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Pitcher Johnny “Bear Tracks” Schmitz Dies

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Never a flashy autograph, always a legible one!
My signed letter was a close match to this
card from a half-century prior.

Pitcher Johnny “Bear Tracks” Schmitz has left life’s game at age 90.

I appreciated the obituary from his hometown paper in Wausua, Wisconsin. People there noticed him not just as a former major leaguer. They paid attention to him being a barber shop regular. He remained a part of the community after his baseball days ended.

He had signed 182 out of 190 requests, according to http://www.sportscollectors.net/. Collectors state that he’d send extra cards or photos in his own envelope, with his own postage, to reward the best letter writers.

Schmitz wrote me a great reply, which I shared in this 2010 feature.

If there are any 80-somethings on your hobby radar, take aim now. So many from that generation still have an unimaginable appreciation for today’s fans. Write to them while you can.

Coming Tuesday: Yankees teammate Roland Sheldon remembers Roger Maris.

Writing to Dodger Pitcher Carl Erskine: Time To Thank This Tireless Autograph All-Star

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Often willing to provide answers to
anything fans ask, Erskine even
adds a signed gift to most replies!

What’s right about the autograph hobby?

Yesterday, I indulged in a rubber-stamping rant. Today, equal time is required.

There are still kind, grateful men from baseball’s past. They aren’t all from the 1940s and ’50s. I discovered a heart-warming story about Giants pitcher Phil Nastu (1978-80) going above and beyond to fulfill a TTM autograph request. I’m hoping to salute him, getting details of why he’d be so dedicated to an unknown collector.

Other names on the latest batch of envelopes launched from BBTL-land:

Bobby Doerr
Boo Ferriss
Carl Erskine

I wanted to send a standing ovation to each of these three signers, too. Each of these men have decades of autograph heroics on Mr. Nastu. Along with saying thanks, I’ve just wanted to ask about their fan mail volume, why they keep delighting everyone who writes, and what we can do to thank them.

I saw on http://www.sportscollectors.net/ that Bob Wiesler and Fred Caligiuri had answered questions for other collectors.

I gasped at the lengthy post-baseball musical career of Dick Adams, a member of the 1947 Philadelphia Athletics. Likewise, I’m stunned at the many charity initiatives of Brewers bullpen catcher Marcus Hanel. I wanted to find out how baseball has inspired each.

I found a recent newspaper profile of pitcher Turk Wendell. I wanted to make sure he had a copy. Also, I’m hoping he’ll explain a couple of his mystical comments from that feature.

Lastly, I realized that former Angels and A’s manager Bobby Winkles may have grown up in the shadow of a Hall of Famer. I’m seeking details.

There’s the game plan behind my latest batch of fan mail. Stay tuned for updates. Meanwhile, I hope you find as many reasons to add names to your want list.

Thursday: Inspiration from Japan.

Tigers/Phillies Outfielder Glenn Wilson Mounts Personal Comeback With New Book

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The book offers
another view
of Glenn Wilson.
(Courtesy Darrell Halk)

It began as an autograph request. The contact grew into a friendship and book collaboration.

Glenn Wilson has moved from a decade-long major league career to the ministry in Texas. In his forthcoming book Wilson tells of his baseball days, post-career challenges and his life-changing Christianity.

Co-author Halk, an avid collector, has served in student ministry for 14 years. He serves at Southmont Baptist Church in Denton, Texas. He offered some additional insights about Wilson and the book:

“I appreciate your interest in Glenn’s book and your desire to help us spread the word.  The book does discuss his view on autographing in person during his career.  He discusses the joy he had in signing early in his career and how it became tedious after he had been in the league for a while.  He also told me that part of his playing career that his brother signed all his mail.

Post career, I do not think it is an unwillingness on his part to sign through the mail, I actually met him through emailing him regarding the possiblility of sending him cards to sign and he was more than happy to do so and signed them for free.  I think the hard part has been he has not had a consistent address in years.  He has moved three times just since I met him back in 2008. 

The address currently listed on www.sportscollectors.net is mine as I now accumulate his mail and then when I see him he signs it all and we send it back.  The fee is in all honesty, an attempt to help him get back on his feet.  Glenn has faced great financial strains (discussed in the book) and signing stuff and the private signings I have done with him have helped him.

All pre-orders will definitely be signed and those who buy one of the first 200 copies will be entered to win a game used powder blue Phillies jersey that Glenn will sign.” 

For more information about the book, check out Halk’s website. Pre-ordered copies will be autographed by Wilson and Halk. He adds that the jersey drawing will be on the youtube channel, durkel777.

Coming Thursday: Ex-Tiger Nate Robertson’s memory of Ernie Harwell.

Coaches With No MLB Playing Experience Are Autographs Worth Collecting; Hope Is Coming!

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Al Vincent: Never a day as
an MLB player. But the
coach was a HOF storyteller!

This week, baseball address king Harvey Meiselman posted some hopeful news on http://www.sportscollectors.net/.

Harvey is listening to collector wishes. He noted more than one request for including coaches in next year’s Baseball Address List.

Aren’t all coaches? Only those with at least a game of major league playing experience. A former player who found a second career coaching will be still be listed in the main section. He’s continued to recognize these men in the List by noting their playing debut dates.

Harvey is talking about having a supplemental section as part of the list just for these coaches without a day of MLB playing time. He cited Cincinnati’s Mark Berry as an example.

Harvey estimated that he’d need to invest 70-100 hours of labor to find all the living coaches from this unique category of baseball history. Think Mike Quade, before he became Cubs manager.

I learned what rich sources of history these forgotten men are when I wrote Remember When: A Nostalgic Look at America’s National Pastime (Metrobooks, 1996). I tracked down career minor leaguer Albert Linder Vincent, who joined the Detroit coaching staff in 1943.

Vincent wrote me a multi-page letter telling about his career. In 1938, as a Texas League manager, he had his batters wear football helmets for 5 innings (years before the majors adopted batting helmets). Baltimore’s use of an oversized catching mitt to handle future Hall of Fame knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm? It wasn’t manager Paul Richards with this brainstorm, but Vincent.

The partial list of players he coached in the minors is impressive: Dizzy Trout, Virgil Trucks, Hal Newhouser, Fred Hutchinson, Wally Post, Joe Adcock, Alex Grammas, Joe Nuxhall. Future managers Danny Ozark and Mayo Smith played for Vincent.

Vincent added, “You would have to ask them if they were aided by my efforts.” Seeing the many winning teams he led, I know the answer.

Vincent wrote me: “Coaches are non-entities by and large, and lose their identity in the job, the exception being an established star giving a coach credit. It happens, but all too seldom.”

He died in 2000. I want to give all the Al Vincents credit. I want to write to them all. Please, Harvey. Help us find them, while there’s still time to save these stories.

Collecting Autographs in Afghanistan: Let’s Send The U.S. Marines Some Hobby Help

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Want to help a deployed autograph collector? Here’s an update from U.S. Marine Tony Moore:

“My address over here is:

Tony Moore
USCENTCOM / CCJ4
USFOR-A DET
APO AE 09365

I actually have met one other person who works in a different section over here who is interested in sports autographs. He wrote to the Washington Redskins and they sent him a package with a letter and a wide receiver practice ball, which is pretty cool. He collects McFarlane figures and has some that have been autographed. I have given him a couple websites like sportscollectors.net to look at and see if it might be something that he wants to start doing. I will be sure to spread the cards around.

Obviously there are not a lot of things necessary to be able to conduct TTM graphing. Any kind of cards and/or different sports would be fine. Baby powder will actually serve two purposes over here. One for the prepping of cards and the other for personal use. It gets up to about 100 in the summer and then can get quite cold in the winter where I am at. Envelopes that are the peel and stick kind would be great. Most of the envelopes that we have are the lickable kind and as every TTM grapher knows, they leave a bad taste after a while. Stamps are not a real big deal over here. The great thing is that it does not require a stamp on a letter sized envelope to mail it back to the states. We can mail them out for free. You just have to provide the one stamp on the SASE that you enclose with the card. So that helps a lot by allowing us to send double the requests for a bout the same amount of money.

Well thanks for the story. I will continue to look for anyone else who may be an autograph collector or card collector in general.”

Thank you, Tony. Thank you for serving our country. And, thank you for reminding us what a great hobby this is!