Save Engel Stadium website update

www.SaveEngelStadium.org has a new update. Please check it out!

Share your memories of Engel Stadium

Sulphur Dell was the home of the Nashville Vols from 1901 until 1961. Called "The most historic park since 1870" sulphur Dell became a race track in 1965 and was torn down in 1969. The Dell, as some call it, was a quirky park with unusual dimentions.
I am glad to see such a site as sulphurdell.com. "I remember..." page about Sulphur Dell is great. Please check it out. Preserving the memories and history is important.
Back to Engel. Engel is still here and it is not too late. Please help us share the memories and record the history before it is too late. If you ever attended a game at Engel Stadium or have fond memories of Chattanooga baseball, please contact me. We are building a memory page all about Engel.
I will have the memory page up on the website Save Engel Stadium.org this week. Please spread the word.
Contact is info AT saveengelstadium.org

Jackie is 95 years old

August 29th Jackie Mitchell would have been 95 years old. My blog wasn't up on the web until September so I did not get the chance to post on her birthday.
I never got the chance to meet Jackie but I feel like I know a little about her through the years I've spent researching her. I really would like to know her reaction to my graphic novel about her. I hope somewhere she is on a baseball diamond smiling wondering what could possibly be the big deal over her and what she did.

I know she isn't smiling about Engel Stadium. The shrine that Engel built is once again in danger. Engel Stadium is one of the most historical baseball stadiums in the country. It is a shame the city of Chattanooga overlooks the historical value of the stadium. Instead of developing the stadium into a park that would attract visitors from all over the country, they would rather turn it into a soccer field or level her. If people are willing to drive into the cornfields of Iowa (field of dreams website) just to get the chance to throw a baseball on a diamond created for a movie, what would they do to get the chance to throw a baseball where the mighty Babe Ruth once stood? Or Lou Gehrig? or where Willie Mays and Satchel Paige started their baseball careers?

The list of people who have stepped onto the grass of Engel is a who's who of not only baseball history but the American experience. If Engel is destroyed, the blood of history will be on the hands of those who have forgotten Engel and her role in the history of baseball and the history of America. Up from the darkness of the depression in the poor South rose a shrine of hope. Engel Stadium was a place where anyone could go and excape the outside world. At times the riches were shared with the masses. Joe Engel once gave a house away to a fan in attendance, during the depression.

More on Engel in the coming months. I will be updating my site Save Engel Stadium.org in the next few weeks.

The mysterious Mully

Last year at the Philadelphia Sports Card &Memorabilia Show (Which is located in Reading, PA), In the last 10 minutes of the show, I franticly ran through several isles before leaving for the airport. I came across a dealer with some great stuff from the teens and 20's. A wire photo of Norman Tabasco Kid Elberfeld caught my eye first. I of course am a huge Chattanooga Lookouts collector and a collector of Southeastern baseball so the pic caught my eye. It was of Elberfeld in hs New York Highlander uniform. The pose was the Horner shot used for his T206 card. The wire photo was printed in '44 and used in newspaper stories about Kid's death. Kid was manager for the Lookouts a few times and spent his days in Chattanooga. His apple orchard was about 2 miles from our house on Signal Mountain.
Anyway, it was a no-brainer so I grabbed it up. Next to the Elberfeld photo was a stack of sepia snapshots of various baseball players from the 1920's. I thumbed through the stack and found players in Knoxville (TN) uniforms. I bought 2 (dang it, I should have bought the rest) and I bought one shot of a guy in a batting stance in an Indianapolis uniform. The back is why I bought it. The back was written in what appears to be the players hand. It reads:
"This is one of the three pitchers (sic) they took of me he give me this one and sent the other two in to the paper the Indianaplois (sic) Buffalo"
The pic is signed Mully and then he noted "Donie Bush calls me Mully"
I know who Donie Bush was but who was this Mully? Did he ever make it to the Majors? He didn't make the spelling bee. Of all the vintage baseball photos in my collection, Mully intrigues me the most. I've probably drawn Mully half a dozen times in sketch books.

Card grading tools

I am asked at least once at every sports card show I attend what tools do graders use and what tools do I need as a collector?
There are only a few basic tools every card collector show have. While I have discussed this in several previous articles in the Beckett Grading Report Card
(http://www.beckett.com/news/reportcard/archive.asp)
and in Grade School in the Beckett Monthly Magazines, I'll run down a quick list of what I personally prefer.
I have used a 10x triplet loupe that is corrected for color and distortion. The loupe is a dimond graders loupe which is used to grade diamonds for color and clarity. While this is on the upper end of the price scale I have had mine for almost 9 years and it is still being used everyday. The lenses is I believe are 21mm wide which is larger than many of the cheaper loupes on the market but gives a large field of vision which I prefer.
I also have a 16x doublet, a 20x doublet and a stereo microscope that I use when needed.
My loupe is an extention of my eyes and is with me almost everyday. I always take my loupe to shows when I travel and even have a neckstrap to keep it from getting lost in the shuffle. I once returned home from a show on a Sunday and went into the office on Monday. Being tired, I left my loupe at home the night before and had to use a "backup" loupe. I still remember that as being a bad day.

Sunday's thoughts and the book

Thought for today:
Is Summer really over when it's still 85 degrees?

New updates are being added to the Save Engel Stadium webpage (http://www.saveengelstadium.org/) this week and to the Jackie Mitchell website (http://www.jackiemitchell.net/). New updates have been delayed in the last few months and I am happy they are now taking place.
The book Her curves were too much for them is complete and the graphic novel version is progressing nicely. I am very excited to be inking out such a great story. The book should be out soon!
Today is cartoon day. I am preparing another batch of cartoons to be mailed off to various magazines and wait for various rejection notices. What a way to make a few extra bucks.

Book(s) I read today:
Inbetween breaks from writing and drawing, I pick a book or books to read or reread. The two books for today is Mouseguard #1 and DC's Segiro Aragones issue of Solo.

Redemption

At the National Sports Collectors Convention of 2006 which was in Anaheim, CA, several of us bought wax to bust.
I bought a box of 2005-06 Upper Deck Rookie Update hockey. On the shuttle ride to LAX, I busted the box and found a dual auto redemption. Great I thought. I got home and that Tuesday I went on-line to redeem my card.
I waited.....

and I waited.......
At some point it became a joke. Whenever a bubble mailer arrived in my mailbox, the joke was thrown out there: "Is it the redemption?" We would laugh and open whatever the item was knowing it would not be the redemption that by now was all but a memory.
Well, I got the card in the mail. It arrived Sept. 5th, 2007. One year and 2 months after it was redeemed. I'm just glad it wasn't a Michael Vick redemption. A lot has happened in a year.

Groo's 25th anniversary....next week

I was all excited to get a hold of a copy of the 25th avviversary of Groo today...
First off, this was a holiday week so comic book day is pushed to Thursday. Well, Groo is now set of a Spet. 12th release which is next Wed.
Oh well. One more week....
The book (Her curves were too much for them) is in the final stages and will be off to be proofed. Stay tuned here or www.jackiemitchell.net for updates...

Welcome to my blog

Yep, I did it. I made a #$%&*@! blog. People have been telling me to do one for too long now. If you are one of the people who have been hounding me to waste more of my life, this is for you.

The blog is on our servers. The direct link is: blog.andybroome.com
Bookmark it now! No, I mean right now. Go on, I'll be here when you are finished......

Andy