www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1975-topps-baseball-featured-key-rookies-big-stars-colorful-design/
Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 1975 Topps baseball set: www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1975-topps-baseball-featured-key-rookies-big-stars-colorful-design/
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Jack McCallum brings his “A” game in his latest book.
A fixture at Sports Illustrated for three decades, McCallum knows when to pass and when to shoot. The basketball analogies are appropriate. In The Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and the Hidden History of Hoops (Hachette Books; hardback; $30; 336 pages). McCallum digs deep into the psyche of Indiana basketball, a sport viewed with reverence by residents of the Hoosier state. McCallum strips away the underdog, feelgood Hollywood narrative that made “Hoosiers” such a wonderful movie when it was released in 1986. He instead focuses on the harsh realities of racism, integration and segregation during the early 1950s in Indiana, when Crispus Attucks High School rose to prominence. The school fielded the first all-Black team to win a high school state title in the nation, and was the first to go undefeated in Indiana with a 31-0 mark in 1956. It was also the first squad from Indianapolis to win a state crown. While the team lost to unheralded Milan in the 1954 semifinals, Attucks would go 61-1 over the next two seasons, winning back-to-back state titles. The teams would be inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, each squad earning enshrinement 50 years after they played. “Their success changed things in (Indianapolis) and went well beyond the realm of high school sports,” Chris May, the Hall of Fame’s executive director who retired after 15 years in 2022, told Sports Illustrated in 2018. Attucks had its star player and star coach, with Oscar Robertson on the court and Ray Crowe from the bench. Robertson declined to be interviewed for McCallum’s book, which was not a surprise; he also refused to talk to Sports Illustrated for what became a long feature in 2018 about Crispus Attucks High School.
Robertson already spoke his piece in his 2003 autobiography, The Big O, but his refusal to lend his voice to McCallum’s narrative is actually a blessing. The subjects McCallum interviews and the extensive research he did provide a deeper, richer portrait of a state invariably called the most northern state in the South — or the most southern state in the North. Take your pick. Less charitably, Indiana has been called the middle finger of the South.
One of my history teachers at the University of Florida, David Chalmers, wrote an exhaustive history of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1960s, Hooded Americanism, and Indiana had more than a bit part. Instead of riding horses to cross-burnings, Klansmen in 20th century Indiana would pull up to gatherings in Winnebagos, he once lectured. Those prejudices did not go away easily, even after the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which ruled that segregating children based on race was unconstitutional. Enforcing that decision proved to be slow and torturous, based on personal experience. The high school I attended in Delray Beach, Florida, from 1971 to 1975 did not become fully integrated until the 1970-71 school year, and it took a court order for Palm Beach County to enforce it among all the schools in the county. Robertson, now 85, was a beloved player at every level of basketball. His enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980 was a foregone conclusion. Robertson changed the game with his vision as a court general. Averaging a triple-double during the 1961-62 season was an astounding feat. As a high school player, Robertson was named Indiana’s “Mr. Basketball” for 1956. Robertson retired from the NBA in 1974 after scoring 26,710 points, handing out 9,887 assists and collecting 7,804 rebounds during 1,040 regular-season games, according to Basketball-Reference.com. He won an NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1971 with Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was also a driving force on the labor side, helping players to bargain more effectively for their services. Robertson’s talents “snuck up on you because his brilliance came from fundamentals, versatility, and, above all, consistency,” McCallum writes.
Noted for his 2012 book, The Dream Team, McCallum brings humor, snark and turns many a phrase in The Real Hoosiers, like dishing off no-look passes. His writing is every bit as breathtaking as Robertson’s court demeanor.
A favorite line: Bailey “Flap” Robertson, Oscar’s older brother, “could talk the shell off an egg.” Of Crowe, who had a 179-20 record in seven seasons at Attucks but was never named Indiana’s Coach of the Year, McCallum writes that he “commanded respect with a tough-but-fair demeanor and a way of getting along with everyone.” “A man comfortable in both the boardroom … and the locker room,” McCallum notes. And Crowe mostly knew how to hold his tongue, except in rare instances, but it is hard to imagine why. He was a basketball coach in Indiana, where for a half century “they had been hailed as geniuses, molders of men, pillars of small communities.” Except those men “were all white,” McCallum writes, noting with irony that Crowe grew up in the town of Whiteland, 19 miles south of Indianapolis. And there was the rub. The other rub was the officiating, where white referees would whistle calls against Black squads in tight games. Crowe took over the basketball program at Attucks before the 1950-51 season. The Tigers reached the 1951 state semifinals, featuring Hallie Bryant, Willie Gardner and Flap Robertson. A poor call against Bryant during the 1953 playoffs — he was whistled for charging when he was knocked to the floor by a pair of Shelbyville players — eliminated the Tigers from the playoffs. Attucks would lose to Milan in the ’54 semifinals. McCallum observes that Attucks players like Bryant “knew they were much more likely to get bad calls from white refs.” In a game during the 1951-52 season, Willie Gardner had fouled out and was sitting on the bench when he heard an official call a foul on him. “I’m right here,” Gardner said, standing up and raising his hand. Bernard McPeak, a respected Black referee from Pennsylvania, was finally allowed to officiate in Indiana after originally being rebuffed. But as McCallum notes, Crowe was not always happy to see him on the court, noting that McPeak was “bending over backwards” to avoid the appearance of giving Attucks any breaks. “He was killing us,” Crowe would say. “Be right without fear. Unfair victory is bittersweet,” was one of Crowe’s principles, McCallum writes. Another one: “No team can beat you at your best; right is unbeatable.” So, it is amazing that Crowe’s squads at Attucks High School were so right. From the start, the high school was built for the wrong reasons.
Robertson’s family lived in the Frog Island area of Indianapolis near the confluence of three rivers, “none of them pleasing.” The area was also known as Bucktown, Naptown or Pat Ward’s Bottoms. Robertson grew up viewing the Harlem Globetrotters as role models.
Attucks was built over the objections of the Black community, which did not want a segregated school. Civil rights activist John Morton-Finney called their opinions “downright hostile,” McCallum writes. There was even consternation over naming the school after Attucks, who was killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. “It does not appear that his services were such as to call for commemoration of his somewhat unrememberable name,” an unsigned article in the Indianapolis News noted. “Will the pupils of the school be able to remember it, and pronounce it?” And yet, McCallum writes, there was a “can-do attitude” about the school that was built to “keep Blacks in their place, built by haters, built to fail.” He spends the first chapter walking the halls of the high school, pointing out the notable graduates of the 97-year-old school. Not all of them were athletes; in fact, these alumni made solid impacts on society as a whole, in Indiana and beyond. Attucks integrated in 1970 by a court order and became a junior high school in 1986. It is now a magnet school for students in grades six through 12. But during Robertson’s time at the school, Attucks did not have a serviceable gym to play games; many of their home games were played at Butler University. Other schools, like Muncie Central, “played in a virtual palace,” McCallum writes. That gym held big-time acts like the Globetrotters, the Supremes, and Abbott and Costello, but at Attucks’ home gym, “you could barely fit all three Supremes, and you definitely couldn’t if you added Costello.” Long road trips to play games were common for Attucks, and finding food and lodging was problematic due to the racial mores of the time. Attucks’ first state title was bittersweet. Players were driven around the city on a fire truck as part of a motorcade but were not allowed to stop and celebrate at Indianapolis’ Monument Circle, a tradition for Indiana state champions. City officials were expecting riot-like conditions from Blacks celebrating if they had won the state title.
"There floated a sense of some unease in some segments of the white community, which had never engaged in wholesale racially integrated celebration,” McCallum writes.
McCallum chronicles the key games in Attucks’ state title runs, including a semifinal win in 1955 against Muncie Central, where Robertson made a game-saving steal of a pass that was similar to Larry Bird’s theft against Detroit in the NBA playoffs three decades later. On March 19, 1955, the Tigers prevailed 97-74 against another all-Black school, Roosevelt High in Gary, to win it all. “At that age, we had no historical perspective on what it meant for two Black teams to play each other in that setting at that time,” Dick Barnett, a Roosevelt player who would go on to a 14-year career in the NBA, told Indianapolis Monthly in 2014. And then there is “Hoosiers,” the film that received two Academy Award nominations. It starred Gene Hackman, best supporting actor nominee Dennis Hopper and Barbara Hershey. Hickory High School, the small school coached by Hackman, mirrored the journey of Milan High, which stunned the field to win the 1954 crown. Crowe played the coach of the South Bend Central team that lost to Hickory High in the title game of “Hoosiers.” Flap Robertson also had a role. McCallum devotes a chapter to the movie, titled, “Separating Fact from Fiction in Hoosiers.” He notes that the real Attucks story has been “subsumed by the fictional story” and obscured historical truth. The film, as most Hollywood efforts have a tendency to do, took broad editorial license, and even though the story was fiction, it mirrored an actual event — sort of. Robertson and many of Attucks’ fans were furious, McCallum writes, “either with the movie, the misguided interpretations of it, or both, and that is entirely understandable.” Robertson wondered why the filmmakers “twisted the truth.” When Milan won the title in real life during the 1954 final, Muncie Central was a racially integrated team. “Hickory defeated a fictional team of Black players, coached exclusively by Black men, whose rooting section consists of Black men, women, boys and girls,” Robertson said. “Is the proverbial race card being played?” Screenwriter Angelo Pizzo defended the movie, noting that it was not a documentary or a docudrama. “It’s not 100% Milan,” he told McCallum. “These are completely new characters made out of whole cloth by me.” That being said, Hoosiers remains one of the great sports movies. I prefer Slap Shot, but perhaps that is because I liked old-time hockey and the Hanson brothers. The 1956 state champions were dominated by Robertson, who played a game “as coldly efficient as a Stasi agent.” On Feb. 10, 1956, he scored a career-high 62 points in Attucks’ 76-47 win against Sacred Heart. In the state tournament, he scored a championship game-record 39 points. When Robertson was asked if a 56-point effort for the University of Cincinnati against Seton Hall, which set a scoring mark at Madison Square Garden, was his biggest thrill, he said no. His career highlight was helping Attucks win a pair of high school state titles. “A Hoosier has his priorities,” McCallum writes. So does The Real Hoosiers. McCallum offers a well-researched, balanced look at a basketball program that broke down racial barriers in a city that was loathe to change. He also offers a sobering look at prejudice that was still prevalent 70 years ago. Readers should be aghast and angry at what took place during the 1950s, and no feelgood movie is ever going to erase that. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the high-end 2024 Topps Tribute baseball set:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2024-topps-tribute-baseball-information-release-date-checklist/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about seven 1928 Greiner Bread cards that are headed to auction:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/rare-1928-greiner-bread-cards-part-of-heritage-auctions-sale/ Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily, looking back at the 1984 Donruss baseball set, which is 40 years old this year:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1984-donruss-baseball-still-resonates-with-collectors-40-years-later/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about an interview I had with Robert Grabe, Topps' senior graphics designer. We talked about the new design for the 2024 Topps Series 1 set, which dropped on Feb. 14.
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/going-neon-2024-topps-series-1-designer-discusses-fresh-look-for-flagship-product/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a poster touting Albert Spalding's baseball tour that stopped in Australia in 1888-89:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/poster-from-1888-89-spalding-australian-baseball-tour-part-of-heritage-auctions-sale/ Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2023 Panini Illusions football set, scheduled for a March 13 release:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2023-panini-illusions-football-set-for-march-13-release/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the new book by Phil Coffin, When Baseball Was Still Topps. It's a look back -- card by card -- at the 1959 Topps baseball set.
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/new-book-features-essays-about-every-card-from-1959-topps-baseball-set/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the Olympic gold medal won by Bob Beamon at the 1968 Summer Olympics, which is headed for auction.
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/bob-beamons-gold-medal-from-historic-long-jump-headed-to-auction/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the gatefolds in the first two issues of Sports Illustrated in 1954 (and two more in 1955) that pictures baseball players in the Topps designs of the day:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/sports-illustrated-introduced-cards-in-four-issues-during-mid-1950s/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Richie Aurigemma's cool find of two rows of Polo Grounds box seats:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/pull-up-a-chair-polo-grounds-triple-seat-field-box-seats-are-a-real-find/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Topps Finest uncut sheets from the mid-1990s that are headed to auction:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1990s-topps-finest-uncut-sheets-auction/ Panini America’s 2023 Prestige Football set has design elements I like. The main photo is vertical on the card front, which I prefer to a horizontal layout. The action photo is colorful and really stands out against a whitish-gray background. The hazy image behind the main photo could represent fans, or perhaps the sidelines. The typeface is displayed in a tasteful script, and the elements on the card front are not cluttered. Nicely done. Prestige Football returns this year with a 400-card set. Veterans and greats of the game make up the first 300 cards, while there are 90 rookies and 10 short-printed rookies. As usual I bought a blaster box. Prestige has a higher price at $27.48 than other products — for example, I bought Allen & Ginter blaster for $24.98 — but Prestige does offer more cards. A blaster contains six packs, with 11 cards to a pack. I pulled 48 base cards. In addition to today’s stars, I pulled NFL greats like Marcus Allen, Deion Sanders, Eddie George and Thurman Thomas. I found eight rookie cards but no short prints. The rookie cards have a slightly different design on the card front, with an action shot and a shadow-like version of the same photo behind him. The card backs for all 400 cards are formatted to a vertical layout. The photo on the front is cropped for the back, and there is a short biography containing highlights and fun facts about the player. Statistics for the current players show 2022 and career totals, while the retired stars feature one line with their NFL career totals. It is a very clean look. There are 23 different parallels in Prestige Football. My blaster had two of them. One was an Xtra Points Premium blue parallel of Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson that was numbered to 299. Considering Johnson’s 2023 season so far, having a parallel in blue was ironic. He was sidelined for a month with a hamstring injury, and he caught a great deal of criticism this past weekend for appearing to look indifferent when Pittsburgh running back Jaylen Warren fumbled. ohnson made no effort to go after the fumble or to tackle Bengals cornerback D.J. Turner, who picked up the loose football. The Steelers won, but could have been singing the blues. To his credit, Johnson owned up to his mistake. In addition to the Johnson parallel, the box I bought yielded four blaster-exclusive Diamond parallel cards of four receiver, D.K. Metcalf of the Seahawks, Bills great Andre Reed, Jonathan Mingo of the Panthers and Zay Jones of the Jaguars. Prestige certainly does not shy away from inserts. There are 18 different subsets to chase. My blaster box yielded five of them. Time Stamped is a 10-card insert, and I pulled one of Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons. Heroes is a colorful insert set that features 20 subjects; the player in my blaster was Metcalf. For the Record is another 20-card insert set. It features significant performances by players; this card featured Jamaal Williams’ league-high 17 touchdowns with the Detroit Lions in 2022. It was a franchise record and I was surprised, wondering what Barry Sanders’ top touchdown total was for a single season. Sanders scored 16 in 1991, so Williams now owns the record. Alma Maters showcases players from the same school. There are 25 cards in this subset, and the card I pulled features Alabama stars Jerry Jeudy, (Broncos), Jaylen Waddle (Dolphins) and Amari Cooper (Browns). Any Given Sunday — the insert, not the 1999 movie that starred Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid and Cameron Diaz, along with players like Jim Brown, Lawrence Taylor and Terrell Owens (he played himself, of course) — features 20 cards. he card I pulled featured Bills quarterback Josh Allen and chronicled his four-touchdown effort in the first half of Buffalo’s 38-3 victory against Pittsburgh during the 2022 season. There are plenty of Prestige blasters to be found at retail stores like Walmart and Target, along with Mega-boxes. It is an eye-pleasing set with a fine lineup. The number of parallels and inserts might be a bit maddening, but they certainly present a good challenge for set collectors. Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2023 Bowman Draft baseball product:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2023-bowman-draft-baseball-has-prospects-and-tom-brady/ There are few surprises in the 2023 Topps Update baseball product, which was released a month ago. Actually, the biggest surprise in my area is that it took more than a month for blaster boxes to hit Target and Walmart stores. But that’s a distribution issue that is out of my control, so when I saw a shelf full of the Update series at Target, I naturally bought a blaster box. Collectors know the drill. The 330-card Update series is the final installment of Topps’ flagship product, featuring rookies, traded players, veterans and combo cards. If you are a set collector, completing the Update series finishes off the master set for the year. In another bizarre device that Topps has used over the past few years, there are two cards listed at US149 — Levi Stoudt and Teoscar Hernandez. There is no US250 card. As usual, I bought a blaster box to get a taste of the set. There are seven packs to a box, with 12 cards to a pack. In addition, Topps provides three Orange and Black Foil cards, so a blaster will contain 87 cards. The design remains consistent with those from Series One and Two of the flagship set. There is an action shot on the card front that dominates the space, with a white border and a thin line containing the primary color of the team’s uniform. A mug shot of the player is positioned in the lower left-hand corner, with his name in white block letters below the smaller photograph. His position is anchored in the bottom right-hand corner of the card. Every base card in the blaster I bought — and there were 68 of them — had vertical designs, which I love and prefer. There were also 30 rookies in that group. The card backs follow the same pattern as the first two series this year and utilize a horizontal design. There are columns of statistics, which look so much better in a horizontal format. The Update set uses that design to highlight the player’s vital statistics and year-by-year numbers. Where there is room, a short biography or a paragraph explaining a career highlight is included. The most interesting parallel was a Jack-O’-Lantern Foil card of Blue Jays pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu. The Jack-O’-Lantern dovetail nicely with the Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons. They fall once in every 21 packs and are a blaster exclusive. Another autumnal theme is evident in the Orange and Black Foil parallel cards. As promised, there were three in the blaster I opened — Royals pitcher Amir Garrett, Athletics infielder Aledmys Diaz and Yankees pitcher Jhony Brito. I also pulled a Gold parallel card of Reds second baseman Matt Reynolds that was numbered to 2023. I also found a Rainbow Foil parallel of Rangers receiver Jose Leclerc. As for the inserts, 2023 Topps Update Series Baseball returns with 50 cards featuring the 1988 Topps baseball design. The cards I pulled were Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno and Orioles pitcher Grayson Rodriguez. The cards are stamped in foil that reminds collectors that this design is 35 years old. Mind-blowing for sure. Has it really been that long? Laid Out is a 20-card insert set that features players stretching to make big defensive plays. The card I pulled was of Braves outfielder Kevin Pillar. Action Stars is a 30-card insert set that has a similar theme as Laid Out, although much more foil-oriented. I pulled a card of Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette. Stars of MLB inserts return for the Update set and typically fall one per pack. One pack had two in the blaster I opened, so I wound up with eight of them. The other insert is a 50-card offering commemorating All-Star Game selections. he two cards I pulled featured outfielder Adolis Garcia, who would be the Rangers’ most valuable player in the American League Championship Series; and Rays shortstop Wander Franco. The Update set is an enjoyable way to wrap up the year for Topps’ main set. It is predictable, but that is its strength. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the IRS delaying the $600 1099-K reporting for another year.
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/irs-again-delays-reporting-rules-for-paypal-venmo-and-cash-app-users/ Topps Archives is one of those sets that give collectors a taste of different set from years past. Unlike Heritage, which only concentrated on one year — this year’s product pays tribute to the 1974 Topps set — Topps Archives spoons out nostalgia in small doses. This year’s set places its main focus on the 1956, 1965 and 2003 Topps designs. I have always loved the 1965 design, since it was the first set I ever actively collected when I was young. I gained an appreciation for the 1956 set in later years, when I turned to filling in the Topps run from 1952 to the present (still trying). I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the 2003 Topps design is considered for the Archives set, since it seems like I was putting the set together yesterday. But time flies, and it is 20 years old, so it qualifies. As usual, I bought a blaster box. There are seven packs to a box, with eight cards in each pack. As an added bonus, blasters contain three 1969 Topps Single Player Foil cards. So, 59 cards in this box. The set contains 300 base cards. The breakdown among the three sets was fairly even. There were 18 cards from the 2003 set, and 17 apiece from the 1956 and 1965 sets. The 1956 cards are listed as the first 100 in the checklist, with cards 101 to 200 featuring 1965 designs. The final 100 base cards showcase the 2003 layout. There is a nice mix of rookies, veterans and legends in the base set. The 2003 cards I pulled, for example, included Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Harmon Killebrew and Roberto Clemente. I did not have any Hall of Famers from the 1965 cards I pulled, although the checklist includes Wade Boggs, Rogers Hornsby, Babe Ruth, Kirby Puckett, Honus Wagner, Randy Johnson, Stan Musial and Mike Piazza. The 1956 Cooperstown crew I pulled included Tom Seaver, Ken Griffey Jr., Robin Yount and Lou Gehrig. To throw a curveball at those collectors who are set builders, each year depicted in the Archives set has variations. The 1956 designs have a white back variation, just like the original set. The difference should be obvious to collectors, but they can be confirmed because the code on the card back ends in 268. In a blaster, the odds of finding such a card is one in every 64 packs. The odds are slightly better for hobby boxes at 1:61, according to Topps. There are 40 different variation cards from the 1956 design. The 1965 Inverted Variations are interesting in the sense that while the main photo remains the same, all of the other elements of the card front are reversed. So, the flag with the team name, and the player name plate and position, along with the Topps logo in the top left-hand corner appear as if someone is holding it up to a mirror. The code is the same as the 1956 variations, and so are the odds. And there are 35 cards with these variations. For the 2003 cards, the variations include a foil stamp where the team logo was positioned on the base card. That means toward the lower right side of the card front. The code ends with 271 and there are 20 card variations. There is also simply a straight variation card, where one image — or, in the case of the 1956 design, a main and secondary image — are swapped out. The chances of finding one in a blaster box are one in 337 packs. Again, the odds are not much better for hobby boxes, with the ratio at 1:332. I was not fortunate enough to pull any kind of variation card, but then again, I did not expect it. I did, however, unwrap a green parallel card from the 1965 design featuring Carlos Rodon. The card was numbered to 99. There are several inserts in the Archives set that allows Topps to dip deeper into its vault of card designs. The Baby Bombers is a 25-card subset that borrows from the 1998 Topps set. The card I pulled was Josh Jung. The largest insert set is the 1969 Topps Single Player Foil card. There are 60 in the subset and I found three — Mike Trout, Julio Rodriguez and Joey Votto. The 1989 Doubleheaders insert is a 25-card offering that features a player photograph on each side of the card. They fall about once in every eight packs. here was a possibility that I might not have pulled such a card, but I did get lucky and found a Padres double-sided card featuring Juan Solo and Fernando Tatis Jr. Trout was featured in another insert I pulled — the 1957 Topps Hit Stars subset. There are 15 cards in the subset, and they fall approximately once every seven packs. The 2023 Topps Archives set is a fun one to collect. I love new players featured on vintage designs, and it is nice to see sharp versions of those layouts. It is not surprising that almost all of the 1956 and 1965 Topps I own have seen better days, so seeing crisp photogrpahy and sharp corners is a treat. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Abby Doherty, who caught the racquet that Novak Djovokic threw into the crowd after winning the 2016 French Open:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/fan-who-caught-djokovics-racquet-after-2016-french-open-win-selling-it-at-scp-auctions/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Grace Enlow, a 108-year-old Detroit-area resident who knitted quilt in 1941 that was signed by members of the New York Yankees:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/stitched-in-time-quilt-with-signatures-of-1941-yankees-headed-auction/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a group of 39 cards from the 1921 Herpolsheimer set -- including nine cards that have never been seen before:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1921-herpolsheimer-cards-found-in-band-aid-box-headed-to-love-of-the-game-auction-sale/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about an equipment bag Jackie Robinson gave away in 1964 to Mike Mathwig, a Dodgers prospect. The bag will be part of a Heritage Auctions sale in November:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/in-the-bag-equipment-bag-jackie-robinson-gave-to-1960s-dodgers-prospect-part-of-heritage-auctions-sale/ I always look forward to Topps’ Allen & Ginter set. I’ve been collecting this eclectic set since it debuted in 2006 and enjoy its diverse subjects and old-time feel. So this year, like I usually do with this product, I splurged and bought a hobby box. The particulars about the set remain the same. There are 300 base cards, with 100 short prints. There are also 300 mini parallels, with 50 short prints. Topps promises three hits per hobby box. They could be autographs, memorabilia or even rip cards. There are also buyback cards featuring original Allen & Ginter cards. As usual, the subjects run the gamut, featuring baseball players — rookies, veterans and Hall of Famers. Stars from other sports are also represented, along with musicians (Lil Baby, Bun B, Gorilla Nems and DMC), comedians (Kyle Gordon, Adam Ray), sportswriters (Mandy Bell), journalists (Bomani Jones), broadcasters (Ari Chambers), artists (Captain Sandy Yawn), internet celebrities (Myles Montplaisir), actors (Robert De Niro) and businessmen. You get the idea. The set includes high school female football pioneer Bella Rasmussen, professional Wiffle Ball players Kyle Schultz, and paralympic athlete Zion Clark. And don’t forget the Mud Guy, Jim Bintliff. You know, the guy who supplies the mud to take the shine off new baseballs. The box I opened had 141 base cards and 11 short prints. As usual, completing the set is difficult because the short prints are so hard to find. Finishing off the base set is comparatively easy, though. I’m not sure that I like this year’s design as much as I did with previous years. The art work is still beautiful, but I do not particularly care for the snaking banner that runs down the left side off the card front, across the top and partially down the right side. It is not horrible, but it gets away from the Gilded Age look that made A&G so distinctive. The Allen & Ginter name is nearly buried in the top banner, although to be fair, there is a distinctive A&G logo in the bottom left-hand corner. The card backs remain true to Allen & Ginter’s format since its inception. Baseball players have very formally written statistics. That can avoid embarrassment for some players. It does not look as bad when JJ Bleday’s card notes that his 2022 batting average was “One Hundred Sixty Seven,” rather than the more traditional .167. Things are looking up, though. He batted “One Hundred Ninety Five” in 2023. Not trying to pick on Bleday — he has struggled with injuries and is a fine defensive outfielder, turning two double plays in 2023 — but just showing how the formal spellings can make tough statistics seem easier to swallow. For subjects who are not baseball players, A&G prepares a 10-line biography, emphasizing career highlights and achievements. Mini cards fall once in every pack. Most are parallels, although there are some mini insert cards. I pulled 15 minis, two of which were short prints. There were also five mini parallels that had Allen & Ginter backs. Three of the minis were black bordered. These cards are supposed to fall once in every 11 packs, so getting three was a nice bonus. For collectors who buy retail, there are gold-bordered cards. Allen & Ginter serves up its usual — and unusual — types of inserts. The largest subset is the 50-card Spotless Spans insert. These cards highlight a player’s particular streak — for example, Derek Jeter hitting safely in 44 consecutive road games beginning in late August 2006. I pulled 12 of these cards. These cards are interesting because they play off unusual baseball statistics, which number geeks like me enjoy immensely. Fun in the Sun is a 15-card subset that highlights fun things to do during the summer. I pulled three of these cards. Music to Your Ears is a quirky insert, also consisting of 15 cards that feature musical instruments from around the world. I was able to find four of these cards in the hobby box I opened. TALON-ted goes from quirky to “pun-ishing,” with the 20-card set focusing on birds with talons. I pulled five of these cards. Turning to mini inserts, The World of Wonder has 50 cards and takes the collector on a world tour of breathtaking sites. I found two of these cards in the hobby box I opened. International Delights contains 20 cards and features culinary dishes from around the world. The card I found was a nice Italian meal — Ragu alla Bolognese. “Only In …” is a 30-card set that features a notable trait about every MLB stadium. I pulled one card, which featured McCovey Cove at San Francisco’s Oracle Park. I saw the listing for Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I chuckled. “Touchtank in the outfield,” the description reads. It’s a nice feature, but the Trop is noted for those maddening catwalks above the playing field, which can turn an east fly ball into an adventure. Just sayin’. As promised, Topps had three hits in this year’s A&G hobby box—one autograph card and a pair of relics. The autograph was a framed signature of Cardinals pitcher, while the memorabilia cards featured Braves pitcher Kyle Wright and Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll. The box topper in the hobby box I bought was a large base version of Ronald Acuna Jr. Other collectors might find box toppers that are signed, N43 versions (including cards that are autographed) and rip cards. Not a bad haul. Allen & Ginter is a fun set to collect because it offers such a wide variety of subjects. The inserts can be odd at times, but are always fun to chase. Once again, the set did not disappoint. Lots of good points this year. I would have preferred a more traditional A&G design for the card front, but mixing things up can be a good thing, too. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2023 Topps Tier One baseball set, a high-end product featuring autographs and memorabilia cards:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2023-topps-tier-one-baseball-is-heavy-on-autographs-relics/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Heritage Auctions' sale in October that includes a photo of a young Lou Gehrig with the Hartford Senators in the early 1920s:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/photo-of-lou-gehrig-with-hartford-senators-up-for-bid-in-heritage-auctions-sale/ |
Bob's blogI love to blog about sports books and give my opinion. Baseball books are my favorites, but I read and review all kinds of books. Archives
September 2023
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