Memorabilia Monday: The Ball that Was My Pride and Joy

I like trivia. I especially like baseball trivia, but really, any trivia will do. Whether it's pub trivia, trivia websites, or trivia TV shows, I enjoy watching and participating in trivia contests. 

This has been true for most of my life. As a young kid subscribing to Baseball Digest, one of my favorite parts of the magazine was to test myself with the trivia questions and answers.  If the trivia related to a team or player I cared about, then there was no question that I would get the question correct.

In 1982, I remember there being one weekend -- perhaps in June, because the weather was not hot outside -- when Jim Gantner was making an autograph signing appearance at a marina in Pewaukee. I think that it was competing with another appearance at a location closer to Milwaukee at which both Paul Molitor and Robin Yount were signing autographs at a shoe store, but I may be misremembering that.

I think that was the case, though, because when we got to the location where Gantner was supposed to be signing, the place was dead. Now, I also seem to recall that Gantner's appearance hours were from 1 PM to 3 PM before a 7:30 PM game, and we were arriving at around 2:45 PM.  So, coupled with the fact that usually, a Brewer making an appearance would draw a line, we (my mom, my older brother [who had to come along], and me) thought that perhaps they had wrapped up the appearance a bit early.

We took a chance and went inside anyway.  We found Jim Gantner standing next to a boat, checking out its dashboard and talking to a salesperson who was pretty clearly his liaison of sorts for this appearance.  When we walked in, we must have looked a bit apprehensive, because the salesperson and Gantner both said, "come on over, good to see you!"

The salesperson then posed a trivia question: in 1980, what Brewer finished second in the American League batting title race with a .352 batting average? Even now, that would be an easy question for me, but for little ten-year-old Tony you might as well have asked for his name, address, and telephone number.  I knew that answer immediately and without missing a beat said quickly, "Cecil Cooper." 

The guy goes, "You're correct! Here's your prize!"

And he handed me a plastic covered baseball with the Brewers team name and logo on it, which Jim Gantner promptly signed.

That ball was my constant autograph companion for the next year or so.

The problem with a plastic covering, however, is the fact that ink fades pretty badly from plastic.  Only a few autographs remain legible.

Anyway, here are some photos of that ball, which I still have today.  It used to be my pride and joy, and in some respects it still is:

The Brewers name.  If you squint, you can see Roy Howell's signature on the left of the team name and a badly retraced Robin Yount signature on the right side.  Underneath the team name is Bob Gibson, the version who played in Milwaukee in the 1980s who was not very good.  On the far left side in black is Charlie Moore.

The fading old Brewers Logo.  The black sharpie signature there is Ted Simmons. Barely visible on the logo itself (and upside down) is Bob Uecker.

On this panel are three Hall of Famers.  Yes, once again, 12-year-old me was disappointed in how much the signatures had faded already at that point and took a sharpie to darken the signatures from Rollie Fingers and Paul Molitor. Under Molitor, of course, is Don Sutton.  Above Fingers in ink is reserve outfielder Mark Brouhard.

Finally, on this part of the ball, you see the badly retraced Robin Yount at the bottom.  Above his signature is now-Commissioner Bud Selig.  Above Selig is fifth outfielder Marshall Edwards, whose twin brother Mike played for the Oakland A's.  Above Edwards is the first ever signature on the ball from Jim Gantner.  Above Gantner is baseball arsonist Ned Yost, the backup to Ted Simmons at catcher in 1982.

Also on the ball but faded so badly I'm embarrassed to show them are Buck Rodgers, announcers Pat Hughes and Steve Shannon, Don Money, Sal Bando, Mike Caldwell, and a couple more that are so faded that I can't read them.

The enjoyment I got in chasing those autographs -- as I got them all in person -- was incredibly high.  I just wish that they were still legible.

Memorabilia Monday: Cecil Cooper Signs

As a ten-year-old, Cecil Cooper made me mad. 

It was a sunny Saturday in May in 1982.  It was the first game that I can remember attending, and my mom was patient enough that day in May to say that I could stay after the game to try to get autographs. Whether it was instinct or asking a security guard or asking any one of the dozens of other kids hanging out after the game, we figured out where the players parked next to County Stadium.  I had my ballpoint pen in one hand, my 1982 Brewers police card set in my other hand, and I was ready.

We autograph chasers had to cover two exits from County Stadium. An informal communication system was set up.  Kids were telling their friends and whoever else was in earshot who was signing, whether they were staying long, and whether they were being nice. I'm pretty sure that the players that day had the patience that Job longed for in the Bible, because I know I came home with a bunch of autographs.

But I came home mad too. I've said before that I think I may have related to Paul Molitor because he was a midwestern kid.  Robin Yount grew up before our eyes in Milwaukee. 

Cecil Cooper was a fully formed player by the time he got to Milwaukee.  He was the cool one. He was the guy whose batting stance everyone emulated from the left side -- the bat so loose in his hands that it looked like you could knock it out, weight poised over his back leg with his front leg in an open stance.  He would always take two or three practice loops with his bat in the box, point the bat at the pitcher, then slowly loop his bat back into place.  

You can see the very end of it here in one of my favorite hits of his entire career:

I saw Coop that May day in 1982. He was wearing a flat cap -- Samuel L. Jackson would call it a Kangol hat these days -- with the brim pointed forward.  He had his sunglasses on.  He saw those kids -- myself included -- who said, "Mr. Cooper, could you please sign an autograph?" or "Hey Coop, just one? Please?" or even "Cecil, come on man!"

He did not respond to any of our requests.  He just kept walking, head held high, to his car.  And that disappointed me.

Now, I won't say that Cecil Cooper lost a fan that day, because I still liked him a lot -- he was still one of "us" even if he was an African-American from Brenham, Texas, and all of "us" were white kids of pretty much all Northern or Eastern European descent.  He will always be the first baseman of the Brewers to me.  But he did make me mad, because he just could have said, "I'm sorry, I don't have time today."  

But he didn't.

In his last year in Milwaukee in 1987, Cooper was not even a shadow of the player he had been.  He only played in 63 games that season, and none after July 12 -- the Sunday before the All-Star Break. Cooper had been supplanted at first base by Greg Brock, so he was the designated hitter in that game.  The next time that the Brewers played was July 16, and in that game, the Brewers had a new designated hitter -- Paul Molitor.  July 16 was the first game of Paul Molitor's 39-game hitting streak.

During his last few months in Milwaukee, Cooper made a public appearance at a local department store or mall and signed autographs there. As I learned in May of 1982 and learned again several times after that over the next 6 seasons, Cooper was a tough person to get after games in Milwaukee. The lines for autographs were long that day in 1987, but I finally got a few cards signed by Cecil Cooper:

Cooper hung around a bit too long, frankly -- that .308 lifetime batting average as of 1984 fell to a .298 career average and killed whatever long-shot Hall of Fame argument he may have had.  

But, these cards signed in 1987 made the 16-year-old me a lot less upset about a day 5 years earlier.  Thanks, Mr. Cooper.

Memorabilia Monday: An eBay Stadium Giveaway

I love the fact that eBay exists.  There are times that I wish that my local flea market or card show were more like eBay -- at least in terms of the available selection of items.  The problem is that I know it would turn out more like what Dave Chappelle envisioned the internet would be like if you could visit it. 

So, let's forget I ever thought about that.

Instead, for this edition of Memorabilia Monday, I'm highlighting a cool stadium giveaway from 1990 of Milwaukee Brewers cards.  It should surprise no one that these cards were sponsored by Miller High Life.  Miller Brewing is such a part of Milwaukee life that people take it personally there.  Seriously, saying you like Budweiser in Milwaukee is similar to saying you like Pepsi in Atlanta -- people immediately view you with suspicion and disdain for making such bad decisions in life.

Now, usually, when you get cards in a giveaway at the ballpark, they come in a cellophane wrapper.  Not these.  Here's the book that they came in:

The book contains four-pocket plastic sheets that hold standard-sized cards.  It's pretty unique in that regard -- I don't know that I have seen another similar card giveaway.

The cards themselves are not bad looking cards -- kind of generic except for including beer logos on them:

1990 was a strange year for the Brewers.  The team had been in decline from 1987 forward, and, as I have mentioned before, the Brewers had to make a splash in free agency -- signing Dave Parker -- simply to convince long-time shortstop and centerfielder Robin Yount to re-sign with the Brewers.  Despite making that signing and despite Parker having a fairly good year, the Brewers struggled and finished 74-88.  

This was in no small part driven by the fact that Paul Molitor missed 59 games due to injuries -- which were a fact of life in his time in Milwaukee -- and due to the fact that Robin Yount suddenly looked very old at age 34 in hitting just .247/.337/.380 in 158 games.  Closer Dan Plesac walked too many hitters, causing him to fall into a job-sharing position with Chuck Crim.

On the positive side that year, 21-year-old Gary Sheffield looked every bit the up-and-coming superstar that people were predicting for Dwight Gooden's nephew, and Parker contributed a decent season as well.  Ted Higuera chipped in with his last reasonably full season as a starting pitcher at the age of 32.

Still, this Memorabilia Monday was a throwback for me to my last summer as a full-time Wisconsin resident.  That August, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and came to the realization that I liked living in the South better than I did living in the cold of the Midwest.  So, despite the fact that the baseball season was not a great one, it still was a special one to me as I look back twenty-four years thanks to this great purchase off eBay.

Memorabilia Monday: Leftover Candy

I have never been a big fan of the "jam bands" that a lot of folks like.  That said, today's Memorabilia Monday post brought to mind the name of a well-known Colorado-based jam band called Leftover Salmon. So, a little jam-band music from Leftover Salmon to introduce some leftover candy:

I almost went off on a tangent trying to talk my way through why I don't like jam bands all that much.  As I started my writing, I realized that the real issue for me is simply that I've never really listened to most of these bands because it's just not my "scene."  If it's yours, hey, that's cool -- turn me on to some good songs to get into, and I'll try it.

Anyway, I was trolling around the depths of eBay last week and came across an oddball that I have seen before on there but which I never found at a price I liked.  This time, though, it was a low-priced item so I grabbed it:

This is a 1991 Topps Stand Up Candy Box of Robin Yount, number 36 of a set of 36 from a test issue that Topps tried that year.  From reading a website or two, the American League players were issued in red boxes while NL players were issued in green.  It is my understanding, though, that a rarer variation -- and I mean, really, Topps, do you have parallels for everything? (that's a joke, people...a joke!) -- exists in which all of the players were issued in clear plastic as well.

The truly scary thing to me is that my Robin Yount dispenser is 100% full to the brim with an identified, unlabeled circular candy inside of it.  See -- this is a view from the bottom of the dispenser:

I have to admit -- I'm almost scared even to touch one of these sugary discs.  Should I be concerned that these twenty-three year-old candies are still in the plastic and might cause the plastic to degrade? I mean, even though this plastic dispenser probably will last in one piece until the dinosaurs rise again, I'm a little concerned that the candy might last that long too.

Nonetheless and all joking aside, this was a nice, cheap (~$2) weird addition to my ever-expanding Robin Yount collection.

Programming Note:  I sent out -- or rather my wife was kind enough to run to the post office to send out -- about 7 bubble mailers and a priority mailer.  And, I also sent out a couple of PWEs as well.  I'm almost caught up.

Well, I was before today's mail arrived.

Memorabilia Monday: "Mr. Molitor, would you please sign this?"

I've talked quite a bit about my Robin Yount collection here.  To be fair, I've put in a lot more money and work into it than any other player collection since I got back into collecting.  That's in large part because the Yount collection is my favorite now.

When I was a kid, though, Yount really was my second- or maybe even third-favorite Brewer.  My absolute favorite player when I was a kid was Paul Molitor.  I can't blame him for leaving Milwaukee when he did -- Bud Selig and Sal Bando lowballed Molitor on a contract offer in the offseason after the 1992 season, so Molitor left for Toronto at age 36 on a three-year deal with an option for a fourth year.  The fact that Molitor actually played at a very high level until age 41 is extremely impressive, especially in light of his injury issues in the 1980s in Milwaukee.

Of course, those issues were exacerbated by the fact that the team was jerking Molitor all over the park position-wise.  He came up as a shortstop -- the position he played at the University of Minnesota -- but Robin was there.  So, Molitor moved to second base.  He got hurt in 1980, and Jim Gantner showed he was a decent enough player to man that position.  Thus, in 1981, Molitor went to centerfield because (a) the Brewers had traded RF Sixto Lezcano in the Rollie Fingers/Ted Simmons/Pete Vuckovich deal, and (b) the Brewers felt Gorman Thomas would be better in right than Molitor.  Molitor promptly tore up his knee on May 3 and used the strike to recuperate.

With the Brewers getting Ted Simmons, though, and having a backup catching solution in-house with Ned Yost, they moved Charlie Moore back to the outfield in 1982 to play right, pushed Thomas back to center, and Molitor moved again -- this time to third base.  He played two full seasons before his elbow had to be fixed, so he missed most of the 1984 season.  After that, the Brewers even tinkered with him playing left field some in 1986, then first base starting in 1990, though he mainly was a designated hitter from about 1987 forward.

I loved his versatility as a player when I was a kid.  He also was the first genuine star for the Brewers who came up through the farm system in my memory.  Yount was already established by the time I was just 2 years old, but Molitor came up in 1978 -- and my 6-year-old brain latched on.

As a result, I loved chasing after his autograph, and I would take any opportunity I could to get one.  Here are the ones I have:

The Milwaukee County Stadium Chair from 2000

The Wavelength Waterbeds photo that was my first ever in-person autograph, signed in late June of 1981 in a waterbed store in West Bend, Wisconsin.  Molitor was sitting upright on a bed with his leg in a cast.

The 1981 Fleer card I had Molitor sign at the waterbed store.  Damn did I mangle that card.

1981 Topps, signed with a black pen before I learned to bring Sharpies

1985 Police set, almost certainly signed on that day of that game.

1984 Topps

1980 Topps

1983 Police set Card

Another one.  I think I was "sneaky" and turned my hat backwards to get this one and the previous card both autographed on the same day.

1984 Donruss Action All-Star

1985ish Mr. Z's Pizza 5x7 photo

While I don't have as many Molitor autographs as I do Carter Autographs, the thing was that it was easier to get a bunch of Carters signed all at once by sending them in the mail to him.  With Molitor, my desire to get lots of autographs was weighed against not wanting to be a hog of his time and the fact that I was often catching him right after a game.  He would stop to sign before getting in his car to go home, so he would make sure everyone got one signature. 

Molitor was a Midwest boy too -- a Minnesota native, after all -- so I think that helped me to connect with him as well.  Because he left, I did not want to go head first into collecting his cards, though.  My distaste for Bud Selig's mismanagement of the Milwaukee Brewers franchise would be dredged up with every Toronto Blue Jay Molitor I collected.

In honesty, though, it's probably a good thing that Molitor left.  He played until age 41 -- unlike his friend Robin Yount who quit at age 37 -- and he got to stay in the American League and DH when the Brewers decamped for the National League because, well, Bud wanted it that way.  

More importantly, he kept playing because he got to play for a winning club -- a direction that Selig ensured Milwaukee would not go under his watch.

Thanks for the memories, Molly -- we Brewers fans still appreciate them.

Memorabilia Monday: Got More Carters than Carter's Got Liver Pills

I take some pride in having both a depth and a breadth of random trivial knowledge.  I mean, a couple weeks back, a neighbor was cheating at, er, playing, bar trivia and texted me a question saying, "we need the answer quick!"  The question was to me a pretty simple one: Name one of the two pitchers in baseball history who lost over 300 games (answer at the end).  I texted him the answer back immediately and his response was, "you got that text already?"

My foundation of trivial knowledge was shaken slightly today when I named this Memorabilia Monday post. As a little kid in the 1970s (born at the end of 1971), I really would have sworn that the phrase of having more of something than "Carter's got liver pills" referred to then-president Jimmy Carter.  I stuck that phrase confidently into Google and was shocked to find out that it had no such relationship.  Instead, it was some placebo drug from the 1960s that people took just because...sort of like those same people raised kids who took cocaine, just because....but I digress....here's a television ad for Carters Little Liver Pills:

Now that my whole foundation has been rocked, let's get to the memorabilia.  I have mentioned in the past that I bothered Gary Carter frequently for autographs even though I had to come up with Canadian postage somehow to get the SASE addressed properly and with the correct postage.  He was my favorite player, after all, because he seemed like the nicest guy, always had a smile on his face, and he was a catcher like I was.

Don't get me wrong -- I liked the Brewers catchers -- but I had to have a non-Brewer player collection back then so that I could "compete" with my friend who was a Dale Murphy fan. If you would have told me then that only one of them would make the Hall of Fame, I would not have hesitated to say that it would have been Murphy.  But, the 1986 World Series title gave Carter the big victory, and playing catcher made his numbers stand out more than Murphy's numbers did as an outfielder, so Carter was the guy who is now enshrined.

With no further introduction, here are my Gary Carter autographs on regular-sized cards and stickers:

1982 Fleer

1982 Donruss Diamond King

1982 Donruss

1982 Topps Sticker

1980 Topps

1981 Topps Scratch Off

1981 Donruss

1982 Topps Foil Sticker

1981 Topps Scratch Off unscratched

1983 Fleer

1982 Fleer, and what horrible photography this is!

2008 Topps Stadium Club -- the only one I have gotten in a trade

1982 Fleer

1982 Topps

1983 Zellers

1980 Topps

1982 Topps All-Star

1982 Topps All-Star (#2)

I only wish that Gary Carter had not succumbed to cancer as early as he did.  I also wish that I had more of his autographs.

And, for your trivia answer:  the two pitchers who have lost 300 or more games in their career are both Hall of Famers: Pud Galvin and the incomparable Cy Young.

Hopefully tomorrow night I will be doing the finishing touches on my painting job from over the weekend, so that means that on Wednesday I should finally be able to break the suspense on my 2013 Topps Series 2 case break.

Thanks for reading.

Memorabilia Monday: A New Entry Into my Favorites

There is a saying that there is no zeal as strong as the zeal of the newly converted.

It is most frequently applied in the realm of religions; indeed, a group called the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life found the statement quantitatively true -- at least slightly -- through a survey performed in 2007.  Similarly, though anecdotally, the Australian Broadcast Company has a link to a YouTube video showing a woman who became a zealot against climate change after watching a documentary on melting glaciers.  So, it's not just religion that can bring about such feelings.

The obvious place this is going is for me to look into the mirror.  With a zeal reserved in life for those new or rediscovered loves, I have been attacking eBay with nearly reckless abandon -- searching for items for my Robin Yount collection or my Brewers collection or my Paul Molitor collection.

In that search, I found a new item that immediately became one of my favorites:

This is the 2004 Yearbook for the Hall of Fame induction for Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley.  It had a cover price 10 years ago of $10, and I got it for not much more than that.  It has the short biographies of all the members of the Hall of Fame as well as a three-page discussion of Paul Molitor's career.

I have a bunch of Molitor autographs.  Of all the top stars from the 1980s Brewers, Molitor was the most approachable and most likely to be appearing for autograph signings.  Kids loved him so much that Pepsi and the Brewers named him the "Honorary Captain" for the "Milwaukee Brewers/Pepsi Fan Club" -- which gave away such wonderful hats as this one:

No, I don't have that any more.  But, as a kid, I was a member because for the low price of $8 and two Pepsi proofs of purchase, you got 6 tickets to Brewers games.  And, you could upgrade them to better seats at a cut-rate price.  It was awesome.

That's it for today's Memorabilia Monday.  Apparently, we are going to be taking cover from severe storms for the next day or two here in Atlanta, so I can't guarantee I'll post tomorrow.

Please enter my 100th post contest -- I really want to give away a bunch of stuff if I can, but I need your help to do it.

Thanks again for reading.

Memorabilia Monday: The 1970 American League Red Book

Back when eBay was reasonably new, I was also reasonably new to the workforce.  I was single, living in the city, and had a fair cushion for expendable money -- at least when I wasn't spending it on alcohol and women.  That differs from today because I have a mortgage, and by getting married I have no cushion for expendable money any more.  I exaggerate.  Slightly.

I got it in my head maybe 10 years ago that I wanted to collect baseball books rather than baseball cards.  The books went well with my living alone -- I could pop open a bottle of wine after a long week of work, throw on some music on my old XM Radio, and I would get totally into a zone reading whatever book it was.  Indeed, I tried collecting the books that Bill James cited to frequently in his Revised Historical Abstract.  To be fair, that didn't last long, but Christy Mathewson's Pitching in a Pinch is a pretty decent book for being a ghost-written book from 1909.

Anyway, I'd be on my patio in the heart of Midtown Atlanta with this as my view:

And this too

And that brings me to the memorabilia tonight.

Back in around 2002 or 2001 even, I made a purchase on eBay of a number of the American League Red Books and National League Green Books.  If you don't know what these are, they are essentially media guides issued by the league offices back then.  Here's what the cover of the 1970 one looked like (and apologies -- my copy is in a little rough shape on the covers):

On the cover of the 1970 Red Book was American League MVP Harmon Killebrew.  What a lot of people don't know -- or what many of us old enough to remember sometimes forget -- is that the AL and the NL were two separate legal entities until about 14 years ago or so.  In many respects, they acted as competitors. This book only mentions the National League as part of providing a complete Spring Training schedule.

To be clear, this is not a page turner.  It is filled with lists of team records for career stats, seasonal stats, team rosters, and various rules that would be helpful to people in the media.  The book does feature one slick magazine paper page containing color photos -- color by Raphael, as the page notes.  Here are those two pages:

My favorite photo might be the one in the upper row middle below -- Richard Nixon greeting Washington Senators manager Ted Williams. 

Of more interest to me as a Brewers fan, though, is this yellow insert sticking in the middle of the book:

Since Bud Selig and his group of financial backers purchased the Seattle Pilots after discussions late in 1969. Final approval for the sale and relocation did not come until March of 1970 -- meaning that the Red Book had to be revised to account for this.  

Here's the inner sheets from this insert:

For you aficionados of Gordon Lightfoot, you may be surprised to learn that Edmund Fitzgerald was not just a huge freighter that sank in the big lake called Gitche Gumee. 

Okay, I gotta put that in here:

That freighter was named for the father of this Edmund Fitzgerald.  That man was the chairman of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.  Fitzgerald Jr. of the Brewers only passed away last September at the age of 87.  Even in Young Ed's obituary in the Los Angeles Times, the freighter was the focus of half the story and of three of the first four paragraphs.

The second page in this insert is above.  An item here that caught my eye was the list of hotels at which opposing teams stayed when visiting Milwaukee.  The Pfister is still in downtown Milwaukee, and has the feel you would expect for an old-school-style hotel -- it feels very much like a Midwestern version of the Waldorf Astoria in New York.  It has lots of brass, Oriental rugs in the lobby, and lots of marble.  The Schroeder Hotel is now known as the Hilton Milwaukee City Center and, in the 1980s, was called the Marc Plaza Hotel.  Again, very much an old-school, upper crust hotel.

I guess those hotels wouldn't let the White Sox stay there, so for them it was off to the Holiday Inn.

The final point of interest I saw was the League providing the home residence phone number for the Brewers Director of Public Relations, Bill Sears.  I am not surprised that they would provide his direct line at the ballpark, but one would think that the guy's home phone number would have been off limits.

The final fun part of this book was in a pocket in the back of it:

I took the liberty of redacting the name of the person to whom this envelope was sent.  But, on May 15, 1970, the American League "RUSH!" mailed out updated rosters for all the teams in the league to the people who purchased the book or otherwise were on the AL's mailing list for such materials.  

It's a strange, cool time capsule into what both baseball and America were like 44 years ago to see this type of memorabilia, and I hope you enjoyed seeing it.