The Sporting News
Update: Phillies Karen baseball offer from BlowoutCards.com
It was the moment seen around the world.
The Saga Of Phillies Karen & The Home Run Ball was just one week ago tonight down in Miami and if you don't know the tale here's a quick recap. A Harrison Bader home run went into the stands and put a run on the board for the Philadelphia Phillies as part of a rout of the Marlins. It bounced around on the concrete and ended up in the hands of fan Drew Feltwell, who ran down the row of seats below her to retrieve it and then ran back to his seat, proudly popping the ball into the glove of his 10-year-old son, Lincoln ... until there was a showdown.
"She definitely scurried on over," Feltwell told NBC10 Philadelphia. "And as she reached for my arm, she just yelled in my ear, 'That's my ball.' Like super loud. I jumped out of my skin."
"A lot, a lot of eyes on us by that time. And the ball was already in his glove and she just wouldn't stop. And I mean, I'm literally leaning back as she's in my face, yelling and yelling and yelling. And I pretty much just wanted her to go away. And because I had a fork in the road, either do something I was probably going to regret or be a dad and show him how to de-escalate the situation. So that's where I went."
The family ended up with gifts from both teams after the in-game negative attention -- after all, it was all caught on live TV and filmed from in the stands -- and they met Bader after the game where the kid ended up with one of his signed Victus Sports game-model bats and a moment better than just a baseball leading up to his birthday, which is why they were at the game. They ended up on Good Morning America talking about it all while her identity remains a mystery despite all kinds of angsty and, well, uncouth Internet reactions that are as abrasive as that moment. (Feltwell has asked the public to stop all that. We concur.)
Since then, our "firm and official" offer of $5,000 for the ball -- as long as it's signed and inscribed "I'm sorry" -- that we dropped a day later has been around the world, too.
It's been covered by -- take a breath -- The New York Times, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, Yahoo Sports, The Sporting News, cllct, The Philadelphia Inquirer, MSN, National Post, Fox News, FOX 29 Philadelphia, Cleveland.com, Hindustan Times, NJ.com, Times of India, The Independent (UK), Daily Mail (UK), New York Post, 104.5 WOKV, The Economic Times, Patch, Toronto Sun, The Tab, The Mirror U.S., Daily Express U.S., FanBuzz, BroBible, Whiskey Riff, TotallyProSports, EssentiallySports, Bounding Into Sports, VT, Breitbart, Bored Panda, Sportsnaut, Hypefresh Magazine, Bounding Into Sports, BVM Sports, inkl, NewsBreak, Finurah, EssentiallySports, Dexerto and we're sure even more than that based on the social media push-around we've seen. Some of it's been good, some of it's been bad, some of it's been confusing, some of them have been proud to see it.
We know he should have the ball.
And, now ... why are we here once again?
Just For Fun: Check out the Pittsburgh Pirates' reading habits
This new occasional department is as its title says -- it's just for fun ... a super-quick look at something found that could be new or could be old. It could be comical, it could be serious. It could be cards, it could be something else. It's perhaps collectable -- to somebody -- but there still might be a quick story in there somewhere, too.
Read all about it?
Buzz recently did some deep dives for odd stuff in the autograph realm and a trio of signed late-1970s Pittsburgh Pirates expense checks caught my attention. Why? Just some goofy similarities between them made me wonder what the deal was -- and, well, this isn't even all of them. Again, why? To add some weird but simple items to my autograph collection on the super-duper cheap.
The checks are from 1978 and are signed by former Pirates Treasurer Douglas McCormick -- not a big deal and really, really not as cool as a player's absolute first payday I wrote about here -- so this trio isn't about the ink. This time, it's about who's getting paid.
In the case of the Oct. 25, 1978, check above for $10.20? That's The Sporting News. The weekly sports newspaper was $1 an issue back then, so I suppose it could be for a discounted subscription based on 52 weeks a year but that still seems low. Was this for a subscription for somebody up high? Maybe one for a waiting room? Maybe it was for a bundle of copies of Dave Parker's cover a month earlier? We'll never know ...
Buzz Buys (Oct.): Tiffany Stratton ink, old movies, Bo, Shotzi, retro autographs, old mags, new Hall of Famer & plenty more
Buzz buys and busts a lot of boxes right here for Buzz Breaks, but one of my goals is to rip a little less and talk more about cardboard that I -- and you -- might like. One way to do that? Simple show and tell -- present a few pick-ups and say why they captured my attention. So, with all that said, here are a few Buzz Buys ...
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THERE'S ALWAYS TIME FOR TIFF
The Card: Tiffany Stratton 2024 Panini Instant WWE Red-White-Blue Autograph (/10)
The Price: $49.99 via Panini Instant
Why it’s Buzz-worthy: This was an instant buy for me for that price and I suspect that future autos for this rising WWE star will cost more when they happen again via Instant based on asking and sale prices over on eBay that are far higher. (And because Panini has charged more for names who aren't as popular.) It's not a perfect card with the auto running off the sticker to a small degree here (though others I saw were worse with that being part of the "T") but that doesn't matter to me much with this being a personal collection addition. The only question is whether I'll slab it or not and I'm leaning toward no as I don't want any surprises on a solid card. With this victory, she got a title match anywhere and at any time, so this is a key moment upon that rocketship ride to the top as she only started wrestling in any capacity in late 2021 and already has all the skills to pay the bills. (Here's one match to see.) There will be more Strattons to come here as long as the prices don't get too crazy.
Grab a box right here: Not for this ... WWE cards are hereKeep reading for more interesting items ...
An odd find in a dig of The Sporting News archives photos
It's been a busy day on The Buzz for headlines in the here and now of today -- you know, modern cardboard and sports business -stuff -- so I'll work from left field on this quick and simple vintage item with a story.
Call it a Buzz Buys (it is), call it afternoon/evening filler (yeah, it is), call it whatever you want depending on your collecting tastes ... I like to call this one interesting.
I recently found this old, semi-mangled print from the archives of The Sporting News from a dealer of other non-card materials and the simplicity of that clean pose got me to stop and look. Why? Well, a lot of photos just don't look like that from back then -- where, for example, you can see plenty of details on the fabric of Bill Connelly's Philadelphia Athletics jersey. (Yes, Philadelphia ... that's the Oakland A's two cities ago where they made plenty of MLB history from 1901 to 1954, winning five World Series and nine American League pennants.) This one just felt really different, though. That just felt like a superstar kind of pose, or at least somebody of note who needed a portrait taken by a major publication, and yet ... I didn't know his name.
Who's in the background? I dunno. When's it from? Based on what's scribbled on the back of this one -- a patchwork of handwriting from a few uses over the years -- I'm not that sure. So that's when I headed over to Baseball Reference to learn more and that's where this one got interesting to me. I learned plenty more.
Buzz Buys: Cardboard stars, movie icons, vintage magazines, new ink, favorites from my teams, WWE icons & plenty more
Buzz buys and busts a lot of boxes right here for Buzz Breaks, but one of my goals is to rip a little less and talk more about cardboard that I -- and you -- might like. One way to do that? Simple show and tell -- present a few pick-ups and say why they captured my attention.
So, with all that said, here are a few Buzz Buys
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BATTING LEAD-OFF ... THE PITCHER
The Card: Tatum O'Neal (as Amanda Whurlitzer) 2013 Panini Golden Age Exhibit Box-topper
The Price: $14
Why it’s Buzz-worthy: This is a modern take on the old Exhibit postcards and this one is one of a few cards in a huge set that stands out to me. Why? It's one that shows an actor in character as she was the ace of The Bad News Bears. The key here? This is a box-topper set that had 40 cards in it ... so that's a lot of boxes to open to complete a set -- just one per box -- and the collation could be quite repetitive in my experience as I ripped a ton of these over the years. While a lot of sets from even a decade ago have dried up in wax form and gotten perhaps too steep for the typical return, these are still very affordable and include some good stuff. The only drawback? A wide array of inclusions may not be for everybody and now all these years later some of the good autograph redemption cards (only a few) can't be redeemed for that ink. (Points now as they are long-expired.) There are a lot of on-card autos in this release that have no equal -- including autos from her and other Bears.
Grab a box right here: 2013 Panini Golden AgeKeep reading for more interesting items ...
Charles M. Conlon photo archive coming to auction via Heritage
The glass negative plates for some of the most-iconic baseball photographs of all time are hitting the open market via Heritage Auctions.
It's the Charles M. Conlon collection and it consists of 7,462 different images taken by the photographer whose work was owned by The Sporting News after his death in 1945. The collection was recently purchased by collector John Rogers so the negatives could be digitized for commercial reproduction.
"With audio and video recordings of the pre-war game extremely limited in population," reads the auction house description, "The Charles Conlon Photographic Archive is, quite simply, the most important and comprehensive record of early twentieth century baseball that exists, the DNA that gave birth to our collective vision of that time."
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