Human beings routinely take a good deal of comfort in the debatable notion that people’s behavior and resulting fortunes are governed by this invisible force that works to balance things out over time, with a vigilant eye toward equal justice for those often determined to have run roughshod over their fellow man.

Thus, the expression “What goes around, comes around” has developed a good deal of currency and widespread use despite all of the evidence suggesting that a rather considerable array of misdeeds of virtually every description often goes unpunished. Read More

When Topps arranged with Warner Books in 1985 to publish Topps Baseball Cards: A 35-Year History, it was a really neat addition for the hobby. It is a wonderful book of several hundred pages, exact number unknown, because there are no page numbers and no table of contents. Just little pictures of the fronts of all the regular-issue Topps baseball cards from 1951-85.

I know I liked the idea so much that my wife bought it for me as soon as it came out, paying full retail, which I think was about $85, an extraordinary amount at the time. It is a component of this discussion that Warner Books printed enough of the coffee-table tomes so that the book would eventually wind up in the bargain bins, reaching, as I recall, all the way to $20 or so, and probably less than that in some places. Read More

As the cover of this week’s SCD suggests, the 2008 Topps Heritage issue is around the corner, and that figures to be yet another major triumph for a franchise that has been as wildly successful as anything Topps has come up with over the last decade.

I am fully aware that they have refined the issue to the point where it’s quibbling to suggest that one year is superior to another; anymore, it probably comes down to little more than how you feel about the original issue. In this case, it’s my favorite year … by a wide margin. Read More

Imagine that somebody started a rumor that essentially destroyed your reputation and good standing among your friends and co-workers. The whispers develop a life of their own, and the scurrilous charge is so damning and embarrassing that it first disrupts your career before ultimately putting it to a premature end. Read More

As the world champion Boston Red Sox were extending their long streak of sellout games this season, the standing joke was that the only way you could get a seat at Fenway Park was to buy one. Read More

Even 40 years later, it’s still  painful for a  die-hard Milwaukee Braves fan to remember how close they came to being a dynasty.
Read More

It was only fitting that Hall of Famer Bob Feller would hook up with Satchel Paige for one of the most extraordinary barnstorming tours in baseball history. Read More

Fred Kail, the sculptor who is thought to have created the very first NFL figure with his pot-bellied Joe Jolter that came into being more than 50 years ago, is very much alive and well and living in Lutherville, Md.Editor Input Needed Read More

I have been on a wonderful but exhausting road trip over the last couple of weeks that sent me to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn. (shown upper right), for Dick Gordon’s June 1-3 reunion of the 1967 Boston Red Sox, then on to New York City for the Sotheby’s with SCP auction that turned out to be the doozy you would expect (shown at right). Then it was back to the wilds of Wisconsin for a couple of days and down to Chicago Friday night (June 8) for our annual SportsFest show. Read More