Musing about my five collecting interests: All things Orioles and BALTIMORE Colts, 50's Baseball, team publications, Japanese cards and even some football and hockey.
You might find some beautiful women, soccer stuff, presidential pins and life advice from time to time. I don't charge extra for any of those.
With the excitement of Opening Day wearing down a bit, and my fantasy team quickly rolling downhill, I am very much anticipating the NHL Playoffs which open tonite. Four games, eight teams and we'll repeat that tomorrow night. And most night for awhile. That means a lot of evenings spent with my sons at Houston's Maple Leaf Pub. During the Cup playoffs hockey bars are just so much fun.
My Rangers have their first game Thursday and due to a concert I bought tickets for many months ago I'll have to keep up with the game via my phone while it records on my DVR. And, just my luck, we have a commitment for Saturday evening which is when the second Rangers-Pens game is scheduled.
I'm posting my two Eddie Giacomin signed photos here. The Rangers have had some great goalies since he played here but none of them will ever replace him at the top of my list of favorites.
The item below is a Topps 'poster' insert from 1980/81. I picked it up for 99 cents recently after seeing a different team's poster on someone's blog. Seeing 'N-E-W Y-O-R-K" spelled out on the blue sweater is always odd to me. I grew up in the 'dark sweaters at home era' and the times that teams wore the opposite scheme was a time I had very little access to 'live' NHL action.
So, if you are a hockey fan, hang on and enjoy the ride. There is nothing like the NHL playoffs.
The usual Monday Morning Quarterback posting will run on Tuesday. I have other priorities today!
The Rangers are down 0-2 in the Cup Finals and I'm hoping this Mark Messier signed card will turn their fortunes around. Kings are a helluva hockey team but the Rangers have hung in there. Oddly the Rangers have not been behind in seven plus periods of hockey up until the nanosecond the Kings put the puck in the net on both overtime games.
I picked this Messier card up on eBay and it wasn't cheap but Messier is a tough autograph and in that regard it was a bargain. Flip side of that equation is that I don't really care much for autographs and therefore I spent too much. Now I'm confused.
It's a shiny chrome-ilated In The Game Lord Stanley's Mug Series card. As a Ranger fan I'll always be indebted to Messier for the way he almost literally picked up the 1993-94 Rangers, put them on his back and carried them to the only Cup I've been able to celebrate in my 50-some-odd years as a Blueshirts fan.
There is very little in the world I love more than the Stanley Cup Final Series. And to have the Rangers in it is almost more than I can stand. Although from what I've been hearing and reading the last day or so the Kings must have skated Lord Stanley's hardware around the United Center Sunday night. I guess I missed that.
One Sirius NHL Radio wag just flat out said that the LA-Chicago Series was the finals. Ooookay. I hope the Rangers were not listening. They might decide it's over and not show up. I have decided to head on over to the Maple Leaf bar in Houston's midtown anyway, just in case that some sort of hockey is on the big screen. Maybe I'll wear my Eddie Giacomin t-shirt just for kicks.
Both of the two cards seen above are throwbackers from the last couple of years. The top one is an In The Game Between The Pipes (whatever that is) and the green bordered card is from Score Hockey (Panini). Neat little cards for the 99 cent price tags I guess. I like to 'pad' my single card purchaces with some dollar items it they don't add to the shipping.
Now for the real deals... vintage Eddie Giacomin cards. I bought these from a company in Canada. They sure charge out the ear for shipping as I recall.
Here are my two signed Giacomin 8x10's:
I bought the bottom one but the one above, in the home blue, a friend picked it up for my at a signing event at MSG (I think) a few years back.
I also got this Giacomin signed puck:
I hope posting some of my Rangers swag brings the Blueshirts good luck tonite. Until then you can find me in church.
Never, never, never. It goes against nature. Derek Sanderson as a Ranger? Hell Johnny U. on the Chargers didn't shock me as much as this. That 75/76 Topps card won't even have a place in my Rangers binder.
But hockey has always had a lot of cross-pollination. At least during the days of six and then 12 teams. Players were moved around a lot and with that few teams the odds of a guy you disliked landing on your favorite team were not all that long. But saying I 'disliked' Derek Sanderson is like saying Hell is 'warm'.
Which brings me to the video below. On April 5 of 1970 my parents were house shopping in Houston. I was glued to the radio in Jersey as the Rangers were in a wild battle for a play-off spot. It was the last day of the regular season and the Rangers needed to beat the Red Wings (they had lost to the Wings the night before) and have the Black Hawks beat Montreal.
But they needed more. Even if the games went their way the Rangers would have been tied with the Canadiens and out of the playoffs on goal differential versus Montreal. The Rangers had to win AND score five more goals than the Canadiens! The Rangers played in the afternoon and went off the rails trying to score. The fired about sixty shots at Roger Crozier and scored a 9-5 win. They had even pulled Eddie Giacomin out of the goal leading 9-3 in an attempt to up their total.
When that game was over WHN in New York announced that they would pick up the Montreal-Chicago broadcast so I sat and prayed next to the radio for another three hours that night. The Habs needed to score five goals, even if they lost. Those five goals would have given them the last playoff berth. Try as they might the Canadiens could not do it. The Hawks had something riding on the game, too. They needed a win to finish in first place. They went ahead 5-2 in the third period and Montreal pulled their goalie trying to add goals. But Chicago hit the empty net five times and won 10-2. I'd never experienced anything quite like that Sunday.
On Monday, the Rangers put playoff tickets on sale and with my folks out of town I didn't have much problem skipping school, taking the train into Manhattan and lining up with my buddy outside the Garden. We got tickets for the third and fourth games. I remember that our seats were about the last available pair and they were high up behind the goal. They were in an area of the Garden that didn't even give you a full view of the ice unless you stood up, or even better, stood on your seat, which is what we did.
And Game Three turned out to be a doozy. The Rangers and Bruins had been mixing it up in Boston during the first two games and the Garden was rocking even during the pre-game. Right from the opening face-off things got crazy and as it turned out the game set records for penalties. Until today I had never seen any video of the game. This clip is four minutes, about a third of which is foolish fluff but the rest is serious hockey bidness.
Too bad they didn't have any video of Sanderson shooting the bird at the Garden faithful as he exited the ice. From that night forward he was 'evil incarnate' and the thought of him ever actually playing for the Rangers was, well, beyond anything I could comprehend.
The Bruins went on to win the series and eventually the Stanley Cup over the Blues. I skipped school again and tried for Game Six tix with my girlfriend but got the shutout. Rangers lost anyway so it's OK. Derek Sanderson wore out his welcome in Boston (twice), spent time in the WHA, became an alcoholic and got traded to the Rangers.
I've been to Chicago before but not during baseball season so our vacation last week gave us the chance to visit the 'Friendly Confines' and take in a game. The fact that the Astros were in town was just a happy coincidence enjoyed by my Houston-born sons.
This is a bit off my usual style of post but I'm going to show a few pics from our stay in the Windy City. First stop out of Midway was a great little family-owned hot dog stand in the shadows of Comiskey Park U.S. Cellular Field.
On Sunday our little group took the 'L' to the Addison St. station and watched the Astros put on one of the worst exhibitions of baseball I've seen since my tee-ball coaching days. Below are my twin boys, Brooks Robinson Andrews and James Palmer Andrews (who came in from Lincoln, NE for the fun).
Brooks' better half Ashley was making her second trip to Wrigley. They had visited last July.
Here is the merry band of Astro fans in our seats in Section 216. Just out of sight are an Orioles fan husband/wife pairing that were sitting in the row in front of us, a lone Oriole cap-wearing fan in the next section and a couple of O's fans sitting a few rows in front of us that we noticed when the crowd thinned late in the game. Sadly the Orioles were getting crushed by the Jays that afternoon so my family had little to cheer about. But we had a great time anyway.
Pregame panorama. I learned how to take those about 10 seconds prior to this attempt.
I loved seeing the rooftop bleachers. They were packed. And it was a beautiful day.
Joe Torre (that's him leaning on the rail) traversed the catwalk behind the suites just above us several times. Every time I saw him it was too late for a good picture.
We stayed to the bitter end of the Cubs' stomping of the bumbling 'Stros. You really can't leave until they sing that song and raise the "W" flag above the scoreboard.
So much for the travelog. Here is my only souvenir, the game program. Pretty routine as far as programs go. The usual selected player blurbs, previews of opponents coming in on the current homestand and lots of ads.
But contained in the centerfold was a good old fashioned heavy stock scorecard. What was really cool was that the 30-something (and very attractive) gal in front of us was keeping score on hers! I haven't seen anyone keeping score at a ballgame in ages.
We were in town when Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals was going on at the United Center but we were at a wedding and had to track the game on smartphones during the reception. It was really fun to see the city decked out in Hawks flags. They were all over the place downtown.
We've seen the Blackhawks at the United Center (a great experience!) and when I was growing up the Bruins were my Rangers' major rival (always fighting for 5th/6th places behind the playoff bound Hawks, Wings, Leafs and Habs). Somewhere along the line that animosity seemed to fade a bit but it never left me so, given all that, I was pulling hard for Chicago. I sprung for the $5 to be able to watch the big 6th Game on Monday night's flight out of Midway. Lots of fun. Here is my only card of a current Blackhawk.
The NHL Playoffs began last night and my Rangers are taking on the Ottawa Senators tonite in the first round. That's one of my favorite cards of my favorite player. It's the 2007-08 Hot Prospects Henrik Lundqvist card. King Henrik had a great season. He'll need to continue to do so if the Rangers are going anyplace this playoff season. The grabbed the #1 seed in the East but their play down the stretch didn't do much to inspire my confidence.
I've been a Ranger fan since... well, I can't remember NOT being a Ranger fan. I went to games with my father in the old Madison Square Garden fifty years or more ago. With there being only six teams back then the rivalries were very intense. And most of the teams only played one goalie all season so if felt almost like a 'club'. My friends and I knew every player.
I'm very lucky. I've had a chance though the years to becameacquainted with, or at least spoken to, nearly all my favorite sports figures. Except one, the great Eddie Giacomin.
I cried when the Rangers traded him to Detroit. It was one of the most traumatic sports related experiences of my life. It's is right up there with the '69 World Series, Super Bowl III and the Colts leaving Baltimore.
I sure hope that wearing my genuine Ryan Callahan jersey brings the Blueshirts luck.
