My Christmas present for the board

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I wrote a story that I originally planned on making into a book but I figured the people who it would most appeal to are the people who read this board so I decided to shorten it a little and post it here for free. If you go in the Card Alterations and Reprint section above you'll see a link titled "A Card's Life" For now,thats where the story will be found. If you get a chance to sit down and read it please do,and let me know what you think. I'll warn you right now,it's a little long but I think,worth the read.Happy Holidays to everyone!

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

Enjoyed the read..  thanks!

martyOgelvie
nyyankeecards.com

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Posted By: Dan

Loved the story. You put a great deal of research into it and I identified with all of the caracters. It was a great way of bridging the gap from cards we all can relate with to today's cards. I hope you continue to write other stories.

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Posted By: Matt

interesting idea. How about an image of the card displayed with the story?

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Thanks for the compliments. There actually is another story I'm doing right now that goes along with that story. It should be done in a few weeks,maybe late January.Here's a scan from the vintage card prices site of the Cleveland card. I don't have a scan of that particular Keefe card,if anyone out there has it,please post it.


http://www.vintagecardprices.com/card-profile/index.php?card_id=64511

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Posted By: Joe_G.

Wow, took me several days to get through it I found several "errors" but thoroughly enjoyed the read. Is the boy who gets vintage cards every birthday and Christmas you or someone you know? How much of the players stats are researched vs made-up?

About the minor inaccuracies, I believe all Old Judge photo cards are based on technology that pre-dates flash photography. Flash photography was invented but wouldn't see wide spread use until later. Also, do you know whether more than one OJ could be found in a pack? Lastly, are you familiar with the OJ production process of each card coming from a sheet of 24, which itself was a large photo of 24 cabinets modified with players name, team, copyright, advertising and such.

Thanks for the present John.

Best Regards,
Joe Gonsowski

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Joe,I knew about only one to a pack as far as we know,but I needed to put the 2 players together from the start,so that was done on purpose for the story. I didnt know about the photography,I figured it was one of those ones where the guy held up the powder on the board above his head like you see in the movies depicting the old days,and the other guy went under a cloth hanging from the camera and snapped the picture. I knew about the 24 to a sheet,Ive seen the one the Library of Congress has but dont understand why you asked that?

As far as the real stats vs made up,all of the major league dates,players and scores and stats are real,how they happened might not be the same but I was writing a fictional story not relaying history. The minor league stuff is all made up and if you go to the retrosheet page for Art Mills you can actually read an in depth story about him which is very interesting. I didnt read the story about him until after I was done on purpose because I didnt want to just write what has already happened like i said above. I changed a couple things just for the story like a game that happened on a friday I said happened on a monday when he went back to school with the cards

There is also one other huge error in the story,cards dont talk

There were family references in the story,one being me getting cards for Christmas and Birthdays every year from my dad. Another being the Dick Kokos card from the card shop which was put in there just for my dad who found that same card while working on remodeling a kitchen.It was under the fridge when he moved it and he gave it to me with the owners consent. Another one was the mom putting everything back in the same spot when she cleaned,my grandmother is known for being meticulous with placement of objects around the house,you can move something like a knick-knack and she just senses it,my dad used to tell me funny stories about moving stuff on her. The last thing I threw in for my dad who was reading the story daily as I was writing was the phrase "prattle of the dead" which is a favorite quote of ours from the Married with Children tv show. I dont think Ive heard the word prattle used any other time

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Posted By: Fred C

That took a few visits to complete the reading. It was fun but I was severely disappointed because I was certain there was going to be a Larry Corcoran reference in there. I almost read it twice to see if I had just missed it but I know I would have caught it in the first round.

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Posted By: Joe_G.

By the 24 image per page comment . . . , I was really getting after the fact that all Old Judges are simply photos of photos. Your story kinda skips that step.

Your present is currently my favorite

Best Regards, & Merry Christmas!
Joe Gonsowski

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Thanks guys. I didnt want to get into the whole Old Judge printing process because thats when I started writing from the cards point of view. I was trying to keep them confused about what was going on around them.


I also want to correct something above,the big article I was talking about above was for Willie Mills not Art Mills(although he does have one too) and it can be found here http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=861&pid=9737


Sorry about no Corcoran reference Fred,he didnt play in the majors in 1888. At least you know who Willie Garoni is now and you can try to find a card of him

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Posted By: Fred C

John,

Wow, if I could only find a Willie Garoni OJ card... could you imagine, an OJ of an 11 year old... would that be considered a pre-rookie card?

I suppose they did have cards of Willie Hahm and Willie Breslin, why not Willie Garoni?

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

John:

Since I had an abundance of leisure time while Christmasing in Newport Beach, in the spirit of the season I partook of your Christmas offering. I must say it was a very nice effort.

Most fiction writers don't invent their characters completely from scratch. Usually, they draw from real world experiences to mold their performers from a person or people they really know. I'm curious - who was the real world model for the inspired creation of the general store owner?

Kevin

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Posted By: john/z28jd

All names used in the story are fictional(except the real ones) and any that sound like they might be someone I know is purely coincidental. I'm sure there are plenty of Grumpy old men with the last name Cummings and just because I call you grumpy and old and your last name is Cummings doesnt mean it was based on you,you're just paranoid.Besides, when did you ever own a general store?

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Posted By: leonl

First of all thanks again to John for sharing his story. On a similar note Brian M and I were talking the other day and think it would be great if anyone else has a story, or an article, they have written and would like to have it posted on the board as we did with this story...Please email me if you have something you would like to share....and thanks to all for making this a "mostly" calm place lately. Brian and I feel that 2007 was a great year for Net54 VBCF and we hope 2008 will be even better.... best regards