Innholdsfortegnelse for February 1, 2023 i Sports Collectors Digest

Jim Everett was a star on both sides of the ball at El Dorado High School in Albuquerque, N.M. As the starting quarterback and safety he led the school to its first state championship in 1980. Everett took his considerable talents to Purdue University, where he fully committed to the quarterback position. His senior season was a revelation as Everett led the NCAA in total offense, set numerous school records and finished sixth in the 1985 Heisman trophy voting. The star quarterback was selected with the third pick of the 1986 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers. Unable to come to terms, the Oilers traded his rights to the Los Angeles Rams. The big, handsome signal caller was a perfect fit in Los Angeles. He had an incredibly productive and…

BRONX, N.Y. — Standing beyond the centerfield wall at Yankee Stadium could cause chills to radiate through the body of any baseball fan. There rests monuments honoring some of the most legendary players in baseball history: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. It’s a step back in time into the heyday of these players’ careers. A time when Ruth was bigger than the Pope, Gehrig’s farewell speech was lauded by fans, DiMaggio’s hitting streak captivated Major League Baseball, and Mantle’s sweet home run swing was idolized by kids from coast to coast. Monument Park at Yankee Stadium is a place where legends are immortalized for eternity with arguably the most revered franchise in not only baseball but all of sports. Greg Bates and Jeff Owens of Sports…

NOMI, ISHIKAWA, JAPAN — In the Dec. 6, 2019 issue of Sport Collectors Digest, I wrote about Hideki Matsui’s baseball museum, which is located in the city of Nomi, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan. It is right by the house that Hideki grew up in. The attractive museum celebrates Matsui’s pro career with displays such as a wall of baseball cards commemorating each of his 500-plus home runs in Japan and the U.S., and stores of prizes like his 2009 World Series MVP trophy with the Yankees. Started by Hideki’s parents because fans kept stopping by their house to check things out and ask about their son, the museum also contains items from the slugger’s youth: his old ball-toss machine, school jerseys, and even 20 of the 60 home run baseballs he…

Over the course of almost 30 years writing Stadia Collector features for SCD, I’ve had the opportunity to mention Dodgertown, the most famous Spring Training site, a few times. One reason could be that it’s literally in my backyard in Vero Beach, Fla., where I reside part time. The other reason is because it’s so dang beautiful. But when I decided to write a novel with Dodgertown as the setting, it raised it to a whole new level for me. Dodgertown was built for the 1948 Spring Training season on the site of a decommissioned World War II naval air base in the then-nondescript Florida town of Vero Beach. Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey saw its potential as a college-type campus where he could house players of all colors and…

BRONX, N.Y. — Brian Richards didn’t become interested in baseball until he was 16 years old. That’s shocking considering how much he loves the game and it’s captivating history. Richards, the curator of the New York Yankees Museum, turned an internship with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum into his dream job. Growing up in Hughesville, Pa. — just 15 miles from baseball-rich Williamsport — baseball was inevitably going to be in Richards’ future. His dad, a Baltimore Orioles fan, brought him to his first baseball game in 1999 as a teenager. “I really fell in love with baseball history as I fell in love with baseball,” Richards said. At Susquehanna University, Richards majored in history with a political science minor. After his junior year, he interned at…

Les Wolff is one of the deans of the sports memorabilia hobby. Wolff has been involved in some form of sports memorabilia since he started collecting cards and newspapers when he was just 6 years old. He runs both Les Wolff Sports LLC and the sportzautogrphz online stores (on eBay) where he sells autographs and memorabilia of sports stars, Hollywood celebrities and presidents. Wolff has been a regular exhibitor at the National Sports Collectors Convention for more than 40 years. In 2005, he traveled the country as the lead appraiser and authenticator for ESPN/Cox Communications’ “Memorabilia Road Tour,” examining thousands of collectible items. He is also a regular contributor to the TTMCast podcast (ttmcast.com) where he shares his expertise on hobby-related topics in the popular “More From Les” segment. “Sports…

MINNEAPOLIS — Harmon Killebrew and Clyde Doepner were good friends; the two spent plenty of time together during Killebrew’s retirement years. Doepner flew to Arizona one time to visit the Minnesota Twins legend. When Doepner was putting his bags into a car to return to the airport, Killebrew slipped a baseball bat into his luggage. It wasn’t just any bat. It was a bat Killebrew and every MLB player received in 1976 with a bicentennial logo burned into it. “Harmon said, ‘Don’t forget your bat,’” Doepner recalled. “I said, ‘My bat?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re going to get it someday anyhow, you might as well have it now.’ It was that kind of love. They knew that it’s the love of the game, preserving the game.” Killebrew knew Doepner’s passion…