a painting, it’s only a painting.”

   The exhibition runs from Jan. 16 to Feb. 20 at the OK Harris Gallery on Broadway in New York City, and the artist will be on hand on opening day from 3-5 p.m. to throw out the first pitch, in a manner of speaking.

   Obviously, Miller’s spectacular work can be accessed by going to the gallery website at www.OKharris.com, where all these monsters reside, or you can go to Miller’s own site, www.artofthegame.com and have a crack at the monsters and his incredible baseball work.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010 3:49:55 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Efren Reyes one of my favorites sports legends ...
Posted by T.S.

   I think it’s kinda cool that one of my all-time favorite sports legends is a guy that a lot of casual sports fans might never have heard of. I used to be disappointed and dismayed that the shadowy world of professional pocket billiards had such difficulty getting mainstream media coverage, but now ...

   (Photo courtesy of www.insidepoolmag.com)

   So much time as passed since the days when I used to gripe about that situation that I now understand it’s probably not going to change substantially in my lifetime, and I guess that’s OK. Too bad for the many great players and all the fans, but probably an understandable situation given the aforementioned “shadowy” nature of the game.

   I have been wading around cyberspace for quite awhile looking up information about Efren Reyes, so long in fact that I have forgotten what got me onto it in the first place.

   I want to say that Reyes was the greatest pool player I had ever seen, but anybody who knows anything about pool understands that the “sport” defies the idea of that kind of broad labeling. Best you can hope for is “best you’ve ever seen” at this or that particular game.

   Since I practiced for several months with Irving Crane, he has to easily get the nod as the greatest straight-pool player I’ve ever seen, but Reyes is my pick for 9-ball. He also has the purest and most elegant stroke I’ve ever seen, and I suspect that anyone who’s ever seen him play would probably agree. It’s probably no coincidence that the three sports I am most involved with – baseball, golf and billiards – each offers a particularly compelling reverence for the purest swing, or in the case of pool, stroke.

   However I happened upon Reye’s Wikipedia entry, I was struck by the extensive listing of his “Titles and Achievements,” numbering to 78 in all. I noticed there were only seven listings in the 1980s, and I was looking for the event in Atlantic City, N.J., where I first saw him play.

   The other cool thing I remembered was that he used to play under an alias in those days – Cesar Morales – which he said he used because at the time U.S. players knew of Efren Reyes by name (he was already a legend in his native Philippines and in the Far East) but wouldn’t necessarily recognize him by sight.

   But once they saw his stroke, as I did at that 1988 tournament on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, they would have had no doubt.

   The other reason I liked Reyes was that he was born in Angeles City just outside of what was Clark Air Force Base. I had been to Angeles City a couple of times when I was stationed at Subic Bay Naval Base during the Vietnam War, and the thought of a world-class pool player emerging from my adopted homeland tickled me no end.

   There is perhaps no other sport in the United States played by so many millions of citizens that seems so completely unable to effectively market its professional tour than pool. Catching “The Magician” on one of those taped matches on ESPN or ESPN2 can be a hit-or-miss undertaking, but I would urge you to do so if the opportunity arrives.

   You should never pass up a chance to see one of the all-time greats.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010 3:59:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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