Who’s been Naughty or Nice?

Nice: The New England Patriots – for hope they go undefeated so those ancient ’72 Dolphins stop having champagne toast every time a team loses.
Naughty: Mercury Morris – for pretending that his career was anything significant if he wasn’t a player on that ’72 team. He ran for over 1,000 yards once in his career. Perhaps Mercury can be just as ellaborate when he talks on sportscenter about his ’82 cocaine trafficking trial that he eventually got overturned on entrapment charges! Or Mercury can tell us how he got his jock handed to him by Bob Lilly in Super Bowl VI. Mercury talks like he's had this great NFL career, but in reality it's just as brief as his hair club for men commercials.

Nice: Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys for their exciting play this year. It’s hard to cheer against a guy who went to a small college, was undrafted, and sat the bench four years waiting for his chance to prove he’s better than Quincy Carter, Chad Hutchinson, Drew Bledsoe, Drew Henson, and Ryan Leaf.
Naughty: Tony Romo for bringing his girlfriends from American Idol or MTV reality show ex-wife’s club to football games. I don’t know what was more annoying to see 100 times during the game: Jessica Simpson or Bill Cowher’s family whenever his Steelers were on TV!

Nice: Pete Rose back in the trading card game.
Naughty: Upper Deck execs for acting like babies with Topps.

Nice: The NY Mets for giving the NL East title to Philadelphia
Naughty: Me for what I did to the TV after the Mets choked the division away!

The Mitchell Report should go on this list somewhere, but I'm not sure where.

Mitchell Report in the HOF?

This week’s poll question asked if MLB’s Mitchell Report belongs in the baseball hall of fame.

I believe it’s an historic document that helps to define the late ‘80s to the mid ‘00s era and belongs in the HOF. We can’t put *s on the records or backspace over the numbers that were calculated. However, I think we need to explain why the numbers ballooned faster than Rosie O’Donnel at a buffet.

The HOF should include the report as one of the reasons offensive numbers skyrocketed and why the Rocket Roger Clemens’ ERA stats plummeted. It should be recorded as the main bullet point of reasons why offense stats are higher in the era - other reasons include smaller ball parks and expansion.

I emailed the Baseball Hall of Fame to see if the report will be included and if so, where it would be displayed. I’ll provide their reply unless they post their answers here.

My Autograph Cost How Much?

Are athletes responsible for knowing what their agents and representatives request on the athlete’s behalf? A recent discussion thread on the signingshotline.com message boards dealt with Mike Piazza and his recent signing at an MAB autograph show.

Full Disclosure: I’m a Mets fan, Piazza was one of my favorite players, and I think MAB does a great job with their autograph shows. I’ve been to a few MAB shows this year and will likely go to a few more next year.

First: I think a lot of collectors were surprised by his autograph pricing. From what I remember, an autograph baseball was $200, a bat was like $400 and a jersey was $600. Inscriptions (of course) were an extra $125 and there were several restrictions on what you could or could not get signed by him.

Second: With that pricing environment established, some collectors were not happy with the attitude of some of his handlers.

Finally: That lead to string of newsgroup postings about Piazza having outrageous demands, attacks on his character, and even a few blasts at MAB who did nothing wrong except when they tried to smooth things over with a reply that Mike Piazza wasn’t even aware of some of the demands placed by his “handlers.” What?

Now, I wasn’t in the autograph room because I thought his price was too high, restrictions were too much, and I think his autograph looks like crap.

But I think it’s a crime for Piazza and other athletes to pretend they have no idea what their representatives are doing for them. Of course the athletes know what’s going on. As smart and PR savvy as some of these guys are, there’s no way they are in the dark to what their representatives are doing. And shame on the athletes for thinking we’re dumb enough to let them get away with playing ignorant so their representatives can play the bad cop role.

It’s like ARod pretending he had no idea what Scott Boras was doing. ARod hasn’t lived a day in the past 10 years where the entire agenda wasn’t scripted!

To Mike Piazza and MAB: playing ignorant isn’t an excuse, it’s a flaw.

Best Ways to Make Your Autograph Collection Unique

It’s easy to get trapped in the cycle of getting baseballs and mini helmets signed with HOF and ROY inscriptions. It’s only natural when you’ve seen hundreds of them on eBay and online stores.

But do you want your collection to look like something anyone could have bought on eBay? Or do you want your collection to be different, something that you put extra time into, and has a story?

I’ll expand upon some of these points in later posts, but here are four great ways to make your autograph collection unique.

• Make the item you are getting signed different. My earlier posts with Helmet Hut and the catcher’s gear are two examples.


• Get a unique inscription. Instead of getting HOF with the player’s name, try getting a score of their winning Super Bowl, gold glove numbers, or the offensive stats of their best season.


• Have a theme. MAB Celebrity does a great job at providing themed autograph shows. I was recently at the Magic Moniker show where “Pudge” Rodriguez, “Hurricane” Carter, and “The Big Unit” Randy Johnson were signing. You could also create a 500 home run club, gold glove, all star game MVP, or Super Bowl MVP collection.


• Have your item tell a story. Beckett did a story about this a year or so ago with someone who gets a story on his baseballs. For example, you could get Bobby Thompson to sign, “I got good wood on that one” and Ralph Branca to write, “Lucky shot” or something like that. I’m in the process of doing one of these with Pete Rose.
  
  The point is, to think a little differently with your autograph collection and don’t fall into a routine. Make it unique to you – you’ll probably get a lot more enjoyment out of doing it.

Like Sands Through the Hour Glass . . .

Check out this card sold on eBay. According to the listing, it is one of only 5 made by Upper Deck. It's an obvious swipe at Barry Bonds and another card company.

The card companies have recently exchanged in a childish pissing contest not seen since the days of Paris Hilton vs. Hillary Duff. Soon they'll be pulling each other's hair and threatening to steal the other one's boyfriend.

A recap of the card company cat fight is chronicled on the Sports Card Forum.

Thanks to Laloosh for the heads-up on this Soap Opera.

Fans' Reaction to Clemens on Mitchell Report

A couple of fans put their reaction to Roger Clemens' steroid use on YouTube. Beckett is linking to the video.

But is this autograph baseball real? You be the judge. The Roger Clemens autograph baseball on this blog (to the left) was taken from the CBS Sportsline Store. Does the one in the YouTube video look the same to you?

Best Autograph List

Autograph Magazine just came out with their best/worst celebrity autograph list. I'm not a celebrity autograph person, although I did get my picture taken with Helen Thomas and sat on a plane next to Jennifer Garner (before Ben). Wow - isn't that like comparing apples to oranges!

According to Autograph Magazine, the best person on the list is Johnny Depp because of his attitude and wanting to talk to the fans. Surprisingly Will Ferrell, aka Ron Burgondy, was last.

I think my best sports autographs are Art Donovan and Gary Carter. Arty talked about his days as a '52 Dallas Texans and their only win that season against George Halas' Bears. Gary always yucks it up with the fans!

Does the Mitchell Report Damage Memorabilia Value?

I've read a lot on the web about card/memorabilia values taking a dive following the Mitchell Report. Beckett even has a temporary blog where paranoid collector's are discussing changing their retirement plans because of the impending crash of Clemens rookie card values! :) Whether you the report is a good idea or a bad idea - I don't see values taking a long-term dive.

In the short run, you may see some sell-off by collector's that have a short-term view or don't want the cards due to moral outrage. But over the long-term, I think the card values of Clemens and Bonds will bounce back and climb just as the cards of Pete Rose and Joe Jackson.

Pete's 1963 Topps has a low Beckett card value of $600 and Joe Jackson's are around $1,000. Would their cards be worth more if they were in the HOF? Maybe, but I don' think they are suffering because they are not in the HOF.

For those looking for a discount on Bonds, Clemens and Todd Hundley (yeah right), this could be an opportunity to buy some of their cards cheaper due to their short-term dip.