Cats, guitars, baseball cards -
Hello again! Okay, it's mid-August which means all you kids are now or will soon be back in school. School - haha! Have fun! Many of you folks are probably just back from vacations, nicely rested, sunburned and eager to get back to work. Work - haha! Have fun!
In sports news, of course, the big story is the NFL starting up with the entertaining and very important "pre-season" games. ESPN is totally absorbed in the stories of NFL running backs who are holding their teams hostage for new bejillion dollar contracts: Elliott, Gurley, and whats-his-name from the Chargers. Of course, the ESPN "experts" have been telling us for years that running backs don't matter any more, but now it appears that they do.
The Major League Baseball races continue, and I'm talking about which team will get to 500 home runs first this season. Although MLB insists that there's nothing funny about the baseballs this year, here's an interesting fact. The AAA minor leagues this year switched to using the same ball as the majors, and their home runs have increased tremendously. For example, through July 5th, the PCL had hit 2,222 home runs which is 125 more than they hit all last year. Similarly, the IL had smashed 1,688 homers, or 133 more than they hit all last year. Ok, folks - move along. Nothing to see here.
Speaking of interesting ESPN news, I see that Ryan Leaf - yes, THAT Ryan Leaf - has been hired by ESPN to call college football games. Ryan, of course, was a major bust as the number 2 overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft, and he has since been in and out of prisons for drug-related crimes and for breaking and entering to steal prescription drugs. It's great that a fellow can get a second (or third or fourth or fifth) chance to redeem himself.
Just when you thought doping scandals in sports were a thing of the past (hahahaha!), I see that the Puerto Rico bowling team was stripped of their gold medal at the Pan American Games because of a failed doping test. Bowling! I cannot find what the actual drug was, but based on my experience with bowling, I assume it was beer.
For football fans: the NFL was organized in 1920 (originally named the American Professional Football Association) with fourteen teams. Which city did NOT have a team among these original fourteen: Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Canton, Buffalo?
Babe Ruth World Series pocket watches sold big recently. A 1916 Red Sox championship watch sold at auction for $40K or so, but that was eclipsed by a 1923 Yankees championship watch that sold for $717K. But these prices pale in comparison to a "late 1920s" Ruth jersey that sold for $5.64 million - reportedly the highest price ever paid for a "piece of sports memorabilia".
Another big-ticket item was the boxing gloves worn by Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali) when he upset Sonny Liston in that famous 1964 championship bout. The Heritage Auctions sale brought in $836K.
Zion Williamson has signed an exclusive trading card deal with Panini America. Most experts (that is, the people I hang around with) are convinced that ordinary people such as you and I will NOT be able to afford boxes of basketball cards this season.
In maybe the most surprising collecting story I've seen lately, a signed card of White Sox prospect Luis Robert sold in a Goldin Auction for $51,660. Huh? Who?
I mentioned last month that industry research was going on regarding altered cards. This was a big topic of conversation at our July show since many of our dealers know some of those people mentioned in connection with this "investigation". It is reported that the FBI was present at the recent NSCC and that subpoenas were issued but no arrests were made. If the allegations of recolored and trimmed cards are true, then it could have dire ramifications for our hobby, especially since some of these cards were authenticated by grading companies.
Speaking of doping scandals.
Tennis player Petr Korda tested positive for Nandralone in 1998. He claimed it was from eating veal, as steroids are sometimes given to calves to fatten them. Experts say he would have to eat forty calves a day for twenty years to get that amount of drug in his system.
Finally (for this report), from DW.COM: "In the first known doping incident, coaches pumped a dangerous mix of strychnine and pure egg whites into American runner Thomas Hicks before his marathon at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. In the absence of guidelines at the time, he was declared the winner of the race - even after collapsing at the finishing line and hallucinating for hours."
For a sport or game where being under the influence of drugs, in this case alcohol, apparently does not rule you out, we present the "Real Ale Wobble and Ramble". In these annual events held in Wales (part, it goes without me saying, of the British Isles), the participants walk (the "Wobble") or ride a bicycle (the "Ramble") through the Welsh countryside for up to 35 miles with FREE beer being provided along the way. This somewhat reminds me of downtown Roanoke this past Saturday. My wife and I were down there for dinner, and it was just past the conclusion of the "Microfestivus" celebration, where free samples of over 50 local beers were given out. There was indeed "wobbling" going on.
Today, winning strategy and analysis.
Basketball coach Doug Collins: "Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points, they almost always win."
Racing commentator Louise Goodman: "Johnny, it's started to rain. How will that affect the track?" Commentator Johnny Herbert: "Well, it makes it wet, usually."
August is "National Crayon Collection Month", a hobby that surely rivals card collecting for fun and excitement ("have you busted the 2019 Crayola Multi-Pack?"); this is "National Panini Month", which I'm sure you will race to celebrate - Haha! It's actually about recipes which you can get by a redemption offer which will take about twelve months to arrive; July 11th is "National Hip Hop Day", which I personally will celebrate by putting on a Beatles CD and listening to some REAL music; July 1-9 was International Mathematicians Week, which I am happy to celebrate, having once upon a time been one of those myself, although I hope that most mathematicians know that nine days is more than a week (9 > 7); and finally, July 23rd is "Ride The Wind Day" - here, pull my finger!
New York did NOT have an entry among the original members. The Giants did not join the NFL until 1925. An interesting fact: there were two Chicago teams in 1920, the "Cardinals" and the "Tigers", but George Halas was the coach of the Decatur Staleys, who moved to Chicago in 1921 and became the "Bears" in 1922. For more details about this 1920 season, click here.
Hello again! Fall is about ready to, well, fall, and we here in Roanoke can really tell, as the temperature yesterday topped the 90-degree mark. Real autumn weather! Unfortunately, things will NOT cool off with this newsletter, as I'm going to lead off with a couple of rants.
First, here are some comments about Major League Baseball. I talked a little bit last month about the "non-juiced" baseball and the home run explosion in MLB. I watch a lot of the MLB channel. Every show on there is loaded with "highlights", including every home run. I did some stat-checking of my own: Through the 2091 games that had been played as of September 4, there had been 5866 home runs, or 2.805 homers per game. There had been approximately 157 days in the season which averages to 37.36 homers per day. Every day, 37 home runs! Attention, MLB-tv: not every home run is A HIGHLIGHT! A single hustled into a double may be more of a highlight! And while we're on the subject, I don't have any stats, but there must be a dozen sliding or leaping outfield catches every game. These are highly talented athletes doing what they are supposed to do. Not every catch is a "highlight" or the "greatest catch of the season"!
In big local sports news, Va Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster has announced that he's retiring after this season. In Tech's last nine bowl games Tech has given up 270 points, or an average of 30 per game. In three of those games they gave up 40 or more. In the 2018 season they gave up 49 points to Old Dominion (OLD DOMINION!) and 52 to Pittsburgh. Goodbye Bud - you can't leave too soon to suit me.
The NCAA college football playoff committee held their first meeting of the year in August even though they won't issue their first list until November. They stayed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel Laguna Niguel in California where (reportedly) the cheapest rooms start at $681 a night, and the restaurant menus (again, reportedly) do not list prices. The NCAA and these athletic directors, who make millions of dollars a year, can enjoy this boondoggle, but they will choke at the thought of a booster buying a college athlete a dollar meal at McDonald's.
The NFL regular season cranks up today (as I type this) with two of the longest-tenured teams in the league, Green Bay and Chicago. I believe it will be snowing there. Out this year: Andrew Luck, who has retired because of recurring injuries throughout his career. How strange it is to see that he was outlasted in the NFL by Robert Griffin (the Third, with a down arrow). Back in this year: "Zeke" Elliott, as the Cowboys owner Jerry Jones caved to Zeke's demands and ponied up the big bucks. According to some observers (not me), we should just give this season's "Super Bowl" to Dallas. Also out: Rob "Gronk" Gronkowski, who retired and says even a call from Tom Brady wouldn't get him on the field. That wouldn't work for me, either, by the way.
In the NBA, DeMarcus ("Boogie") Cousins was supposed to be, I guess, that superstar that would make the Lakers forget they didn't get Kawhi Leonard. But first "Boogie" got hurt and now he's been arrested. Oh, well, Lakers: Carmelo Anthony is still out there.
In tennis, at the U.S. Open, somebody named Matteo Berettini, if I've got that right, beat somebody else named Gael Monfils, if I've got THAT right, in a nearly four-hour long match. Can you imagine actually watching that? Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and, well, another three hours and fifty-nine minutes of that! Even soccer (futbol) isn't THAT excruciating, at least not for that long.
As you know, baseball is filled with statistics that are meaningless yet somehow entertaining. Here's one: in 1904 Jack Taylor threw a major league record 39 consecutive complete games. In fact, between 1901 and 1906 he threw 187 consecutive complete games although they were intermingled with 22 relief appearances. This somewhat pales against Cy Young, who in his 22-year career started 815 games and completed 749 of them. In the modern baseball world, there was a total of forty-two complete games in 2018.
Heritage Auctions always has interesting (and expensive) items. Coming soon from them is the earliest-known football program from the University of Michigan. It dates from 1881 and was from a Michigan-Yale game. Click here for more info.
Regarding the issue of graded cards which apparently have been altered, which I've reported on in recent newsletters: Joe Orlando, President and CEO of Collectors Universe, reports that their revenue has grown this year and that they will "step up efforts" to increase their operational capacity to deal with a significant and growing backlog of submissions. Joe also says basically that he sees the whole brouhaha about the graded/altered cards as "no loophole on our end", and "some of it has been blown way out of proportion". In other words, move along folks - nothing to see here.
Related to the Andrew Luck story above: The new #1 Colts QB, Jacoby ("who") Brissett, has seen the BV of some of his better cards quadruple or more in value recently. Dive right in, collectors!
Today we salute baseball commentator Jerry Coleman.
"I've made a couple of mistakes I'd like to do over."
"How can you communicate with Enzo Hernandez when he speaks Spanish and you speak Mexican?"
"You never ask why you've been fired because if you do, they're liable to tell you."
"We started with 53,000 people. Half are gone but, surprisingly, most are still here."
Hello again! We are finally getting some fall-like weather here in the Star City. The hummingbirds have apparently packed their little bags and headed south for the winter. We miss their little buzzy, chirpy selves! It's only a few weeks before we "fall back" again, thereby messing up both our clocks and our bodies. Since I have ranted on this "daylight savings time", uh, stuff for a number of years now, and nobody in authority seems to listen, I'll just let it go.
In sports news, you no doubt have heard about the law passed in California which will allow college athletes in that state to profit from their "names, images and likenesses". There are, I think, good arguments against this, one of which is NOT the NCAA's argument that it will "kill" amateur athletics. Sure, just like the Olympics and tennis. I think it's hard to argue against the "student-athletes" making some money when the universities just rake in the dough. But I think a different answer would be to allow athletes to turn pro whenever they want to. MLB is partly there, in that they can sign players right out of high school, but I think they still limit those players who go on to college. The NBA and the NFL have their own stupid rules, but, of course, unlike MLB, they can count on the universities to provide a year or two of minor league training. The minor, less important sports, such as golf, wrestling and wife-carrying, already have no age limits as far as I know.
I'm sure you're all excited about professional football! I'm speaking, of course, about the XFL which appears to be ready to start up early next year. Here's hoping it lasts at least as long as the AAF. With Vince McMahon in charge, I'm sure it will be class all the way.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Rugby World Cup, which is going on in Japan, I believe. You know rugby - it's sort of like mixed martial arts played outdoors with a ball. Sometimes the ball gets stuck, and they have a somewhat hockey-like play called a "scrum", where instead of just two players facing off, all the players pile onto the ball until it squirts out, and play resumes. It must be one tough ball, because these are BIG guys.
The NBA will soon start up their 82-game regular season which will be followed in due course by their 347-game post season. We will get the answers to many questions: Can Anthony Davis turn the Los Angeles Losers, uh, Lakers, into winners; Will Zion live up to all of the hype, some of the hype, any of the hype; will Russell Westbrook and James Harden kill each other over who gets to shoot.
Just read an article about an unnamed "well known" memorabilia dealer who has a habit of stealing pictures and descriptions from other Ebay auctions, then using those images and descriptions to advertise those items on their site at a higher price than yours. If they get a buyer for the item, then they will buy it from you and sell it to their customer for the higher price. Sleazy, yes, and I don't know what the Ebay policy is. I wish I could tell you who the "well known" dealer is, but I just don't know.
Another personal collecting note: I bought a small stack of assorted cards ($25) on the Beckett Marketplace from Three Stars Sportscards. Somehow their mail system got mixed up, and my package was sent to the wrong address. When I contacted Three Stars, they quickly realized and admitted there was a problem, and almost immediately refunded my $25. They are also going to try to get the package returned to them which they will then send to me without charge. That's customer service!
In criminal news, a fellow has been sued by Panini for copyright infringement for homemade cards he's selling on Ebay. The cards, of players such as Zion, Luca and Patrick Mahomes, feature copyrighted Panini trademarks such as "Rated Rookie" and "Contenders". Just something else to be aware of.
Last month I mentioned the M101-5 "Holmes to Homes" 1916 Babe Ruth rookie card which was being auctioned by the Mile High Card Company. It is the only known example and sold for $163K. In the same auction a PSA 2 Wagner sold for $1.35M. If you bought either of these, please bring them to our next show so we can admire them.
Today we visit the world of tennis.
Commentator Bob Hewitt: "I have a feeling that, if she had been playing against herself, she would have won that point."
Ann Jones: "Diane, keeping her head beautifully on her shoulders."
And in what regular readers of this epistle will recognize as a common theme among sports commentators - by Martina Navratilova: "I had a feeling today that Venus Williams would either win or lose."
Click HERE to continue.
