MIEDEMA’S MAILBOX
Q: I had a Charles Barkley Suns home jersey, by Champion with tags, fail an authentication (not by MEARS) due to improper logo placement. Can you elucidate?
A: In the 1991-1992 NBA season, a number of retail jerseys with tags, but with minor differences from actual team-issued jerseys, were made available to the general public. In the case of Barkley’s retail jersey, the NBA logo is on the left chest…normal for most NBA teams, but not the Suns, who place it on the right chest for gamers of that style. The jerseys, sold as the NBA Commemorative Collection, are the hoops equivalent of the Score Board MLB jerseys mentioned in this column before…tagged jerseys that never saw a locker room or a player’s’ back, but come down to minor differences (amount of extra length, tag information, lack of patch or band, etc.)
Q: You’ve mentioned the White Sox being the initiator of MLB Turn Back the Clock jerseys in 1990. Who was the first TBTC wearing team in the NFL?
A: Everyone in the league wore some sort of Throwback (NFL-speak for Turn Back the Clock) uniform during the NFL’s 75th Anniversary season in 1994. The year before, however, found the New York Jets trotting out 1969-style unies as part of the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Jets’ Super Bowl 3 champions.
ORANGE YA GLAD THE BEARS ARE PLAYING?
For today’s Bears-Vikings clash at Soldier Field, the Bears will be wearing their orange jerseys…the third year of their alternate style.
OOPS
One eBay offering showed the possibility of honest error in the realm of game-used baseball collecting. A seller had a game foul ball he caught at a Pirates-Phillies game at the Vet in Philly. His description indicated it was hit by Roberto Clemente. Bad memory, seller friend…the ball is a Rawlings gamer, and Clemente died several years before Rawlings began supplying MLB with baseballs. The National League baseballs of Clemente’s era were all produced by Spalding. Still a decent item…just not one that Clemente hit foul.
THERE’S MORE THAN 10
After mentioning a set 10 Alfonso Soriano Cubs home jersey on an Internet auction last time out, it looks as if Soriano had even more sets in ’07. An eBay auction offers a genuine Sori 2007 Cubs home gamer tagged set 12. Still not Vernon Wells’ set 20, but getting there.
OBITUARIES
In the NFL, Chris Mims was found dead of undetermined causes at age 38. Mims played eight seasons in the NFL, seven of which were with the Chargers, plus one with Washington.
Baseball lost several former players. Sid Hudson, who pitched from 1940-54 for the Red So and Senators (with 1943-45 off for military service) died on the 10th at age 93.
Also leaving us at age 93 was Les McCrabb, who passed away on the 8th. McCrabb was a pitcher for the Philadelphia A’s from 1939-42, and then reappearing briefly with the A’s again in 1950.
Kevin Foster, a pitcher whose best years were with the 2994-97 Cubs, and later a truck driver, died from a form of renal cancer at age 39. He came to the Majors in 1993 with the Phillies, and attempted a comeback in 2001 with Texas. This one hits me extra…the second strong acquaintance of mine to die way too young this year (Geremi Gonzalez was the first).
Most recently, Tom Tresh suffered a fatal heart attack, passing at age 71. He was the 1962 AL ROY, and played with the Yanks from 1962 into the midst of 1969, finishing off the ’69 schedule with Detroit. His father was Mike Tresh, a 12-year MLB catcher predominantly with the White Sox.
WHO WAS THE IDIOT WHO DECIDED TO CAN DENIS SAVARD?