* Bits and pieces: Hot Stove edition

My apologies for falling way behind. Still basking in my post-Yankee fantasy camp experience, which you will be able to read about in the pages of the New Jersey Jewish News in the next week or so, as well as Broadside Bombers next year.

So without further ado:

• Ron Shandler, who publishes the popular Baseball Forecaster, contributed this essay on the Arizona Fall League to the Huffington Post last month (told you I was behind).
• Chad Finn on Boston.com’s “Touching all the Bases” blog notes that “the annual Bill James Handbook is out, and it’s arrival in the mailbox and the immediate aftermath is one of the finest hours — make that roughly three of the finest hours — in a baseball nerdle’s year.” Finn also includes a card from the 1966 Topps set, one of my favorites.
• We all know that Boston fans are among the most well-read. Here’s a chance to prove it.
• I used to think it was kind of sad when an athlete put his prizes and trophies up for auction. But as I’ve gotten older, my philosophy on material things has changed. Why not out some of this stuff to good use?
• I’ll trade you one John Roberts for two Ruth Bader Ginsburgs. Seriously, it’s nice and all but I hope this didn’t come out of taxpayers funds.

* Not quite ‘Dewey defeats Truman,’ but…

I was misled. I thought the Philadelphia Inquirer had run an item prematurely congratulating the Phillies for winning the World Series for the second consecutive year. Turns out they just accidentally ran an advertisement from Macy’s, apparently in a rush to sell merchandise.

I can’t recall exactly where I saw it, but some news magazine program had a segment on what happens to the stuff teams make up in advance on the possibility that the team will, in fact, win the title. Evidently it’s all packed up immediately and shipped to some third world country where it’s donated to the locals.

* RK Review: Miracle Ball: The Hunt for the Shot Heard Around the World

by Brian Biegel. Crown, 2009.

Miracle Ball is at once a sweet and haunting book.

The premise has the author, whose day job is that of an independent filmmaker, on an obsessive quest to find the whereabouts of an/or ownership of the ball hit by Bobby Thomson in the 1951 playoff game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. (He produced a documentary by the same name.)

Why is this of such interest to Biegel?

On the one hand, it seems like a way to pay honor to his beloved father, who may or may not have said ball, which he acquired as a young man in Brooklyn. On the other, given Biegel’s admission of mental illness brought on (or exacerbated) by a series of unfortunate circumstances — and without trying to play armchair psychiatrist — an extension/manifestation of those problems.

This is not to say that the book is not entertaining. To the contrary, it reads like a detective novel, as Biegel follows leads, tracks down connections to the ball, hire detectives, and studies evidence to lead him to his goal: proving the charlatan “experts” of baseball memorabilia wrong in their assertions that there was no way his dad could have had the ball.

Biegel’s description of forensic methods used to study photographs is a page taken out of today’s popular TV crime dramas, but you wonder why these detectives and technicians would go through the trouble. The photographs used in the book to “prove” Biegel’s suspicions as to who caught the ball in the crowd that day are not well served, given the limitations of the printed page of the book. Perhaps they were sharper in the original and therefore more reliable; it is impossible for the reader to judge.

And while Biegel admits the shortcomings of the photographic equipment of the early 1950s, he is nevertheless quite certain that what he shots he does have bear out his theories. In one chapter he describes a photo in which sportswriter Tommy Holmes is running against the crowd towards the stands, ostensibly to locate the person who caught Thomson’s blast. He identifies Holmes, who was missing part of his left arm (bringing to mind The Fugitive, one of the most popular TV shows of all time, and another story of obsession), in one shot, but what if it was a bad camera angle that hid part of that limb, making it seem missing?

For all the questionable conclusions, Yet Biegel remains a sympathetic author. There is no doubt the affection and support shared in his family. His heart is definitely in the right place. In the end, that might be all that’s important.

You can read an excerpt here.

* I would have gone as high as $56,765

How the mighty — and not so mighty — have fallen:

According to this story on the Sports Collector’s Daily website

Dykstra’s 1986 World Series Ring Brings $56,762

I wonder if Baseball Americana had time to include it.

* Library of Congress holds Baseball Americana program

The Library of Congress will host a two-day event to mark the release of Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress, “a beautifully illustrated book featuring more than 350 images (many never before published) from the late 18th century to the late 20th century,” beginning Friday, Oct. 2.

The program, which features an appearance by Hall of Famer Ernie Banks,is free and open to the public. Register at www.loc.gov/folklife

Friday, Oct. 2
A curated exhibit of Library baseball treasures from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Jefferson Building. Frank Ceresi, one of the book’s authors and a professional appraiser of sports memorabilia for museums and auction houses, will give a talk on baseball collectibles at 3 p.m. Bring in your own baseball treasures for a free assessment.

At 7 p.m., there will be a special Baseball Highlights Reel of clips from more than a century of baseball in the movies in the Mumford Room of the Madison Building.

Saturday, Oct. 3
Banks, and Astros pitcher/announcer/manager Larry Dierker, Negro League pitcher Mamie “Peanut” Johnson will discuss their experiences in the game in the Coolidge Theater of the Jefferson Building beginning at 9 a.m. Experts in other baseball fields will also share their experiences, including Yankee Stadium organist Ed Alstrom, hot dog historian Bruce Kraig, Louisville Slugger manufacturer Jack Hillerich, and MLB groundskeeping consultant Murray Cook.

Beginning at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 30, co-authors  Ceresi, Harry Katz, Phil Michel, and Susan Reyburn will sign copies in the Stars and Stripes Club at Nationals Park prior to the Mets-Nationals game.

* The sins of childhood

I’ve written about this before, but The Wall Street Journal ran another story about kids ‘n cards from generations past. The little fools without the foresight to see how much money was to be made from keeping those baseball cards in pristine condition.

Sorry, kid, you’ll have to go to a commuter college, Daddy din’t maintain his cards wisely.

Michael Posner's card, now worth about a buck and a quarter.

* Collector’s item or clutter?

My wife recently gave me a bottle of Driven the new fragrance inspired/created/whatever by Derek Jeter,

My dilemma: what do I do with this? On the one hand, I know I should use it. On the other hand, would this have any value as a collector’s item? Either way, I can keep it on the bookshelf.

* …many of which would like on your bookshelf

The Mets are hosting an on-line auction. The cheapest item as of this writing is a $50 stadium brick; the most expensive, is the letter “S” off the Shea Stadium sign (the “Stadium” S, not the “Shea” S) for $2,500.

The auction ends October 31.

* This week in ESPN The Magazine

A couple of noteworthy pieces in the Sept. 22 issue:

• “Chicago Style,” a collaborative effort on the White Sox and Cubs, full of entertaining factoids (102 according to the cover).
• “The Authenticators,” by Colin Fleming, on how to spot the real deal in the memorabilia world. including a sidebar on the Honus Wagner card

* Ah, yes, I remember it well.

Tom Shroder of The Washington Post contributed this sweet, nostalgic piece about discoerving a long-forgotten piece of his childhood.

As I lectured my mom on this subject recently, arguing for ruthlessness in the disposition of boxes filled with old stuff, I came across a little cardboard notebook. Labeled “Official Baseball Score Book,” it opened to reveal page after page of classic baseball scorecards — columns of little boxes, each with a diamond in the middle, on which cryptic scribbles and symbols could record the happenings of a game. Only the first few pages were filled in with what, I soon realized, was almost certainly the only surviving record of my 12-and-under Little League team, the Apes. That unfortunate team moniker I had blotted from memory, but the names in the batting lineup — Feldman, Astor, Tagney, Shroder — I could recite perfectly more than 40 years after the fact.

* * *

I realize now that it was, possibly, the most sublime triumph of my life. Nearly half a century later, the memory still makes me glow.