Hello and welcome to Issue 020 of Clearing The Bases, an email newsletter in conjunction with the My Baseball History podcast hosted by Dan Wallach.
Let’s get the timely stuff out of the way real quick here: if you’re in Minneapolis for the SABR convention this weekend, so am I! Make Willie Mays proud and come Say Hey. I’m helping to record the audio of the presentations all week, and I am mostly posted up in Great Lakes Room A on the 4th Floor. I’ll do a more detailed recap of SABR52 in the next newsletter, so I won’t get into it too much here, but I wanted to give everyone reading this a heads up while there’s still time to meet and talk if that’s something you might want to do.
ALSO, I have My Baseball History podcast t-shirts with me this weekend, so if that’s something you want, let me know your size and I’ll bring one down from my room for you. If you’ve never listened to the show before, there are three full seasons of episodes available at shoelesspodcast.com with liner notes full of pictures and links so you can follow along as you listen. If you’re in a SABR kind of mood, maybe you should start with the first episode of Season 3 when I spoke with Jacob Pomrenke about SABR and about the Black Sox Scandal. It’s a great listen, and will be a really nice introduction to the podcast to give you an idea of what I do. You can listen to that episode HERE.
Okay, so as I mentioned like six dozen times in the newsletters leading up to it, The National Sports Collectors Convention was in Cleveland from July 24-29. I was there with Love Of The Game Auctions and had a great week meeting some of you while we showed off some of the things that will be in the upcoming LOTG auction which ends September 28th. Among MANY other things, we have a Type I photo of Babe Ruth in his first season with the New York Yankees, an entire T204 Ramly card set from 1909, and a 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie which has been signed by The Mick. It’s wild enough seeing that card at all, but to hold one in my hands that’s been signed by number 7 was truly special.
Love Of The Game specializes in pre-war stuff and has become known within the industry for having unique, rare, and vintage items. I’ve been writing auction descriptions with them this year, which has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I have been able to hold so many incredible items and see things in person which I never thought I’d have a chance to see. I’ve learned so, so much and have been introduced to a number of card sets which I never knew existed, which has been very humbling as someone who thought I knew a lot about cards to begin with. But it’s also been a curse because I see all of these amazing things come through, and since I now work with Al, Andrew, and LOTG, I’m not allowed to bid on anything.
But trust me when I say that you should bid on these things. Even if you don’t have it in your budget to drop six figures on a jaw dropping Type I photo or a highly-graded card, every single auction has dozens of items that sell for $50 or less, and can be a wonderful entry point into your own vintage collection. I personally think everyone should have at least one T206 card in their collection, and while most of us can’t afford a copy of the Honus Wagner, all of us can afford a number of the commons. If you’re not already registered to bid with LOTG, you can fix that by clicking HERE. There’s no commitment to bid, but registering will keep you updated with when the auctions are happening, and some of the items which will be available.
We were set up at The National all week taking consignments, and we brought in some insane pieces. Al will be mad if I spill the beans since most of those pieces will end up in the auction which will end the week of Thanksgiving, but I promise there will be a number of things that a lot of collectors and even some historians are going to be very excited about. If you have anything in your own collection which you have been considering selling, or if you just want to start the conversation on what your options are when the time comes, contact Al HERE and tell him that Dan from My Baseball History sent you.
While we were in town for The National, I hosted an 1860s style vintage base ball game at Cleveland’s historic League Park on Friday, July 26th to benefit the Baseball Heritage Museum. The museum operates out of the original ticket office, which is still standing. There were about 150 people in attendance that night, in addition to the players, umpires, and museum staff. It was really exciting to play in front of that many people who all shared our enthusiasm. Everyone who was there seemed to have a great time, and we all tried to make it as entertaining and informative as possible since it was the first time seeing that style of base ball being played for many of the fans in the stands.
Our umpires were wearing microphones so they could explain the rules and answer any questions from the crowd as confusing plays or old-timey terminology may have come up. I wore a microphone as I played to help give some context for what exactly made League Park such a special place. I talked about some of the great players who played there and some of the historic events which took place there.
Cleveland journalist and author Vince Guerrieri was the scorekeeper and announcer for the game, and he came dressed to the nines. Maybe the loudest cheer of the night was when I introduced Vince and said he’d be talking about 10 Cent Beer Night for an inning. Vince has been giving talks all summer long about the promotion (he actually just presented yesterday at the SABR convention about it), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It’s one of the Weird Moments In Cleveland Sports Vince wrote about in his recent book, which you can buy HERE.
Cleveland artist Jeff Suntala came and set up an easel on the field near the 3rd base dugout. He live-painted the game, which was mind-blowingly awesome. His vantage point from where he set up allowed his painting to include the high right field fence as well as the beautiful building of the ticket office, two things that are immediately recognizable as “quintessentially League Park” to anyone who knows the place. If you’re interested in checking out some of Jeff’s other work, please do that HERE.
We raised a lot of money for the Baseball Heritage Museum, which was the point of the event, but we couldn’t have done it without our sponsors and everyone who attended. So to Peter Pattakos and Pattakos Law Firm LLC, Love Of The Game Auctions, Liquid Custom Apparel and Gifts, Jay Caldwell, Jacob Pomrenke and Tracy Greer, and everyone else who played in the game - traveling from as far as South Carolina to be there: thank you. It was a night I’ll never forget.
After the game, a handful of us made the walk down Lexington Avenue to go see the empty lot where Shoeless Joe Jackson and his wife, Katie, once owned a home. Joe and Katie made that walk literally hundreds of times in the years Joe played for Cleveland. For us to be able to play on the field where Joe played, to walk down the steps from the locker room which led to the dugout and field that he walked down, and then to literally follow in his footsteps for the couple blocks from League Park to his old property, it all just made me feel very close to him. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to my podcast episode with Mike Miller about Shoeless Joe Jackson and his life and career, you can do that HERE.
There were seven of us who took that walk after the game, and there was a moment when we all just stood there in silence across the street from where Joe’s house once stood. I think we were all kind of waiting for Ray Liotta to walk out from the trees and ask us if he could play. That didn’t happen, but maybe we just didn’t wait there long enough.
There aren’t too many fields left in America where Joe Jackson once played ball. We’re already starting to talk logistics about how we can check another one off the list by playing on it next summer. As those plans start to come together, I’ll be sure to post about it here to give you enough of a heads up to make the trip in case you want to watch us play on what is another absolutely historic field.
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Until next time, I’m Dan Wallach, and this is My Baseball History.
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