What Piece of Sports Memorabilia Would You Most Like to Own?
We asked, and you gave some amazing answers.
We got a lot of really fun responses to the question: “What piece of sports memorabilia would you most like to own?” So we’ll get to those in just a couple minutes. First, a few updates:
— Alas, Margo got COVID over the weekend—it really seems to be spreading around, doesn’t it?—and so I’ve been waiting around for it to hit me. I’m not sure if it will or won’t. To be honest, with the book tour less than three weeks away, well, if I’m going to get it, I’d probably prefer to get it now.
— Watched “Searching for Sugar Man” for the first time in years last night, and, holy cow, I simply forgot what a masterpiece it is. We watch a lot of documentaries here at JoeBlogs Central, because we’re old, and a lot of them depress the heck out of us. This one makes your heart soar. Without offering any spoilers, it’s the story of an obscure singer/songwriter named Rodriguez who, as it turns out, might not be obscure at all. It works on every level, but the killer part, the thing that makes “Searching for Sugar Man” transcendent, is that the music is SO good.
— Three boxes of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL hardcovers arrived on the porch yesterday, which, you know, it’s getting pretty real around here.
I want to celebrate by giving you a sneak peek at the first page of the table of contents. I’ve tried to be really careful about not giving too much away, because I hope this book will be a delightful surprise to you no matter how big or small a football fan you might be… but I think in order to get at my aspirations for the book, it might help to take a look at some of the chapter titles.
The early reviews that are coming in—both professional reviews and from folks who have gotten an early peek at the book—are responding exactly as I hoped: They’re just getting a big ol’ kick out of it.
You can preorder the book everywhere—Amazon is obviously super-convenient; Barnes & Noble is offering 25 percent off (just type FOOTBALL25 as a coupon code at checkout); Rainy Day Books is my favorite independent bookstore, and I always love it when you order from your favorite independent. Twenty days to kickoff!
— Remember when at the trade deadline I wrote a little something about the aggressiveness of J.J. Picollo and the Kansas City Royals? When I wrote that, the Royals were six games back in the American League Central. On Tuesday, after a 6-1 victory over the Guardians (started by deadline acquisition Michael Lorenzen, who left in the second with an injury, and powered by deadline acquisition Paul DeJong), the Royals are tied with Cleveland for the division lead.
It’s a pretty shocking development—perhaps even for the most bullish of Royals fans—but there are still 30 games left for everything to shake out. Plus, you will have no-fun cynics talk about the Royals’ 12-1 record against the putrid White Sox—and how they won’t play the White Sox the rest of the year, which is true.
But, well, three things:
The Royals lost 106 games last year. They finished BELOW the White Sox.
Beating up on the White Sox is part of the job. The Twins are also 12-1 against them. Cleveland has only gone 5-5 against them.
All of this success is driven by the Royals’ refusal to tank, their insistence on trying to win when just about every other organization in their situation would have been looking to deal for prospects and save money. For me, the Royals are absolutely the feel-good story in baseball.
— When Dan Marino retired in 1999, his 61,361 passing yards was a jaw-dropping number. It was like 10,000 more yards than any quarterback in NFL history. It was almost 15,000 more yards than Fran Tarkenton, who held the record for something like 20 years (he broke John Unitas’ record, and Unitas broke Y.A. Tittle’s record, and Tittle broke Sammy Baugh’s record…).
Anyway, 60,000 yards seemed an absurdity.
Well, it appears likely that this year, Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford will become the ninth and 10th quarterbacks to cross 60,000 passing yards since Marino’s retirement. It’s a whole different game. The NFL embraces that philosophy. The NFL embraces the idea that football is always more exciting than it has ever been, and they’ll change any rule and adjust any part of the game to make it so. People love passing? OK, we’ll show you some passing!
A few days ago, the jersey that Babe Ruth wore for the called-shot home run sold for a little more than $24 million. Well, it sold for $100,000 more than $24 million, so that’s not a little bit, actually. It sold for a Porsche Boxster Spyder more than $24 million.
Anyway, I saw the jersey at the National Card Convention in Cleveland a month or so ago… it’s a really cool jersey IF you care about the called-shot home run (like I obviously do). If you don’t, it’s a junky old baseball jersey that you might find in your attic. This is the wonder of memorabilia. The value of this stuff is entirely personal. My Duane Kuiper game-used bat is the most priceless sports thing I own, and it’s probably worth the price of firewood to almost anybody else on planet earth.
So, I asked the question: What piece of memorabilia would you love to own?
Not surprisingly, our Brilliant Readers had some great answers: