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Editor's Blog
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Monday, 20 April 2009 |
Have a baseball card that's been sitting on your want list forever? Everyone does--unless you happen to be independently wealthy or easily pleased.
Many years ago, I came across a nice little stash of 1954 Dixie Lids and decided to build the set. It was never a huge priority, but about a year ago, I got out my long-neglected list and saw I still needed Enos Slaughter and Richie Ashburn to fill out the set.
I found Slaughter pretty quickly online and that left only one to get before I could cross the set off my list for good. Usually that's when I really get serious.
I can now report that a year's worth of searching later and I still haven't found one at a reasonable price. What's the deal with this card? Anyone?
There are a lot of vintage oddball sets that have some really tough cards. The 1960 Post Cereal "woodgrain" cards are tough, too--I still need Mantle and Killebrew-- but even they're easier to find for me that a '54 Dixie Lid Slaughter.
What's the card that seems permanently etched into your list? Let me know and we'll post them here. Maybe someone can help.
One other note...Chris Nerat, former writer for Sports Collectors Digest (no relation), has started his own sports memorabilia blog (http://www.collectgreenbay.com). Chris has a business buying and selling Packers memorabilia and he's going to write about that--and the hobby as a whole.
Sorry..make that two other notes: Steve Hart, who runs Baseball Card Exchange, is blogging about his travels in search of unopened sports card packs and collections of cards. It's always fun to read about a dealer's constant quest to find inventory and some of the obstacles he runs into. Steve logs thousands of miles a year by land and air and there are few in the hobby who put as much into customer service (http://www.baseballcardexchange.com).
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Saturday, 18 April 2009 |
I believe every player who took the field for Jackie Robinson Day this month wore #42. It's been sort of voluntary since the tradition began a few years ago. It's still one of the coolest ideas MLB has put into action in the last couple of decades.
Just what happens to those jerseys is still a bit of mystery. The Orioles quickly announced they were putting theirs up for bid at MLB.com. A couple of other teams have followed suit, but there's no real organized effort to let fans know what's happened to them. Surely, some players want to keep them, which is fine, but you'd think they could come up with a way to put a second jersey on for part of the game and sell one of each. Word gets out, but if you ask me, MLB is probably leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table by not getting serious about informing the collector market of what's out there--and making sure there are at least a couple hundred on the market.
Same goes for the pink Mother's Day bats and other special event items. Fans might bid more for some items than serious collectors would, but other pieces aren't bringing what they should...and it's for a great cause in the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
And one last note on that...Jack's widow, Rachel is still going strong--a wonderfully elegant spokeswoman for the Foundation and still a huge baseball fan. She's a treasure. |
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Sunday, 12 April 2009 |
Not an Easter Sunday goes by when I don’t think back to 1972.
Like every little kid, I always looked forward to finding a basket of goodies. I was the youngest (and only boy) in our family so there wasn’t much competition or excitement beyond my own.
My love for sports cards was no secret. Whenever I could scrape together a dime or a good-hearted relative would toss a little spare change my way, that’s usually what I bought, although model airplanes gave the cards a run for their money.
Building a complete set was a task that was beyond my limited means and my parents weren’t swimming in money. That really wasn’t the ultimate goal anyway. I wanted St. Louis Cardinals. I wanted Hank Aaron. And I really wanted Lou Brock. I usually wound up with about 150-200 cards each year—buying pack by pack. Two was great. Three was a luxury. Any more than that and I felt like rationing them so as not to feel like such a glutton.
 On a sunny spring Sunday in 1972, I awoke to find my Easter basket on top of our console TV (color!) in the living room. My Mom wasn’t into crazy hiding places, although she did make an effort sometimes. And there they were. Perched vertically on each side of the square basket sat four beautiful, colorful, unopened 1972 Topps packs. I don’t have the memory genes that enable me to recall exactly who was inside. Certainly, they were first series. But I do remember them sitting there, 37 Easters later. Four packs. Forty cents worth. Four pieces of fresh, chewy, bubble gum dust-covered gum.
Heaven.
I don’t know exactly why I can still remember that day so clearly when I can’t remember anything at all about last Easter. Or the one before that. Zip.
Collecting was a lot simpler then. The cards weren’t fancy and if we didn’t like them there wasn’t an alternative. We didn’t think a thing of it. I don’t know what I would have thought if my packs had contained autographs or a jersey swatch. If a kid opens four packs on Easter Sunday now is he disappointed if there isn’t an insert or redemption card?
I just hope kids still find it cooler to see baseball card packs in their baskets than chocolate eggs. |
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Sunday, 05 April 2009 |
ESPN was barely a blip on the sports radar screen. Home computers were still more than a decade away. No blogs. No YouTube. No college hoops on TV every night.
Whatever hype surrounded the 1979 NCAA Championship game was largely because the country had read about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in their daily newspapers or issues of The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated or Basketball Weekly, but never actually seen them play live. With Michigan State, Johnson got more TV exposure afforded the Big Ten elite. Exactly what comprised Bird’s game, though, was virtually unknown to the average fan. He had been on the 1978-79 SI Basketball Preview issue, sheepishly smiling behind two cheerleaders who held fingers to their lips to indicate Bird was the nation’s “best kept secret”. Indiana State’s games were televised locally, but Bird’s appearances outside southwest Indiana were rare.
Just 40 teams made the tournament field back then. Normally, Indiana State wouldn’t have had a prayer of getting in, but with a 33-0 record, the Sycamores were impossible to ignore. Led by Bird, they reached the Final Four and then the championship game. Finally, the nation’s two best players would meet. Shackled by a 2-3 match-up zone defense and never able to get into a rhythm, Bird was held to an uncharacteristic 7 of 21 shooting, scoring 19 points in a 75-64 loss. Still, the game had been a hit. It drew a 24.1 television rating. 20 million people had watched. The personalities and abilities of the two players—one a city kid and the other most decidedly a small town boy—was perfect theater for sports television and even the commercials they would eventually shoot together. Thankfully, the entire 1979 NCAA Championship game is still available on video and we can absorb the nostalgia and history now associated with it.
A rivalry that would last another decade was born that night. The following year, Topps’ basketball card set was a quirky offering that had three small pictures on one card, separated by perforations. They put Johnson and Bird on the same card and as the Lakers and Celtics dueled in the NBA Finals. The Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rookie card soared in value; a perfect representation of NBA’s emergence from a funk thanks to its two new superstars. Today, it’s one of the most sought-after and popular basketball rookie cards ever made.
The greatness of Magic and Bird wasn’t fully appreciated until their NBA rivalry heated up. The fact that it all started when the two were in college only served to enhance its stature. They each improved their respective teams instantly. The 1979-80 Celtics improved by 32 games from the year before, finishing 61-21. Bird was the Rookie of the Year, earning 63 votes, but Magic’s 1980 Lakers won the NBA title, the first of five trophies he’d help bring to LA before his career ended. Bird won three NBA Championships in Boston. The 1986 team, featuring Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, Dennis Johnson and Bill Walton, among others, is one of the best NBA teams of all-time.
Bird and Johnson never much liked each other early in their careers. It gradually changed to a mutual respect and then a close friendship as their careers drew to a close not long after they played on the 1992 US Olympic basketball “Dream Team” that won a gold medal.
Both became active and dedicated professionals after their careers ended. Bird has stayed in basketball the longest, currently serving as Director of Operations for the Indiana Pacers. Johnson has built a megabucks business empire. Neither has felt the need to sign autographs at card shows and their signed memorabilia ranks among the most expensive of living players.
Neither could have imagined such success the night of March 26, 1979, when “The Hick From French Lick” met Showtime. The game is chronicled in a new book "When March Went Mad: The Game that Transformed Basketball," by CBS Sports basketball analyst Seth Davis. Thirty years later, it’s a moment worth remembering. |
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Sunday, 29 March 2009 |
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 If you collect football cards in the late 1960s, you might remember the name Ed Meador.
His rookie card was the 1963 Topps, but Meador had already been in the league for a few years before that. In the mid and late-60s, there were few defensive backs who were feared more for their hitting or ball hawking. Meador was one of the most unheralded players on some great Rams' defensive teams that featured the Fearsome Foursome.
His family has created a website to honor him and maybe reintroduce people to the outstanding career he had. There's little doubt he deserves Hall of Fame consideration.
Meador was one of only three safeties elected to the NFL's All-1960s Decade team. The other two, Willie Wood and Larry Wilson, are already in the Hall of Fame. Meador played 12 seasons and still holds the Rams' interception record--amazing in itself considering the 1960s wasn't exactly as passing era in the NFL.
The website they've created (EdMeador21.com) is really well done and you can see some great old vintage photos as well as his football cards. They also have a Facebook page.
It's a grass roots effort to let those who elect our football Hall of Famers that they should give the Arkansas native a bust in Canton and as a fan of the 1960s NFL, I couldn't agree more that he deserves it. |
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Editor's Blog
