Is the Barry Halper Collection Authentic?

Yes, you read the headline correctly.  To understand what I am talking about go here and read the article.  Ok, lets think about this for a second. 

At one time the Halper collection was considered the most extensive and greatest collection of them all.  People drooled over having some of this cool, older stuff.  But now the authenticity of some of the items are coming into question.  I don't know what to think about all of this.  Back when these items were first donated there was little in the way of being able to ascertain the authenticity of uniforms, but now as more people are researching there are questions being raised.  I would guess the lesson to be learned is that we should be careful when buying something expensive, making sure we do everything possible to determine authenticity before buying. 

Strasburg lands on DL, again

The news today is that Strasburg is being placed on the DL again, with some talk of potential Tommy John surgery ESPN Link here one is made aware of how fragile pitchers are.  We could start a list of young phenoms who had their career shortened due to injury.  Guys like Brian Taylor, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, The "4 Aces", the young group of Met pitchers, to start with.  Each of these people were hot commodities in the baseball cards around the time of their debut.  Each of them had some problems along the way and never lived up to their hype.  When it comes to pitchers one must remember the risk of injury is high and not everyone starts out as an ueber stud and stays on that path.  Tom Seaver, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddox come to mind as examples of pitchers that had success early and maintained it for most of their career (I know that Smoltz got hurt, but it was later on).  These are the exceptions and not the rule.  Heck, Nolan Ryan was full of potential before being traded to the Angels.

Photoshop Disaster?

Yesterday I received a pleasant surprise in my mailbox.  Someone had sent me a gift as a way of saying "Thank You", and it was a wonderful gift.  I am now the proud owner of a DVD set of the Essential Games of the Detroit Tigers.  I saw this and started thinking about how great it will be to rewatch game 5 of the '84 World Series, or Maggs' homer against Oakland.  I am looking forward to the last game at Tiger Stadium as I have never seen the game before.

But upon close inspection of the DVD box I noticed something strange.  See if you can spot it.

This is not my scan, but it is the actual package (I promise).  Does anything look funny to you?  Look closely at the scoreboard and the photoshop that was done to the advertisements.  It did not look right to me, so today I did a google search for Tiger Stadium images and found a similar one to compare.

I found this image on a photography blog.  Note that the time period is similar based on the dirt path to the pitching mound, the retired numbers and the banners hanging in right field.  But all of the advertisements are gone. 

I wonder if A & E, who produced the video, did not have permission to use advertising logos.  I would have thought that photos from inside the stadium would have been part of mlb properties and could have been resued with permission.  The DVD covers for the post season games have photos of the game programs, accurately reproduced. 

I will file this under a disaster and a fail.

Sportlots Auction finds - I

I have been on a Sportlots kick lately.  I have found if you are patient you can find some bargains in the auction area.  Every once in a while you can find a card that no one else wants and get it for the minimum bid of a quarter.  This is what a quarter got me recently.

Kung Fu Fighting

The next time Mr. Cueto wants to perform some Kung Fu in the middle of a brawl, someone should kidnap him and show him this video.



We should learn from history so others wont repeat our mistakes.  Oh, and some people wondered why Roze was in Sparky's doghouse.

One man's junk

While driving around town yesterday morning looking for a person's house to take food to because their husband died, I noticed a pile of 3-ring binders sitting out by the side of the road for the trash man to pick up today.  At first glance there were about 6 boxes full of 3 and 4 inch binders.  Just sitting out by the road.  Awaiting their final destination in some poor landfill, their purpose in life all used up.  I thought to myself, I have to rescue these poor souls.  So I did what any card collector, who operates on a budget would do.  I drove out there at 4:30 this morning on the way to the gym and took as many of them as I could fit in my minivan.  I ended up with about 16 binders total.

Craft Show Finds

As many of us know in the summer it is festival season, especially in Arkansas.  The festivals are usually winding down by August, as it is to hot (it hit 104 yesterday).  Well, one of the local towns as an annual Watermelon festival around this time and me and the wife went last night.  After some good watermelon (they keep it refrigerated on site) we wandered around looking at the crafts.  There was a guy set up with cards at the craft fair.  I ended up buying some cards off of him, and paying to much.  It  has been a while since I went to a show and I needed my fix.  This is what I bought.

I found this beaut first off.  I had to bring this handsome man home.  After buying this I started talking with the vendor and he showed me his other box, the one with the rookies.  This is where I should have walked off, but I had to have my fix.

Sparky rookie, Post Norm Cash and Ron Guidry.  I am working on the 76 set and could not pass up a rookie of Sparky.

Thoughts from the weekend

I spent my Saturday in nearby Texarkana shopping with wife.  I already knew that any chances of finding cards were somewhere between slim and none with no real card shops in town.  So off we went to the mall, etc.  Stopped by Books a Million to see if I could find something that I could not live without and saw something that shocked me.  I was looking for some reading material int he magazine area and I found a new Beckett, but below the Becketts (on the floor level) some clerk had put Playboys and other "special" editions of Playboys out.  That made me feel weird looking at the cover of Beckett to decide to pick it and glace through while be distracted by the cover of the Playboy.  I am sure that there is some sort of irony in that picture.

after finding nothing at BAM we went to Target.  In the card asle there was basically no new product.  Sure there were a couple of rack packs of A & G, but I passed them up.  NO newere blasters.  Bunch of loose packs.  I left there just purchasing some 9 pocket sheets.  I guess I should not get my hopes up for my next visit.