Panini previews 2012 Elite football

Posted May 15, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 15, 2012 at 06:24 PM

Panini America previewed its 2012 Elite Football set on Monday, as the early July release date is fast approaching.

A 20-pack hobby box will contain two autographs, two relic cards, four rookie cards and (varying on the box) six or seven inserts or parallel cards.

The rookie cards will be a good draw, and Panini is going with youth as Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III are prominently featured on the box top.

Rookies will get good play on Elite autograph cards, too. The Rookie Inscriptions inserts will feature an on-card autograph from one of the top 36 players selected in this year’s NFL draft. Plus, Panini said the cards will feature the top 2012 draft picks in their NFL uniforms.

Base Rookie Cards will be numbered to 999, while autographed and die-cut parallels will be numbered to 699 or fewer.

While Elite is playing up rookies this season, that doesn’t mean NFL veterans and retired star are being ignored.

Passing the Torch autograph cards will be numbered to 25 or less and will combine players like Dan Marino and Drew Brees, Emmitt Smith and DeMarco Murray, and Cam Newton and Robert Griffin III. The last pairing begs the question: has Newton really been in the league long enough to be “passing the torch”? Oh well, it’s marketing, I get it. But it seemed like a curious pairing under those guidelines.

Back to the Future memorabilia cards will be numbered to 199 or less and will showcase players like Doak Walker, Dan Fouts, Otto Graham, Ted Hendricks, Don Meredith and Bob Hayes.

Another relic subset (that’s the jersey swatches, not the players …) is Throwback Threads. These cards also will be numbered to 199 or less and will feature combos like Rocket Ismail and Jerry Rice, Marshall Faulk and Steven Jackson, and Jay Novacek and Jason Witten. There also will be autograph versions from this subset.

  Panini gets defensive with The Hit List subset. This will contain memorabilia cards numbered to 199 or less showcasing defensive stars like Clay Matthews, Aldon Smith and Jason Babin.

And the Prime Numbers subset will contain relic cards of some of the NFL’s most productive players, like Calvin Johnson Jr., Eli Manning and Maurice Jones-Drew. They will be numbered to 299 or less.

So it looks like a nice mixture of cards will be hitting the shelves come July. That variety will be a nice lure, and so will the possibility of pulling some of the hottest rookies from the draft.

 

 

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Disability never a handicap for ex-Clearwater HS baseball coach

Posted May 14, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 15, 2012 at 12:10 AM

“Don’t listen to the naysayers,” former Clearwater High School baseball coach David Vince tells youth groups these days as he travels through his native state of Louisiana. “And don’t make excuses. You’ve got two good arms and two good legs.”

Vince knows about skeptics. He was born with tibial hemomelia, a congenital bone disease that results in the shortening — or lack of — leg bones. Both of his legs were amputated above the knees when he was an infant. Even though Vince loved baseball, he was unable to play the game competitively.

That didn’t stop Vince from a carving out a 29-year career coaching baseball at the high school and college level. He won 470 games before retiring from his last job in 2010 — at Clearwater, where he had a 38-43 record in three seasons, including a 17-9 mark his first year.

Vince looks back on his career in his first book, co-written with freelancer Jeremy Harper, “When Life Throws You Curves, Keep Swinging” (LangMarc Publishing;  $19.95 paperback, 120 pages). It’s a quick read and an inspirational one.

“It’s a story that can resonate with people from all walks of life,” Vince said Monday night from his home in Ragley, La. After retiring as the Tornadoes’ coach and returning to Louisiana, Vince began writing the book last August and finished it in February.

In fact, the cover of the book is from the Tornadoes’ 2010 game program, showing Vince conducting a pregame prayer with his players.

The 52-year-old describes himself as an “old school” coach (“you know, like the more you throw, the stronger your arm gets”), who drilled his players in fundamentals and peppered them with motivational phrases (“the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. …”).

He also had to overcome his players’ reaction to having a double amputee as a coach. It wasn’t a problem at his first school, Catholic-Pointe Coupee High School in New Roads, La. The players already knew Vince because he had been an assistant on the football team earlier in the school year. It was at other jobs that players’ eyebrows may have been raised.

“I guarantee you, initially they were probably thinking the principal and athletic director were crazy,” Vince said. “But I’d had a high level of success early. As I progressed in my career, the résumé eliminated some of that.

“Then it became a non-factor.”

As a 21-year-old coach in his debut season, Vince led Catholic-Pointe Coupee to the state final. He would be named coach of the year 10 times, and 30 of his players would earn baseball scholarships. Five would be selected in the Major League Baseball amateur draft. He coached 10 district champions and led two teams to the state final. He also helped coach a squad during a European tour, and has scouted for several major-league teams, including the Rays. Vince has never lowered his intensity level. “I’ve got to outwork everybody,” he said.

“When I was younger I wouldn’t let anyone else hit fungoes or coach third base,” he said. “I wanted to prove I could do it.”

Vince writes about the pains of growing up as a double amputee, and how he was harassed by other children. He was bullied as a fourth grader, getting knocked down. That ended one day when a child charged him and Vincent swung one of his wrist crutches, hitting the kid flush in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him.

He took accounting in college but was struggling. Enter Rev. Lynn Baggett, a youth pastor at First Baptist Church West Monroe, who encouraged him to take up coaching. Vince would graduate from McNeese State in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education.

“That little nudge in the right direction took me a long way,” he writes.

It took him on a journey to 12 different schools. Along the way, Vince got married (the story about how he met his wife Susan is a nice one), and started a family. The birth of the couple’s second child, Sierra, was a jolt. In addition to being born nearly three months premature, Sierra had same leg deformities as her father. Doctors performed a DNA test and found that Vince was carrying a defective gene, and that every child the couple had would have a 50 percent chance of a similar condition.

Doctors were unable to correct Sierra’s condition, and at 18 months she had both feet amputated. Vince described it “like a tremendous punch to the gut for me” and blamed himself for his daughter’s situation. But he was able to turn something distressing into a positive.

“I was able to see the situation in a larger context and realize that I was the best role model for Sierra to see what she can accomplish because I had already experienced what she will be facing,” he writes.

Vince had concerns before Susan gave birth to Hunter, their third child, but the boy is “perfectly healthy.” His birth led to the Vince family leaving Florida to be near their families in Louisiana. Vince retired, became a stay-at-home dad, and began work on the book.

“I had time on my hands to write it,” he said.

That led to some eye-opening exposure to the world of publishing, Vince said. He wanted testimonials to go along with the book, so he sent the first two chapters out to people he believed would be interested.

Former Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden was the first to respond (“read this book and be better prepared for what you will face in life …”).

As a fan of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” of the 1970s, Vince realized a dream as an adult when he had his picture taken with catcher Johnny Bench at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino in Lake Charles, La. Bench later had to have hip replacement surgery; Stryker Corporation’s Orthopaedics Division made the artificial ceramic hip for Bench’s right side and the mobile bearing hip on his left.

Vince tried to go through Bench’s publicist, who said the Hall of Famer didn’t do that kind of thing. Vince persisted and sent the two chapters, along with the photo he had taken with Bench. His tenacity was rewarded as Bench delivered (“Hard work and perseverance will bring success ...”).

“When I got Bench’s endorsement, I cried,” Vince said. “I was just humbled by it.”

Other testimonials were submitted by Rays manager Joe Maddon, Texas Rangers star Josh Hamilton, FSU baseball coach Mike Martin, former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri and retired LSU basketball coach Dale Brown. Diligence pays off.

The book is available on amazon.com, but Vince also established a website for orders (www.davidvince.com). He said anyone who orders through his website will get an autographed copy of the book.

Vince would like to get one more testimonial for the book’s next printing run — current Jets backup quarterback (and former Florida Gators star) Tim Tebow. No success so far, but I have a feeling Vince will find a way.

It’s right there in his book. “You don’t have to be perfect to achieve success,” Vince writes, “but you do have to be committed.”

 

 

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Smoltz shares an inspirational journey

Posted May 13, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 13, 2012 at 07:47 PM

John Smoltz originally did not want to write a book, but after some reflection, the eight-time all-star pitcher realized it was a chance to discuss something more meaningful than just baseball.

“I feel a burden to write this book,” Smoltz notes in the opening chapter of “Starting and Closing: Perseverance, Faith, and One More Year” (William Morrow, $26.99, hardback, 294 pages).

Burdensome to Smoltz, perhaps, but not to the reader.

This autobiography, co-written with veteran author Don Yaeger, is different in its approach and scope. This is not a story-of-my-life book in the traditional sense. The subject matter is mainly Smoltz’s final season in the majors, as he attempted to return from surgery for the fifth time. But he uses the insights gleaned from a 21-year career in the majors — 213 victories, 154 saves, one Cy Young Award — to put that 2009 season into perspective.

What I find so refreshing about “Starting and Closing” is Smoltz’s humility. He has the numbers and achievements, and very easily could have dwelled on his many successes. Anyone would be proud to play on a team that won 14 consecutive division titles, as the Atlanta Braves did under manager Bobby Cox. But Smoltz writes about his camaraderie with his fellow Braves pitchers, his revelation at a Bennigan’s restaurant when he became a born-again Christian, and his divorce from his first wife and subsequent marriage to Kathryn, his current spouse. He also discusses how he helped form King’s Ridge Christian School in Atlanta.

Smoltz does not hit the reader over the head with his Christian beliefs, but I do think one passage is revealing. Before he “truly” became a Christian, Smoltz confessed that “all I was doing was putting up a good Christian front.”

“From the outside, everything looked and sounded really good,” he writes. “On the inside, when it came down to my motivations, my reasons for doing things, it wasn’t adding up.”

Smoltz readjusted his life around and found peace, and that helped him relax and turn in some of his finest seasons with the Braves, including 1996, when he went 24-8 with a 2.94 ERA and won the National League Cy Young Award.

There is plenty of baseball in this book, too. Smoltz writes about his often uneasy relationship with Braves general manager John Schuerholz (“It’s safe to say we didn’t talk too much, but it’s not like we despised each other either.”) He explains why Cox has been so successful as a manager. I always recall watching Cox sitting on the bench in the Braves’ dugout, looking like he was ready to take a nap. That, of course, was untrue. You don’t win 14 division titles and a World Series title by snoozing between innings.

“Bobby’s moves were always calculated, made with the intention of preserving a lead, preserving his athletes, or generating some offense when the run-support well had run dry,” Smoltz writes. “He knew things the rest of us didn’t know, saw things even the best in the game didn’t see.

“This is what good managers do.”

Smoltz writes about the differences between starting and relieving, and discusses his fight to return to the starting rotation despite his success as the Braves closer (he saved 55 games in 2002, followed by seasons of 45 and 44 saves in 2003 and ’04, respectively).

Coming out of the bullpen was a radical change from Smoltz’s desire for structure.

“Closing took away one of the things I liked most about starting,” he writes. “Knowing when I was pitching next.”

He improved as a reliever, although there were some hairy moments; for example, walking in from the bullpen and hearing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” being played as his “walk-in” song. “I started laughing on my way out to the mound,” he writes.

The team finally settled on the “Star Wars” theme, then switched to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” when he stepped from the outfield grass to the infield.

Smoltz is now retired from the game, but has opened a new chapter as a broadcaster and still harbors an ambition to play professional golf on the Champions Tour. Within the next five years, two of his Braves pitching teammates, Greg Maddux (355 wins) and Tom Glavine (305 wins), will be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame. So will Smoltz. It is not a stretch to suggest that all three pitchers will be enshrined in Cooperstown someday.

Regardless of what happens, Smoltz writes that he will follow the same principles that have sustained him in life.

“Have dreams and chase them. Don’t be afraid to fail,” he writes. “Learn how to rally, and trust that you have the ability to find your own measure of success in life.”

And, “in all moments, look up.”

That’s easy to do, since Smoltz has written an engaging, uplifting book.

 

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‘You Stink!’ pays tribute to the worst in baseball

Posted May 13, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 13, 2012 at 12:35 PM

Norman Rockwell’s “The Dugout” sketch, which was the Sept. 4, 1948, cover of The Saturday Evening Post, is the perfect scene-setter for “You Stink: Major League Baseball’s Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players” (Black Squirrel Books, $24.95, paperback, 332 pages) — except for one small detail.

At first blush, it’s a great image — members of the Chicago Cubs morosely watching from the dugout as their team drops a game to the Boston Braves. Meanwhile, fans behind the dugout are jeering at the Cubs, including Rockwell, who is pictured in the upper left-hand corner of the drawing.

The minor detail? The Cubs are not among the terrible teams mentioned by authors Eric J. Wittenberg and Michael Aubrecht, although Cap Anson is mentioned in the book’s Hall of Shame for his racist leanings.

I suppose since Wittenberg grew up a Phillies fan during the 1970s, he could have used the photo of Richie Allen tracing the word “Boo” at third base, in response to the heckling Philadelphia fans.

But I am quibbling here. Actually, this is a fun book. I mean, anyone can admire a successful franchise or player. But it takes a lot more to be interested in teams and players that, well, stink. And Philadelphia had its share of awful teams — both the Phillies and the Athletics have entries in this book.

Wittenberg and Aubrecht are funny, but not mean-spirited, as they examine teams from the 1889 Louisville Colonels (27-111) to the 2003 Detroit Tigers (43-119). There are some heavyweights here, like the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (20-134), the 1962 Mets (40-120), the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (36-117) and the 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates (50-112).

Both authors have extensive backgrounds in history and met because of their mutual interest in the Civil War. Wittenberg is an award-winning Civil War historian and is a lawyer in Columbus, Ohio. Aubrecht, in addition to writing many articles for Baseball Almanac, has studied baseball history along with the Civil War and the American Revolution.

There are plenty of fun facts in “You Stink!” A sampling:

The 1904 Washington Senators did not win their 10th game until June 28 — the team’s 58th game of the season.

The 1916 Athletics finished 54.5 games out of first place, and 40 games behind the seventh-place Senators. They went 2-28 in July.

The 1962 Mets finished 60.5 games out of first place, used seven different catchers, and staff ace Roger Craig won 10 games — while losing 24.

The authors use extensive charts, showing pitching, hitting and fielding statistics when available. This is put to good use if you want to track the 23-game losing streak by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies, or want to see the day-by-day results of the 1962 Mets.

Terrible teams are not just limited to the field. The authors included the 1969 Seattle Pilots, and not because Jim Bouton wrote about that team extensively in “Ball Four.” The Pilots’ record was 64-98 (I mean, the Devil Rays had worse years), but what set this franchise apart was the ineptitude of management. The team played in a minor-league stadium and “sold out” its home opener with a crowd of 17,850. Poor attendance and marketing and the lack of a television contract forced the owners to sell to car dealer Bud Selig, who put the team in Milwaukee and renamed it the Brewers.

While the authors stick to the facts, they also put some subjective choices in the book, which they readily admit.

There is a Hall of Shame section, which “recognizes” bad teams, players, decisions and scandals. There’s the story of the 1884 Wilmington Quicksteps, a Union Association team that was so awful that for a Sept. 21, 1884, game against the Kansas City Cowboys, no fans showed up. None. Plus, the Quicksteps could not come up with the $60 fee required for visiting teams; prior to the first pitch, the team was yanked off the field and disbanded.

Other feats included in the book are the late 2007 collapse of the New York Mets,  the Black Sox scandal of 1919, the 19 straight losing seasons suffered by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the top 10 worst plays (Bill Buckner fans can guess what the No. 1 pick is …) and the game’s worst players. Worst hitter? Bill Bergey, who played from 1901 to 1911. Worst fielder? Tony Suck (yes, that’s his real name). And the “grand champion” is Mets catcher Choo Choo Coleman, a mainstay on that awful 1962 squad who also played for the 1961 Phillies.

There is plenty of fun in this book, but there are some glitches. For example, the first name of the first commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, is misspelled in the chapter about the 1942 Phillies (it is spelled properly in other places, however).

The teaser leading into the chapter about the 1899 Cleveland Spiders correctly gives the team’s road record as a staggering 11-101 mark, coupled with a 9-33 home record. But two pages later, the authors put the numbers at 11-109 and 9-24. Baseball Almanac and http://www.retrosheet.org confirm the numbers at the beginning of the chapter.

Some team records didn’t square with those on retrosheet as well, but that was probably due to ties.

It doesn’t detract, but it is curious in places.

The nice thing about “You Stink!” is that the authors add fresh material on their blog, so if you enjoyed the book, you can go to their blog for updates: http://youstinkbaseball.wordpress.com . Their latest entry documents the Rangers’ Colby Lewis allowing back-to-back-to-back homers to the first three batters he faced in a game this week against the Orioles. The fourth batter flew out to the warning track.

It’s only fitting that the book opens with a foreword from the Phillie Phanatic and ends with this quote from Walter O’Malley — “Baseball isn’t a business, it’s more like a disease.”

For baseball fans who love to devour any words about the game, “You Stink!” is like a disease — you know the “achievements” are awful,  but you keep coming back for more.

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In The Game brings back Broad Street Bullies

Posted May 12, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 14, 2012 at 01:08 PM

In The Game is bringing the bullies back.

In The Game will unveil its Broad Street Boys set — a tribute to the Philadelphia Flyers franchise — on June 29.

Each box will contain 14 cards —eight base cards and six inserts. In The Game said in a news release that the production run on this product “will be extremely limited.”

The base card set will focus on the history of the Flyers. Subsets will include Expansion Year, Broad Street Bullies, Triumph and Tragedy, Contending in the 90s, New Millennium and Continuing the Tradition. 

The inserts will either be game-used or autograph cards, or a combination of both. The autograph cards will come in black and orange variations. Full checklists should be available May 15.

I included a photo of the Battle For The Cup memorabilia card, since it depicts a young Phil Esposito, who was on the Boston Bruins squad that lost to the Flyers in the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals. The card features Bernie Parent and Rick MacLeish, Dave Schultz and Gilles Gilbert, and Terry O’Reilly and Esposito.

The Flyers repeated as champions by defeating Buffalo in the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals.

I find it interesting that In The Game is targeting a narrow audience with this product — after all, how many Penguins fans will be rushing out to the stores to snap up this product? On the other hand, it’s really not such a gamble. The Flyers, particularly the group that played during the 1970s, were a tough, in-your-face bunch of brawlers who didn’t back down from anyone. They may have been feared or even despised, but they still resonate with hockey fans today. Plus, the chance to pick up an autograph card of say, Jaromir Jagr, is nice motivation to buy a box or two.

And that’s what In The Game is aiming for.

 

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Collect call: 2011-12 Donruss Elite hockey

Posted May 9, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 9, 2012 at 08:37 PM

Do you enjoy shiny cards? On-card autographs? Large game-used swatches? Some die-cut cards, perhaps? Then Donruss Elite Hockey will be right up your alley.

 

I’ll be honest: shiny cards usually don’t work for me. For some reason, they always seem to chip along the edges when I handle them. Maybe that’s me.  But Panini America brought back Donruss Elite Hockey, and while I am leery about the shiny stuff, the autograph cards really pop on those kinds of cards.

The hobby box I sampled contained an on-card signature of Maple Leafs rookie Ben Scrivens. It’s an absolutely gorgeous-looking card. The box also yielded a pair of rookie cards (blue cards) numbered to 999 that are nice.

Here’s the breakdown: A hobby box will contain 20 packs, with five cards to a pack. There are 200 cards to the base set, with 60 rookie cards and then an additional 20 short-print rookie cards. Panini promises four memorabilia or autograph cards per box.

The hobby box I saw had nice collation (no doubles) and produced 85 base cards, or 42.5 percent. In addition to the base cards, I found a pair of inserts — a Rookie Stars card of the Flyers’ Matt Read, and an Elite Stars card of the Bruins’ Tyler Seguin. Both of those subsets contain 10 cards.

There are also die-cut parallels, and this particular hobby box had five red ones (called Aspirations) and a gold one (called Status).

Panini also added six-card tribute sets for six different current or former players, including Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman and Tampa Bay center Steven Stamkos. These subsets depict different events during the players’ careers. The box I saw contained a card each from the Sidney Crosby and Mark Messier series; other players with Tribute series are Joe Sakic and Alexander Ovechkin.

These cards are trimmed in gold foil borders, and cutout photos of the players are dropped against a silver foil background.

Now, on to the big hits. I’ve already mentioned the Scrivens autograph. The other signature card came in the form of a redemption — it is for an Elite Rookies variation of Brett Bulmer.

The relic cards in the hobby box I saw had generously large swatches of material. The second pack I opened contained a Prime Numbers jersey card of Sidney Crosby. Prime Numbers is an interesting set; there are 33 players depicted, and there are three “prime” variations — signature card, jersey card and patch/auto card. Yzerman is also included in these cards, along with Ovechkin, Sakic, Tim Thomas, former Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, Martin Brodeur, Ray Bourque and Patrick Roy.

The other relic card I saw was a Newbreed card of Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman. The swatch was a large, dark blue square. The horizontal layout of the card worked well, too; the photograph captures a nice, intense look by Hedman.

There are plenty of nice surprises in Donruss Elite hockey. And even if you are not a big fan of foil, there is a good chance you will take a shine to this set once you open some packs.

 

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Collect Call: 2011 Panini Limited Baseball

Posted May 8, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 8, 2012 at 10:39 PM

It’s almost a shame that Panini America has a product called Limited. I say that because due to licensing restrictions, Panini is extremely limited in depicting its players. For major-league players, that’s lots of airbrushed logos.

Never let it be said, however, that the folks at Panini shrink from a challenge. Restrictions like the ones the company faced have led to some original design ideas, and in Limited, I believe they turned out rather well.

This year’s Limited set marks the debut of USA Baseball team cards in Panini products; the multiyear agreement with the National Baseball Hall of Fame also comes into play.

A box contains seven cards, and the price hovers around $100. On the box, Panini promises three autograph or memorabilia cards (at least two autographs are guaranteed.

The box I sampled yielded several interesting designs. The Team USA card was of 16U national team member Hunter Mercado-Hood, an outfielder from California. That card was numbered to 199.

There were two prospect cards: Jace Peterson, drafted by the Padres in the 1st round (58th overall) of the 2011 MLB June amateur draft, is an unsigned card numbered to 199. The second prospect is an autograph card of pitcher Ryan Tatusko. At 27, Ryan’s an older prospect; he was drafted by the Rangers in the 18th round of the 2007 June amateur draft. That card is numbered to 620.

Pitcher Michael Fulmer is the pack’s lone entry of the Draft Hits subset. He was drafted by the New York Mets in the 1st round (44th) of the 2011 MLB June Amateur Draft.

One autograph already in the pack, with three cards to go —or is it four??

Autograph No. 2 is actually a redemption card. It’s a Limited Greats Signature card of Shawn Green.

The next card is a Rawlings Golden Gloves card of Ozzie Smith, numbered to 299. To me, this is the nicest looking design in the set. A cutout action shot of Smith is framed by a Rawlings baseball glove. Smith’s name is in gold foil, and the city (St. Louis) and baseball design on the card is also in gold. Pretty card.

An Andy Dirks Hard Hats relic card is next. I almost missed the piece of the helmet, which is nestled in the bottom left-hand corner of the card. The black stripe at the bottom of the card fooled me, and it took a second look to determine that it was indeed a memorabilia card. THis card is numbered to 93.

The final card is a Monikers card of Boston slugger David Ortiz, numbered to 10. It’s a combination autograph/relic card. It’s a sticker autograph, but the piece of the bat has a very nice texture to it and that makes it much nicer in my book. But this is a card where having an MLB license would have taken this card from sweet to phenomenal. Ortiz is pictured in a red shirt; a Red Sox uniform would have looked great.

Maybe it’s because this is a card of Ortiz; on a Dustin Pedroia card, for example, the shirt would not have been as apparent.

Despite the shackles placed upon its product, Panini still managed to put out a decent-looking set of cards. This particular pack was especially nice, since it basically had eight cards and yielded two autographs, a relic card and a combination auto/relic.

Certainly nothing limited about that pack.

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Collect call: Panini Prime Signatures Football

Posted May 8, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 8, 2012 at 07:45 PM

It always a gamble when you spend $50 or higher for a pack of cards. Even if the card company promises an autograph per pack, it’s always a roll of the dice when you open the box.

That’s what will happen if you purchase Panini America’s Prime Signatures football set. There are only four cards to a pack, and one pack to a box.  Price will range from $50 to $60, depending on how or where you buy the cards. What’s nice about these cards is that they are thick — 72 point. And, there is one guaranteed autograph per box.

The card design has a cutout of the player feathered against a background that is tan and then turns into a whiter shade near the card edges. The photos in this post really don’t do the cards justice; guess it was a shadowy day when I took the pictures.

The autograph was of Hall of Famer Ron Mix, a parallel of base card No. 149 numbered to 35. The autograph is on a sticker, but Mix’s signature is bold and very legible.

There were two base cards in the pack, both numbered to 499. One card depicted Bucs receiver Arrelious Benn. The final card in the pack was a Prime Proof parallel of Brandon Spikes, numbered to 99.

A checklist accompanied the box. It shows there are 175 base cards, and cards 176 to 261 are rookies.

Collectors can pull Call to the Hall autographs, a subset dotted with names like John Elway, Joe Namath, Earl Campbell and Joe Montana. Signing Bonus Signature cards concentrate on the game’s up-and-coming players, like Percy Harvin, Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman, Tim Tebow and Rashard Mendenhall.

So there are some good autographs to be found. Is it worth the risk? That depends on your wallet.

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A thorough look at Connie Mack

Posted May 7, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 7, 2012 at 11:56 PM

It’s quite possible that the term “players’ manager” was first used to describe Connie Mack.

“He managed men with consideration and kindness but left no uncertainty as to who was the boss,” Norman L. Macht writes in his second volume on the life of the Philadelphia Athletics owner/manager.

Macht, who has written 30 books and produced the exhaustively long and extensively researched “Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball” five years ago, returns with an equally long and detailed work about the second — and I believe, more interesting — phase of Mack’s managerial career.

“Connie Mack: The Turbulent & Triumphant Years, 1915-1931” (University of Nebraska Press, $39.95, hardback, 678 pages) does little to debunk the saintly image of Mack that was immortalized in the1948 Life magazine article written by Bob Considine (“Cornelius McGillicuddy — Mr. Mack”).

Macht, however, does humanize Mack and sets the record straight on several baseball legends, particularly those surrounding the 1929 World Series. 
Volume 2 (there will be a third volume covering the final 25 years of Mack’s life) opens after the 1914 World Series, when Philadelphia was shockingly swept in the World Series by the “Miracle” Boston Braves. The Athletics would sink into last place for the next seven seasons, finally contending in the mid-1920s before returning Mack to glory with three straight American League pennants and two World Series title from 1929 to 1931.

The first part of this volume rumbles through the Athletics’ misery, then picks up speed as Mack, through astute bidding and trading, rebuilds his team into a dynasty that has been compared with the 1927 New York Yankees for sheer dominance.

But this book is not just a Philadelphia story. Macht also gives the reader a sense of the political wrangling among American League owners, giving particular attention to the simmering feud between A.L. president Ban Johnson and the first commissioner of baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

The advent of World War I curtailed the 1918 season, but Macht shows that there had been a real possibility baseball might have been closed down for the entire year. That scenario was real and was hotly debated by the owners.

Macht shows how Mack, who had a reputation as being cheap, was not afraid to spend money when he believed it would help his team contend.

“Try as he might and erroneous as it was, once that (miserly) reputation was hung on Connie Mack, repetition etched it into stone,” Macht writes. “It has outlived Mack by sixty years and counting.”

Certainly, Mack had contract battles with players, particularly with Frank “Home Run” Baker. Macht also documents a long (and at times, tedious) look at the legal battles involving pitcher Scott Perry. On the surface, this squabble seems obscure, but as Macht points out, it led to Mack filing a lawsuit in court to overturn a decision by baseball’s National Commission.

Although baseball litigation became the norm in the late 20th century, legal action was unheard of in the 1910s, as owners believed themselves a fraternity that could sort out its problems amicably. Using the courts as a solution sent a shiver through Mack’s fellow baseball owners, and allows Macht to bounce off a snappy line: “It was like the day a bar of Ivory soap sank at Procter & Gamble.”

Mack’s public criticism of players was rare, but every once in a while his candor would seep through his public persona. Macht quotes one example, uttered after the 1919 World Series, when Mack was asked about his team’s chances for the 1920 season

“There’s no use disguising the fact that I have a bad team, one that is fit only for last place,” Mack told a reporter.

Macht’s writing is lively and at times, pulls no punches. “(Bob) McCann resembled Rogers Hornsby in appearance, so the players called him Hornsby,” he writes. “The resemblance ended there.”

Or this: “After seven years in the wilderness Connie Mack concluded that he could no longer grow stars from seedlings. The soil of American society had changed.”

The 1929 World Series was Mack’s return to baseball’s biggest stage, and Macht examines the legend of Howard Ehmke in Game 1. It has been acknowledged for years that Mack held Ehmke back during the final month of the season, sending him to scout the games of the Chicago Cubs (Philadelphia’s World Series opponent). Armed with that knowledge, Ehmke set a Series strikeout record in Game 1, fanning 13 batters.

It’s a nice, neatly tied up story that has been etched in stone. Until now.

“Just as there are eight different towns in the West claiming the burial ground of Billy the Kid, there are as many versions of the Howard Ehmke story,” Macht writes.

According to a letter Mack wrote to Ehmke on Aug. 11, 1929 (when he allegedly was told to scout the Cubs), the Athletics’ manager expressed his disappointment in his pitcher and made no mention of scouting or the World Series.

Mack actually made the final decision to use Ehmke several hours before game time. It was based on the philosophy he adhered to for half a century.

“Do your job, and he left you alone. Need a shot of confidence, and he’d find the right time and the right words. Pull a bonehead play, and he’d call you aside the next day and suggest you try it a different way,” Macht writes. “He shook off physical errors. … But grouse or complain or talk back to him, and he wouldn’t hesitate to snap at you with a barb as sharp as an arrowhead.”

In addition to the season-by-season chronicles, Macht peppers the book with anecdotes about the Athletics’ spring training home in Fort Myers, his family life and the legion of friends (even strangers considered Mack a friend). If someone wrote a letter to Mack, he was certain to get a handwritten reply.
“It didn’t matter how high or low the correspondent’s station in life,” Macht writes. “Write to Connie Mack, he’d write you back …”

Legendary sportswriter Red Smith wrote this in 1941: Connie Mack “stands for everything the American people consider desirable and admirable — tolerance and sportsmanship and kindly justice and patience and the gentility that stems from within.”

Mack was able to stay grounded whether he was faced with turbulence and triumph. Macht’s third installment will chronicle the Athletics’ decline as a power. There are many facts I hope to learn about Mack’s final 25 years, particularly his transactions and the reasons for yielding the managerial reins several times during the 1930s.

I am guessing it will take another 675 pages to find out.

 

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Press Pass to replace automated Keselowski autographs

Posted May 7, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated May 7, 2012 at 07:40 PM

While Brad Keselowski was basking in the afterglow of victory after winning Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 NASCAR race at Talladega, Press Pass was red-faced and scrambling to make amends.

The 2012 Ignite Racing set, the latest effort from Press Pass that hit stores last week, had Keselowski autographed Ignite Ink cards that were not hand-signed by the driver.

In a news release, Press Pass conceded that Keselowski’s autograph sheets for the Ignite Ink cards — as opposed to traditional individual autograph cards — were signed using an autopen.

“We are confident this is an isolated incident,” Press Pass wrote in its release, noting that no autographs from other drivers in the Ignite product (or any other product) had been affected.

An autopen is a machine that reproduces signatures. It is used by government and business for routine transactions, like signing letters, photos and promotional materials.  Last May, President Barack Obama “signed” a bill that extended the Patriot Act for four years. It was signed by autopen, and is believed to be the first time the device had been used to put a presidential signature on legislation.

It’s the ultimate backup. But when it comes to autograph cards, the real deal is imperative.

According to the release put out by Press Pass on Monday, Keselowski’s camp “mistakenly mishandled” the autograph sheets and signed them with an autopen. I can’t say for certain whether the auto sheets ever got to Keselowski, so I am not going to speculate. The fact remains, the autographs were not from his hand.

“Press Pass takes authenticity very seriously, and we want our collectors to know that we would never intentionally put autographs into our products that were not authentic hand-signed signatures,” the release said.

Also in the release, Press Pass made it plain that the responsibility to return actual autographs fell to the individual driver. The company said it has “reiterated internally the importance of following the proper procedures to ensure that all autographs are authentic.”

I can’t say that I blame Press Pass for that last dig. After all, nobody wants to look foolish, and credibility is a fragile thing. No company wants the authenticity of its autograph or relic cards questioned.

Press Pass said it will be printing new cards and “will be sitting down with Brad” within the next few weeks to have the autograph sheets re-signed. Each card will be rebuilt with the authentic autograph and a prime swatch from one of Keselowski’s race-used fire suits.

Any collector who received a Keselowski Ignite Ink autograph card has been invited to return it. An email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) will provide redemption instructions.

In addition, those collectors will receive an Ignite Racing retail box (valued at $19.99) and their names will be entered into a drawing to win a trip for two to an upcoming race to watch Keselowski drive.

Good moves by Press Pass. Collectors raised a red flag, and the company made an attempt to rectify it.

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