Aloha from Chicago

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Posted By: DMcD

Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble
Theriot to Cedeno to Lee

Saw my first game ever at Wrigley as the Cubs made easy work of the Pirates. Had a terrific seat at field level behind home plate from which to drink in the glories of the Taj Mahal of Baseball and to conjure images of Dizzy Dean, 75 feet and 75 years away, and Charlie Root looking to kill Ruth with a heater, and Hack Wilson and Ernie Banks and all the rest. What I really appreciated about Wrigley were the sounds of the place. The aggregate voice of the crowd wasn't smothered by some damn state-of-the-art sound system playing ten gazillion decibels worth of We Will Rock You or Help Me Rhonda. The place had a hum; you could hear the players talk.

Made it back to Rosemont in time to hit the show for a couple of hours. Primarily spent my time at Ryan Chistoff's table and came away with a peachy Billiken Cueto and some good converstion. Also spent some time (and a little money) at the Helmar Brewing booth. If any of you are not familiar with what they are doing, they are a regional brewery in the midwest and they offer a whole range of premiums such as cards, silks, panels etc that depict baseball images as well as other sports. Their choice of baseball subjects is eclectic in a fun way, deadball players and modern ones, negro leaguers, even Japanese ballplayers and House of David guys. It is modern stuff to be sure but it is not to be mistaken for shiny crap; it captures the soul of baseball like no contrived throwback issue ever could. Present was one of the artists, Monty Sheldon, a big, friendly guy, and all I can say is "He got skills". Charlie Mandel is doing a really good thing for the hobby. (By the way, the guy who posts under "billcarrigan" might want to check out the original art for the Helmar Carrigan card and Brad Green might want to look at the Lefty Grove portrait. Both are on my picture site).

Thanks to Aaron for your posts which brought a level of erudition (depth, polish and breadth, for those that slept through high school English) to this thread which I am unable to match, and to young Turner who is indeed his Dad's pride. And thanks to Jodi, too. This is only about the third thread I have started in five years on the board so I guess it is natural to feel a bit proprietary, right or wrong, and your post was cool with me. You made some valid points which I think could be extrapolated to card sellers as well.

Jeff L.: Glad I'm getting a couple of laughs out of you. Wish you could have made it to the dinner. I would have paid good money to watch Doug Allen's Q&A if you'd have been in the audience.

Twenty or so new photos now on the ImageEvent site.

Vintage cards, scantily-clad Chicago maidens, uku-zillion penguins, authentic Dutch people and more at . .
http://ImageEvent.com/kawika_o_ka_pakipika