Griffey Is Permanently At Home

Yesterday the Mariners unveiled the new statue of Ken Griffey Jr outside of SafeCo Field. The statue is located on the corner of Edgar Martinez Dr. and Dave Niehaus Way, a location that is now being referred to as the Mariners Triangle.

After the unveiling Griffey took his famous “swing” pose next to the statue, which is now my phone’s background. After the ceremony Snoop Dogg showed up, he said that he couldn’t make it to the unveiling but wanted to get his picture with the statue. He actually posted a video of his visit to the statue on his Twitter feed.

I do not know when I will head up to Seattle again but you can be sure that when I do I will be taking my picture with the statue and make sure to include some of my Griffey wallet card.

Say It Ain't So Eli

I read a story today that has me a bit surprised in regard to a racketeering suit filed last week against Eli Manning, the NY Giants, Steiner Sports and others connected to a sale of memorabilia to three collectors.

Eli Manning had a contract to supply his game-used equipment to Steiner Sports in 2010 and apparently knowingly Manning and the Giants supplied equipment that had not been used. Initially the Giants were trying to play innocent but Manning turned over emails supporting the claims.

In April 2010 the Giants marketing manager Alan Zucker asked Manning to supply 2 game-used helmets and 2 game-used jerseys. There was a communication between Manning and the Giants equipment manager Joe Skiba where Manning asked Skiba to supply him with 2 helmets that can pass as game-used, which Skiba in turn supplied.

Prior to the lawsuit being filed last week one of the plaintiffs had an email exchange with Skiba where Skiba admits that he created “BS” versions for the game-used equipment because Manning didn’t want to give him the real items.

The Giants official response to the lawsuit is “Eli Manning is well known for his integrity and this is just the latest misguided attempt to defame his character.”

So even though both Eli Manning and the team’s equipment manager Joe Skiba have turned over emails and have admitted to submitting fake items the Giants are standing their ground that this is all a smear job.

This isn’t the first time that the team has been accused of selling fake memorabilia either. Barry Barone, who was one of the Giants team dry cleaners, has said that in 2001 he was asked to “beat up” unused uniforms from the 2000 season to make them appear as game used. In 2008 Skiba was ordered by a team VP to doctor up a helmet to appear as Manning’s Super Bowl helmet so they could send it to the Hall of Fame. It has come to light that included in this lawsuit is a claim that in March 2016 Michael Strahan requested his Super Bowl XLII jersey from the team and they sent him a fake altered jersey.

This is a travesty and I will go out on a limb and say that the Giants are NOT THE ONLY TEAM doing this, I am sure this is a common occurrence in all sports. I don’t believe this is always the case, I am sure many teams sell plenty of game used jerseys but it is no wonder collectors are left wondering if the dime-sized white jersey relic in their card is real. The generic “Not any specific game or season” guarantees do not help alleviate any of the collector’s fears.

Why Yes, They Do Have An Elegant Appearance

I like when find a card and you look at it and think “That design really works nicely”. I found two cards from 2016 Hit Memorabilia releases, one from their Fission release and one from their Cornerstone Collection release.  

Now when I talk about the design I do not include the lack of a MLB licensing so the Mattingly and Griffey cards do not have team names or logos, which would definitely add to the appeal. I am just talking about the actual design with background image/designs, player location and the layout of the die-cut windows. This is the kind of design I could see Upper Deck coming up with but Hits Memorabilia did a wonderful job here and I really appreciate the look of both cards, of course I would prefer the Griffey card but that is a bit biased of me.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1937 Haus Bergmann Privat Manfred von Richthofen

This month’s VCoM is another tobacco era German cigarette card of the Red Baron; this 1937 Manfred von Richthofen is from a pack of Haus Bregmann Privat and similar to the early American tobacco era cards there are a variety of backs. So far I have seen 6 different backs so of course I will eventually have to track down as many as I can find.

The back of the card says that he was the leader of the most successful squadron of the war but was shot down on April 21, 1918 after his 80^th victory and was replaced by Goering (Yes, that Hermann Goering who became Hitler's #2 man). At the time this card was printed in 1937 there were 9 squadrons bearing his name.

The card is rather thin, almost sticker like, and is not standard tobacco cards size being shorter than most tobacco era cards but wider. Richthofen is in the front (Second from left), I tried searching to figure who the other three men are with him but I was not able to figure it out.

Titus Young's Hall Of Fame Career Will Have To Wait

Sometimes I will look to past posts and see if there is a follow up that I can do to update a situation and sometimes a face from the past forces their way back in to the headlines which just shouts at me to do a follow up.

This time it is Titus Young, the troubled former Detroit Lions wide receiver, who has spent more time in jail than in the NFL. Here is the <LINK> to one of my former posts covering Young’s 26 game career with the Lions.

In 2013 he was arrested three times in a one week period (twice in 15 hours) with charges of DUI, Breaking and Entering, Burglary, Resisting Arrest and Assaulting a Police Officer. He was later arrested after a bench warrant was issued in late 2013 after he failed to appear on the burglary charges. In July 2014 he was arrested on five counts of Assault and Battery and eventually was sentenced to one year at an inpatient treatment rehabilitation center beginning in May 2015 plus five years probation. He left the rehabilitation center after six months and then immediately decided to attack his neighbor with a deadly weapon.

The legal system has finally had enough of Titus Young’s antics and this morning sentenced him to 4 years in prison.

He once claimed he was a Hall of Famer and better than every player on the Detroit Lions team but it can now be said that unless he goes to prison at Citrus State Prison (The Longest Yard reference) he is done with his football career.

His father continues to claim that all his problems are directly connected to a mystery concussion (or series of concussions depending on when he talks about it) that was never diagnosed by a team doctor or independent doctor saying that his son’s brain is compressed to the front of his skull. I say to his father quit blaming Titus’ horrendous criminal decisions on everyone else and focus on the one consistent variable, your son.   

I do not own the card at the top of this post, I pulled it from eBay and I feel bad for the seller who has it posted at $149.99 BIN price.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards III

This is probably my coolest Ken Griffey Jr pickup of 2016 and that is saying a lot when you consider I picked up over 700 unique Griffey cards. The cards are manufactured bat knobs from the 2015 Topps Baseball Series 2 release but they are extremely cool.

Base

Black Knob #44/99

Pink Knob #12/25
My first Christmas card

Someone Selling My Digital Art, Not Cool Round 2

Once again the guy who had stolen my digital image of my What If? Billy Ripken bat knob card is at it again and selling the card again. When I contacted him on January 4th about it he ended the auction and while he gave me a shtick about why I should allow him to sell the card he did agree to not sell it. I have made it routine to check every so often and last night I came across the same guy selling the same card using my image to make a profit for himself.

I tried to contact him through the question link in the auction but he apparently has turned off the "Ask a question" link for his auctions. I am guessing he probably gets plenty of complaints and won't face up to his actions. I had saved his emails from our conversation in January so I sent him an email regarding him selling my image and how I am done being polite. I submitted a report to the eBay VeRO department regarding him using my intellectual design to make money, I also made posts on Blowout Cards forum, Beckett forum, the Trading Card Database forum and the Sports Card Forum.

Most people would respond the first time it was brought up and stop selling the card totally, scrap the image and move on but not this guy. Where a profit is to be made I am sure he is set to sell everyone else's work as his own.

EDIT 4/6-
Here is the guy's store link: mr.0ddball420

All of this could have easily been averted had he just stopped using a design I posted back in January but apparently the $14.99 he got from the couple of cards he sold was too much to give up. Now because he had to turn this in to a big blow up and continue to claim his friend own the rights to the card and if I pushed him to stop selling the card he was going to hunt me down and turn his friend's lawyer on me I decided to go all out to stop this guy from selling his cheap copies.

I contacted Topps, Upper Deck and Beckett because he is selling cards with their logos/watermarks on them and I already have gotten a response from Upper Deck and they are getting involved.

It May Be True, It May Not But It Take Cajones To Ask

According to Yankees color commentator Suzyn Waldman Yankee 22-year old prospect Clint Frazier asked if the team would un-retire #7 for him. After being asked by ESPN the Yankees GM Brian Cashman said that it was not true.

Considering that Waldman has been covering the Yankees since 1987 you would think that she can figure out truth from rumor when it comes to the inner workings of the team so I am apt to believe her on this one. It may not have been an official request by Frazier but I am willing to bet somewhere along the line the kid asked the club house manager or someone connected to uniform assignments.

Oh man Mickey is having a hell of a month.

Panini's Coup

A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Topps was unretiring the #7 for their checklists and that the contract with the Mantle family has ended. Yesterday it was announced that Panini has signed a multi-year contract with the Mantle family and will be producing Mantle cards including cut signatures and memorabilia cards. The agreement is that Mantle will appear in six Panini releases a year plus he can appear on packaging materials for two releases a year.

Mickey’s sons David and Danny said that the reason for the change was that they felt that Topps was flooding the market with their father in modern day releases. Obviously, this is code talk for “Panini offered us more money” because Panini will flood the market too. Just because his likeness can only be included in six releases does not mean that he will only be included on a couple of cards. Being in six releases will most likely result in hundreds of Mantle cards a year from Panini for the next couple of years and the worst of it all is that without the MLB license Mantle will appear logoless. I expect we will see tie and golf shirt relic cards.

His first Panini card is part of the online exclusive Panini Eternal release, seen above, and became available yesterday beginning at $9.99 each. His first packed out card will be in 2017 Panini Immaculate Baseball in August.

Opening Weekend

Opening weekend for baseball and all baseball fans are excited. I normally do not watch much baseball because I don’t get a many Mariners games here but yesterday I watched the Diamondbacks-Giants game and it was pretty amazing to see Bumgarner become the first pitcher to knock two homeruns on Opening Day. The second homer was almost on cue while the announcers were talking about it how it has never been done.

The Mariners opening game just started so I will take this time to post the first card I bought this year. Nothing special, it is a 2017 Topps Series 1 Salute Ken Griffey Jr and I finally gave in and bought it because it was a 99 cent BIN with free shipping.