Former SCD publisher and Standard Catalog Editor Bob Lemke produced literally hundreds of “Cards That Never Were” during his fabled career at Sports Collectors Digest and after his retirement. After Bob died in early January of last year, I sold some of his remaining inventory of those cards on behalf of his widow, with...
Bob Lemke’s creation of “cards that never were” always left me thrilled. You gotta be a “card guy” to be able to understand how cool it is that he could produce his own unique cards utilizing literally dozens of vintage styles from Topps and Bowman to the lesser-known regionals and food issues, tapping his...
I cannot recall another year in my lifetime when the balloting for a specific Hall of Fame class posed the kind of Hobson’s choice (not Butch) that this one does in 2013. That’s not exactly news to anyone who tracks the annual voting for baseball’s ticket to immortality, but it does mean that the...
I get a kick out of a wonderful story that circulates about Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin (and sometimes includes Whitey Ford) on a hunting trip in Texas (or sometimes in New York and elsewhere) that involves firearms, livestock and the legendary Billy Martin’s penchant for impetuosity tinged by various anger management issues. There...
Clint Eastwood could kick Chuck Norris’ ass … Odd as it may sound, I mentioned Chuck Norris quite prominently in the eulogy that I somehow managed at my mother’s funeral service this past December. I bring this up now because the erstwhile “actor” is in the news these days, rolling out his conservative credentials...
What winds up in the first or second graph of Ryan Braun’s historical record – or maybe even on his Hall of Fame plaque, should he end up thusly enshrined – is yet to be determined by events in coming days or weeks. Still, it has already been quite extraordinary how the press has...
I sat down and wrote that headline about Herman Cain on or around Oct. 15. Within a couple of minutes of starting the blog, I got a phone call about my mother’s declining health, and so the last seven weeks or so have been a blur as I did my best to help out...
(This is the conclusion of the segment on America’s corporate royalty.) Like so many things these days, the sad truth is that there isn’t likely to be any widespread embrace of radical changes to tax policy or corporate remuneration until it’s way too late for the embrace to make much of a difference. Millions...
I am a little fuzzy on what the Wall Street protest demonstrations are all about, though I suspect it’s merely the quite understandable and justified rage of a populace feeling powerless, overwhelmed and screwed all at the same time. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if what is really sticking in everyone’s...
Though I am sure a vast group of zealots on the far right side of the political spectrum would disagree, the seemingly exponential growth of the Religious Right has ill served both that particular group and the nation as a whole over the last two decades or so. I would contend that the hideously...