First collecting book

[brian1961]

I know you said book, and around 73-74 I got a paperback copy of Boyd and Harris's THE GREAT AMERICAN BASEBALL BUBBLE GUM TRADING FLIPPING SAVING CARD BOOK. I appreciate their humor much more now than I did as a youth. But they also included some absolutely priceless lines that impressed me then as now. I will misquote them, but I loved their mention of the bubble gum dust that got all over everything, and that you couldn't get a Ted Williams--no matter how hard you tried, and you could never NOT get a (forgotten common player named) no matter how hard you tried.

-----That maybe the trouble with Tom Tresh was that they made his pants too long!

-----That in the early 1950s there was this baseball card, badly wanted and now gotten, and it was one of the last things the author touched before he contracted some very contagious disease. The card HAD to be burned. Twenty years later and he abruptly wishes not to talk about it anymore.

-----Then there was the memory of Robin Roberts when he starred for the Phillies. The Phils were stinkin' by the mid-50s, but if Robin was scheduled to pitch in Philly, you couldn't even get a general admission ticket to see last place Pittsburgh!

-----And of course the terse observation of the 1958 Topps Whammy Douglas card: something to the effect---the name, the look on his mug, somebody has GOT to be putting us on!

Good book.

Be that as it may, my favorite "book" was probably my first issue of "THE SPORT HOBBYIST" from about FALL, 1971. Published by Charles Brooks, with much help from Frank Nagy, it was loaded (in its few pages) with vintage card articles and photos.

Residing within its pages was the gem about the DeLong Gum Company set by Lionel Carter. I must have devoured that one piece 7 times, loving it every time!!!!

Great topic. Keep 'em coming, guys! --Brian Powell

[Gary Dunaier]

Three things stand out in my mind from Boyd and Harris:

I don't remember who, but there were, I think, three players who Boyd and Harris said 'should never ever be allowed out of the house without their mothers.'

In the introduction, they talk about interviewing Sy Berger and mention that he was on a water diet. They quote him as saying something to the effect that he's even gotten to like the stuff.

And at the end of the introduction, they made this sobering comment (paraphrased): 'Please don't write and tell us how even the worst player in this book is 100 times better than either of us. We know. We tried.'