www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2022-panini-absolute-football-preview/
Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily previewing the 2022 Panini Absolute football set, which comes out next month: www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2022-panini-absolute-football-preview/
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During the 1960s and ’70s, minor league baseball players were pretty good at being “low ball hitters and highball drinkers,” Mike Floyd recalls in his autobiography. “And possibly a little funny smoke mixed in there, too, depending on availability.” Floyd should know. He spent nine years in the minors in the Angels, Dodgers and Astros organizations. Throw in a season playing winter ball in Mexico, and there are plenty of memories. He is 76 now, but Floyd remembers his salad days like it was yesterday. And that’s a good thing. In Bush League Blues (Lea Street Press, LLC; paperback; $19.95; 300 pages), Floyd gives the reader an unvarnished look at the difficulty of getting to the big leagues. It is a poignant, funny and at times heartbreaking look at the game, and Floyd tells his stories with zest. Many memoirs from former major leaguers touch on their formative years. Recent autobiographies by Cleon Jones and Willie Horton are good examples. But Floyd never got to the big show. And while that was disappointing for Floyd, it does provide him with a treasure trove of stories to tell in his first book. Floyd played 740 games in the minors, batting .275 with 75 home runs and 369 RBI. He got his start with Idaho Falls in 1967 in the Pioneer League and had stops in the Quad Cities, San Jose, the Arizona Instructional League, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Waterbury, Albuquerque, Columbus and Denver before hanging up his cleats in 1975. Floyd played in Triple-A ball for three seasons but never made an appearance in a major league game. That does not matter now. In Bush League Blues, Floyd reveals a vibrant, competitive and draining lifestyle at the minor league level and spins a friendly, conversational narrative. And there are some wonderful stories in this book. Floyd describes himself as a “wild, undisciplined athlete” who was taught the basics by California coaching legends Joe Hicks and Mike Sgobba and his father, George Floyd. Hicks coached from 1950 to 1975 at Long Beach City College, where he won 514 games and three state titles. Sgobba coached at Fullerton College from 1961 to 1985 and racked up 487 victories. Floyd played for Hicks on a Long Beach team that was part of the California Collegiate League in 1965. Floyd has warm memories of Del Rice, who was his manager for four seasons at three different franchises. He called him a good manager who left players alone and expected them to give their best “without any cheerleading or pep talks.” “I could write a whole book about playing for Del,” Floyd writes. There are stories about players who at first glance seem to be footnote players in major league history, but were actually colorful as minor leaguers. Floyd writes about Rod Gaspar, whose longest stay in the big leagues came with the 1969 “Miracle Mets.” “When you shook hands with this skinny dude, it was like putting your hand in a steel vise,” Floyd writes. “He played the game hard and he played to win.” Then there is Dennis Ribant. My only memories of him came from collecting and reading his 1965 and 1966 Topps baseball cards, when he pitched for the New York Mets. Nicknamed “Weasel,” Ribant was an intense competitor. Floyd writes about hitting a home run off Ribant and celebrating in the dugout, then taking a pitch from the right-hander to his elbow during his next at-bat. Floyd had to leave the game and was later taking a drink at the water fountain when he was asked, “How’s your elbow, big boy?” Floyd turned around and faced a glaring Ribant. “Nobody, and that means you, laughs after they hit one out off me!” the pitcher said before turning and leaving. OK, so Ribant was not Bob Gibson, but the competitive fire is eye-opening. Ribant was 24-29 in the majors but had minor league seasons where he won 14 games (1970) and 15 games (1971). It is instructive that when Floyd hit a home run later in the season off Ribant, he kept his head down and refrained from “cadillacking,” as he called it. “Nobody hated to lose more than (Tommy) Lasorda except Dennis Ribant,” Floyd writes. Floyd does include a chapter about Lasorda, whose mouth “was always going but since he was funny, it was entertaining.” Lasorda has appeared in many books and magazines, but he never had the eclectic shoutouts given to another Floyd teammate, pitcher Dick Baney. Baney earned several mentions in Jim Bouton’s classic 1970 book, Ball Four. He was shaving next to Bouton in the Seattle Pilots’ locker room in March 1969 and told him about the time the veteran pitcher — soon to be best-selling author — never answered a fan letter the young pitcher wrote to him. When Bouton asked how long ago that was, Baney said, “When I was 6.” Baney is actually six years younger than Bouton, but baseball players are noted for their talent at needling others. Floyd writes that during his minor-league career he had seven teammates who played for that Seattle Pilots team — Baney, Gene Brabender, Greg Goossen, Gus Gil, Ray Oyler, Jerry Stephenson and Danny Walton. I am not sure if any other professional baseball player can make that claim, but I could be wrong. Floyd notes that Baney threw so hard as a youth, his Little League organization in Garden Grove, California, banned him because he threw too hard. Baney “could pick up a scent belonging to any open opportunity,” Floyd writes. That includes having a chance encounter with gossip columnist Rona Barrett and posing nude in the centerfold of the February 1977 issue of Playgirl. Lasorda never made an appearance in that publication, to everyone’s relief. Great manager, but not a pinup candidate. Floyd reveals the three fastest pitchers he ever faced, the pitcher with the best pickoff move in baseball history and the greatest throw he ever witnesses. He writes about meeting his hero, Harmon Killebrew, and the crazy antics of his minor league roommate, Randy Brown. A short, compact man, Brown fancied himself as having “the quickest bat in baseball,” and would mouth the phrase to his teammates while batting. There are also stories about Reggie Jackson, Moose Stubing and Roy Gleason, who hit a double in his only official major league at-bat in September 1963. Gleason appeared in seven games as a pinch runner before that hit against the Philadelphia Phillies, but had his career derailed when he was wounded in action in Vietnam five years later. Gleason would earn a Purple Heart to go with a Silver Star. Floyd’s final chapters are about his time in the Mexican League and the mysterious death of teammate Zelman Jack in Guasave, Mexico, in December 1971. Floyd’s introduction to Mexican baseball came when a fan threw a pig bladder filled with the animal’s urine as he warmed up in the outfield. Most of the time, however, Floyd enjoyed the culture and the nightlife south of the border. Jack, Floyd writes, “looked like a chiseled light-heavyweight fighter.” Floyd writes about the circumstances surrounding Jack’s death, which have never been fully published. He also discusses his emotional meeting with Jack’s son in 2012. “It took fifty years to finally get this story out there,” Floyd writes. “Forty years to think about it, and ten long years to write.” The book does have some flaws. There are misspelled names and incorrect possessives. I know, the average reader may not notice the latter, but I am an old copy editor, and from my perspective, they could have been avoided. Greg Goossen is spelled as “Goosen.” Mickey Mantle is referred to as “Micky” in a photo caption. Jimmie Foxx is spelled as “Jimmy.” Pedro Borbon is written as “Bourbon,” and Al Hrabosky is referred to as “Hrbowsky.” And those possessives. Examples include “Angel’s” instead of Angels’, and “sport’s writer” instead of “sportwriter’s.” Drives this OCD copy editor nuts. Those flaws do not overshadow Floyd’s narrative. As an added bonus, he publishes correspondence he had with players he writes about. Their letters and memories give the book some added depth. As he looked back on his career, Floyd recalled a conversation with his father, a major in the Army Air Force during World War II and a decorated combat B-17 pilot. His father wanted to know why Floyd never made it to the majors. “I had the numbers, and I had the ability, but I was just too immature and rebellious,” Floyd answered. “I literally talked and acted my way out of the big leagues. I didn’t understand the political nature of the game because I was a player, not a politician.” Floyd is not alone. But he went on to interesting careers as a mail carrier, reporter, baseball coach, a collector for Dun & Bradstreet and musician (specializing in blues harmonica). He has lived a fascinating life, and in Bush League Blues, Floyd tells a compelling story. For collectors who enjoy card designs that are busy and flashy, Topps Fire is the right product to collect. There are a lot of elements to view on the card front, like arrows, swirls and artistic looks at players. It is definitely a set that can overload the senses, and the 2022 version is no exception. The base set, as it has been for the past few years, consists of 200 cards of MLB stars, promising rookies and several retired players — including Hall of Famers. Key names in the set feature Wander Franco, Bobby Witt Jr. and Julio Rodriguez. Rookie cards will feature Steven Kwan and Seiya Suzuki. As usual, I bought a blaster box. This one was $24.99 and features seven packs, with six cards to a pack. In addition, blasters contain four Gold Minted parallels. My blaster had the added bonus of an autograph card. Gold Minted parallels are limited to blaster boxes, and Onyx are exclusive to hobby collector boxes. Other parallels that collectors could find are Flame, Orange (numbered to 299), Green (199), Purple (99), Magenta (25) and Inferno (1/1). In the blaster I bought, there was one Orange parallel of Tyler O’Neill and two Flame parallels — Shane Baz and Josiah Gray. As for base cards, I pulled 34. I do not particularly like the name plate that only includes the player’s last name, but that is a personal preference. The names are bold and large and do not interfere with the action shot. The card backs feature the player’s full name, team and position, along with a five-line description of a career highlight. Unlike the card front, the backs are relatively muted, with only a hint of the wild front designs. The four Gold Minted parallels I pulled were of Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, Tarik Skubal, Kevin Smith and Jazz Chisholm Jr. As you will see in these photographs, my scanner does not like gold on cards. But trust me, they look better than they are depicted here. The blaster yielded four different insert cards. The most interesting was the intricately cut En Fuego subset, consisting of 30 cards. I pulled a card of Trea Turner, which features a large photo and a smaller one contained in a gold outlay. In fact, all four inserts I pulled were gold. There was a Fired Up insert of Javier Baez, part of a 20-card subset. Not surprisingly, the card shows Baez in an enthusiastic moment. The artwork is done by noted digital artist and graphic designer Tyson Beck. It’s good stuff; the card really pops. A more subdued bit of work by Beck is showcased in the 15-card Flame Throwers insert set. The card features Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty; the card back shows a pitch speed of 93.6 mph which was Flaherty’s average fastball velocity. The final insert I pulled was from the 25-card To The Moon subset. The card featured Nolan Arenado and concentrates on players who can send baseballs rocketing out of the ballpark. The final card in the blaster was an autograph card — or, more appropriately, a squiggle card — of White Sox infielder Romy Gonzalez. It’s a sticker autograph too, and while I get the concept of stickers — doesn’t mean I have to like the idea — a little effort into the signature would have been nice. My 8-year-old granddaughter can do better. However, getting an autograph card is always a plus, especially in a blaster. It’s unexpected and a nice surprise. There are plenty of flashy cards in this set. If many moving parts are your thing, then Topps Fire is up your alley. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 2022 Topps Pro Debut baseball set, which comes out Friday:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2022-topps-pro-debut-highlights-stars-of-the-future/ I am not a fan of shiny cards, but for those who love the beautiful game, the 2021-22 Topps Merlin Chrome UEFA League Soccer set will be a gem. This is the second year for the Merlin set, which highlights three UEFA competitions — the Champions League, the Europa League and the Europa Conference League. Of note to set builders, this year’s base set has expanded from 100 cards to 150. A blaster box contains eight packs, with four cards to a pack. Blasters also contain three Aqua Prism Refractors. I am not going to complain, since my blaster actually yielded 35 cards. By the way, because the cards are chrome, my scanner makes the card fronts look black. They are silver-framed, and the backgrounds are silver. Just another reason not to like shiny cards, I guess. There were 18 cards depicting Champions League, five Europa League player cards and three Europa Conference cards. The designs for the card front are horizontal, which I prefer. The Merlin logo is at the top right-hand corner of the card, while the top left-hand corner has a soccer ball and the name of the league. The photos are action shots and tightly cropped, which really highlights the player well. The card back design is also horizontal, and features the team logo for the player, along with a “Do You Know” fast fact. As promised, there were three Aqua Prism Refractors, featuring Sergio Ramos, Youssoufa Moukoko and Gerard Pique. There was also a Yellow Wave Refractor parallel of Sevilla FC forward Ivan Romero, numbered to 225. I also pulled two Refractor parallels of FC Salzburg midfielder Luka Sucic and FC Barcelona defender Pierre Kalulu. I found two types of inserts in the blaster box I bought. The U23 Stars is a 20-card insert that falls once every six packs on average. I pulled a card of Sucic. There were also two Prophecy Fulfilled insert cards of Juventus midfielder Weston McKennie and Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbaffe. This is a 15-card set that falls once every nine packs, so finding two of these inserts in an eight-pack blaster is interesting and welcomed. For digital fans, there is a brochure inside the blaster that advertises the mobile game, Topps Total Football. The app features more than 500 players from the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. It allows fans to print their favorite cards. Collectors can download from the QR label on the brochure and receive a free pack of cards, which then can be printed. Cute idea, but I still love the feeling of ripping open a pack of cards. Overall, the cards in the blasters represent a nice-looking set. Shiny cards are put to good use in this set, and it’s a set that European soccer fans can enjoy. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about a Michigan man who will be sentenced next month for selling counterfeit baseball cards:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/michigan-man-to-be-sentenced-in-card-fraud-scheme/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about original artwork used for the 1953 Topps card of Willie Mays that is being sold by Lelands Auctions:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/artwork-used-to-produce-1953-topps-willie-mays-card-part-of-lelands-auctions-sale/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 1962 Salada football coins set:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/1962-salada-football-coin-set-many-hofers-and-high-grade-possibilities/ Baseball has never been a sport that looked forward. The lure of the game for many fans is looking back at mountains of statistics and making comparisons to players from years gone by. But dig beneath the numbers, and MLB tends to get a little uncomfortable. Social and economic change has moved painfully slow through the years. Sure, MLB can tout the hiring of a woman as an assistant baseball coach, with Alyssa Nakken coaching at third base earlier this year for the San Francisco Giants, or Rachel Balkovec managing at the minor-league level for the Florida State League’s Tampa Tarpons. Teams hold Pride Nights to acknowledge gay and lesbian fans. And certainly, MLB has properly acknowledged the achievements of Jackie Robinson, who broke the modern-day color line in April 1947 when he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But is retiring a number or holding annual ceremonies enough? As Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts noted in June 1865, “liberty has been won. The battle for equality is still pending.” MLB has been slow to wage that battle for equality, uncomfortable with those people who create ripples in the otherwise calm sea of baseball. Peter Dreier and Robert Elias take a look at the men and women who fought against racism, sexism and homophobia in the national pastime through the years in Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements that Shook Up the Game and Changed America (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $36.95; 370 pages). In his 10-year-after sequel to the groundbreaking 1970 book, Ball Four, former MLB pitcher Jim Bouton wrote that in any human group, family or tribe there are shared expectations of behavior. Any member of that group who deviates from those norms calls the group’s basic values into question. “It makes them nervous,” Bouton wrote in 1981’s Ball Four Plus Five. Many baseball fans already know the stories about Robinson, Curt Flood’s challenge to baseball’s reserve clause and Marvin Miller’s fight for collective bargaining. We are stronger because of their efforts. Robinson endured horrific conditions and epithets during his career; Flood sacrificed his career for a principle that led to players making competitive salaries (some might argue exorbitant these days); while Miller transformed the Major League Baseball Players Association into sports’ most powerful labor union. Other readers of baseball history are certainly familiar with Moses Fleetwood Walker, who was the last Black to play at the major league level until Robinson came along. And Branch Rickey, who brought Robinson to Brooklyn. Or Bill Veeck, the maverick baseball owner who broke the color line in the American League, hired Larry Doby and Satchel Paige to play for Cleveland. Dreier and Elias introduce the reader to lesser-known rebels — I prefer to call them pioneers — who, in their own ways, paved the way for future generations. Dreier channels his love of baseball and politics into this work. He is a former newspaper reporter and is the E.P. Clapp distinguished professor of politics at Occidental College. He has been at the Los Angeles-based college since 1993 and is a professor of urban and environmental policy. Like the topics he covers in this book, Dreier has been an active at the local and national level. He was the housing director at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and served as a senior policy adviser to that city’s mayor at the time, Ray Flynn. Elias is a professor of politics and legal studies at the University of San Francisco. He wrote 2010’s The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad and Baseball and the American Dream: Race, Class, Gender and the National Pastime in 2001. Both authors have been busy. Two weeks after Baseball Rebels was published, they collaborated on a similarly titled book, Major League Rebels: Baseball Battles over Workers’ Rights and American Empire. I have not read the second book, but it appears to be more focused on the business and labor pioneers in the game. Baseball Rebels introduces the reader to racial pioneers like Octavius Catto, a 19th-century activist who pioneered education for Blacks, integrated streetcars in Philadelphia and the U.S. military and founded and starred at shortstop for the Black Pythian Base Ball Club. Catto “sought to lure and organize young Black men into his activist circles,” and baseball was the best way to do so, the authors write. Catto would be shot to death in the streets of Philadelphia in October 1871 just before the mayoral elections. His assassination “robbed the freedom movement of a charismatic and strategic leader,” the authors write, but his legacy for baseball led to more Black baseball players and teams. He finally was honored in 2017 when the city of Philadelphia erected a public statue in his honor. Andrew “Rube” Foster and Effa Manley — the first woman elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame — would play a big role in the Negro Leagues during the 20th century, and sportswriter Wendell Smith would lead the crusade in the Black press. Surprisingly, so did Lester Rodney of the Communist Party’s Daily Worker newspaper. The authors examine the influence of women in sports, including the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Blacks certainly had a hard road to acceptance, but women had a similar bumpy road. “The female has no place in base ball, except to the degradation of the game,” the authors quote from an 1885 St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial. Don’t tell that to Alta Weiss, the “girl wonder” who pitched for a men’s semipro team before entering the medical profession. In 1907, an article in The Shreveport Journal notes that Weiss, who was 17 at the time, was a “believer in the subtile (sic) muscle.” “You don’t have to be ‘knotty’ to be strong,” Weiss said at the time. “Muscle should not obtrude itself until needed.” She added that she was “born to play ball,” and who could argue. The authors also tell the well-known story of Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig during an exhibition game in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1931, when she was 17 years old. The story of Helen Callaghan, who played in the AAGPBL and whose son, Casey Candaele, would play in the majors, also gets fair play. The authors also write about sexual preferences of players, including the lesbian relationship between AAGPBL player Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel. The two women wrote long love letters to one another, but wanting to keep their relationship a secret, tore off their signatures from their letters. The AAGPBL, like MLB, was racially segregated, too. But Black women players like Connie Morgan, Toni Stephens and Mamie “Peanut” Johnson played in the otherwise all-male Negro Leagues. Their barrier-breaking efforts led to pitcher Mo’ne Davis becoming the first girl to pitch a shutout in a Little League World Series championship game in August 2014. Ila Borders would similarly break barriers at the college baseball level and later became the first woman to officially win a game in a men’s regular-season professional league (outside of the Negro Leagues) in 1998. The authors also document gay men in baseball, including umpire Dave Pallone, who wrote a 1990 autobiography about his “double life,” as his book title implied. Dale Scott, in 2014, became the first male umpire to become the first openly gay official in a major sport while still working.
Players like Glenn Burke and Billy Bean were gay players who did not reveal their lifestyle until after they retired. The authors note that among athletes in men’s U.S. major team sports, only five players have “come out of the closet” while still actively competing. Being “outed” was a big issue for gay players. The authors present an example of Bean, who, while with the Dodgers in 1989, hid in a video booth when another teammate entered a bookstore he was visiting. Bean had been browsing books in the section about homosexuality and “felt wracked with shame” and was afraid of being caught. But Bean later became a public figure for LGBTQ rights and was named as MLB’s first ambassador for inclusion in 2014. That does not mean that everyone in MLB is comfortable. Evangelical or fundamentalist Christian players like Torii Hunter and Lance Berkman have expressed concerns, along with others. The authors note that Hunter told a reporter in 2012 that having a gay teammate would be “difficult and uncomfortable,” while Berkman noted three years later that “tolerance is the virtue that’s killing this country.” Conversely, Ken Griffey told Sports Illustrated in 2005, “If you can play, you can play.” The authors end the book with a look at modern-day activists and “an agenda for change.” There is plenty of talk about freedom of speech in sports until a player voices an opinion that might go against the grain of the mainstream. Carlos Delgado was embroiled in controversy for his refusal to stand for “God Bless America,” explaining that he was not unpatriotic but was protesting “American militarism” because he objected to the way the song was tied with the Sept. 11 attacks to the war in Iraq. Delgado also has spoken out about MLB’s record in hiring Latino managers. Other players have expressed their support for protests against police abuse. Giants manager Gabe Kapler, who took a knee before a 2020 game, said that “I don’t see it as disrespect at all.” “I see nothing more American than standing up for what you believe in,” Kapler told USA Today. Pitcher Sean Doolittle “has become the most outspoken professional baseball player of the twenty-first century,” the authors write. The Washington Nationals’ reliever had 29 saves the year the team won the National League pennant (in a glitch, the authors wrote that Washington took the American League title) and the World Series. He has worked with veterans groups and youth baseball players, and Doolittle and his wife (Eireann Dolan) hosted a dinner in Chicago for 17 Syrian refugee families. He has also been an advocate for workers and unions, and after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis the pitcher tweeted that “race is America’s original sin.” Baseball rebel? “Baseball visionary” is probably a better description for Doolittle. The authors’ agenda includes getting Flood inducted into the Hall of Fame, ending baseball subsidies for team owners and encouraging the MLBPA to join the AFL-CIO union. They also applaud the hiring of more women in key positions, including Kim Ng, who was named the Miami Marlins’ general manager in November 2020. They also advocate a women’s professional baseball league. The authors have chapter end notes and an extensive bibliography. They write clearly and do a nice job digging into those activists who may not have received the same treatment as a Jackie Robinson or a Curt Flood. To be sure, Robinson and Flood deserve every accolade extended to them, but Baseball Rebels is a much more detailed look at activists who also helped baseball progress, albeit slowly in some cases. “In the arenas of race, gender and sexuality, baseball has made significant progress, but more must be done to align the sport with the growing movements for social justice,” the authors write.
For baseball fans in Detroit, Willie Horton was appreciated like “a comfortable pair of shoes.”
For 15 years with the Tigers, he was Willie the Wonder, the hometown guy from the Detroit projects who made it big in the major leagues. Eight times during his career — seven with Detroit — he hit 20 or more home runs. Horton had a powerful swing, but he also could play defense. His laser-like throw to the plate to catch Lou Brock in Game 5 of the 1968 World Series was arguably the turning point in Detroit’s comeback victory in the Fall Classic. Willie Horton: 23: Detroit’s Own Willie the Wonder, the Tigers’ First Black Great (Triumph Books; hardback; $30; 219 pages) is an engaging look at Horton’s career, which was productive despite the racial barriers he faced as a young player trying to break into the major leagues. He collaborates with sportswriter Kevin Allen, who wrote the 2004 book, The People’s Champion: Willie Horton. Horton, now 79, is a gentleman and a gentle man. Always has been. That says a lot, given the discrimination he endured while trying to break in with the Tigers. Horton could not believe, for example, that he needed to call a Black taxi company to get a ride to Tiger Town from downtown Lakeland, Florida. It was no joke, although he believed the name of the cab company (Wigs) was a gag being played by veterans. Horton walked the seven miles to camp instead. These stories are not new to a generation of Black baseball players, but they are still telling. Sometimes the racism was blatant, but other times it was more subtle, Horton writes.
But one would figure that by the time Horton made it to the majors in the second or third wave of Black players to compete, that barriers would have been broken down.
It took longer than that. And I am not really sure we are all the way there yet. Horton had other issues to contend with. His parents were killed in an automobile accident while Horton was playing winter ball in Puerto Rico. In 1967, Horton stood in uniform on a car in downtown Detroit while riots raged in the city, trying desperately to talk to looters while attempting to bring down the temperature while homes and vehicles burned around him. Born in Arno, Virginia, Horton grew up in the Jeffries Projects of Detroit, the youngest of 21 children. He tells a charming story about the age gap between himself and his older siblings. One of them once offered him a ride home while Horton was playing ball in Appalachia, but Horton refused, not realizing he was an older brother. “Suit yourself,” the man said. “I have to stop by to get some fish for mom.” It later occurred to Horton “that his mom was my mom,” he writes. Horton had a good network of support from family, friends and teammates. And even from strangers. As youths, Horton and a friend had sneaked into Tiger Stadium but were caught by a security guard. Cleveland outfielder Rocky Colavito saw what was going on and intervened, taking the youths from the guard’s custody and asked the visiting clubhouse man to give them jobs. “Years later, when Rocky and I were teammates, I discovered his big heart wasn’t just a one-day event,” Horton writes. “That’s just Rocky’s way.”
Horton’s good fortune extended to his baseball career, with pioneering Blacks like Jake Wood and Gates Brown and white teammates like Mickey Stanley befriending him. Wood was a mentor and so was Brown, while Stanley was a teammate who saw Horton as a colleague and an equal.
It is not surprising that both Wood and Stanley wrote forewords to Horton’s autobiography. Readers will learn how Horton got his nickname, “Boozie.” They will discover how Tigers General Manager Jim Campbell wrote him a $20,000 check to cover his parents’ funeral expenses when they died as a result of an auto accident in January 1965. The check also covered the medical expenses of other family members who were injured in the crash east of Battle Creek, Michigan. Horton would come to call Campbell “my surrogate father,” who had “a heart of gold” for his friends. But Campbell was also a businessman, so particularly at contract time, “he ruled with an iron fist.” Horton speaks warmly of his teammates and tells funny stories about men like Denny McLain, Al Kaline, Brown and Stanley. He praises Ray Oyler, a good-field, no-hit shortstop, for his ability to bunt even when batting ahead of the pitcher. And the Tigers had some good-hitting pitchers. “Heck, Earl Wilson probably hit more homers in one season than Oyler hit in his whole career,” Horton writes. I couldn’t resist and had to look. Oyler hit 15 career homers. Wilson, who hit seven home runs twice in a season (1966 and 1968), had 35 home runs during his career.
Horton also mentions the 1970 game when Kaline collided with Jim Northrup in the outfield and “Mr. Tiger” swallowed his tongue. Horton used his boxing background to help Kaline clear his air passage, and even though the Hall of Famer does not remember the play due to passing out, the bite marks on Horton’s hand stands as a reminder.
Even though Horton said his teammates were like family — “I never felt a hint of racism with my Tiger teammates,” he writes — it still rankled him that for many years he was the only Black starter on the team outside of the pitching staff. And at one point, there were only three Blacks on the entire roster. Horton’s recollections of the 1968 Detroit Tigers — a team that won the franchise’s first pennant in 23 seasons and then rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in the World Series — are fun to read. St. Louis ace Bob Gibson struck out a record 17 batters in Game 1, and Horton was victim No. 17. But Horton would hit a home run in Game 2, and his defensive gem in Game 5 shifted the momentum to Detroit. Horton called the throw that nailed Brock at the plate “the most important moment in my professional career.” It helped that the Tigers’ scouting report noted that Brock did not slide into home, and catcher Bill Freehan caught Horton’s throw, blocked the plate and tagged out Brock, who was standing up. “Frankly, I think Brock was shocked that I even tried to throw him out at the plate,” Horton writes. “He was definitely shocked that he was out.” When the Tigers went on to sweep the last three games of the Series, beating Gibson in Game 7, Horton, who batted .304 in the postseason with three extra-base hits, saw the championship as a way to return harmony to Detroit, which had been battered by riots and unrest the previous year. Horton noted after the Series-clinching win that the Tigers “were put here by God to heal this city.” He believes that to this day. “My spirituality just tells me that there was a connection,” Horton writes. Horton speaks favorably of many of his managers, including Chuck Dressen, Mayo Smith and Billy Martin. He was not enamored with Ralph Houk in Detroit, or with Bob Swift, Dressen’s interim replacement in 1965. But Martin “extended my career by six or seven years,” Horton writes, because of the manager’s insistence about conditioning and approach to the game. Horton would take a turn managing, piloting the Valencia Magallanes in the Venezuelan League. There are more interesting anecdotes. Horton opened a nightclub in Detroit. He once punched a horse — seriously. Horton’s sons had words with some fans in Toronto during the 1978 season, and when the player attempted to intervene he was hit in the head with a billy club by a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The horse came down on Horton’s son, breaking his foot. Horton, reacting to the swat against the head, turned and punched the horse. “For the next month, people all around baseball were talking about how Willie Horton knocked out a horse,” Horton writes. Playing for Seattle in 1979, Horton had his greatest power season, slugging 29 home runs and driving in 106 runs. One of his big moments for the Mariners came when he connected for his 300th career home run on June 6 against the Tigers, of all teams. It was a bittersweet moment, since Horton had spent 15 of his 18 seasons with Detroit. “I didn’t know whether I was happy or sad,” Horton writes. “Mostly, I was confused. Playing against the Tigers was the most difficult part of my career.” Horton’s love affair with Detroit would return. The four-time All-Star had his uniform number retired in 2000. Since 2003, he has worked with the Tigers’ front office. “I still have much I want to do in the world of baseball,” Horton said. Baseball is better because of men like Horton, who endured tough times but never wavered from his goal of making a difference in the game — on and off the field. His role models cut across racial lines, and he humbly gives credit to those who paved his way to success. This is an uplifting autobiography. One does not need to be a fan of the Tigers to enjoy Horton’s take on his career and life. Just like a comfortable pair of shoes. Panini America’s 2022 Absolute Baseball offers an interesting mix of players past and present. Certainly, MLB’s current stars take center stage in the 100-card base set, but for nostalgia buffs there are some nice surprises. I really enjoyed pulling cards with black-and-white photographs of Hall of Famers like Frank Chance, Tony Lazzeri and Cool Papa Bell, and color shots of Gil Hodges (finally in Cooperstown), Ron Santo and Goose Gossage. The plus of buying a blaster box of this product is that Panini is promising either an autograph or memorabilia card. That’s a nice incentive. A blaster of Absolute Baseball has six packs per box and seven cards per pack. I pulled 30 base cards plus a base retail parallel card of Yordan Alvarez. While this product features banner lines as part of its design, the overall effect is not as distracting as say, the 2022 Panini Prestige football set. Absolute uses a more subtle approach. The player’s photograph is framed by a thin line that contains a primary color from his team’s uniform scheme. Swatches of that color are featured in the top left-hand and bottom right-hand parts of the card front. The Absolute logo is stamped in silver foil in the top right-hand portion of the card. The player’s name is near the bottom left-hand part of the card in white block letters against the team’s primary color scheme. The city for the team is directly above the player’s name. The card backs have a pleasant mix of colors, with gray, white and the team’s primary colors sharing the spotlight. Beneath the player’s name is a 12-line biography set in ragged center type. Twelve lines may seem like a lot, but because the biography only takes up the left half of the card it does not overwhelm the collector. There were several inserts in the blaster for collectors to chase. Rookie Class contains 25 cards, and I pulled a base insert of Seattle pitcher Matt Brash. Included in the blaster were a pair of green retail parallels — Tampa Bay shortstop Wander Franco and Washington pitcher Josiah Gray. Hall Worthy is a 15-card subset that features several players who have made it to Cooperstown and some who have a decent chance of being enshrined. Players in this set who have earned plaques include George Brett, Nolan Ryan and Willie Stargell. It also features players who are working toward a Hall of Fame, like Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols. The base insert I pulled was of catcher Gary Carter, and there was also a retail green parallel of Brett. Top players in the game are represented in the 10-card Extreme Team insert set. I pulled a card of Milwaukee pitcher Corbin Burnes. Another 10-card insert set is By Storm. This subset features players who have made an immediate impact in MLB. I pulled a Franco card. Icons is a 15-card offering that features mostly modern-day superstars, although it does include Hall of Famers like Sandy Koufax, Jimmie Foxx and Kirby Puckett. The card I pulled was of Atlanta outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. The final insert in the blaster I bought is Statistically Speaking. There are 15 cards in this subset, and I pulled two cards — a base card of Miami shortstop Jazz Chisholm and a base retail parallel of Alvarez. The big hit in the blaster was a memorabilia card. The Rookie Threads card of Atlanta pitcher Spencer Strider, one of 61 subjects, had a generous white uniform swatch and was produced on thick card stock.
Not a bad haul. Absolute has an attainable base set and some nice inserts to chase. The design is pleasant, and while I still prefer designs with more of a full bleed look, Absolute was nevertheless an attractive set. Panini Prestige Football was released just in time for the NFL’s preseason. And there is more to look for if you are a set builder. The base set grew from 300 cards in 2021 to 400 this year. There are 300 cards of NFL veterans, with 90 rookie base cards and 10 short-printed rookies. A blaster box contains six packs, with 11 cards to a pack. The blaster I bought had 46 base cards and seven rookies (cards numbered 300 or higher). Also, there were Xtra Points premium green parallel cards of Devin Singletary and the Broncos’ Justin Simmons, numbered to 249. The design follows the pattern of Prestige from the past two years and is buoyed by some excellent action photography. The blurred background effect also works well for the veterans. For rookies, a solid color is used as the background behind the player. None of the rookies were short-printed. On the negative side, there are too many White banner-like lines across the top of the card. There are two at the top, with three shorter ones underneath the Prestige logo. It takes away valuable space that could have been employed better the action shot. A full bleed would have worked nicely, for example. There is a subtle use of foil that is effective. The Prestige logo is stamped in the upper left-hand corner of the card in silver, while the player’s name is in silver foil block letters at the bottom. The team logo is at the bottom left-hand corner of the card, and while tasteful, the box surrounding it could have been smaller. Again, to devote more space to the action shot. Honestly, it’s not a terrible design, but I guess I am more of a minimal list. The card backs feature a horizontally cropped version of the front photo. The cards also use one of the NFL team’s primary colors for highlighting purposes. That includes two banner-like lines at the top of the card. Each player has a five-line biography that is displayed in ragged-right type. The statistics lines are limited to two, with 2021 results on one line and career totals underneath. As promised on the blaster box, there were Xtra Points Diamond parallels, with one per pack. Two were rookies (DaMarvin Leal and Phidarian Mathis) and one was a Pro Football Hall of Famer (John Elway). The player’s name and the Prestige logo are stamped in gold foil, and when you tilt the card it gives off a nice look. The blaster I opened had three different types of inserts. Living Legends is a 30-card subset that relies heavily on foil. As the name implies, the subjects depicted are NFL greats (or near greats).They are very shiny cards, and I pulled two of them — Shannon Sharpe and DeMarcus Ware. Prestigious Moments is a 20-card subset, and I found two of these inserts: 40ers kicker Robbie Gould and Ravens kicker Justin Tucker.
The Highlight Reel insert has 20 cards, and I pulled Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Overall, not a bad set. The blaster gives the set collector plenty to work with, and the Diamond parallels are a definite plus. The overall design could have been better, but that is a matter of taste; I prefer more traditional designs. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Norah Jermaine, a 13-year-old girl from California who has amassed a sizable collection:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/13-year-old-california-girl-hustles-to-collect-cards/
âCleon Jonesâ new autobiography is a joyous tale of an athlete who never forgot his roots. Life was not always joyful for the former New York Mets outfielder, but he remained focused, humble and candid.
He had a pretty good career, too. Coming Home: My Amazinâ Life with the New York Mets (Triumph Books; hardback; $30; 239 pages) is a collaborative effort with Jones, who turned 80 this year, and Gary Kaschak, a veteran sportswriter and columnist with more than four decades of experience. During his 13-year career in the majors â 12 with the Mets â Jones compiled a .281 lifetime batting average and hit over .300 twice, reaching his peak with a .340 mark in 1969. Two things I hoped would be addressed in this book were covered thoroughly. To my delight, Jones leads off his book recalling the final out of the 1969 World Series. Jones caught a deep fly ball in left field hit by Baltimoreâs Davey Johnson to complete the Metsâ âamazinââ world championship season. Jones caught the ball and genuflected (some say kneeled, including Jones, but my Catholic upbringing suggested a more reverent gesture). âIt was a sigh of relief and it was a moment of gratitude,â Jones writes. Amen to that. It was a spontaneous reaction to a season that had an improbable script. The second landmark moment Jones addressed from that 1969 season was the July 30 game at Shea Stadium, when Mets manager Gil Hodges slowly walked out to left field after Johnny Edwards doubled down the line and removed Jones from the game. Reports at the time suggested that Jones loafed after the ball, and that was the reason Hodges yanked him from the game. More recent reporting noted that the outfield grass was slick and puddled from rain, and Jones, nursing an injured ankle, did not want to risk further injury. Jones sets the record straight. âLook down at what weâre standing in,â Jones said he told Hodges, who noticed that their feet were under water. Both agreed that it was a good idea for Jones to leave the game, but reporters believed Hodges was trying to send a message. Jones agrees but adds that the message was not limited to him. âI didnât think for one second Gil was trying to embarrass me, but thatâs what they (reporters) were asking,â Jones writes. âI thought he was trying to make a statement, not to me, but to the team.â â It was a wakeup call for Jones and his teammates. The rest, as they say, was history.
Jones came from a city that had its own glorious baseball history. Mobile, Alabama, produced Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams and Ozzie Smith.
Jones writes about his childhood spent living in the Africatown section of Mobile, where a teacher and his grandmother were the biggest influences during his youth. His parents were basically out of the picture, but Jones writes that home âwas always the driving force.â âPeople say Cleon Jones made Africatown,â Jones writes. âNo. Africatown made Cleon Jones.â Jones was a four-sport star in high school and was doing well at Alabama A&M when he was seriously injured when a car hit the vehicle he was sitting in and sent him through the windshield. After recovering, Jones decided to stay with one sport, choosing baseball. Jones writes about the racism he encountered as an up-and-coming player in the Metsâ minor league system. He recalls an incident while playing for Auburn in the New York-Penn League and needed surgery due to painful hemorrhoids and told his manager as much. âI could hardly walk, let alone play ball,â Jones wrote. His manager âignored what I had to say and put me in the lineup anyway.â Curiously, Jones does not name the manager, but the Auburn team in 1963 was piloted by Dick Cole, who led the team to a first-place finish. Jones batted .360 at Auburn that year, going 18-for-50. Later that season he went to Raleigh in the Carolina League and batted .305. I am not sure if this incident was necessarily racism or the case of a stubborn manager who did not want a player to dictate when he could play; I have no context and I certainly was not there. Certainly, Jones saw it as racism, suggesting that white players with lesser injuries were afforded more sympathy. I am not going to question his perceptions or his sincerity. âI donât know everything he said (to the Mets front office officials) even up to this day, only that he said some things that he didnât need to say, like I was lazy and selfish,â Jones writes. A more blatant display of racism occurred while Jones played for Raleigh in 1963, and he took a bold stand. His wife-to-be and future mother-in-law came to a game they were told they would have to sit in the segregated section down the left-field line. Jones refused to play unless they were allowed to sit behind home plate, and Raleighâs general manager stepped in and made it happen. Jones also recalls a 1964 incident in Jacksonville, Florida, while he was playing for Buffalo in the International League. A restaurant owner refused to serve Buffaloâs Black players but reluctantly capitulated after police told him his discrimination was against the law. But when a waitress refused to serve the players the next night, the manager fired her. She returned the next night and apologized to the players. The woman eventually became a friend and a fan to all of the players, even attending some of the games. â âIt felt real good that a situation like that could take a new course,â Jones writes. âWeâd made a friend.â
Jones also writes about his interest in the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to land in the U.S., just before the Civil War. Africatown was founded by the survivors from the illegal human cargo vessel after the war, and Jones writes that âthis sense of community I carry took rootâ as he learned more about the 100-foot ship that came to Alabama from Africa.
â The schooner lost for years in the Mobile River, was finally found in 2019. The wreck site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 2021. âWhen I first found out it was true, I did a little dance,â Jones writes. Coming Home is not just about social issues, although it plays a strong and necessary role. There is plenty of baseball, too. Mets fans from the 1960s â and even baseball fans who enjoy reading about that era â will enjoy Jonesâ keen impressions and stories about players like Ken Boyer, Warren Spahn, Ralph Terry, Al Jackson, Tommie Agee, Jerry Grote, Bud Harrelson and Tommy Davis. The Mets, lovable losers when they debuted in 1962, slowly evolved into a strong baseball team, and by 1969 had put together a squad that had a memorable, magical season. Jones touches on many subjects in his autobiography and presents keen snapshots of the players and managers he interacted with. Casey Stengel âhad a great mind for the game.â Hodges âset the tone for a new Mets attitudeâ during the teamâs first meeting in 1968. His calm presence and philosophy earned the playersâ respect, and they responded. It is clear that Jones respected Hodges and was devastated when the Mets manager died of a heart attack in early 1972. And of course, there is lots of play-by-play and insight from Jones, who provides a locker-room view of the 1969 World Series and the âYa Gotta Believeâ season of 1973. He also provides perspective on the "shoe polish" incident in Game 5 of the World Series. Jones claimed he was hit on the shoe by a Dave McNally pitch, and Hodges brought the baseball to the attention of umpire Lou DiMuro, who awarded Jones first base. Shades of Nippy Jones for the Milwaukee Braves in the 1957 World Series. And the ball clearly caromed off Jones' foot.
Jones said he liked Yogi Berra as a player but did not consider him a good manager, and he provides the background to some of the disagreements that eventually led to the playerâs release and the managerâs firing in 1975. That included a shouting match in the dugout after Jones pinch hit for Ed Kranepool and then was inserted into the game before he could put on a knee brace that was necessary for him to play the field. âI blew up,â Jones writes.
âDonât get me wrong. Yogi was a decent person,â Jones writes. âHe just didnât understand the gravity of the situation. âAnd I revered his friendship, but I didnât think he did a good job with that.â Jones later notes that Berra âwas a good person and good for baseball, but certain managerâs instincts he didnât possess.â Jones also addresses the van incident earlier in 1975, when the outfielder remained in Florida to rehabilitate and was accused of indecent exposure on May 4. Police found him in a van with a woman, but Jones was never prosecuted. He later issued an apology to the New York media at a news conference. âThe next morning all I heard was that I was naked in a van, having sex with a young white girl,â Jones writes. âNaked! In a van! Never happened then, never would in the future.â Jones called the incident and the media coverage that followed it âa hurtful lie that would never go away no matter how long or how hard I maintained it as gospel truth.â Jones signed with the Chicago White Sox in 1976 but only got into 12 games before he was released four weeks into the season. He later became an instructor for the Mets during the 1980s, working with future major leaguers like Lenny Dykstra, Kevin Mitchell and Mike Fitzgerald. â Jones, who would be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 1991, returned to his Alabama roots. His nonprofit Last Out Community Foundation is helping revitalize the Africatown area by fixing and building affordable homes while providing programs for youths. If there is a flaw in this book, it is due to some bad editing in places. The names of Monte Irvin, Dick Ricketts and Jake Peavy are misspelled, for example (as Irving, Rickets and Peavey), and there are some grammatical flubs that should have been caught by the bookâs copy editors. âRegimentâ when the proper word was âregimen,â for example. Those glitches do not diminish the importance of what Cleon Jones has to say. He celebrates with the knowledge that while he will not be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he still made a difference in the community he calls home. â And thatâs joyous.
Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the return of five expensive sports cards to a shop owner in Chicago.
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/chicago-card-shop-owner-recovers-5-high-end-cards-stolen-in-late-may/ Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 2022 Topps Formula 1 Racing set, which comes out in mid-September:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2022-topps-formula-1-racing-boasts-new-inserts-dramatic-designs/ It’s a game that can really make you do some soul-searching. “What is it about baseball?” Zaun Boyer wonders aloud to his pious friend, Mars McManus. “It gets into your soul, like religion,” Mars responds. Passionate baseball fans understand this. And so does author Mike Reuther, whose latest work of fiction plumbs the depths of baseball fans’ despair as they try to confront other personal, more serious life issues. In The Baseball Losers: Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Reuther follows Zaun and Mars as they decide to follow the New York Mets, on the brink of clinching the National League East in 2007, for the final two weeks of the season, taking in games at Shea Stadium and in Washington, D.C. As any Mets fan can tell you, New York went into a tailspin, going 5-12 the rest of the way to finish the season one game behind the Philadelphia Phillies, who had a 13-4 finish. It was an utter collapse that ranks with the 1964 Phillies’ fold and the implosion of the 1978 Boston Red Sox. Zaun and Mars have their own personal issues to worry about. Zaun’s marriage is falling apart, while Mars goes from ramrod straight to “sneaky and duplicitous” by the end of the two-week adventure. I kept thinking of Gregg Zaun — who never played for the Mets — throughout the book, only because “Zaun” was the main character who gives a first-person account of the two-week odyssey with the Mets. But Zaun Boyer has issues. Like Reuther, he is a newspaper reporter. Reuther is a longtime reporter for the Williamsport Sun Gazette who honed his reporting chops by writing about sports, politics, health and local government. And, as is typical in Reuther’s narratives, Zaun carries an awful lot of emotional baggage and is way too serious. The main characters in Reuther’s books usually have a sidekick who can provide comic relief. In The Baseball Losers, Mars is not that guy. The comedy comes from a fan the two friends meet at Shea Stadium. Jimbo sits one row behind them and really, really enjoys eating. He has a basement full of Mets memorabilia and a mother who believes he is a never-do-well guy wasting his life away. The gregarious and aggressive Jimbo invites himself to travel with Zaun and Mars to Washington to watch a three-game series with the Nationals. Jimbo relieves the tension that jams the main characters like a Mariano Rivera cutter. Zaun does not believe his wife when she tells him she is pregnant and cuts short her pleas of “we need to talk” by hanging up on her telephone calls. His brother, Gil, stalks his wife after she went to a weekend gathering of artists in Long Island. Their marriage is also hanging by a thread, especially since they had an “agreement” to sleep with other people — and gets into a nasty argument when she returns home. “You shut up, Gil,” his wife says. “Curse you. And you too Zaun and your damn New York Mets team as well.” Well, baseball fans are superstitious, so this did not bode well for Zaun — or the Mets. One can almost see members of the 1969 Cubs, who were spooked by a black cat that paraded in front of their dugout during a crucial series with the Mets, smirking with delight. There is a little bit of irony in this marital spat, since Reuther is “long-suffering” Mets fan. Reuther’s works definitely have an ironic twist, and the focus is always on baseball. In his 2017 work, Pitching for Sanity: A Nervous Man’s Journey, a former hotshot American Legion pitcher faces anxiety and uncertainty as he reaches middle age. Baseball Dreams, Fishing Magic: One Man’s Trip Through This Crazy Thing Called Life, published in 2014, combines baseball with another one of Reuther’s passions — fly fishing. Nothing Down is about Homer Newbody, a pitcher who loves baseball so much that he was willing to play for free. Return to Dead City, Reuther’s 2011 debut, is a crime drama that features a world-weary main character who battles alcoholism and tries to solve a murder involving a minor league Mets player. But before you get depressed, understand that Reuther can inject some humor into his narratives. In one scene of The Baseball Losers, Zaun is paying his respects at the funeral of Mars’ father. He watches his friend walk up to his father’s casket, grin and place a Mets cap on the dead man’s head. “Dad was a Yankees fan, you know,” Mars whispers to his friend. The sweetest revenge for a Mets fan. Reuther brings back the pain for Mets fans, as their losses are the backdrop for the book’s main characters. Without giving away the ending, it appears that the only person who is truly happy at the end of The Baseball Losers is Jimbo, who cleans up his appearance, stops drinking and swears off fast food. Mars is accused by “the woman of his dreams” of stalking her, and during the Mets’ season finale — they did not have tickets but sneaked past security — he has a meltdown in the stands, which leads to him and Zaun getting tossed from Shea Stadium. “People tie themselves to ballclub in ridiculous way,” Zaun notes in the book’s prologue. “For whatever reason.” Zaun’s character is morose throughout The Baseball Losers. When he finally reconnects with his wife at a bar and grill in their hometown of Niles, Pennsylvania, he is startled to find Mars sitting across from her in deep conversation. “The good Catholic, my buddy, trying to do the right thing,” Zaun tells his wife. Despite this awkward exchange, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for Zaun and his wife to stay together. Reuther alludes to the future in the book’s final chapter, although the narrative does come to an abrupt halt. The Baseball Losers is a sobering look at life’s struggles, and how a diversion like baseball could calm life’s anxieties. That did not happen in the case of the 2007 Mets, as sports mirrored life’s disappointments. The main characters in The Baseball Losers have flaws and are not particularly lovable (except perhaps for Jimbo), but as usual, Reuther excels in his character development and tells an interesting story.
Faustian bargains are not new in literature and music. In music, a good example is when the Charlie Daniels Band fiddled around with betting their souls in 1979’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Making wagers or deals with the devil goes back to the Book of Job in the Old Testament, when God and Satan make a bet, with the virtuous soul of Job hanging in the balance. In baseball literature, the benchmark is Douglass Wallop’s 1954 classic, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant — published, ironically, in a year the Yankees did lose the pennant because the Cleveland Indians won a then-American League record 111 games. That book was later repackaged for stage and film as “Damn Yankees.” I saw a stage version of “Damn Yankees” years ago in Tampa, with Jerry Lewis playing the role of the devil (Applegate). He was pretty good, too. Tampa-based writer Michael Lortz draws from all of these examples to produce a new twist to an old story, with a little bit of Sidd Finch thrown in for good measure, in his first novel, Curveball at the Crossroads (Paperback, second edition; $9.20 on Amazon Prime; Legacy Book Publishing; 269 pages). The cover for the second edition of this self-published novel is much better than the first. Flashier and more intriguing — just like Lortz’s premise.
JaMark Reliford seems too good to be true. He is a high school pitching phenom in northwestern Mississippi, a Black left-hander with extra-long fingers that allow him to grip the ball and deliver exploding fastballs and a curveball nicknamed “Legba,” a name for the Caribbean voodoo god who leads souls to hell.
Some will recall the reference to the Talking Heads song, “Papa Legba,” or the character of the same name played by “Mod Squad” alumnus Clarence Williams III in an episode of “Miami Vice.” Regardless, opposing hitters were having a hell of a time with JaMark — until he shatters his shoulder in the final inning of his final high school game for the Rosedale Eagles. Lortz has a fast-paced narrative aided by 66 short chapters — a subtle, devilish twist for numerologists. The book blossomed from a five-page short story Lortz wrote in 2012. The beginning and ending are the same — but in this expanded version, the devil is in the details. Unlike Wallop’s character, JaMark does not take on a new identity, changing from Joe Boyd to Joe Hardy. And unlike the disgruntled Joe Boyd, JaMark hits rock bottom in life, abandoned by all of his family except his ne’er-do-well Uncle Rufus and his saintly grandmother.
“You were bad before,” his grandmother scolds him. “But at least you made people happy. Now you just actin’ like you got the devil in you.”
Looks like Grandma was prescient. The book gets its name from a crossroads outside Rosedale, which is a tribute to the real-life Devil’s Crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. That is where, according to folklore, legendary blues singer and guitarist Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil so he could “play a mean guitar.” JaMark is snoozing near the base of an old tree when the moonshine bottle and cigarette he tosses to a nearby intersection catches fire. But it’s a weird fire, and a strange man, well-dressed in a black top hat, suit and tie emerges from the controlled blaze.
Hello, Satan. We’ve been here before. Remember “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.”
But … They make a deal and here is the caveat: “Always put me first,” the devil says. Do that, he says, and JaMark’s arm will never hurt again. Failure to do so will result in the devil taking it all away — including his soul. Lortz received his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Florida State University, and he weaves an intriguing tale that begins to separate itself from the Joe Hardy tale. Plus, Lortz comes up with some good lines. My favorite was that JaMark's mother "ran away with a freelance writer who wrote run-on sentences." Without giving away the plot, it is apparent that Curveball is a classic tug of war between good and evil. Most of his baseball peers are stunned by his meteoric rise in the minor leagues, but at least one old coach had seen this tale before. JaMark is unnerved at a bingo hall when introduced to an elderly woman who exclaims that the ballplayer has the devil in him. And of course there is the devil himself, who periodically shows up to express displeasure at not being put first. JaMark does have a creative way of getting around crediting the evil guy, telling reporters that “the devil is in the details.” How true. JaMark makes it to the majors and plays for the St. Petersburg Saints — the name is a nod to the longtime minor league franchise in the west-central Florida city that existed before the Devil Rays (now the Rays) joined MLB in 1998. He has a memorable first full season, eerily similar to those of fellow left-hander Vida Blue in 1971 and Dwight Gooden in 1984. But in the devil’s view, JaMark giving credit to everyone but him in a filmed commercial for Colonel Crispy cereal (must be Captain Crunch’s older brother) is the last straw. The petulant devil eventually takes away JaMark’s abilities, but offers him one last chance to save his soul. And that’s when the drama builds.
There are some strong characters in Curveball to support JaMark. In addition to his uncle and grandmother, there is Betsy, his lover who remains loyal and encouraging while JaMark wrestles with his, um, demons.
There is Dusty Polichardo, who was a great pitcher during the 1950s but suddenly lost his touch. Now, as a coach, he seems to creep out JaMark more than offer advice, but he will play a crucial role when it counts. In an interview, Lortz has said that the character was influenced by Fernando Valenzuela (remember Fernando-mania in the strike-shortened 1981 season?) and Tom Lasorda. And finally, Inga Roosevelli, a mysterious woman who runs a restaurant in the middle of nowhere with a clientele that resembles the bar patrons in the “The Shining” with their seemingly sinister silence. She also will play a role in the finale, having an odd exchange with the devil that may portend what is to come years later. On his website, Lortz notes that there are several hints and references to blues legends, songs by Jimi Hendrix and Snoop Dogg, food preferences of Elvis Presley (peanut butter, banana and bacon) and Elwood Blues (dry white toast), and a nod toward pro wrestling’s Iron Sheik, among others. The only glitch I saw was the incorrect spelling of "Volkswagen" in Chapter 61. Lortz’s novel is heavily influenced by the blues — JaMark’s birthday (May 8) is the same date as Johnson’s, for example. But above all, pay attention to Lortz’s narrative. Some of JaMark’s feats are simply unfathomable, but Lortz pulls it all together in a crisp, believable story. There are several currents flowing in this book, but they inevitably swirl around JaMark. Spoiler alert, sort of: the final chapter, like several in the book, are presented in a play-by-play announcer’s patter. The final sentences will really get you thinking. I have a theory, but I will keep it to myself. Even if I am wrong, I am correct in saying that Curveball at the Crossroads was a fine debut.
Seventeen and oh.
It remains pro football’s gold standard 50 years later. The Miami Dolphins did the unthinkable in 1972, going undefeated and untied on the way to a victory in Super Bowl VII. How difficult is perfect? The New England Patriots came within 35 seconds of finishing 19-0 before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants in February 2008. No other teams have come that close to matching the 1972 Dolphins. The story of the ’72 Dolphins is familiar and iconic, but Marshall Jon Fisher digs deep and adds his experiences from a childhood spent growing up in South Florida during that magical season. Seventeen and Oh: Miami, 1972, and the NFL’s Only Perfect Season (Abrams Press; $28; hardback; 408 pages) mixes nostalgia with a blend of solid research and perspective from the players. It also is a story that resonates with me, so forgive me if I insert my own observations from that time. Like Fisher, I grew up in South Florida during the late 1960s and 1970s, although I am about six years older than him. Because of the NFL’s blackout rule at the time, home games from Miami were not televised, so we would listen on radio to WIOD play-by-play announcer Rick Weaver: “It’s the end of the first quarter, with the score, our Dolphins 7, the Patriots nothing.” Always, “our Dolphins.” During halftime, my father, brother and I — like Fisher, his brother and father — would go outside and throw the ball and play games of touch football to blow off steam. Memorably, we listened to the 1971 AFC Championship Game on the radio, and my father was giving me a haircut in the garage (pre-Flowbee). For about a week after that Jan. 2, 1972, game, the route Dick Anderson ran when he returned a third-quarter interception 62 yards for a touchdown was shaved into my head in a disturbing zigzag pattern. Christmas dinner at my aunt’s house in 1971 was delayed several hours until Miami defeated Kansas City in the NFL’s longest game. That was a prelude to 1972.
Books about the undefeated Dolphins are not new. The last full examination came in 2012, the 40th anniversary of perfection. There was Bob Griese’s memoir with Dave Hyde, Perfection: The Inside Story of the 1972 Dolphins’ Perfect Season; and Undefeated: Inside the Miami Dolphins’ Perfect Season, by Mike Freeman.
But Fisher takes the well-known story of the Perfect Season and adds his own perspective. As I read Fisher’s narrative, it triggered many of the same memories. Fisher lived in suburban Miami, while I lived about an hour north in Boynton Beach. To attend the Orange Bowl was a huge treat. Miami was known as the Magic City in the 1960s. But Miami Beach had the glamour. That was where “The Jackie Gleason Show” was taped every week. The Beatles appeared live from the Napoleon Ballroom of the Deauville Beach Resort for one of their three appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964. That same month, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) would defeat Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Miami? To my knowledge, it was the only place in the U.S. where there was a traffic light on an interstate highway. I’m not talking about on-ramp lights. I mean, an honest-to-goodness, stop-and-go traffic light. There it was, on Ives Dairy Road north of the city near the line that separated Dade and Broward counties. The light would turn red on I-95 and traffic would cross. The explanation given at the time was that stretch of road was not I-95, but State Road 9. People strange to the area had to slow down in a hurry. It was a bottleneck then and remains one today, even after an overpass was built during the 1970s.
The first Dolphins game I ever saw in person was a preseason game on Aug. 16, 1969, when Miami lost 14-10 to the Philadelphia Eagles at the Orange Bowl. It was the weekend of Woodstock — “Rock fans just give peace a chance,” the Miami Herald’s headline noted — and dangerous Hurricane Camille was taking aim at the Mississippi coast, where it would make landfall the next night as a Category 5 storm. Rick Norton had a lousy game at quarterback, and Larry Seiple faked a punt and ran for a first down — a play that would loom larger during the 1972 playoffs.
My father was able to get tickets each year through a fellow member of the Lions Club. The seats were on the south sideline of the Orange Bowl, about 15 rows up on the 50-yard line. “Seats” is a charitable term. They were actually aluminum benches that stretched through the stadium and could be hot to uncovered legs. Tickets were $8 apiece in 1972, which left my father enough cash to buy us food and drinks from the Zum vendors. We would see three games that year — against the Bills, Patriots and Jets. I would cover the Dolphins as a sportswriter for The Stuart News from 1980 to 1983, and my perspective certainly changed because the fan had to disappear once I entered the press box. But the memories from 1972 linger. The white handkerchiefs. The lyrics of Lee Ofman’s “Miami Dolphins No. 1” blaring through the loudspeakers after every touchdown. Seventeen and Oh is well researched and is broken down into game-by-game chapters. Fisher gives the reader the details on the game, but also adds vignettes about many of the key players. He also attempts to weave in the politics of the time, mostly President Richard Nixon’s efforts to bring a halt to the war in Vietnam, his concerns about his campaign for re-election, the atmosphere surrounding both the Democratic and Republican conventions (both held a month apart in Miami Beach) and a simmering scandal after a break-in at the Watergate complex that would boil over in 1973. It is unlikely that laser-focused coach Don Shula read the news headlines during the football season, and his players were probably too tired from training camp and subsequent practices to care. But Fisher does put politics into context with the times, writing about a nation “deeply divided by the war and by social and economic crevasses.” For his football narrative, Fisher draws from many sources, with 42 total pages of end notes. That includes Bill Braucher’s seminal 1972 book, Promises to Keep: The Miami Dolphin Story, which chronicled the Dolphins from their difficult beginnings as an expansion franchise in 1966 until Miami was humbled by Dallas 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. Newspaper clippings from the two Miami newspapers were also helpful.
That loss was the fuel that drove Miami’s ’72 squad. While the players probably never envisioned a perfect season, they did want to return to the big game and win it. Shula, on the other hand, hated to lose, so a perfect season was certainly something he wanted to achieve — even if he did not admit it publicly.
On the first day of training camp in 1972, Shula showed films of the Super Bowl VI loss. “He repeated his mantra of taking the games one at a time … and winning each one,” Fisher writes. Running back Jim Kiick turned to fullback Larry Csonka and, knowing how tough the previous two training camps were under Shula’s direction, said, “Oh, this is going to be a beauty.” Fisher’s prose is sharp and his observations are keen. Csonka ran up the middle “like a hussar on a rampage,” a nod to Zonk’s Hungarian heritage. Earl Morrall, who stepped in at quarterback when Griese broke his ankle in the season’s fifth game, “looked like Spiro Agnew at a rock concert.” Receiver Howard Twilley “had the hands of a pickpocket and a workingman’s attitude.” Linebacker Doug Swift, who had long hair, wore beach shoes and wore “granny glasses,” looked “as if he’d be more comfortable at an antiwar demonstration.” In retrospect, some critics have tried to minimize Miami’s perfect season by claiming the Dolphins had an easy schedule. But before the season began, Kansas City and Minnesota were considered Super Bowl contenders, and Baltimore and the New York Jets were touted as contenders. But the Chiefs finished at 8-6, the Jets and Vikings wound up 7-7, and the Colts had an abysmal 5-9 record two years removed from a Super Bowl title. You play the schedule presented. But in 1972, “on any given Sunday” did not apply in Miami. The Dolphins’ lone appearance on “Monday Night Football” in ’72 was at home against the St. Louis Cardinals in Week 11. The game was blacked out, but my father took me to meet up with some of his Lions Club colleagues at a motel in Fort Lauderdale. The motel’s antenna was pointed toward Fort Myers, where the ABC affiliate was broadcasting the game. Fun times. But here is where Fisher’s ability to analyze a seemingly mundane play comes to the fore. In the game against St. Louis, a 51-yard field goal attempt by Garo Yepremian was blocked and he picked up the football. “He should have just fallen down on it, but instead he picked it up and made a mysterious attempt to propel the ball with his right arm,” Fisher writes. Sound familiar? Super Bowl VII would have a similar play. “One would think that Shula, with his overwhelming attention to detail, would have Yepremian practicing falling on the ball for the next week or more,” Fisher writes.
He didn’t. And that almost came back to haunt him.
In 1972, Miami led the NFL in points scored with 385 and allowed the fewest points in the league with 171. Certainly, the Dolphins had some close calls — they had to score 10 points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Vikings in Week 3 and held off Buffalo 24-23 in Week 8 after defensive tackle Manny Fernandez stole a Dennis Shaw handoff intended for Jim Braxton and helped erase a 13-7 deficit. Miami would win a 28-24 shootout against the Jets two weeks later, highlighted by Morrall’s improbable 31-yard run for a touchdown — including a nifty fake against the Jets’ cornerback — that gave the Dolphins a 21-17 lead. “It was the longest touchdown run for the Dolphins all year, in distance and in time elapsed,” Fisher writes. Both playoff games were closely contested, with Seiple’s fake punt (remember 1969) and 37-yard run the key play in a 21-17 AFC title victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers. On the fake punt, the Steelers’ defenders turned and ran back to set up their return coverage. Seiple “ran down the other side of the field as free as a jogger on the beach,” Fisher writes. The one fact that surprised me was Fernandez’s anguish prior to the AFC title game. He had just gotten married the previous week and his new wife, Marcia, was a stewardess for Eastern Air Lines. She was supposed to be working on a flight from New York to Miami, but she switched with a colleague when she got married and was on a different flight. Her original plane crashed in the Everglades, killing 80 people.
Miami dominated Super Bowl VII and would have tossed a shutout except for Yepremian’s ill-advised attempted pass after a blocked field goal with two minutes to play. That made the final score of 14-7 closer than it appeared, but Miami had one touchdown pass to Paul Warfield called back by a penalty and Griese was intercepted in the end zone.
Miami won the Super Bowl “with a defense that may have been No Names, but had plenty of adjectives,” Tex Maule wrote in Sports Illustrated. “Try tough, tight, dashing and daring for starters.” Many fans who did not recall Yepremian’s “throw” against St. Louis remembered Super Bowl VII, when he picked up another blocked kick, which he batted skyward after the ball slipped out of his hands in an apparent passing attempt. Washington’s Mike Bass plucked the ball out of the air and ran it back for a touchdown, making the play a staple of NFL blooper films. NFL Films had the classic reaction from Al Jenkins, who yelled "Damn!" from the sidelines. “My God, can you imagine what life with Shula would be like if he lost another Super Bowl?” tight end Jim Mandich said. Fortunately for Miami — and Yepremian — they never had to find out. I interviewed Yepremian in 1980 during a minicamp for the New Orleans in Vero Beach, Florida. Wrapping up, I said to him, “You know, I have to ask you about that pass in the Super Bowl.” “I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Yepremian said, adding that he noticed that Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw had copied some of his passing techniques. It was easy to laugh then. Some of the players have since died, along with Shula. Others have suffered in later life from brain injuries incurred from the pounding they took. But the memories linger. Seventeen and Oh, Fisher writes, was not just about the perfect record. “It was the assembling of a disparate bunch of players and coaches into a unit of cohesive excellence that felt as though it couldn’t lose,” he writes. He’s right. Get out the white hankies. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about Darren Garnick, a New Hampshire collector who has orchestrated a card giveaway of players from the Dominican Republic to kids from that Caribbean country.
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/new-hampshire-collector-making-dreams-come-true-for-kids-in-dominican-republic/ Here is a review I wrote for Sport in American History about Charlie Murphy, the owner of the Chicago Cubs during their dynastic years in the early 1900s:
ussporthistory.com/2022/07/09/review-of-charlie-murphy-the-iconoclastic-showman-behind-the-chicago-cubs/ Topps' flagship baseball set is like a comfortable old friend. What collectors will find in Series 2 mirrors what Topps has done for years. There are team cards, Future Stars and rookie cards to complement the base set, which picks up where Series 1 left off with card Nos. 331 to 660. That includes 56 rookie cards. But even comfortable old friends can make you see double. The blaster box I bought had 99 cards — that breaks down to 14 packs of seven cards apiece, plus a manufactured commemorative card. Here is where I did a double-take. I pulled 84 base cards from the set, which included 11 rookie cards. Of that stack, there were 12 base set doubles and two duplicate rookie cards. With prices going up for products—I think this year’s blasters for Topps are about $5 more than last year at my store — it is frustrating to receive nearly a pack of doubles. So, just 72 base cards this time. Chalk that up as an error. And no, they are not variation cards. I even checked the codes at the bottom of the cards to be sure. There was even a duplicate insert card, but I’ll address that later. The design for Topps Series 2 is similar to the first series. Much of the set has a vertical design, which I like, although there are plenty of base cards with a horizontal look. The player is featured in an action pose, with a nameplate underneath the photo that fades from gray to black and then back to gray. The Topps logo is stamped in silver foil in the upper left-hand corner of the card front, and the team name is placed at the lower-left of the card inside a baseball design. The card backs are horizontal, with the team logo anchoring the upper left-hand side while the card number anchors the top right. Vital statistics are placed between the player’s name, which dominates the top middle of the card. Where there is room, a brief biography is presented above the player’s statistics. The crisp design and clean layout are plusses. I found several parallels in the blaster box. There was a pair of Rainbow Foil parallels of Kevin Gausman and DJ Stewart, and a Royal Blue parallel of Chris Bassitt. The Royals fall once every 10 packs. I also pulled a Gold parallel of Yonathan Daza, numbered to 2022; and a Green Foilboard card of Seth Beer, numbered to 499. The commemorative was a batting helmet card of Jose Abreu. This was produced on very thick card that was packed into the second pack I opened. The Sox helmet is very cool, by the way. As for inserts, each pack contains a Stars of MLB card. I hit the average, but there was also a duplicate card of Giancarlo Stanton. The other inserts in the box included a Sweet Shades card of Juan Soto, and a Generation Now card of Brian Reynolds. Sweet Shades, as one might expect, features a star player wearing sunglasses. It’s a 20-card subset. Generation Now is a more modern version of the insert from the 2007 Topps set. The 2022 version is much nicer and has a shinier look. So Topps Series 2 brings some continuity for collectors who enjoy building sets. The duplicates are annoying, but how long can you stay angry at a comfortable old friend? Talk about a blast from the past. The Pro Set football product returns for a second year after a nearly 30-year hiatus. Pro Set football was a staple of the 1990s, and it seemed like billions of these cards were produced from the time it debuted in 1989 until 1993. It just seems that way, but go to any yard sale, and if sports cards are offered the football cards are most likely of the Pro Set variety. Pro Set was founded by Lud Denny, who scored a major coup by obtaining a licensing agreement with NFL Properties. But the company had folded by 1994. Now, thanks to Leaf, the football set we saw so much of 30-some years ago is back — hopefully, without the errors that plagued Pro Set, particularly in 1990. Although I must admit, the 1990 Santa Claus card was a fun one to collect. Leaf had an on-demand Pro Set offering in 2021, but this year’s set is more mainstream and can be bought at retail stores like Target (where I bought a Silver blaster box). Like the 2022 Leaf Draft football set, there are only 10 base cards in the set. But just like that set, there are two autograph cards per blaster. The 2022 set mirrors the design of the 1990 Pro Set layout, although some elements are missing. The Pro Set logo is firmly anchored at the top left-hand corner and the card features solid action shots. The player nameplate is beneath the photo in a black banner with white block letters, while the position is underneath the name with a silver banner. At the bottom is perhaps a cheeky reference to Pro Set’s NFL licensing deal from the 1990s: “Official trading card of football fans everywhere.” The card back features a horizontally cropped version of the front action photo and includes a seven-line biography. The checklist is similar to the Leaf Draft football set, with a few exceptions. New to the set is Kenneth Walker III, the Michigan State running back who won the Walter Camp and Doak Walker Awards in 2021 and . The other newcomer is Ohio State wide receiver Chris Olave, who was a first-round pick of the New Orleans Saints (No. 11 overall). The players in the 2022 Pro Set product who also were part of the Leaf Draft football set are 2021 Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young out of Alabama, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud and Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers (who transferred from Ohio State), Southern Cal quarterback Caleb Williams (who transferred from Oklahoma), and two more Buckeyes, running back Treveyon Henderson and wide receiver Garrett Wilson, who was drafted by the New York Jets at No. 10 in the first round. Rounding out the set is Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams, who was drafted in the first round (No. 12 overall) by the Detroit Lions; and University of Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett, who was drafted by the Steelers at No. 20 in the first round. As promised, there were two autograph cards in the blaster box I bought. Both are sticker autos and feature Texas A&M defensive back Leon O’Neal, who was not drafted but was signed as a free agent by the San Francisco 49ers; and Wisconsin linebacker Leo Chenal, a third-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs. Leaf has two designations for first-year players: ARC (amateur rookie cards) and XRC (extended rookie cards). In the base set, Caleb Williams and Henderson are ARC cards, while Wilson, Jameson Williams, Pickett, Walker and Olave are XRCs. Is this century’s version of Pro Set better than the last? Well, it was nice to collect lots of pro players, but the newer version has a cleaner look. And while it only concentrates on college players, it is obviously easier to collect the base set. The autograph set will naturally be more difficult to complete, since there are 196 cards including four redemptions. Have fun. Here's a story I wrote for Sports Collectors Daily about the 2022 Topps Finest baseball set, which will be released the week of Aug. 10:
www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/2022-topps-finest-baseball-preview/ It’s not often that you can complete a set with one blaster box, but that is what a collector can achieve with the 2022 Leaf Draft football blue retail box. Granted, there are only 10 cards in the blue blaster set, but Leaf does promise a pair of autographs in each blaster. The base set includes 2021 Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young out of Alabama, 2022 Heisman hopeful Bijan Robinson (a running back for Texas), The Ohio State (got to put “The” in there now, since the Buckeyes won that trademark case, you know) quarterback C.J. Stroud and Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers (who transferred from Ohio State), Southern Cal quarterback Caleb Williams (who transferred from Oklahoma), and two more Buckeyes, running back Treveyon Henderson and wide receiver Garrett Wilson, who was drafted by the New York Jets at No. 10 in the first round. Rounding out the set is Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams, who was drafted in the first round (No. 12 overall) by the Detroit Lions; University of Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett, who stayed close to home as a first-round pick (No. 20 overall) of the Pittsburgh Steelers; and Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral, a third-round pick of the Carolina Panthers. The design for the card fronts are simple and elegant. The player is shown in an action shot with the background in soft focus. The Leaf Draft logo is underneath the action shot, with the player’s name beneath that in black block letters. The action shot sits between two red borders with some nice geometric lines. The card backs feature a small, horizontally cropped version of the front photograph. In addition to the player’s height and weight featured in a thin black banner beneath the player’s photograph and nameplate, there is a seven-line biography. The left and right sides of the card have a gray border running the length of the card. Leaf has two designations for first-year players: ARC (amateur rookie cards) and XRC (extended rookie cards). In the base set, Caleb Williams and Henderson are ARC cards, while Wilson, Jameson Williams, Pickett and Corral are XRCs. As for autographs, there was an ARC and an XRC. Both autographs are on stickers. The ARC player is Jase McClellan, a running back at Alabama. The XRC signature card sports Mississippi State offensive lineman Charles Cross, who was drafted in the first round by the Seattle Seahawks (No. 9 overall). Unlike the base cards, the primary colors on the left- and right-sides of the card are gray. The card backs offer no information about the player other than his position, height and weight. The type on the back lets the collector know that the card has an authentic autograph that is guaranteed by Leaf. “We hope you enjoy your piece of history!” Leaf ends its block of type. It’s possible that some — or all — of these players may make it big in the NFL someday. If so, then the autographs may become more valuable as the years go by. |
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