I got a letter from a reader who complained that SCD was overly infatuated with Mickey Mantle. I normally take readers’ concerns very seriously, but I couldn’t get too worked up about that one.
   Overly infatuated with Mickey Mantle? (My words, not his) Sounds to me as plausible as say, being overly infatuated with Sophia Loren. Or Cracker Barrel restaurants. Sergio Leone Westerns. Willie Nelson. You get the idea.


   I mean, it’s Mickey Mantle, for Pete’s sake. Or, more precisely, for Kelly’s sake. Our alleged infatuation with The Mick is about to be tested in a big way as we unveil Kelly Eisenhauer’s “Mickey Mantle: The Complete Collectibles Guide,” an unprecedented multi-part special series written by one of the most well-known and widely respected Mantle experts in the hobby.

   That’s the headliner in our 35th anniversary issue, dated Feb. 6, 2009. Eisenhauer, a Mantle fan and collector for more than 40 years, offers insight and literally hundreds of photographs of many of the thousands of pieces of ephemera, consumer goods, trinkets, toys, advertising pieces, magazines, books, postcards, regional and food issues, the Topps inserts and test issues, oddball items, and, as they say, a whole lot more.

   We’re going start it off with stuff that should be a little  familiar to fans: Topps inserts and test items, but Kelly’s inventory is so extensive that it will still reveal dozens of items that even advanced collectors have seldom seen. The list is also so huge that this particular section will have to run in two parts.
   Mantle Series pieces will follow approximately one per month, ultimately creating a wonderful reference source for serious fans and collectors.

   I am hopeful that editing and designing these pages every month will help me get through the winter blahs, which, remarkably, seem to have settled in precisely two days into the official winter season.
  
   How about sending a bit of Global, er, Wisconsinal Warming our way?

   Oh, yeah. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

   You may have noticed at the local bookstore that there are a pile of books offering a proper genuflection to Yankee Stadium, now officially a relic and awaiting the wrecking ball once the details about divvying up the demolished remains can be worked out.

   That the storied history in the South Bronx would be so thoroughly recorded is understandable, even appropriate, but couldn’t we have saved a couple of spots on the shelves for a crocodile tear or two about Shea’s passing?


   ("Seaver's One-Hitter" by Bill Purdom, www.goodsportsart.com, is shown above.)

   I know, I know, the historical records of the two edifices are quite different. For one thing, Yankee Stadium was twice as old as Shea. And yeah, the Yankees have a few more World Series banners than the Mets do, but that’s no reason to completely diss the Flushing Meadows Marvel.

   I was at Shea Stadium in 1964 when it first opened, and believe it or not it was once one of the great architectural triumphs of the Western Hemisphere – at least to this 14-year-old kid anyway.

   It may have seemed like a grimy, grey mausoleum at the end, but when it first opened in 1964 it was as imposing and impressive a facility as any of the kazillion-dollar uberstadiums that we’ve welcomed over the last 20 years. Plus, the World’s Fair was right next door as it opened, so the whole neighborhood, LaGuardia flight path and discarded automobile graveyards aside, was gussied up as never before.

   From various perches, ranging from the nosebleed wind tunnel in the upper deck to occasionally spectacular seats only rows from the field that we encamped upon sans technical permission, we watched our Metsies ... admittedly with often predictably calamitous results.

   As I suppose modern fans in what we euphemistically call “small-market” teams nowadays can understand, in the beginning we were there to see the visitors – the greatest array of National League talent ever assembled – almost as much as we were there to root for the home team.

   For older fans, it meant an opportunity to see some of their former heroes – Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges – playing now in the uniforms of the cities that so rudely stole them away a few years earlier. For me, it meant a chance to see Henry Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax and Co., which to me seemed vastly superior to any brand of baseball being undertaken just miles away in the Bronx.

   Like a lot of Mets fans, my memories are most vivid from a period when they used to lose with what would otherwise have seemed like a depressing inevitability. It was only odd timing that propelled me overseas as the Miracle descended upon Queens in 1969, and when they won again in 1973 I was a full-time college student with a full-time job as well, so there were few visits to the City.

   Our very own hobby has helped enormously in filling those gaps, thank you.

   Returning to the topic from yesterday about the 2009 Topps Heritage issue, which is slated to hit the streets in late February, I have always liked the way Topps focuses on seemingly minute details that can actually wind up adding a lot of nostalgic vitality to what they are trying to do.

   As has been the case in other years, the issue nicely replicates both the box and the package design from 1960, though the company has to make minor concessions to things like the various wording legalities from licensing agencies. Modern packaging doesn’t technically replicate the ancient “wax” packaging system, but the Heritage packs retain the wax feel.

   The various inserts included in 2009 remain essentially identical to last year, obviously with new names added to relic and autograph rosters. Mickey Mantle appears in the inserts, though not in the base set as was incorrectly listed in the initial advertising information. There is even a 1-of-1 Mantle Cut Signature card, which presumably will be a pricey item.

   But that said, Topps Brand Manager Clay Luraschi explained to me that there are still a number of collectors who build “Master” sets of Heritage that have varying levels of thoroughness with inserts, relics, autographs, etc. Now that is impressive to me, who has enough to do to complete the regular-issue Heritage offering.

   Besides, I tend to like all the idiosyncratic stuff, like the team cards matching the look (and card numbers) of their original counterparts, a neat touch that has been done for several years with a number of star cards.

   In 1960, I wasn’t that thrilled with the coache’s cards, what with the tiny floating heads of guys who looked soooo old, you know, roughly how I look right about now. But when I was 10 years old they were old geezers, and the cards were roughly, even rudely, treated by us. By the time I was an adult, I liked the cards a lot better, and am looking forward to seeing the 2009 versions.

   The Coache’s cards are from teams essentially linking to the same 16 that were in Major League Baseball in 1960, which I guess means my Mets lieutenants won’t be included in the deal. “It’s a little quirk that we’ve created as we try to stay as true as possible to the original issue,” Luraschi said. He swears he didn’t hear any grumbling from collectors about their team cards not being included in last years version, so I assume those same fans wont be disturbed when their favorite coaches don’t show up this time.

   Luraschi also pointed out that the early Heritage release date means it gives Topps a chance to picture some of big-name free agents or players who have been traded in their new duds, like a C.C. Sabathia as a Yankee, or a K-Rod as a Met. That early issue date also means that Topps doesn’t get some of the hot rookies into the regular issue, making a nice intro to the Update release that they added in 2008 and will almost certainly revisit in 2009.

   “It’s a no-brainer,” is the way Luraschi responded to a query about whether there would be another Update, noting that the response to the addition has been very positive.

   He had one other nuance that he wanted to mention, one he insisted was one of his favorites. “The Real Ones” Autograph inserts, which along with some current players featured signatures from players who last appeared on a Topps card in 1960.

   That eclectic lineup includes intriguing names like Nelson Chittum, Buddy Gilbert, Jack Harshman, Bob Rush, Bill Harris, Stan Lopata and Bobby Thomson.

   Bobby Thomson, Hmmmm. Wonderful ballplayer. Outfielder who played his final game in 1960 after a sterling career. Wasn’t there another famous outfielder who played his final game in 1960? Can’t think of his name right off, but if I remember correctly he didn’t have a card in the 1960 Topps set, and I do remember that as kids we were really bothered by that. Ted-something, I think it was.

   “We might have a surprise,” was all I could shake out of Luraschi.

   For years when the hobby first started to percolate in the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the beefs about Topps from hobby writers and editors was that the company didn’t seem interested at all in anything other than the most-recent product on the shelf.

    Even if it’s fair to say they didn’t seem to care about their heritage in 1980, I can promise you they care about their Heritage in 2008.

 
   Actually, the Topps guys have done a bang-up job with the Heritage line of cards since the beginning in 2001 when the first genuflection was made to the classic 1952 issue. It can be argued that Topps nailed the idea from the start, but in the ensuing years they’ve fine-tuned it even more.
When I observed that the initial information about the 2009 Heritage release (due end of February) suggests there hadn’t been much tinkering from 2008, Topps Brand Manager Clay Luraschi conceded it was probably a fair assessment.

   “It took us several years to get all of the details right,” Luraschi said, one of those rare officials who exudes a genuine enthusiasm about the hobby and its history in general and the importance of all of that to his company in particular. They’ve now got it down to matching up card numbers with modern players and the guys from the original, like making Derek Jeter No. 83 in 2009 Heritage, a cool tip of the cap to Tony Kubek, who coincidentally just earned a Hall of Fame selection to the broadcaster’s wing next year.

   “We concentrated on the look and feel of the card and manipulating the photos to give that 1960 look (2009 Heritage). It’s a great brand for us; the team loves working on it and doing all the research.”

   I’ll have more on the 2009 Heritage release in tomorrow’s blog, including additional photos and a teeny-weenie hint (maybe) about a possible exciting addition to the program that doesn’t show up in the dealer literature.

   With that I bid you to return on the morrow.

   In my role as editor of Sports Collectors Digest, I edit and design a feature every year where noted baseball author Dan Schlossberg looks at the top 50 baseball books of the year, offering a brief synopsis and in many cases a glimpse at a particular book’s cover.

   I am hopeful (confident, really) that it’s a helpful feature for readers in providing a one-stop spot (OK, maybe two spots, since it will likely go in two issues) to check out a comprehensive listing of books that should pique their interest. The feature is slated to open in the Jan. 9 issue, and probably conclude the following week, though sometimes things get bumped by space considerations.

   If you had to come up with a theme for the 2008 book season, it would presumably center around Yankee Stadium, which wound up with three of Dan’s top 6 books, and another half-dozen at least falling within the remaining 34 spots. And if that’s not enough prinstripe pudding for you, there are several more in the honorable mention listings, which numbers maybe another 75 tomes or so.

  (Schlossberg, the author of nearly three dozen baseball books, declined to include his own 2008 effort in the listing, so we'll display it here – Baseball Bits: The Best Stories, Facts and Trivia from the Dugout to the Outfield.)

And while the various tributes to the final season of the great stadium dominate, there are lots of other smaller themes, like steroids and other forms of malfeasance, Cubs and Phillies travails and triumphs, and a goodly number of Red Sox books, including several either written or edited by occasional SCD contributor and Bosox historian Bill Nowlin.

   Not surprisingly, the Cardboard Games: A Century of Baseball Cards, 1869-1969 book published by Mastro Auctions turns up, which was a neat addition to the considerable hobby reference library that has been produced by the auction behemoth.

   As for the Yankee Stadium tomes, it produces a bit of anxiety for me, since we will be publishing our own book this spring, Legendary Yankee Stadium: Memories & Memorabilia From the House That Ruth Built. Several of the books on Schlossberg's list had been sent to me last year for review, and I purposely avoided looking at them at all, given the task that was at hand.

   I’m not really as insecure about it as I sound. Our book should have its own niche with liberal use of much of the great artwork that has graced SCD’s pages over the years, along with photos of much of the spectacular memorabilia. Plus, the stories about Yankee greats have a hobby focus that I don’t think is replicated in other books.

   I just wish I could have told some of those Mickey Mantle stories that Barry Halper told me over the years. Can’t have a book with an R rating, I guess.

   As someone who can fairly be called a “card guy,” I’ve always understood that the principal attraction for me was the images of the players, and the colorful little pasteboards seemed to convey that with an elegance and simplicity that was vastly better than the grainy black-and-white images in the newspapers and pulp magazines.

   Which is not to say I was less than enthusiastic about black-and-white. It was just that the brightly colored cards seemed to come alive through the vivid hues that adorned – and occasionally overwhelmed – those issues from the 1950s and 1960s. How could mere black-and-white ever rival that kind of power?

   Now we know. Nathalie Rattner, a Canadian artist, ballet dancer, television and film performer, and just generally a Renaissance woman extraordinaire, creates pencil and charcoal drawings of legendary baseball figures that defy the imagination and challenge the eye to tell navigate the murky shallows between photography and art.

 



  Take my word for it, the image shown here is a drawing. It would be stunning art if it were a photograph; it’s just that much more impressive that it’s a drawing.

   I was intrigued by much of her story, not the least of which was a realization that she came to this particular incarnation of creating these remarkable drawings of baseball greats only recently. Anybody who can do that should have decades of experience at it; she’s only been back at the easel actively for a few years, and the baseball emphasis for less than that.

   I’ll have more on this fascinating tale in my regular column in Sports Collectors Digest, along with a plan to put one of her drawings on the cover and a bunch of other inside. I’ll just to have to go to great pains to make it clear what the readers will be looking at.

  With all of that assistance, I've shown a pencil drawing here and a photograph. I'll let you decide which is which.