The Infield Dirt with T.S. O'Connell - Tuesday, February 16, 2010

   There’s little doubt that Major League Baseball as currently configured is a phenomenal enterprise, with billions of dollars at stake and a global reach that couldn’t have been imagined just a half century ago.

(Roy Campanella original artwork by Andy Jurinko.)

But I’m here to tell you as swell as it all is, much is lost when something gets as big as MLB now is, and much is lost when that size and global reach reflect an emphasis of business over sport that’s as onerous as it is unavoidable.

   I am not suggesting that economic questions didn’t have their own relative importance in the years, for example, immediately following the end of World War II, but noting only that the economic questions didn’t overwhelm the daily dialog as they do now.

   When Walter O’Malley decided to break millions of hearts in Brooklyn and move the Dodgers to the West Coast after the 1957 season, obviously money was at the center of the equation. Not survival money, just maximizing money, as in the Dodgers wouldn’t have been doomed by staying in Brooklyn, they simply wouldn’t have maximized their profitability.

   While much of conventional historical thought emphasizes all the woes connected with an aging Ebbets Field in 1957 and the drawbacks connected with inner-city ballparks, the reality is that O’Malley was still making good money at the time he decided to head west: the Dodgers’ payroll was essentially covered before the first pitch was thrown on opening day, thanks to the growing importance of fledgling television and radio broadcast revenues.

   So I understand that the good old days weren’t nearly as rosy as we like to imagine, but that doesn’t change the reality that the dialog that engulfed the game – most especially the Hot Stove League variety – didn’t center so thoroughly on salaries, revenues, labor woes, etc., to the extent that it does now.

   It does little good to bemoan all the changes, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to remember that it wasn’t always this way. Before the expansion of television in cable and later the myriad elements of the Internet boom, Hot Stove League talk used to be largely marshaled by newspapers and pulp magazines that helped pique interest in the sport over the long winter months.

   And about the most significant salary discussion I can remember from those days was when Sandy and Don held out before the 1966 season. Ironically, we have O’Malley to thank for that one, too.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:14:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Final musings on the start of the Winter Olympics ...
Posted by T.S.

   I’ll be watching the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics tomorrow night, but I can’t shake the suspicion that the conventional wisdom about how to promote amateur sports is woefully lacking. And just to be clear, I don’t think of college football or basketball as amateur sports. Do you?

   Even as I write this, I hope that America’s greatest hope on the mountains in Vancouver, Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, isn’t yet another tragic victim of the infamous Sports Illustrated Curse. Having appeared on the SI cover of the Olympic Preview issue, an injury from a week or so ago has put her status in question just as the Games are set to begin.

   I always feel like the powers-that-be simply redirect the vast star-making machinery that would traditionally works just fine with professional athletes and hope that it delivers with amateurs who show up on the radar on a quadrennial basis. That's OK when an athlete like Eric Heiden comes along, but I think they need to rethink their broader strategy when it comes to hyping mere mortals.

   I have great sympathy for someone like Vonn, who reportedly refused to get a an X-ray of the contusion on her right shin, presumably because a determination that the bone was fractured would take the determination of her 2010 hopes to a different level.

   While I proclaim empathy, I don’t think any of us avowed couch potatoes can truly understand what it would be like to train for something 40 or more hours a week for so many years only to have the key opportunity to compete on the grandest stage cruelly snatched away by fate – or the editors of Sports Illustrated – if you’re given to embrace superstition.

   A final note about Eric Heiden, the star of the 1980 Games in Lake Placid who won a record five gold medals. I was on hand in Lake Placid for his sixth and final press conference (one for each medal won, and one at the beginning of the games) and I was in awe of the scale and silliness of it.

   With literally hundreds of reporters seated in the auditorium of Lake Placid High School, where the speed skating track had been created on the school’s track and field oval directly in front of the school, Heiden dutifully handled one inane question after another.

   In fairness to the assembled fourth-estaters, there wasn’t much left to ask somebody who had been center stage for a half-dozen press conferences in a two-week span. What I did think was interesting was that while Heiden was being feted for winning gold medal No. 5 in a world record time at 10,000 meters, a Russian guy was still out on the track circling the oval. That seemed kind of cheeky and dismissive of the Ruskie’s chances, but such was the prevailing cold war sentiment that chilly February in the Adirondacks.

   Oh, and a final note. My grandmother, gone now from this earthly plane for 25 years or so, watched every last minute of the 1980 Winter Olympics, right down to the interminable rolling of the credits from ABC’s telecast. Somewhere along the way, the name “Thomas S. O’Connell” flashed by, and she was duly delighted.

   I think we told her that it wasn’t me (O’Connell is a pretty common Irish surname), but I don’t think she believed it. And I don’t think I expended that much effort to disabuse her of the notion; I was, after all, the guy who used to tell my friends back in 1959 that Giants infielder Danny O’Connell was my uncle.

   Remember my motto: It’s not a lie if you really, truly believe it.

   Let the Games begin!

Thursday, February 11, 2010 3:39:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Lake Placid Olympics really were a miracle ...
Posted by T.S.

   When you watch the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics Friday night, try to picture what it must have been like 30 years ago when the tiny Village of Lake Placid, N.Y., hosted the 1980 version of the games.

   Vancouver has a population of about 600,000 or so; Lake Placid’s population in 1980 was about 3,000 or so permanent residents, and that figure has actually declined a bit in the ensuing 30 years despite the expansion of the U.S. Olympic facilities since those 1980 Games.

   Obviously, the profile of the Winter Olympics has expanded enormously in those three decades, so it’s hard to imagine that the Games could return there now, but I’ll bet the local folks are still trying. The real miracle of 1980 – no letters from hockey fans, please – may well have been that a community that size was able to host an international event of that scale.

   I was a reporter in nearby Saranac Lake back then, and took part in a couple of year’s worth of meetings about Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee plans, endless confabs that tried the patience at the time but ultimately are hard to criticize, since they pulled it off.

   One of the linchpins of the whole proposal was the Olympic housing for the athletes, which ended up being undertaken by the Bureau of Prisons, with a federal minimum-security facility built just outside the village corporation limits. It worked handsomely for the Winter Olympic athletes in 1980, then was promptly turned over to the feds and became part of an imposing array of New York State or federal correctional facilities that dot the upper quadrant of the Adirondack Park.

   That took care of a major hurdle, but there was also the dilemma of how a couple of two-lane state highways in and out of the tiny village could handle the thousands of fans attending the events. That was addressed by severely limiting automobile access into the designated Olympic area, and two enormous staging (meaning parking) areas were set up on opposite ends of the village – and several miles outside of it – to accommodate fans. They were then bused into the village for the events. The draconian parking restrictions were absolutely unavoidable, and so far-reaching that even duly accredited journalists like myself couldn’t drive into town.

   To this day I still can’t understand how they pulled it off, even though I sat through so many of those LPOOC meetings. To make matters worse, a brutal cold snap hit in the weeks leading up to the Games and right into the beginning, raising one of the major concerns that Games planners had fretted about all along.

   With a vast armada of reporters covering the actual events themselves, I was left with the odd feature or color piece here and there. Thus, I ended up riding behind a dog sled team on Mirror Lake in the Olympic Village, or reporting on the then-startling phenomenon of people collecting zillions of Olympic pins. There was also a good deal of reportage on the guys in front of the Lake Placid firehouse setting up judging panels outside and kind of raucously rating the various attributes of female touristas, employing the figure-skating 1-10 scale.

   I’ll have a couple of closing recollections in tomorrow’s blog.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 4:42:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Somebody please splain to me about T206 Wagner reprint ...
Posted by T.S.

I saw a thread on the Collectors Universe Baseball Card and Memorabilia Forum the other day that I just couldn’t figure out, so I am hereby asking for help.

http://cgi.ebay.com/t206-honus-wagner_W0QQitemZ220549588331QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Baseball?hash=item3359c7a56b

I’ve tried to put the link here, but I’ll also quote the pertinent part of the description just in case the process doesn’t work (Imagine that, a blogger who is inherently distrustful of all things that involve meandering around in cyberspace).

   Anyway, the auction listing, which closed on Super Sunday, says that the card sold for $650. And it also clearly, almost unequivocally, states that it is a reprint. The text is below in italics:

   T206 Honus Wagner card, in fair condition. This card is a reprint, but it is such a good one, I can not tell the difference when compared to a known authentic T206 card, as I dabble a little in these cards. It is an exact replica of an authentic card, same size, card stock, markings, detail, everything. Actually, I don’t “know” it is a reprint; I got it at a flea market (no, really, I did!), but it is a Honus Wagner, and I’m not that lucky. The scans shown are the actual card you will receive. Bid accordingly, as this card is believed to be a reprint, just a really, really good one.

   Huh? Obviously, here’s where I need a little help. The auction listing says “no returns accepted,” and I guess that falls under caveat emptor, but why would somebody pay $650 for a reprint? Even a “really, really good one,” a pronouncement that makes me chuckle no end.

   I must be missing something here. Any help?

Tuesday, February 09, 2010 4:57:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, February 08, 2010

Next year I go back to Super Sunday channel surfing ...
Posted by T.S.

   Next year it’s going to be different. I’ve had a policy in place now for a long time that the television remote-control thingy gets put away every year at the Super Bowl, but no more. They’ve turned everything upside down: it used to be that the game sucked and the commercials were good, but not anymore.

   That was a damn good game last nite and I was rooting for a tie so we could have had a sudden-death finish. If anything would put some pressure on the NFL’s dumb overtime rule, having somebody win the Super Bowl based on a coin toss would be it.

   But a rare Favre-like moment for Peyton Manning shelved that idea as well – for the moment – and now I’m just left with a gala football game that’s come full circle. Started out as a football game 44 years ago, rather quickly devolved into a laughably silly capitalistic orgy and is slowly turning back into a football game once again.

(The Super Bowl has gotten pretty silly in 44 years, but the potential for the truly historic stuff – like Joe Willie's brash prediction of upset in Super Bowl III – means that the game itself is still important and nearly worthy of the hype.)

   Oh, the excess is still there, still silly as ever – old geezer rock bands at halftime? And I’m an old geezer! – but I think all that stuff is just tolerated because the underlying product, the championship game, still matters.

   All the sideshow stuff has kind of mutated into wretched self-parody, starting first, last and always with the overpriced commercials. I can’t even say decisively how it happened, but I do suspect that all the genuinely talented people who used to work on Madison Avenue have spied the bigger bucks available by simply waddling a bit further downtown. At least with the intriguing Super Bowl commercials you always had the suspicion that real creativity was being rewarded; I don’t share that fantasy when it comes to what happens in the financial district.

   So no longer will I shelve the remote control on Super Sunday. I am going to flit around the airwaves just as I do any other Sunday, hoping to find some billiards on ESPN2 while the NFL behemoths are swatting each other on the butts in the huddle.

   Still, I guess it’s an improvement to be disappointed in all the auxiliary foolishness rather than in the game itself.

Monday, February 08, 2010 3:57:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

Dirty Harry at the Super Bowl would not be cricket ...
Posted by T.S.

   The arrival of Super Bowl Weekend got me to thinking about the most important NFL game I ever attended, the 1970 NFC Championship Game at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

   I’ve never been to a Super Bowl, but I can’t say that represents any kind of significant void. I’ve never been too interested in doing stuff just so I could say I’ve done it, and I suspect that all the corporate hoopla and then the silliness that envelops the game would simply annoy me if I were actually in attendance.

   But that 1970 NFL Championship Game was all business, and coincidentally turned out to be the 49ers last game at that quaint facility located at the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park. Drat, but the 49ers lost it, messing up my plans to party in a city that had just won a major professional title. I’d missed the 1969 World Series entirely when my Mets startled the whole nation; I’d been in the Philippines for the whole year and then some. I wasn't technically old enough to drink (20), but a sailor in good standing could usually manage well enough on Market Street in that regard.

   So here was my chance and yet John Brodie & Co. came up a touchdown short. The only reason I’d even gotten tickets was somebody donated them and somehow I wound up being picked – along with a handful of others – out of the 3,500 sailors on the U.S.S. Midway to go to the game. I am pretty sure I didn’t do anything special to get the tickets; they must have been just randomly distributed to various divisions on the ship.

   I do recall that Kezar was a fun if unimposing facility, which I suppose explains why the 49ers were departing in favor of Candlestick Park.

   And I got a kick out of seeing the park prominently featured in the 1971 Clint Eastwood blockbuster “Dirty Harry.” That movie was fun because there were lots of location shots of San Fran places that I had frequented, including the weenie stand outside the bank where Harry Callahan was wolfing down a hot dog just as the bank robbers emerged.

   In the years following the 49ers exit, the facility gained a good deal of notoriety as an outdoor concert venue, hardly surprising given its close proximity to the Haight-Ashbury District.

   And so names like Led Zeppelin, The Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Starship, Joan Baez, The Grateful Dead, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, Carlos Santana, Waylon Jennings, and Neil Young were added to the Kezar legend.

   The facility was also used for a number of other pro sports, most notably soccer, but it was also the home field – if that’s what they call it – for the San Francisco Freedom of the Pro Cricket League.

   Jolly good.

Thursday, February 04, 2010 4:04:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

And still I am going to open a vintage cello ...
Posted by T.S.

   After blogging last week about a collector who got hosed (initially – he ultimately got his money back) by a bogus box of unopened 1971 O-Pee-Chee Baseball, I stumbled across a thread this week on the Collectors Universe Sports Card and Memorabilia Forum –

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=760774&STARTPAGE=1

that reminded me why unopened material has such power over collectors.

   The guy had a 1965 Topps Cello and for legitimate reasons detailed on the site decided he would open it. I could add that just wanting to open it would be an adequately legitimate reason all by itself, but there were other factors in play that made it an even less complicated decision than it might otherwise have been.

   With great deliberation and fanfare, the guy opened the pack and one-by-one scanned and posted the results, starting with the 1965 Transfer decal or whatever the hell they call those things.

   His process of unveiling the fruits of his undertaking was roundly and justifiably applauded by those on the forum lucky enough to take part in real time; I thought it was great fun even though I only took part in unreal time a few days later.

   I suppose the temptation for the uninitiated would be to call the results disappointing, since several of the best cards in the pack were off center, and I suppose from a pure economics standpoint that’s true. But we don’t know how much the guy had into it, though I suppose he probably would have done better to simply have left it in the GAI holder.

   Still, it makes me think there could be a good market for group purchases, like folks chipping in on large lottery ticket purchases on a weekly basis. I know this kind of thing has been going on for virtually the whole four decades of an organized hobby, but the Internet aspect adds a whole new dimension to the deal.

   I’ve got half a mind to buy a nice unopened vintage pack and then see how many colleagues want a piece of the action. This would be a nonprofit venture, simply for the sake of eliminating the pesky considerations that would involve.

   If 20 people ponied up $40 apiece, that would be $800, probably enough to pick up a really nice early 1960s cello. Following the format that the guy used for the 1965 Topps Cello, or something like it, we would open the pack and post the procedure online for all to see and enjoy.

   If we got lucky and nailed some specimens obviously in need of third-party grading, we would send them off and cross our fingers. Whatever the outcome, the cards would be offered either as a single lot or multiple lots in our next Collect.com Auction, with all of the proceeds going to the National Military Family Association.

   Just a thought.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010 4:03:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

And just like that, we find ourselves in court ...
Posted by T.S.

   Well, golly, that didn’t take long, did it? Major League Baseball Properties has filed suit against Upper Deck in Manhattan federal court alleging trademark infringement over the company’s use of MLB logos on trading cards without permission. “Let the games begin.”

   Sorry to be a couple of weeks premature with that exhortation, what with our Canadian friends readying for their two weeks of Olympic hospitality, but for collectors of modern baseball cards, things are about to get interesting.

   The immediate impetus for the suit was the recent release of a pair of 2009-dated Upper Deck baseball issues, Signature Stars and Ultimate Collection. We displayed a couple of Signature Stars cards on yesterday’s blog and intoned at the time that a lawsuit was likely on the way. No great talent for prescience was required to make that leap. The lawsuit also noted that Upper Deck was “on the verge” of distributing what it described as several other unauthorized card lines, an obvious reference to the company’s regular-issue baseball series, which is scheduled for release in early February.

   The suit said that Upper Deck’s cards improperly feature various sport and team logos and that some 2010 packaging featuring Derek Jeter may confuse consumers because of its similarities to authorized packaging used in 2009.

   “Upper Deck’s current conduct is reflective of a pattern of utter disrespect for the contractual and intellectual property rights of those from whom it licenses valuable trademarks,” the complaint said.

   In reporting on the suit, Reuters News Service also said that Upper Deck remains in default of more than $2.4 million it owes Major League Baseball.

   Major League Baseball reportedly seeks to halt sales of unauthorized cards and seeks triple and punitive damages.

   While the suit may seem narrow enough at first blush, the implications for Major League Baseball and indeed other professional sports as well are potentially significant. To my knowledge, the parameters of what is covered by league licensing of team logos and uniform indicia has never been explicitly defined in the face of a court challenge, and this in theory could open that particular Pandora’s box.

   But there would seem to be a big “if” there, too. Such a challenge to the basic underpinnings of the licensing provisions used in various forms by virtually all professional sports leagues would be so far reaching and potentially cataclysmic that vast forces would be marshalled against it. The legal maneuverings could take years and gobble up millions of dollars.

   The evolution of the baseball card business has a history of creating some odd bedfellows along the way, and I’ve got a feeling that if the federal courts don’t put this baby to bed right away, we could be in for a bumpy ride.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010 4:01:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, February 01, 2010

Initial Upper Deck cards hint of lawsuit to come ...
Posted by T.S.

   I had my column for Sports Collectors Digest finished last Friday when the 2009 Upper Deck Signature Series cards arrived in Iola. The significance there is that even though the set is technically a 2009 issue, the cards, packs and even the box itself carry a pretty stark pronouncement about the brave new world of Major League Baseball cards. So I scrapped the original column and started over.

   With Upper Deck now without a license from MLB, the hobby is presumably getting a glimpse even with this 2009 issue of what the regular-issue 2010 Upper Deck Series I cards will look like. Each card carries the admonition “NOT Authorized by Major League Baseball,” which seems fairly unambiguous, but that’s about all

that’s really clear cut in this instance.

   The cards themselves make no mention of team nicknames, opting instead for city designations, and there’s no use of team logos as design elements on the cards. But as the cards shown here illustrate, there was seemingly little else done to accommodate the new licensing arrangement, unless you point to photo selection choices that apparently obscure or avoid entirely the team script across the front of the player’s jersey.

   But don’t take my word for it about the potential for litigation. Major League Baseball Properties issued a statement that Friday morning alluding to the two 2009 baseball card sets from Upper Deck that use MLB logos as part of the cards, despite Topps’ role as the exclusive licensee of MLB.

   “We are surprised and disappointed that Upper Deck, a former partner of ours, would violate our contract by clearly using our intellectual property without our permission,” said the statement issued by Matt Bourne, MLB’s vice president of business public relations. “We will vigorously use all legal means to protect the intellectual property of Major League Baseball and its member Clubs.”

   Multiple attempts to solicit comment from Upper Deck officials on Friday produced no response. Upper Deck’s Series I Baseball cards are scheduled to be released the first week in February.

Monday, February 01, 2010 9:33:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Odds and ends as our online auction closes ...
Posted by T.S.

Conlon.jpeg.jpg

   Our Collect.com online auction closes this evening, and if you haven’t visited it’s worth a couple of mouse clicks, especially if you’re interested in some cool, old-time lots that are more reminiscent of 1985 than they are emblematic of 2010.

   The lineup ranges from 1/4-ounce single T206 cards to a great big old monster of 60,000 cards or more, the latter being more than enough to exasperate the most genial of UPS types. I also spotted a couple of my favorite non-mainstream things, including a 1952 Topps Reprint set and two different lots of the incredible Conlon Collection cards from 1991-94. And no, you won’t be wrasslin’ with me: I’ve already got both those issues and at my age movin’ stuff out is a greater priority than adding more to the inventory.

   But I gotta admit I’m still tempted by both. I still remember when the 1952 Topps Reprint set came out in 1983: Whew! What an uproar ensued. Up to that time there had never been a reprinting done by the original manufacturer and the idea just scared by bejesus out of most everybody. Except me.

   I recall writing a letter to the editor of Baseball Hobby News (Don’t ask why I didn’t send it to SCD, because I don’t know and I subscribed to both at the time.), essentially telling all concerned to take a chill pill and that everything would be OK. For once, I was right.

   Fast foward another eight years and the Conlon Collection made its debut, and I was on board from the start. At 1,430 cards – if MLB hadn’t stepped on its crank in 1994 it might have gotten all the way to its intended goal of 3,300 cards – it is still the biggest set ever for a nationally distributed issue.

   That whole issue of 1,430 cards ought to be included in every significant public library in the country: the photos of the famed Charles Martin Conlon are that good. It bothers me enormously that such treasures could still be available at such modest prices, but that’s a function of the original issues having been printed at a time when the hobby was much larger and print runs – even of a non-mainstream issue like that – reflected that greater size.

   By 1995, with MLB trying to figure out how to recover from its self-inflicted wounds, Megacards had already dramatically scaled back the print run. The final series of 110 is typically much harder to find that the earlier ones, and much more expensive when you do.

   For some odd reason as I type this (10:30 a.m. or so), the two Conlon Collection lots are in inverse relation in terms of the bidding. As I read the auction description, both lots have all four series from 1991-94 (1,320 cards), but one lot also has 31 of the 47 Color Conlon Collection cards that were also issued over that period.

   Assuming overall condition matches, the lot with the added Color cards ought to be the more expensive of the two, but it isn’t.

   Check it out.

Thursday, January 28, 2010 4:28:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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