I'm Now On Facebook, and July's Donations

Photo: Original address of Facebook's headquarters, in Menlo Park, CA, from its Wikipedia page.

Yes, I've joined the 21st Century, finally, after being a technology curmudgeon for so long. So look me up if you're so inclined. I'm in RI, so you can tell me apart from the thousands of other similar names on there.

[And did anyone notice Facebook's CA headquarters' address? Is Hacker Way the best address for it to have?]

Photo: Salvation Army's logo, from its Wikipedia page, here.

In other news, I made 5 trips to the local Savers and Salvation Army the last few weeks, and in that time donated:

18 DVDs

58 hardcover books

68 paperback books

1,336 baseball cards

As you can see above, I have a movie, paper and cardboard hoarding issue.

Before and After The Walking Dead's Season 7 Premiere

Photo: from the Walking Dead Season 7's Wikipedia page

You can find more blog entries about Season 7 (and past seasons) of The Walking Dead by clicking on the tab for it at the top of this blog. I post this here just to introduce that separate blog. Thanks!

Just Before the Episode Airs

So, Season 7 is upon us, and I'm back for a blog of The Walking Dead since Season 5. Been busy!!!

Who will Negan be bashing with the baseball bat? Since the premiere starts in half an hour, there isn't a lot of time to get into it, so I'll present options and pick, and we'll see how right I was. (Or, wasn't.)

--Glenn

--Abraham

--Eugene

--Rosita

--Michonne

--Sasha

--Aaron

Okay, so my picks. Glenn gets it in the comics here, and in an interview, Lauren Cohen cried about this episode and said it was very depressing and difficult. In the comics, after he dies, she miscarries and then kills herself, but I'm guessing not all of that will happen.

But I think Glenn goes. The showmakers have veered from the comics quite a bit, but I don't think they will here. Plus, Glenn's arc has crested.

I also think Eugene and/or Abraham will go. I wouldn't be surprised if both do, but if I had to pick one, I'd go with...both. Eugene's character has definitely crested and there's not much more for him to do. Once he found his bravery, there wasn't anything else. And Abraham...well, he's basically been another Daryl lately, and that can't go on. His character has more to still do, but...I can't choose between them.

The same can be said for Michonne, and for Daryl, but I'm not ready to pick them yet. Frankly, the showmakers can't be that dumb to cast Daryl away, and Michonne has maybe crested, but has too much of a fan base, especially among women. I mean, she's basically a female Rick, and I mean that in the kindest of all possible ways. Seriously, that's a compliment. Either one would be a logical choice, but I'm not ready to go there.

I am ready to pick Rosita and / or Sasha, but I feel that there would be something interesting between them once Abraham goes. But I wouldn't be surprised if one of them gets hit.

And Aaron is just sort of there. Those guys don't last too long. He goes.

So now I've boiled it down to:

Aaron, Eugene, Abraham, Glenn, with a few maybes. I mean, if the showmakers really want to be mean, they can make it Maggie herself, but that would be...shocking, though not surprising, if you know what I mean. I've only recently been talked out of saying she was one of the ones tonight.

But I have my doubts. (Before the previews, I've even said that Carl could get it. But Rick would've been more insane in the previews had that been the case.)

But I'll say No for now. So four is too many. I'll pick two.

I'll say: Glenn and Eugene or Abraham. Maybe all three. Aaron gets away because he's so irrelevant.

And I don't expect Negan himself to last too long. Certainly not all season. Maybe a few episodes.

My guess is that they won't show who it is until almost an hour in. (The show is an hour and six minutes tonight.)

If you're reading this, what do you think? Make a guess in the comments if you'd like, and I'll be back to this blog with another entry to wrap it up and see how I did.

After the Episode

Well, I didn't want to be right, but so far I was: Abraham and Glenn.

Both deserved better. Glenn especially didn't deserve to go like that, with one eye bulging out. He got in a promise to Maggie, and showed he loved her, but...at least Abraham got a few choice words and attitude in there.

I was just asked why I felt Abraham would get it. One: as I mentioned before, he was essentially another Daryl, and that wouldn't last long. Second, he was listed as one of the stars at the Rhode Island Comic-Con, which is often an indicator that one's role has diminished--as Father Gabriel's last year--or that it has ended. His role wouldn't lessen, so it had to be that it was ending.

Now I'm watching The Talking Dead, so let's see how that goes...I'll watch that now...

Touching tributes to the departed. Hard to believe it's been six years for Glenn! And for all of us watching the show. Cool that Yeun said it was an honor for the end to come to him, as it's the catalyst for everything else that happens, and apparently there's quite a bit. Great attitude! I'm watching Michael Cudlitz and going to bed. Thanks for reading!

Being Thankful--Happy Thanksgiving 2015

I recently asked some people to explain what non-material things--besides family, friends, home and technology--they were thankful for.  Here's mine:

--A job I like.  (Most people I know hate their jobs.  I love mine.  Not every day is a fairy tale, but I love the job overall.)

--A good career, with good benefits.  (I get lots of sinus infections--as if that was my career instead.)

--My numerous interests.  (Writing; literature; baseball; baseball cards; the writing industry; short story and novel reading [and writing]; antique buying and dealing; dealing baseball cards [I'm also a part-time picker]; football; walking; hiking; biking; movies...)  You get the idea.  I think boredom is the worst kind of hell.

--My abundance of energy. (Until lately, I could subsist quite well on 4-6 hours of sleep per night.)

--My "intelligence."  (Real or imagined.)

--My imagination. (Which can often get out of control, and which is often not a gift.)

--My health.  (I used to be a lot worse off, and my sinuses--as terrible as they are--used to be much worse.)

--My sense of humor.  (Again, real or imagined.  If I'm only half as funny as I think I am, then I'm still hilarious.)

--My proximity to mountains, beaches, rivers, hiking and biking trails, and big cities.

--My local sports teams.  (I've got the Patriots and Red Sox.  True, the Sox finished last the past two years, but even then they're entertaining.  And they've still got 3 World Championships in the past eleven years, with a few other post-season appearances thrown in.  Plus I've got Fenway.)

--Great neighbors.  (Bad neighbors can be nightmares.)

--Heat, electric and an affordable education.  (Most people in the world don't have any of those.)

AND A HEAD'S UP TO CHRIS AND JAY AND TO ALL MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHO MADE THIS THANKSGIVING STRESS-FREE AND WONDERFUL.  YOU'RE THE BEST!!!


WHAT'RE YOU THANKFUL FOR?  (It's okay to comment even if it's not Thanksgiving anymore.)

Free Contest to Win A T206--1,400 T206s for Auction at Saco River Auction Co. January 2015

[Free contest to win a free 1909-1911 T206 explained at the bottom of this entry, in the P.P.S.  Contest ends midnight, Sept. 30, 2014.]

Yeah, that's right.  If you're into baseball cards at all, you know the T206s.  I've posted a few pics of the few I have.  This is the set that has the Honus Wagner card, formerly owned by Wayne Gretzky and others, worth literally millions of dollars.

Well, in January 2015, the Saco River Auction House, in Biddeford, Maine, will auction off the Portland Trove of T206s.  One thousand, four hundred of them.  All in good condition, or better.  All of them.  At an average of $50 per card--a very low estimate, considering there are Christy Mathewson cards, Walter Johnsons, Ty Cobbs, etc.--that's still $70,000 worth of T206 baseball cards being sold.  The real fetching price will most likely by ten times that, or more than $700,000.

To show you the awesomeness of this, look at the pics:

Can you believe that?!?  Oh, my goodness.  This makes me want to vomit in jealousy and greed, except I can't stop looking at the pics and wishing I had them.

Of course, since there are only 527 known cards in the set (though variations pop up even now, every so often), there are going to be some duplicates.  My guess is--the piles you see on the tables in the pics are the duplicates of that card.  So if a John Anderson, let's say, (in the second-to-last pic, he's in the second row from the bottom, all the way to the right; looks like he's praying) is on a small stack of three cards, I'm going to bet there are three John Andersons in the collection.  (There's only one John Anderson in the set.)  How did this happen?  Simple: The story is that a gentleman living in NYC in 1909 or so started smoking.  His choice of smoke was the El Principe de Gales--one of the rarest backs in the set!  Anyway, he smoked the stuff and kept the card the pouch came with.  And often, it'll come with a card he already had.  Like getting a duplicate in the wax packs we bought as kids.

So, if you're not doing anything on a particular day TBA in January 2015, and if the weather isn't too bad, I might just take a drive up to 2 Main Street in Biddeford, Maine--about a three hour drive, or so.  Hopefully the auction is on a Friday or Saturday night!  I might save up a little bit by then, and take my list of cards.  If you're into T206s, maybe I'll see you there.  Save your pennies: All of the cards in this trove were graded by SGC, and they're all in good condition or better.

Speaking of card collections, do you have one?  If so, what's your favorite?  Or do you have a favorite specific card, or set?  If you don't collect cards, what do you collect, and which of those is your favorite?

P.S.--Speaking of T206s, I've got a few extras, so I'll be having contests on this blog every now and then and giving one away for free.  Caveat: None of the ones I'm giving away are professionally graded.  They're known as "raw" cards, and they'd list in Poor, Poor / Fair, or Fair condition, but will still be worth at least ten bucks each, even in bad condition.  (I mean, they're free, so waddaya want?)  I'll mail it in a tobacco card toploader.  Stay tuned.

P.P.S.--In fact, what the hell.  I'll have a contest here and now.  Just answer the question(s) above the P.S. in a comment to this blog entry and I'll enter you in a random drawing to win one of my extra T206s from 1909-1911.  Each is worth somewhere between $10 to $25 and can be easily mailed to you.  If you're the winner, I'll ask that you send me an email.  When you do, I'll email you pics of the ones I've got available, and you can pick whatever one you want.  I'll mail it to you free of charge as well.  It can fit in a regular envelope, after all. 

Contest Winner!

Photo: Cover of Spring 2012's Space and Time Magazine, with my first sold story, "Hide the Weird."

And the winner of the contest, of all the comments on the entry announcing the publication of my last story, is......

Jonathan N.!!!

Jonathan, you've won the issue of Space and Time Magazine.  I've emailed you via the one you gave me.

Thanks to everyone, from Rhode Island to Australia, who commented and participated.

And thanks for reading!

Please stay tuned for more contests and prizes to come.  Prizes will be different, too.

Speaking of that, on my blog Steve's Baseball Blog--Cards and Commentary, I mentioned in my last blog entry today that I will be having contests over there as well, giving away one free 1909-1911 T206 card. These cards are extras of my collection, and are not professionally graded by SGC, PSA or anyone else. But they're cool cards, worth at least ten bucks or more, even in bad condition.

Do you have any collections of anything?  If so, what's your specific favorite in that collection?

Forever (Unfairly) Known As A Screw-Up

Photo: My Fred Merkle T206 Card


Have you ever noticed that some very nice people are known for the very one worst thing they ever did?

Even an action that in the great scheme of things--like a baseball game--are not that big a deal? 

Are you one of these people?

Fred Merkle was.  This one-second event would stay with him the rest of his life.  And it gave him his nickname, that even now you can see on his baseball-reference.com page: Bonehead.

The incident even has its own Wikipedia page, as does Merkle himself.  (And most of his page covers the play.)  The play is infamously called "Merkle's Boner."  (Before you giggle, I should note: The definition of the second word: "Mistake.")

From Merkle's Wikipedia page:

On September 23, 1908, while playing for the New York Giants in a game against the Chicago Cubs, while he was 19 years old (the youngest player in the National League), Merkle committed a baserunning error that became known as "Merkle's Boner" and earned him the nickname "Bonehead."

In the bottom of the 9th inning, Merkle came to bat with two outs, and the score tied 1–1. At the time, Moose McCormick was on first base. Merkle singled and McCormick advanced to third. Al Bridwell, the next batter, followed with a single of his own. McCormick trotted to home plate, apparently scoring the winning run. The fans in attendance, under the impression that the game was over, ran onto the field to celebrate.

Meanwhile, Merkle ran to the Giants' clubhouse without touching second base. Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers noticed this, and after retrieving a ball and touching second base he appealed to umpire Hank O'Day, who would later manage the Cubs, to call Merkle out. Since Merkle had not touched the base, the umpire called him out on a force play, meaning that McCormick's run did not count.

The run was therefore nullified, the Giants' victory erased, and the score of the game remained tied. Unfortunately, the thousands of fans on the field (as well as the growing darkness in the days before large electric light rigs made night games possible) prevented resumption of the game, and the game was declared a tie. The Giants and the Cubs ended the season tied for first place and had a rematch at the Polo Grounds, on October 8. The Cubs won this makeup game, 4–2, and thus the National League pennant.

From the incident's Wikipedia page:

 The play was immediately controversial. Newspapers told different stories of who had gotten the ball to Evers and how. Christy Mathewson, however, who was coaching first base for the Giants, acknowledged in an affidavit that Merkle never made it to second.^[22] One newspaper claimed that Cub players physically restrained Merkle from advancing to second. Retelling the story in 1944, Evers insisted that after McGinnity (who was not playing in the game) had thrown the ball away, Cubs pitcher Rube Kroh (who also was not in the game) retrieved it from a fan and threw it to shortstop Tinker, who threw it to Evers. (By rule, after a fan or a player who was not in the game touched the ball, it should have been ruled dead.) A contemporary account from the Chicago Tribune supports this version.^[23] However, eight years prior to that, Evers claimed to have gotten the ball directly from Hofman. Five years after the play, Merkle admitted that he had left the field without touching second, but only after umpire Emslie assured them that they had won the game. In 1914 O'Day said that Evers' tag was irrelevant: he had called the third out after McGinnity interfered with the throw from center field.^[24] Future Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem said Merkle's Boner was "the rottenest decision in the history of baseball"; Klem believed that the force rule was meant to apply to infield hits, not balls hit to the outfield.

(Me again.)

And so there you have it.  A man who played in five (!) World Series (that's a lot for 1900-1920, before Babe Ruth's Murderer's Row teams and the beginning of the Yankees dynasty; in fact, the Yankees--or the Highlanders, as they were also called--were often a last-place team in those years), who finished in the top-10 in the league in homers four times and in RBIs five times, will forever be known as the guy who didn't touch second base (as most baserunners didn't when the game-winning run scored) and cost his team the pennant.  Though, even if it's not said on Wikipedia, the truth is that his team lost to a rookie pitcher at least four times in the last two weeks.  (This I remember from The Glory of Their Times.)  A win in any one of those games--or in any other that they lost after this particular game--would've given them the pennant.

As Bill Buckner wasn't solely responsible for Boston's 1986 World Series collapse--sorry to bring it up, but the comparison's too obvious--so too was Merkle not solely responsible here.

And he was never known for anything else.

Not even for those five World Series appearances with a few different teams.

All five which he, of course, lost.

No one, it is said, is the best thing--or the worst thing--he's ever done.

Even if it is all he's remembered for.

Crazy '08

Photo: Book cover, from http://cardboardgods.net/2008/04/30/interview-with-cait-murphy-author-of-crazy-08/

I've been a little crazy myself, in the last year or so, amassing a collection of 1908-1911 T206s from various sources, and displaying them in my office.  'cuz I'm awesome and exciting like that.  From behind SGC- or PSA-graded cases peer the faces of Jack Pfeister, Hooks Wiltse, Red Ames, Dave Brain, Red Murray, Solly Hofman, Clark Griffith, Dots Miller, Fielder Jones, Chief Meyers, Laughin' Larry Doyle, Lee Tannehill, Harry Steinfeldt, Wild Bill Donovan, Nap Rucker, Doc Crandall, Wee Willie Keeler, Al Bridwell, Rube Marquard, Frank Smith, and Cy Seymour.  And Joe Tinker, from a 1911 T205.  All of them played baseball in the year wonderfully carzy baseball year of 1908.  They played for the teams most covered in this book: the Chicago White Sox; the New York Giants; the Detroit Tigers; the Chicago Cubs; the New York Highlanders (soon thereafter known exclusively as the Yankees) and the Pittsburgh Pirates. I've got their T206s, and they're all in this book. 

And it is captivating reading.  Like the cards themselves, the book is a time capsule of 1908.  Life.  Baseball.  People.  Living conditions.  It's all there.  The book is not just about baseball.  In it you see the personalities of all these guys, plus the more popular players I can't afford: Ty Cobb; Honus Wagner; Eddie Plank; Frank Chance; Christy Mathewson; Walter Johnson, and so many more.  You see a typical day and a typical life in 1908--equal parts gritty, harsh, hard, yet alluring.

Countless of these guys played baseball because otherwise they'd be digging and dying in the Pennsylvania mines.  They're spotted by scouts and managers playing for semi-pro or mine teams in the middle of nowhere, for teams of towns with populations less than 500.  They're typically given one chance, and one chance only, by a system in which the teams don't have to sell them to the major league team, and often didn't.  The manager--who was a manager, a general manager, a scout, and a bookkeeper, all in one--would take one look at a player, and say Yes or No based on a five-minute appraisal.  The players in this book (and in The Glory of their Times, which will be reviewed soon, too) all say that better players than they did not play major-league baseball not because they lacked the skill--but because they lacked the good fortune.

Honus Wagner politely declined to play baseball in 1908, he says, so he could go home to his farm and raise his chickens.  Turns out, this was a salary clash behind the scenes.  He played it quietly, like a gentleman, and he got the money he wanted.  A similar salary dispute--and not a disagreement about his likeness being sold with tobacco products--led to his insistence that his T206 baseball cards be destroyed.  They were.  Only about 50 supposedly survived the purge.  The one known to be in the best condition is worth, literally, millions of dollars.  I don't have that one, naturally.  So I instead got Honus Wagner's constant double-play partner, the second basemen to his shortstop: Dots Miller.

Ty Cobb was despised by his peers, his own teammates, the umpires, and the fans.  He was considered the second-best player in the majors, behind Wagner--who was the equal to Cobb as a hitter and as a baserunner, but who was a Gold Glove-caliber fielder at every position, and very well-liked to boot.

Christy Mathewson lost a lot of very important games towards the end of that season.

Fred Merkle's mental lapse wasn't the only reason the Giants missed the playoffs that year.  A rookie pitcher beat them three teams in the final ten days of the season.  Mathewson lost a lot of close games--but still won over 30.  The Giants were 10-6 in their last 16 games.  And so on.

A team could lose their chance to make the playoffs by half a game due to a rain-out.  And it happened in 1908.  The rule that all necessary, rained-out games must be played at the end of the year didn't go into effect until 1909.  Unbelievable.

Ballplayers played amidst terrible conditions, on the field, physically, and otherwise.  It was common for teams to play exhibition games during the season, on travel days between cities, in small towns.  They played 154 games that counted, minus rainouts, plus perhaps a dozen or more games that didn't count.  And the stars were expected to play in all of them.

Very good teams counted on their HOF starting pitchers to the extent that such pitchers pitched both games of a doubleheader, or for three or more consecutive days, or in relief--often all in the same week.  The end of 1908 saw Mathewson, Plank, and Three-Finger Mordecai Brown pitching all of the final dozen or so games.

Most games had just one umpire.  (!)  So players would do things like miss third base by fifteen feet as they were running home, and the lone umpire was looking elsewhere.  The league finally bent and put two umpires on each game.

Spitballs were legal.  Pitchers openly spit and loaded up the ball.  Players were expected to use the very same one ball all game long.  Games were often stopped so a player could go into the stands and retrieve a foul ball.

And so on.  Not just baseball: the serial killer of the Chicago-area farms--a large, unattractive woman who lured men to their deaths through soliciting for romantic partners in the paper--gets its own chapter.  This situation, which I will make into a novel someday, has never been conclusively solved.  Some say the woman escaped capture.  Her name was Belle Gunness.  Look 'er up.

Vaudeville--very popular.  Popular New York players could make a second career--or a first--on vaudeville stages during the off-season.  Many of them did.  One of them, Mike Donlin, left baseball for the stage.  And then came back, of course.

The writing is crisp, and clear, and very authoritative--and with a slight bite and attitude.  It is very quick reading, though I cannot say that non-baseball fans will love it, too.  I think you have to be a fan to read it, but there's a lot of history and 1908 reality here, too.

And this, from George Will, reviewing the book for the New York Times:

"Murphy’s book is rich in trivia — not that anything associated with baseball is really trivial. Did you know, for example, that when the Yankees were still the Highlanders (they played at the highest point in Manhattan) they adopted their interlocking NY lettering “based on the Tiffany design for the Police Department’s Medal of Honor”?

Readers of “Crazy ’08” can almost smell the whiskey and taste the pigs’ knuckles. This rollicking tour of that season will entertain readers interested in social history, will fascinate students of baseball and will cause today’s Cub fans to experience an unaccustomed feeling — pride..."

The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter

Photo: book's cover, from its Wikipedia Page

Outstanding collection of first-person observations of many ballplayers--mostly from the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cincinnati Reds--from those who began their careers in the late-1890s / early 1900s (Tommy Leach and Sam Crawford) to those who finished their careers in the 1930s and 1940s (Paul Waner and Hank Greenberg).  I really liked this book because it initially talks a lot about many of the players I have in my 1909-1911 T206s, who I didn't know a lot about, outside of their names and stats.  It's nice to be able to put a personality to the face on the card.  It was also interesting to hear about what baseball was truly like in the early 1900s by those who played it, and about what they thought about their contemporaries.

Some of the things I learned:

--Though they were called "the minors," such teams were not like the minor league teams today.  The starkest difference is that these teams were not in existence to feed players to the parent team, like such teams are today.  (For example, the Pawtucket Red Sox is the AAA team for the Boston Red Sox.  The Pawsox's sole purpose is to provide a place for players to play so that Boston can call them up if it needs to.  If Boston did need a player, a phone call brings him to Boston.)  But in the early 1900s, smaller teams were not there to just supply players to the big-league team.  That type of farm system didn't exist until the 1940s.  Instead, a team in the Pacific Coast League, or the Mid-Atlantic League, or the Triple-I League, or the Southern League, or the Tri-State League--or in tons of other amateur, semi-pro or professional leagues--had to be paid for the player.  The players interviewed said that these teams were often helpful to the player's chance to make the majors--but they didn't have to be.  A few players said the smaller team's owner would involve them in the transaction process--and often take a lesser deal to grease the wheels for the player.  But the insinuation was that the team could hold on to the player for a year or two more than today's minor league teams would, thereby making their big-league careers shorter. 

--Many players said the pay between the smaller team and the big league team were almost the same.  In many cases, the big-league team only paid about $50 more per month--and the player wasn't always crazy about receiving more money, but playing much less often, at the big-league level.  A few were happy to be sent down so they could play more often, even if they were paid a little less.

--Managers played a much bigger role in the contracts and finances of the team and player than they do today.  The manager signed players to contracts and haggled over salaries.  Players often went directly to the owner when they were annoyed with the manager--but they had to deal with the manager first.

--Players frequently jumped from one team to another, often in the middle of contracts.  Many HOFers jumped to the Federal League (in the mid-1910s) mid-contract simply because someone from that league offered them more money--often a few thousand more, which was a lot back then.  They didn't hesitate to do this because teams would unceremoniously dump players with no notice, or lower their salaries despite career years, or trade them at any time, or send them to a lower league at any time.  For example, as late as the 1940s, the Detroit Tigers just flat-out sold Hank Greenberg to the Pittsburgh Pirates, for $75,000.  Greenberg had 44 homers and 127 RBIs the previous year.  Anyway, nobody was loyal to anybody.

--And the owners were very, very cheap.  Because they could be.

--The consensus was that Honus Wagner, and not Ty Cobb, was the better player 1900-1920.  After that, everyone agreed it was Babe Ruth.  The players were clearly in awe of Wagner and Ruth--even the other HOFers.

--Honus Wagner was apparently a Gold Glove-caliber player at any position at all on the field.  Even if Cobb was slightly the better hitter (which was not a given), Wagner was the much better defender.  Players were just as impressed with Wagner's defense as they were with his offense.

--Hall of Famers got traded shockingly often.  Managers, too.

--Supposedly the earlier players were uneducated, right?  Not so, say these players, and they knew tons of examples of ballplayers and the colleges and universities they'd attended.  They all said that the percentage of all players being college-educated was much, much higher than the percentage of college-educated people amongst the general public.

--Having said that, there were a tremendous number of hicks and "rubes" as well.  Literally, like Rube Waddell, and Rube Marquard, and...

--Most of the ballplayers didn't mind receiving slightly-lower pay on the smaller teams because even that pay was light years ahead of what was waiting for them outside of baseball.  Lots of miners and other hard-laborers amongst the ballplayers, and those players did that kind of work during the off-season.

--Players barnstormed as often as possible outside of the baseball season.  And they would go anywhere, even to very small towns and sparsely-populated areas.

--Most players loved John McGraw.  A few didn't.  Sometimes they seemed to be talking about different people.  Same thing for Ty Cobb, except most said Cobb was "very hard to get along with."  But they all respected his fire and passion.  A few said Cobb was okay to be around.

--All of the players cared a lot about their peers being nice guys.

--If you were injured, you lost your job.  Period.  And no play equaled no pay.

--Quite a few of them, such as HOFer Sam Crawford, had careers outside of baseball that lasted 25-35 years after they retired.  And, surprisingly, players lasting beyond age 40 was common.

--Most of them said that the ballplayers playing while the book was being put together (50s and 60s) were much better, overall, than were their peers.  And they all said that Willie Mays (not Mantle, Aaron or anyone else) was the best present-day player.

--But they all also said that their peers were much more baseball-smart than were the present players, mostly because the present-day players just wanted to hit homers, while their peers had to scratch and scrape for runs, because homers could not be hit in such huge ballparks with such a dead ball.

--Many pitchers between 1900-1930 blatantly marked up the ball.  Emory boards, tacks, spit, powder, and--most often--tobacco juice were loaded onto the baseball to make it harder to hit and to see.

--All of them said baseball life was lonely.  Which made nice people so important.

--Because only one umpire worked a game in the early-1900s, if there was a play at the plate (where the one empire therefore had to focus), baserunners would often not come anywhere near second or third base as they rounded the bases.

I could go on and on.  If you're into history, or baseball, or the history of baseball, you'd find this fascinating. 

Francona, by Terry Francona and Dan Shaughnessy--Book Review

Photo: Terry Francona, as he is now--a manager of the Cleveland Indians--in a photo from a Boston Globe article about him winning Manager of the Year.


A very readable, if not mindblowing or all-revealing, look at the life and times, especially 2004-2011, of former Red Sox manager Terry Francona.  I read it in a couple of days, as most decent readers and/or baseball fans would.

I had put off reading it for a long time, as I very much liked and respected Francona (and still do) and did not want to read an airing of his grievances.  He was always a "keep it in-house" kind of guy, and I didn't want to see him break from that and air his--and the Sox's--dirty laundry.  But an uncle of mine let me borrow it, and I had some time off, so I read it.  It was a nice distraction, but if you're hoping to get the nitty-gritty on his quitting / firing, or the real inside scoop on Manny, or Pedro, you'll be disappointed.  There isn't much here that most serious Sox fans wouldn't already know.

In fact, Francona has a few more books in him when his stint with the Indians is over.  I'd like to read more about his minor league coaching days, which are given very short shrift here--surprising, since he had so many minor league jobs, and since he was Michael Jordan's coach in Birmingham, the Double-A club of the Chicago White Sox.  Managing Michael Jordan's baseball days is a book in of itself--a book he should get to, before Jordan's star starts dimming.

I'd also love to hear more about a baseball lifer: the minor-league coaching and managing; the bus rides; the fans; the management.  The major league coaching jobs he had as bench coach with the A's, or the Rangers, or a few others.  His days managing in Philadelphia.  His one year with ESPN.  All of that stuff would be more interesting to me than the stuff written about here, 99% of which I already knew.  The Manny stuff, the Pedro stuff, the last days in Boston--all old news, and already known.  (Though I did not know that the Colorado Rockies purposely had an famous country singer / ex-girlfriend of Josh Beckett's sing the National Anthem before Game 4--while he warmed up in the bullpen to start the game.  He told someone: "For the record, I broke up with her."  That's right out of Major League or Bull Durham, and taught me something else: That Beckett actually has a sense of humor.  I still blame him for most of the catastrophe of September, 2011.)

And, despite the airing of some grievances--mostly about John Henry and Larry Lucchino--Francona and Shaughnessy clearly tap dance their way around every potential volatile issue, so as not to truly upset anyone.  Theo Epstein comes out of it much better than he probably should--partly because he and Francona were so close.  But there are no lightning bolts here, which is, in a way, too bad, because there are lightning bolts to uncover about September 2011, and about who leaked the private information that partly led to Francona leaving.  But I'm glad there aren't any lightning bolts as well.  As I said, I like and respect Francona (and was happy that his Indians made the playoffs [albeit for one game] and that he won Manager of the Year--a first for him, believe it or not) and so I am happy to not see any incredible dirty laundry being publicly shown.  I'm guessing that, because he is that kind of guy, he only wanted to show in the book things that really are in the public realm, things that most serious Sox fans already know.  He showed the dirty socks and shirts, and not the pants, if you catch my extended metaphor there.

So, good book.  It won't be as memorable as Jim Bouton's Ball Four, but it'll pass the time.  I read it mostly during the commercials of the 2013 ALCS and World Series games I'd DVRed.

P.S.--Getting the Cleveland Indians into the playoffs was a better showing of his managerial talents than anything he did with the Sox, in a way.  The Sox always had playoff talent in all his years there.  The 2013 Indians, on the other hand, is a team that he wrung every drop of talent out of to make the playoffs.

Blog News

Dear Readers,

In the next few days, I will try a massive (in terms of time, anyway) undertaking: two new blogs, maybe three.  So in addition to this site and my sports blog (where I babble mostly about baseball, baseball cards, and the sports world at large), please look at my American Horror Story: Coven blog, and my Walking Dead 4 blog, both via Blogger.  If they're not up when you check, please come back.  I'll put up the American Horror Story: Coven blog first, since the season's first episode has already aired.  Walking Dead 4's blog will go up tonight, or tomorrow--most likely tomorrow.

I may also start a blog, tentatively titled Steve's Sales, that will contain photos, descriptions and prices of things I want to sell.  This would be via Blogger as well.  So take a peek at that, when it's up, and let me know what strikes your fancy.  Just send me an email at the address on the top of any of my blogs, and I'll get back to you ASAP. 

As always, thanks for taking the time to peruse my meager scribblings.  I hope my readers, friends and followers like what is to come.

Sincerely,

Steven E. Belanger

How Bookstores Pay Us Not to Go There

Photo: Barnes and Noble icon, from twimg.com.  (Notice the brick and mortar name and the .com.)

So a few days ago I walk into the only large (chain) bookstore left in all of Rhode Island: Barnes and Noble.  I wanted to go there because a) I'd forgotten if I'd pre-ordered Stephen King's latest, Dr. Sleep, his sequel to The Shining.  (For the record, I'm a little concerned about how I'll like the motorcycle gang, but we'll see.)  I ask the guy behind the help desk to look it up in my account, and it turns out that I hadn't pre-ordered it.  I ask him if I can do so, using this 20% extra coupon I'd been emailed, and hoping I'd be able to use it with the 40% off new hardcovers usually come with, and maybe even the 10% off I sometimes get because I'm a member.  (I realize that hoping to get 70% off a new Stephen King hardcover is extremely unrealistic, but as my previous blog entry mentioned, these are some hard times.)

He says No, that Barnes and Noble doesn't offer discounts on the pre-ordered books through BN.com because new books ordered online are already greatly reduced.

"How much reduced?" My ears perked up, because I like things greatly reduced these days.

He explains that to buy it in the store, I'd have to pay the $28 (or so) price, plus tax.  That's over $30.  I'd get the 30% off, not the 40%, and I'd get an additional 10% for being a member, and that's it.  No other coupons allowed.  No 20% additional from the coupon.  I was about to start a discussion about the meaning of the word "additional," as in, the coupon says "get an additional 20% off," but instead I ask him how much it would be to just pre-order it online.

"Nineteen dollars," he said.

Huh?  I quickly figured that 10% of $28 was $2.80, and that twice that was $5.60, and that twice that was $11.20 (that's the 40% off total, for those not so mathematically inclined), and that $30 (with tax) minus $11.20 was $19.80--essentially what it would cost me to sit on my butt at home and order it from there.  Plus, I wouldn't have to pay shipping, because I'm a member and I get that for free. And no money spent on gas, etc.

This gave me pause.  I told the guy I gave him credit for bringing the whole online thing up to begin with, as I had been ready to buy it from the store the week of September 23rd.  I said it was especially good of him to mention it, since everyone who orders a book at bn.com, and not at the store, makes his job more and more obsolete.  It also would make obsolete the jobs of the cashiers and the cafe workers, and it would negate the sales of a great many other books and magazines that are sold to people who come into the store to buy A, and who leave the store buying A, B and C.  From my experience, people who go online to a bookstore website to buy A end up buying A and that's it.  ("From my experience" here means me and a few friends.)

He acknowledged all of this, though it was clear that he hadn't considered all this before, and nobody had had the gumption (or the arrogance) to bring all this up to him before.  Times being what they are, I pre-ordered the book and had it delivered for free to my house, feeling badly as I did so, but at least congratulating myself for not waiting a few weeks or a few months and then buying it for just a couple of bucks on Amazon or Ebay.

To make myself feel a little better, I looked for a baseball card checklist / price guide I needed, but I was told that they didn't carry it in stock, but that their website did.  Sigh.  I bought a couple of coin books I needed instead, feeling that Barnes and Noble was at this point working against me as I tried to buy something in its store.  I had to go through entirely too much hassle and brainpower to do so.

In the long run I'll have to admit defeat.  Before long, the workers behind the registers, in the cafe, behind the help desk, and in the rows of books won't have a job, and the stockholders and CEO of Barnes and Noble will make more money because they won't have any workers to pay.  And there won't be even one large bookstore in my entire state.  Somewhere in there (though Stephen King himself probably doesn't need the money) the writers themselves, and the book publishers, will end up somehow getting screwed, as more and more people buy "books" online and then read them on their electronic devices, never having to actually be verbal with another person as they do so.  For this, book-makers will disappear, as will printers, type-setters, and all the middlemen who are responsible for the sometimes high price of books--but who also keep the economy going by being a necessary worker, and by holding a job.  This in turn makes them money, which they would spend on things that would also necessitate the jobs of other people.  The economy is a house of cards this way, and it's all going to someday blow down.

People will wonder why the economy got so bad.  And there won't be any economics books to teach them.

Or the teachers, for that matter.  But that's another blog.

Ebay and Letting Go

Photo--Former ebay logo in an office hallway.  From digitaltrends.com

I've discovered ebay lately, much to my happiness and my chagrin.  Happiness because I now own about 25 1908-1910 T206s, as well as a few 1935 Diamond Stars and a couple of more Goudeys.  (These are all popular, yet usually-expensive, baseball cards.)  I also now own 1 1887 N172 tobacco card in very good condition, and a great Pedro Martinez-autographed, bigger than 18 X 20 photo, in a walnut frame, with "2004 W.S. Champs" after his autograph.  It is one of the most beautiful things I've ever owned.

So why the chagrin?  Well, let me put it this way: I've shut down the account for now, and there are Post-It reminders on my laptop (which I usually type these on) to not bid on anything else for the foreseeable future.  I have become very good at winning bids.  I have a great system.  This is also a good and a bad thing.  The only specific I'll give is that the 1887 card cost $104 and change, and that's a steal for the card.

This was all well and good but for the hit-and-run driver who smashed into the back of my car as I was stopped in front of a side street that led to the parking lot of my job.  I got hit hard, and was dazed for a bit, and got some neck soreness and a fat lip--and just over $4,300 in damages.  The insurance covers most of that, thank God, but a $1,000 deductible still is what it is.  Considering what I spent on ebay, that was the absolute wrong thing at the wrong time.  (Though I admit that I could have been hurt much more than I was.)

So now the second part of the title of this blog entry: Letting Go.  I have to let go of the hopelessness that you feel that someone could smash into your car and drive away, and the woman who was a witness to it--who was, in fact, hogging the whole side street so that I had no choice but to stop to let her out--did not stay for the cop, or at least offer her name and number, or call 911, or anything.  She saw the car that hit me.  She must have seen it drive away, unless she was too busy driving away herself.  So I have to let go of the anger and bitterness of that whole situation.

But I also had to let go of a couple of things I've had for awhile.  I had to sell a couple of things because I needed the cash on hand.  I have some savings, but I have to leave it there in case something else like this happens.  I went through some of my many baseball things--which I don't usually do--and I had to sell a couple of my baseball things--which I never do.  After reviewing what I had, I set aside a second Dustin Pedroia autograph (this one on a baseball; I have a better one on a large autographed World Series photo of him) and about 50 to 75 baseball cards.

Letting go of the Pedroia ball hurt a little bit, but that's why you get duplicate autographs, right?  This one I got at a Picnic in the Park at Fenway a few years ago; the woman I was dating at the time paid for the expensive tickets and took me, and I had the time of my life--as well as many Sox autographs.  (One of my favorite memories was throwing a baseball against the Green Monster for a few hours on a perfect afternoon.  My spot was just to the left of the Jimmy Fund boy in the circle.)  Anyway, the ball (which had George Kottaras's autograph, too, and you can go to the front of the line if you remember him) reminded me of that day, and so I was sort of sorry to see it go.  I have other autographed baseballs from that day, but still.  I sold it for $50.  I would have asked for more, because it sells consistently on ebay for $85-$120.  I asked for $60 and settled for ten dollars less because I sold it to a co-worker, and he's a very nice guy.

Then I called a guy who had come to one of my yard sales this past summer.  We'd talked a bit and he'd mentioned that he liked older baseball cards, of which I have a plentiful supply.  It took me awhile to decide what to part with, and the way the sale went down, I had to part with a card I'd rather not have had to sell, a 1975 Topps George Brett Rookie Card.  This had been given to me when I was about 14, so I've had it for a very long time.  The book value on it was $40 to $80 in Near Mint condition, which my card maybe was, or maybe was just short.  I also sold 99 commons with it, and a 1975 Topps Steve Carlton, Phil Neikro, Hank Aaron, Dave Winfield (book value--$30 to $50), and Robin Yount rookie card (in faded condition).  I got $100 for all of that, which is a pretty fair deal for both the buyer and the seller.  You never get book value for cards.  It's impressive that I even came close.

Anyway, letting go of that Brett card hurt more because I've had it for so very long.  When I looked at it, I remembered the me that I was at that age.  It was also one of the more valuable cards I've had in my collection since I started collecting at age 12 or so.  But I needed the money, and it was all profit, since I didn't pay for any of the 1975 cards.  And I was never particularly fond of the 1975 cards anyway.  They're really hard to get in decent condition because of the color patterns Topps made them with.  And I'm more into pre-1970 cards, anyway.  The 70s, with maybe the exception of the 78s or 79s, were an ugly time for Topps.

Ebay makes letting go a little easier.  If it gets too much for me, I can just buy another one, maybe in better condition, maybe for even less than I just sold it for.  Years ago, it would have been impossible to replace a 1975 Topps George Brett rookie card if you'd sold it.  Now, it's just a mouse click away.

And I feel that letting go, and adapting, is necessary for growth.  And I've never been particularly good at doing that.  Not that keeping that Brett card forever would have been a bad thing if I'd liked it, or if I'd wanted to wait for it to increase in value.  But it probably wouldn't have gone up that much more anytime soon (although all vintage cards increase in value over time, just because they're old), and I never really liked the card in of itself.  I much prefer '51-'53 Bowmans and '52 and '53 Topps, as well as the '44 and '45 cards, and the 1887 N172s and, of course, the T206s.

I'm moving on, and I needed the money, and I like other cards now (and they're more expensive because they're so much older).  I've changed, and not just in my baseball card preferences.  I would not have been able to sell the Brett card 10 years ago, and maybe not even in the last few years.  But that's what you do with free stuff you're not attached to by anything more than nostalgia, right?

It's possibly a short story in of itself: a card given to me for free when I was 14 was sold (with other cards, but the Brett rookie was the creme de la creme of my 75s, and of the 1975 set in general) for about $75 to $80, with all of the other cards selling for about $20 to $25.  It's going to a new home now, and I know that this is inappropriate personification, but I asked the guy to treat it well, and to display it well.  He said he would, though I have my doubts, as he said he has a billion other cards, including many T206s, just hanging out in bureau drawers or something.  (I asked him to call me about the T206s.)  It's fulfilled its purpose for me, as it turns out, and so I hope it's good to someone else, too.

And if it sounds like I have some separation anxiety about it, it's because I do.  But you have to let go, right?  You have to adapt and change.  That's what the hoarders can't do--and I see now that it's possible to be an emotion hoarder, too.

P.S.--If you're interested in buying any baseball cards, send me an email (the address is at the top of this blog page, with all of my other associations) or place a comment, and I'll get back.  Let me know what you need, and if I've got it, we can talk.  The T206s and the 1887 card are not for sale.

Stealing Shakespare--The Shakespeare Thefts (book review)

Photo: A 1623 First Folio in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.  From the Wikipedia page, "First Folio."

Extremely easy-to-read and interesting book, but probably only for those interested in Shakespeare, his folios, or really old books.  I talked about this recently with a friend and she just rolled her eyes.

But I thought it was interesting, and the author's fascination and joy of his subject also leaps off the page.  He clearly loves what he does, and he is clearly very knowledgeable of what he does.

What is that, exactly?  Well, he's a Shakespearean scholar, and an overall authority on the 1623 Folio, and its 250 or so copies out there, out of the 750 total copies that had been made in 1623--and sold without binding.  If you were alive in 1623, and if you bought the First Folio, you bought it in manuscript form--a pile of paper (or cloth, actually), and then you paid one pound extra (25% of your yearly average income in 1623) to have it bound, often in calf-skin.  (The author, Eric Rasmussen, believes there are maybe 250 more out there, somewhere, possibly in boxes in libraries--or in somebody's attic.)  His lifelong ambition: to very minutely survey and catalog every single copy of the 1623 Folio out there.  To authenticate every page of every folio out there.  To find missing folios.  Why?  Because they're frequently stolen, because even one in poor condition is worth a few million, and because...well, because he's sort of a fanatic about it.  And I mean that in a very, very complimentary way.  Had I the education of this stuff, and the time and the money, I would definitely join him on his travels.  Though the whole waiting, and the dealing with people, I would have to leave to he and his team.  I mean, if there were a painting of the real Shakespeare (there probably isn't one), wouldn't you want to own it, regardless of the value?  (Rasmussen bought a painting he hoped would be of Shakespeare, since the provenance made it a possibility.  But his purchase had been painted over.  He still hopes it's Shakespeare, but it isn't.)

I don't know how to explain the joy someone would have about reading stuff like this, except to maybe give you an example.  I'm sort of a nut about old baseball cards as well.  The cream of the crop for such things is the 1909-1911 T206 Honus Wagner card, which even in poor condition is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  A very good one sold recently for seven million dollars.  People are absolutely fanatic about this card.  Many would steal it, if given the chance--and not for the money.  Just for the chance to hold one.  And to own one?  Heaven.  Bliss.  I feel that, too.  I saw one a few years ago at the New York Public Library in Manhattan.  Someone thought it would be a great idea to paste that one to a scrapbook page, so that all anyone would ever see of that card is the front of it.  Not only does this greatly reduce its value, but it's not about the money--it's about the awesomeness of the card itself.  If you can say, "So the hell what?" then maybe this book isn't for you.  But if that makes you grind your teeth with frustration and anger, because some idiot made it impossible for anyone ever again to turn that card over to see the back, you'd enjoy this book.  The card is so awesome that it deserves to get turned over and seen in its totality, you know?  ::sigh::

The stories in this book about the trials and tribulations that people--and their folios--have undergone over the years matches the above example.  People have stolen them just to have a copy.  Just to hold it in their hands, to flip through the cloth pages, to...You get the idea.  Being a Bardolater (supreme lover of Shakespeare) is probably a must to feel this way about the folios--which Shakespeare himself never got to touch.  They were edited and collected by Henry Condell and John Heminges, actor friends of Shakespeare's, at great personal cost, in terms of money and of their effort and time, and published in 1623.  Shakespeare died in 1616.  If you didn't know any of this (I did), then maybe this book isn't for you.  If the thought of holding one and leafing through its pages makes you giddy, then it is.  I bought a facsimile of the 1623 Folio at a consignment store for $38, which still feels like a bargain to me.  I have to admit that I'm a Bardolater.

You'll learn how some of them were stolen, how some were returned, how some are missing, and how some have mysteriously disappeared.  For example: Sir Thomas Phillipps, compulsive collector of tens of thousands of very old and very valuable books, had a son-in-law who was in the habit of cutting up very old and very valuable books and scrapbooking some of his snippets.  (If this makes you recoil in horror, as it does me, you'll want to read this book.)  Well, this made Phillipps horrified as well, so to make sure that this son-in-law (married to Phillipps's only child) wouldn't cut up and scrapbook anything in his collection after he died, he had his entire vast library moved out of his mansion and moved into another, bigger, mansion, in 1863.  He then had a will made up that said that nothing could be taken out of this second mansion, and that this son-in-law, and Phillipps's daughter, couldn't go into this mansion.  (He had to do this because the first mansion hadn't been originally his, and his descendant had a will that didn't have these restrictions.)

Furthermore:

--this mansion was so huge that he rode a horse from room to room.

--it was so huge that prepared food would be served cold because the kitchen was so far away from the dining room.

--the book collection was so vast that Phillipps had to hire 175 men to drive 250 cart horses pulling 125 wagons to this second mansion 20 miles away.  This took a few years.

And it didn't matter.  Someone, probably the daughter or the son-in-law, stole the 1623 Folio anyway.  And it's been missing ever since.

If the thought of a 1623 Folio being cut up and mutilated, and of a couple of these mutilations being scrapbooked, doesn't make you grit your teeth, Rasmussen's book isn't for you.  Ditto, if you can't understand why someone would have so many books.  I have a few thousand, none of them very valuable, so I can completely understand this.

Anyway, if owning a 1623 Folio just to own it, regardless of value, sounds super-awesome to you, read this book.  It's a very fast and enjoyable read, at just 172 pages, minus acknowledgements and notes, which are sort of interesting as well.  (The 1623 Folio, by comparison, had over 900 pages, and cost one pound--about 25% of the average worker's salary in 1623.)

Stephen King's Blockade Billy / Morality: Barnes & Noble vs. Amazon

Photo: The book's hard cover, from bookdepository.com

The small hardcover of Stephen King’s Blockade Billy / Morality is handsome to hold and to look at, and it looks different than any of his other actual physical books.  The two stories inside are the same: very different than usual for him.  Not bad, exactly; just different.  But to compare them to his other works—and their quality—is like comparing apples to oranges.  There simply is no comparison.

"Blockade Billy" is about 80 pages long; "Morality" checks in at about 50.  They're both written in an oddly (for King) distant tone.  I wonder at that writing choice, especially for the second story, because it seems like he could have done more with them if he'd focused his lens a little more upon them.  "Morality," especially, could have gone places if he'd created actual scenes from the man's and woman's POV, rather than just tell the story in a detached, long distance way.  It's like he wanted to tell the stories without focusing on them too much.  The stories aren't bad, exactly, because of this; it's just that they could have been better.

The first story was published in a (very) limited edition previous to this.  The second story was previously published in Esquire, which seems right.  It's definitely an Esquire type of story--and a bit of a Playboy story, as well.  King's been published in The New Yorker and in Esquire recently.  He's always been mainstream, of course, though now he seems to be more of a mainstream writer for mainstream literary magazines, which is quite new for him.  You can add his column in Entertainment Weekly to this phase, too.  I don't know quite what to make of it, if anything.  I suppose the tremendous (and well-deserved) success of On Writing opened these doors for him.

Lastly, something needs to be said for the quality of stories that King gives to limited only editions.  All of his novels, of course, come in limited editions--signed, gold-plated, leather-bound with ornate boxes; you name it, he's got it going on--but some, such as this, come in editions that are only limited.  Even previously-published stories such as these are usually later published in mass-market hardcovers and paperbacks.  Stories of this length would be packaged with two others and sold in a book of four, like Different Seasons, or Four Past Midnight.  Why weren't these, and others like these?  (I'm thinking of the Hard Case paperbacks recently reviewed.)  I don't know, exactly, but I have to assume it's because he felt that they weren't worthy of such packaging and selling.  Are these two worthy?  I don't know that, either.  But I'm going to say No.  I think that because, as I mentioned, King himself seems to have just sort of let these go.  You have to sell what you write, of course, and they'll sell because King wrote them.  So you sell them to Esquire, or a (very) limited edition, and then you package them into a book.  But then why not mass market that book?  I come back to how he wrote them: tells more than shows; no exactly focused scenes in either story, exactly.  The first one is a dramatic monologue (a la Dolores Claiborne) told to Stephen King himself.  Huh?  This conceit is left completely unexplained.  I feel that he wrote them, and sort of shrugged, and didn't know what to do with them.  Then someone called him, some limited edition publisher, and asked him if he had anything.  He did.  Then Esquire called and asked the same thing.  And then, later, when the rights reverted back to him, he realized that they didn't go together with any other two longer short stories (fifty pages isn't quite a novella, in my opinion, though eighty pages is), and so he packaged them together for another limited edition publisher, since I feel he felt them sort of unworthy of mass market sales.  I mean, can you package a baseball meets In Cold Blood story with anything else?  How about an Indecent Proposal meets sadomasochistic behavior story?  Nope, not so much.

Well, whatever.  Stephen King fans will like these two stories.  Baseball fans will like the first one, as a certain 40s or 50s era game is brought back, though the players described seem more 1890s to 1910s to me.  Fans who've read his Esquire and New Yorker pieces will like the second one--and I read somewhere that it's won some awards somewhere.  This was the last of his (relatively normally published; not-so-limited) books that I didn't have, and I was annoyed because I remember seeing this at Barnes & Noble when it was released for (seemingly) a few days.  I didn't buy it because I was in some sort of mood; I remember thinking that a baseball story didn't belong in the same book as an S&M sort of story, and I remember thinking that some kid would buy it for the baseball story, and then be shocked out of his pants by the second story.  I was nuts at the time, of course.  I went back to the store, and they didn't have it anymore, of course.  But they could order it for me for $25.  Um, no.  So I went to my local used bookstore.  Nada.  So then, belatedly and with a sigh, I went to Amazon (which you should never do when buying a book because the author usually won't see a cut of it) and bought a brand new, never opened copy, delivered to my door, for a total of $11.  I hated to do it, but I can't afford to pay $14 more, not including tax and shipping, from the bookstore.

So I'll leave this rambling review with that.  I had to buy a limited edition book, from an even more limited edition run before it, from Amazon, because the bookstore charged way too much (it was a bit less on BN.com, but nowhere close to what Amazon had it for) and because the limited edition (limited, for whatever reason) didn't produce enough copies for a used bookstore to have a realistic chance to get it.  I know this is bad, and that I would hate it if people bought by books on Amazon for a penny, rather than from the bookstore for the real price, because I wouldn't see a cut of it at all, and it would be literally be taking money out of my pocket.  And that sucks, but in the same exact position, I'd have to do it again.

Would you?

Opening Day 2013--Red Sox 8, Yankees 2

Photo: Jackie Bradley, Jr., from nbcsports.com

A little self-advertising, if you will.  The following is the first entry of a re-booted sports blog, which you can find after this at Steve's Baseball Blog.The link from this blog is listed with my other sites in the right column.

So I'm going to give this blog another shot.  Hope springs eternal, right?  Gone seems to be the bitterness of last year, in which we had a manager nobody liked (including his own players), players nobody liked (including the manager, and the other players) and a front office that seemed to be a bit distant from the action.  Then came the fire sale trades at the end of the season, and things looked up, except for the players themselves, because by then nobody cared.

In all of that, you have the fact that the players weren't trying at all, despite being paid millions (or, tens of millions, in a few cases), and then when the Jerry Sandusky thing came around, that was it for me, folks.  Maybe I'll see you, maybe I won't.

After that, I tried with some baseball cards--which I liked doing, by the way.  And I liked how I went into the players lives, and delved a bit deeper into their backgrounds, or their issues.  In the meantime, I learned a few things as well.  But then some personal changes happened, and my writing took off, and I didn't have the time anymore.

But now I'm back.  The smoke has cleared, and the dust has settled, and whatever other trite cliches you can think of have happened.  Spring is here.  There's hustle and bustle and excitement and exuberance on this Sox team again--for now, anyway.  But there does seem to be a new attitude, and that's not just the Sox ads on NESN talking there.

So, the game.  Opening game, opening series, and at Yankee Stadium, no less.  True, this Yankees team is essentially their Triple-A team right now, but the Sox still had to face Sabathia.  They've handled him well in the past, sure, but this game wasn't even about facing him, beating the Yankees, or even winning, per se.  It was about the new look, new attitude Sox.  The new face of the team.  That's what I mostly wanted to see.

And I did.  Specifically, here are the notes I took during the game (when I watched it on DVR after returning from an appt.):

--I'm glad I thought ahead enough to get two autographed baseballs from Jackie Bradley, Jr. when he was at Pawtucket Red Sox Hotstove League in January.  One to keep, and one to sell when the time is right.  Already his autograph has sold on ebay for about $50.  After one major league game.

--Lester is noticeably taking less time between pitches.  He needs to do that all year.  He was told to do so the last couple of years, but didn't.  This was a Becket influence, I think, since Josh has a cup of coffee and a sandwich between pitches.

--Lester's keeping the ball down and not feeling, also like Becket does, that he can just blow his fastball by people whenever he wants.  He has to set up his pitches better, which is what he's doing now.

--Seeing what I've just written, I'm noticing how glad I am that Becket's gone.

--Bradley's first AB was brilliant and memorable.  Down quickly 0-2 to Sabathia.  Takes some (very close) pitches for balls that you would expect a player with his limited experience to swing at.  Fouls off some good pitches.  Finally draws a walk after a seven or eight pitch at bat.  This pushes runners to second and third, which is more important than the fact that it loads the bases.  This PA proves John Farrell's point about how impressed he was with Bradley's approach every AB.

--I don't know why Sabathia didn't continue to give him off-speed stuff inside and low.  He was susceptible to those in this AB.

--Iglesias infield hit to short; Bradley safe at second by an eyelash, which extends the inning and scores the run.  Speed on both counts, Bradley safe at second and Iglesias fast enough to not even draw a throw to first.  I like it!

--Ellsbury hard hit to first, throw home for one out rather than to second and back to first for a possible double-play.  Youkillis knew that with Ellsbury running, the DP wouldn't happen.  Again, speed.  Iglesias now on second and Bradley at third.

--Victorino singles in both speedy runners with a hard hit single.  I was wrong to question batting him second.  I forgot about his solid production the last few years, and I forgot about his Gold Gloves.  My bad.

--Pedroia singles in speedy Ellsbury.  With Bradley batting eighth, Iglesias ninth, Ellsbury first and Victorino second (and maybe even Pedroia third), the Sox have five consecutive above-average to speedy runners.  That's very nice.

--Napoli, who'd looked silly in his first AB, just (and I mean just) gets under one and skies to deep center to end the second inning.

--Good show here in the second, with lots of walks, speedy running, and clutch-hitting.  You can do a lot of things with walks and singles.  This is how the Sox won titles in 2004 and 2007.  This needs to happen every game, all year, in order for them to have a chance.

--Bradley's great catch on Cano's (don'tcha know) drive in the 4th.  He took an odd-looking route to it, but it's a results-oriented business, as Orsillo says, and he made a great catch.

--Iglesias's push-bunt single in the fourth.  He needs to do that much more often.  Every time he hits it in the air, he owes me twenty push-ups.

--That's a line from Major League, by the way.  That one was for you, big guy.  (Because Bunky's already taken.)

--I love Jonny Gomes, the second straight Jonny the Sox got from the Oakland A's who's an under-rated table-setter, run-producer and all-around making-it-happen kind of guy.  You don't see a two-run infield single too often.  I won't be surprised if the players talk more about Gomes's hustle than they do Bradley's play in this game.

--Bullpen is doing a good job, but we knew heading into the season-opener that the bullpen was actually going to be a major plus for this team.  That, by itself, is unusual for Boston, even for the World Series winning teams.

--There's so much talk about Bradley right now, it seems like Sox fans have him already ticketed for the Hall of Fame.  And he doesn't even have a hit yet.

--Great start for what hopefully is a new-look, new-attitude team.  They should at least be fun to watch, on tv and at Fenway.  I go to my first Fenway game on April 12th.

It's Been Awhile

photo: from the show's Wikipedia page



It's been ten days since the last post, and the reason for the absence, bottom line, is that I'm on vacation, so not spending too much time in front of the computer screen.  But now that I've had a moment, let's see what else has been going on:


--"Blade Runner" went from feel-good story to Batman villain faster than you can say, "Holy spring blades, Batman!"  I know that in America you're innocent until proven guilty, but, damn...and he's in South Africa, anyway.  I truly hate it when people you root for end up being like this.  Makes you cynical, and cynicism is not something I need more of.

--I was the host of a meeting with a few people and my councilman, of Ward 5.  Very interesting stuff, and I seem to be the de facto secretary of this group.  No problem.  Hey, at least I'm not the leader.  Nobody wants that.

--Lots of personal changes around here.  You'll just have to sit and wonder about that. Or not.

--I got another short story published, this one my first non-genre piece, which is really exciting.  It's not completely official, so more on this in a future post.  There was a very cool compliment given along the way, too, so more on that later, as well.

--It finally climbed above thirty-two degrees here, so the feet of snowdrifts can melt.  Can you say "coastal flooding?"  I knew you could.  But not here (knocks on wood).  I'm perched atop a hill.  And, no, it's not because I look down on everybody.

--Jackson, the Wonderdog, seems to have gotten a bit better.  We'll find out for sure during the appt. on Thursday.  (Knocks on wood again.)

--A sad note: a member of my former (?) writer's group very suddenly passed away in his sleep a few days ago, age 62.  A very good writer of nonfiction, a la Russell Baker, and a quiet-spoken guy who apparently had done a lot of things with his life.  I didn't know him extremely well, not well enough to know if he had any health issues, but still...You just never know.

--On the flip side, Spring Training started, and all players have now reported.  Soon the ballplayers will waste about a month of their time so that southern cities and towns can make mucho dollars off of them.  This time of year is only necessary for veterans to get back into shape (which they should've been in already), and for rookies and mid-level players to show their stuff in hopes of making the team.  For the established stars?  Not much to do.

--Of course, I'd drive down there right now to just play in an intra-squad game.

--Walking Dead has returned, and it has not disappointed thus far.  I'm still trying to figure out how they're getting away with so much language, violence and gore on a channel that's not a pay station.  And I'm looking forward to seeing it in black-and-white.

--The Following isn't bad, either, though the acting and directing probably make it better than it really is.  I mean, how many times can Ryan go back into the house of a witness as that person is being attacked by someone nobody knew was a follower while the entire police department mills around uselessly outside?  This show will decline rapidly if it doesn't start showing why some people become followers of such a person to begin with.  And it's not a good sign when the scariest villain is a young woman, who sorta looks like a guy, and who weighs maybe 70 pounds while holding a 50 pound weight.

The Last Ten Days--City Hall and Estate Sales

 Photo: Old glove from keymancollectibles.com.  The one I bought looks much like this one.  This one is in better shape, but mine's older.  Yeah, yeah, condition is everything, I know.

Sorry I've been gone for the past ten days.  I was really ill, and my PC is under plastic upstairs due to the constant (but very necessary and very well-done) renovations the last ten days, and plus I'm a bit behind on work for the job that pays The Man.  But some things have been happening these last few weeks, so here are a few quick shots:

--I went to an estate sale today, which is a great place to pick because the company gets paid more to get rid of everything and not as much to get the most they can for everything.  The family hiring the estate sale company usually just wants the house cleared so they can sell the house, and so they usually don't care how much they get for things.  The company will say prices are final on the ads, but that's never the case.  So the long and short of it is that I got about 100 CDVs and Cabinet pictures (pics from between 1870 and 1890), eight baseball bats from the 20s - 40s, a foot-powered scooter from between 1895-1905, a baseball glove that I confidently place in the 1910s (and maybe as early as 1905)--all for a hundred bucks.  I could sell each of the 100 CDVs and Cabinet pics for $5 a piece on Ebay or Etsy (which would be underselling many of them) and thereby make my $100 investment into $500, and that's just with the pics.  The bats would go for $15 to $50 apiece, as soon as I can date them, and the scooter would go for $25 to $40 by itself as well.  And the glove would go for about $35 to $50 because it is clearly very old.  All of these things are very highly collectible.  I might even keep the scooter for myself; I rode it up and down my street earlier.

The key is to bundle and buy in bulk, and then sell them piecemeal.  Not very sexy, perhaps, but this will help keep me busy during those winter nights and days, and make decent part-time money, too.

You would think that a man who had collected bats and a glove from the 1910s and 1920s, and who had a book about collecting old, vintage baseball cards, would've had old, vintage baseball cards.  But there were none, and I asked the people running the estate sale, and they'd never seen any there.  I left them my card and begged them to call me if they found any there.  If you've got bats and a glove from the teens and twenties, and if you've got a book about collecting baseball cards from the 1910s and 1920s, then you should have baseball cards from the 1910s and 1920s.  But, no.  Hmmmm.....I suspect someone from the family, or a neighbor, or someone, walked off with those.  I would've spent a very large sum for those.  I hope they call.

--My new favorite person is Jan, from my town's City Hall.  I needed to get a copy of a deed for a property of mine, and since this house is being renovated, I couldn't find the deed here.  (Truth be told, I probably wouldn't have found it had the house not been under renovations.)  So I had to face City Hall, which can be an arduous experience, not to mention an afternoon killer.  At work, I looked up my town's City Hall website and I found a department with a name that sounded like it might be what I needed.  I sent an email to the department, in essence saying what I was looking for, and mentioning that I hoped this was the right place to ask for it, and if not, where was the right place, and what did I have to do?  Here's the email response I got (sit down while you're reading this):

Good morning Mr. Belanger,

I’ve printed a copy of your deed for you and will leave it in the main office (Recorder of Deeds) in the main town hall.  It’s ready for you, so you may pick it up this afternoon.  There is no charge, I printed it as a courtesy for you.

Best,

Jan

Archives Clerk
My response to that (after I picked myself off the floor):

That's awesome!  Thank you so much!  I really appreciate it.   And now Jan the Archives Clerk's response to that: Most welcome sir! Is this woman awesome, or what?  I don't care if she's a 70-year old, wrinkled and frail-thin woman working part-time or volunteering at City Hall, I'm finding out who this woman is, and I am marrying her.