Sy Berger creator of Topps Baseball Cards passed away Sunday December 14.
To this day every spring I drive to the store when Topps Baseball Cards go on sale and buy a few packs sit in my car and open them. Not because I’m a collector (anymore) but because it still gives me a feeling of being a kid again. Thank you Sy Berger for a lifetime of fun.
The teams are rested, 6 days for the KC Royals, and 5 days for SF Giants. The team that comes up short will say that the long layoff hurt them. Now for my last MLB prediction for 2014, SF Giants in 6 games (could be 5). The second long layoff for KC Royals will impact them this time… 
I decided to revisit my season ” My 2012 MLB Team Predictions ” to see how I did. First think I notice that I got the AL East completely wrong. Next I also picked an extra team the Diamondbacks by mistake in the NL West. I was at many Florida spring training games this year and watched the teams is helpful. My research for the Arizona teams was TV, radio, and the internet. Looking back over my predictions I have to say not unhappy. I also still stand by my World Series prediction, the Nationals.
AL East AL Central AL West
Yankees Tigers A’s
Rays# Royals# Angels#
Orioles Indians Rangers
Red Sox White Sox Mariners
Blue Jays Twins Astros
Royals over Angels Wild Card Game
Yankees, Rays ALDS winners
Rays over Yankees
National League
NL East NL Central NLWest
Nationals Cardinals Dodgers
Braves Pirates# Giants#
Marlins Reds Diamondbacks#
Mets Cubs Rockies
Phillies Brewers Padres
Pirates over Diamondbacks Wild Card Game
Nationals, Giants NLDS winners
Nationals over Giants
2014 World Series
Nationals over Rays in 7 games
On this day in 1954 – Sports Illustrated, a magazine about everything sports – hits newsstands for the first time.
The late Ozzie Sweet, called the Babe Ruth of sports photography was the inspiration for many of the SI photographers.
Last Saturday I was at the New York City taping of Antiques Road Show with passes from Larry Canale who authored two books with Ozzie Sweet:
Over 13 years I have had many conversations and emails with Larry, but never met until last Saturday. He knew I had many of Ozzie’s images and said “I didn’t know you had that many! Theirs enough for another book.”
My project now is the schedule more time within and coming months to work on them. When Ozzie was alive, I also talked to him about photography and color of his images as he and Larry were never pleased with the color produced in the (wonderful) books.
Time is the greatest enemy to color transparency and color prints In technical terms the yellow layer of all color is a vegetable dye and fades, thus giving the purple color we all see.in old slides and family color prints. That is why storage and other archival techniques are so important. Digital has different issues, but prints I create are all made using archival inks and paper.
Enough tech talks!
Ozzie was also one of my inspirations that is why I pursued to buy his images and copyrights (another story for the future). On my website http://www.ballparkprints.com in galleries click on Classic Images for a sample of Ozzie Sweets images.
Ballparkprints
Mickey Mantle my all-time favorite ballplayer. While looking a video on YouTube this popped up and I just had to share this moment….
June 27, 1985 U.S. Route 66 ceases to be an official U.S. highway. In 2010 on a cross country trip I picked-up Route 66 leaving Amarillo Texas. I am planning a future trip to hookup with Route 66 in Chicago and travel the route to Los Angeles.
One of the many places that I wanted to see was Cacillac Ranch outside Amarillio Texas on Route 66. These are my images from that visit…
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-stanley-marsh-dead-20140617-story.html
June 1, is Marlyn Monroe’s birthday and would have been 88 today. Earlier this week in The Huffington Post was this story:
“12 Famous People Who Really Made The Most Out Of Their Last Words ” By Shelley Emling.
The second famous quote, was said by Joe DiMaggio,“I finally get to see Marilyn.” speaking of his former love Marilyn Monroe. DiMaggio died in 1999 following a battle with lung cancer. At his bedside was his attorney, Morris Engelberg, who told Vanity Fair magazine that the Yankee great never got over Monroe’s death from an apparent drug overdose in 1962.
Late in the afternoon in 1982, I got a call from Hy of Hy Zazula Studio and asked me to wait for a call from him to meet at his studio. The call comes late, and when I arrive his son David is there also and before going into the work area they say I cannot talk about what we will be working on. I enter the work area and covering a large light table are chromes of Marilyn Monroe; we then study the selects to create the budget for approval. The next morning I meet with HY before 9AM, and give him my final numbers, and within a day we started working on the prints for the book, Marilyn Monroe The Last Sitting
Every now than I run across a 20 x 24 limited edition Print of Marilyn Monroe in an art gallery or auction house and it reminds me of how I met Marilyn Monroe…
Happy Birthday Marilyn!
When I was a kid it was popular with owners of station wagons to post on the rear side window small yellow stickers of places that they had visited. Whenever I would pass one I would stop look at the stickers, and think to myself, someday I am going to see them This also inspired me to reading about our National Parks and states. That youthful inquisitiveness has never left me and in 2010, my wife I headed out on our first 50 day cross country road trip since we have made three cross country trip plus 10 other road trips.
On the first trip heading back from California all I could think of was, I am going to see Mount Rushmore, except for Yellowstone National Park it the most popular sticker.
Also, aware of the Crazy Horse Monument, and before, and while on the trip would talk about it, to my friends, but to my surprise most of had never heard about it.
We stayed three days in Rapid City South Dakota, and visited Mount Rushmore three-times and it was never a disappointment. The second day we started out early first seeing Custer State Park, it is a large park with an abundance of prairie wildlife
Every September they bring in cowboys to do a buffalo roundup and about twenty thousand spectators watch from the hills. I highly recommend visiting it.
From there, we headed over to see the Crazy Horse Monument with no expectation. As you arrive off in the distance you get you first impression (the last image was taken from a mile away) of its size. Seeing it in person you realize the magnitude of the concept of this monument that started in 1947 by Korczak Ziolkowski, at the request of Sioux chiefs who said they wanted ”the white man to know the red man had great heroes too.” (The New York Time Oct 21 1982) Today with the passing of his wife two of their ten children carry on, and hope to finish this project by 2047. I think it will be difficult without public involvement, something that Korczak and the Sioux wanted to avoid….
These images all were taken in 2010 the fourth image is what the completed image will look like. To convey its scale all four heads on Mount Rushmore would fit into the opening under Crazy Horse arm…
If interested in purchasing any of these images contact me through
http://nyti.ms/1oeHMsE The New York Times Link
1922 The Yankees, who have been sharing the Polo Grounds with the Giants since 1913, begin construction on their own ballpark in the Bronx. The stadium will become known as the ‘House that Ruth Built,’ acknowledging the Babe’s popularity and influence. Visit http://www.ballparkprints.com see over 25 additional images from 1921 to 1937 the building of Yankee Stadium
BALLPARK PRINTS 