Heeeeey...Get your Pink Thing.....Get your Pink Thing here!!

I used to make it up to the old Arlington Stadium a couple of times a year to catch the Orioles as they rolled through North Texas to play the Rangers. Those were fun trips. I had college friends who lived up there so I always had a place to stay if I wanted it and sometimes I scored free tickets (great seats, too). But usually I'd head up with John, a fellow Orioles fan/collector who I met at Houston card shops and became great friends with over the years. He had a black Pontiac Firebird and drove like a madman but somehow always avoided getting a ticket. Considering how many radar units would hang out on I-45 between Houston and Dallas that's nothing short of a miracle.

Games up there were always fun. I saw some of the most ominous storm clouds I can remember rolling across the skies over Arlington Stadium. I only recall a couple of rain-outs though. Behind home plate the screen extended straight up and it lacked the usual section that angles back over the top of the seats behind home plate. Foul balls hit straight back would frequently hit the wall behind those seats and ricochet down into them with tremendous velocity. Seasoned Arlington Stadium goers who sat behind the plate knew they had to instantly 'duck and cover' when a batter nicked one back over the screen. You knew the rookies. They were the ones who turned to see where the ball was going. Ouch!

You could take your own beer into the stadium in those round thermos jugs like this one:

A stop at 7-11 on the way to the ballpark for a couple of quarts of Miller High Life or Coors was always on the to-do list. One of the many unique things about Arlington Stadium was a frozen ice cream novelty that vendors sold in the seats which was called a 'Pink Thing'. I never got one but they were pretty popular. Turns out they were unique to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and mainly associated with the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park. That makes sense since Six Flags was literally next to the stadium.

We liked to get to the park early and hang out in the lot between the stadium and the nearby hotel which was where the Orioles (and other visiting clubs I suppose) stayed. Players would walk through the lot and were easy pickings for autograph hunters (of which John was one for sure). That's also the lot in which I heard Eddie Murray speak for the first time. Up until the moment he answered John's request for a signature with an "OK, but just one" I had been nearly convinced that he was a mute.

All of this is a long roundabout way of getting to the card I posted up top. That's a pink Jared Crick chromey, shiny-type Topps card. I collect pink cards, I'm a Texans season ticket holder and Nebraska is my son's school so the card was a nice pick-up.

Here's a picture of the Pink Thing ice cream 'treat' from the link above. And yes, that's exactly how I remember it. Looks pretty nasty.

2012 Panini Golden Age Box Topper

This came with my box of Panini Golden Age. I've always found the original 1916 BF2 Ferguson Bakery issue to be interesting. Legendary Auctions always seem to have a few lots in their catalog. Waaay out of my price range.

Sam Crawford came out of Wahoo, Nebraska and debuted with the Reds in 1899. He put together a Hall of Fame career playing 19 seasons, 15 of those with the Tigers. His Detroit club played in three straight World Series from 1907 through 1909. They lost each of them.

After his last big league game he played four more seasons with the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL. In the last of those he hit .318 at the age of 41. He hit .360 and .332 the previous two seasons! And those were seasons in which he played more than 170 games each.

Here is a pic of an original I found on the 'net.

Back Home from Nebraska

I've been off with my family watching the graduation of my son from the University of Nebraska. He's the third and final of my kids for finish college and I'm proud of all of them.

They take their Huskers very seriously up there. The football team has sold out Memorial Stadium for over three hundred consecutive games and the womens volleyball team tickets disappear within minutes of going on sale.

On my son's first visit to Lincoln to check it out we sat down at an IHOP for coffee and the 60-ish waitress asked us if we were "in town for the game?" Being that it was a Wednesday in April we were a little puzzled and it showed because she gave us a funny look and remarked that we must not be softball fans. On that same trip we stopped at one of the college bookstores in town and I noticed a display of Husker Spring Game DVDs on the counter. I picked one up to see if it really was what it proported to be and the cashier warned me that they were in short supply because they sell out fast. A DVD of the spring game. Hmmm.

Anyway here are a few of my favorite Nebraska related cards. The one up top is from the 1955 Topps All-American football set which featured notable college players and legends of years past. Bob Reynolds is the only Husker representative.

This one is a 2007 Zak Taylor Press Pass. We met Taylor on that same trip at a reception and he seemed like nice level headed kid. My son fell in love with Lincoln and UNL on that trip and chose to go there over offers from Arizona State, Oklahoma State and others. I think he made the right choice.