O/T but funny

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Posted By: warshawlaw

This was on Bill Maher's Real Time show on HBO last Friday:

"New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you're gay. If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you're a grown man, they're pictures of men."

Now I am the farthest thing from gay ("Not that there's anything wrong with it" --Seinfeld) but I'd rather look at a picture of Ty Cobb than that scary harpie Ann Coulter any day; I'd bet she could kick ol' Ty's butt up and down the street any day of the week.

What I'd really like to see is a death cage match between Coulter and Arianna Huffington

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Its even worse, necroman. You prefer pictures of men who are dead.
Yikes - I share your obscession.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Andy,

When Huffington speaks I hear Zsa Zsa Gabor's voice - is there there something wrong with me?

I saw that same show and I started busting up when he read the new rules about the baseball cards. I figure one of the writers for the show probably swore off baseball cards after getting another raw deal on ebay or not being able to win a anything from any of the major auction houses.

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Posted By: JTB

A book came out a few years ago written by a professor of "American Studies". I think the title was "House of Cards". It discussed the repressed homoerotic fantasies of baseball card collectors.

JTB

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Posted By: steve k

I understand Bill Maher's brand of humor but "gay" could be attached to almost anything if not everything. Monty Python did it with "he's a lumberjack." If someone can be a gay lumberjack, they can be gay anything. There were a few admittedly gay NFL football players. Personally, I don't know any baseball card collectors who are gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that - LOL

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Posted By: Julie

in any walk of life. Except I'm serious...

Is this anybody's favorite baseball card? Does that make you gay? ROFLMAO! I think Maher (I saw the show too) was simply reporting on one of the ridiculous things people had said during the past week.

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Posted By: Glenn

What about this?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

From the big muscle men to the tight pastel colored pants to the butt-touching. As gay as it gets. Not that there's anything wrong with that (always have to add that in so I'm not accused as gay-bashing).

Baseball is demonstrably NOT gay: The #1 idol of the game was fat man with a funny nose.

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Posted By: Glenn

Truman Capote?

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Adam, I went brain dead earlier in the day - your new name is Andrew... sorry about that... the new baseball card rule thing was funny though...

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Posted By: scgaynor

Further proof that Bill Maher is a moron.

Scott

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Posted By: Tim James

That would be maroon.I shoulda taken that left turn at Albequerque.

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Posted By: Julie

bright guy, this evening he added that there are approx. 65,000 gay men and women in the armed forces, and he doesn't think it's fair that they, in addition to dealing with the army, navy, air forece or marines should have to spend their lives in the service ACTING like something they ain't.

Agree.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Not to side with Bill Maher but i always thought it was odd that people liked the portrait cards so much when theyre just pictures of the guys faces trying to look their best,but then again my reasoning for liking cards like old judges is that its real pictures and the guys are in full uniform.....that sounds almost as bad,nothing like seeing a guy in full uniform

Basically hes saying that if you have any picture of someone of the same sex and they arent related to you,then its considered gay.He just chose baseball cards as an outlet for that joke. I would say card collectors are more dorks and nerds than anything

altho some are just out of their mind

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Posted By: dennis

i never liked the head shots, and the ones without a hat are even worse.

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Posted By: Julie

What he said this week (see my last post) was not a joke.

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Posted By: steve k

Well let's see, so anyone who collects portraits of men is gay. Anyone who collects US coins and currency is gay. Anyone who has pictures of George Washington and other past presidents and leaders hanging on their walls is gay. Anyone who has male portraits of religious figures is gay. A photograph album of male pictures of family members means someone is incestuously gay. All said of course in a tongue-in-cheek way to illustrate the absudity of the notion of baseball card collectors being gay.

By the way, I never thought that baseball card collectors were nerdy. Nerdness is in the mind of the person...If you think you are a nerd then you'll probably be treated like a nerd. I've always been very proud of my baseball card collection. I've been called a number of derogatory things in my life, but never a nerd. But if someone else doesn't mind being known as a nerd, that's their prerogative.

PS: Comedians such as Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and others did political and social satire in an interesting way which made you reflect, and actually made sense in a humorous way. Bill Maher is simply a contemptible fraud and really quite boring.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I got quite a kick out of baseball card collecting being "worthy" of a jab in a nationally televised show, which is why I posted it.

The whole "gay" thing is impossible to react to seriously since that Seinfeld episode, so don't anyone go getting offended here or take it so seriously. "I've been outed and I wasn't even in!"

As far as nerdiness, we dress like kids and sit in a convention hall for several days at a time buying, selling and talking about old toys. All most of us need are flood pants and pocket protectors instead of baggy shorts, jersey tops and ball caps to complete the image. My wife calls us "card nerds" all the time. Doesn't bother me. Like I tell her, I don't sit around bars or have expensive consumption hobbies, I collect cards and chat with others who do the same. Besides, I've had the last laugh lately; the stocks she bought in January are down around 8% but the E cards I bought keep going up, up, up. Nothing silences a critic like a mouth full of humble pie and a fistfull of dollars

I do draw the line at dork. I ceased to be a dork when I became a business owner and daddy to a perfect little lady. No dork could do that And if you don't believe it I'll hit you with my slide rule to prove it!

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Dork was the wrong term,sorry everyone,i meant geeks and nerds

Collecting cards is actually a great hobby but alot of the time you get odd looks from people who dont know any better.Most relatives think i should be saving money or when i tell them what cards are worth,like a Wagner or Mantle rookie they all say if i had one id sell it and buy a house(like they all assume theyre just going to wake up one day with one under the pillow?).Any card worth over $20 should be sold in their mind to get something else.Basically to people who dont have hobbies,anytime its worth something then its an investment not a hobby.

I think the real geeks and nerds are people who have hobbies that just take up time by themselves,like crossword puzzles or playing solataire.Walking thru card shows tho i look at some of the people and say i cant believe these people have the same hobby as me

I could always be worse like my brother whos hobbies are sleeping late,playing video games and drinking beer,of course he calls it a lifestyle

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Posted By: steve k

Points completely understood and any comments from fellow baseball card collectors are always heard and respected. I don't mind one bit the opinion of anyone here regarding baseball card collecting. I guess it did bother me a touch that a narcissist like Bill Maher would try to pin a label, even in a humorous way, on baseball card collectors. I don't believe there is a single straight guy out there who if connected to a lie detector machine, would answer "yes" to a question such as, "Would you want to be associated with a hobby in which you would be perceived as gay." Perhaps it was the messenger and not really the message that irked me a tad. But of course that is Bill Maher's schtick to be irritating.

Well that is enough from me for an O/T thread. Back to ebay whereby I shall continue the quest of building my t206 set, 1933 Goudey set, and 1952 Topps set which for anybody who doesn't know are sets of small cards that have men's pictures on them. :)

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Posted By: tbob

I've never met any gay baseball card collectors but I've met some pretty nerdy ones, though. I still think the per capita nerdiness quotient for card collectors is far, far below that of stamp collectors, coin collectors and comic book collectors. I also think there are far fewer nerds per collector in the area of pre-war vintage cards as opposed to the post war guys.

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Posted By: dennis

what about star wars and star trek collectors? scary

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Posted By: Julie

Someone who wears glsses, is fairly quiet, not to sociable, and spends a lot of time alone, doesn't hang out with a gang of friends. Studious--in whatever field he "collects."

I suppose to that extent, Baseball card collectors are more nerdy than the average population. Because, in a sense, we are scholars of the baseball card. That makes us nerds, in some eyes.

As for being gay, I would imagine the gay population of card collectors is way, way under that of the average population, because the macho sport of baseball has rubbed off to a certain extent. And I'm also sure that "don't ask; don't tell" applies way, way more than in the average population.

Bunch of macho nerds, that what you are! Er..where does that leave me?...

O.K. I gotta watch "Seinfeld." Does anuone know the name of the episode?

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Posted By: jackgoodman

Originally aired 2-11-93.

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Posted By: Julie