JimH5

I used to have everything out, but we did a major remodeling last year that required removing walls & cutting concrete in the basement for new posts, etc. Concrete dust gets everywhere, and drywall dust, too. So for preservation, I put much of it away. We'll get the basement back to livable in a year or two, and then I'll be able to get everything back out. Your Paul Waner is pretty rare. I don't often see him on dealer tables. Lloyd Waner is still about a $25 autograph. Paul is $500-$750 or more. One of the less expensive guys who turned out to be a big challenge for me was Ray Dandridge. His autograph is pretty plentiful, but not often on a blank white card or piece of paper. Once I set out to get him, it was probably 3 years (pre-eBay) before I found a good one that I liked, and his was still $30 or less. Now with eBay and online auctions, it's easier to find what you want, but I still prefer to see something in person.

Can the brewers be projected as a winning team next year? I think that is debatable. I don't think the Brewers will be a winning team next year--but I made my comment more as a compliment to Aoki's value. He could be a regular or a platoon or bench player for a winner, and to me that makes him worth more than $1.5 million. I don't think the Brewers have any OF prospects who are so good that Aoki being on the team would significantly hinder their progress. And if someone emerges, then move Aoki to the bench. That was the original intent with him anyway last year, with Braun, Gomez & Hart in the OF. I'm not saying he's got to be on the team the whole year. . .if they get an offer for him, it's fine to move him. But because he's only going to be a $1.5 million player, that makes him more valuable to other teams.

Even if Aoki is nothing more than a 5th OF, the price is right to keep him. He's a capable major league player--not a star, but he's good enough to be a regular contributor on a winning team.

You must be so proud and thankful for your son. What an inspiring kid! Congrats!

Attanasio indicated in his comments a couple of weeks ago that he's also expecting a significant (more than a press release) showing. I'm willing to give him until the offseason, so he doesn't distract from the on-field action.

Thanks, and those early Campy signatures are really beautiful. Modern players (Mariano Rivera excluded) have such poor penmanship, I don't want to get into those guys as a hobby. I've been at this for more than 20 years. During the late 80s and early 90s, there were tremendous card shows put on at State Fair Park (by BF.netter hofcs--thanks much for some fabulous shows). This was during the great boom time for card manufacturers & dealers, and I was (thankfully) too cheap to jump in on some of the higher priced cards of the era. Griffey, Canseco, Mattingly, the Billy Ripken card, etc. Instead, I took a liking to autographs of earlier era players. For the price of a Puckett rookie card, you could get a Hank Greenberg signature on a 3x5 card. I thought the Greenberg sig was awesome, and so I left one of those shows with a Greenberg at $35, a Judy Johnson at $15 and a Bill Terry at $20. At the time, the National Baseball Library at the Hall of Fame would sell new prints of any of the photos in their archive for a pretty reasonable price. They still do. You would write them a letter, requesting a player (or team, stadium, etc.) and specify what kind of pose you were looking for, and they would send you photocopies of your guy in different shots. With some guys, they have 10-20 images to pick from, with others, maybe its just 2. You would return the photocopy of the shot you wanted, and they would send a pretty good quality reproduction of that shot on photo paper. Now they do it all by email, and the process takes just a few days. Anyway, I bought pics of those three guys, and had them double matted and framed with those 3 x 5 sigs. 23 years later and I'm up to around 90 pieces. I have focused that project on Hall of Famers whose careers ended by 1950, and in the case of Umpires and Executives, guys who were contemporaries of those men. I like that as a project as it's really a finite list of subjects, with parameters that let me focus just on the list. I have only deviated a couple of times (for Satchel Paige & Jackie Robinson). I have exhausted almost all of the lower priced guys (Lloyd Waner, George Highpockets Kelly, etc.), and now will have to hone in on just a few guys per year. This year was by far my biggest for making big ticket buys. There are some that I know I will never get, but that's fine. I'm not going to go broke or crazy trying to pursue a Pud Galvin autograph. And I'm also going to only buy from trusted dealers or auction houses, or with respected authentication. Because of the prices of the guys left on my want list, I have also started to collect some early Brewers and other baseball notables. I don't plan to display those, but just like having things to check off a list. Lafayette Currence and Frank Lane are destined for a binder. It's a fun hobby. I love the great care that Charlie Gehringer put into his signature, and I like the flourish that Ed Barrow put into his. And the tremendous eyebrows that Barrow has in the picture I paired with his autograph. I have the Eddie Collins and Kiki Cuyler at the frame shop now, and will post some pics when I get them back.

Even though they are no longer the YANKEES!, I'm still looking forward to seeing them come to Miller Park. Any chance to see Jeter is a good thing.

I'll post some pics after I get the projects finished. . . I'm going to have photos and signatures matted and framed. Very exciting for me. . .by far the biggest purchase I've made.

Because Bonds and A-Rod got to the top by cheating, and then they behaved in very unlikable ways. Add Clemens to the list, too. We don't know if they were all-time greats or not, and what impact the PEDs had on their greatness. In part, these guys are paying for the very friendly and protective media that "covered" the game in earlier eras. There have always been lousy people playing sports. Racists, womanizers, alcoholics, bullies. . . Part of it is that today's players can't live up to the way we imagine Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth were, and the Mantle and Ruth personas were mostly fiction.

Bosch isn't a doctor. He just wore a lab coat. Though if the thought is that a player is now going to go even further underground to get these substances, there are plenty of people in those networks with incentive to sell that information to people who are interested in it.

I think the two biggest things to come out of this whole mess is the remarkable turn of position by the MLBPA and its members on how they handle this issue. I don't think Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr/Gene Orza would stand for this. Michael Weiner is letting the clean players in the union advance their cause--which is really saying something. He should be commended, the MLBPA should be commended, MLB should be commended for cleaning up the game. It's never going to be totally clean, there's just too big of an incentive to get major league money. But both MLB and the Players have done good by getting us to today. The other big takeaway is realization that these non-analytic violations of the drug program really have to put pressure on the players who are tempted to cheat. No longer do they just have to worry about drug tests, they also have to worry about all the people who are involved in between themselves and the drug manufacturers. This started with Porter Fischer, an ex-associate of Bosch, taking information from the clinic and passing it on to the media. If you're a player, now you've got to be worried about every employee and ex-employee of these clinics, the people you trust as a go-between, and any other surveillance, email, text, or other information which connects you to the source of unapproved drugs. How can they trust anonymity any more?

I can't tell you how you're supposed to feel. If there was another Brewer, or even three, why would you feel different than you do now? Maybe if it was Lucroy, or Gomez, or Segura, or Aoki I guess that would make me pay attention. I guess because I think they're the only guys worth watching. But otherwise, I don't think I'd get too worked up if other Brewers were suspended.

I think you nailed it on the head, Jim, when you said it's about how she would react if it was me who was 3 months late. While I'd love to take credit for being all insightful, all I really did was paraphrase part of what you wrote in your opening post. I'm a father of a daughter who used to be 2 (she's now 9). She's an only child, and probably gets more helicopter parenting than she needs. I recognize that and remind myself to step back a little. Anyway, she has cousins, and I don't always remember birthdays for them. Sometimes I'm a good uncle, and other times I'm not. It's not intentional, but it's part of my charm, I guess. Most importantly, I know not to expect my own siblings to make a big deal out of my own kid's birthday, Christmas, etc. It's all good. My daughter doesn't keep a scoresheet, and often doesn't really remember who gave her what. And really, after the holiday, I don't remember who gave her what, or if someone forgot, etc. She's got enough stuff.

It's your family, not mine, so you know better than me. . .but from the outside, it looks like the only thing that's at issue is your sister's behavior as it compares to your expectation of how she would react if you had the same behavior. It's not about the present. The fact is, your 2-year old doesn't care if the gift is late. She doesn't even really know that the gift is late. She's 2, and at 2, she's got plenty of other stuff to play with, and when she does get the gift from her aunt, then she'll have something new. Are you willing to hold a grudge against your sister over this? It's probably not a big deal to your daughter. Not sure why you would make it one.

Maldonado is inconsequential. There will always be a backup catcher, whether it is him or some other guy. The point is to keep the rigors of catching from reducing Lucroy's effectiveness at bat. Catchers burn out much faster than position players, so it makes sense to move them to other positions at times. Yogi played the OF. Mauer and Posey have spent some time at 1B. Johnny Bench played 3B. Even Dave Nilsson got out from behind the plate. I think the Brewers should pick one or the other, either 1B or 3B, to give Lucroy a place for some time away from catching--but not both. To me, 3B seems beyond his ability, but I'm not a scout.

I believe George was considered to be attractive by some lady fans of the Brewers.

I picked up a bunch of signed 3x5, GPCs, etc. The big ones were Honus Wagner, Grover Alexander, Eddie Collins & Kiki Cuyler. I also got some Brewers. . .Harvey Kuenn, Frank Lane, Roberto Pena & Lafayette Currence. Those came from Kevin Keating & Phil Marks, two of my favorite autograph dealers. And I picked up a DVD from Raresportsfilms of the final three Packers games played under Vince Lombardi. I plan on giving that to one of my brothers-in-law for Christmas. I didn't find the Yankees pennant I was seeking. There were several vintage ones, but I'm holding out for an awesome one. I didn't see tons of early Brewers stuff, but after the autograph buys, there wasn't any money left anyway.

Another National come and gone for me. I had a successful show from a buying perspective and saw fellow BF.netter Pedro for lunch. Sorry I didn't get to meet up with Bikeage77 or jschris. . .hope you guys found what you were looking for. The show goes through Sunday at the Donald E. Stephens Center right near O'Hare. Highly recommended for any and all collectors. Bill Simmons was on site. He often does an overview on ESPN.com or Grantland, so you'll get to see some of the stuff on display.

thanks Baldkin and Invader. today i made $5/hr. last Tuesday was probably my worst day, working 13 hours and earning $55. i'm about the only one paying attention to wages, so things will be fun next week Friday. as it is, every single person is an inch away from quitting. but of course, that gives up unemployment, which is why nobody will do anything. plus the round ends probably Friday before we're back to making about $11/hr. i'll be asking for a photocopy of my manager-signed timesheet on the one-never-knows chance i get canned and can then go to court. but what it comes down to is go to court and get my meager amount of back wages, but lose accrued time on the job for unemployment. ultimately i'm thinking i'm better off just sucking it up. i plan on moving come November/December, so unemployment wages will mean a lot to me. I don't think you can measure it on a day-to-day basis. Are you making minimum wage or higher each pay period? If not, then you have a gripe.

He is really hanging Braun out to dry on this. It's kind of surreal. But as Attanasio is on the hook for another $130 million or so, there's nothing wrong with bringing out the 21st century version of the village stocks. Ryan is guilty of unlawful use of the apothecary, and thus will be sentenced to publick humiliation in the towne square. And, he addresses the "Face of the Franchise" stuff pretty well, too. I like Attanasio. This is a good move by him, as he's a young man, and his ownership of the franchise should extend far beyond the careers of any of today's players. He's got to think about the franchise as a whole and get it through these troubling times.

Selig has no special sympathy for the Brewers at this point in his life. He lives here. He single handedly brought the team here. He worked tirelessly on getting Miller Park. Most of his life has been spent on Milwaukee baseball. He's giving his personal archives to the University of Wisconsin. His and Sue's name is on many, many local charity groups' annual donors reports--often in the top categories of giving. I refuse to believe that he doesn't have a soft spot for the Brewers. Not that I expect him to govern baseball in their favor--I just can't see him being so vindictive toward the franchise as to chase down a Brewers player and suspend him without valid justification.

I don't consider something Braun said in conjunction with a guilty plea MLB pressured him into taking to be evidence of anything. I doubt we will get the full story on that for quite a while, if ever. But if your scenario is correct, how would something like that ever remain secret--especially in the environment we're in, where this is the leakiest story in recent memory? And what of the damage to the Brewers franchise? How would Attanasio allow for his team to take such a financial hit? The Brewers are in full scramble mode, to shift the marketing of the team. Braun is untradeable (at least at his pre-suspension value). Do you think the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers would allow the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers to harm the franchise under false pretenses? And do you honestly think the Commissioner would do such a thing to the team he built, in his own hometown? And even if you think he would do it, do you think he could get away with it?

Damn, this one hurts. . . I got to meet Boomer at a signing a couple of years ago, and then saw him again at Waukesha Sportscards, too. By then he was really hobbled, and slow-moving with his walker. I think he drove himself to events like that from Mississippi in a big old sedan. He was a huge personality, and one of the first real stars of those early Brewers teams. He played wearing a big, gaudy necklace, which was cool and outrageous. A powerful hitter who was also a smooth fielder, and a dynamic personality. RIP Boomer.

It certainly won't cost them anywhere near the face value of the vouchers. That's true, because they don't sell anything at cost. But what it means to me is $90 in my pocket for stuff that I would have otherwise bought.

Awesome-- I've got 3 games x 3 tickets each. . .$90. They have a couple of nice new hooded sweatshirts in the team store. Braun is buying me one.