If you covered baseball for any amount of time, there is a good chance that you got pranked by Jay Johnstone.

So, it was sad to read about Johnstone’s death, which was announced Monday. His daughter confirmed the outfielder’s death on Facebook. Johnstone, 74, who died Saturday, suffered from dementia and was in a California nursing home when he died of complications from the coronavirus.

Johnstone batted .267 during his 20-year career in the majors from 1966 to 1985, but I figure he batted at least .300 in pulling pranks on teammates, managers and members of the media.

He caught me during spring training in 1981. I was a young sportswriter at The Stuart News in Florida and went to Vero Beach to take pictures and do a feature story. I was walking from the Dodgers’ clubhouse toward the field at Holman Stadium and wandered onto a fenced-in practice field, where several players were stretching.

I took out a camera from my bulky bag and began snapping away when Johnstone, in the front row, chirped at me.

“Hey, you dropped some film,” he said. “Behind you.”

Naturally, I turned to my left to look.

“No, the other side,” he said, as I spun the other way.

“Nope, you’re still missing it,” he said.

By now, I was doing pirouettes and my bag was swinging around my waist. The players were snickering loudly, saying “rookie,” and “clown” and a few other choice words.

I must have turned red, because Johnstone finally said, “Don’t worry, kid, I do that to everyone.”

Thanks, Jay.

What he did to other major leaguers was much funnier and inventive. After all, this was a guy who wrote a book in 1985 called Temporary Insanity (with Rick Talley) and had a bit part in the 1988 comedy farce, “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” playing a member of the Seattle Mariners.

“If there was a tax on the amount of fun we had, we couldn’t afford to live,” Reuss, 71, told the Los Angeles Times. “There are so many different memories … but unfortunately, a lot of them you can’t print.”

Johnstone would randomly nail teammates’ cleats to the floor or set them on fire. Along with Dodgers teammate Jerry Reuss, he once replaced the celebrity photos Tommy Lasorda with pictures of himself, Reuss and Don Stanhouse, according to the Times. Johnstone and Reuss dressed as groundskeepers and dragged the infield during the fifth inning of a Sept. 2, 1981, game at Dodger Stadium.

Lasorda chewed them both out and sent Johnstone up to pinch hit for reliever Terry Forster to lead off the sixth inning. Johnstone hit a leadoff homer off Pittsburgh’s Mark Lee, the final run in the Dodgers’ 6-2 victory.

“Who in the history of baseball has dragged the infield in the fifth inning and hit a pinch-hit homer in the sixth?” Reuss asked the Times.

Some other notable pranks. Johnstone once gave the Phillie Phanatic one of Lasorda’s uniforms, and the mascot placed it on a blow-up doll. Another time, Dodgers executive Fred Claire was walking from the field to the press box before the first pitch when he noticed Johnstone ordering a hot dog at a concession stand near the team’s clubhouse.

“I screamed at him, ‘Jay, get your butt in the clubhouse!’” Claire told the Times. “I don’t know if that was Babe Ruth-like or Jay Johnstone-like, but it was great.”

Johnstone also once put a soggy brownie in Steve Garvey’s glove, according to The Orange County Register.

Johnstone’s first roommate on the road when he joined the California Angels in 1966 was outfielder Jimmy Piersall. That might explain a few things.

“(Piersall) went nuts twice and used to walk around saying, ‘I’ve got the papers to prove I’m sane,'” Johnstone told the Register in 2011. “He’d wake me up at night and ask me baseball questions … because he said he wanted to get to my deep inner id. I still have no idea what he meant by that.”

Johnson’s nickname, which I learned from his APBA baseball card when I owned the game in 1973, was “Moon Man.” He would imitate Lasorda by stuffing pillows in his uniform shirt and meet with a pitcher on the mound before the game.

Temporary insanity, indeed. Johnstone was one of a kind.

“I’ll be honest,” Reuss told the Times. “There was nothing temporary about it.”
We’ll miss ya, Jay.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily, previewing the high-end, 2021 Topps Sterling baseball set:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/high-end-topps-sterling-baseball-arriving-early-in-2021/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Brett Favre signing a Bucs T-shirt while attending Sunday's game at Raymond James Stadium. The shirt, featuring Tom Brady's face superimposed over a vintage "Bucco Bruce" logo, is headed to auction:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/brett-favres-bucs-t-shirt-supporting-tom-brady-up-for-auction/

It is usually a midsummer classic, but the Topps Allen & Ginter set was released several months later this year. A pandemic will do that.

So, instead of July, the venerable A&G set made its debut in mid-September. The formula has not changed: While the set concentrates on baseball players, it also includes stars from other sports and pop culture favorites.

I finally found blaster boxes of A&G at my local Walmart, so it was fun to buy one and open it. I originally was going to pass on collecting this year’s set — trying to fill in the holes on other UV sets has become more of a priority — but like the mythical Greek Siren, the Allen & Ginter set sings enchanting music and I cannot resist the lure.
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The fact that I also pulled an autograph from one pack might have influenced my decision, too. 

A blaster box contains seven packs, plus an extra pack. It is a silly concept card companies use. The eighth “bonus” pack was not a special set of cards, just the regular assortment of product. So, why not simply advertise “eight packs”? Must be a marketing ploy, like noting that a product costs $19.99 instead of $20.

The base set contains 300 cards, plus the usual 50 short prints. The blaster I opened had 28 cards and two SPs (Moises Alou and Bert Blyleven). Each pack contains a mini card. Three of the minis were base cards and one had an A&G back. A fifth one was a black parallel of Reds Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, while the final three were inserts.

The design for the base set is slightly different this year, but only on the card front. A&G cards traditionally have wonderful artwork, and the 2020 version is no exception. But instead of the full bleed look, this year’s card fronts frame a photo. The frames are a thin gray color, so the appearance is not quite like previous Turkey Red issues, for example.
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Speaking of frames, the big hit from the blaster was a framed, on-card autograph of Indians pitcher Zach Plesac. Those mini cards always look nice when they are framed.

I picked up several insert cards. There were two Digging Deep cards. This 20-card subset is dedicated to treasures you might find in the ground, and the gems I pulled were a diamond and chrysoberyl. Reach for the Sky contains 15 cards of famous skyscrapers and I pulled two cards — the Steinway Tower in Manhattan and the Shanghai Tower in China.

Down on the Farm is another 15-card subset that focuses on barnyard animals, while Field Generals is a 20-card set that pays tribute to some of the game’s greatest catchers. I pulled one insert from each. Longball is a 50-card set that highlights baseball’s greatest sluggers. I pulled a Carl Yastrzemski insert. A Debut to Remember is a 30-card set that features memorable first games by major leaguers.

I pulled one card from three of the mini insert sets — Booming Cities (Dhaka), Behemoths Beneath (Beluga Whale) and Where Monsters Live (Under the Stairs).

Once again, the lure of Allen & Ginter is too tough to resist. It’s always a nice-looking set, with maddeningly difficult short prints and an eclectic group of inserts.
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Guess I will collect them again.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a 1941 Double Play card that had an interesting message written on the back by Massachusetts resident John Lawsky.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/finding-john-lawsky-message-on-1941-double-play-ball-card-a-fun-vintage-mystery/

Here is a review of "Little Wonder" I did for Sport in American History:

bobdangelobooks.weebly.com/the-sports-bookie/podcast-little-wonder-with-sasha-abramsky

And here is the podcast I did last month with Sasha Abramsky:

bobdangelobooks.weebly.com/the-sports-bookie/podcast-little-wonder-with-sasha-abramsky

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a cache of unsigned Patrick Mahomes cards that were discovered at a Goodwill in Kansas City.

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/cache-of-unsigned-patrick-mahomes-personal-edition-rookie-cards-found-at-thrift-store/

It’s good to see new product on the shelves again. For a while, there were no cards at the Target and Walmart stores I visit.

On Tuesday I saw some new stuff and was overjoyed. So, I bought a blaster of 2020 Topps Fire baseball. Topps Fire is a retail product that has been exclusive to Target since 2017. Collectors have the option of buying a blaster for $19.99 or a hobby box for $69.99. The biggest difference, of course, is that Topps is promising two autograph cards per hobby box.
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The blaster box included seven packs, with six cards to a pack. In addition, there was a special four-card pack of Gold Minted base parallels.

The base set for Fire contains 200 cards, with a generous assortment of veterans, rookies and former stars. The design of the cards, to say the least, are wild. Lots of lines, splashes of paint, circles, triangles and intersecting lines. The card fronts sport three distinct looks. And so do the card backs.

To be honest, the designs are a little bit too busy for my taste, as I lean toward a more traditional look. The artwork is nice, and the detail is excellent, but I felt like my senses were being overloaded by some of the cards.

Other collectors, however, might find these cards stimulating. So, it is just a matter of preference. Decide for yourself.
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The box I bought yielded 36 base cards, which included four rookie cards. Some of the retired greats included Ken Griffey Jr., Ichiro, Craig Biggio, Sammy Sosa, David Ortiz and Tony Gwynn. I also pulled a pair of flame parallels of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Willy Adames, along with an orange parallel of Chris Paddack, numbered to 299.

There were three inserts inside the blaster box I bought. Arms Ablaze featured a card of Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger, which clocked how fast one of his throws to home plate was (96.6 mph). The card also notes that Bellinger threw a 98.9 mph, 261-foot strike to nail a runner at the plate during a 2017 game. Impressive. The card is shiny and gold looking. There are 20 inserts in this subset.

The second insert was a Shattering Stats card of slugger Albert Pujols. This was one of 15 inserts featured, and it showcased Pujols’ feat of batting more than .300 during the first 10 seasons of his major league career. In his 11th season, Pujols fell to .299.

The final insert was a Smoke & Mirrors card of Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman. This card is part of a 20-card subset and shows two photos — one a glorified posed shot, while the smaller picture shows Chapman in his pitching form.

The four Gold Minted cards I pulled included Alex Bregman, Trevor Story, Brendan Rodgers and Trent Grisham.
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Topps Fire has an appeal for collectors who like to push the envelope in design. It is bold and flamboyant, and it’s an easy set to build.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a rare Michael Jordan card pulled from a pack in 1997 that is part of a Goldin Auctions sale this weekend:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1997-upper-deck-jordan-card-pulled-from-3-99-pack-in-1997-could-hit-six-figures/​

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Collectable, a fractionalized, stock-market type way for collectors to own high-end sports cards and memorabilia.

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/collectable-offers-fractionalized-ownership-of-valuable-sports-memorabilia/

​Baseball historian John Thorn calls the members of the Society for American Baseball Research “nerds,” but in a loving way.

But let's be honest: Where would baseball lovers be without SABR?
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SABR was founded Aug. 10, 1971, in Cooperstown, New York, by sportswriter Bob Davids. That summer, I was on a family vacation trip from Boynton Beach, Florida, to the Fontana Village Resort in western North Carolina. There were no phones, videos, and the radio in my parents’ red 1969 Volkswagen beetle was lousy at tuning in stations as we rumbled through the hills of northeastern Georgia.

I read during the trip, choosing The Baseball Encyclopedia put out in 1969 by the Macmillan Company.

So, call me a nerd, too. I loved it. And I still have that book. I feel like a kindred spirit.

That is why reading SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $49.95; 608 pages) is such a pleasure.

There are 50 articles selected by a committee of four volunteers: Mark Armour, Leslie Heaphy, Bill Nowlin and Thorn (who wrote the foreword). Nowlin handled the editing chores, with assists from associate editors Armour, Heaphy, Thorn, Scott Bush, Jacob Pomrenke and Cecilia Tan.

This book is more than just statistics and formulas. It is a living, breathing history of baseball, with writers passionate about not only preserving the history of the game, but also getting it right.

The breadth of coverage is remarkable. There is Herm Krabbenhoft’s chapter about Lou Gehrig’s career and season RBI totals. The Iron Horse was originally credited with 1,990 RBI, but Krabbenhoft’s research boosted the total to 1,995. In a postscript, two more RBI were discovered, giving Gehrig an unofficial total of 1,997 RBI.
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That ties in nicely with Clifford S. Kachline’s article about Hack Wilson’s 191st RBI. “Like Ivory soap, today’s major-league averages are 99.44 percent pure, that is virtually 100 percent accurate,” writes Kachline, a founding member of SABR. “By contrast early statistics of both the American and National Leagues, especially for the pre-1950 period, are fraught with mistakes.”

Davids weighs in with the thought-provoking — as in, “Gee, I never thought of that” — chapter about the best games pitched in relief. In addition to Ernie Shore’s perfect appearance in 1917 when he set down all 26 batters he faced when he relieved Babe Ruth, there was Walter Johnson’s 15 strikeouts in 11 1/3 innings in a 1913 game, Bob Osborn’s 14 shutout innings of relief in 1927, and George Washington “Zip” Zabel’s ironman effort of 18 1/3 innings in 1915. Exhausting.

Lawrence Ritter provides a gem of an interview with Marty McHale. Ritter, who wrote The Glory of Their Times, interviewed McHale during his cross-country travel to speak with players of the early 20th century. Ritter’s interview with McHale, however, was not transcribed in time to be included in the book.

The contributors to this book will be familiar to many baseball lovers — Thorn, Frederick Lieb, Pete Palmer, Jules Tygiel, Bill James, Peter Bjarkman and Steve Steinberg — but there are also some fresh and relevant writers like Rob Fitts and D.B. Firstman.

If Fitts is not the top expert in Japanese baseball and baseball cards, then he is awfully close to the summit. His chapter, “Babe Ruth, Eiji Sawamura, and War,” is a fascinating look at Sawamura, a Japanese pitcher who faced an American barnstorming team as a 17-year-old and held his own against Ruth and the all-star squad that came to the Far East in 1934. Sawamura fought for the Japanese against the Allies during World War II and died when his transport boat heading for the Philippines was sunk by an American submarine. Sawamura was more revered in death than he had been as a baseball player and “personified the trials of his country.”

“Many viewed his performance as an analogy of Japan’s struggles against the west,” Fitts writes.

Firstman writes about the growth of “Three True Outcomes,” which evolved from a gag during the early days of the internet into an explanation of how baseball has changed over time.

Other chapters I enjoyed — and there was not a bad one in the bunch — included Warren Corbett’s piece on Bill McKechnie, Bill Kirwan’s chapter on the versatility of Cy Seymour, Peter Morris’ quest to nail down information about 1860s baseball star Dick McBride and Gene Carney’s blow-by-blow account of the 1919 Black Sox fixing scandal.

One does not have to read SABR 50 at 50 in any order. It is a delectable smorgasbord of baseball history, statistics and research that is essential for baseball libraries. It goes without saying that each chapter is meticulously researched, and the editors provide updates where necessary.

The price tag may seem steep, but it really is not. To enjoy the kind of rich detail, analysis and excellent research is worth the $49.95.

As Thorn notes — and practices — baseball history is “getting things right simply because with effort one could, and because ‘cleaning up’ seemed morally superior to ‘going along,’ accepting what was wrong.”
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This volume highlights the morality and high standards set a half century ago by SABR. 

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing Panini America's 2020 XR Football, which will be released Oct. 16:

​www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/paninis-xr-football-preview/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Jon English, the former high school and college quarterback who is opening a sports antique store in Shelbyville, Tennessee:

www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/former-qb-jon-english-opening-sports-antique-store-in-middle-tennessee/