From the category archives:

collectibles

The condiment company might be discontinuing its popular Mets bobblehead promotion? At least wait until Ike Davis gets one.

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Thanks, but no thanks

July 12, 2010 · 1 comment

Believe it or not, I wouldn’t want this book, even if someone made me a present of it. According to the NY Times‘ piece by sports media writer Richard Sandomir, “the leather-bound book, “The Official Major League Baseball Opus,” will come out in a limited edition (1,000 copies), packaged in a silk-covered clamshell case. The […]

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The Brooklyn Cyclones evidently still like Ike Davis, who played for the Mets’ Single-A affiliate in 2008, hitting .256 with 15 doubles, 17 RBIs and 17 runs scored in 58 games. So what higher tribute than to honor him with his own bobble head? Oh, but not just any bobble head: The game will be […]

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Baseball Stuff You Never Needed to Know and Can Certainly Live Without, by Robert Schnakenberg. Triumph, 2010. Schnakenberg takes his love for pop culture (anti-culture?) and puts a national pastime spin on it in this little faux-reference volume. The connection between PC and baseball has been handled in more serious veins by Jonathan Fraser Light […]

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This article appeared in the April 15 edition of the New Jersey Jewish News. Tempered with the excitement of Opening Day, some baseball fans have to contend with the end of a tradition, even if it was only a few years old: 2010 marks the final release of the Jewish Major Leaguer card set. According […]

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As longs as it touches, it fits. When I was a kid, the big thing were 3′ x 6′ posters. They came in a tube and were a real bear to flatten out enough to tape to your wall (this was in the cro-magnon days before poster tack and double-stick tape were invented). These were […]

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Maybe I’m just more sensitive to it, but there seem to be an awful lot of books this year catering to the boomers among is. There are plenty of biographies from higher-end publishers on all-time favorites such as Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Maris, Rizzuto, Kaline, and Musial, not to mention those that come from vanity presses […]

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This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, April 16. Title Rank General The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 1 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 2 Willie Mays: […]

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Which may just be where some of these guys do keep them. The Yankees are playing their home opener as I type this. Prior to the game, the 2009 World Champions received their booty in the form of Series rings. In his article in today’s New York Times, Harvey Araton writes about Andy Pettitte, for […]

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* TWIBB — April 2

April 2, 2010

This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, April 2. Title Rank General The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 1 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 2 Willie Mays: […]

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From today’s NY Times: “A Piece of Mets History, Rewritten in Stone” Doesn’t anyone look at these things? Leave This Blank:Leave This Blank Too:Do Not Change This:Your email: 

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Josh Wilker launched his blog, CardboardGods (Motto: “Voice of the mathematically eliminated”) as a link to a simpler time, when all a boy needed to be happy was a nickle, a dime, or at most a quarter, to buy a pack of baseball cards. For a ten-year-old, these guys were, in fact, gods. All you […]

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* Bits and pieces

March 25, 2010

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY behind here, so in an attempt to catch up, and let you all know I’m still here, I submit, for starters, a list of recent items: Our old friend Zack Hample is busy with his own writings (note to self: get cracking on the manuscript), but he has had time to glance through a […]

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I don’t know, some superstition about it. Anyway here’s a piece I’m including because it just seems to rare: an appreciation of baseball caps. At the risk of appearing old fashioned, I’m not real happy about the trend over the years to “update” the caps, as far as style, color, “upgrades,” etc. Just call be […]

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* Your face here

February 23, 2010

One of the things you really notice at Yankees Fantasy Camp — and I’m sure it’s the same at all the others — is the omnipresence of photographers. Team pictures, action shots, posed “candid” shots, photos at the dinners, et al. People love having their pictures taken with celebrities. So why did it take so […]

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Come on, you know you do it. Everybody does it… The first time I “discovered” myself was in an airport in Milwaukee, coming back, appropriately enough, from a SABR convention. In the time since, when I’ve Googled myself to see where mention of The Bookshelf might have appeared. I’ve discovered I share the name with […]

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Actually I have a neat little hat rack for most of my baseball caps, but it is lying on top of a bookcase, so I’m gonna count it. When a Hall of Famer plays for a few teams over his career, there’s always hand-wringing over what hat his plaque will bear. Several years ago, there […]

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* Time marches on

January 10, 2010

So many calendars, so little time. (Hmm.) Picked up a day-by-day calendar for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum for the new year. I usually have a problem keeping up with the task of tearing off that one page, but with this one, it’s all I can do to keep from sneaking a […]

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* What am I bid?

January 5, 2010

Auctionscc.com has several baseball publications up for sale (as well as other sports-related merchandise) at what appear to be reasonable prices.

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Marty Appel was kind enough to send me a copy of the Official 2007 Yearbook of the Israel Baseball League. Appel, who used to handle PR for the Yankees back in the 1970s, has his finger in just about every Jewish/sports pie, including the IBL, the Jewish Major Leaguer Card set, and the Maccabi Haifa […]

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