The SoapBoxers

I am able to get moderate reception in the radio at my desk and am able to tune into the NCAA basketball tournament.  I managed to listen to some chunks of the tournament during the day and caught some footage on CBS last night.

Early thoughts from the tournament:

Georgetown must be the most hated team in the tournament this year.  The Hoyas put some stress on the majority of brackets across the country.  There are a few happy people, though – those who picked Tennessee (or, um, Ohio) to push into the sweet 16.

Villanova nearly became the villain ‘o the brackets.  The Wildcats had their hands full with Robert Morris on Thursday.  Some analysts feel that there were several questionable fouls against Robert Morris in the game – and these calls were critical, as the game ended up being decided in overtime.

The tournament started out with a bang.  The initial three games were incredibly tight.  The first game to go final was #11 seed Old Dominion beating 6 seeded NotreDame 51-50.  This ended up being the blowout of the trio, with the next two games forcing overtime.  BYU escaped Billy Donovan’s 10 seeded Florida team in two overtimes, and 15 seed Robert Morris came up just short in overtime against #2 seed Villanova.

Upsets were the order of the day, including #10 Saint Marys, #11 Old Dominion, #13 Murray State, and #14 Ohio.  Only one #12 seed was in action (UTEP losing to Butler), so there’s still a good chance that a #12 will pick up a win (they usually do).

Only 5 of the 16 games were decided by 10 or more points.  Two of these were #1 vs. #16 mismatches, and one was actually #14 seed Ohio’s win against Georgetown.  Hopefully the rest of the weekend’s games will be just as good.

My favorite game of the day was #9 Northern Iowa’s 69-66 win over #8 seeded UNLV.  I grew up about 50 miles from the UNI campus, and I cheer for them any time they aren’t playing my Iowa State team.  UNI won the game on a long, long bomb by Ali Farokhmanesh.  Ali Farokhmanesh is the son of an Iranian immigrant, Dr. Mashallah Farokhmanesh.   Ali’s mother (Cindy Fredrick) is the head volleyball coach at Luther College after stints at Washington State University and the University of Iowa. Dr. Mashallah Farokhmanesh continues to serve as assistant coach to his wife, as he has throughout their coaching careers.

The conference that laid the biggest egg on day 1 was the Big East.  The conference, which at a hulking 16 teams, is indeed big, placed 8 teams into the conference, including 5 teams amongst the top 4 seeds (#1 Syracuse, #2s Villanova and West Virginia, #3s Pitt and Georgetown).   Big East teams were 1-3 on the day.  Georgetown, Notre Dame, Marquette were all upset.  Villanova’s escape against Robert Morris was the BEST showing for the conference.  Ack.

What are my upset specials for day 2?  #13 Siena over #4 Purdue (playing without star Robbie Hummel), #12 Cornell over #5 Temple (this game may be over by the time you read this), #12 Utah State over #5 Texas A&M, #11 Minnesota over #6 Pitt.  And my sweet surprises?  Siena and Murray State (yep, I had Racers in the Sweet 16 on my official bracket).

What are your favorite moments about the tournament so far?

First, I’d like to welcome the new readers who came here via The Digerati Life. Hang around for a while, explore the archives, and consider becoming a subscriber. We’ve been pretty sports-heavy in the last week – if you look through the archives, you’ll see that we’re usually a lot more eclectic.

Second, I am happy to announce the release of my new eBook – Selling Yourself Short – An Introduction to Short Story Writing. Selling Yourself Short is a 2500 word introduction to the process of short story writing – from creating your writing environment to developing the plot. In an effort to keep this handy guide affordable to all of our readers, the everyday price is just $1.49. However, for the next week, the price is just 99 cents. Don’t like it? There’s a money back guarantee! Buy it today at the Hyrax Publications store.

In 1981, buoyed by a court case against Topps, Fleer re-entered the baseball card market for the first time in two decades.  They were joined by newcomer Donruss.  Suddenly, consumers had a choice of which brand of baseball card to buy.

For several years, competition made the industry better.  Each company attempted to make their brand the most attractive.  By 1988, there were four mainstream brands, with Score also in the mix.  A pack of 15-16 cards (Score had 1 more card than everyone else) went for 50 cents.  It was a great time.  I spent much time trying to compile complete sets, or at least sets for my favorite team.

In the 1990s, the game began to change.  A new brand, Upper Deck, pushed the industry into the direction of premium brands in 1989 when they debuted with hologram-enhanced cards.  By the mid 1990s, each company had several brands, from high end to the base line.

I’ll admit that I took advantage of the situation.  Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan of the flashy “insert” cards that had begun to drive the industry.  In 1993, by random chance, I had absurdly good luck getting redemption cards for Topps’ Black Gold sets in packs.  I was pulling these at a much higher rate than the published odds.

I took these cards (redeemable for either 11, 22, or 44 cards in the high end Black Gold set) and immediately traded them to my friend Justin – for unopened packs of Topps cards.  Within those unopened packs, I would routinely find another Black Gold winner, which would restart the cycle.  I completed two sets of 1993 Topps cards at almost no expense.

In the late 90s, the base set of cards began to become an afterthought as everyone chased after the rare cards that were randomly inserted.  Instead of cherishing a card of one of their heroes, people would be disappointed that they hadn’t pulled a card featuring someone’s autograph.  It had become a case of the tail wagging the dog.

In an effort to fulfill demand, the industry began to create ever increasing volumes of rare card.  Each specific example was quite limited – but there were hundreds, if not thousands, of different varieties of “limited” cards.  In some sets, nearly every pack had some sort of “rare” card.

Not surprisingly, the fact that each set contained more “special” cards allowed manufacturers to slowly raise the price of cards.  No longer could you spend 50 cents on a pack of 15 cards.  Now it was $2, $3, or even $5 for just a handful of cards.

That’s the point at which I bailed out of the card market.  It no longer made financial sense to put together complete sets.  With the base cards now just a necessary by-product of the specialty cards, the value dropped through the floor.  It was easier just to pick up a set the next year at a bargain basement price.

Years later, I still just buy a couple of packs of new cards a year.  When I buy cards, I buy things from other collectors or shops.  Sometimes these are newer cards of my favorite players, but more often, I buy cards from bygone eras.  Over the winter, I made a very pleasurable purchase, picking up a T-206 baseball card of Lefty Leifeld for $15.  For the same price as a few packs of 2010 cards, I could have a 100 year old card that was rare by chance of fate rather than by design of the manufacturer.

If the card manufacturers still consistently produced a base set of cards at a decent price, I would probably buy them and put together complete sets.  I always enjoyed the thrill of the hunt – trying vainly to find the last nine cards you needed to complete the entire 792 card Topps set.  Alas, the companies have lost their focus on what was their core product, and in the process, lost a lot of potential customers – people who were kids in the 80s and 90s and are now achieving financial success.

Editor’s note: make sure to enter The Soap Boxers’s NCAA pool (last chance, folks). Details can be found here.

Generally, I’m fairly up-to-speed on technology.  I’m not in the first batch of early adopters, but I’m generally not too far behind.  I really missed the boat on social media, though, dismissing it as irrelevant for years.  Eventually, I jumped headfirst into blogging.  I’m still not much of a Twitterer – my tweets are mostly notifications of new blog posts.  I’d love to tweet more, but Twitter seems to lose out in the time crunch.

I’m also a Facebook user.  A couple of years ago, I received an invitation from a longtime friend of mine (thanks for dragging me into Facebook, Amy …)  I’m not really a hardcore user, but I do spend time on Facebook when I get the chance.  How do I spend my Facebook time?

Mostly, I look for women who are interested in playing Scrabble®.  Why just women?  Am I using Facebook as some sort of dating service?  No, of course not.  That behavior would be really unacceptable for a married father of two.  However, a significant portion of male players on Facebook are indeed just looking for dirty talk in their Scrabble® games.  This seems quite odd to me – why not simply use the actual singles areas of Facebook?   In any case, this means that I often end up playing games against women.

Technically, I don’t play Scrabble®, but play Wordscraper instead.  Wordscraper is very similar – so similar that Hasbro sued the makers of Wordscraper.  Happily, an out of court settlement was reached, and Wordscraper remains alive.  There’s also an official Scrabble® game on Facebook, but I like Wordscraper better – the screens seems to render and refresh much more quickly.

How good am I?  Sadly, not particularly good.  I’d like to think that I know quite a lot of words, but my strategy doesn’t seem to be very good.  Part of this is probably the fact that I always try to open the board more, and part is just a deficiency of skill.  Who are the good players?  I’ve played a lot of games against Johnny Goodman, and he’s quite dominant.  Gabe Tyndal is really good too.  I haven’t played enough games against Gabe to determine is he’s at Johnny’s level or not.  My chiropractor, Doc Schroeder, is also really good – but a notch below Johnny (who, I repeat, is REALLY good).

Catching up with high school friends.  About half my high school class is on Facebook now.  That allows me to keep up on things that would otherwise elude me.  I’m also the creator of a Facebook group for my classmates.  I enjoy making people “officers” in the group and assigning them interesting roles.  Archduke (that’s me), Countess, Bloodletter, Stable Lad, Arrow Catcher, Ponzologist, we have them all.  I currently need to think up roles for a few more people.

Catching up on my favorite TV shows.  I am notoriously bad at keeping up with TV shows – TV just doesn’t rank as that high of a priority.  However, by becoming a Facebook “fan” of a show, I’m able to get alerts about the show.  Oh, hey, I should probably become a fan of NCIS 🙂

Ignoring people. Facebook has a built in chat feature.  Although I’m not as popular as some people, with 170 friends on Facebook, it was pretty common to have a half dozen people chatting with me at once.  That could be a real trick to juggle, especially as I was trying to do other things on Facebook.  I hated telling friends that I didn’t have time for them (seemed a bit rude), so I stay in “offline” mode 99% of the time.  (Hey, if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, send me a “message” – I do read the messages in my inbox and reply.)

Editor’s note: make sure to enter The Soap Boxers’s pool. Details can be found here.
 

It is that time of year again. March Madness! Although they should change this title to something with “April” in the title as this thing is starting to drag out farther than the NBA playoffs!.

The Men’s bracket should be interesting this year. There has been a lot of debate about how evenly balanced this field is, how really it is the shortest list of deserving teams that did not get in…i.e. this is one of the weaker tournaments in recent memory. The talking heads on television and radio love the week leading up to the tourney as sports talk is spirited and millions of people hang on every word making deep analytical decisions when filling out one of their fourteen office pool brackets.

Most of us delve through the websites, watch the seemingly round the clock ESPN Bracketology specials to pick our upsets. One of the #3 seeds always seems to get beaten. The #12 seed wins 34% of the first round games recently. The TV guys love all this talk. Bob Ryan on ESPN’s Around the Horn commented yesterday that eleven teams could take down the Jayhawks in their side of the bracket.

C’mon Bob … really … eleven? You had me until you mentioned Northern Iowa as a team that could spoil it for the boys from Lawrence. Talk about a bold prediction!

Now I of all people love the underdog. It gives you something to brag about to your co-workers and friends when you look smarter than the world when you have Cornell making it to the elite 8 … and they actually do. You do have to pick a few upsets don’t you?

Nope.

This year Johnny is going straight with the chalk. Well mainly. I won’t divulge my entire bracket here, but I am taking the Jayhawks to win it all.

My pick for the team to “make some noise” Kansas State … They have a complete team and great guard play. A factor that is always important in the tourney.

On the Women’s side, well gimmie the chalk again, at least until the Sweet 16. I think the Huskers will be the first #1 seed eliminated. While the team went 30-1 this year it greatly over-achieved, even in an extremely difficult conference with seven teams ranked in the top 25 most of the year. You have to pick UCONN, if someone beats them it will be considered a major upset, after all they have won 72 straight games.

My pick for the team to “make some noise” Texas A&M. The Lady Aggies are playing fabulous right now, are very athletic and are very well coached.

I am sure I will be called a Big XII Homer by someone reading this but I don’t care. Good luck to all of you in your office pools!

The state of basketball in Iowa

The state of Iowa will be represented by just one team in the men’s NCAA tournament – Northern Iowa.  My Iowa State Cyclones faltered down the stretch after three point bomber Lucca Staiger left the program to return to play pro ball in his native Germany (yes, in mid-season).  My team to watch during the tournament will be Syracuse, featuring former Cyclone Wesley Johnson.

The University of Iowa fired their basketball coach on Monday.  Todd Lickliter, who was the NABC National Coach of the Year in his 2007 during his final year at Butler, was just 38-58 at Iowa, including 10-22 this season.  A rash of defections from the program and flagging attendance spelled the end for Lickliter.  The university exercised the$2.4 million buyout to sever the relationship with Lickliter.

Who will the new coach be?  Suggestions I have heard include Tennesee coach Bruce Pearl and Baylor coach Scott Drew (see my article about Drew from last year).  This makes no sense to me.  Why take a step down from a top program to take over rebuilding a program at Iowa?  While Iowa has a good basketball history (including one Final Four appearances), it’s hardly an elite history.  Add to that the fact that Steve Alford and now Lickliter are coaches who had significant success before Iowa and failed to win consistently with the Hawkeyes.  Alford left Iowa for New Mexico and promptly reeled off three straight winning seasons – his Lobo team is  3 seed in the NCAA tournament. 

Who, then, to coach the program?  If you don’t mind a coach with some baggage, how about Tim Floyd?  He’s a coach who has lived in the state before (he coached at Iowa State in the 90s) and he might be had for a bargain price as he seeks to creep out of the shadow of the O.J. Mayo scandal.

The University of Northern Iowa Panthers were the one team from the state to make the tournament.  If UNI can get past UNLV in the first round, they’d likely face the hated Kansas Jayhawks in the second round.  Although my team is Iowa State, not UNI, I’d cheer wildly for the Panthers to take down Kansas.

In the women’s tourney, Iowa State, Iowa, and UNI all made the tournament.  Iowa State is a 4 seed and will face Lehigh in the first round.  8 seed Iowa will face Rutgers, led by former Iowa coach (and Hall of Famer) C. Vivian Stringer.  The UNI team surged to an unexpected win in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. Their reward – to be fed to the 30-1 Nebraska Cornhuskers.

NCAA Tournament

I’ll spend just a bit of time on the NCAA tournament.  My tournament bracket features Syracuse over Wisconsin in the title game, with Kansas and Duke also making it into the Final Four.  The odds of me nailing these picks is about as good as me getting struck by lightning.  I enjoy watching college basketball, but I’m hardly an expert.

Baylor is a 3 seed – this is a great testament to coach Scott Drew.  As I mentioned in last year’s article about Drew, this is a guy who had a complete uphill climb when he took over the Baylor program after former coach Dave Bliss left in disgrace.

I have Minnesota picked to get to the Sweet 16 largely because of their romp against Purdue in the semifinals of the Big 10 tournament.  Yes, they got killed by Ohio State in the tournament championship,  Yes, Purdue was playing without star Robbie Hummel.  Still, a Purdue team without Hummel is still a solid team, and such a decisive win cannot be completely ignore.

As is my custom, I picked three 12 seeds to advance (Cornell, Utah State, UTEP).  The lowest seed I have picked to win are the 13 seed Murray State Racers.  I have Murray State picked to upend 4 seed Vanderbilt in the first round and the aforementioned 12 seed UTEP in the second round to advance into the sweet 16.

My heart goes out to fans of Mississippi State.  They had the SEC title game – and the accompanying automatic bid to the NCAA tournament – seemingly locked up.  Then Kentucky’s DeMarcus Cousins hit a last second shot to send the game into overtime, and Kentucky escaped with the overtime win – and Mississippi State was left out of the tournament.

I’ll start the rallying cry – reduce the tournament back down to 64 games.  While having 65 teams in the tournament allows an mediocre team from a power conference to slide into an 11 or 12 seed, it looks just plain stupid on the sheet.  64 is enough.  If a bubble team gets left off, too bad.  That’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

The Soap Boxers pool

Make sure to enter our pool.  Details can be found here.

Many of us have parents in their golden years, men and women who lived through World War II and the Korean conflict.  Their goals in life were to work hard and raise children.  They wanted us to have a better and easier life than they had.  For the most part they succeeded.   My generation (40 to 50 year olds) is better educated, has better medical care, experienced less war and upheld a better standards of living than our parents could have dreamed of.

Now they are older, and we as caring children want to do our part to help them.  It is not easy.  Most of our parents are still very independent, even when knocked down a bit with disease, injury or just plain degradation of capabilities due to aging such as sight, hearing and mobility.  We can offer and are usually rejected.  It is their responsibility to help us not the other way around.  That is how it has always been, and that is the way it always will be.  But we all know that it cannot be forever.

As a personal example, my mother is a two time cancer survivor; breast and uterine.  She also suffers for Parkinson’s disease and has a calcium deposit on her brain from a childhood injury.  My father has broken his back twice and has had a medication induced stroke.  They live in a large house with my brother and sister about 45 minutes to an hour away.  I live in another state.  My dad does his best caring for my mom, but he has his limitations.

I have suggested on several occasions, that they could move close to me and I could take care of them.  My kids are slowly heading off to college and their own lives, so my wife and I have the capability to help. This was a cruel suggestion.  It was not meant to be, it was made with all of the best intensions.  I was suggesting that they could not make it on their own, and I was suggesting that they uproot from everything they know.  I could claim that they did that to me as a child, we moved several times for my father’s work, but half of my life was only 4 years, half of theirs is 40 years.

I justified to myself that moving them close to me was not selfish.  My state has better health care, less crime, less traffic and a better social network for older people.  Besides all of that, my dad moved his mother near to him, but that was when she was alone when his father died (he is an only child). It still did not matter.  They have their own lives.  Just as I do not want them telling me what to do, now that I am an adult, they want the same treatment from me.

I am relieved that my brother and sister are near enough to help.  I want to do more, and visit them when ever I can.  I like to think that my suggestions will help, now that I am learning how to think of their desires as well as their needs before thinking that I can come up with the best solution.

Although my parents will never move to be close to me, they are moving into a smaller, handicap friendly house.  This should make it easier on my dad, and make my mom more comfortable.  I can joke that it is actually 2 miles closer to me.  The lesson in all of this is communication and love.  Talk to your parents, find out what they want from you rather than putting your desires or judgments on their laps.  Know that they will not accept your offers, but also know that they love you as much as you love them.

It is hard to look at your parents and realize that they may not get to see your grand children.  I have thought about this on several occasions.  I was lucky enough to have a great grand mother alive until I was a teenager.  I did not realize the treasure that I had until long after she was gone.  Many of my friends never got to see their grand parents, much less great grand parents.

It is also hard to look at yourself and see that you are growing old as well.  You can look at where your parents were at your age, and consider all of the gifts they have provided.  Consider also how you are going to react when you own children start looking for a home for you.  I hope that my generation can emulate the strength and independence that our parents still have.  Until that day, I will continue to work hard to care and provide for my own children, and watch for opportunities to reach out to my parents.

Join The Soap Boxers Observer’s NCAA tourney pool.

The following prizes will be awarded:

First prize: An annual Kosmo pass at the Hyrax Publications store.  This will allow you to download all of my digital, including content not available on The Soap Boxers.  The pass has an MSRP of $18, although it’s selling for $9 right now, to reflect the fact that we have just begun to populate the audio book section.

Three random people will receive a copy of Selling Yourself Short: A Guide to Short Story writing.  Shh – this 2500 word eBooklet won’t be officially released until later in the week 🙂

Note: This is a continuation from Wednesday’s article about the Alphabet Soup League draft. Please read that article first – it will make this one make a lot more sense.

In round 6, I nabbed Indians outfielder Chin-Soo Choo, who provides a nice mix of power and steals. I also nabbed Rangers pitcher Neftali Feliz, who is a rising star in baseball. The only question is whether he starts the season in the Rangers rotation of bullpen. He hasn’t pitched a ton of innings in prior years, so the Rangers will likely take care to limit his innings, and big workload increases often result in injuries in the subsequent year. My final pick in this round is Omar Infante. Infante is not a great player, but I is a very shallow letter, and he does provide position flexibility.

In round 7, I had letters P, D, and E. P was pretty straightforward. I still needed a first baseman and Carlos Pena was on the board. I snapped up C-Pain. D was a more difficult choice. Did I want pitcher Justin Duchscherer, who has combined good skills with injuries? Outfielder Elijah Dukes, who has a lot of talent, but suspect decision-making skills? I toyed with several possibilities before finally going with Rockies pitcher Jorge de la Rosa, who pitched very well at times last year. I’m tinkering with the possibility of only playing him during road trips. E is another weak letter, and I took a flier on reliever Scott Elbert.

In round 8, I filled out my outfield by picking up Brave Nate McLouth who, like Choo, provides a bit of speed and a bit of power. My other letter is T, which doesn’t have as much talent. I go for Willy Taveras. Taveras is a one trick pony, bringing only steals to the table. My plan is to stash him on the bench and plug him into the lineup when the matchup makes it appears as if I can win the steals category with fast Willy’s help.

After making round 8 selections and awaiting everyone else’s pick, I still had holes at shortstop and third base. I’m hoping for Rockies third baseman Ian Stewart (a young player with good power but a low batting average) slips to me in the 9th and Alexei Ramierez of the White Sox slips to me in the 10th.

When the 9th rolls around, I am pleased to be able to snap up Stewie. I don’t actively seek out my favorite players in the draft, but I really need a third baseman, and I’m running out of time. I also need a shortstop, and could pick up Marco Scutaro for my shortstop and Aramis Ramirez or Mark Reynolds as my third baseball, but I roll the nice with Stewart and hope that Alexei Ramirez is still alive in the 10th. Stewie has gone from hot prospect (30 homers in the minors fresh out of high school), to a bust, to a once again valued player – and he’s still just 24.

My other letter is N. Ugh. N is an awful letter. I grab another catcher, Dioner Navarro. I don’t really need a third catcher, and Navarro will probably get cut when I pick up some free agents after the draft.

In the 10th round, I’m please to see that Alexei Ramirez did indeed drop to me.  I’m hoping that Alexei bounces back a bit from last year.  It’s worth noting that Ramirez was shifting back to shortstop in 2009 after having played second base in 2008.  In any case, at this point, I’m in desperate need of a shortstop.  My other letter is J.  As I look down my roster, I realize that I don’t have an adequate bat for the utility role – my bench hitters are pretty bad.  Nick Johnson, the oft-injured DH for the New York Yankees, joins the team.  He’s unlikely to rack up a lot of at bats, but should contribute a good on base percentage.

This is how my roster looks after the 10th round:

C: Matt Wieters
1B: Carlos Pena
2B: Howie Kendrick
SS: Alexei Ramirex
3B: Ian Stewart
OF: Carlos Quentin
OF: Chin-Soo Choo
OF: Nate McLouth
Utility: Nick Johnson

Bench: C Miguel Olivo, 2B/3B/SS/OF Omar Infante, OF Willy Taveras, C Dioner Navaro

SP: Justin Verlander
SP: Josh Beckett
SP: Tim Lincecum
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Yovani Gallardo
SP: Jorge de la Rosa
P: Neftali Feliz
RP: David Aardsma
RP: Scott Elbert

One thing quickly jumps out at me.  We play 9 pitchers, and while I have very good top end talent (6 of the top 20 starting pitchers in baseball, including 3 of the top 7, according to Yahoo’s fantasy guide), I have exactly 9 pitchers – I’d be short a guy if there is an injury.  We have a bonus round upcoming.  This is basically a waiver process conducted vua email.  We can pick any remaining player.  It makes sense for me to pursue another pitcher – particularly one from the letter Y or Z, since they would be elgible without having juggle the roster.

How did I do? Obviously, my hitting is a bit weak, as I sacrificed hitting in order to build an elite pitching staff. I like my position, though. I should be able to pick up win in Wins, ERA, WHIP, and Strikeouts nearly every week. I have Aardsma, so I’m not completely punting saves, and may win that category once in a while. I have some solid hitters and hope to pick up at least 1-2 wins on the hitter side each week. I can always trade pitching for hitting if I need to.

That’s not to say that the strategy wasn’t without risk. Leaving the shortstop until the last round is not a very safe strategy and could have easily backfired – and some might say that it DID backfire, since Alexei Ramirez isn’t a world beater. But I set the strategy early, stuck to it, and avoided major potholes in the road.

Today, we talk about two star college athletes.

The first is Oregon running quarterback Jeremiah Masoli – a star who was considered a Heisman candidate for 2010.  On Friday, Masoli pleaded guilty to second degree burglary for his role in the theft of laptops and a guitar from a fraternity on campus.  The Oregon football team suspended him for the 2010 season.

That sounds like an appropriate punishment, right?

Well, except for the fact that he’ll still be on scholarship for 2010 – and will be allowed to use a redshirt year if he wants – meaning that he wouldn’t lose any eligibility.  I’ve heard of a medical redshirt year, but a criminal redshirt year?  I understand that Masoli is a talented player, but what message does is send when this incident possibly extends his full ride scholarship to five years instead of four?

On the other side, we have Purdue basketball player Robbie Hummel.  The standout forward had led his Boilermakers to a top five ranking and had Purdue poised to make a run deep into the NCAA tournament.

Then, on February 24, Hummel tore his ACL is a win against the Minnesota Gophers.  Today, a Hummel-less Purdue team got bounced out of the Big 10 tournament against those same Gophers 69-42.  Purdue managed just 11 points in the first half.  A Boilermaker team that appeared headed toward the Final Four now faces an uncertain fate.

What a different set of “rewards” for these two players.

A few days ago, Johnny Goodman made me aware of the fact that the Robert Edward catalog would soon be shipping.  What sort of catalog is the Robert Edward book?  Men’s apparel?  Fine wines?

No, something even better.  Sports collectibles.  Not just any sports collectibles, but high end sports collectibles.  And we’re not talking about your run of the mill Tigers Woods autograph on a Hooters menu (ha ha, Tiger Woods at Hooters – yeah, we understand the irony) type of sports collectible.  We’re talking about collectibles that often have unique histories behind them.

The full name of the organization is Robert Edward Auctions.  Each year, I go to the site, click on the “Contact” link and request a copy of the catalog.  The glossy, full color catalog is filled with about 700 pages of consigned auction items.  Some guys anxiously await the SI Swimsuit issue; I anxiously await the REA catalog.  It truly is Christmas in April.

Sadly, it appears that I don’t have a 2009 catalog.  I wonder what sort of life event made me forget to order my copy.  I guarantee that I didn’t throw the catalog out – I keep the old catalogs to leaf through from time to time.  I’ll pull out my 2008 copy to share some highlights.

What would a high end sports auction be without the requisite T-206 Honus Wagner card (circa 1909-1911)?  The card – of the Pirates Hall of Fame Shortstop – is rare because Wagner demanded that the American Tobacco Company pull the card from their set.  There are a few theories on the reasoning.  Historically, it was said that Wagner did this to prevent youngsters from buying tobacco to get his card.  More recently, the thought is that Wagner simply wanted more money from ATC.

In 2008, a collector paid $1.6 million for a Wagner (not in the Robert Edward auction) with a grade of 5 (out of 10).  The example in the REA catalog was a 1 (poor condition).  The reserve was $50,000 – and the card sold for $317,250!

The auction isn’t limited just to cards, though.  There are a variety of other unique collectibles.

In recent years, canceled checks have gained popularity with collectors.  In the 2008 Robert Edward auction, there’s a check from Babe Ruth to his wife for $1000.  Why is there interest in this sort of item?  Because Babe Ruth would have put actual thought into writing out this check, as opposed to a player blindly scribbling his name on a ball.  The $1000 check – which has no actual financial value – sold for $4112.50.

An interesting modern era piece was lot 165 – a 1988 lithography featuring  the 11 living members of the 500 home run club at that time.  Not only is it a nice work of art, but it is signed by those members – Ted Williams, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Mike Schmidt, Ernie Banks, Eddie Mathews, and Willie McCovey.  I couldn’t afford the $1800 it sold for – but it would look pretty sweet on my mantle.

While the auction centers around sports – and specifically baseball – there are also some non-sports items included.  Lot 1618 was the cape worn by George Reeve in the 1950s Superman television show.  How much would you pay for a rather simple piece of red fabric?  A collector paid $32,213.50.

Not everything sells for tens of thousands of dollars, of course.  A Japanese biography of Babe Ruth, published in 1948, sold for $117.50.  If you’re looking to add to your wardrobe, you could have bought the 1944 game used pants of Joe “Ducky” Medwick (last National League player to win the triple crown).  If you wanted to buy some sweet kicks, a pair of Karl Malone’s shoes from his final NBA season sold for a mere $293.75.

No, I’m not paid by REA to write this article – I’m just a big fan of their work.  If you’re a big sports fan like me, swing by their site, order a catalog, and if you have the financial ability, bid on a few items.