The SoapBoxers

The biggest and in my opinion the best sports memorabilia auction is just around the corner. Robert Edward Auctions does one auction a year and it is always a biggie. I believe Kosmo has written articles about it in the past (Editor’s note – Yep), but this year is also sure to not disappoint.

A few lots of early interest are a 1910 Old Mill cigarette’s Shoeless Joe Jackson rookie card. I am more of a Yankee fan you say? How about a Lou Gehrig game used jersey? Is there anything much cooler than an original signed 1902 Christy Mathewson players contract? There is even a Honus Wagner card in the auction that has been professionally restored. Not sure how that will affect its value, but my guess is that card will still sell for a quarter of a million at the very least.

Cards, bats, hats, balls, photos, autographs, historical documents, jerseys, cleats, sheet music, basically anything sports or historical related and all of it cool. There is even non-sports cards such as Mars Attacks, the Three Stooges, Duke Famous Americans (one of my personal favorites cigarette card sets made in the late 1800’s) as well as a veritable cornucopia of other items.

The best part of the auction is while you can view it all online, you can also follow the link below and request a free catalog. This catalog is a piece of art work in and of itself. You have to remember – this is an auction house so the write ups on the items will be flowery as they are trying to maximizing bids, but it is a full color catalog with lots and lots of photos. (last year the book was basically 725 pages) The Catalog ships this week and REA will Fed Ex it to you so if you sign up today – you will likely have it by no later than early next week.

Here is the link to get yourself a free catalog

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/contact/index.html

Last year 181 lots sold in excess of $10,000 and the total of all lots suprassed 10 million. I believe they get a 20% cut of both buyers and sellers commission which is partly why they can produce such an outstanding catalog. I have had great customer service with REA. Last year my son in a overzealous attempt at recycling, pitched a couple of my old catalogs into the recycle bin. I sent an email to REA and I received a note back from Robert Lifson himself, and he promptly overnight Fed Ex delivered the last 5 years of catalogs to me – at no cost with his compliments!

It is good customer service such as this, as well as great auction items, and the best catalog in the business that keeps buyers and sellers coming back to this auction each and every year. I personally will be keeping my eye on some of the golf card items as I am a serious collector of vintage golf cards and this auction is chock full of them.

Until next time, stay classy and may your Old Judges be worth thousands!

It is my favorite weekend of the year. The un-official yet very official start of the PGA Golf Season. The Masters Tournament from Augusta, Georgia.

Situated on the former home of a nursery and indigo plantation, the various types of trees and plants were preserved from the earliest days of golf course construction and design to give us the fabulous shots in High Definition television that we now get to see on CBS and the Golf Channel.

There are a number of little known facts about the Masters. So to see if anyone ever actually reads my articles, I am holding a couple of contests this year. All this information is readily available if you just do a little bit of searching on line or even better from Masters.org

Contest #1

The first person to correctly respond with all correct questions will received a professionally graded Tiger Woods Rookie card from 2001 Upper Deck golf. (a $10-$20 value)

1. Who were the owners of the land prior to it being sold and being utilized as a golf course (hint – it was a Nursery…I just need the family name)
2. Who was Bobby Jones’s main financial partner who helped him get Augusta National up and Running.
3.  The Masters is celebrating what significant Anniversay this year
4.  We call it the Masters today…wWhat was the name of the tournament when it was first held?
5. Who has the most runner up finishes at the Masters?
6. How many times in the last 10 years has Tiger Woods finished in the top 10 at Augusta?

Contest #2.

Lets see if we can have some fun with this one as well. Same Prize is awarded to the winner as in Contest #1 above.

Simply pick 3 golfers that are playing this week. The person who has the three golfers that win the most cumulative amount of money will be the winner of contest. Simply post your picks under “comments” to my article to enter either the first or second contents or both.

Good luck and Stay Classy Clifford Roberts!

Opening Day for Baseball is later this week. Hard to be in the mood here in the midwest for baseball since it has been snowing and we have had temperatures in the low 30’s . Wonder if the Twins are re-thinking that new outdoor stadium at all this year with record snowfalls in the Minneapolis area this winter. We are not out of the woods just yet.

Speaking of Woods, Tiger Woods showed a brief glimpse of old Tiger on Friday last week carding a nice round at the Arnold Palmer Bay Hill Invitational and getting back into contention. He promptly got back out of contention on Saturday and on Sunday, no one it seemed wanted to win the tournament. Martin Laird from Scotland took the title and an automatic invite to the Masters with the win after he had squandered a 3 shot lead late in the round, only to see everyone else mail it in even worse.

Since I mentioned worse, do you ever remember a year that was worse for number one seeds in the NCAA basketball tournament? None of them make it to the final four, which is not a totally big deal. What is a big deal is who did make it in….Only 2 people out of over 5 million in the ESPN on-line bracket pool had these final four teams all picked correctly. Butler, Kentucky, Virginia Commonwealth and Connecticut. I am guessing it is two households that either have kids at VCU and Butler or one spouse went to one of those schools and got married to someone that went to the other.

On the topic of Big Deals, the NFL lockout continues. Now we are approaching draft time, and teams are “encouraging” some of the players to not attend the draft. C’mon owners, this is a dream day for most of these guys and it is not like you get to get paraded across the stage and be in the spotlight again. You only get drafted once. Can’t we just agree to all get along for the three days of the draft and not make these rookie players feel uncomfortable.

Regarding handshakes and spotlights, kudos to Gonzaga women’s basketball star Courtney Vander Sloot who became the first NCAA basketball player to score 2000 points AND dish out 1000 assists in a career. That is some big time playing.

Until Next week, stay classy Shaka Smart!

Ah…the first weekend of games is over for the NCAA basketball tourney….Most of you are complaining about your Brackets being “busted” in your office pools. The Big East showed that it is clearly the most over-rated conference in all of NCAA basketball. While getting Eleven teams into the tourney, most took an early exit. The East Coast bias always throws them on a pillar of excellence, but this year they crashed and burned. Louisville…upset in the first round. Number 1 Seed Pittsburgh, smoked out by the lowly Butler Bulldogs. Granted two teams were eliminated by other Big East teams but overall the performance of Big East schools has been exceedingly lackluster at best.

Bruce Pearl and the Tennessee Rocky Toppers get bounced and then so does the coach. For cheating. Nice to see a school step up and can someone for a change for cheating. Let’s look around the brackets at other well known and busted cheaters such as John Calipari, Jim Calhoun. Why do schools continue to hire these guys? Duh….Winning!

Football is even more bogus. Schools get busted all the time and nothing and I mean NOTHING happens to the coaches. Jim Tressel is the latest one to fall under the trap and not be smart enough to avoid serious ramifications. Will Ohio State remove him? Doubtful…why…..DUH!!! Winning!

The most recent Big Cheat was paraded on to the Capital One Game Day set to talk about the National Title game two years ago and then promptly left for the NFL and the Seattle Seahawks. I am guessing Pete Carroll felt that he had done “all he could do at USC” and was ready to get “back into the NFL and the challenges it provides” Nope, liar again here sneaky Pete….you saw the steamroller called NCAA Sanctions coming and you ran like Chicken Little to the safe haven of the NFL, just before the house of cards came crashing in and your old beloved college school got smashed with sanctions and loss of scholarships.

The All time Biggest Cheater award goes to none other than Lou Holtz. How the hell ESPN pays this guy is beyond me. Cheater Lou had 4 coaching stints that are proven or pretty much guaranteed that he was cheating. Arkansas – He leaves, they go on probation, Minnesota and the House that Ricky Fogge built…you guessed in Lou again moves on to greener pastures and Whammo! The Gophers get hit by the NCAA. Of course the NCAA is not dumb enough to try and take on Touchdown Jesus, so while at Notre Dame, Lou’s cheaters ways go noticed but unseen, and Notre Dame goes from woeful to suddenly a National Powerhouse…..coincidence? He then hangs it up for 3 years (was he forced out or was the speaking circuit really that good?) and then goes to South Carolina, where …you guessed it, once he retires…shocking as this may be…they go on probation.

Am I the only one noticing a trend here???

Bottom line is until the NCAA does something to permanently remove coaches from the ranks of college athletics for cheating, nothing is going to greatly change. Boosters and coaches will continue to cheat the system, push the envelope and try to swindle in the best recruits for one basic and simple reason…

Duh….Winning! Duh…..

Stay Classy Richmond Spiders!

The Ides of March are upon us

If you know your Shakespeare, this will mean something to you. In the world of Johnny Goodman, this means taking off the opening Thursday of the NCCA Basketball tournament from work, setting up shop at a local establishment that has numerous televisions, and enjoying an adult beverage or three.

For many the bubble burst, for many many more the bubble never existed, and now that the talking heads and spurned coaches have had three or four days to hash out who got jobbed and why, we can move on to the real important topic. Bracket Pools.

Depending on what online source you read, billions of dollars are figured as lost in space in terms of productivity this time of year as thousands of workers clamor at break time, at lunch, on the phone to their buddies, even on email, as to if this twelve seed is gonna knock of this five seed. Millions of office pools are in place in the United States. Heck some areas will even have Women’s tourney pools, (I am guessing Connecticut has a higher than average participation rate for these) as well as NIT Pools (although I have not seen any floating around Lincoln yet, but maybe in Boulder)

On line there are thousands of pools you can enter, some are small local television pools with a chance to win maybe a big screen television. Others are major national monster insurance company advertising pools that offer great prizes such as all expense paid vacations or substantial cash rewards.

The fact is that March Madness (shouldn’t they start calling it April Madness as it ends in April?) is big time business. The only real losers are CBS, who has taken a bath with revenues compared to what they shell out to show the games on the tube. So what is the answer? The NCCA adds a couple of more “who really cares” play in games and then CBS goes out and adds in a couple of more networks to assure “ALL” games are on television, and they pay even MORE money than they were previously.

So let’s review. Big losing contract to NCAA + adding four more games now equals even more money that CBS is paying to the NCAA to cover games this year…..sounds like a genius deal to me.

So remember as you fill out your pools this year, just channel your inner Charlie Sheen…..

“DUH….WINNING!”

Stay Classy Morehead State!

You knew it could not go away this quietly. Tattoo gate is alive and still well in Columbus Ohio. According to Yahoo Sports, Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel was informed that some of his players had sold memorabilia to the owner of a tattoo parlor more than eight months before the school said it was made aware of improper transactions.

Yahoo Sports, citing an unidentified source (shocker, when is the last time anyone reported their source in a scandalous story?), reports Tressel received information as early as April 2010 that players were selling items to Edward Rife, who owns Fine Line Ink Tattoos in Columbus.

Ohio State officials did not immediately respond to a requests for comment by the AP. – Again a big shocker here. They need to back pedal or more importantly call in Tressel this morning.

Ohio State Athletic Dept – So ummmmm Jim. You knew about the tattoo stuff way back in April last year???

The Vest – I cannot confirm nor deny that rumor.

OSAD – But Yahoo! Sports is claiming that you knew about this much earlier than you previously told us and we were only alerted by the US Attorney’s office last December. The NCAA who loves the Big Ten more than, well Dan Bebee loves Texas went kid gloves on us. They even allowed us to make a deal to let the guys all play in a bowl game but they had to cross their fingers and toes and “promise” to come back and play for us next year and not go professional or anything like that.

The Vest – Yeah I did not know anything earlier, I promise “wink wink, nod nod”

If it does come out that Tressel, or anyone at thuh Ohio State for that matter, had any knowledge or knew anything prior to this date in December, the punishment should be swift and fierce. Including ruling all players ineligible for the remainder of their college days as well as loss of scholarships, suspensions of coaches etc.

The NCAA is walking a fine line here. They essentially bust Cam Newton for one day, but then take off the gloves and do nothing. The Reggie Bush sage lasted 5 years but at least the penalties were harsh.

The NCAA needs to set an example that cheating, or breaking rules, in any way shape or form will not be tolerated whatsoever. Period end of Story.

Isn’t a school which calls itself “Thee” already laying the impetus for a crashing fall from grace due to improprieties. Or does the entire university, just like those players that trades gifts for ink fell that they are above the law in little Columbus, Ohio. It is amazing that the normally un-reserved Buckeye fans have been so quiet.

Nice job Bunkeyes. Nothing like tarnishing your program for the next decade or so if any more of this turns out to be true. And all over a bunch of tattoos that you are going to look at when you are in your 50’s and wonder ‘what the heck was I thinking”

At least your conference landed Nebraska, maybe that will turn away the problems for awhile.

Nothing big in the world of sports for me to devote an entire article to this week, so I will touch on a number of topics as we “span the globe”

Nascar
I am not a racing fan. Never have been, never will be. But when a rookie driver wins in just his 2nd Cup start and it is not just any win but a Daytona 500 win, that is pretty special. Almost as speical as his reaction to his crew on the radio as he crossed the finish line. “Are you serious?” Yes, we are serious and now you have seriously altered your career and future in the sport. Congratulations Trevor Bayne.

Basketball
Carmelo Anthony gets marquee billing as he is traded to the Knicks. Horrible trade for the Knicks. While Melo is a go to guy, he is playing with Amare Stoudamaire who requires a point guard to get him the ball, (well I guess they did also get Chauncey Billups in the deal). Carmelo is a full time shooter, mid range jumper take it to the rack occasionally type of guy … sounds a lot like Amare. I guess the Nuggets are the real winner here as they would have lost him to Free Agency and now they at least get something to show for it.

Golf
Yani Tseng wins her third straight tournament on the LPGA tour and has firmly grabbed the #1 spot in the LPGA world golf rankings. She is young, playing well and appears to be poised to dominate in 2011 on the women’s tour.

The Accenture match play starts this week for the guys on the PGA tour. With no one playing dominant and the ever crafty guise of match play it is a wide open – anyone can win event. I filled out a GolfWeek entry pool, and my pick was Paul Casey, which coincidentally appears to be the pick of the golf writers for the USA Today.

Who is #1?
What a crazy week in College Basketball, Kansas, Texas, Ohio State and Pittsburgh all have a shot at being ranked #1 and all promptly go out and lose. Duke claims the top spot with exactly 2 wins over teams ranked in the top 25 on the year. This is called a paper tiger folks … Duke is over-rated and hopefully will see an early exit from the Tourney this year, but the lofty ranking will likely get them a #1 seed and the easiest road much as last year.

NBA All Star Game Weekend
This all star event has officially jumped the shark, or in this case a Kia Optima. The slam dunk competition needs to go “old school” and get rid of all the props and added features. How about just dunking…what a novel concept.

The game itself is almost as big of a joke as the NFL All Pro game. When is the last time a home town player did NOT win the MVP award? Seems like it happens every year. I bet Vegas had the Black Mamba at 2/5 to win the MVP before the game was played.

Until next week, stay classy Austin Texas … and pass that bill that is going to allow anyone on a college campus to carry a concealed handgun. Remember folks, it is not a state … it is a Republic!

As we attempt to corner the market on Pujols-related commentary, Johnny adds his thoughts on the topic.

Pitchers and Catchers are reporting … we are headed into the upcoming baseball season as the NFL appears to be mired in a circus of doom regarding salaries and collective bargaining agreements, or lack thereof.  But another disagreement regarding salary is looming large on the horizon in Major League Baseball.  The Cardinals current inability to come to terms with Albert Pujols.

No realistic talks have taken place for a few weeks.  The Cardinals are offering 30 million a year for 5 years.  That is some fat money no matter how good you are in baseball terms.  Prince Albert is allegedly looking for a bit more security and wants 10 years in a new contract, to the tune of about 300 million.

There have been some other large contracts recently in the majors that after the fact never seem to look all that good.  Pedro Martinez signed for humongous cash and promptly put two to three epic years on the mound, but then injuries and age caught him quicker than anyone could have imagined.

Most people point out the ridiculous contract that was penned by Alex Rodriguez, both in terms of numbers of years and also total amount of money.  Can any one player live up to that type of value?  For the type of money and length of contract that is being desired by Pujols, the Cardinals could instead get 3 major impact players for the ballclub.  So … why would they want to sign him for this type of money?

In the age of Free Agency, few players are the face of the franchise like Pujols currently is.  A few others come to mind.  Derek Jeter of the Yankees, Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies, Ichiro of the Mariners … and I am sure there are others.  But most any player that starts out on a small market team does not stay there long.  The money is too great and there is always the deep pockets of teams like the Red Sox and Yankees ready to pony up the funds to bring in some guns for hire.  Signing Pujols long term means you are paying a premium to keep him around as the centerpiece of your St Louis Cardinals, where you plan on having him stay.

Pujols also has numbers to back up getting a ridiculous contract.  Ten straight years of hitting over .300 and knocking in over 100 runs.  That is something even Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig cannot claim to have done.  Pujols is at the top of the list for doing this and is still in his prime.  He has endured this streak through injuries and is perennially among conversations involving the Triple Crown. (leading the league in Batting Average, Homers and Runs Batted In)  The last player to win a triple crown was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 as he single handedly propelled the Red Sox into the World Series where they lost to … guess who … yep, the same Cardinals.  Stats Like these with Pujols don’t lie, he is worthy of the largest contract in the league.

The flip side is he is 10 years into his career.  At what point does he start to decline?  Will injuries continue to creep into his playing time?  Can he keep this up forever?  What does a contract like this do to the ability to sign other good players in the competitive National League Central?

These are all questions that the Cardinals organization as well as the fans of St Louis need to be taking into consideration.  The good news for the Cardinals is it is late in the game.  I am not sure at this stage when teams have restructured their contracts and loaded up in Free Agency that they could pay Albert the type of money he is looking for either.  To me it seems like we are witnessing a real world game of chicken, albeit for a lot of money … and the key to playing chicken…you gotta know when the other guy is going to flinch.

Stay Classy St Louis!

We are just about to the end of the seemingly longer and longer NFL football season. This past weekend was filled with four games but I don’t think we really learned anything new watching any of the games. Here is a recap.

Jets vs. Patriots. – What we knew going in – The Jets are a loud mouthed smack talking bunch and so is their head coach. What we learned? Yep, that pretty much sums it up……

I was particularly entertained by Bart Scott going on a tirade following the game how they are all disrespected and that no one gave them a chance and everyone in the media is bad mouthing them. First off who is “they” Secondly, no one was disrespecting you in the media. The media has just pretty much been saying that the team you play for – starting with the head coach down to the 4th string kicker – like to run their mouths a lot. I guess you proved to everyone Bart after this weekend that YES – in fact the media had this one right all along.

Steelers vs. Ravens – What we knew going in – Flacco has never beaten Roethlisberger in the Playoffs. What we learned – Yep that pretty much sums it up….

Another old fashioned slobberknocker of a football game, but the main story here was the Steeler magic as the Ravens blow a HUGE halftime lead and get sent home, yet again, at the hands of the division rival.

Packers vs. Falcons – What we knew going in – The Packers are playing really good right now. What we learned? – The Packers are playing even better than we thought.

This was the most lopsided game of the weekend as Atlanta is good, they were at home, and they got whipped bad. This was not even as close as the score. This sets up a dandy this weekend with…

Bears vs. Seahawks – What we knew going in – The Bears live and die by the play of Jay Cutler – What we learned? This last weekend Cutler was pretty dadgum good.

Da Bears are not the 1985 Bears although the media has to ALWAYS go there. The defense is good, but nowhere close to the total stymie defense of 85. The offense is totally Jekyll and Hyde and that falls mainly on the fact the Bears have no good wide receivers, a limited run game, but the special teams and defense are good enough that it can keep them in most games, unless they become unraveled by the QB play. This one to me is the most intriguing matchup of the playoffs. Old School rivalry. Playing in the cold and the snow. Black and Blue division…..etc. Should be a good one.

I have the Steelers vs. the Packers in the Match Up next week. The Jets do not have enough defense to counter the power game of the Steelers and the Steelers defense…well…it is a WHOLE lot better than the Patriots.

In the NFC, I have the Packers moving on. I think they are playing better than anyone right now. Their defense is good enough, their offense is explosive, and most importantly I would take Rodgers over Cutler all day long.

Enjoy the weekend and some great football games.

Stay Classy Tucson!!

The College Bowl Season is now in the books. The experts as usual were way off on the Tostitos National Championship game predictions last night figuring this game would be a high scoring offensive explosion. I for one missed on a ton of my bowl predictions but I did get this one right. The Johnny Goodman prediction was a lower scoring defensive battle.

Overall it was a close and entertaining game. Radio talking heads are crying foul on what was a decisive play late in the game where Auburn’s running back landed on top of the defender and then got up, and with the urging of his entire sideline, continued to run down field getting the Tigers, errrrr War Eagles … errrr whatever their mascot is this week into field goal range. Some of the sports talk analysts are indicating his momentum was stopped, the whistle should have blown etc. I for one did not think he was down when I watched the play live at full speed, but admittedly knew it was close.

Overall a great job done by the Big X officiating crew last night. Of all the plays that were reviewed the only one that they got incorrect and over-turned was the last long run and they corrected the call and placed the ball at the ½ yard line after reviewing that the runners knee was indeed down.

I totally missed the memo that indicated that the Oregon Ducks have changed their official school colors from Green and Gold to Black, Gray, White and Highlight Marker Yellow. Seriously Nike, those are the 2nd worst uniforms behind the Mustard Yellow and Mud colored Denver Broncos throwback uniforms. If this keeps up I fear we will see Notre Dame come out sporting Seafoam Green with Candy Apple Red and Electric Blue highlights around the jersey name and numbers.

Might as well look forward to August and the new rankings and I want to beat everyone to the punch, so here is my Top 5 to start 2011

1. Oklahoma – They seriously underachieved this year and get Broyles back along with an improved defense and offense.
2. Alabama – No Mark Ingram….won’t matter
3. Wisconsin – Big 10 will be soft next year, and thuh tattoo-oh state has to sit main players for 5 games
4. Oregon – The ducks and their horrific uniforms continue to rule the weak Pac 10 errrrr 12
5. South Carolina – Lattimore for Heisman!

Stay Class San Diego!