Good Night Sibby Sisti, Wherever You Are...

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When Brendan Boyd and I wrote The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book, we needed some kind of coda at the end - something in line with the smartass tone we'd created, mixed with equal measures of snark and nostalgia. Sibby Sisti replaced Mrs Calabash in the old Jimmy Durante exit line, and just like that, we had our coda and the book rode off into the sunset.

But we never expected that line to stick in so many readers' minds, to the point where it still comes back in comments and reviews of the book, especially since it was re-issued as a facsimile edition Kindle Book in 2015.

The other thing that's come back is the question about whether/when a sequel to the original book will appear. The answer to that question is "soon, I hope". Work is in fact under way on a sequel that will apply the same blend of snark and nostalgia in the original book to cards of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, and will include a first-hand take on the ways in which the business of baseball cards has changed - for better and for worse.  

Stay tuned... 

The Last Hurrah

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Over drinks yesterday evening at The Last Hurrah, inside the Parker House hotel, watching the rush hour crowds disperse from downtown Boston at the corner of Beacon and School streets, we remarked on how slovenly and poorly dressed they all looked, compared to the crowds one would might have witnessed in years past.

People in general used to take more care with how they presented their public selves. Even on civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery.

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