Napkin Doon Tip of the Hat: Society for American Baseball Research

My wife noses around my blog quite often and gives me her feedback whether I want it or not.  She is begging to post comments on this blog(undeniably to make fun of me) , but I won’t let her.  She has her own blog that covers our family, and I don’t want my baseball card life and regular life to mix.   I am trying to maintain a secret identity.  Like Batman.  But I digress…

So my wife reads my succinct, yet informative post about Etopps.  “Don’t you think these people know about Etopps already?  Do they need a lesson from you?” were her eyebrows-raised rhetorical questions to me. 

“Probably they are aware, but I never see posts about Etopps, and one can never assume,” was my patient response.   So using that logic, let me give a nod to one of my favorite websites:  www.SABR.org  I assume readers are familiar with this organization, but I wanted to give them a shout anyways.  Like the guys over at Baseball Time In Arlington, I concede that these folks are way out of my league in terms of intelligence and understanding of the game.   But I like to visit the site and see some of the innovative thinking going on over there.    They even have a yearly convention that I am much too intimidated to attend, but hope to one day. 

Is anyone reading this a member of SABR?  Have you been to a convention?  How was it?

“I’m a fan, not an expert” Tip of the Hat To: Baseball Time in Arlington

“I’m a fan, not an expert.”   This quote is in my profile, and it’s my motto, credo and mission statement when it comes to baseball and baseball cards.  I have friends who are casual followers of baseball who tell me I know more about baseball than anyone they know.  They mistake my passion for the game and its culture for knowledge.  Same goes for colleting.    People that don’t know anything about baseball cards think I have the largest collection in the world.  The other day my sister- in- law saw about 30 cards of mine spread out on a table and said “Are these all of your cards?  Oh my God you have so many!”  And she was not being sarcastic.  My collection is peanuts compared to big time collectors, and that’s fine with me. 

I was at a card show a month ago with my typical $20 budget, looking through a 3,200 count box of cards.  It was nice box that had a lot of game used items.  There were probably 500-800 cards in the box (all of them were in plastic screw down holders).  I thought I might find one or two to add to my collection, when this young guys skims over the box and tells the dealer: “I’ll give you $2,000 for the whole box.”  The dealer thinks about it and agrees.  The buyer pulls out a fat wad of cash, gives it to the dealer and walks out with the box like nothing happened.  The dealer pulls out another huge box of game used merchandise and puts in one the table like nothing happened.  Whatever the baseball card equivalent of “wiener envy” is, I had it, and slunk away from the table with my sad $20.

I get the same sense of sheepishness when I read “Baseball Time in Arlington.”  Man, those guys are smart.  Napkin Doon feel stupid after reading Baseball Time In Arlington.  But I get over it and keep reading.  It is my favorite baseball blog out there, and one of the first things a look at daily.  Of course I am a Rangers fan, so it probably has more interest to me than it might you.  Nonetheless, a tip of the hat to : “Baseball Time In Arlington.”