For the first time in a decade or so, my best pick-ups have been soccer rather than baseball. Soccer is my passion and I sometimes / often go with what I know.
My pick-ups this year have centered on Real Madrid shirts. For those who don't know soccer, Real Madrid were voted as Team of the Century back in 2006. They are, in some respects, a soccer equivalent of the New York Yankees.
My Real Madrid shirt / jersey pick-ups this year are probably best illustrated by the below photo of goalkeepers shirts I bought, all of which are match worn and marked the era when Real Madrid had their first shirt sponsor (Italian company Zanussi) in 1982 to 1985:
I DID buy baseball this year but it was invariably photos of the Yankees in the 1920s and 1930s. Probably picked up 200+ photos in total. My best was to pick up a few original Conlon photos of Tony Lazzeri who is the closest I have to a baseball collecting interest.
However, my favourite baseball pick-up was this:
This is an original photo from 1942 of an official baseball game in Windsor Park, Belfast (Northern Ireland) by two teams of US soldiers. It was the first official game of baseball played in Northern Ireland since 1917. The game attracted a large crowd in mid-war Belfast - circa 12,000.
This year, having moved into a new house in Belfast last week, I have also started to display items bought earlier but hidden away until now. Whilst mainly soccer, there will be a growing space for baseball, such as the below which includes a linen stress sheet for the grandstand of Yankee Stadium, produced by Osborne Engineering in 1921 (purchased from Guernsey's in 2008):
However, more importantly, this was a great year of sport for me. I loved watching the Northern Ireland soccer team qualify for the European Championships in 2016 and, in particular, loved to see them play in the Faroe Islands and Finland. Next year, it will be France, the Czech Republic and Germany.
Each game, I am accompanied by Kermit who, in celebration, has sometimes been a bit worse for wear:
Best wishes to all from an occasional poster, and long-time memorabilia collector, across the pond.