Last month, I posted the July-August 1971 issue of The Sports Advertiser's Journal (here:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=220718), which included a brief article by 18-year-old Bill Mastro. I said that it was the earliest piece of hobby writing by Mastro that I was aware of, but that it was entirely possible that there were earlier ones I hadn't seen. Last week I read through all my other Sports Advertiser's Journals (complete from December 1969 through the penultimate issue in Fall 1973), and found a couple more articles by Mastro in 1970. I was pretty sure I remembered seeing a Mastro reference in another publication from even earlier, so tonight I went through the other hobby publications I have from 1969 and 1970 looking for Mastro articles, references, or display ads. (I didn't bother looking through the classifieds.) Below is what I found. I make no claim that this is exhaustive (for one thing, I have no Trader Speaks from before January 1970), but what I did find is still interesting.
The earliest Mastro reference I found was in the April 1969 Ballcard Collector, in "Martin Opens His Mail", where editor George Martin quotes letters he had gotten, and sometimes replies to them. One of them was from 16-year-old Mastro, who praised Martin's paper and ended by saying "I only collect baseball items":
Then in the July 1969 Ballcard Collector, the same mail column has another letter from Mastro, praising the June issue's cover (which reproduced two short newspaper articles about kids and baseball cards) and Ed Broder's article on getting free material from baseball teams:
Next is the September 1969 Sports Trader, where the "News and Views on Collecting" column was similar to the above, with editor Richard Burns reproducing letters from readers and reacting to them. Mastro wrote that it was wrong to write to survivors of deceased ballplayers asking for signatures from checks, but Burns disagreed:
The December 1969 Sports Trader had a half-page ad from Mastro, listing his wants and the cards he had to trade:
Also in December 1969, The Ballcard Collector had a smaller "For Sale" ad by Mastro, including 49 T206s for $9 (18 cents apiece):
The January 1970 Sports Advertiser's Journal has the earliest hobby article by Mastro that I've seen, about the 1953 Mother's Cookies set:
The December 1970 Sports Advertiser's Journal has a longer and more interesting article by Mastro, extending over two pages. Editor Jay Knapp had asked all his previous writers to contribute to the Christmas issue, so Mastro wrote something called "Bill's Bulletin", in which he tried to sound casual and witty. He was looking for T206 Plank and Wagner, and he had Demmitt and O'Hara to trade. He was still a couple months shy of his 18th birthday.
