Buried Treasure Review

Click here to read about Buried Treasure on Fox’ site in a new window

Buried Treasure, Fox 5 NY, Wed 8pm, w/ 2nd show at 9pm

My family, like a lot of others, is into collectibles and antiques. I have, along with my brothers, collected antique glass since I was in gramar school. I’ve literally dug antique glass out of 150 year old rubbish heaps as well as bought & sold it at shows, auctions, online and through magazine want ads. I’ve been a dealer at shows as well. So naturally, we like Antiques Roadshow. It’s a great show. It was one of the first reality shows. It made stars of the Keno brothers, the identical twins who do the furniture reviews on Roadshow.

In the last 2 years, you have seen several shows get into that space: Pawn Stars and Pickers namely, but there are several others that center around auctions and appraisals and even restorations. Apparently, PBS’s show just scratched the surface of the true demand in this space that they so expertly pioneered. Now, after over a decade, they have spun off the Keno’s into their own show. My first thought was “boy, was that late–they should have done this 7 years ago!”.

My mother and I watched the first shows and even though we were really fired up about the concept, we were scratching our heads as to how they decided to implement it. I don’t know a lot about TV, but I assume that the Producer or Executive Producer is the one who shapes the show’s final look and feel. Here is the blurb on the website as to who this is:

BURIED TREASURE is a production of ITV Studios America. The series is co-created by Joe Livecchi (“What Not to Wear”) and Tim Miller (“White House: Behind Closed Doors”), and executive produced by Livecchi, Miller, Paul Buccieri (“Eleventh Hour”), Leigh Keno and Leslie Keno. Tim Eagan (HELL’S KITCHEN) serves as co-executive producer.

So I guess our beefs are directed at one or all of these folks.

Anyway, our beefs are many. First off, we watch these shows to

(a) learn about the pieces and to
(b) see the pieces and
(c) then hear an appraisal with regard to condition issues.

In this show, we don’t learn much about the pieces. On Roadshow, which is the gold standard, we get a real concise but thorough education about a piece by an expert.
We don’t always see the pieces long enough or in enough detail. There are too many edits to the Kenos and to the people sitting there trying to ratchet up artificial drama. Treat it more like Roadshow. Put everyone in one big shot for the “payoff” moment. While we’re building up to it, let’s see the piece!

The single most annoying thing about the show is the producer attempting to build tension and tease the big price reveals. DON’T ABUSE your audience! We know you’re going to talk price so just do it and get ON WITH IT! For heaven’s sake, don’t have the Keno’s stutter in their sentences to build up phony tension! It’s annoying! Ask the Kenos if they would EVER treat a client that way in their biz–they wouldn’t DREAM OF IT! But you think nothing of doing that to your audience like we are idiots! Speak plainly like they do on Roadshow! Save it for last, ok fine, but don’t tease it so much and don’t have them try to add drama with spoken pauses! That’s just obnoxious!

There are other more mildly annoying things about the show. One is that they try very hard to inject some personal tales of woe into the narrative. Most of the time, it’s a reach. One woman was a borderline hoarder; one wanted money for a child’s education; one wanted to (get this) feel “closer” to his dead brother! These are thinly disguised and thoroughly manufactured premises. We see through them. Just reveal the items and educate us and appraise them. It’s nice that they might want the money for a child’s education, but it doesn’t materially change the item, what it’s worth and the appraisal. I honestly DO NOT care if someone will, or will NOT, sell their item. It’s moot. I am not all tied in knots because a guy won’t sell his Superman comic book worth 20 G’s. I just don’t care. It’s his book and his life. If finding out you have a 20 thousand dollar bill there is causing you conflict, I think that’s phony-baloney. I suspect the producer is TELLING you to act this way for his dopey vision of what a good show is, or is not. I smell a rat. It’s immaterial. The item, the history and the appraisal, are why I’m tuning in and the phony, ginned-up “drama” is why I probably WON’T be tuning in much longer.

Look, it’s a neat idea. Keep it simple. Some people have big jumbles of old stuff and may not know what they have. You want to bring in pros to sort through it and highlight the highlights, then great! That concept stands on it’s own merit. The teases and delays and repeating things after the break are just obnoxious and get in the way of a nice concept. You have something the other shows do not–the Kenos! Put them in the best light, doing what they do best and LET THEM DO IT! People LIKE them and what’s more, people feel they know them and trust them so let them lead in an uncluttered way.

It’s not too late for the show, but you have to be ready to really rethink some of the things you’re doing and simplify it. Force it less. Let it flow more via the Kenos, otherwise, why have them?

Good luck.

Kid-dom 101: Vibratory Football

Antique Roadshow Appraisals

I love Phil Mushnick. This guy gets it like no other. I’ve read every word he’s written for a decade or more. No one is more on top of the ways that sports and television is hurting our society and our kids. He’s so right about so many things that it was with some surprise that I read this piece in the Sunday paper and just couldn’t believe how wrong he could get it. Because he reads and answers (most times) his email, I shot him the email you see below.

Click here to open a new window to Phil Mushnick’s column on Antiques Roadshow and the Unitas Jacket

Click here to open a new window to UK Roadshow

Click here to open a new window to Roadshow’s site

Mr. M–

It has finally happened! After years of agreeing with you, I totally disagree with a column. The Roadshow column. You were not close to being fair. Here are my thoughts in no particular order:

Roadshow is one of the few places on TV today where there is no crotch-material; the kind of material that you rightly point out is rampant on TV. Not only that, but you actually LEARN things on Roadshow and now how many shows can you say THAT about? So for that alone, I’m giving them a wide berth. You didn’t.

The show has experts in their field doing the appraisals. That’s what these people do for a living and it is big business. You undercut all of them in one shot and really only gave the Unitas jacket as an example–even though you didn’t follow up on it. You cited the fact that you never see the appraiser offer to buy the item from the layman. Did it occur to you that that may be borderline unethical? And does the fact that you don’t see it in the final edit mean that it can not happen? I’ve no doubt that the appraisers are passing out cards like crazy and doing some business, but it would be gauche to show it that way.

Many times the appraisers are giving a value for insurance. You didn’t do your homework as there are three different numbers you can put on any antique: Insurance value or replacement value, which is typically market value. Auction value, which is more like wholesale because it is net of the hammer premium and seller’s premium. Also, an antique dealer would sell something for retail value, which is 30 to 100% over cost, as they have overhead.

When you go to an auction or follow auctions, you’ll see in the catalog, a minimum bid and a range. The low number, or minimum, is the number where bidding will begin at. If there is no interest, the auctioneer will oftentimes drop below that figure to get the bidding started. If there is no interest at that lower figure, he may withdraw it to protect his consigner.

The range is the proffessioanl estimate of the auctioneer as to where he thinks that hammer price will fall. After looking at this in the glass realm for years and years, I’ve found that one third of the items land in this range; one third above it and one third below it or withdrawn. There’s no way to tell. The batting average of a lifetime expert, is STILL only .333.

Now you say that sports memorabilia is lousy with bad actors and sports stars like Pete Rose who flood their own market with product and depress the demand for their products–and you’re right. It is all so true. But Johnny Unitas is in rarified air as a footballer. He’s a figure of Yogi/Musial type stature at least. And no matter how many things he signs to depress the signature market, he probably only had one of these jackets and it’s a highly personal, life-used item perhaps. So it is possible that in the right room, on a given day, it could be bid up to that figure. And more importantly, as a professional, that appraiser is willing to put that in writing so that the item can be scheduled on home owner’s insurance at that replacement figure. It’s not an exact science.

Do the figures they talk about on that show seem too good to be true? Sure. I get it. But you have to do more homework before ripping that guy and certainly the show. That show is one of the sanest, calmest and learned shows on TV. History, culture, craftsmanship, artistry, engineering and audience participation and learing! Geez, Mushnick, whattayawant!!??

–Fog

[Carson] Ah, I did not know that…

Click here to launch Phil Mushnick’s Fri column in a new window 

From Phil Mushnick: 

Condolences to Ian Eagle on the passing, yesterday, of his dad, Jack, the comic and actor. Though a Catskills regular, Jack Eagle was known to all America as the cloistered “Brother Dominic” in the award-winning Xerox commercial that appeared in 1977 and helped give rise to Super Bowl telecasts becoming known for its ads. He also appeared on many TV shows, including “Candid Camera.” Born in Brooklyn, Eagle next week would have been 82.

Babe and I Live in Squalor

Since someone gave me the tip to include some scale in these photos, I have to jump in there. And I’m not really dressed for it but that is reality in the cold cellar. That’s two pairs of insulated undies and about three or four shirts. Class.

And although the shelves look dishevelled, everything has a place where it goes. Not a place for storage, just the place I found it and the place I keep leaving it. It’s amazing how much time gets lost if any of that stuff is moved even 2 feet. Some things have not been moved since the early 1990s. Some of those things have been used just once or even never, but they’re still there and they are reference points I guess. Like the garbage collector, I’m not going to give up on certain ideas and tools. You know, the neighbor with the 1939 Ford rotting in the yard? It’s always like, “…it’s still good…it’s worth like, a LOT of money…” Some of the things are there for nostalgia as in, “…yea, I remember when I was that stupid!”. Or, you find a relic and immediately remember exactly what you were doing the night it came to be: “…that was ’92, Tom was hanging out and Johnny Carson did his last show that night…” It could be a tool, a business card or even a little piece of wood that was going to be just right for something. There are times when I wouldn’t trade ANY of this space for the entire Hearst Castle at San Simeon.

New Comedy on Discovery

After the Mythbuster’s Marathon on Discovery last night, they debuted just about the dumbest show I’ve seen in quite a while: Smash Lab.  Obviously trying to capitalize on the success of Mythbusters, they have cloned the show ah la Friends after Seinfeld.

The premise is supposed to be that these four idiots are scientists but they can’t fool me.  The four “scientists” blow things up with dynamite and then walk up to the wreckage and ooh and ahh.  Seriously, that’s it.  They say things like “oh wow” and “dude”.  There are three, vaguely California surfer guys and one chick who is so obviously there to entertain the male viewers that is laughable.  She is in almost every shot (they make sure of that), wears skin tight outfits and says little more than “oh wow”.  They tell you up front in the intros that she has some kind of scientific credential, but a second after she opens her mouth, you think, “suuuurrrre”.

The premise of the show I tried to watch was that there was a nifty, paint-on pickup truck liner substance and why don’t they see if they can use that to bomb-proof a building with it?  Because that is important work after all and they ARE supposed to be scientists.  So they start by blowing up pickup trucks with dynamite.  Really vaporizing the trucks.  I was waiting for Bin Laden to stroll out.  After each explosion, the gang would all laugh and clap like seals and say intelligent things like “wooowww”.  And the announcer has that faux-toughguy, super over dramatic voice going and you’re just thinking, “STOP IT!”.

The explosions started early and never really stopped.  They built little cinder block walls and blew them up; they even built a little building and blew that up.  It was supposed to be scientific but the science was limited to things like: “…well, if we fill this with dynamite and it survives the blast, it could be used for bomb proofing”.  Super genius.

At about the 20 minute mark I was laughing out loud at the whole thing.  There really wasn’t even one redeeming feature.  It made me appreciate Mythbusters all the more.  I saw how Jamie and Adam manage to not sound like idiots after doing an “experiment”, even one that is just a gratuitous explosion.  It isn’t easy, apparently.  While I think Mythbusters goes too far and gives kids too many destructive ideas to try at home,  I love the show and the cadence of it and I even learn something.  I also love the idea of debunking hooey, which people are just so prone to believing in; particularly with regard to the dopey Hollywood movies.

With SmashLab, there’s no danger of kids getting ideas to use household products because everything they did involved dynamite.  And there’s also no danger of kids learning any science on this show either because the science knowledge of the 4 dummies doing the demolition is limited to the shouting of “fire in the hole”. 

 This show is must-see TV because it is so bad that it is hilarious.

Last of the Dust

I am so close to the end of the dusty phase that I can almost taste it…well, actually, I can taste it. And there’s the old sculptor’s mallet–the round thing. Someone once asked me “why is it round?” Well, so you don’t have to look at it to know what way it’s oriented (that’s or-ee-ent-ed NOT or-ee-en-ta-ted). “But hammers aren’t made that way!”. True. But with a hammer, once you place the thing that you are driving down, you don’t look at it anymore and you are free to look at where you are striking. When you are sculpting, you NEVER want to take your eyes off the end of the chisel and you can’t possibly watch two things at once. If you try sculpting with a claw-hammer (I have), you will bang the **** out of your left hand (I have) and stop.

Here’s the last night of the dust. And definitely the last night of the chainsaw. Maybe the die grinders will be coming into play but the heavy artillery is out. This was the first work after the hands were attached.

***

Today, work on the Babe Ruth statue went slowly. I wasn’t into it however, I was excited that pool was on TV and so I tuned in the women’s 9-ball final from some casino in Oregon. The camera work was so bad that I basically gave up and turned it off. It is so annoying how ESPN covers an event. It’s dopey. It’s as if the guys doing the editing have never played pool.

They spend 80% of the time on a closeup of the face of the shooter. For a pro like Alison Fisher, that expression RARELY changes a whit. Doesn’t matter. That’s all we get. Even with the balls on the table still rolling and the cue ball doing some traveling, they cut to her face. I am going nuts thinking, “…oh wow! She hit low left on that and maybe wants to come off the rail UNDERNEATH the 3-ball…I wouldn’t have thought of that..”

And you miss the cue ball placement because, like kids who bang the balls on Friday nights in your local room, they only want to see the object ball disappear! They don’t even realize that that’s 30% of the story for the pros. And I’ll even grant them that they are trying to build a brand there with some of the women so you might tune in for the player and not the event.

As a pool fan and player, I don’t really care who’s playing; just that high level pool will be shot and I can look in and see how they take apart a table of balls. A player plays along at home. A player tries to guess before the shot, what the pro will do because many times, there are several ways to make a ball and set for the next shots. But you can’t do that with ESPN because they are not showing you the table hardly at all! To really follow the match, you need an overhead view of the balls or perhaps a long shot of the whole table from a few feet away. You never get that. You always get closeups of the faces while the announcer just GUSHES about these women. It’s all the tired banalities and generalities that could be spoken of any champion or high level player in any sport. Total rubbish.

Only Ewa’s comments on the shot she would make are interesting and even she overindulges. One time, the woman missed a routine shot by half a diamond~! Ewa went right into how the ball MUST have hit some debris on the felt. I’ve never seen debris make you miss like that. That’s major league yips, Ewa, so stop protecting her. Call it what it is. Don’t insult the viewers.

And they have even miked up the cue-chalking~ That’s right, you will hear, very loudly, the chalking of the stick after each shot. That’s probably a $100,000 parabolic microphone. The same kind that they point at football players during games, hoping to hear Shakespear, I guess. I don’t know about you, but I find that sound grating, the same as someone scratching a blackboard. It’s skeeves me out. Why the heck would I want that sound miked up? My goodness.

I finally got so disgusted with the coverage being such a tease and never showing me the table that I turned over to Curling from Rockefeller Center. And don’t you know that they aren’t showing the match either? The USA puts a rock into the house and it’s obviously a take-out rock and it hits SOMETHING but you don’t see it until they show a few replays. The main camera above the house didn’t show the edge of it so you didn’t see the stones contact. I guess they were all worked up about the sweeping, which just makes Americans giggle, doesn’t it? But I can’t think of anything more important in Curling than the rock’s path in the house at the end of the shot. Could you show that? But I got plenty of close ups or Horst or Jurgen or whoever it was. Great. You have all these cameras and I MISS the event.

Bactine for Babe

Another in the Babe series.  Here is proof that I can shift gears a little.  There was too much meat on the shoulder so out come the 1/4″ die grinders and belt sanders and off comes some shoulder.  It feels weird because the thing is mostly done back there and then I’m taking a step back to get something right.  That’s why I like to start striping up finished areas because that helps you see the right things.  Things that you wouldn’t see in wood or primer will become more apparent.  Remeber my mantra: do the easy stuff first and then the hard stuff becomes easy.

Yes, you are seeing the hands on the big guy now.  That’s as of 1am yesterday morning and now the job is to get them looking right, sanded and sealed.  Tonight was more of that and today was a really light day for a Saturday because of the stuff I talked about in the last post.  Too much family stuff going on to do much but I did force myself down there to get a coat on because when dry time is in play, you have to take advantage of the time.  Tomorrow has to be a big day.  I was hoping to be past this point by this time but you do what you can do.

And the Andy Griffith 4-pack was disappointing.  Two of them were on last night.  So I watched Antiques Roadshow.  Roadshow is a good program to work to because I don’t have to look at the screen really at all.  I can just listen to what the appraisers say and the laymen jabber and I’m ok.  If the piece is stunning, I can quickly glance and then get my eyes back to the end of the die grinder or what have you.

I have a little FM base station plugged into the TV and I wear wireless headphones to pick up the sound.  It’s great because they block the sound of the machines and act as noise dampers (that I would have to wear anyway) and with a little flick, I can mute all the dopey ads–every *** **** one of them.  Did you ever really stop and listen to how they scream and yell at you and insult your intelligence in just about any TV commercial you can name?  It’s really amazing when you think about it.  And movie trailers?  Don’t get me started.  Why does EVERYthing in a movie trailer have to WHOOOOSH and BOOOM at you like you have your ear on the subway track at rush hour?  Do they think we are monkeys?  It’s just raw f****n noise people!  I don’t know about you all, but if an ad is obnoxious enough, I will avoid buying it within reason.  –fog 

Chips Ahoy! Babe and Tommy

I very rarely get the old chisels out and do any old-timey chiseling anymore due to the chain saw and die grinders, but it sure is nice to make the big chips and get into that groove and just bang away. You can remove a heck of a lot of wood in a hurry–just not as fast as the chainsaw. Why use it? I can’t chainsaw up something that is not anchored and this fore arm was not. I even used the wide one a bit and the deep gouge. I do/have done 99.9% of all my chiseling with that old shallow gouge with all the duct tape on the end and the dot of white paint on it from my Mickey Mantle statue. Why? You have to hit bigger gouges too hard and deeper ones take too much wood. I go to the shows and see tables and tables of chisels and tools laid out and I laugh because I don’t need any of it! One tool does most all of it. The one thing that I would buy, is time, and that they’re not selling. It’s the key ingredient.

 

Here’s the man with the rosie cheeks who someday, will be going to school on money I made breathing in all this dust and having no life. I hope he does well at school. And it may be the local college because I can not see doing another one of these and going through this again for the money I’m getting. If I can’t get nearly double, I will not take another gig. But this one is almost done and we’re going to have some fun with it I’m sure. Tommy visited me in the shop (“shop”, Read: dingy cellar) today just as I had penciled in the most famous number 3 in the world. After he left, I realized it was in the wrong place by about a half inch and so I sanded it out and redrew it.

Tommy was playing his toy piano last night and I was trying to get him to hit the keys with his right hand and he really wouldn’t. But he did hit a few notes with his left hand and I thought, “…wow, a lefty!”. If this leftiness holds up and he can throw a 100 mph, then my wife and I have planned to use some of his major league fortune to buy a place in the Ardennes, in Luxembourg.

We love the Duchy.

***

I just saw this again and it always makes me laugh.  The 1-800 Lawyers commercial on TV.

It is as if they have called down to central casting and said, “…send up a sort of a silent movie villian type…sort of an oily lawyer character actor with a waxed mustache like Snidley Whiplash on the Dudley Dooright cartoon…yea, that’ll do it…”

League Within A League

Glad to hear that major league baseball’s annual winter meetings (Dec 3-6) will be held at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, TN

After hearing that, I half wished that Babe were done and we could truck him out there and display him as a temporary exhibit in Nashville, before putting him in his permanent home in the Gaylord National On The Potomac, in Washington DC.

Various things that have come up recently:

The Discovery Channel’s Mount Everest show – History Channel and Discovery have really slipped. There are no more WWII footage shows. It’s all human combat and Dirty Jobs and UFO’s and Ghosts and nonsense. If I see one more show on bootleggers or Bonnie and Clyde I’ll scream. WHEN, as a society, are we going to stop glorifying a**h***s who robbed banks and shot up people who got in their way? What suckers we all are. This stuff gets ratings and sells books and newspapers or we would not keep seeing it. The Wild West stuff is just as bad. We just heap glory on, and romanticize these illiterates who played with guns. Great lesson for the kids. ***

The Everest show is one of the ones I will watch these days. It is year 2 for this one and there is a guy who has come back. He was very problematic for the expedition last year and almost got himself and a sherpa killed by being insubordinate. So of course he’s back. And I’m thinking that there’s no way Russell, the organizer, would ever take this guy back but then it dawns on me that the producers of the show probably paid for this guy to return and made it a condition of year 2. He’s the big antagonist. Otherwise, it’s pretty vanilla. Just goes to show you that 99% of what you see on TV is hooey. Maybe more.

The whole Everest game is creepy really when you look at it. The “climbers” pay a huge sum to have everything arranged so that they just turn up and climb. They go up with sherpas who will bail them out if they get into trouble and who also, schlep a lot of the food and Oxygen up to the camps so that they can make their run. All the climbing is on fixed ropes that are in place before any paying customer goes up. Are they really climbing? What ARE they doing? They are risking their health to bag the big peak but it’s all very “arranged”. And they say the climb is not technically difficult but is just so absurdly high and remote that it is more of an endurance/weather gamble than a climb. I think 11 people died last season doing the “climb”.

One guy was trying a double traverse. He wanted to be the first. That’s up and over and then back up and back over. He was with Purbah, a superman of a sherpa who has 14 summits of Everest under his belt. This guy did the first up and over with Purbah and then retired from moutaineering. He admitted that he realized that he wasn’t fit to shine Purbah’s crampons and to go back over the mountain and try and claim to be the first “double traverser” would be a joke because the guy with him, Purbah, could whip his butt in anything climbing, anytime. So here’s a guy who does actually “get” the absurdity of some of it, but only after he’s actually been in it up to his eyeballs. Strange world. ***

Capn Crunch – I bought the Crunchberry version recently and realize that they have added 3 other colors to the crunch berries. There is almost no original Capn Crunch in there. It’s all crunchberries. And they are dyed with some horrible green and blue food dye that I think, in large enough quantities, could actually kill you. I suggest to General Mills a spinoff cereal of all crunchberries, called: “Poison Cruchberries”; you’re almost there now. ***

Why would ANY Mets fan listen to Mike Francesa? That’s my question. His hatred and disdain for all things Mets just permeates all of his pompous comments. He’s not even good at hiding it. It’s an insult to your intelligence. Why does he feel so threatened? Why do Yankee fans seem to have a higher incidence of that “pile-on” nastiness? Their money has bought them 1 in about every 4.5 world champeenships and yet STILL they are insecure. ***

Only 5 or 6 teams can afford Santana – I keep reading & hearing that the only teams that can afford Santana and Tori Hunter and really any big Free Agents these days are the Mets/Yanks/Boston/Cubs/Dodgers and Angels. It’s becoming more and more clear to thinking fans that there are 2 leagues in MLB: those 6 clubs and the rest of the miserable, poor teams. I don’t want to hear that the Royals pocket the lousy 10 million in revenue share which never made any sense to me as the Yanks are paying their squad 220 million. I also don’t want to hear that more recently, each year a different team wins it. I ain’t buying it, no sir. No thanks. Baseball has a major problem with that IMO and really should just get it over with and spin off the rich clubs into their own “super-major-league” and stop blowing smoke up the fans behinds. It won’t happen because most fans are easily fooled or just all too willing to go head first into major, lifelong denial (See Yankees fans).

There’s plenty of room in this “space”, as they say in business, for a 3rd major circuit. I have half a mind to devote the rest of my life to putting it together. Not since 1959 has there been a credible threat of a 3rd major league circuit (Branch Rickey and Bill Shea’s “Continental League”). There is plenty of room for more teams. New York alone could support 5 or 6 teams but the Mets and Yanks don’t want ANY part of that noise. If I were starting up a league, I’d structure it from the ground up for “family-affordability”. No A-Rods making 30 million a year because if you have them, you need to charge me 100 per ticket and then I can’t afford to take my kids. And of course, if you don’t pay, the big players don’t play, and then they say you’re a “minor” league, but no matter, if the regular guy can take his family and it seems major enough, I think it could succeed. Just imagine: no long term contracts! Everyone paid on a formula for their actual production in the season just passed. Player movement could be handled in lottery form or with ordinals. It’s doable. I can dream, can’t I?

Did you know that Wrigley Field was built for the Federal League? That was a 2 year circuit that gave the NL-AL monopoly a good run in 1914-1915. There was an attempt in 1946 called the Mexican League and it folded but not before raiding a few players. The Continental League scared the NL and AL so much that New York (Mets) and Houston were granted expansion franchises. There is strong precedent. The AL, after all, is called “The Junior Circuit” because it was started from scratch in 1900 as a competitor to the National League. The NL didn’t take them seriously and even played the bad joke on them of making them wait outside their meeting and then slipping out the side door. In about 2 years, they were not laughing anymore. By 1903, the Boston Pilgrims were beating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first true Woil Serious. In 1904, John J. McGraw of the NY Giants refused to play the AL champs as he felt that it was beneath the National League’s dignity. He played the A’s in 1905 however, in one of the best series ever. Every game was a shutout by a Hall of Famer. Christy Mathewson pitched 3 shutouts. Iron Man Joe McGinnity, the other. Plank or Bender or Waddell may have tossed one for the A’s. 1905. The AL was there to stay. ***

The aoogah horn that I installed on my car has stopped working.  Need to get that fixed.  Aoogah horn: Not optional.