I’ll give Topps’ Update set my stamp of approval.

That’s because in the final series of Topps’ flagship baseball product, I pulled seven stamped buybacks. Normally, a typical hobby box would yield two, so seven was really unusual.
A hobby box contains 36 packs, with 10 cards to a pack. Topps is promising one autograph or relic card per hobby box.

The base set for the Update set is much larger than last year’s, expanding from 330 cards to 400. That’s even larger than the 350 cards that made up the base sets for Series One and Two baseball.
​
The design remains consistent with Series One and Two, and I’ve really enjoyed this look. It’s a nice departure from “traditional” Topps designs. 

he buyback cards, which are adorned with silver foil, started with the first pack I opened. It was a 1969 card of catcher Jesse Gonder, whose major-league career included stops with both the New York Yankees and Mets.  The card was No. 617, which put it in the 7th Series. The card lists him as a member of the San Diego Padres; Gonder had not played in the majors since appearing with Pittsburgh in 1967. He would not play a major-league game for the Padres that year, but did finish his professional career with the Phoenix Giants of the Pacific Coast League in 1969.

The second buyback appeared in the third pack I opened, with another card from the 1969 Topps set.  This was a 1968 American League ERA leaders card, featuring Luis Tiant, Sam McDowell and Dave McNally on the front. Tiant led the league with a 1.60 ERA in the “Year of the Pitcher,” one of five A.L. hurlers with an ERA of 2.00 or lower.

Six packs later, I was surprised to find a third buyback. This was a 1978 card of Andy Messersmith (No. 156). Fans from the mid-197os will recall that Messersmith wore No. 17, and Braves owner Ted Turner, saying that he was putting nicknames on the backs of uniforms, chose “Channel” for Messersmith. Hmmm … Channel 17 was Turner’s SuperStation in Atlanta. After Major League Baseball stepped in and ordered that nickname removed, Messersmith wore “Bluto” on the back of his shirt.

The other buybacks were a 1979 card of Junior Moore, an infielder with the Chicago White Sox; a 1977 card of Giants pitcher Rob Dressler; a 1973 card of Royals pitcher Ted Abernathy; and a 1975 card of Yankees designated hitter/outfielder Alex Johnson.​

Back to the base set. I pulled 297 cards, plus one variation (a Shelby Miller card). There were 17 gold parallels (numbered to 2015), four foil parallels (approximately one every 10 packs) and one black parallel of Scott Van Slyke numbered to 64. Other parallels include Snow Camo, numbered to 99, pink (50) and 1/1 issues for platinum and printing plates.

The relic in the box was an All-Star Stitches card of Royals outfielder Lorenzo Cain, a black swatch from his workout jersey.

The inserts are plentiful in the Update set. Pride and Perseverance is one of the nicer ones. This 12-card subset honors players who overcame physical handicaps to make an impact in the major leagues. Players include Jim Abbott, Pete Gray, and William “Dummy” Hoy. There were three of these cards in the box I opened.

The Highlight of the Year insert is a continuation from the first two series, and there were nine in the hobby box I opened. There are 30 cards in the subset.

Player superstitions are the topics in the 15-card, Whatever Works insert. For example, there is Wade Boggs’ penchant for eating chicken, or Jim Palmer’s habit of eating pancakes on the day he started. There were five of these inserts in the box that I sampled.

Rarities is a 15-card insert set that takes a look at unusual or rare events in baseball history, like an unassisted triple play (Asdrubal Cabrera ), or two grand slams in one game (Frank Robinson). There were four in the box I opened. Tape Measure Blasts is another 15-card subset that commemorates long home runs; there also were four of these in the hobby box I opened.
​
Both of these inserts fall one in every eight packs on average, so I was right at the norm in this hobby box.

Rookie Sensations is an insert that looks back at a star player’s rookie season. Players in the 25-card set include Hall of Famers like Ted Williams, Cal Ripken Jr., and Carlton Fisk; past stars like Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden; and current stars like Buster Posey, Jacob de Grom and Mike Trout.  There were six in the box I opened.
​
Retail outlets like Target and Walmart have special inserts, like the 25-card All-Star Game Access and the 30-card First Home Run set that is a continuation from Series One and Two.

​The First Home Run set also has a medallion in every retail blaster box, with an occasional relic or autograph card thrown in for good measure.

The Topps Update set ties up the flagship product in a nice package for the end of the year. The larger, 400-card base set makes for more rookie and specialty cards, although it’s a little bit harder to complete a base set.

​I’ve opened a hobby box and four blasters from a retail outlet, and I am still a long ways from completing the base set, which is a little disappointing.

​The good news is that this set is inexpensive; so I won’t be spending a whole lot.

Here is a story I did for Smack Apparel about stadiums that could be haunted.

http://www.webcamvideo.tv/videos/13166/princesanarcos/

Here's a story I did for Sports Collectors Daily, previewing Upper Deck Series Two Hockey, which will be released in February 2016.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/upper-deck-previews-series-two-hockey/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the lineup for Game 5 of the 1969 World Series, when the New York Mets completed their unlikely championship run against the favored Baltimore Orioles. The story goes through the starting lineup and discusses the rookie card of each starter.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/some-rookie-cards-of-the-1969-mets-were-amazin/

If there was a course called Pitching 101, who better to teach it than Hall of Famer Bob Gibson?
 
In 1968, known as the Year of the Pitcher, Gibson was the gold standard, going 22-9 and fashioning an astounding 1.12 ERA. He won the National League Cy Young Award and also was named the league’s Most Valuable Player. Gibson then opened Game 1 of the ’68 World Series with a record-setting, 17-strikeout performance as the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers 4-0. The complete game victory at Busch Stadium took a mere 2 hours, 29 minutes to complete.

Gibson and author Lonnie Wheeler team up again to present a cerebral, entertaining look inside the head of one of baseball’s greatest clutch pitchers.
 
“Pitch By Pitch: My View of One Unforgettable Game” (Flatiron Books; hardback; $26.99; 243 pages) is the third collaboration between Gibson and Wheeler. The pair teamed up for Gibson’s second autobiography, “Stranger to the Game” in 1994, and added Reggie Jackson in 2009 for the exceptional pitcher/hitter dialogue, “Sixty Feet, Six Inches.”
 
Wheeler also has written biographies of Hank Aaron (“I Had A Hammer”) and Mike Piazza (“Long Shot”) and last month published “Intangiball,” a study of the little things that make baseball teams and players successful.
 
Gibson turns 80 on November 9, but he still has that fire and passion about pitching. Put him on the mound today and try to dig in at the plate — there’s a good chance a batter would be bailing on the very first pitch.
 
Gibson was a focused, intimidating competitor who used both sides of the plate and was not afraid to back hitters away from it. He concedes that he had the reputation of “a headhunter, a knockdown artist, a mean son of a bitch, you name it,” but adds that none of those labels were true.
 
“I was simply a competitor who understood the need to keep a dangerous batter in his place and wasn’t timid about satisfying that requirement,” he writes. “I knew you had to come inside to pitch outside and occasionally, as part of the game, there was collateral damage.
 
“Every pitcher knew that much. Every hitter, too, if he had any sense.”

​Gibson was a money pitcher in the World Series, going 7-2 with a 1.67 ERA and 92 strikeouts over three Fall Classics. He strung together seven consecutive victories before losing Game 7 of the 1968 World Series.
 
But in Game 1, he was at his dominating best, breaking the single-game strikeout record set five years earlier by Dodgers’ left-hander Sandy Koufax.
 
Gibson takes the reader pitch by pitch through Game 1, discussing his thought processes and how he decided to go after each hitter. In between, he weaves stories and facts about his Cardinals teammates, saving his best ones for batterymate Tim McCarver and his one-time roommate, center fielder Curt Flood.
 
Gibson confesses to having difficulty pitching to left-handed hitters (“it was an ongoing negotiation”) because his pitching philosophy was predicated on controlling the outside corner of the plate.
 
“With a right-handed hitter at the plate, the outside corner was my glove side. With a left-handed hitter, it was my ball side,” Gibson writes. “I simply had better control to the glove side. Much better.”
 
Another theory Gibson discusses is “pitching with conviction.”  It’s trusting the pitch call because “you trust yourself, your catcher and most of all of your stuff.”
 
“It’s believing in your  pitch,” Gibson writes.
 
Gibson believed all day during that muggy afternoon in St. Louis, staying so focused that he didn’t realize he had tied Koufax’s mark when he struck out Al Kaline in the top of the ninth inning until McCarver showed him the scoreboard.
 
“Tim was pointing to left-center field. What, did Flood run to the bathroom or something? Did Morganna, the Kissing Bandit, bounce out there to lay one on (Lou) Brock?” Gibson writes. “The scoreboard. Fifteen strikeouts, it said. I’d tied the World Series record by Koufax.
 
“Well, hooray.”
 
Gibson got to cheer two batters later after striking out Norm Cash and Willie Horton to end the game.
 
Gibson got the win against Tigers star Denny McLain, who had won 31 games in 1968, and won Game 4 to give the Cardinals a 3-1 series lead. But Detroit stormed back to win the next three games, defeating Gibson in Game 7 for an unlikely World Series championship.
 
But Game 1 still stands alone as Gibson’s top performance. In “Pitch By Pitch,” Gibson gives primers on the craft of pitching, where something as subtle as shaking off a catcher’s sign can be crucial. He writes about mechanics, discussing his slider, a curveball he didn’t always have confidence in, and that fastball on the outside corner of the plate.
 
He also gives the reader vivid mini-biographies of his teammates, like Roger Maris, Dal Maxvill, Mike Shannon and Julian Javier. He writes about the strong influence Orlando Cepeda had on the team, even though the Cardinals’ first baseman struggled a year after winning National League MVP honors in 1967.
 
Gibson also throws in a “what might have been” dream matchup against Ty Cobb, noting that “it would have been in invigorating challenge.”
 
“I would have liked to pitch against him,” Gibson writes. “… Cobb was considered as mean and menacing a player as I was a pitcher … and I’d be curious to find out if his reputation was more credible than mine.”
 
That would have been quite a matchup.
 
Because of the dominance of Gibson and other pitchers in 1968, Major League Baseball lowered the mound from 15 inches to 10 in 1969 and squeezed the strike zone. That didn’t affect Gibson, who won 20 games in ’69 and 23 in 1970. He finished his 17-year career in 1975 with 251 wins, 3,117 strikeouts and 56 shutouts. Gibson won his second Cy Young Award in 1970, and pitched a no-hitter against the Pirates in 1971. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981.
 
Once again, Gibson and Wheeler have given baseball fans a thorough education and plenty of insight in “Pitch By Pitch.” It’s fascinating reading.

Here is a story I did for Sports Collectors Daily about the upcoming Upper Deck Series One hockey. This product will include the popular Young Guns insert and will feature top draft pick Connor McDavid for the first time.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/young-guns-connor-mcdavid-expected-to-boost-upper-deck-hockey/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 1970s Fleer World Series sets. The cartoonish-like sets were popular for their look and imagination:

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/fleer-laughlin-combined-for-memorable-world-series-sets/

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily on the digitization of the baseball card collection of Jefferson R. Burdick, known as the father of card collecting:

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/digitization-bringing-jefferson-burdick-collection-to-all/

Here is a preview I wrote about 2016 Gypsy Queen baseball for Sports Collectors Daily.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2016-gypsy-queen-will-offer-same-nostalgic-appeal/

Here's a story I did for SmackApparel.com about great World Series rivlaries, like Yankees-Dodgers, Yankees-Giants, Giants-Athletics, Cardinals-Royals. Whenever in-state or metropolitan area rivals meet, something memorable usually happens.

http://www.smackapparel.com/2015/10/22/rivals-world-series/

“He was Calvin Coolidge in John Wayne’s body.”

That’s no joke, pilgrim. Fisk was stoic, hard-working, a no-nonsense guy with true grit. And author Doug Wilson’s analogy — combining Silent Cal and the Duke — captures the essence of Hall of Fame catcher perfectly.  “Pudge: The Biography of Carlton Fisk” (Thomas Dunne Books; hardback; $26.99; 352 pages) is a clear, refreshing look at a durable, tough and blunt player who was loved by his fans but detested by the opposition.
​
Certainly, that’s a mark of respect. “Carlton Fisk never won any nice guy awards,” Wilson writes. “As far as anyone knows, he never tried out for one.
“He was who he was — a complicated man.”

This week marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most memorable home runs in World Series, and that’s how Wilson begins “Pudge.” At 12:33 a.m. on October 22, 1975, Fisk led off the bottom of the 12th inning at Fenway Park. The Cincinnati Reds held a 3-2 series lead, but the Boston Red Sox had battled back to tie the game.

Fisk rocketed Pat Darcy’s second pitch off the left-field foul pole to force Game 7. Fisk’s hops and gyrations — he waved his arms to the right as he urged the ball to stay fair — was caught by pure chance by NBC cameraman Lou Gerard, who couldn’t change his angle inside the left-field scoreboard because he was distracted by a rat lurking nearby. 

Here's a video that captures the moment. "If it stays fair ... home run."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m6GHOPrGcs
​
It was a defining moment in baseball and television sports history; in 1998, TV Guide named it the greatest moment in the history of sports television.
But Fisk was defined by much more than one dramatic homer.

He played 24 major-league seasons, spending his first 11 seasons in Boston and the remainder of his career with the Chicago White Sox. An 11-time All-Star, Fisk never led the American League in fielding and batted over .300 just twice after becoming a regular in 1972. But he smashed 376 homers and had 1,330 RBIs.
Fisk’s value to his teams was much more intangible. He was able to call smart games behind the plate and knew how to handle pitchers.  He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind when he believed a teammate was giving less than a total effort, and was equally fearless in upbraiding opponents he believed did not respect the game.

A tough negotiator at contract time, Fisk had some contentious battles but stuck to his beliefs.

Wilson is an ophthalmologist who lives in Columbus, Indiana. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and has written three previous baseball books. His last two were about affable, beloved baseball stars — Mark Fidrych (“The Bird,” in 2013) and Brooks Robinson (“Brooks,” in 2014). His first work, about the late Reds manager Fred Hutchinson and the 1964 Cincinnati Reds, was about a cantankerous manager.

“Pudge” presented Wilson with a different set of obstacles, particularly since Fisk declined to be interviewed when contacted by the author.

 “I didn’t really expect to be able to interview him,” Wilson told The New England Baseball Journal in an interview last month.

But sometimes that is a blessing, and it certainly is with “Pudge.” Wilson did not have to adhere to Fisk’s recollection of events. He was able to interview family members, childhood friends and teammates to present a more intimate picture of Fisk. Combining that with his usual stout research and attention to detail, Wilson is able to present a well-rounded portrait.

Carlton’s father, Cecil, was an early role model. “In these parts, survival meant hard work,” the elder Fisk said.

Born in Vermont, Fisk grew up in Charlestown, New Hampshire, where he excelled in basketball and helped lead his team to an unbeaten season and a state championship as a junior. In baseball, he was a hard-throwing pitcher and led Charlestown to the state finals, also in his junior year.

“He was the leader,” Wilson writes. “It was never spoken, just understood.”

Selected in the first round of the 1967 baseball draft, Fisk appeared in two games for Boston in 1969 and 14 in 1971. In 1972, he made the team for good and went on to win American League rookie of the year honors.

While Fisk was noted for his work ethic, Wilson recounts a story that certainly was a turning point for the young catcher.

At spring training early in his career, Fisk griped about having to run after catching pitchers (several wild ones) for 2 ½ hours. That is, until former major-leaguer Mace Brown told him that “if you hadn’t wanted to work, you oughtn’t have hired out.”

That made an impression for sure.

Wilson traces the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry that was rekindled when both teams became relevant during the 1970s, and invariably, the duel between Fisk and his New York counterpart, Thurman Munson. In August 1973, the two catchers were involved in a fight after a collision at home plate. Munson tried to bowl over Fisk but was tagged out, but landed on the Boston catcher and did not get up. Fisk shoved him off, and the fun began.

“This was an all-out rumble that would have made the Jets and Sharks proud,” Wilson writes, echoing a “West Side Story” reference for older readers.

He takes care of the younger generation in the next paragraph as he describes the fight’s escalation: “The area around home plate quickly resembled a Black Friday crowd at Walmart going for the last Xbox,” Wilson observes.

The two men would be mentioned in the same breath during the 1970s. Who was better? It depended on one’s loyalty. As Wilson writes, it was “the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

After an acrimonious break with the Red Sox, Fisk went to Chicago and played 13 seasons for the White Sox. He steadied the pitching staff and helped the White Sox reach the American League Championship Series in 1983. But by 1991, contract negotiations became “personal and vicious.” The battles continued and finally ended when the White Sox released Fisk in June 1993. When Chicago made the playoffs and Fisk tried to visit the clubhouse to wish his former teammates luck, he was refused entrance — and escorted out of the stadium because he had no tickets or credentials.

It was, as Wilson notes, a product of Fisk spending the last half of his career “during the zenith of hatred between players and owners.” But eventually Fisk and the White Sox made peace, with the team erecting a statue of the catcher outside the stadium and hiring him as a “baseball ambassador.”

While Wilson’s accuracy with the facts is nearly impeccable, there was at least one glitch. He writes that Greg Luzinski won a world championship with the Phillies in 1979. In fact, the Pittsburgh Pirates took the World Series in ’79; the Phillies would take their first crown the following year.

It’s a minor issue and does not detract from Wilson’s overall effort. In “Pudge,” Wilson has presented a sympathetic, yet balanced look at a player who had a burning desire to win and was all business while doing it.

 Fisk commanded respect, and in many ways, his persona was more than a combination of Calvin Coolidge and John Wayne. He was certainly his own man.

But it’s a heck of an analogy.

Here's a preview I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Panini America's 2015-16 NBA Hoops. which releases on Wednesday, October 21.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnI6A_YUoDc

Here's a story I did for Sports Collectors Daily about the 1935 National Chicle football set. This 36-card set is known as the granddaddy of all football sets, and it contains the most iconic card in football -- Bronko Nagurski.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1935-national-chicle-was-forefather-of-football-sets/

Ray Lewis may be retired, but the former Baltimore Ravens all-pro linebacker is still delivering some big hits.

Love him or loathe him, one cannot deny Lewis’ passion, his work ethic and his powerful motivation skills that inspired his teammates for 17 seasons in the NFL. There is nothing forced.

Lewis rose above a difficult childhood, raised by a hard-working single teen mother who was beaten by numerous boyfriends. He also was tortured by the absence of his “no-account father.” He does not carry the name of his father, Elbert Ray Jackson; rather, he was named for the man who helped his mother with her hospital bills when Lewis was born.

“I am the positive to his negative,” Lewis writes about his biological father in his deeply personal memoir, “I Feel Like Going On: Life, Game and Glory” (Simon & Schuster; hardback; $26.99; 268 pages).

Lewis pulls no punches in recalling his childhood, his career at the University of Miami, his years as one of the NFL’s most dominant defensive stars, and murder charges that sullied his name and nearly landed him in prison.

Lewis was assisted by veteran collaborator Daniel Paisner, whose string of book writing credits goes back nearly 30 years; “America Is My Neighborhood,” by Willard Scott, was published in 1987. Paisner has collaborated on baseball books (“Nobody’s Perfect”), tennis (“On The Line” by Serena Williams), poker (“Moneymaker”), the September 11 tragedy (“Last Man Down”) and media (“All Things at Once”).

Paisner excels at letting the book’s subject tell the story in his and her voice, and that is one of the strong points of “I Feel Like Going On.” The book is definitely Lewis, talking big, boastful at times, humble at other. Lewis is blunt, full of raw emotion. He does not mince words.

“The dude could run. The dude was ripped,” Lewis writes about one of his high school teammates. “He had a body like Tarzan, but he took a hit like Jane.”
The book’s title was inspired by a song from one of Lewis’ favorite movies, “The Five Heartbeats.”
​
 “Though the storm may be raging,                                                                                And the billows are tossing high,                                                                                       I feel like going on …”

There were plenty of tempests swirling around Lewis while he was growing up in a poor section of Lakeland, Florida. One of his mother’s male companions would drink hard, but only on the weekends.

During the week, “he’d raise his voice, but not his hands.” But when payday came on Friday and the man bought some liquor, Lewis said that “me and my mother, we were like punching bags to this man.”

“We were there to receive his anger,” Lewis writes.

To get stronger in hopes of someday being able to stand his ground, Lewis used a deck of cards to get in shape, drawing a card and doing push-ups to the corresponding number. He’d would go through the deck and then start again.

Lewis goes into deep detail about his high school sports at Kathleen High School in Lakeland, where he starred in football and wrestling. In wrestling, he had broken most of his father’s record by the time he was a junior. He’d come home and look at the book that held Kathleen’s wrestling records.

“I’d come home, take that book off the wall, make a little x through my father’s name in the record book, say a little prayer, hang it back up,” Lewis writes. “Erasing his wrestling records and making it like he’d never even been here — that’s what drove me.”

 Lewis’ memory betrays him a bit here. He notes that as a senior he moved up from 189 pounds to wrestle in the 220 division.

“I’m done with that,” he told his coach. “We’re wrestling two-twenty.”

And that might have been the case during the regular season, but when Lewis won the Class 4A wrestling state title in March 1993 — achieving something his father had never done — he defeated Dallas Simpson of Longwood Lyman High, 11-8 at 189 pounds.

When he embraced his coach after the match, Lewis told him “His name is forever over.”

“It was about setting my father aside, burying his name — and free me to live my life my own way, here on in,” he writes. “On my own terms.”  

Lewis appeared set to attend Florida State, but backed out when defensive coach Chuck Amato told him he’d be playing behind Derrick Brooks for at least two seasons. Heading to Miami, Lewis flourished under Dennis Erickson but butted heads with Butch Davis when he took over the program in 1995.

Lewis decided to leave school for the pros, and eagerly awaited the NFL draft. He was about to become a father, and had visions of piles of money from playing in the pros.

But “underneath all that good stuff, there was sadness,” he writes.

The murder of Marlin “Red” Barnes, his closest friend at Miami, on the eve of the draft was devastating.

“I still can’t think back on that day without tearing up,” Lewis writes.

Stepping up to the pro level, Lewis would take charge early and would become the Ravens’ career leader in tackles and fumble recoveries. He would be named to the Pro Bowl 13 times and was the AFC Defensive Player of the Year in 2000 and 2003.

What nearly derailed his career was an incident after Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta. Lewis and two friends were charged with the murders of two men.
“I guarantee you’ll fall for this one,” Lewis quotes a policeman as telling him. He starts to describe what happened that night, but then backs off, noting that he didn’t want “to honor these few rogue cops.”

He does, however, say that “in a civilized society, you don’t treat animals the way some of these officers treated me.”

The murder charges against Lewis were dropped, but he did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice. He also reached settlements with the families of the slain men, who sued him in civil court.

The incident followed Lewis for the rest of his career. When he was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, the Disney camera crew did not film him saying the signature “I’m going to Disney World” phrase. That honor after Baltimore’s 34-7 victory went to quarterback Trent Dilfer instead.

In his final season, Lewis missed 10 games with a torn triceps but managed to come back in time for the postseason. That culminated with his second NFL title as the Ravens defeated San Francisco in Super Bowl XLVII. His injury and healing process are detailed in the book’s prologue and final chapter. Lewis does not mention the Sports Illustrated story that intimated that he asked about obtaining deer-antler velvet extract in an attempt to hasten his recovery, a report he denied at the time.

Despite the harsh words for his father, Lewis has formed a relationship with him. But he saves his kindest words for his mother, asserting that she taught him a great lesson.

“Be an example. Be a force for good. And know that everyone with a great name has been through something,” he writes. “A great deal of something.

“It’s not about doing what everybody else is doing. It’s just about being true to yourself.”
​
And Lewis has always remained true to himself. “I Feel Like Going On” is a journey with many twists and turns, plenty of adversity, but ultimately, a trip that ends on a positive note.

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing 2016 Bowman baseball, which will hit the shelves on April 27, 2016. Lots of rookies and prospects as usual, but also some new wrinkles will be in the spotlight.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2016-bowman-baseball-prospects-rookies-and-parallels/

Here's a story I did for Sports Collectors Daily to commemorate the 70th birthday of Hall of Fame pitcher (and underwear model) Jim Palmer. 

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/jim-palmer-at-70-eight-fun-cards-to-own/

Here's a story I did for Smack Apparel on the Michigan-Michigan State football rivalry. It's bound to heat up again since both teams will be ranked when they meet on Saturday.

http://www.smackapparel.com/2015/10/15/michigan-michigan-state-rivalry/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 1975 Topps football set. It was a 528-card set that featured rising stars and proven veterans.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1975-topps-football-set-offered-great-stars-but-still-no-logos/

Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the cards of famous coaches when they were players. This was sparked by the resignation of South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier, who was a great college football player but only marginal in the pros. Ultimately, he became better known as a coach than he was as a player.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/cards-of-players-who-became-bigger-stars-as-coaches-managers/

While most of my book reviews revolve around sports, occasionally I step outside that genre to tackle other subjects. When I worked at The Tampa Tribune I contributed several non-sports reviews to the Sunday books section (along with sports book reviews, too).

I was laid off from the Tribune on June 23, but that doesn't stop me from getting an occasional review in the paper and on tbo.com, the Tribune's web site.

Here is a review I did on Mick Wall's biography about The Doors, "Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre." It was published in the Tribune on October 11 and on tbo.com the same day.


http://www.tbo.com/events-tampa-bay/breaking-on-through-the-legend-of-the-doors-20151011/

Here is a preview I did for Sports Collectors Daily on Topps High Tek baseball, which will be released on Wednesday.

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/topps-high-tek-has-pattern-of-diversity/

Here is a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the upcoming release of the 2015-16 Upper Deck Artifacts hockey set:

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/artifacts-hockey-heavy-on-autos-relics/

It was 51 years ago today that Mickey Mantle became the most prolific home run hitter in World Series history. 

Mantle connected for his record-breaking 16th Series homer in Game 3 of the 1964 Series, breaking the mark established by Babe Ruth in 1932.

The Mick led off the bottom of the ninth inning for the New York Yankees with the score tied 1-1 and hit the first pitch he saw off St. Louis Cardinals reliever Barney Schultz to end the game. Schultz had been brought in by Cardinals manager Johnny Keane in relief of starter Curt Simmons, who had allowed one run and four hits.

Mantle's homer gave the victory to a young right-hander and future best-selling author, Jim Bouton. Bouton would win two games in the 1964 Series, beating Simmons in Game 6, 8-3.

Mantle added another homer in Game 6 and hit his 18th and final World Series homer off fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson in Game 7.

The postseason has changed since 1964, with several rounds of the playoffs giving hitters more chances for home runs. Manny Ramirez owns the postseason mark with 29 homers, achieving it during 23 series in 11 postseasons.

 Mantle is tied for fifth-place overall in the postseason with Reggie Jackson. 

I can just imagine how many homers Mantle might have hit had there been at least one more round of the playoffs during his prime.