Mike DeNero's Vintage Sportscards: The Blog

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: October 2010

2010-10-08T00:04:00.000-04:00

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt – check out his website at www.jimhunt.us. To view a synopsis of the comic strip, past months’ strips, and sketches of the four characters with whom you may have already become quite familiar (Bernie, Tony, Leela, and, of course, Mike), please visit our custom eBay page dedicated to Mike DeNero's Neighborhood by clicking here.

Mick the Quick, My Aunt, and My 1977 Kellogg's Set

2010-10-07T00:02:00.000-04:00

Mick The Quick, My Aunt, and My 1977 Kellogg’s Set

by Mike DeNero

A few years back, I crossed the line between being a collector and a dealer. I have often heard you can’t be both, and since the day that, I have subscribed to that belief, until recently.

While I no longer purchase sportscards or memorabilia for my own collection, I do maintain those that I own, many of which I attained as a kid, in one way or another (e.g., buying packs, getting free 1977 and 1978 Burger King Yankees cards with my Whopper, fries, and a Coke, to name a few). One such item I have held onto since my childhood is my 1977 Kellogg’s 3-D Super Stars Baseball Set (card #1, George Foster, sporting his trademark California sideburns, through card #57, Steve Carlton, sporting a baby-blue Phillies jersey along with his 1970’s-style moustache). It was the first complete set that I ever owned. It was given to me by one of my favorite people in the world, my Aunt Robin.

In 1977, I was a seven year-old Yankees fan who lived in the North Jersey town of Lodi. While I started collecting cards at the age of three (to read the story of my first pack, click here), I (and my beloved Yankees) were just starting to hit our strides – me as a card collector, they as Major League Baseball’s most exciting team (to read the story of me pulling my first Reggie Jackson card from a wax pack, click here).

While I spent all of my fifty cents allowance each week at the local five-and-dime on 1977 Topps baseball cards and began to amass a pretty decent selection of the set, it was nowhere near complete – surely an impossible task, given my measly four-bits allowance, yielding me one rack pack (49 cents), if I had some extra pennies on me, or two wax packs (if I am not mistaken, they were 25 cents each).

But one day during the middle of the Summer of 1977, my Aunt Robin (who lived in Virginia) called my mom and told her that she was going to order me the complete set of Kellogg's 3-D baseball cards, a single card of which was included in each box of Kellogg’s cereal, and that it would arrive by the time we made our next visit to Virginia. I was ecstatic to hear that I was getting a complete set of baseball cards (and as a gift, no less – all the better). But, I had no idea what 3-D meant, as I’d never seen a 3-D baseball card, nor had I ever seen a 3-D movie. Regardless, I was excited.

A couple weeks later, my family and I arrived at my Aunt’s house for our typical summer stay. Upon our arrival, she presented me with the prize – all 57 3-D cards, which were the coolest looking cards I’d ever seen! The colors were vivid, the pictures incredibly sharp and detailed, and the 3-D effect made the players jump right off the surfaces of the cards!

I carried the set around with me everywhere – of course with Mickey Rivers, known affectionately to Yankees fans as “Mick the Quick,” on the top of the pile. Many of my favorite players at the time were included – the aforementioned Mick the Quick, Mark “the Bird” Fidrych, Steve Garvey, George Brett, Dave Kingman, Thurman Munson, Rod Carew, Big Dave Winfield, to name a few. The cards were so vibrant and awesome that I never noticed the absence from the set of Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, and Tom Seaver, to name a few, until I sat down to write this tale. Regardless, the set includes seven Hall of Famers and countless stars of the 1970s.

If you don’t own the set, pick one up – it will only cost you $50-$150, ungraded, depending upon condition. I’ve had my complete set graded by SGC (see scans scattered throughout this article). The cards still look fabulous … and, of yeah, they are not for sale!

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - October 2010

2010-10-05T00:01:00.001-04:00

In an effort to avoid being bested by their pal Leela, Tony and Bernie (the lovable twins from Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood) allow me to present Tony and Bernie’s “Big Apple” Stash. As the lads are twins, and are usually forced to share, why stop at toys, snacks, and sportscards? They will also take turns authoring this column, a monthly ode to their favorite vintage sportscards picturing New York legends. This month, it’s Bernie’s turn.

My 1969 Topps Nolan Ryan and 1969 World Series Game 3 Ticket Stub

by Bernie

Since I’m a Yankee fan through and through, I usually don’t waste my time on the Mets, but Nolan Ryan is the exception. Born January 31, 1947, twenty-eight years to the day that Jackie Robinson was placed onto this Earth, Nolan Ryan is pictured on his 1969 Topps card, presumably as a twenty-one year-old fireballer (I assume the photo was taken in ’68). The photo is great, a follow-through pose, taken at a time when young Nolan was wearing the number 30 and had pitched less than the 137 MLB innings the 1968 season with. Of course, he had 144 strikeouts – more than one per inning.

Later in the 1969 season, as the Amazin’ Mets cruised to the NL East division title, thanks to their skipper, Gil Hodges guiding them to a 100-62 record, young Nolan had yet to crack the Mets’ starting rotation, which included the legendary Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Carl Gentry. That didn’t stop him from performing admirably in the NLCS versus the Braves in Game 3, when he pitched seven innings in relief to get the win (it would take him twelve years to earn his next postseason victory) and provide the Mets with their first trip to the Fall Classic.

In that series, Ryan earned the save in Game 3, pitching 2 plus shutout innings against the Baltimore Orioles. The Game 3 victory gave the Mets a 2–1 lead in the Series, which they later went on to win in five games. That Game 3 appearance would be Nolan Ryan's sole World Series appearance.

Take a look at that card – what a beauty! Nolan Ryan pictured years before accumulating seven no-hitters, twelve one-hitters, 324 wins, and 5,714 strikeouts. An amazing record for an Amazin’ Met!

2010-10-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

In Between Naps - October 2010

2010-10-03T00:00:00.000-04:00

One of Rob Dewolf's passions is collecting cards of Cleveland Hall of Famer Napoleon Lajoie. A former minor league baseball player who advanced to Triple-A in the Padres organization, Rob's current job in the newspaper field requires him to get up at 4 a.m., six days a week. Hence the name of his column, which happens to be when he finds time to write about various aspects of the hobby. Rob lives in central Ohio with his wife and daughter.

Rarity doesn’t always mean that value is in the bag

by Rob Dewolf

Every so often I'll look at a card or piece of memorabilia in my collection and think, "Man, that should be worth more than it is."

This thought isn't sparked by regret, disgust or even puzzlement. I understand why the level of value often pales in comparison to the level of scarcity. Yet sometimes I'm left shaking my head.

Case in point: One of the coolest Cleveland Indians items I own is a shopping bag from Fishers Foods, a small grocery chain in my hometown in northeast Ohio. The brown bag is probably from the late 1960s or early '70s and features drawings of a full-size Chief Wahoo. It's in wonderful condition, and every time I look at it I marvel at how it survived.

I LOVE this thing. Ever since I bought it from another collector about 20 years ago, it's been one of my favorite Indians items. I'm pretty sure there can't be many around -- I mean, come on, a 40-year-old grocery bag? In near-mint condition? I ought to get it slabbed.

It's so "rare" and hard to find that I bet if I put it on eBay I'd get ... maybe $20? That's what I paid for it back in 1991, and I know the seller wasn't letting it go just for what he paid. My guess is he had $5 in it.

So how can such a rare, possibly unique item not be the cornerstone of the Dewolf retirement fund? Sadly, there's just not much demand for a decades-old brown-paper bag that features a drawing of a politically incorrect Native American.

Rarity is only half the equation when trying to figure out the value of a collectible. You've got to have demand, too. That's a pretty simple concept, one that I first learned in my eighth-grade General Business class when we covered the laws of supply and demand. Simple, yes, but still easy to forget and sometimes hard to accept.

Sellers often are most likely to develop amnesia when it comes to establishing the price of an item, choosing to remember only the rarity aspect.

"You know there can't be many of these out there," is a common refrain.

"You're right," I sometimes reply," and there probably is an even smaller number of buyers."

But again, I understand how easy it is to get caught up in the lure of scarcity.

I'm a sucker for Indians items that originally were sold as souvenirs. I don't know why, I just like them. Sometimes, though, you wonder what the manufacturer was thinking.

Case in point II: a balloon in the shape of a dirigible that was sold during the 1948 World Series. The one I have is unused and in the original packaging, leading me to believe that someone brought it home from the game as a present for his kid, who looked at it and immediately tossed it into the toy box.

Again, pretty rare item and very unusual. And worth probably less than an old grocery bag.

That's not to say that there's little to no value in a collectible when demand isn't terribly strong.

Case in point III: The pride and joy of my Indians collection is a 1948 World Series ring. My guess is no less than 50 and no more than 100 exist.

Rarer than the ring, though, is the original artwork for the award. The former Balfour executive who sold it to me explained that the company typically would draw up a handful of possible ring designs and present them to the management of that season's World Series champ. The brass would pick a design from the presented artwork, and the chosen one would be kept in Balfour's files.

The ratio of artwork to actual rings is at least 1 to 50. Yet a ring ($3,000-$4,000) will sell for seven or eight times what the artwork would. Why? Because it's not cool to wear an 14 x 18 drawing of a World Series ring on your hand. Even though the artwork is worth more than, say, a souvenir balloon from the same year, the value just isn't proportionate to its rarity.

Long ago I adopted a philosophy that if I wake up tomorrow and my baseball collection is worthless, I'll still be happy that I own each and every card and piece of memorabilia. Because of this, it's easier to focus on compiling and enjoying a collection rather than worrying about its value. So the whole "This should be worth more than it is" thing is more of a musing and less of a malady.

That said, I'll still look at my 1950s Chief Wahoo yellow necktie and wonder how I was able to buy it for only $30. There just can't be many of them "out there."

Leela's Tips & Tricks - October 2010

2010-10-02T23:58:00.001-04:00

Leela’s Tips & Tricks is Leela’s first foray into writing a monthly column – she usually just appears in Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood. As such, she does not have an impressive resume … yet. But give her a break; she’s only five-years-old! We hope you find her vintage collecting tips useful, her butchered attempts at composing sentences in what she calls “Canadien-French” amusing (if not refreshing, albeit confusing), and her unabashed love for her Montreal Canadiens admirable. Enjoy!

Buy Cards, Not Bags

(Translation: Cartes d'achat, pas des sacs)

by Leela

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

Well, my beloved Canadiens are no longer playing golf in the off-season – we are now officially eight days 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)

My tip is that you should only buy cards, which are not a pain in the rump to store in your house, or a closet, or even a cabinet. I mean seriously – look at Rob DeWolf’s article on that Indians stuff he collects. Nuts, huh? Where exactly would you store a brown paper bag? Un sac en papier brun appartient sous l'évier, au mieux, oui? I myself only collect cards (except for all of my wire photos of Maurice “the Rocket” Richard, of course! Je ne peux pas oublier de mentionner ceux-ci.

Gotta go now – and please heed my strong advice. My dry cleaner just called to say that my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater is ready for opening night! Ce nettoyeur à sec est un sot, mais au moins il devient mon chandail proper. Tout va bien dans le monde quand je peux porter mon chandail avec fierté Richard.

Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: October 2010

2010-10-01T23:57:00.000-04:00

1967-Style Red Sox Rockers Custom Card

by Bob Lemke

My list of pending custom card projects is likely to outlive me. I've got dozens of baseball and football player photos squirrel away in files both physical and electronic. My custom card output has slowed some in the past year or two, probably averaging something less than one new card a month. And that doesn't include my "rehabilitation" projects, remaking some of my earlier cards from a time when my skills weren't as far along as they are now, or in cases where clearly superior player photos have become available.

But while my to-do list is seemingly perpetual, I can never seem to strictly adhere to it. Something frequently comes along that strikes a chord and I drop everything else to take it on.

That was the case a month six weeks back when I found on eBay a very sharp photo of the Red Sox outfield of 1967 -- Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Smith and Tony Conigliaro. The image of that photo on a late-Sixties style multi-player feature card (a term I invented for a Baseball Cards magazine article in the early '80s) leapt to mind and I was hooked.

I was the successdul bidder on the photo and while I waited for it to arrive, I did my homework. I quickly determined that the format for the card should be 1967. That's the year Tony C. was beaned and he didn't play at all in 1968. The trio was back in the Fenway outfield for 1969, but I decided to go with the '67 style.

Putting the back together was a challenge because of the space limitations and the necessity of covering three players. As always, I printed out stats from the SABR data base, then tried to copy the spirit of Topps writers of that era, who were writing for 10-year old boys, not adult card collectors.

My original version of the card front had the "RED SOX ROCKERS" in red type, matching that on the Boston uniforms in the photos. When he viewed the prototype on my computer, SCD editor T.S. O'Connell, himself a baseball artist, pointed out the card title seemed hard to read, with the black-outlined red letters largely coming out from the navy blue sleeves.

My next choice was to go with a light blue, picked out of the sky in the photo, and that seems to have been a great improvement. Maybe the red letters caused the eye to strain too much towards the title in an effort to read it, but to me, the blue letters at bottom, along with the blue sky above, seem to better frame the players and allow the eye to be drawn to that central element. I hope you agree.

*****

Bob Lemke is a collector of bubblegum cards in the 1950s-1960s, Bob Lemke's hobby today is creating cards of current and former “players” in those "golden age" styles. He currently edits the vintage sections of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards and maintains a hobby blog at boblemke.blogspot.com.

2010-09-30T23:56:00.000-04:00

Our Consignment Program: We offer our consignors affordable and fair consignment rates and the ability to sell their sportscards, ticket stubs and memorabilia through one, two, and/or three channels: our eBay store, our eBay auctions, and our website.

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 449-3470 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: September 2010

2010-09-10T23:57:00.000-04:00

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt – check out his website at www.jimhunt.us. To view a synopsis of the comic strip, past months’ strips, and sketches of the four characters with whom you will soon become quite familiar (Bernie, Tony, Leela, and, of course, Mike), please visit our custom eBay page dedicated to Mike DeNero's Neighborhood by clicking here.

Behold the Black Babe Ruth ... and the Puerto Rican Rival to the T206 Honus Wagner

2010-09-05T23:53:00.002-04:00

Behold the Black Babe Ruth … and the Puerto Rican rival to the T206 Honus Wagner.

By Mike C. DeNero

Two decades ago, The Great One bought the great one. Wayne Gretzky, the most prolific hockey player ever, purchased (with Bruce McNall) the world’s most cherished baseball card for an eye-popping $451,000. After changing hands again, this 1909-1911 T206 Honus Wagner sold for a shocking $2.8 million in 2007. Rarely does a collector peruse a memorabilia magazine without seeing a photograph of this American Tobacco Company product, which, along with hundreds of other cards in the T206 set, was peddled in loose packs of cigarettes during the time when Model Ts replaced horses. Today it remains the most celebrated piece of cardboard in the business, and arguably the most valuable sports memorabile in history.

Nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman” for his outstanding speed, Johannes Peter “Honus” Wagner was one of baseball’s greatest baggers. One of the original inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the mostly Pittsburgh shortstop played in the National League from 1897 to 1917, when he retired owning a supermajority of all offensive records that matter. Adding to his nifty glove-work and blazing speed, he hit over .300 in 17 consecutive seasons, led the league in slugging six times, and won five league batting titles.

Nearly a century later, however, few would argue that Wagner was a better player than, let’s say, Babe Ruth or Willie Mays. And although he was popular for his time, he never reached the cultural-icon status of Joe DiMaggio; nor as the son of German immigrants does he have a heritage-based following that rivals that of Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg (Jewish), Roberto Clemente (Latino), or Jackie Robinson (African-American). Indeed, more Americans of German heritage probably identify with Ruth or Lou Gehrig. Similarly, few would point to the aesthetics of the card as a value enhancer. Although the lithograph of a stern, ruddy-faced Wagner against an auburn backdrop does have a Mona Lisa-like aura to it (what was he smirking about?), this offset portrait of a young man, hair parted, in a buttoned-to-the-Adam’s-apple, gray “Pittsburg” (sic) jersey with wide, dark-blue collar is not to be mistaken for a da Vinci. Well, what about vintage, you ask? Consider this: a 1909-1911 T206 Ty Cobb, which graded the same as the T206 Wagner by the same grading company (PSA 8), sold in February 2010 for $25,076.40. That’s certainly not chump change, but it falls roughly $2.5 million short of the Wagner.

So what accounts for the T206 Honus Wagner’s stunning value? For many, the answer can be found in tobacco (or more precisely, not in tobacco). At some early point, probably at the behest of Wagner himself, the American Tobacco Company pulled the T206 Wagner from production. Although historians disagree as to Wagner’s motivation, many believe that the chaw-chewing shortstop didn’t want his image pasted on baseball cards used to promote smoking. In any event, today only about 50 T206 Wagners are thought to exist, and so the answer is simple: the T206 Wagner is so valuable primarily because it’s so rare.

In fact, it’s almost as rare as the 1950-51 Toleteros Josh Gibson.

Like Honus Wagner, Joshua Gibson was a professional baseball player who played most of his career in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Like Wagner, Gibson became a superstar playing at his hometown Forbes Field. Like Wagner, Gibson eventually was inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame (36 years after Wagner, in 1972). Unlike Wagner, however, Gibson was African-American and never played a day in the major leagues. He died of a stroke at the youthful age of 35 on January 20, 1947, just 85 days before Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers and forever smashed the MLB color barrier.

One of the biggest stars in the Negro Leagues from 1930-46, Gibson’s prodigious power earned him the nickname “The Black Babe Ruth.” Because the Negro Leagues did not consistently compile game statistics, much of Gibson’s 17-year career with the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords is hazy, subject to debate, and the thing of legend. But as Larry Schwartz notes in an ESPN.com article on Gibson, there was “[n]o joshing about Gibson’s talents.”

Officially, the MLB Hall of Fame claims that he swatted “almost 800” career homers. Legend has it that he hit nearly 900 dingers. The Hall of Fame credits him with a lifetime batting average of .359. Other sources, however, argue that it was closer to .385, the highest in Negro League history. The Sporting News, 30 years later to the day, claimed that on June 3, 1937 Gibson hit a home run 580 feet at Yankee Stadium. Legend has it that, three years earlier, he hit the only fair ball out of the House That Ruth Built. Stats and heroics aside, the best evidence of Gibson’s greatness is the testimony of Hall of Fame players that witnessed him play. “He hits the ball a mile,” said flamethrower Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators. Satchel Paige, a former Gibson Negro Leagues teammate before going on to dominate the major leagues, went a step further in describing Gibson. Paige said, simply: “He was the greatest hitter who ever lived.”

One cannot—indeed, should not—revisit Gibson’s legacy without recognizing the depriving effects and sickening stain of Jim Crow. Even writing or saying the term “Negro Leagues,” for instance, is an uncomfortable exercise for many (including the author). But for those who were a part of the Negro Leagues (as players or fans), it is a source of pride. And why not? They claimed one who, according to Paige and others, had no equal: The Black Babe Ruth. And while historians grapple with the accuracy of Gibsonian legend, only those who watched Gibson play know the real story.

Felix Vega, Jr. grew up a Josh Gibson fan. Vega, who was born in New York City, has a heavy build and stands two inches beyond six feet. Nearing 73 years of age, his eyes are still sharp and brown but his hair is now gray. When asked to describe his father’s appearance, Vega’s oldest son will tell you, endearingly, that his “old man is a cross between Pavarotti and Perry Mason.” After his birth, Vega’s parents took him back to their native Puerto Rico, where he has lived an active life and been blessed with a large family, including five children. Through it all, though, Vega has never forgotten the memories of his own childhood in Puerto Rico, where amidst the baptisms, first communions, graduations, and patron saint festivities, one activity predominated: baseball.

Vega grew up in Santurce, a working class barrio in San Juan. And his childhood routine mimics that of many children on the island at the time. During morning school breaks, Vega would practice pitching in the schoolyard. After school, he would study a few hours and then play baseball with his friends. After dinner, he would listen to baseball on the radio. On the weekends, his dad would often take him to the park where he would . . . you guessed it. There was another notable fact about Santurce. It is home to the Cangrejeros de Santurce (“Santurce Crabbers”), a Puerto Rican Winter League baseball team that for a few years in the 1940s boasted an American slugger named Josh Gibson.

By the time Vega was old enough to hit live pitching, Gibson was already a legend in Puerto Rico. In the 1941-1942 winter season, his batting average was .480, he belted 13 home runs, and was the league MVP. By 1948, a year after Gibson died, Puerto Rico had hosted other future Hall of Famers, including Vega’s favorite player, Willard “Home Run” Brown. That year, the talent and excitement surrounding the Puerto Rican Winter Leagues prompted the production of what are now extremely rare baseball card sets: the 1948-1951 Toleteros (“Sluggers”), a collection of the Puerto Rican Winter Leaguers.

When Vega was ten, he shined shoes to afford the Toleteros cards that he religiously bought at la tienda local. This practice continued for three years during which time Vega became the proud owner of the 1950-1951 Toleteros Josh Gibson. The card depicts the prodigious slugger, bat in hands, body torqued, a sly smile on his face, in his trademark explosive follow through. For sociologist fodder, the picture of Gibson is against the backdrop of a chain-link fence and surrounded by white borders. Within the white borders, the name “Joshua Gibson” is prominently etched in black.

Like Josh Gibson himself, there are many unanswered questions surrounding the Toleteros sets (e.g., how many cards were issued?). But looking back over seven decades of life, Vega has all the baseball answers he needs. He knows he’s the original owner of one of the rarest baseball cards known to man. He knows it’s a card of a player that many consider one of the greatest players of all time; a player who actually played in Vega’s childhood barrio in Puerto Rico.

He knows he possesses the most prized card of the Black Babe Ruth. He’s one of about 12 people on the planet who can say that.

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - September 2010

2010-09-02T23:52:00.000-04:00

My Man, El Duque

by Tony

"El Duque" was the quintessential Yankee - at least that's what my daddy tells me. My daddy says that never has a more dynamic, entertaining, gutsy, and effective pitcher donned the Pinstripes than #26. Whether it be due to his unique pitching motion (or rather, pitching motions), his hop-and-a-skip over the foul line on his way to the dugout after closing out an inning, or his sheer dominance in the postseason, El Duque will live in the hearts of Yankees fans (like me and my daddy) forever.

I really like his 1999 Topps baseball card because the picture captures El Duque in all his regalia - high leg kick, ready to hurl a devastatingly deceptive, not to mention effective, pitch at a helpless batter who was cruelly given nothing but a 34 ounce piece of lumber with which to attempt to hit it. Poor batter!

Yep, El Duque was one in a billion - a showman with a flair for the dramatic that was only surpassed by his ability and heart. Because of his uncanny ability to make the art of pitching appear to be an effortless task, it is easy to overlook the fact that El Duque's journey from Cuba to the Yankee Stadium pitcher's mound was wrought with terror and uncertainty.

El Duque was Cuba's greatest pitcher - but sadly, his career was cut short after the Cuban government blacklisted him from baseball after his half-brother, Livan, defected to the United States. Finding himself working at a local mental hospital with no possibility of playing baseball again, El Duque escaped from Cuba with his wife on Christmas Day 1997. Their journey to freedom came courtesy of a small boat that landed them in Anguilla Cay, and uninhabited island in the Bahamas. They were rescued three days later.

Fast-forward thirteen years, and El Duque, who is now somewhere between 41 and 50 years old, has not pitched in a Major League game since 2007. However, don't bet that he won't return to the big leagues despite his age (whatever it may be) and injuries that plagued him over the past five years. A couple months ago, the Washington Nationals signed him to a minor league contract. He started in the GCL, the Gulf Coast League, and has moved up to the Nats' Double AA affiliate in Harrisburg, where he has (as of the date of this writing) pitched 8.1 innings in relief, struck out 11 batters, and has a cool 1.08 ERA.

Why would he toil in the depths of the minors at such an advanced age? He loves to play! As El Duque said recently to a reporter, "In Cuba, we had 14-hour bus rides with no air conditioning, no food, no music, no anything. This? This is nothing. This is fun. We get to play baseball in new shoes and clean uniforms."

I hope the Nats promote him in September -- I would love for my daddy to take me to the ballpark to see him pitch ... it would be pretty cool!

Yunesky Maya, Me, and the Offending Ball

2010-09-01T23:51:00.000-04:00

Yunesky Maya, Me, and the Offending Ball

(Sunday, August 22, 2010)

By Mike DeNero

There it was, resting in the weeds a foot behind the right field chain link fence, parked under the wooden billboards, which extended just above the top of the fence, the first game-used ball I would ever bring home from a baseball game. Moments before I found it, it had been launched there by one Seth Loman (no relation to Willy), a 24 year-old first baseman who plays for the Winston-Salem Dash, the Class A, Carolina League affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. The problem is that he hit it off my newest favorite baseball player, Yunesky Maya.

Maya was born and raised in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, which means that when he made it to the Cuban National Series (Cuba’s MLB equivalent) he played for his hometown team, the Pinar del Rio Vegueros (cigar makers). For being one of the league’s star pitchers, he was paid somewhere in the ballpark of $10-$15 per month (as is everyone else in the league), a salary which was drawn solely from the work he did at his day job. I am curious to know what his “day job” was, as while the island’s best ballplayers are celebrities, they generally live in poverty, as does most of the island’s population (for example, Orlando Hernandez, know affectionately as “El Duque,” perhaps the greatest Cuban pitcher ever, lived in a one room shabby pink “house” that was divided into two rooms by a makeshift wall of concrete blocks).

Maya ultimately became Cuba’s best starting pitcher, amassing a career 48-29 record and a 2.51 ERA, enough to earn him a spot on Cuba’s national team, appearing in the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic – in the summer of 2009, he was expelled from the national team for “grave problems of indiscipline,” (i.e., attempting to defect) as reported in Granma, Cuba’s official newspaper.

Shortly thereafter, in September 2009, he fled Cuba and ended up in the Dominican Republic awaiting clearance to play baseball in the United States. While I do not know any details of how he defected, I know that his family remains in Cuba and, based upon several accounts I have read Cuban baseball players’ journeys to freedom, I imagine the story is not a pretty one.

A few weeks ago, my team, the Washington Nationals, signed Maya to a four-year contract worth a reported $6 million. He arrived in D.C. on July 31^st, where he was introduced to the Nationals crowd during the middle of the 4^th inning of the Nats/Phillies game. Although he reportedly speaks no English (but plans to learn quickly), he stated, through an interpreter, that he wanted to meet President Obama. Clearly, Maya thinks big – we like him!

Fast-forward to today, Sunday, August 22, 2010. Maya is making his debut for the Class A Potomac Nationals after pitching a handful of innings in the Gulf Coast League earlier in the week.

I arrive at G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium (capacity: seemingly about 2,000 people) in Woodbridge, Virginia at 12:50 p.m. for the 1:05 start (parking in the grass, $4 bucks). Maya is finishing his warm-ups (see photos above) and is on the “bullpen” mound about five feet from the first row of seats just past first base.

Although he has a blister on his pitching thumb the size of a quarter (see photo of Maya looking at his thumb during warm-ups at left), he’s ready to pitch and appears to have pumped himself up for the occasion.

I head to my seat three rows behind first base ($12 bucks). I estimate that the “crowd” totals 1,000, but if I count the puppies and dogs (it was Bring Your Dog Day) and the team mascot, Uncle Slam, there are probably 1,050. Maya makes his way to the mound, but on his way, he stops at the foul line, bends over, and grabs some dirt. He repeated this ritual each inning – it reminded me of when El Duque would do a hop-skip-and-jump over the foul line on his way back to the dugout after retiring the side.

After Maya mows down the first three Winston-Salem Dash hitters in about five minutes, I make my way to the Ben’s Chili Bowl hut and order a chilidog and Diet Coke ($9 bucks – pretty steep prices for the minor leagues). As I walk away from Ben’s, I feel a hard thump on my backside. As I quickly turn around, I notice that Uncle Slam has provided the “coaches slap,” but since his blue, four-fat-fingered hand is so immense, it felt more like a wallop than a smack! Incidentally, a few innings later, he performed WWF wrestling moves on some local teenagers who were mulling around. I guess he let me off easy.

After I down the chilidog, which I think was actually a half-smoke, I returned to my seat to watch Maya mow down the competition in the 2^nd and 3^rd innings. In the middle of the third, one of the kids in the stands won a Fruit Roll-Up for being able to simultaneously rub the top of his head and belly for 10 straight seconds! An amazing feat!

In the top of the 4^th, the wheels started to fall off for Maya. After a series of hard-hit balls, bloops, and walks, the Dash put a crooked number on the scoreboard – 5 runs. Maya finally retires the side, and I make my way to the funnel cake stand and order a mini funnel cake ($3 bucks) (see picture at right above).

To start the 5^thinning, Maya gives up a blast just over the right field fence to Seth Loman. “Maya’s out of here and so am I,” I say to myself. As I exit the park (by simply opening a chain link fence door), I think to myself, “why not go try to find the home run ball – it’s obviously the first HR surrendered by Maya on U.S. soil.”

So, I make my way to the fence and there it is, sitting in the weeds about one foot behind the right field chain-linked fence, a heavily game-used Rawlings Official Carolina League baseball (see picture at left). As I pick it up, I realize that it is the first time I am bringing a ball home from a baseball game – I have been to nearly 100 Major League games, and have gone home empty-handed each time, though I have been close on occasion).

As I make my way back toward my car, which is parked closer to third base than first, I re-enter the ballpark (by opening the fence door again) and peek onto the field to make sure Maya has been pulled for a relief pitcher. He has, so I start walking toward home plate to eventually exit closer to where my car is parked. As I pass the Nats’ clubhouse (essentially, an air-conditioned box of a “room” connected to the back of the dugout), I see Maya standing outside the door in his uniform (minus his jersey - see picture at right) trying to make a call on his mobile phone (I can just picture him saying to himself, “Six million bucks and I still can’t find a cell phone that gets reception inside the P-Nats’ dugout!”).

I quickly snap a photo on my i-Phone (see photo at left) and after determining that his call has not gone through, I approach him to get him to sign the offending ball. Just as I reach him, another fan shoves a ball in front of him to sign. Maya obliges and I can tell that he has a quality signature, as he took his time to sign his name nicely on the sweet spot. After the fan thanks him, he takes the offending ball and pen from my hands and signs it right on the sweet spot, just centimeters away from some dirt spots and the bat mark where Loman’s bat smacked it. I thank him, shake his hand, and make my way to my car.

After the game, I learn that the quarter-sized blister on his pitching thumb prevented him from throwing two of his five pitches (the change-up and splitter). I guess if you take 60% of your arsenal to the mound, even the Winston-Salem Dash can score some runs off you.

Regardless of his performance in Class A today, I know that Maya will be successful here. His next start will be in Class AAA Syracuse and he will probably be called up to the Big Leagues on September 1^st. He will be successful because he has experience, guts and high expectations for himself and he’s certainly not going to be rattled if he goes out to the mound a couple times in September and gets shellacked! I wish we had 24 other Yunesky Mayas on the Nationals.

If you would like to see some more photos and film footage from the game, as well as a transcript of Maya’s post-game press conference, please click here to a fabulous blog called Nats320 – A Washington Nationals Blog.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: August 2010

2010-08-21T23:49:00.000-04:00

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - August 2010

2010-08-20T23:49:00.000-04:00

T206 Fred Merkle (Portrait)

by Tony

Hello everyone; Tony here. Glad to be back writing the current installment of my column, which Mike DeNero wants me to write every other month (my twin brother, Bernie, writes it on the months I get a break). My card of the month is the T206 Fred Merkle (portrait), who is pictured as one of the newest members of John "Muggsy" McGraw's New York Giants.

I absolutely love this card for a few reasons. First, it passes with, flying colors, two of the tests I give to all cards: is it visually appealing? The bright red background enhances the detailed portrait of a presumably 20-year-old rookie (the card was released in 1909 or 1910, so the portrait was likely taken in 1908 – I assume the card’s image is derived from a Carl Horner portrait). Which brings us to my second reason for loving this card and test number two: does the card picture an athlete early in his career? Certainly.

Third, and most importantly, through this card, Merkle tells me a story. He tells me that he is barely two years out of high school during the summer of 1908 and that New York City is quite far from his home in Toledo, Ohio – and while he relishes the opportunity to play for the greatest club in the game, he misses his family and the sweet comforts of home, especially during the long train rides to St. Louis and Chicago. He reveals that he was scared to death to meet his new manager, John “Muggsy” McGraw, when he arrived at the Polo Grounds in late September of the previous year, after the Gants purchased him from Tecumseh in the Southern Michigan League. He reveals that he is quite in awe of some of his new teammates – Christy Mathewson (even though he’s known as the “Christian Gentleman”), Rube Marquard, “Iron” Joe McGinnity, “Turkey” Mike Donlin, Roger Bresnahan, and Fred Snodgrass, to name a few – especially since he’s the youngest member of the team. He admits that he’s a bit scared of the filth and the hustle and bustle of New York City. He explains that while he’s aware that he’s a green rookie, he knows he can play ball with the best the league has to offer and he is frustrated that he has yet to crack the club’s starting lineup, even for one game. He tells me that he’s excited to have his portrait taken in the Carl Horner Studios in Boston today (September 1, 1908), so that he can send a copy to his family back home, and that he hopes to be in the starting lineup versus the Boston Doves (soon to be known as the Boston Braves) later today at the South End Grounds. He knows that if Mr. McGraw will just give him a chance to crack the starting lineup, he’ll give a good account of himself and earn a starting spot … for good.

In Between Naps - August 2010

2010-08-19T23:48:00.000-04:00

Local Shows Were About More Than Cards, Cash

by Rob Dewolf

As we celebrate the coming of another “National,” let us also pause with a moment of silence for a long-departed friend of the hobby: the local, monthly card show.

This week the 31st National Sports Collectors Convention will take place. Tens of thousands will flock to the Baltimore Convention Center. Enough money will be spent to make Congress blush.

Hall of Famers from three major sports will be on hand to trade their autographs for a fee, while card companies and auction houses will have smiling representatives stationed behind their tables in an effort to generate goodwill and business -- not necessarily in that order.

Cities that have hosted previous Nationals include Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Anaheim and Detroit. At one convention, 10 T206 Wagners were on display.

Needless to say, the National is a big deal where lots of big deals are made.

So like many, I celebrate its annual arrival. But I do so with a trace of regret.

Regret that the National pretty much has become the one "card show" I attend each year. Why? Because there simply aren't that many card shows anymore. Certainly not like the ones that helped lay a foundation for my love of sports collecting.

Growing up in northeast Ohio in the 1970s, I was a typical kid collector. Bought packs of cards at the Quik Stop on Route 62 and Monty's gas station on Wales Road. Traded doubles in study hall and put together multiple sets of whatever was in season. Discovered through hobby publications like The Trader Speaks and Sports Collectors Digest that my card transactions didn't have to be with just friends and classmates.

Buying cards via the mail certainly expanded my cardboard horizons, but it wasn't until the Canton Sports Card Collectors Club was formed and started hosting monthly card shows at the Nazir Grotto hall did the final piece fall into place. Attending these shows with Bob and Bill, two other "serious" card collectors at my school and the ones I hung out with most often, was something like a regularly scheduled epiphany. Here was a place we could go and pay fifty-cents admission to see tables and tables of baseball cards we could buy -- right then and there! No having to ask our moms to write checks, then mail the payments and wait weeks for our purchases to arrive. And no settling for just the current offering from Topps. We were able to choose from a cornucopia of T cards, Goudeys, Bowmans and 20-year-old Topps cards.

Heaven had opened a branch in Canton, Ohio.

And it got better. It didn't take long for Bob, Bill and I to figure out that we could just as easily be behind the tables as in front of them. Why not? We were buying regularly through the mail and amassing fairly impressive "inventories." Bill, thanks to stories about his collecting in a couple community newspapers, was able to buy several large collections. Bob, the truly innovative thinker in our trio, saw the wisdom in purchasing large lots of 1940s and '50s cards through the mail and breaking them down to sell individually at shows. I know: It sounds simple now. But at the time it was an impressive display of business acumen.

So there we were, three high school freshmen -- the only "dealers" in the room who depended on their parents to drive them to the show -- sharing two tables. The night before we would meet, usually in the basement of my house, and lay out our respective merchandise on the floor, within a 3-by-16-foot space marked off by masking tape. If you don't think a lot of painstaking thought was spent on deciding whether to place a binder of 1960s minor stars or a box on 1970s high numbers at the front of your selling space, well, you've never been a teenager who only recently discovered that good money could be made without sweating your butt off mowing lawns or shoveling snow.

The Sunday afternoons spent wheeling and dealing usually were capped by a half-mile walk down the street to the Spaghetti Tree. After packing up our unsold wares and safely hiding them in one of the dusty rooms down a dark hallway of the Nazir Grotto, the three of us would wait for our ride home while gorging on pizza, pasta and enough Pepsi to gag Denny McLain. Most of the time we weren't even hungry; it simply felt great to spend some of the money we had just earned … BY SELLING BASEBALL CARDS!

The joy ride continued for a few years, and the thrills were numerous (including arriving one day to find that Bob Feller also had paid the requisite $5 fee to set up shop, but that's a story for another time). In my mind, the beginning of the end came when the first Beckett guide was published. While heralded at the time, it also laid the groundwork for monthly card shows to become little more than tables covered with monster boxes full of cards of Mike Greenwell, Tommy Glavine, Gregg Jeffries and the like.

But before rookie-card fever hit the hobby, followed by the modern card entering a coma in the 1990s, the local card show was the place to be.

Sure, they still exist in some form in some locales. In fact, there's a fairly successful one held every couple of months about a half-hour from my house. I've debated about going but have thought better of it. I know I'll compare it to its predecessors, and that wouldn't be fair.

Plus, there's not a Spaghetti Tree within miles.

Leela's Tips & Tricks - August 2010

2010-08-18T23:46:00.001-04:00

A New Venture

(Translation: Une nouvelle entreprise)

by Leela

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

Well, my beloved Canadiens are still playing golf in the off-season -- but just wait 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)

Anyway, before I get back to enjoying my summer camp activities and the local pool club, I must provide you with my top of the month. My tip is that if you were forced to choose between all characteristics of a card’s condition (e.g., corners, centering, surface) and could only have one be perfect, the one you should choose is registration. There’s nothing that drives me more nuts than looking at a blurry card! Cartes floues obtenir me bonkers! I mean seriously, how can you stare at a blurry card?

Gotta go. My dry cleaner just called to say that my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater has been found – it’s been missing for a month! Last month, when I went there to pick it up, they handed me a Joe Pepitone jersey instead -- C'est stupide, incapable, âne. Je vais descendre à son magasin et l'ont battu à une pâte! So, I guess I’ll bring Mr. Pepitone back to the shop and swap him for my beloved Richard! Ah. Tout va bien dans le monde quand je peux porter mon chandail avec fierté Richard.

Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

2010-08-17T23:46:00.000-04:00

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: August 2010

2010-08-16T23:45:00.000-04:00

1958 Topps All-American Roman Gabriel

by Bob Lemke

I've finally added a Roman Gabriel card to my checklist of 1955-style All-American football cards. But it wasn't easy.

I've always had Gabriel on my mental to-do list for the project, but had never run across a useable college photo. The Rams were always among my Top 5 favorite NFL teams in the 1950s and early 1960s, and when Gabriel finally got off the bench and became a starter, he became a player of more than moderate interest to me.

Maybe it was because he was the NFL's Joe Namath before there was a Joe Namath. He was literally tall, dark and handsome (he was once described as the "world's biggest Filipino) and his long hair made him stand out from the establishment quarterbacks like Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr, with their crewcuts. To a rebellious teen-ager (at least as rebellious as you could be in the mid-Sixties when you're white, middle class and living in a small Wisconsin city) who hadn't yet been brainwashed to hate pro football as a metaphor for The War, Gabriel was a player whose career I followed for a time.

I thought I'd struck paydirt in my card quest when I discovered Gabriel was included in the photo spread for Playboy's All-American team in the magazine's annual Pigskin Preview issue in 1961. I bought a copy on eBay for six or eight bucks, but when I got the magazine in hand, my hopes were dimmed considerably.

Creating a custom card from a magazine photo is always dicey. I knew from the preview I'd seen on line that Gabriel's image in the group photo was going to be small. It also turned out to be a bit fuzzy upon enlargement and the color printing was somewhat out of register. I diddled the image for a couple of hours last weekend, then plopped it onto the card's background. I didn't like the result (shown at left).

Another hour searching the Internet for a suitable image didn't turn up anything useful; everything was either too small or too low-res. Fortunately, the search turned up an image of the cover of the 1961 NCAA record book, with an action pose of Gabriel.

An eBay browse offered my choice from among a handful of copies. Most were priced in the $15-25 range, which is more than I like to pay for the materials I use. I spotted a copy that had some items clipped from the interior pages and my low-ball offer was quickly accepted.

I was able to colorize the black-and-white cover photo and achieve an acceptable result, the image shown here at top.

As is almost always the case, boiling down the copy for the back of the card to about 90 words was a challenge. Even though he never won an NCAA Championship or a Super Bowl, Gabriel had a great career and has led an exemplary life.

He was a three-sport star in high school and after sifting through college scholarship offers, elected to stay in his native state at North Carolina State. While he played freshman basketball and varsity baseball (a slugging first baseman, he once hit three home runs in a game), eventually he came to focus on football.

Even though the Wolfpack was mediocre during his three seasons as quarterback (11-18-1 from 1959-61), he caught the pro scouts' eye. He was both All-American and Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year in 1960 and 1961, and was academic All-American in 1960. He completed 285 of 506 passes in his collegiate career, for 2,951 yards. He threw for 20 touchdowns and ran for 15. During his days at N.C. State, his fans developed a new Wolfpack fight song, "Throw, Gabriel, Throw."

The Oakland Raiders made Gabriel the No. 1 overall pick in the 1962 AFL draft, while the L.A. Rams chose him with the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft. Back in those heady days of NFL vs. AFL bidding wars, Gabriel's football fortune was assured. He signed with the Rams, but later said that's because while he was being "baby sat" in a hotel room by the Rams' Elroy Hirsch, a phone call from the AFL with a $100,000 offer was intercepted by Hirsch, who being mistaken for Gabriel's agent, assured the upstart league that Gabriel was firm in his desire to play in the NFL.

Gabriel was among the first of the "big man" quarterbacks in the NFL, at 6'4" and 235 lbs. He had an incredibly powerful arm and took the Rams to two NFL Championship games. He was a four-time Pro Bowl selection and was league MVP in 1969. Plagued by knee and shoulder injuries, he went to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973, when he was named Comeback Player of the Year, and retired after the 1977 season.

As a starting quarterback in Los Angeles, and given his physique and dark good looks, it was natural that Hollywood came calling. He played an unnamed prison guard in the 1968 LSD film trip Skidoo, and had his biggest role as John Wayne's adopted Indian son Blue Boy in the 1969 Western, The Undefeated, which also included in the cast teammate Merlin Olsen. He had a number of television appearances, including as a headhunter on Gilligan's Island, and also appeared in the Raymond Burr series Perry Mason and Ironsides.

Gabriel did some assistant coaching in the USFL with the Boston Breakers and Arizona Wranglers, and in the World League of American Football in 1991-92 was head coach of the 0-10 Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks.

Though slowed by a stroke in recent years, Gabriel has devoted enormous time and energy since his football days to raising money for charities in and around North Carolina. I'm glad I was finally able to add him to my checklist of '55-style college custom cards.

*****

2010-08-15T23:00:00.001-04:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 449-3470 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: July 2010

2010-08-09T00:21:00.004-04:00

Strasburg + Me = ?

2010-08-09T00:19:00.001-04:00

Strasburg + Me = ?

by Mike DeNero

What does Stephen Strasburg mean to me? I’ve been seriously pondering that question since spring training.

I must confess that although I, as a wee lad, became a diehard Yankees fan in the mid-1970s, the Yankees and I started to drift apart when we both started seeing other people – me, the lovable, lowly Nats in 2005; the Yanks, players of whom I didn’t approve (e.g., Bobby Abreu, Randy Johnson, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi – my Yankees were Louisiana Lightning, WPIX and the Scooter, Burger King cards in 1977 and 1978, the Reggie Bar, Mick the Quick, Big Dave Winfield, and, later, Jeter, Mariano, El Duque, and Matsui).

I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1998, and while I carried a torch for my beloved Bombers for the ensuing five or six years, the Montreal Expos (soon to be Washington Nationals) caught my fancy. Immediately upon the Nationals’ arrival in D.C. in 2005, I became a dedicated fan (and season ticket holder) who only occasionally secretly pined for the Bombers … at least until they became nearly unrecognizable to me, courting the likes of the aforementioned players, who I would never consider “Yankees” in the truest sense of the word.

I supported the Nats through thin and thinner -- tough times, save for Opening Night at RFK Stadium in 2005 and the opener in 2008 at the new Nationals Park (see picture of me in front of the Red Porch arm in arm with broadcaster and former Reds/Mets 3rd bagger Ray Knight, who is currently a Nationals broadcaster -- if you look closely to the right of Ray Knight, you can see the back of then Nats first baseman, Nick Johnson, who was presumably giving a pre-game interview on that Opening Night at Nationals Park).

One day, in late 2008 (another lean year for the Nats), my father, who still lives in New Jersey, told me that as one of the league’s worst teams, the Nats were in the “running” to get a young pitcher named Stephen Strasburg, a nineteen year-old kid phenom who pitched for San Diego State. “He throws the ball over 100 miles an hour,” my dad said. My reply? “We’ll see.”

Sure enough, the Nats won the right to draft the kid and did so in June of 2009. At the time, I was cautiously optimistic, as I seriously thought the Nats would likely be bullied by Strasburg’s agent, Scott Boras, and the deadline would pass without getting him to “sign on the line which is dotted,” as Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry, Glenross would say.

I recall being on vacation in late August of last year (2009) at the wonderful beach house my family rented in Sea Bright, New Jersey. Each night, I watched SportsCenter to see if the Nats had managed to sign Strasburg. As luck would have it, they got him with a few seconds to spare before the deadline. Optimistic? Yes, with a side order of pessimism (“Sure, they signed him. But the Nats will surely screw this up somehow,” I thought).

Fast-forward to spring training 2010. The reports from Florida were that he was already the Nats’ best pitcher, even though he’d never stepped foot on a pitcher’s mound in a Major League regular season game. Again, “we’ll see,” I thought.

Like many Nats (and other baseball) fanatics, I followed his every move in the minors as the early season progressed, knowing that he’d probably arrive in D.C. by early June and that I would be in attendance at his first Major League game.

As that early June target approached, I grew more and more anxious. On June 8^th, my wife and I attended his first Major League start (see photo below) – we sat five rows from the rail in the upper deck, midway between home plate and first base. The outcome is already the stuff of legend – thus, no need to recount each strikeout and 100 mph pitch here. I, for one, got my money’s worth as soon as he blew away former Nationals underachiever and head case extraordinaire, Lastings Milledge, for his first Major League whiff.

A funny side note is that my wife recorded his final two (of fourteen) strikeouts on her new iPhone camcorder. At one point, with one strike on the final batter, who would be Strasburg’s 14^thstrikeout victim of the evening, a barely audible comment – “c’mon, mow this bum down” – can be heard from the froggy throat of yours truly. It was within moments that my wife and I agreed to try to attend each game he pitches in D.C. this season. Thus far, we’ve kept our vow (we’re currently four for four, and have great seats for this Saturday’s matchup against the Metsies and then the July 9^th game versus the Giants).

But back to my question posed at the outset of this essay – what does Stephen Strasburg mean to me? I am still not entirely sure. I know it’s not grotesquely over-hyped, new “1 of 1” manufactured scarcity cards. I do know that because I (as does everyone else) have a family to support, children to help raise, a career to develop, and a small business to run with my business partner and good friend in our free time, the time I can (or choose to) dedicate to sports fandom is dwindling every day (as it should). But this baseball season is different, solely because of Strasburg.

Because he plays for my Nats, he represents to me something that each underdog (and heaven knows the Nats and, consequently, their fans, are underdogs) longs for or, if he’s lucky, has already witnessed – that precise, glorious moment at which he feels his fortunes begin to turn for the better.

After the Nationals made the final out in their final pre-Strasburg era game (an extra inning affair during which the Nats blew a two-run lead in the ninth inning), Nationals President, Stan Kasten, turned to a friend and said, “Thank goodness that era is behind us.” Kasten acutely recognized that the Nats’ final out in the pre-Strasburg era was the turning point – the worst days were suddenly beginning to appear in the Nats’ caravan’s rearview mirror.

While the Nats have struggled mightily since the June 8^th Stras-Mania began (e.g., losing 1-0 to the Royals on June 23^rd after Strasburg fanned 9 and yielded no extra base hits; back-back-back blown five and six run leads to the lowlier Orioles just last week; and a total of one run scored in the last three games Strasburg started), and will likely continue to struggle for the near future (at least as long as guys like Nyjer Morgan continue to bat leadoff, our middle infielders continue to kick the ball around the infield, and our non-Strasburg starters continue to roll the ball to home plate), it would be shortsighted for anyone to believe that Strasburg’s mere presence in the Nats’ dugout has not already resulted in the team’s fortunes starting to take a u-turn.

While witnessing Strasburg’s sheer dominance on the mound from my perch in the upper deck of Nationals Park on June 8th (see photo above), I began to believe. Not just in the Nats’ chances of becoming a baseball force within the next few years (although that’s a really fun, yet nearly unfathomable, thought), but in the possibility of the things in our everyday lives that can sometimes seem impossible – the beacon of light at the end of, at times, a seemingly endless tunnel.

It’s always been there, and it always will be, but sometimes it takes a 21-year-old fireballer to remind us.

2010-08-09T00:18:00.000-04:00

In Between Naps - July 2010

2010-08-09T00:17:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, Luck Conquers All

by Rob Dewolf

Sometimes the collecting gods smile down at you. Granted, they also can be fickle. My 800-count box of 1987 Topps Bo Jackson rookies is proof of that. Rob knows bad buys.

But there are those times when fortune is so good that you almost feel guilty. (But then you remember Cory Snyder, and your conscience is cleared.)

This is a story about one of those times.

For about the past nine years, the highlight of my Cleveland Indians collection has been a 1948 World Series ring. I can't imagine owning a collectible that I'll enjoy more. After I bought it, I somewhat seriously thought about not buying more Indians memorabilia because I knew everything else would pale in comparison. That idea lasted for about a minute, and I returned to my senses.

The ring isn't linked to a player. There's no inscription of a name or anything else that identifies the original owner. Maybe it was given to a front-office employee. I've also heard told that Indians owner Bill Veeck ordered "extra" rings from L.G. Balfour as gifts for special friends, business acquaintances and bar owners.

No matter. It's a ring from Cleveland's only World Series-winning team in the past 90 years, and that's enough for me.

Almost.

As much as I love this Indian artifact, there was this gnawing feeling. Kind of a mix of emptiness and incompleteness. A longing, if you will.

It wasn’t overwhelming, mind you. More like how you feel walking to the car after 2½ hours at a seafood buffet and you realize you forgot to have a cup of the clam chowder.

You're fulfilled, no doubt. But still, the chowder would have been nice.

In this case, my soup du jour (more accurately, soup of the decade, I guess) was a presentation box that once housed the ‘48 rings. Though I'd never seen one, I knew they existed. In the mid-1990s, one was sold by an auction house and, at the time, I had a passing interest. But because I didn't own a ring, the desire to have a box that one came in wasn't very strong. Let someone else have the hood ornament, I'll hold out for the Rolls Royce.

Except now that I had a ring, I was in the driver's seat. And I wanted the complete package. So I kept my eyes open and waited. And waited. I watched three more 1948 rings come up for auction but no presentation boxes.

Then, this spring, one literally fell into my lap.

A group of personal items from the estate of a former Indians player hit the auction block. There were no headline-grabbing pieces but enough interesting things that I ended up buying the lot. The collection was shipped in three fairly large boxes, meaning I got to enjoy a mini Christmas in May – minus the annual houseful of relatives, in-laws and other guests. Yes, I gave thanks.

As I sat on our family-room floor and unpacked the boxes, I mentally checked off the items I knew should be included. All was going as expected as I dug to the bottom of the final box. Then, while scooping handfuls of packing peanuts I also retrieved something that wasn't on the manifest in my mind. After dropping it in my lap (the word literally isn't used liberally in this blog), I picked up a worn, wooden box that measured about 4 by 5 inches.

There were no markings on the outside, so I immediately figured it to be some kind of generic knick-knack box, maybe presented long ago by a local civic organization at an off-season banquet. After opening it, I realized how wrong I was. Printed in red lettering on silk-like lining on the underside of the lid were these words:

WORLD SERIES

CHAMPIONSHIP AWARD

CLEVELAND INDIANS

1948

***

L.G. Balfour Company

Attlesboro, Massachusetts

Realizing what I was holding, I sat in stunned silence. I grabbed the auction catalog and double-checked to make sure I hadn't missed a mention of a presentation box for a 1948 World Series ring. (Yeah, like that would have happened.) Nope. Not a word.

Yet here it was. Just goes to show you really shouldn't believe everything you read.

Missing was the insert that should have sat in the bottom of the box. That was remedied a week or so later with a bit of craft work that required covering a piece of cut-to-fit Styrofoam with black velvet. A few nips, tucks and curse words later, and I thought the finished product looked pretty darn good. Finally, my ring had found a fitting home.

A home run that would have made even Bo proud.

Leela's Tips & Tricks - July 2010

2010-08-09T00:16:00.002-04:00

A New Venture

(Translation: Une nouvelle entreprise)

by Leela

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

Well, my beloved Canadiens are now playing golf in the off-season. But just wait 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)

Anyway, before I get back to enjoying this 95 degree weather with 85% humidity, I must provide you with my top of the month. My tip is that if you are a collector of sportscards and have never ventured into collecting non-sportscards, you might want to start your venture by purchasing just one card. After you buy it, keep it for one month before you buy another. If after that month you still want to buy more, your first purchase was probably the beginning of a new collecting interest, rather than a passing fancy! It worked for me. I ventured into non-sports with the 1940 Gum Inc. Superman cards and still love ‘em – Superman est de la bombe!

Gotta go. My dry cleaner just called to say that my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater is missing! C'est stupide, incapable, âne. Je vais descendre à son magasin et l'ont battu à une pâte!

Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

2010-08-09T00:14:00.005-04:00

2010-08-09T00:13:00.001-04:00

Mike DeNero’s Layaway Program

In a recent conversation with my aunt about our sportscards business, I mentioned that our company offers a layaway program. She sort of snickered at the thought. While it may sound a bit humorous, it has been our most successful program that we have offered to our customers to date. In fact, nearly half of our revenue for 2010 been generated through that program. Here’s how it works:

- Customers can purchase items for layaway through any of our channels: our website, www.MDsportscards.com, our eBay site, or over the telephone;

- We require a 10% deposit (or more, if the customer wishes) via PayPal, direct credit card payment, money order, or check;

- We provide the customer with six full months to pay off the balance and allow the customer to make as many payments during this time as he or she wishes;

- We email to the customer a brief 2-page layaway agreement that they can either sign and mail back to us or indicate their acceptance of the terms via a return e-mail; and

- We provide full insurance (at no additional cost to the customer) for the purchased products from the date of sale through delivery to the customer; and

If you have any interest in purchasing some of our products through our layaway program, please contact us by telephone at (571) 449-3470, or by e-mail at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: July 2010

2010-08-09T00:12:00.000-04:00

1957 Topps Sandy Koufax (alternate)

by Bob Lemke

One of the best (at least for us old-guy card collectors) player photos to come out of the Topps Vault series of internet auctions caught my eye and provided the inspiration for not one, but a pair of, Sandy Koufax custom card creations. (The photo also caught the eye of some serious Koufax collector specialists and Brooklyn Dodgers team collectors, and it was bid up to $1,275.)

The image was an original Topps color transparency described as dating from 1957. Indeed, the then-21-year-old Koufax is pictured at the top of his wind-up with some of Ebbets Field's outfield signs in the background.

I'm not going to second-guess the designers at Topps in 1957, who chose to go with a great close-up portrait for the Koufax card in their short-printed Fourth Series. But to me, the photo from the Topps vault just seemed like it would have also made a very nice card . . . so I made one.

I haven't often, in my several years of custom card making, tried to improve on an actual card from Topps, Bowman, etc. It's my belief that the graphic artists who created those originals so many decades ago, working with what today is viewed as ancient technology -- a roll of rubylith and an Xacto knife -- do not deserve to have their legacy usurped by me and my computer graphics tools.

But the image of the '57-style card that could be created from this newly re-discovered Koufax photo was just too vivid in my mind's eye, so I made it a reality.

As my custom card projects go, this alternative '57 Koufax was pretty easy. I just had to match the name/position/team typography from 1957 and lay it over the photo. On back, I just made a couple of subtle changes so that the card can't be confused with a genuine 1957 Topps issue.

This Koufax alt card represents my first work in the 1957 Topps set, which is surprising since that issue remains one of my all-time favorite baseball card sets. I have several other '57s on my to-do list, including a Stan Musial, who didn't appear on a Topps card until 1958.

*****

1950-51 Toleteros Josh Gibson - consigned to us from its original owner!

2010-06-17T22:11:00.007-04:00

This extremely rare and sought after 1950-51 Toleteros Josh Gibson is, in our humble opinion, severely undergraded at an SGC 40. This card was consigned to us by its original owner, who collected the Toleteros cards in Puerto Rico as a ten year-old kid. In our August e-Newsletter, which is scheduled for distribution on July 31st, we will feature an article about our consignor and his Toleteros Gibson card. This is your chance to own one of the most rare and sought after cards in the hobby ... and purchase it from its original owner! It is believed that there are approximately one dozen of this card in existence. Please contact us at MDsportscards@gmail.com or (571) 449-3470, if you have any questions. To view our website listing for this item, please click here. To view our eBay listing for this item, please click here.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: June 2010

2010-06-03T00:19:00.001-04:00

The Mammoth Shot

2010-06-03T00:15:00.003-04:00

The Mammoth Shot

by Mike DeNero

Forty years from today, a sixty-seven year-old man will be at a family gathering in Bayamon, Puerto Rico (perhaps a grandson's birthday, perhaps a milestone wedding anniversary, perhaps a relative's graduation) and he'll be asked by some of the attendees at the event - some of whom will be his close family members, some of whom will be significant others of distant cousins - to recall his days of playing Major League Baseball for the Seattle Mariners. While he undoubtedly will wax poetic about his three years worth of brief stints with the big club in Seattle, he will invariably steer the conversation to an at-bat on May 29, 2010 in a packed Triple-A ballpark in Syracuse, New York, because on that night, he hit what he now describes as a “mammoth shot” over right-center field wall in his first at-bat against the best pitcher of the 21st Century, Hall of Famer Stephen Strasburg, who finished his career with an astonishing 310-138 record, a 2.61 ERA, 5,212 strikeouts, seven National League Cy Young Awards, and four World Series titles, all with the team for which he played his entire career, the Washington Nationals.

Some of those in attendance at the family gathering will have heard the old man's story before (several times, in fact), but those witnessing the old man's bravado for the first time will pull out their iPads (measuring 4 inches by 3 inches, weighing 2.1 ounces, and projecting High Definition images onto any surface) and speak into them: “Rene Rivera; home run; video; Google.” Instantaneously, the most oft searched Rivera bomb link appears at the top of the search page and the guest clicks on it and projects the video highlight onto the plastic siding exterior of the McFive Guys Mansion next door (Five Guys, the best hamburger shop in the nation, will have expanded into Puerto Rico by 2015).

There it is. A 99 mph fastball delivered by the twenty-one year-old phenom (who would make his Major League debut just days later) to the twenty-seven year-old journeyman catcher. It leaves Rivera's stunned bat faster than it arrived and, more importantly, via the opposite trajectory. The "mammoth shot" clears the right-center field fence and all 13,000+ Strasburg disciples in attendance fall silent and Strasburg screams violently at himself while covering his face with his gloved left hand – it is the first home run he has surrendered in his minor league career. A couple fans in attendance can be heard booing as Rivera crosses the plate. A couple fans in attendance can be seen grabbing their iPhones to retract the Auction Sniper bids they had placed for the "1 of 1" Bowman Superfractor Stephen Strasburg "rare" rookie card, which would sell later that night for north of $16,000.

After watching the video, those in attendance who are hearing the old man's tale for the first time suddenly act a little differently. They immediately feel more important -- that they are somehow dining with royalty. Their grasp at greatness is in the guise of a balding sixty-seven year-old man with a potbelly, a moustache that is in bad need of trimming, workingman’s hands, and bifocals. He's old beyond his years, but after those at the family event witnessed the video of his "mammoth shot" from Syracuse, New York, 2010, his step is springier, his former athleticism is more apparent, and his bravado is even more exaggerated, if that were even possible.

In Between Naps - June 2010

2010-06-03T00:14:00.002-04:00

The Trader Still Speaks

by Rob Dewolf

Few things from my high school days delivered as much of a thrill as opening the mailbox and seeing the latest issue of The Trader Speaks nestled among an assortment of bills, fliers, catalogs and other mail for my parents. On that one day each month, the walk from mailbox to family room was filled with anticipation as to what might be within the 80 or so pages. For sure there would be the semi-regular columns -- Lew's Corner by Lew Lipset; The Lyons Roar by George Lyons; Tom Reid on Non-Sports; So This is Real Collecting by Bill Heitman; Exhibit Baseball by Elwood Scharf; Ye Old Autograph Hound by Neil Sussman; and of course, Collecting News by TTS editor Dan Dischley.

All of these articles would be read in their entirety. But the ads in my favorite hobby publication would be scoured first, repeatedly, and with the intensity of a New York Times copy editor.

It's probably hard for a sports card or memorabilia collector who entered the hobby in the Internet age to understand the importance back in the day of hobby publications -- printed versions that actually were mailed to readers, for Google's sake. The content within was limited to the number of pages (unlike today's blogs and message boards that have unlimited space), and the ads were compiled weeks before (unlike new listings that appear on eBay every minute of every day). Instant info, this was not. Yet publications like The Trader Speaks and Sports Collectors Digest were a lifeblood to many collectors.

SCD's pages were physically larger and more numerous in a typical issue, and it published more often -- biweekly before becoming a weekly publication. But I preferred TTS and its 7 x 8 1/2-inch format. Part of the reason was the anticipation. Absence did make the heart grow fonder, because beginning on the 25th or 26th day since the most recent TTS had been delivered, the clock in my collector's head started counting down the days until the next issue was due to arrive.

Even though Sports Collectors DigestThe Trader Speaks was a Cadillac and SCD more of an Impala. provided a collecting fix on a more regular basis, Not that there's anything wrong with the latter -- my first car was an Impala and one that always will have a special place in my heart. But when prom time rolled around, it was Dad's Caddy that I borrowed for the night (and early morning, much to his chagrin).

Not only did I think that the articles in TTS covered more of the advanced (and, to me, mysterious) cards of our hobby, the ads also offered more cards and memorabilia that appealed to the advanced collector. Not that I was one, of course, but it still was awesome to see stuff like Kalamazoo Bats, 1949 Bowman PCL cards, complete Goudey sets and obscure pre-war type cards sold and auctioned on a regular basis. I still remember a quarter-page ad for an auction of a T206 Honus Wagner buried in the middle of one TTS issue. Today such an auction would command the first two pages in a major auction house's catalog and enough flowery prose to earn the envy of a garden club president.

Simply put, The Trader Speaks, in the 1970s and early '80s, was classy. Sadly, it eventually changed hands, went to a tabloid format and not long thereafter lost most of its importance in the hobby.

The enjoyment that TTS provided me 30 years ago continues today. It's been fun trying to put together a complete run of issues, starting with No. 1 in November 1968. In addition to collecting the issues, I also enjoy browsing the ads and wishing I could go back in time. A full ticket from the 1939 All-Star Game for $35 (October 1979), T206 common players for $1.40 each (August 1979), a Harrington Ice Cream Babe Ruth for $40 (January 1980) ... I need to stop now.

I'm 10 issues away from completing my quest, one that actually has sparked another. I'm in the process of indexing and scanning every article printed in TTS. The articles will be converted to .pdf format and entered into a searchable database that any collector can access online. I hope to also include scans of some of the more interesting ads through the years.

The Trader Speaks was important enough that it deserves to have a permanent place in the hobby in one form or another. Plus, for as much as it gave me, the least I can do is give something back.

Leela's Tips & Tricks - June 2010

2010-06-03T00:13:00.001-04:00

Une meilleure façon de dépenser $16,000

(Translation: A Better Way to Spend $16,000)

by Leela

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

Well, my beloved Canadiens had a marvelous run but, alas, have been ruthlessly removed from the Stanley Cup Playoffs by the Philth-adelphia Flyers -- Imposters!!! Wait 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)

Anyway, although I must provide my tip of the month, I must say I have been so enthralled with my beloved Habitants' playoff run; therefore, I have given little thought to this month's tip until I saw that ridiculous “1 of 1” Stephen Strasburg Superfractor card sell on eBay on Saturday night for more than $16,000 (Qui diable pourrait payer $16,000 dollars pour une carte de 2010 Bowman - et ce que le diable est un Superfractor?). My tip is that if it is ever resold, don't bid more than $100 for it. If you were so inclined to bid $16,000, use that $16,000 to follow Strasburg around the country and see him pitch in all the different ballparks this summer!

Gotta go. My dry cleaner just called to say that my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater is ready and that all the tears I cried on it after the Flyers stole my dream from me did not leave a permanent stain on the sweater! Wait 'til next year! (Attendre l'année prochaine!)

Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - June 2010

2010-06-03T00:10:00.007-04:00

The 1953 Bowman Phil Rizzuto & Billy Martin

by Tony

First and foremost, Happy Memorial Day to everyone! Today, I'd like to tell you a little about one of my favorite cards: the 1953 Bowman Phil "the Scooter" Rizzuto & Billy Martin. I love this one because the front is just a picture -- no graphics -- and because Phil and Billy look like two young Italian kids from the Bronx who, but for donning their pinstripes and Yankees caps, could just as easily be sporting leisure suits and fedoras on their way to see “Bones” (a.k.a. Frank Sinatra) at the Paramount. Hey, I know I’m only five years old, but I’m mature beyond my years!

The image on the card makes them appear as if they're having the time of their lives -- and I imagine they were, as the Yanks would go on to win their fifth straight World Series title later that season. I'm willing to bet that Billy probably celebrated that championship with an all-nighter at the Copacabana or Toots Shor's with Whitey and Mickey while Phil and his wife, Cora, probably spent the evening watching The Jackie Gleason Show after a home cooked meal. Who actually had the better time? You be the judge. Me? I’ll take the home-cooked lasagna and canolis for dessert and a little conversation with Phil and Cora to wash it down!

2010-06-03T00:10:00.001-04:00

2010-06-03T00:09:00.004-04:00

Mike DeNero’s Layaway Program

- Customers can purchase items for layaway through any of our channels: our website, www.MDsportscards.com, our eBay site, or over the telephone;

- We require a 10% deposit (or more, if the customer wishes) via PayPal, direct credit card payment, money order, or check;

- We provide the customer with six full months to pay off the balance and allow the customer to make as many payments during this time as he or she wishes;

- We email to the customer a brief 2-page layaway agreement that they can either sign and mail back to us or indicate their acceptance of the terms via a return e-mail; and

- We provide full insurance (at no additional cost to the customer) for the purchased products from the date of sale through delivery to the customer.

If you have any interest in purchasing some of our products through our layaway program, please contact us by telephone at 571-449-3470 or by e-mail at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

2010-06-03T00:08:00.000-04:00

2010-06-03T00:07:00.003-04:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 449-3470 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: June 2010

2010-06-03T00:07:00.002-04:00

1970 and 1971 Topps Carlton Fisks

by Bob Lemke

1970 Topps Carlton Fisk (originally published on Bob Lemke’s blog 4-28-2010)

I found a couple of great early images of Carlton Fisk and thought I'd take a shot at creating what his cards might have looked like if Topps had included him in its 1970 or 1971 sets, rather than waiting for 1972 to give him a rookie card.

I know Topps "All-Star Rookie" designations reflected selection of that honor for the previous year, but I chose to make it a "pre-season" designation.

There's a 1971-style card in the works, as well, with a colorful "action" pose.

1971 Topps Carlton Fisk (originally published on Bob Lemke’s blog 5-22-2010)

Well, it HAS been a while. I was away from my home base for nearly two weeks, and then busy playing catch-up at work and with my hobby projects.

I'm finally getting time to post my newest custom card creation, a 1971 Topps-style Carlton Fisk to go along with the 1970-style card I posted nearly a month ago (April 28).

The '71 Fisk was the first for me in that format, but now I have a template created in case I want to delve any deeper into that genre. Truthfully, though, I don't really have any other 1971-style cards in my sights right now.

In 1971 I was no longer buying cards. At age 20 I was more interested in growing my hair, overthrowing the government, pursuing hippie chicks and my part-time job in pharmacological distribution. By '71 even my youngest brother had stopped buying cards, so I was never really exposed to what Topps was doing until I got back active in cards around 1979.

Card-wise, my heart will always be in the Fifties.

*****

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: May 2010

2010-05-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

My 1973 Topps Baseball Waxpack

2010-05-03T00:00:00.003-04:00

My 1973 Topps Baseball Waxpack

by Mike DeNero

It is my earliest memory. My mom, dad, sister, and I were headed to Sunday dinner at my paternal grandparents’ house, a typical North Jersey Italian-American affair: too many people, too much food (if there is such a thing as too much lasagna and meatballs), and too much yelling at the hapless Mets (actually, too much yelling at the television).

On our way to grandma’s house, my parents thought it wise to stop at a local candy shop so that we could arrive bearing a gift (as if more calories were needed for the affair). While my father was selecting various chocolates the woman behind the glass counter was adding, one by one, to the little white box on the scale, I was pointing at various candies behind the glass and asking my mother if I could have them. My mother’s reply each time was, “no, he won’t buy you that.” The “he” to whom she referred was my father (funny how she used the old man as the reason behind my disappointment each time she said “no”).

After pointing at several items that produced no returns, I pressed on, noticing a box of wax wrappers, each with a baseball player image thereon. I pointed and my mother stopped before she answered, cocked her head to one side, and replied, “he might buy you that.” Needless to say, he did – one waxpack of 1973 Topps baseball cards.

How old was I when my mom and dad bought me that 1973 Topps baseball waxpack? I am not entirely sure, but since I was born in June of 1970, I was most likely somewhere between 2 years and 10 months and 3 years and 3 months.

I recall opening the pack while seated (sans seatbelt, of course) in our family car (an off-white/tan 1973 Buick Electra). I also recall getting one card picturing 4 players (probably a rookie card) and folding it in quarters. And since I folded it in quarters, I thought it best to fold all the cards the same way.

I do not recall getting another 1973 pack, but I had the cards from that first pack in my collection throughout my childhood. The next year, 1974, I bought several packs – one of which featured a Dave Winfield rookie card that I also lived a long life in my collection.

So there it is. My first memory is being three-years-old and getting my first pack of cards. I wonder, did my subsequent devotion to the hobby, which really developed four years later in 1977, jog my memory about getting my first pack in 1973? Or was it the reverse – the experience of breaking open that first pack led to the devotion? It’s really a “chicken or the egg” inquiry, isn’t it?

Leela's Tips & Tricks - May 2010

2010-05-02T23:58:00.002-04:00

Qu'est-ce que vous achetez?

(Translation: What Shall You Buy?)

by Leela

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me, Leela, providing you with some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

Due to the celebrity I have become thanks to my monthly column, my fellow collectors often ask me for advice on what cards they should be buying. My answer today, and every day, is buy cards picturing Montreal Canadiens players, of course! Excellente idée, non? Qui mieux que moi? Personne! I mean, seriously, we are the king of the hill, especially after Les Habitants knocked the overrated, underscoring, underprepared, overconfident Washington Crapitals out of the playoffs! Vive Halak! Vive Bergeron! Vive Plekanec!! Capitals de Washington, au revoir! Profitez de l'été dans votre humides, moucheron infestées, la ville de second ordre de Washington, DC!

Enough gloating for now – I need to head over to the dry cleaner to drop off my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater. After Dominic Moore put my Habs up 2-0 in Game 7, I spilled some apple juice on the front of it while celebrating. I hope that incompétents imbecile at the dry cleaner can figure out how to remove the stains! Dites une prière pour moi et Maurice Richard.

Au revoir … Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

In Between Naps - May 2010

2010-05-02T23:57:00.001-04:00

Happy to Have a Set In My Way

by Rob Dewolf

I admire set collectors, mainly because they attempt to do something that I rarely have the patience to see through until the end.

Numerous times I've set out on a journey to put together a vintage baseball card set, only to drop anchor, jump the rail and swim back to shore before the ship leaves the harbor. Leafs from 1949 and DeLongs from 1933 were the subjects of my two most recent remakes of Titanic.

The Leafs seemed like a good idea after a friend sold me a group of 50 or so that included Satchel Paige (albeit with significant back damage). But all it took to bail was a few eBay transactions in which I spent what I thought was stupid money for the likes of Eddie Stevens, Dave Philley and Alvin Dark. Yes, I know the cards are short-prints, but they still feature Eddie Stevens, Dave Philley and Alvin Dark. The raking in of Leafs quickly stopped.

The DeLong project suffered the same fate for a different reason. I thought because only 24 cards comprise a complete set and 15 of those cards picture Hall of Famers, I wouldn't fall prey to common-player sticker shock. Just the opposite happened. Only a few cards in, I decided there are too many high-dollar Hall of Famers for my taste. DeLongs for Dewolf? Derailed.

I can be a fickle collector.

Which is why I still can't figure out exactly why I've stuck with trying to complete a master set of 1933 Butter Cream cards.

In early 2007 it was announced that hobby legend Lionel Carter would be selling his collection. Many of the cards graded by SGC would have their heritages noted on the card holder. I decided that I'd keep my eyes open for something that would be a good fit, because I really wanted to add part of Mr. Carter's collection to mine.

I found a good opportunity when a small group of Butter Creams came on the auction block. Included was a card of Cleveland Indian George Uhle, so that was a plus in my eyes. The other four cards were notable, too. Three were Hall of Famers -- Mickey Cochrane, Al Simmons and Charles Klein -- and the fourth, Muddy Ruel, is among the highest-graded Butter Creams by SGC (if that's your cup of tea; it's not mine).

After the auction ended and I was high bidder on the lot, I decided to attempt to complete the 30-card set, figuring that if I became bored or frustrated, I'd sell every card except the Uhle.

Then, as I learned more about the issue, I became aware that each card can be found with two different backs: one that has the "Butter Cream Confectionary Corp." name and another without. Shortly after completing a "set" of 29 cards, I decided to try to put together a set of 58 that includes 29 players with each of the two different backs.

Now seems like a good time to explain why I'm content to live with a "complete" set that has only 29 of the 30 possible cards. The Butter Cream Babe Ruth, for those who might not know, is tougher to find than a T206 Wagner. Two have hit the auction block in recent memory, bringing nearly $112,000 (to view the auction listing, click here) and $55,000 (to view the auction listing, click here).

Enough said on the BC Babe.

As for Butter Creams in general and why they've held my interest, like I said, I'm still not entirely sure. I do know that while scarce, they become available on a fairly regular basis. That I was able to compile a complete set, minus the Ruth (man, it gets old always having to type that qualifier), in about a year attests to that.

Also appealing to me is the fact that they're a bit unusual looking. The photos are black-and-white, and the cards measure 1 1/4 by 3 1/2 inches. Not your typical 1930s baseball card. Plus, the fact that the cards themselves were used as contest entry forms -- no doubt contributing to their scarcity today -- is appealing to me.

Finally, the number of Hall of Famers to commons -- 16 to 14 -- is palatable. As a Cleveland guy, the fact that two of the commons are Uhle and Wes Ferrell and one of the Hall of Famers is Earl Averill is a bonus.

I guess all of these factors created a bit of a perfect storm that's resulted in me collecting 50 of the 58 cards needed to complete my version of a Butter Cream master set. The satisfaction and excitement I feel each time I'm able to cross off another card from my want list reinforces my decision to undertake such an endeavor.

It also helps me appreciate why set collectors do what they do. Just not enough that I want to make it a habit.

Mike DeNero's Comic of the Month - May 2010

2010-05-02T23:55:00.002-04:00

Batman – Volume 1, Issue #27 – (February/March 1945)

I absolutely love this one! It has everything you could possibly want in a Golden Age cover: Batman & Robin, Santa Claus (a fat, jolly, old one at that!), a patriotic call to “Back the 6^th War Loan,” and a bundle of toys for all the good little girls and boys at Christmas. A little Internet research about the 6^th War Loan reveals that while the cover is Feb./March, the issue likely hit magazine stands in December (in time for Christmas), as the 6^th War Loan drive commenced on November 20, 1944 and ended December 16, 1944, during which $11 million of advertising, such as the banner on top of this comic, was donated for the cause.

Back to the cover – enough of the history lesson! Human-sized Santa is depicted carrying a sack of toys that would be a real stretch to fit in his sleigh (especially considering that ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas mentions a “miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer” and that St. Nicholas was “a little old driver”). While Robin is barely assisting Santa with the sack of toys, Batman is no help at all; rather, he’s just pointing in the direction to which Santa’s sleigh is presumably parked so that he can unload the hefty toy sack. And why is Santa carrying a green sack? Who ever heard of a green sack?

This issue - #27 of Volume 1 - was released toward the end of World War II (February/March of 1945, to be exact) and features a classic Golden Age cover by Jack Burnley. This particular copy is graded a conservative 4.0 by CGC and looks great. In addition to a Christmas cover, it has off-white to white pages, a Penguin appearance, an Alfred story, stories written by Don Cameron and Joe Samachson, and art by Jerry Robinson and Jack Burnley.

Originally dubbed "the Bat-Man" by creator Bob Kane, and appearing sans Robin (the "Boy Wonder") in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939 (he didn't get his own comic until 1940), Batman is one of the most enduring comic book characters of all-time. And, like every super hero, Batman is known by a variety of other creative monikers (e.g., "The Dark Knight," "The Caped Crusader," and "The Bat"), but none more so than that of his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, a multimillionaire society playboy. Robin, "the Boy Wonder," did not join Batman until April 1940 in Detective Comics #38. Together, they have been keeping the streets of Gotham City safe for more than seventy years.

2010-05-02T23:55:00.000-04:00

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: May 2010

2010-05-02T23:54:00.000-04:00

1955 Topps All-American “Bluto” Blutarsky and Forrest Gump

by Bob Lemke

Bluto

In the half-dozen years that I have been working on creating 1955 All-American style football cards as an exercise in creativity and computer-graphics problem solving, I have created more than 120 cards "that never were" of college footballs players -- some of whom also never were.

One of my favorites is this card based on the Animal House movie character "Bluto," famously played by John Belushi in the 1978 National Lampoon movie.

You may be surprised to see Bluto in a football uniform, as there is absolutely no mention in the movie of the character ever taking the field for the Faber Mongols. I'll admit it: I have never taken such liberties in creating one of my cards as I did with this one.

Animal House has, since its initial release, appealed to the puerile (Keith Olbermann taught me that word) portion of my psyche. I still watch it about once a year when I can find the uncut version on DirecTV .

Some years back, while paging through a copy of Playboy, I encountered an article about Belushi. The portrait in the accompanying photo clicked with me, and I decided a Bluto football card was next up on my to-do list.

I found an appropriate uniformed body picture on which to graft Belushi's/Blutarsky's head, and I was ready to roll. In the spirit of the movie, I sat down in front of a rerun with a bottle of black Jack and took notes. In some scene or other I saw a felt pennant on a Delta house wall that indicate the Faber nickname was the Mongols. In a stroke of very good fortune, a Google search of Faber turned up the Mongol team logo that appears on the front of my card.

Virtually everything that appears on the biography on back, however, is of my own creation, although -- while I can't verify this with a citation at this late date -- I seem to recall that I found on some website or other the fact that Blutarky's middle name was Adam.

The process of fictionalizing a fictional character in furtherance of creating one of my custom football card creations was especially satisfying. I believe true fans of Animal House will appreciate the effort.

Gump

A half-dozen or so of the nearly 120 cards I've created in the past six years or so pay tribute to college football players whose gridiron exploits were entirely in the realm of fiction or entertainment.

Certainly the most popular of these pop culture figures is Forrest Gump. It was some time after I had begun my 1955-style cards that I realized, as I watched a re-run of the movie, that there was a college football element to the story of that fictional savant simpleton. 'Bama, no less! In deference to the legions of Tide fans, I'll refrain from further comment on where Gump fits into the continuum of Alabama alumns.

Once I knew I wanted to create a Forrest Gump football card, I set about assembling the pieces I'd need . . . basically a picture and biographical details.

I was unprepared for how difficult it became to find a suitable photo. A Google search of Tom Hanks and Forrest Gump failed to turn up any in-uniform pictures that would be suitable for reproduction. I spent some time scouring eBay and a few other sites for movie press kits or stills, but those I did find did not include a football picture.

In desperation, one night I set my digital camera on a tripod in front of the TV and began playing back a recorded copy of the movie. When I got to suitable spots in the movie, I hit the pause button and moved back and forth through the scenes, frame-by-frame, until I found what I was looking for. I shot the photo off my screen in extremely high-res and was very happy with the quality once it was reduced to ink-on-paper on the front of my card.

In reading the back of my card you may notice some variance with the details as presented in the movie. That's because I decided to go to the source, and work from the original 1986 novel by Winston Groom.

Because the book is written entirely in first-person dialect, it is not an easy read, but it was worth the effort and as the base document for my card back, I believe it was the right way to go.

*****

2010-05-02T23:53:00.002-04:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 449-3470 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: April 2010

2010-04-02T23:48:00.001-04:00

Novacent Partners Assumes Role as Publisher of SGC Collector Magazine

2010-04-02T23:46:00.002-04:00

Novacent Partners Assumes Role as Publisher of SGC Collector Magazine

by Mike DeNero

Novacent Partners (“Novacent”), a marketing and advertising agency located in New Jersey has enjoyed a long history in the sports collectibles hobby – for example, it has produced SGC Collector magazine since 2005. In late 2009, Sportscard Guaranty, LLC (“SGC”), the hobby’s most prolific grading company, approached Novacent about assuming the role as the magazine’s publisher, and Navacent was, in the words of Al Crisafulli (one of Novacent’s principals), “thrilled” to oblige.

According to Crisafulli, shortly after assuming the role of the magazine’s new publisher, “we’ve changed [the magazine’s] name from SGC Collector to simply Collector … to reflect the broader hobby, which includes not just graded cards but all cards – and not just cards, but all types of memorabilia and collectibles.”

In his Forward to Collector’s first issue (see scans of the cover and table of contents page displayed throughout this article), Crisafulli also noted that the new magazine’s content will reflect “deeper, more detailed articles on all facets of the hobby from the obscure to the common.” The magazine’s new publishers also hope to make the magazine “larger” and publish it “more frequently.”

It’s first issue, which arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes just last week, includes a sneak peek at the soon-to-be-auctioned “Merkle ball,” an article written by me, Mike DeNero, and my co-author, Kyleigh Spencer, about the 1934-1937 Garbaty Film Stars sets, which were released in pre-war Nazi Germany (which can also be found on our blog by clicking here), a piece about collecting sports books by Max Weder, and a truly enjoyable article written by Chris Stufflestreet about collecting “the beater.”

We truly urge all collectors to become a subscriber to Collector magazine, which is released quarterly – it and Old Cardboard are the two best sportscard collecting magazines in print. Subscriptions are only $20 and can be done online through a page on SGC’s website dedicated to Collector magazine by clicking here or by visiting SGC’s home page at www.sgccard.com and clicking on the link titled “Collector Magazine” near the top of the screen.

In the words of Al Crisafulli, “curl up on the couch with a cup of coffee and enjoy [the] new issue of Collector. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.”

In Between Naps - April 2010

2010-04-02T23:43:00.004-04:00

For Openers, Ticket Stubs Can Be Fun To Pursue

by Rob Dewolf

Plenty of writers over the years have waxed philosophically about the magic of the start of another baseball season. So there's really no need to pile on.

That being said, the allure of opening day has been a driving force within my collection of Cleveland Indians memorabilia. One of my best memories from growing up an Indians fan came in 1975, when Frank Robinson became the first black manager in the major leagues. On April 8, against the Yankees, Robinson not only made his debut as the Tribe's manager, he also homered in his first at-bat. Even more stunning, the Indians won the game.

I remember coming home from school and playing Strat-O-Matic baseball on a card table in my bedroom while listening to the game on the radio. Years later at a small baseball card show in Canton, Ohio, I picked up a program from the game. After returning home I looked through the program more closely and found a bonus tucked inside: a ticket stub from the game.

That discovery sparked a passion that has produced a collection of more than 50 Indians opening-day tickets and ticket stubs that date from 1921 to the present. Actually, to be more accurate, all but a few are Indians home-opener tickets, because for me the excitement of another season doesn't truly hit until the Indians play at home.

Collecting opening-day tickets is an interesting proposition. They're usually not very expensive, which can be nice. But they can be tough to find, because they're not high-profile items. Back in the days when you might find a card show within driving distance every weekend, it was rare to find a dealer who had opening-day ticket stubs on his table. If he had any regular-season ticket stubs at all, they likely were lying loose in his quarter or dollar box. Then, in the years that followed during eBay's heyday, sellers quite often would sell opening-day stubs without noting in their listings what they had, simply because they didn't know. Or care.

The history of major league baseball in Cleveland doesn't ooze success – two world championships since 1920. Five trips to the World Series during that span. Ouch.

But there have been memorable moments on opening day, which have produced some very desirable (and pricey) ticket stubs. Topping the list is the Indians-White Sox season-opener in 1940 in Chicago, where Bob Feller threw the only opening-day no-hitter in major league history. According to baseball-reference.com, only 14,000 were in attendance that day, which might explain why ticket stubs from the game are incredibly rare. Even though I favor opening-day tickets and stubs from games in Cleveland, the stub from Feller's opening-day no-hitter easily is my favorite. I was fortunate to pick up mine on eBay about 6-7 years ago, and it's one of only three or four I've seen.

Indians home-opener ticket stubs from the 1940s and early '50s are among the best-looking ones you'll find. They're typically oversized and colorful and have great graphics. My guess is much of the credit goes to promoter extraordinaire/team owner Bill Veeck. Not surprisingly, the fact that the Indians were "World Champions" in 1948 was heralded on Cleveland's home-opener tickets in '49. The image of Chief Wahoo wearing a crown almost is surreal.

Kind of surprising, though, is a ticket stub from St. Louis' home opener that same season. The opponent that day in Sportsman's Park happened to be the Indians, or the "World Champion Cleveland Indians" as the printing on the ticket stub reads. Then again, given that the history of the Browns is even more depressing than the Indians, maybe it makes sense that St. Louis management would promote the Indians coming to town.

On April 16, 1957, the Indians opened the season at home with a 3-2 loss to the White Sox. Batting fifth and playing left field for Cleveland that day was rookie Roger Maris, who was making his big league debut. This ticket stub finds its way on the want lists of Yankees collectors, and I've seen it sell in the $300 range.

These days, the popularity of TicketMaster tickets and ability of customers to print tickets on their own printers (for a fee, which still dumbfounds me) has put a bit of a crimp on collecting modern tickets and stubs. If a collector prefers the "old style" tickets that are on heavier stock, it's often necessary to find an example that was issued to a season-ticket holder in order to avoid the bland TicketMaster versions.

So, challenges remain in my quest to keep adding to this collection. In today's hobby, in which so often the emphasis is placed on high-value, professionally graded cards and big-money pieces of memorabilia, I've found this diversion to be just the ticket.

2010-04-02T23:42:00.000-04:00

2010-04-02T23:41:00.001-04:00

Mike DeNero’s Layaway Program

In a recent conversation with my aunt about our sportscards business, I mentioned that our company offers a layaway program. She sort of snickered at the thought. While it may sound a bit humorous, it has been our most successful program that we have offered to our customers to date. In fact, nearly half of our revenues for 2010 been generated through that program. Here’s how it works:

- Customers can purchase items for layaway through any of our channels: our website, www.MDsportscards.com, our eBay site, or over the telephone;

- We require a 10% deposit (or more, if the customer wishes) via PayPal, direct credit card payment, money order, or check;

- We provide the customer with six full months to pay off the balance and allow the customer to make as many payments during this time as he or she wishes;

- We email to the customer a brief 2-page layaway agreement that they can either sign and mail back to us or indicate their acceptance of the terms via a return e-mail; and

- We provide full insurance (at no additional cost to the customer) for the purchased products from the date of sale through delivery to the customer; and

Leela's Tips & Tricks - April 2010

2010-04-02T23:40:00.000-04:00

What’s In A Grade?

(Translation: Qu'est-ce qu'un grade?)

by Leela

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me again, Leela, and I’m not gonna give ya some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

For those of you who collect vintage cards (et j'espère sincèrement que vous tous) and feel the need to buy them in a certain grade higher (e.g., “I only collect PSA 7s or higher.”), try lowering your “standards” by one whole grade. Often times, you can get a 6 that looks as good or better than a 7 – after all, the grading companies’ processes are not as strenuous as those of NASA, for example (les gars de la société de classification ne sont que les geeks carte, comme vous et moi (enfin, comme vous peut-être plus que moi). Seriously, take a good look at some of the 7s you have and then run an eBay search for the same cards in PSA 6 – I bet you find some that look better than your 7. Excellente idée, non? Qui mieux que moi? Personne!

Je dois y aller. I need to venture over to the dry cleaner to drop off my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater. On Monday night, I spilled some apple juice on the front of it while celebrating a Les Habitants goal. Then after I sat back down in my bean bag chair, I leaned back on some Lorna Doones and they left a little stain on the back. I hope that incompétents imbecile at the dry cleaner can figure out how to remove the stains without ruining my sweater! Dites une prière pour moi et Maurice Richard.

'Til next time -- Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - April 2010

2010-04-02T23:39:00.000-04:00

In an effort to avoid being bested by their pal Leela, Tony and Bernie (the lovable twins from Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood) allow me to present Tony and Bernie’s “Big Apple” Stash. As the lads are twins, and are usually forced to share, why stop at toys, snacks, and sportscards – they will also take turns authoring this column, a monthly ode to their favorite vintage sportscards picturing New York legends. This month, Bernie takes a stab at waxing poetic about one of his all-time favorite Yankees. Please pardon his spelling skills and the liberties he takes with his recollections – he’s only five-years-old. Enjoy!

The Good Ol’ Days

by Bernie

You heard from my twin brother, Tony, last month. I think he did a pretty good job tellin’ ya about dat 1966 Topps Joe Willie Namath. My turn again dis month – and boy, yer in for a treat! For dis month, I wanna tell you about one of my faves – the 1951 Bowman Yogi Berra.

Yogi is one of them Yankees who played a long time in the heyday of da National Pastime (the late 1940s through the early 1960s). Since he played in dat great time period, he’s got a lot of awesome and cool cards – the ’50 Bowman, ’53 Topps, ’53 Bowman, and so on. Too many to name, actually. Notice that I didn’t say his 1952 Topps cards was a good one – dat’s because dat card stinks. The picture is terrible. It don’t even look like Yogi. It looks like some dopey drunk with his pie hole open waitin’ to get a smack in da chops – but it don’t look like my man Yogi.

I think out of all da Yogi cards, the 1951 Bowman is da best. Take a look at that mug – he just looks like a Yogi! But even more important; he looks like a happy Yogi. Just one look at him and you think that he’s thinkin’, “Man, life is great – I’m Yogi Berra and I’m da best catcher in baseball, I play in Yankee Stadium in front of da best fans in da world, I’m a Yankee through and through, and I’m a winner!”

Yep, that ’51 Yogi is awesome. If you don’t have one in your card box, it’s time you parted with some dough and picked one up. I got this one a few months back off my man Mike DeNero. I haggled with him on price a bit and he let me Windex the card displays in his store for a little extra discount, but it was worth it. For dis card, it wouldda been worth washin’ his car – or even his dog!

2010-04-02T23:38:00.000-04:00

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: April 2010

2010-04-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

My Newest Custom Card Was a Co-Operative Project: the 1955 Topps Richie Ashburn

by Bob Lemke

My most recent custom card creation was more of a co-operative effort than any of my previous projects.

It all started when a long-time hobby colleague, Fred McKie of East-central Pennsylvania, contacted me after he had won a Topps Archives' auction for an original "flexichrome" that Topps had evidently created for use on a 1955 Richie Ashburn card that was never printed, perhaps originally having been intended as one of the four "missing" cards in the '55T high-number series. Cards #175, 186, 203 and 209 were never printed. It is usually believed that these were to have been cards for players that were zealously protected by Bowman, which exercised exclusive rights to their cards. Ashburn certainly could have fit into that scenario. Ashburn made his "rookie card" debut in 1949 Bowman, and appeared in every Bowman set through their finale in 1955. Along the way he also appeared in 1951 Topps (Blue Backs), 1952, and 1954 Topps.

We know Topps had intended to use Ashburn in its 1953 set, because artwork was created, though it was never made into a card until 50 years later when I used that artwork to create my own 1953-style Ashburn card.

Fred McKie is a die-hard Phillies fan and collector, and for many years was a frequent contributor of Philadelphia’s regionally issued cards and player memorabilia to the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. When he saw my '53-style Ashburn, he inquired about availability and I sent him one.

When he purchased the 1955 flexichrome, Fred inquired about I'd be interested in doing a 1955 Topps-style card for him. A flexichriome, by the way, is how Topps colorized most of its 1952-1956) baseball card issues. It is a thin black-and-white photographic print to which color was painstaking hand painted. The finished artwork could then be made into the necessary color printing negatives. It's too bad that Internet images are so small and low-res. Up close and personal, the Ashburn portrait is stunning, right down to blazing hazel eyes.

Because I had not yet made the decision to cut back on my blogging in favor of putting more time into my custom cards, I quoted Fred a price for the commission that would have made it hard for me refuse.

He demurred, but dang it, he had his hooks in me. For the next several weeks I kept having flashed about how that portrait would look on the fading blue background that Topps used for virtually all of its 1955 Phillies. I was also somewhat rankled that my first attempt at a 1955 Topps baseball card creation had not turned out so well. In fact, I don't think it has ever been publically viewed . . . and likely never will be. About the same time, I decided that I wanted to do a 1955 Charlie Grimm manager's card, since I found a great portrait photo on the internet. I figured it would greatly ease the workload if I had a temple for the 1955 cards, so I proposed to Fred that we go ahead and do the Ashburn.

I had him send me the portrait scan, and asked him to work up the biography for the back. He accomplished that in short order, and even did the math to fill the stats boxes.

Fred chose #175 for the card number, since not only is it one of the missing 1955s, it was also the number of hits Ashburn had in 1954.

He also sent along a color image of Ashburn at bat. At first glance I thought it would work fine for the smaller "action" picture on the front, but it turned out the wide stance in the photo created some composition problems. If you study original 1955 fronts, you'll notice that with only two or three exceptions, the action photos are cap-to-toe images, filling the horizontal space to one side of the portrait or other.

The problem with the batting photo was that if we used it cap-to-toe, it was too wide, with the vertical bat obscuring too much of the team logo. A few of the "real" '55s have a small piece of the action photo either in front of or behind the logo, but in most cases the two elements do not intersect. If I moved the action picture towards the portrait in order to get the bat mostly off of the Phillies logo, too much of it intruded on the portrait, which was also something that was rarely seen in the originals.

I slept on the design for a couple of nights, and when I returned to it, I found I could live with it. I e-mailed Fred and told him of my quandary, and he responded with a trio of alternatives that were much more vertically oriented. He offered batting, throwing and leaping/fielding poses. I colorized the batting and leaping poses, plugged them into the front design and sent them to Fred for review. It turned out that we were in synch, both favoring the fielding pose as an homage to a Hall of Famer whose fielding skills were largely overlooked in the era because of a trio of New York centerfielders (Willie, Mickey and the Duke).

With that decision made, the card was quickly wrapped up. I decided that a 1955-style card should have a shiny front, so I printed the fronts on glossy photo paper. My first attempt to pair that in a sandwich with the matte back and a cardstock center proved too thick and I ruined the first sheet trying to cut it. I opted for a thinner center stock and got the look and feel I wanted.

As per our agreement, I sent Fred half of my six-card production, and he is now able to fill that hole in Richie Ashburn's Topps baseball card legacy. I got an addition to my custom card opus that I am very proud of.

*****

2010-04-02T23:36:00.001-04:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 213-4713 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: March 2010

2010-03-25T23:02:00.003-04:00

2010-03-25T22:58:00.001-04:00

Leela's Tips & Tricks - March 2010

2010-03-25T22:57:00.002-04:00

La Demi-Grade Ne Peut Faire Une Différence

(Translation: The half-grade can make a difference)

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! It’s me again, Leela, and I’m gonna give ya some vintage cardboard education … my tip o' the month. Voilà!

For those of you who send your cards into grading companies for “grading, authentication, and encapsulation,” I have some free advice for you. If you do not have a strong preference for a particular grading company and are undecided as to whether to send your cards to PSA or SGC, for example. Take a look at your cards with a critical eye. If your cards are likely to grade 3s and 4s, you’ll probably want to send them to PSA because they now offer half-grades (e.g., 3.5, 4.5). While SGC offers half-grades for some grades, they do not offer 3.5 or 4.5. Therefore, if you send them to PSA, you might get some 3.5s and 4.5s on cards that would grade 3 or 4, respectively, with SGC. Excellente idée, non? Qui mieux que moi? Personne!

Now, with that said, PSA only started using half-grades fairly recently, presumably in an effort to gain extra revenue from collectors and dealers by grading cards a second time that they’d already graded once, but that’s besides the point, right? Pas très cool, PSA; pas très cool.

Gotta go ... I just got a call from my dry cleaner. They’ve had my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater since Monday night and promised me it’d be ready by Tuesday (after 5 pm, of course). But it’s now Friday and they finally called to tell me it’s ready to pick up. I swear I saw the dry cleaner guy wearing it the other day – when he saw that I spotted him, the little rat ducked into an alley. When I told my mommy to run him down with the car, she told me that he was a Maple Leafs fan and that “no self-respecting Toronto Maple Leafs fan would ever steal a little girl’s Rocket Richard sweater.” Little does my mom know … all Leafs fans secretly wish they were Candiens fans. Silly mere … elle ne sait rien sur le hockey!

'Til next time -- Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

2010-03-25T22:56:00.001-04:00

In Between Naps - March 2010

2010-03-25T22:54:00.008-04:00

Thanks for the Memory

By Rob Dewolf

If ever a scene from a movie hit home with me, it's one from City Slickers, the 1991 comedy that stars Billy Crystal and tells the story of three men in their late 30s, each of whom have reached various crossroads in their lives.

The character Bonnie Raybern (played by Helen Slater) comments about the details men can remember when it comes to baseball.

"I've been to games," she says, "but I don't memorize who played ... third base for ... Pittsburgh in ... 1960!"

Almost simultaneously Mitch Robbins (Crystal), Ed Furillo (Bruno Kirby) and Phil Berquist (Daniel Stern) blurt the answer: Don Hoak.

Bonnie was spot-on: Most longtime baseball fans I know possess an ability to recall facts and figures that leaves non-fans scratching their heads -- and in the case of the females in my house, rolling their eyes. I think collectors are like that, too. The memories of treasures landed and lost remain vivid for years after the fact.

Being both a baseball fan and collector, I feel lucky to have this total recall.

There's just no possible way that it was more than 30 years ago when I bought my first prewar baseball card. Mid July. Hartville Flea Market in northeast Ohio. The dealer was set up in the smaller lot off the side of the building that is home to the Amish restaurant and high-end gift shop that sells Hummels, Royal Doultons and other figurines that are utterly useless to a 14-year-old boy.

His tables were crowded with a mish-mash of inventory. Piles of Life Magazines. Boxes of postcards. A conglomeration of salt-and-pepper shakers, cereal bowls and other kitchen utensils. A baby bathtub nearly full of used golf balls, a few of which looked like they'd been struck by Old Tom Morris himself. Behind the horseshoe configuration of this display, propped up against a van whose open side door provided access to a dozen unpacked boxes, were two rusted bicycles, one without its seat.

And amongst all this mess were a few three-ring binders.

Having learned at a young age that a table with such a hodgepodge of offerings is worth a second look, I flipped open the cover of the top notebook and momentarily froze. Staring back at me were nine baseball players, their faces having rested on colorful backgrounds and framed by gold borders for six decades.

T205s!

The next page offered more of the same. As did the next. And the next. There were about 20 plastic sheets, all of which held baseball cards. T cards in the front, Goudeys and Play Balls in the middle, some 1950s Topps in the back.

I never even made it to the back for a close look (no doubt missing out on an Aaron rookie for $3). Instead, I regrouped from the momentary shock of having stumbled upon this oasis in the midst of the early afternoon, 90-degree heat and 80 percent humidity and redirected my attention to the T205s.

As I began to search for Cobbs, Speakers and Mathewsons, I was filled with a sudden dread: Having been at the flea market since just after daybreak, I had made quite a few purchases that had left my wallet nearly empty. Worse yet, none of these bargain buys were of the baseball card variety. Instead, I had added new additions to my other collecting passion at the time: beer cans. Yep, I was part of that generation. (Six large boxes in my parents' attic today serve as proof. E-mail me if you're interested in a deal.)

Some quick mental math told me I had enough money to buy one, maybe two, cards. So it was just as well that all of the T205s in the book were of common players. Had there been a Cobb for $10 when I had only $3, well, that would have been too much to bear.

Surprisingly, it didn't take long to make a decision. I pointed to a card of Jimmy Dygert, glanced up at the man behind the table and asked, "How much?"

"$3," came the reply.

"Will you take $2?"

"I suppose."

Why Jimmy Dygert? Simple. Dygert's team, The Philadelphia A's, were represented in the upper-left corner of the card by an elephant. Pretty cool. Plus, the A's no longer were in Philly. Those two facts were reason enough. Remember, I was 14.

Negotiating the reduced price gave me another dollar to spend. Seeking a little variety, I ventured to the middle of the book and picked out a 1940 Play Ball of Dutch Leonard, for no other reason than I thought the nickname "Dutch" on the front of the card was -- you guessed it -- cool.

Not wanting to push my luck, I paid the $1 asking price and slid the two cards into an envelope I brought just in case I got lucky that day.

That Dygert card was my pride and joy for many years. Eventually I either lost it or traded it, I don't remember which (of course, the beer cans I still have). Not long ago I came across a graded example, one that is much nicer than my original. I bought it, thinking that it would help me reconnect to that magical day. And though I'm glad that a T205 Dygert once again is part of my collection, I discovered that I didn't need a a replacement to rekindle those memories.

More than three decades later, my luck is holding.

The Amazing Spider-Man and Me

2010-03-25T22:54:00.001-04:00

The Amazing Spider-Man and Me

By Bob Sayn

Two people in my life are responsible for the humongous stack of Spider-Man comic book boxes in my basement: my best friend and my son, who is now 7-years-old. I blame them because we addicts never blame ourselves for our addictions. How could we? We are simply powerless to do anything about them.

It all started twenty years ago. I was seventeen and had just started a new part-time job at local chain store called Maijer’s, making minimum wage ($3.35 per hour) for the arduous task of accepting bottle & can returns and giving refund slips to the interesting folks who returned them. One of my co-workers (who is now my best friend going on twenty years) suggested we head out to lunch together. Little did I know, that a little stop we made at Palmer’s (Canton, Michigan’s finest and only hobby shop) after lunch would change my life forever. Palmer’s was a typical small town hobby shop: model cars and planes mixed in with a bunch of other rubbish ... and back issue comic books. As my friend thumbed anxiously through a box containing his favorite comics, I aimlessly strolled over to the first comic box in a row and rummaged through it. The boxes contained comics arranged alphabetically, so I was in the "A" box; was it destiny that I would shortly set my hands on my first Amazing Spider-Man comic? Within moments, I spotted the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #48 and bought it for $5. Later that night, I started to read the comic and so began the greatest journey of my life.

As I approached its final pages, I wondered how Spider-Man would get out of the trouble he was in with the Vulture. Just as Spider-Man was about to bite the dust, I turned to the final page and was smacked with three seemingly innocuous little words that hooked me forever: "To Be Continued."

As soon as I awoke the next morning, I sprang out of bed to venture to Palmer’s once more to grab issue #49 -- I needed to know if Spider-Man got out the jam he was in with The Vulture! Luckily, Palmers had a copy, so I bought it and continued my journey. Shortly thereafter, I decided to assemble a run of Amazing Spider-Man comics. Aided by the huge inventory at local comic book conventions, I compiled a straight run from #40 to #100. In those pre-Internet years, that was quite a feat for a collector on a student's budget.

Like many addicts, I somehow managed to take a hiatus from collecting during my college/young-professional/married/early fatherhood years. But then, my five-year-old son pulled me back in! One day, as he pretended to be Spider-Man, I decided to read one of my old comics to him -- The Amazing Spider-Man #54. It still had a $13 sticker on it, presumably purchased by me for such amount at a local comic book convention years ago. My son loved the comic, of course -- he's a chip off the old block!

I then searched the Internet to see if I could find an approximate value for my $13 investment -- I was shocked to see that it was worth over $100, given its condition. Not too shabby of an investment. At that point, I only let him play with my dupes, and only then if they were in poor condition [note to reader: insert your favorite smiley emoticon here]. It was then that I decided to what any other addict would have; finish off my collection of Spider-Man comics and only let my son play with Web of Spider-Man comics because those are still cheap to buy.

Recently, I completed my full run from #1 to the present day (a massive 600+ comics). Wednesday is new comic book day, so each humpday, I go to the local shop to check out what's new. Of my 600+, my favorite comic is Amazing Spider-Man #33, which is the last of a three-part series, an ordeal that changed Spider-Man's life forever. I suppose, it changed mine as well. I guess Spidey and I have something in common. Hmm, I wonder if he'd ever think about collecting The Amazing Bob Sayn, volumes 1-600?

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - March 2010

2010-03-25T22:53:00.002-04:00

In an effort to avoid being bested by their pal Leela, Tony and Bernie (the lovable twins from Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood) allow me to present Tony and Bernie’s “Big Apple” Stash. As the lads are twins, and are usually forced to share, why stop at toys, snacks, and sportscards? They will also take turns authoring this column, a monthly ode to their favorite vintage sportscards picturing New York legends. This month, Tony takes a stab at waxing poetic about one of his all-time favorite players. Unlike Bernie, Tony’s spelling skills are well honed, especially for a 5-year-old. Enjoy!

The Good Ol’ Days

You heard from my twin brother, Bernie, in last month’s e-Newsletter. Bernie wrote (and I use that term loosely) about one of his favorite cards depicting Phil "the Scooter" Rizzuto; to be specific, the Scooter's 1949 Bowman example. Today, I'll tell you a story about one of my favorites. By the way, in the coming months (if not sooner, such as after reading this introductory paragraph), you will notice that I write more eloquently (and spell better) than my brother Bernie.

My tale begins in my house one morning -- one typical of any weekend day. I rise during the 5 o'clock hour and give my stuffed Tigger, Pooh, and Handy Manny a collective huge hug. As my twin brother, Bernie, continues to snore, I tear off into my mommy and daddy's room, arrive at my daddy's side of the bed, and put my smiley little face right up to his. Just before he finishes the waning seconds of his weekend slumber, I grab his cheeks to wake him up and blurt "say cock-a-doodle-dooo!" He obliges and within minutes, I drag him from under the covers and into the basement where he, as always, plays me an episode of my favorite cartoon, Kipper, that we've previously recorded and stored on our DirecTV HD DVR and hands over the powdered doughnut and cup of orange juice he poured me during our brief pit stop to the kitchen. As soon as Kipper begins, I realize that it is one I have seen once too often and blurt to my daddy, “Wanna skip it?,” in my typical half-request, half-demand manner. After daddy obliges by choosing another Kipper for me to watch, lays out a couple of the dozens of boxes of graded vintage sportscards he's collected over the years (many of which he purchased at our local shop, Mike DeNero's), and props himself onto the couch, I look at him with a smile and say, "Faaan-tastic!"

As the Kipper theme plays in the background, I grab the box thinking that it held my daddy's 1950 Bowman football cards. But, as I open it, I quickly notice that there are no '50 Bowmans as I'd expected, but 1966 Topps football cards instead! "Boo-hoo-hoo," I whine to my daddy as he laughs and replies, "Take a look at 'em; some of 'em are kinda cool."

Sure enough, my daddy is correct. As I thumb through the box, I stumble onto the 1966 Topps #96 Joe Namath, "Broadway Joe's" second year card. I love Joe Namath! This card is particularly cool because Joe looks as if he’s looking at me through an old television set. I then ask my daddy why the back of the card is white, pink, and black, and he responds that the “King of Rock ‘n Roll,” Elvis Presley designed the card backs and that pink was Elvis’ favorite color. While I suspect that my daddy is trying to pull the wool over my eyes, I feign my understanding and belief of his statement and move on to inspecting the rest of the card.

The cartoon on the back has a cool drawing of Joe lugging his 1965 Orange Bowl MVP Trophy toward an old convertible with an admiring girl (what else?) sitting in the passenger seat. That was back in the good ol’ days when cars were cool, football players were the good guys, Alabama was coached by a legend named “Bear,” and the Orange Bowl didn’t have the ridiculous “FedEx” in front of its name.

Ah, the good ol’ days …

2010-03-25T22:53:00.001-04:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 213-4713 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: March 2010

2010-03-25T22:51:00.001-04:00

My Favorite Player on a Favorite Format

By Bob Lemke

As a kid my favorite player was Milwaukee Braves' back-up first baseman George Crowe.

As is often the case, pinning down why he was my favorite is largely conjectural. It may have stemmed from seeing Crowe up close and personal at my first big league game, when we got to use my uncle's box tickets at County Stadium that were just a few rows behind the Braves' dugout on the first base side.

It may be that Crowe wore glasses, one of the few major leaguers to do so at a time when I was struggling to come to terms with being the first "four eyes" in my kindergarten class.

In any event, as an adult collector I have always been a sucker for Crowe's cards. And, since I've begun making my own custom cards, I'm now able to fill in some of the gaps in Crowe's baseball card legacy.

Crowe never appeared on a Bowman card. He was in 1952 Topps (an expensive high-number series card) and 1953 Topps, but not 1954 or 1955. He was back with Topps for a final year as a Brave in 1956, before showing up in 1957 with the Reds.

Crowe's only 1955 baseball card was in the Johnson Cookies regional issue shown here. Truth be told, the '55 Johnston card of Crowe is one of my all-time favorite baseball cards, so it's no wonder I stole that image to use when I made this 1955 Bowman "Color TV" card.

The background for the front of my 1955 Bowman-style card was taken from Jim Wilson's card in that set. I'm not sure why, but I always felt that Wilson's photo in the 1955 Bowman set was a photo that had been taken at night; it may be the dark stands in the background or the strange green color of the grass. I think Jim Brosnan's card in the same set has a similar feel.

In any event, my first effort at recreating a 1955 Bowman-style card was very satisfying for me. I don't really have any plans to do another at this point, but there were a lot of big stars in '55 that didn't get onto a Bowman card, so someday I may try another. Stan Musial? Roberto Clemente rookie?

*****

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: February 2010

2010-02-22T21:26:00.001-05:00

Leela's Tips & Tricks - February 2010

2010-02-22T21:24:00.001-05:00

Leela’s Tips & Tricks is Leela’s first foray into writing a monthly column – she usually just appears in Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood. As such, she does not have an impressive resume … yet. But give her a break; she’s only five-years-old! We hope you find her vintage collecting tips useful, her butchered attempts at composing sentences in what she calls “Canadien-French” amusing (if not refreshing, albeit confusing), and her unabashed love for her Montreal Canadiens admirable. Enjoy!

Pouvez-vous l'accent, s’il vous plaît?

(Translation: Can you focus, please?)

Bonjour, collectionnuers de cartes! Leela here to provide ya with some vintage cardboard education -- in other words, here's my tip o' the month.

For those of you who can't keep (or never had) some focus in your collection -- overflowin' boxes o' rubbish commons all over the basement, have ya? -- next time you think of buyin' another card, wait 'til you ID three different ones you wanna buy. Then, only buy the one card you want most and to heck with the other two. If you take that advice over the next year, by New Years Eve, you'll have picked up fewer cards, but each one ya get will be a card ya really want! Excellente idée, non?

Gotta go ... it's time for me to go pick up my vintage red wool Maurice "the Rocket" Richard #9 Montreal Canadiens hockey sweater at the dry cleaner before they close up la boutique for the night. I hope they hang it on a real hanger this time, rather than one of those cruddy wire jobs wrapped in that crap paper.

'Til next time -- Vive Les Habitants! C'est tout!

Tony & Bernie's "Big Apple" Stash - February 2010

2010-02-22T21:22:00.001-05:00

My Man, “da Scooter”

Hey everybodee! Dis is Tony here – da best Yankee fan on da east coast. I wanna thank my man Mike DeNero for lettin’ me and my twin bruddah Tony write dis column every month. I mean, since he’s lettin’ Leela write hers, it’s only fair we get one too, right?

Dis month, I wanna tell ya about my main man Phil “da Scooter” Rizzuto. He was da best shortstop da Bronx Bombers ever had. Now I know all yous guys out there think Derek Jeter is da best, but lemme tell ya, I seen ‘em both play. Now don’t get me wrong, they’re both great, but “da Scooter” was better (I mean, did Derek Jeter win da A.L. MVP Award in 1950, huh?).

I also like “da Scooter” because when he used to do the WPIX (channel 11) Yankee broadcasts, he would talk about anything but da game – canolis, birthdays, bakeries, Italian food, old stories, his aches and pains. You name it and “da Scooter” talked about it.

My favorite story about “da Scooter’s” ailments happened back in 1989. I was with one of my pals at his summer pad on the beach and it was rainin’ outside, so we couldn’t go to da beach. We stayed inside and watched da Yankees play in Detroit against da Tigers. Da game went extra innings, so for a few innings, “da Scooter” was broadcastin’ by hisself (no Frank Messer, no Bill White). He was talkin’ and all of a sudden, he yells “AAAAHHHH! Holy cow! I just got a pain in my knee!”

Anyway, dat’s a funny story about “da Scooter” as an old man. Here’s one of my favorite cards of him, a 1949 Bowman #98 (da “no name on front” variety). I picked dis one up off Mike DeNero a couple years ago. I carry it around school with me and show it to everybody in “show and tell.” It’s a cool card, just like “da Scooter” was a cool guy. Da best shortstop da Bombers ever had, I tell ya.

In Between Naps - February 2010

2010-02-22T21:19:00.006-05:00

Technically, This Is A Great Time To Be A Collector

Like many folks this time of the year, I find myself wondering what the next 12 months will bring. Quite naturally -- for me, at least -- that includes daydreaming about what might happen in my world of collecting. This year, a nice surprise between Christmas and New Year's Day had me looking further into the future.

I received an e-mail via my Web site from a gentleman who was researching a Nap Lajoie postcard. The card, issued by the Raymond Kahn Co. in the early 1900s, had been in his possession for a number of years. A former postcard dealer, he bought it as part of a collection years ago but never got around to adding those cards -- including the Lajoie -- to his "for-sale" inventory. Thankfully.

The e-mailer found an image of a similar Raymond Kahn postcard of Lajoie on my site and was curious about what I knew about the issue. After trading a couple of e-mails, I was thrilled to discover that the postcard he had, while similar to mine, was definitely a different variation. A half-hour phone call later, we had struck a deal for me to buy the card. A few days later the card was in my collection.

Day I received his first e-mail: Wednesday.

Day I received the postcard: Monday.

Elapsed time to complete the transaction: five days.

In today's world, I suppose the quickness in which a buyer and seller are able to seal a deal isn't that noteworthy. E-mails, digital images and PayPal have reduced collectors' reliance on the postal service, Polaroids and checks. That's not news.

But what amazes me is how quickly we've come in such a short time. I don't consider myself an "old-timer" when it comes to collecting baseball cards and memorabilia. I'm still closer to 45 than I am to 50. I work on a Web site for a living, so it's not like I'm oblivious to the advances in technology that seemingly are made on a daily basis.

Yet it seems staggering that it wasn't THAT long ago that collectors traded by mail want lists and for-sale newsletters that were crammed with black-and-white, fuzzy, Xeroxed images of cards. If a possible deal was really a whopper, the buyer and seller might use fax machines to expedite the process. But the bottom line was, adding items to your collection took time and patience. Heck, even figuring out what cards you were missing from a particular set could be a challenge.

If you had told your collecting colleagues in the mid-90s that the day wasn't far off when you could sit down in front of a portable computer in your kitchen and peruse full-color, vibrant images of hundreds of thousands of baseball cards that were for sale from countless sellers worldwide -- and you could pay for them instantly and have them in hand within days -- well, you know that their reactions would have been.

Heck, if you were around during the early days of eBay, you remember when 95 percent of the listings had no images with them because so few sellers had a scanner or digital camera. That changed pretty much overnight.

OK, enough of me sitting in my virtual rocking chair, whittling a stick and reminiscing about the good old days. What the heck lies ahead for collectors?

Will we see a day when we can send actual cards -- not just images but the cards themselves -- cross-country or around the world? I'm no scientist (flunked biology my sophomore year in college, as a matter of fact), but I wonder whether someone will figure out how to break down the molecules of a card and transport them to a destination, where they'll be reconstructed in their original state. Talk about card alteration!

A far-fetched idea? Of course it is. Right now.

Or what about ways to find all those unknown cards that remain hidden in attics and basements? One day will we all have hand-held devices that we can set to detect any pieces of 100-year-old cardboard in a 5-mile radius? Who needs a metal detector when you can have a T206 detector?

Collectors today should never forget how lucky they are to have so many tools to educate themselves and build their collections, tools that as recently as 15 years ago would have seemed as outrageous as the Baseball Card Molecular Transporter 1000 -- available soon on Amazon.com at 20 percent off.

I can't wait to see what else is in store.

2010-02-22T21:19:00.001-05:00

Keith's Key Kard Korner: February 2010

2010-02-22T21:18:00.006-05:00

1948 Leaf #54 Chuck Bednarik (Rookie Card)

Chuck Bednarik was one of the most feared and crushing tacklers in the history of professional football. Born to Slovakian emigrants, Charles Philip Bednarik played football with the University of Pennsylvania after he returned from World War II. He became a “60 Minute Man” at Penn, playing both sides of the ball – center and linebacker. Appropriately, he sported the #60 jersey, as the Philadelphia Eagles selected him as 1949’s #1 Overall NFL Draft Pick.

Hard-hitting Charlie developed a nickname, “Concrete Charlie.” Despite public perception that the nickname derived from Bednarik’s rough-tackling style, it is actually a moniker that came from his off-season occupation as a concrete salesman. As it turns out, the name fit appropriately on the field – never more so than when he made his notorious tackle on New York Giants running back Frank Gifford. Bednarik struck him so hard that “The Giff” missed the next 18 months of his career, and was never the same player again.

Chuck’s athletic abilities and inspirational play became particularly distinct in 1960 when injuries forced the Eagles to ask their 12-year veteran to again play both sides of the line, just as he had in the early part of his career. “Concrete Charlie” again fulfilled 60-minute duties terrifically. He finished the season by capping the Eagles' 1960 NFL Championship Title win over the Green Bay Packers with a last-second, title-saving tackle. With just seconds remaining, the Packers' Jim Taylor appeared to be heading for a winning Packers touchdown until the last Eagle in his path, Bednarik, wrapped him up and slammed him to the ground. In fact, Bednarik stayed on top of Taylor for a few seconds so that the final seconds ticked off the clock, making sure that the Packers could not run another play.

In retirement, Chuck’s relationship with the Eagles has been...well...pretty weird, dude. His on-again-off-again feud with current Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie stemmed from Lurie’s refusal to buy copies of Bednarik’s book for the entire team – an act that would have actually violated league rules. Bednarik’s grudge continued for years to the point where Chuck openly rooted for the Patriots to beat the Eagles in the 2005 Super Bowl! Bednarik has also openly criticized Deion Sanders when he played both sides of the ball, stating that Bednarik played tougher positions when he accomplished the feat with regularity. Chuck has since apologized and reconciled for many of the above incidents.

What kind of legacy do Chuck Bednarik’s fourteen NFL seasons leave behind? Here in 2010, the College Defensive Player of The Year Award is named “The Chuck Bednarik Award”, and Bednarik’s vintage memorabilia – along with much of vintage football memorabilia at large – has surged in value and popularity in recent years.

His 1948 rookie sports card issued by the Leaf Gum Company is enormously popular with collectors. Why would that be? Many collectors curry aesthetic favor with the sweeping artistry of the early 1950s Bowman Football cards, issued just a few years later. Comparably, it can be opined that 1948 “Leafs” simply don’t look as good with their monochrome backgrounds and the odd dichotomy of players depicted in color uniforms with black-and-white flesh portions of their body showing.

So then why is this card so popular? It’s the perfect storm of scarcity, Hall of Famer, a popular card issue, and rookie. The lack of artistic quality seems to be replaced by the quirky sort of caricature-like charm that the simple Leaf design exudes. Further, the fact that the Bednarik card is often cut “off-centered” such that the white frame surrounding the card has varying widths only heightens the pursuit of better-centered examples. It is also characteristic of any 1948 Leaf cards to have extraneous print marks and ink stains, further amplifying a hunter’s pursuit of a presentable example. The fact that Bednarik is donning his collegiate Penn Quakers uniform on the card does not at all diminish the desirability. An example graded PSA 8 brought over $38,000 in 2007. Whether seeking the Yellow Background or Orange Background variety, finding a pristine, high-grade example to surface can take years.

Concrete Charlie may not have won a lot of friends, but he won nearly everything else – two NFL Championships, a Pro Football Hall Of Fame induction, eight All-Pro Selections, 1950s All-Decade Team honors, a spot on the 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, and, finally, his the retiring of his trademark #60 by the Eagles. His inaugural sports card has also won lasting adoration from modern football memorabilia collectors – one that is as hard to find as ... well ... concrete.

So who would really pay thousands for an example of a card that many concede is not aesthetically fulfilling. Well, I can think of one person who is typing on a computer right now. His initials are “KW.”

2010-02-22T21:18:00.002-05:00

Super Sales?

2010-02-22T21:14:00.007-05:00

Super Sales?

By Mike DeNero

If someone told me two year ago that I would be totally ginned-up about our online sportscards shop offering a new non-sports related product line, I would have told them they were bonkers (or ginned-up themselves … in the literal sense, of course). But that is exactly what has happened here at Mike DeNero’s Vintage Sportscards over the past couple of years … twice.

Last year, we began the long and arduous process of generating a sizable inventory of 1930s European cigarette cards featuring famous movie stars of the day (e.g., Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, aka the “Weimar Vamp”). We were so ginned-up about these cards that we began to look beyond their gorgeous appearance to learn more about them. In the case of the 1934-1937 Garbaty sets particularly, the historical tale behind the cards – that of the film and tobacco industry in pre-war Nazi Germany – was even more colorful and vibrant than the images of the Hollywood actresses that grace the cards’ surfaces. That discovery started me down the path of co-authoring with my sister, an art history scholar (pen name Kyleigh Spencer), our first (dare I say it) “scholarly” card-related article titled, Cigarettes, Starlets, and Nazis: The Historical Tale of the Garbaty Film Stars Sets, originally published in the Spring of 2009 by Classic Images movie magazine, subsequently published in two-parts by the London Cigarette Card Company’s Card Collecting News this fall, and is scheduled to appear in the immediately forthcoming issue of Collector magazine (formerly SGC Collector). Those publications have helped bring new customers to our online shop and eBay store as well as sportscard collecting veterans who have just begun to discover the unique and exquisite quality of many of the 1930s film stars card issues, including the Large 1935 Ardath Film, Stage & Radio Stars 25-card set, the various aforementioned Garbaty issues, the 1939 Rothmans Beauties of the Cinema, and 1936 Godfrey Phillips Screen Stars sets, to name a few.

Today we officially unveil our newest addition to our product offerings: vintage Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman comic books graded by CGC (to view all of the comics in our collection, click here). Why comics? Why only Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman? Are we getting out of the sportscards business in favor comic books and non-sportscards, such as the 1930s movie star cards and the 1940 Gum Inc. Superman cards? The answers to those three questions are simple: 1) Why not?; 2) Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the three greatest comic book characters of all time; and 3) Nope, just expanding our scope a bit.

You might ask why we are choosing to expand our scope of product offerings yet again. I would answer that it is solely due to my evolving collecting interests. If you take a look at the inventory in our store, regardless of the product line, you will notice that it displays more like a collection that “inventory.” For example, you will notice that a trend develops among our sportscards – we generally offer only hall of famers (and various other great players) depicted on cards released during the earlier years of their careers that (here’s the most important part) are visually appealing. Thus we typically carry the 1954-1957 Hank Aaron cards, but do not typically offer the 1959 Topps (terrible card design; lame portrait) or the 1969 Topps (nice card design and photo, but Hank was starting to get long in the tooth and larger in the waistline). In other words, we are trying to say that we are largely addicted to the sportscard collecting hobby due to its visual nature.

Such explains our foray into the 1930’s film stars sets and now vintage Golden Age and Silver Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman comic books graded and encapsulated by CGC. Take a look at some of those we have to offer (click here) – just get a look at those covers!

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: February 2010

2010-02-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

T202 Hassan Triplefolders – Honus Wagner & Max Carey

By Bob Lemke

As I promised on one of my blog entries several days ago, here is my latest custom card creation. It's done in the style of the 1912 Hassan Triplefolders that have been known to generations of collectors as T202, the set's number in the pioneering American Card Catalog by Jefferson Burdick.

There were 132 different cards in the original T202 set, comprised of 110-120 or so black-and-white center panels with various combinations of color end panels featuring teammates or rivals. For the most part the end panels were cropped versions of the players' cards from the previous year's T205 Gold Borders set.

My T202 homage features a couple of Pittsburg (that's how it was spelled at the time) Pirates who did not appear in the original T202s. Max Carey was only in his first full major league season in 1911 when the T205s were issued. His "rookie card" appeared in 1912 in the T207 Brown Background set. The portrait I used for this card is that used on his T207, though I tweaked the color a bit and "flopped" it to have him facing the center panel.

Wagner, of course, had made his displeasure at being pictured on a cigarette card known to the tobacco company in 1909, when his card was pulled from the T206 set. The picture I used on my T202 is one that appeared on a circa 1910 celluloid pinback.

The central action photo is something I stumbled across on the Internet. It is so close to the one used on the classic T202 card, "Ty Cobb Steals Third," that when I first saw it, I knew a T202 creation was in my future.

Despite having collected baseball cards for decades, I've never owned an original T202, so I had to solicit a lot of help from the experts to broaden my card making into this format. Most instrumental was T202 guru Lee Behrens who provided some original scans and some valuable critique as the project developed. Thanks, Lee!

Another collector, on viewing my T205 versions of the Carey and Wagner cards, told me something I never knew about T205s (and, by extension, T202). The National Leaguers in those sets feature the first use of a facsimile autograph on a baseball card. At least I always thought about it as a facsimile signature. It turns out that the signatures on the cards made no attempt to replicate the players' actual autographs; they were just identification applied by some long-gone commercial artists working on the T205/T202 issues.

By the time I found that out, I'd already become attached to the actual signatures of Carey and Wagner, so I decided to go with those for my cards.

You'll notice that the signature on the Wagner reads, "John H Wagner." In reality, his name (as shown on my card back) was John Peter Wagner. My best guess is that by the 1910s, Wagner had capitulated to popular demand and that the "H" on this version of his signature was intended to represent his universally known nickname of Honus. In fact, I've seen later Wagner autographs that are signed, "J. Honus Wagner."

I have one more T202-style card on my immediate to-do list of custom card projects. Be sure to watch my blog for it.

*****

2010-02-22T21:12:00.002-05:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 213-4713 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: Christmas 2009 & New Year's Day 2010

2009-12-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

For this month’s installment(s) of Mike DeNero's Neighborhood, we thought you’d like to see what Bernie and Tony were up to on Christmas morning (see above) as well as how Leela will be pestering Mike on New Year’s Day (see below). Happy New Year!!

2009-12-24T00:18:00.000-05:00

Keith's Key Kard Korner: January 2010

2009-12-24T00:10:00.000-05:00

The 1952 Bowman Large #30 Slingin’ Sammy Baugh

Sammy Baugh’s 1952 Bowman football card represents his sport card “Swan Song” as the last card issued during the Washington Redskins quarterback’s playing days (1937-1952). The card, produced at the Bowman Gum Corporation in Philadelphia, produced a portrait that displays fantastically. The background’s hues mimic that of rainier cherry skin as the background’s orange and yellow tones transition through a brilliant range of hues.

The absence of a facemask in 1950s professional football allowed observers to have a good look at helmeted players faces. The card’s Native American logo depiction was more functionally important as a team identifier because it would be another twenty years before the Redskins placed the Native American logo on their helmet. Bowman makes use of a pennant-style namebox. The artistry, color, and design of the 1952 Bowman football cards have made them one of the most popular and desirable cards among any sport.

Not only do they not make cards like this anymore, they don’t make players like this anymore either. “Slingin’ Sam” – a name he earned not while playing football but while playing third base for the TCU baseball team – played quarterback, punter, and defensive back in the NFL. In fact, in 1943 he led the league in passing, punting, and interceptions. In one game against the Lions, Baugh threw for four touchdown passes and notched four interceptions in perhaps his greatest single-game performance ever. On another occasion, Baugh suffered a concussion while tackling Bears QB Sid Luckman. Can you imagine Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick putting QB Tom Brady on defense to blitz Donovan McNabb?

Baugh is worth celebrating because he was an integral part of forward pass development. He made the forward pass a formidable weapon rather than a tool of last resort. In the 1940s NFL, that was not so easy. The ball was rounder at the ends and fatter in the middle then, making it harder to throw. Resultantly, Baugh was not able to throw for a Brady-esque number of touchdowns.

Otherwise, where has this early football innovator made news or pop culture reference lately and how is he is remembered? First of all, with Jay-Z in a rap video. Yes, Baugh had the King Of Hip-Hop harkening back to hallowed antiquity. Earlier this decade, Mista S-Dot-Carter paid homage to Sammy Baugh by sporting Baugh’s maroon #33 Mitchell & Ness throwback jersey in his “Girls, Girls, Girls” video. A fan of both Jay-Z and early football myself, this act is what showed me that Jay-Z finally won the longtime beef with Nas convincingly.

Coincidentally, Baugh passed away exactly one year ago today from the time I write this column, and his passing was reported through all major sports media outlets. Baugh was the last surviving member of the Pro Football Hall Of Fame’s inaugural Class of 1963 and truly among the last of a bygone gridiron era. When naming the greatest football player of all-time, Slingin’ Sammy Baugh’s name is usually in the conversation. When naming the most beautiful football cards of all-time, Baugh’s 1952 Bowman rendition is in the conversation too.

2009-12-24T00:09:00.000-05:00

Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards: January 2010

2009-12-24T00:08:00.000-05:00

The 1955 Topps All-America Football Billy Clyde Puckett

By Bob Lemke

This is another in a semi-regular series of blog postings about my custom card creations. For more than six years now, I have been creating "cards that never were" in the formats of some of favorites from the 1950s as well as some of the card hobby's most popular designs of the last century. I have now completed something like 125 different cards in a dozen or more designs, but the format that started it all was the 1955 Topps All-American Football set, a childhood favorite.

As much as possible when creating fantasy cards, I stick to the real world of actual ballplayers and classic designs. Early on, though, in my "update" to the All-American set, I stepped outside the box to create a football card for Billy Clyde Puckett.

Billy Clyde is a fictional football hero who starred for the TCU Horned Frogs and the New York Giants in several novels by Dan Jenkins: Semi-Tough, Life Its Ownself, Rude Behavior and You Gotta Play Hurt. He also pops up in cameos in some of Jenkins' other works.

If you've ever read Dan Jenkins, you understand why I made a Puckett card. If you haven't, you really should start. Jenkins' books are simply among the funniest I have ever encountered. I began reading him in college and have never stopped. I've read of them two or three times. They are laugh-out-loud funny, decidedly politically incorrect and whether he's writing about football, golf (e.g., Dead Solid Perfect), or the worlds of big "bidness" or magazine journalism, his characters, insights into human foibles and, especially to me, his turns of phrase, made him one of my all-time favorite authors. I see that he has also authored, co-authored or edited quite a number of non-fiction books as well, including biographies of several football stars.

Anyway, back to my Billy Clyde card. Recognize him? That's actually Burt Reynolds in a photo from his football days at Florida State. Since Burt played Billy Clyde in the movie version of Semi-Tough, he seemed like the natural choice to embody Puckett on my card. Reynolds is also included among my '55-style cards on an FSU card of his own. You can see that, and many of my other creations, in my Photobucket albums at www.tinyurl.com/customcards.

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2009-12-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

Contact us today to discuss your collection. You can call us at (571) 213-4713 or e-mail us at MDsportscards@gmail.com. We look forward to speaking with you.

2009 Year In Review & Thank You

2009-12-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

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Year In Review (2009) & Thank You

By Mike DeNero

We’d like to end 2009 one a high note by thanking everyone who helped make 2009 our most successful year ever (bad economy and all!), providing you with a brief preview of our next e-Newsletter, and displaying a collage of some of our favorite items that we sold to collectors this year.

Thank You!

First, we’d like to thank all of our customers, especially those who originally found us through our eBay store and who have since become regulars to our website, www.MDsportscards.com. Second, we’d like to thank Lilly Star Design for designing all aspects of our custom eBay store (including our custom comic strip and library pages) and for providing the finishing touches on our website and blog. Third, we’d like to thank our wonderful guest columnists, Keith Weinhold (Keith’s Key Kard Korner) and K. Aaron Cohen (Confessions of a Vintage Cardboard Junkie). Their tireless work (for ZERO pay, I might add) and attention to detail has helped make our e-Newsletter and blog more intelligent and fun! Fourth, we thank the legendary Bob Lemke for allowing us to use his awesome custom cards (and typically, his accompanying blog entries) for our monthly feature, Bob Lemke's Cool Custom Cards.

And finally (last, but certainly not least), we’d like to thank our brilliant, wonderful, artistic, and multi-talented cartoonist, Jim Hunt, who not only creates our monthly comic strip, Mike DeNero’s Neighborhood, but he also designed our silly food/drink product advertisements (e.g., Cap'n Mike's Cereal above) and each of the custom column headers that appear in our e-Newsletter (e.g., Mike DeNero's Pontifications above)! I wish I could have provided him the type of introduction that Bruce Springsteen lavishes upon Clarence (the "Big Man") Clemons at his concerts, but I'm no Boss and Jim Hunt doesn't need such an intro -- the brilliance of his work speaks for itself.

Preview of Next Month’s e-Newsletter

In next month’s e-Newsletter, we will reveal a new (additional) product line as well as a new monthly columnist. We don’t want to spoil the surprise … so we won’t! You’ll just have to wait until next month’s e-Newsletter …

2009 In Review

We wanted to end 2009 by providing a very brief review of some of the beautiful sportscards (and ticket stubs) that collectors purchased from us throughout the year. While we originally intended this to be a “Top 10 List” – one displaying each card as well as accompanying self-indulgent commentary -- it quickly became apparent to us that it would be nearly impossible to boil down our year to ten sportscards. Plus, since this is a visual hobby more than anything else, we’d let the images, rather than me, tell the story. So, without further adieu, here are some of our favorite “sold sportscards” (and ticket stubs) from 2009 …