With the passing of Dr. Mike Marshall

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I love the 1978 set too. It's a nice, simple design with a mixture of great and grainy photos. This unevenness has made it unpopular with many people, but some collectors really like it.

Many, many years ago, I thought it would be a fun idea to try for the entire autographed set. Of course, Munson and Bostock were long gone, but most of the other players were still with us at the time.

I started out by writing to the 200 players for whom I had cards handy. The results were incredibly saddening, leading me to give up and call all the postage a loss. Out of 200 letters written, several came back RTS. Five--yes, you read that right--five people signed and returned their cards. Herman Franks was always a great signer and responded quickly. Darrell Evans and Steve Henderson took a year or three. The two others responded quickly as well, but what made it so strange was that neither of them usually respond to mail requests--Wayne Nordhagen and Jerry Martin. I later learned that Mr. Nordhagen has moved around a lot and the case could be made that he's not a bad signer, but it's perhaps a matter of being able to catch him at the right address at the right time.