<< <i>I'm beginning to get a nice little subset of Goudey's. I picked this one up from the same board member that supplied me the previous 4 vintage Pre WW II cards that I've recently posted. The last National Leaguer to hit over .400.
1933 Goudey Bill Terry PSA/DNA slabbed
>>
very nice, the mythical PSA 1!!!
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" - Apostle Paul - Philippians 1:21
This is the last vintage one I have to add from the small collection of vintage that I purchased from a fellow board member. Another 1933 Goudey. A lifetime New York Yankees.
Real nice Goudeys! That Gehringer signature is ALWAYS so sweet!
STAY HEALTHY!
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
Here's another one that I picked up from Gregm13. Besides being an NFL HOF and first overall pick in the draft, this guy was also a 4 term representative in VA's House of Reps.
Got a neat golf card. I already have the standard 1990 golf Pro Set Payne Stewart but have been looking for this one as well. It was part of the NFL's Pro Set release for 1990.
Added another golfer. The Shark has had some collossal flops, but he's a lot of fun to watch. Most golfers don't ever even get close enough to have the opportunity to flop. Plus, he has a couple of other things that I like about him. I used to wear The Shark line of golf shirts, as they were really comfortable, and he gets bonus points in my book for keeping "Chrissie" warm at night Norman has been refusing to sign trading cards at tourneys lately, so I went ahead and picked this one up.
Extremely talented person. This is his NFL rookie, as his USFL rookie was issued a few years prior. The bumbling brass of the Minnesota Vikings gave the Dallas Cowboys players and draft picks that led to the strong Dallas teams of the early 90's, in exchange for Herschel. If they wanted a Herschel Walker so bad, they should have just bought this card instead. Herschel also had an entertaining run on Trump's "The Apprentice" recently.
Added another nice running back. I remember being so excited as a child when my parents got me a Tony Dorsett model football to play with. We didn't have a whole lot of money, and I cherished that ball for years. It finally developed a knot in it, but that was no deterrence, it finally got to a point though years later where it wouldn't hold air and I had to let it die.
This guy didn't have too much of a game on the field, but off the field, he has had a Hall of Fame impact on major league baseball. Some people love him, some hate him, but for the most part, he's pretty darn good at what he does. Once a minor league player, now a Hall of Fame caliber agent.
nice boras card, thats an interesting conversation piece.
Fred
collecting RAW Topps baseball cards 1952 Highs to 1972. looking for collector grade (somewhere between psa 4-7 condition). let me know what you have, I'll take it, I want to finish sets, I must have something you can use for trade.
looking for Topps 71-72 hi's-62-53-54-55-59, I have these sets started
Got a nice one TTM this week. This driver is a member of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame as well as the Motorsports Hall of Fame America. Took a few months, but worth the wait.
Mike, Awesome Scott Boras card!!! My good friend Don played with Scott Boras on that team...A matter of fact, they actually platooned together at their position and they actually won the championship in one of their years in St Petersburg.
Just wondering how you found that card? I'd love to find a card of my friend Don. Or if anyone see's this request, please hit me up if you have one or know anyone that has one.
You can find the whole team set on ebay, search by St. Petersburg Cardinals TCMA . This card was from 1977, I don't know if your friend is included in the set, but you could "ask the seller" and find out.
Got another nice Indy driver back in the mail. It was a weird coincidence. I sent both the Rahal and the Mears off in May on the same day to different states, and they were returned to me this week autographed on the same day in August. These guys must be twins or something. Mears was a multiple winner of the Indianapolis 500 as well as a member of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame America.
Picked this one up late last night. I didn't really care for the Cowboys as a whole growing up, but they did have some fun performers to watch. I had a picture of this guy on one of my textbook covers in Elementary/Middle school. Appropriately nicknamed "The Manster", he would lay a wallop on the other team and jump right back up himself. Durable, reliable and punishing, 3 great qualities for a pro football player.
Picked up another Aikman last night. I've got a couple of the Topps Traded versions, but this is my first Pro Set one. For having one of the worst won-loss seasons of any NFL rookie QB, he ended up doing alright.
Picked up a future NBA HOF'er a few minutes ago. This guy came up to the NBA back in my autograph hound days. I used to go up to Dallas Mavericks training camp at SMU's Moody Coliseum and there woud be no one else there (the Mavs were beyond awful back then). All the Mavs were great signers and would sign everything you wanted. You could complete a couple team balls in one day of practice. Had a lot of fun back then talking with them, wasn't like today where there is people everywhere at their functions.
Got another success TTM today. Only took 6 days and a $10 donation. However, it looks like he first tried to sign with a dying marker, and then got a fresh marker and signed it. Oh well, can't win 'em all, that's just part of the "hazards" of the autograph game. Still a decent card overall that presents well, and I'm appreciative that he took the time to accomodate my request. A former PSA 5 crackout.
Added another gridiron great. Member of the Dallas Cowboys ring of honor and the college football hall of fame. Both card and signature leave a lot to be desired, but the price was right.
Got a neat one today. The following writeup is cut and pasted directly from Sports Illustrated for Women website. They named her the greatest female athlete of the Century. I personally believe that spot should be for Babe Zaharias, but Jackie's not far behind.
"1. Jackie Joyner-Kersee 1962- Won three gold, one silver and two bronze medals over four consecutive Olympic Games.
Joyner-Kersee's outstanding Olympic career included six medals, three of them gold. In every revolution -- and surely the explosion of women's sport is nothing less -- there is a leader. Whether vocal or silent, whether by purpose or happenstance, there is a figure whose shadow falls across an era and whose footprints mark the path for others to follow. In ways that could be measured, Jackie Joyner-Kersee was one of the greatest Olympic athletes in history, and in ways that could not, she was a rare combination of courage and grace, of power and vulnerability. A generation of women looked into her face and saw something they had never before seen in sport, and they were drawn to it.
"You could see that she loved everything she did and that she invested every ounce of strength she had in it," says Mia Hamm, who was 12 when Joyner-Kersee narrowly missed winning a gold medal in the heptathlon at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. "You saw her and
you got the idea of what a woman athlete should be. At the time it seemed almost like she wasn't responsible for just her sport, but for all of women's sport."
Hamm's words ring true. Joyner-Kersee is Sports Illustrated For Women's Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century not just because she was one of the best performers in track and field history, but also because the energy of her athleticism and personality wrapped itself around all of women's sport at precisely the time when it began to grow.
Joyner-Kersee was one of the first children of Title IX. She was 10 years old when the groundbreaking legislation was passed in 1972, mandating equal access to sports for men and women across the country. A brilliant athlete, she also became a surrogate parent to the later offspring of Title IX, her career beginning in one era of women's sport and ending in another. "When I was little, a lot of women's sports heroes were gymnasts and figure skaters, and I just could not relate to those sports," says Julie Foudy, Hamm's U.S. soccer teammate and, like Hamm, a teenager during Joyner-Kersee's finest days. "Jackie I could relate to."
When Marion Jones, who would grow into an NCAA championship-winning basketball player at North Carolina and a two-time 100-meter world champion, was a high school junior in Southern California, she met Joyner-Kersee at a track meet. "She encouraged me, said nice things to me, and I was just overwhelmed," says Jones. "Jackie was everybody's role model." Like Hamm and Foudy, Jones later became close friends with Joyner-Kersee and was more taken with her as a person than as an athlete. "She was everything I expected and more," says Hamm. "That's saying something, because she was one of my heroes."
Joyner-Kersee's childhood was set in the dark ages of women's sport, when athletic girls spent their time racing boys and playing on their teams. The second oldest of Mary and Alfred Joyner's four children, raised in the south-end slums of East St. Louis, Ill., she was first a dancer, then a cheerleader. When she discovered track and field at age nine, she and her friends would carry sand in potato-chip bags they found in a nearby playground and spread it in front of the Joyners' porch, creating a makeshift long jump pit. There were none of the elite travel teams that nurture the athletic careers of talented girls in the '90s. There was, instead, a man named Nino Fennoy, who coached a junior track team called the East St. Louis Railers and who gave Joyner-Kersee the means to learn about herself. (It is telling of Joyner-Kersee's generation that one of the most important moments in her life came at the age of 14, when she beat her older brother, Al, in a race. "He still says he won," says Jackie, "but he didn't.")
Yet it is not for inspirational qualities alone that Joyner-Kersee stands at the top of this list, ahead of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (No. 2), Billie Jean King (No. 3), Sonja Henie (No. 4) and the inseparable tandem of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert (Nos. 5 and 6). Joyner-Kersee's athletic résumé holds up to the harshest scrutiny.
Her silver medal in Los Angeles marked a prelude to one of the greatest Olympic careers in history, in which she would win six medals, three of them gold. Four years after L.A. she won not only the heptathlon but also the long jump in Seoul. At the '92 Barcelona Games she won another heptathlon gold and took a bronze in the long jump. In Atlanta she closed out her Olympic career with a last-jump bronze in the long jump.
Joyner-Kersee did for the heptathlon what Bruce Jenner did for the decathlon, taking an oddball mix of events and not only elevating them to great sport but also infusing them with high personal drama. In the final event of the '84 Olympic hep, the 800 meters, Joyner-Kersee needed to finish within .33 of a second of Australian Glynis Nunn to win a gold medal; she finished 2.6 seconds behind. Her heptathlon victories were operatic struggles. She won in Barcelona despite illness and debilitating heat, and at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart, Germany, during one of the worst asthma attacks of her life. Her world record of 7,291 points in the event, set in Seoul, still stands, and Joyner-Kersee has the top six performances in history.
In 1987 she tied the world record in the long jump. It was broken a year later by Galina Chistyakova of Russia, but Joyner's 24'7" leap in 1994 remains the second-longest jump in history and would have won the 1999 world championship by an astounding 17 inches. True to her versatility, she also broke or tied American records for the sprint hurdles, both indoors and out. As a track athlete alone she presents a persuasive case for attaining the No. 1 spot on this list. But she was not just a track athlete. She was also an All-Pac-10 basketball player at UCLA. In 1996, at the age of 34 and long past her basketball prime, she played briefly for the Richmond Rage of the American Basketball League.
Yet merely reciting achievements sanitizes her greatness. It was in her last moments as an athlete that she best showed herself. After withdrawing tearfully from the heptathlon at the Atlanta Olympics and being walked off the track by her husband and coach, Bob Kersee, Jackie returned six days later to compete in the long jump. Stuck in sixth place among eight jumpers and reduced to a pale imitation of herself by the same injured right thigh that forced her out of the heptathlon, Joyner-Kersee faced her final jump. "This is it, Jackie," she told herself before sprinting down the runway. "This isn't the way you wanted it to be, but this is your last shot." Grimacing with every stride ("I never thought there was any shame in making faces, even when I was a little girl," she says), Joyner-Kersee reached into her past and popped a jump of 22'11 3/4", good for a bronze medal by one inch.
Two years later she dragged her tired body to Uniondale, N.Y., for the Goodwill Games, in which she would compete in her final heptathlon. Against all reason, in bludgeoning heat and humidity and on minimal training, she ran a 2:17.61 for the closing 800 meters, good for a 23-point victory over DeDee Nathan, her heir to American heptathlon supremacy. At the finish she fell into her husband's arms and wept. "I can't believe it's over," she said that night. "I can't believe the time went by so quickly."
Time has not slowed since. On a recent fall afternoon she rode in a limousine, scooting from a photo shoot in Kansas City to catch a flight home to St. Louis, where she could resume operations in her many business ventures, including Elite Sports Marketing (athlete representation and management), Gold Medal Rehab (sports medicine), the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Foundation and her sponsorship of a NASCAR team. "I'm retired, and I've never been busier," she says. "I thought I'd be chillin'." Even postcareer she is blazing a trail.
Earlier that day she had posed for the picture that appears on the cover of this magazine with members of the U.S. women's soccer team, her successors in the public eye. At the end of the photo session, as the soccer players put on their team sweats, Joyner-Kersee pulled a yellow fleece top over her taut upper body, paused and then cartwheeled gracefully across the room. The soccer players, celebrities themselves, shrieked like schoolgirls. Joyner stood tall and laughed until she shook. If you looked closely, you could almost see the cord that connected them.
--Tim Layden
Athletes were selected by Sports Illustrated For Women, Sports Illustrated and CNN/SI editors, writers and correspondents who considered the athletes' on-field performance and achievements, plus their contributions to women's sports. Because athletic achievement was a key criterion, women whose contributions were made solely in administration and coaching are not included."
1989 Sports Illustrated for Kids Jackie Joyner-Kersee
The non-sports cards are some of my favorite ones in my signed rookie collection. I got to meet this guy years ago although it's not where I got this card. I respectfully request that you keep your political opinions about this guy out of my thread whether they might be positive or negative.
some great additions -- very cool on the Powell and Jackie Joyner
I am actively buying MIKE SCHMIDT gem mint baseball cards. Also looking for any 19th century cabinets of Philadephia Nationals. Please PM with additional details.
Who is Tim James you might ask? I didn't know either until I read one of Storm's posts on this board. The following article explains it and is cut and pasted from Storm's post.
8-30-09
Tim James: Former NBA Player Now With Army In Iraq
MIAMI — Tim James apologized for being late. A rough day at work, said the Miami Heat's 1999 first-round draft pick. Vehicles broke down, problems flared up, and he simply fell behind.
"It happens," James said. "Even here."
Even on the front line of the Iraq war.
A former NBA player who often wondered about his true calling, Tim James is now a U.S. Army soldier, a transformation that even many of the people closest to him never saw coming.
"I got my degree, lived the life I was able, have my freedom and became a professional athlete," James said last week from Iraq. "I'm the example of the American dream."
James is at Camp Speicher, the massive base near Tikrit, 85 miles north of Baghdad, not far from Saddam Hussein's hometown and where insurgents still are a perpetual threat. For Miami Northwestern High, the Miami Hurricanes, three NBA teams and some foreign clubs, he was forward Tim James. For the Army, he's Spc. Tim James of Task Force ODIN – short for Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize.
In layman's terms, he's part of the unit tasked with watching and catching the bad guys before they plant bombs.
So long, charter jets, enormous paychecks and Ritz-Carlton hotel stays.
Story continues below Hello, 130-degree afternoons, 12-hour work days, $2,600 a month and 50-caliber machine guns.
"In life, we all have different desires and needs," said Leonard Hamilton, James' college coach and now the coach at Florida State. "With the passion he has, he had to go fulfill this. I'm in total support of Tim and what he's doing. He's at peace. All we can do is hope he comes back safely."
James spent years thinking about the prospects of a military career. Drafted 25th overall by the Heat, James' NBA career barely registered a basketball blip: He appeared in 43 games for Miami, Charlotte and Philadelphia, never starting and never scoring more than seven points in a game.
So he went to play overseas, making a fine living in Japan, Turkey and Israel. By 2007, his playing days were done. After months of deliberating, he made the difficult decision that would take him away from his family and 5-year-old son, whom James still tries to talk with by phone every night. Even so, Tim James Jr. doesn't understand where his dad is.
"I think of myself as a patriot," James said. "I wanted to give back to a country that gave so much to me."
James is believed to be the first former NBA player to enlist and then serve in Iraq. Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman quit football to become an Army Ranger and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.
James joined the Army on Sept. 12, 2008. The training was brutal, even for a 6-foot-8 basketball player whose athleticism had drawn raves since junior high school. James slept outside in frigid night air, scaled seven-story towers, endured 10-mile marches ("with full battle rattle, as they say," he said), and learned how to take apart and reassemble his weapon.
He never questioned if he was making the right decision.
"I have no doubts," James said. "I have no regrets. Not one bit."
His 12-month deployment to Iraq started in late July. On his second night there, James was awoken from a sound sleep, completely startled.
Machine gun fire. The sound of war.
Understandably, it took a while for him to fall back asleep.
"It's a pretty impressive thing that he's doing, making the transition from where he was then to where he is now," said James' captain, Curtis Byron. "Such a small percentage of U.S. citizens are in the military or are veterans, doing their part to protect the nation's freedom. Putting that life behind you, setting aside any thoughts you had before about the military, that's impressive."
Byron said James didn't tell most members of his unit that he used to be an NBA player. James not only didn't want the attention, he didn't want to be treated differently than anyone else.
"He's very humble," Byron said. "To him, it's not a big deal at all."
Oh, but it's a very big deal to the Heat.
They preach family inside the Heat complex, and even though James played only four games, he's forever part of the Heat family. Rob Wilson, the team's director of sports media relations, helped arrange for two boxes of T-shirts and posters to be sent to Iraq as a morale booster. They should get there this week, unless sandstorms delay the arrival of mail – a common occurrence.
Included in that package is an 8-minute, 31-second DVD, with greetings to James from several members of the organization. Another DVD from the Heat is already in the works, and the team is already planning to honor James at a home game this season.
"I just want to wish you good luck, man," Heat captain Udonis Haslem, who wears No. 40 to honor two of his idols who had that number – his father and James – said on the DVD. "God bless you and keep doing what you're doing."
"Stay focused," said Heat center Jamaal Magloire, a former James teammate. "Never let your guard down and get back to us safe."
"You're not like any other basketball player out there," Heat assistant coach Keith Askins said.
Since 2006, Miami has given a center-court tribute to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at every home game, a program Heat president Pat Riley developed and called the HomeStrong initiative.
He said he cannot wait for James to get his due.
"The work we do, while being important to us, is made possible by the efforts of our soldiers in the Middle East," said Riley, who coached James in his lone season with the team.
James can't discuss specifics of his mission, although Byron said the unit should not face "the direct threat" of enemy action.
The stakes are higher than any basketball game, for certain, but James says he can still draw the parallel between fighting on the court and fighting for his country.
"I've been in the heat of the moment on the court in the fourth quarter, tie game, and yes, you would think that's a battle," James said. "There's nothing I hate more than losing. To be here, risking your life, it's definitely another level. It's like a scouting report for a game. All you can do is try to execute your mission. A loss here, that could be a lost life."
I have great admiration for Colin Powell. Below is a great quote of his:
When in England at a fairly large conference circa 2003, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if the US's plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by President Bush.
He (Colin Powell) answered that "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only land we have ever asked for in return was enough to bury those that did not return".
The room became very quiet afterwards.
Rgs,
Greg M.
Collecting vintage auto'd fb cards and Dan Marino cards!!
These two players need no introduction. Quite simply put, two of the most amazing basketball players ever. The Magic Johnson made it's debut much earlier in my thread, but I just got the card back today from a Larry Bird private signing. Now I have to decide whether to go against my rookie's only, and add Julius Erving to it when he eventually pops up. If he's relatively affordable, I'll probably add him.
1980-81 Topps Larry Bird, Julius Erving, and Magic Johnson signed by Bird and Johnson only
Very cool that they both were able to fit their signatures into such tiny spots on the card. How much has it run you so far? IIRC, the Johnson was from a book signing, correct?
<< <i>Very cool that they both were able to fit their signatures into such tiny spots on the card. How much has it run you so far? IIRC, the Johnson was from a book signing, correct? >>
Sean,
Yep, the Magic was at a book signing that I paid a guy to attend for me. Including the cost of the card, I have about $350.00 into it right now.
NICE AUTOS! I say you HAVE to get DR. J to sign! Personally, I have a lot of great memories of Dr. J. I grew up down the block from the Nassau Coliseum (where the Islanders currently play and the Nets of the ABA used to play) and I watched Julius Erving play MANY games. One of the first players (that I can remember) that went airborne at the foul line and dunked the ball!!!!!
STAY HEALTHY!
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
NICE AUTOS! I say you HAVE to get DR. J to sign! Personally, I have a lot of great memories of Dr. J. I grew up down the block from the Nassau Coliseum (where the Islanders currently play and the Nets of the ABA used to play) and I watched Julius Erving play MANY games. One of the first players (that I can remember) that went airborne at the foul line and dunked the ball!!!!! >>
Doug,
I'm going to get Julius hopefully, but before I get my 80/81 Topps one signed, I have this beauty planned for him first!
That should look real nice with his auto. (BTW ... Dr. J had twice as many children with women other than his wife, while he was married, than NBA championships! LOL)
STAY HEALTHY!
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
Comments
<< <i>I'm beginning to get a nice little subset of Goudey's. I picked this one up from the same board member that supplied me the previous 4 vintage Pre WW II cards that I've recently posted. The last National Leaguer to hit over .400.
1933 Goudey Bill Terry PSA/DNA slabbed
very nice, the mythical PSA 1!!!
1933 Goudey Bill Dickey already PSA/DNA slabbed
Real nice Goudeys! That Gehringer signature is ALWAYS so sweet!
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
1960 Topps Forrest Gregg PSA/DNA slabbed
1948 Leaf "Bullet" Bill Dudley
1964 Philadelphia Herb Adderley
1990 NFL Pro Set Payne Stewart
1990 Pro Set Greg Norman
1987 Topps Herschel Walker
1978 Topps Tony Dorsett
Freakin Sweet Dorsett!!
-Dan
1977 TCMA Scott Boras
collecting RAW Topps baseball cards 1952 Highs to 1972. looking for collector grade (somewhere between psa 4-7 condition). let me know what you have, I'll take it, I want to finish sets, I must have something you can use for trade.
looking for Topps 71-72 hi's-62-53-54-55-59, I have these sets started
<< <i>Beauty Dorsett - can I ask where you got it? As for Herschel, no need to remind me as a Vikes fan about that awful trade. >>
I picked it up off of ebay. Was from a past Denver Sportscards signing.
Mike
1983 PPG Bobby Rahal
Just wondering how you found that card? I'd love to find a card of my friend Don. Or if anyone see's this request, please hit me up if you have one or know anyone that has one.
Thanks again for sharing,
Brian
<< <i>nice boras card, thats an interesting conversation piece. >>
It certainly could be an interesting conversation piece...My friend Don platooned with Boras that year.
Brian
You can find the whole team set on ebay, search by St. Petersburg Cardinals TCMA . This card was from 1977, I don't know if your friend is included in the set, but you could "ask the seller" and find out.
Good luck!!
Mike
1983 PPG Rick Mears
1976 Topps Randy White already PSA/DNA slabbed
1989 Pro Set Troy Aikman JSA/BGS slabbed
1933 Goudey Earl Averill
<< <i>Added another vintage HOF'er.
1933 Goudey Earl Averill
nifty!!! i love that set.
looking for low grade t205's psa 1-2
1994-1995 Topps Jason Kidd
looking for low grade t205's psa 1-2
1956 Topps Lenny Moore
1967 Philadelphia Lee Roy Jordan
To be honest, I didn't even pay that much attention to the Moore sig till you mentioned it.
Nice pickups - thanx for sharing.
mike
"1. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
1962-
Won three gold, one silver and two bronze medals over four consecutive Olympic Games.
Joyner-Kersee's outstanding Olympic career included six medals, three of them gold.
In every revolution -- and surely the explosion of women's sport is nothing less -- there is a leader. Whether vocal or silent, whether by purpose or happenstance, there is a figure whose shadow falls across an era and whose footprints mark the path for others to follow. In ways that could be measured, Jackie Joyner-Kersee was one of the greatest Olympic athletes in history, and in ways that could not, she was a rare combination of courage and grace, of power and vulnerability. A generation of women looked into her face and saw something they had never before seen in sport, and they were drawn to it.
"You could see that she loved everything she did and that she invested every ounce of strength she had in it," says Mia Hamm, who was 12 when Joyner-Kersee narrowly missed winning a gold medal in the heptathlon at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. "You saw her and
you got the idea of what a woman athlete should be. At the time it seemed almost like she wasn't responsible for just her sport, but for all of women's sport."
Hamm's words ring true. Joyner-Kersee is Sports Illustrated For Women's Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century not just because she was one of the best performers in track and field history, but also because the energy of her athleticism and personality wrapped itself around all of women's sport at precisely the time when it began to grow.
Joyner-Kersee was one of the first children of Title IX. She was 10 years old when the groundbreaking legislation was passed in 1972, mandating equal access to sports for men and women across the country. A brilliant athlete, she also became a surrogate parent to the later offspring of Title IX, her career beginning in one era of women's sport and ending in another. "When I was little, a lot of women's sports heroes were gymnasts and figure skaters, and I just could not relate to those sports," says Julie Foudy, Hamm's U.S. soccer teammate and, like Hamm, a teenager during Joyner-Kersee's finest days. "Jackie I could relate to."
When Marion Jones, who would grow into an NCAA championship-winning basketball player at North Carolina and a two-time 100-meter world champion, was a high school junior in Southern California, she met Joyner-Kersee at a track meet. "She encouraged me, said nice things to me, and I was just overwhelmed," says Jones. "Jackie was everybody's role model." Like Hamm and Foudy, Jones later became close friends with Joyner-Kersee and was more taken with her as a person than as an athlete. "She was everything I expected and more," says Hamm. "That's saying something, because she was one of my heroes."
Joyner-Kersee's childhood was set in the dark ages of women's sport, when athletic girls spent their time racing boys and playing on their teams. The second oldest of Mary and Alfred Joyner's four children, raised in the south-end slums of East St. Louis, Ill., she was first a dancer, then a cheerleader. When she discovered track and field at age nine, she and her friends would carry sand in potato-chip bags they found in a nearby playground and spread it in front of the Joyners' porch, creating a makeshift long jump pit. There were none of the elite travel teams that nurture the athletic careers of talented girls in the '90s. There was, instead, a man named Nino Fennoy, who coached a junior track team called the East St. Louis Railers and who gave Joyner-Kersee the means to learn about herself. (It is telling of Joyner-Kersee's generation that one of the most important moments in her life came at the age of 14, when she beat her older brother, Al, in a race. "He still says he won," says Jackie, "but he didn't.")
Yet it is not for inspirational qualities alone that Joyner-Kersee stands at the top of this list, ahead of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (No. 2), Billie Jean King (No. 3), Sonja Henie (No. 4) and the inseparable tandem of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert (Nos. 5 and 6). Joyner-Kersee's athletic résumé holds up to the harshest scrutiny.
Her silver medal in Los Angeles marked a prelude to one of the greatest Olympic careers in history, in which she would win six medals, three of them gold. Four years after L.A. she won not only the heptathlon but also the long jump in Seoul. At the '92 Barcelona Games she won another heptathlon gold and took a bronze in the long jump. In Atlanta she closed out her Olympic career with a last-jump bronze in the long jump.
Joyner-Kersee did for the heptathlon what Bruce Jenner did for the decathlon, taking an oddball mix of events and not only elevating them to great sport but also infusing them with high personal drama. In the final event of the '84 Olympic hep, the 800 meters, Joyner-Kersee needed to finish within .33 of a second of Australian Glynis Nunn to win a gold medal; she finished 2.6 seconds behind. Her heptathlon victories were operatic struggles. She won in Barcelona despite illness and debilitating heat, and at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart, Germany, during one of the worst asthma attacks of her life. Her world record of 7,291 points in the event, set in Seoul, still stands, and Joyner-Kersee has the top six performances in history.
In 1987 she tied the world record in the long jump. It was broken a year later by Galina Chistyakova of Russia, but Joyner's 24'7" leap in 1994 remains the second-longest jump in history and would have won the 1999 world championship by an astounding 17 inches. True to her versatility, she also broke or tied American records for the sprint hurdles, both indoors and out. As a track athlete alone she presents a persuasive case for attaining the No. 1 spot on this list. But she was not just a track athlete. She was also an All-Pac-10 basketball player at UCLA. In 1996, at the age of 34 and long past her basketball prime, she played briefly for the Richmond Rage of the American Basketball League.
Yet merely reciting achievements sanitizes her greatness. It was in her last moments as an athlete that she best showed herself. After withdrawing tearfully from the heptathlon at the Atlanta Olympics and being walked off the track by her husband and coach, Bob Kersee, Jackie returned six days later to compete in the long jump. Stuck in sixth place among eight jumpers and reduced to a pale imitation of herself by the same injured right thigh that forced her out of the heptathlon, Joyner-Kersee faced her final jump. "This is it, Jackie," she told herself before sprinting down the runway. "This isn't the way you wanted it to be, but this is your last shot." Grimacing with every stride ("I never thought there was any shame in making faces, even when I was a little girl," she says), Joyner-Kersee reached into her past and popped a jump of 22'11 3/4", good for a bronze medal by one inch.
Two years later she dragged her tired body to Uniondale, N.Y., for the Goodwill Games, in which she would compete in her final heptathlon. Against all reason, in bludgeoning heat and humidity and on minimal training, she ran a 2:17.61 for the closing 800 meters, good for a 23-point victory over DeDee Nathan, her heir to American heptathlon supremacy. At the finish she fell into her husband's arms and wept. "I can't believe it's over," she said that night. "I can't believe the time went by so quickly."
Time has not slowed since. On a recent fall afternoon she rode in a limousine, scooting from a photo shoot in Kansas City to catch a flight home to St. Louis, where she could resume operations in her many business ventures, including Elite Sports Marketing (athlete representation and management), Gold Medal Rehab (sports medicine), the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Youth Foundation and her sponsorship of a NASCAR team. "I'm retired, and I've never been busier," she says. "I thought I'd be chillin'." Even postcareer she is blazing a trail.
Earlier that day she had posed for the picture that appears on the cover of this magazine with members of the U.S. women's soccer team, her successors in the public eye. At the end of the photo session, as the soccer players put on their team sweats, Joyner-Kersee pulled a yellow fleece top over her taut upper body, paused and then cartwheeled gracefully across the room. The soccer players, celebrities themselves, shrieked like schoolgirls. Joyner stood tall and laughed until she shook. If you looked closely, you could almost see the cord that connected them.
--Tim Layden
Athletes were selected by Sports Illustrated For Women, Sports Illustrated and CNN/SI editors, writers and correspondents who considered the athletes' on-field performance and achievements, plus their contributions to women's sports. Because athletic achievement was a key criterion, women whose contributions were made solely in administration and coaching are not included."
1989 Sports Illustrated for Kids Jackie Joyner-Kersee
1991 Topps Desert Storm Colin Powell
//////////////
Some of the face card folks are dead now, but I always thought
that would be a great group of autos to gather.
8-30-09
Tim James: Former NBA Player Now With Army In Iraq
MIAMI — Tim James apologized for being late. A rough day at work, said the Miami Heat's 1999 first-round draft pick. Vehicles broke down, problems flared up, and he simply fell behind.
"It happens," James said. "Even here."
Even on the front line of the Iraq war.
A former NBA player who often wondered about his true calling, Tim James is now a U.S. Army soldier, a transformation that even many of the people closest to him never saw coming.
"I got my degree, lived the life I was able, have my freedom and became a professional athlete," James said last week from Iraq. "I'm the example of the American dream."
James is at Camp Speicher, the massive base near Tikrit, 85 miles north of Baghdad, not far from Saddam Hussein's hometown and where insurgents still are a perpetual threat. For Miami Northwestern High, the Miami Hurricanes, three NBA teams and some foreign clubs, he was forward Tim James. For the Army, he's Spc. Tim James of Task Force ODIN – short for Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize.
In layman's terms, he's part of the unit tasked with watching and catching the bad guys before they plant bombs.
So long, charter jets, enormous paychecks and Ritz-Carlton hotel stays.
Story continues below Hello, 130-degree afternoons, 12-hour work days, $2,600 a month and 50-caliber machine guns.
"In life, we all have different desires and needs," said Leonard Hamilton, James' college coach and now the coach at Florida State. "With the passion he has, he had to go fulfill this. I'm in total support of Tim and what he's doing. He's at peace. All we can do is hope he comes back safely."
James spent years thinking about the prospects of a military career. Drafted 25th overall by the Heat, James' NBA career barely registered a basketball blip: He appeared in 43 games for Miami, Charlotte and Philadelphia, never starting and never scoring more than seven points in a game.
So he went to play overseas, making a fine living in Japan, Turkey and Israel. By 2007, his playing days were done. After months of deliberating, he made the difficult decision that would take him away from his family and 5-year-old son, whom James still tries to talk with by phone every night. Even so, Tim James Jr. doesn't understand where his dad is.
"I think of myself as a patriot," James said. "I wanted to give back to a country that gave so much to me."
James is believed to be the first former NBA player to enlist and then serve in Iraq. Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman quit football to become an Army Ranger and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.
James joined the Army on Sept. 12, 2008. The training was brutal, even for a 6-foot-8 basketball player whose athleticism had drawn raves since junior high school. James slept outside in frigid night air, scaled seven-story towers, endured 10-mile marches ("with full battle rattle, as they say," he said), and learned how to take apart and reassemble his weapon.
He never questioned if he was making the right decision.
"I have no doubts," James said. "I have no regrets. Not one bit."
His 12-month deployment to Iraq started in late July. On his second night there, James was awoken from a sound sleep, completely startled.
Machine gun fire. The sound of war.
Understandably, it took a while for him to fall back asleep.
"It's a pretty impressive thing that he's doing, making the transition from where he was then to where he is now," said James' captain, Curtis Byron. "Such a small percentage of U.S. citizens are in the military or are veterans, doing their part to protect the nation's freedom. Putting that life behind you, setting aside any thoughts you had before about the military, that's impressive."
Byron said James didn't tell most members of his unit that he used to be an NBA player. James not only didn't want the attention, he didn't want to be treated differently than anyone else.
"He's very humble," Byron said. "To him, it's not a big deal at all."
Oh, but it's a very big deal to the Heat.
They preach family inside the Heat complex, and even though James played only four games, he's forever part of the Heat family. Rob Wilson, the team's director of sports media relations, helped arrange for two boxes of T-shirts and posters to be sent to Iraq as a morale booster. They should get there this week, unless sandstorms delay the arrival of mail – a common occurrence.
Included in that package is an 8-minute, 31-second DVD, with greetings to James from several members of the organization. Another DVD from the Heat is already in the works, and the team is already planning to honor James at a home game this season.
"I just want to wish you good luck, man," Heat captain Udonis Haslem, who wears No. 40 to honor two of his idols who had that number – his father and James – said on the DVD. "God bless you and keep doing what you're doing."
"Stay focused," said Heat center Jamaal Magloire, a former James teammate. "Never let your guard down and get back to us safe."
"You're not like any other basketball player out there," Heat assistant coach Keith Askins said.
Since 2006, Miami has given a center-court tribute to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at every home game, a program Heat president Pat Riley developed and called the HomeStrong initiative.
He said he cannot wait for James to get his due.
"The work we do, while being important to us, is made possible by the efforts of our soldiers in the Middle East," said Riley, who coached James in his lone season with the team.
James can't discuss specifics of his mission, although Byron said the unit should not face "the direct threat" of enemy action.
The stakes are higher than any basketball game, for certain, but James says he can still draw the parallel between fighting on the court and fighting for his country.
"I've been in the heat of the moment on the court in the fourth quarter, tie game, and yes, you would think that's a battle," James said. "There's nothing I hate more than losing. To be here, risking your life, it's definitely another level. It's like a scouting report for a game. All you can do is try to execute your mission. A loss here, that could be a lost life."
30
1999-2000 SPX Tim James
When in England at a fairly large conference circa 2003, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if the US's plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by President Bush.
He (Colin Powell) answered that "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only land we have ever asked for in return was enough to bury those that did not return".
The room became very quiet afterwards.
Rgs,
Greg M.
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E-Bay id: greg_n_meg
I'm very sorry to interrupt, but am I the only one who think it looks like Colin Powell is drawing a picture of Big Bird on the map?
<< <i>
I'm very sorry to interrupt, but am I the only one who think it looks like Colin Powell is drawing a picture of Big Bird on the map? >>
LMAO, I cracked up on that one.
<< <i>
I'm very sorry to interrupt, but am I the only one who think it looks like Colin Powell is drawing a picture of Big Bird on the map? >>
HAHA
Nice one, I could have looked at that card for years and never see "Big Bird", but now I'll never look at it and not see "Big Bird"
Mike
1980-81 Topps Larry Bird, Julius Erving, and Magic Johnson signed by Bird and Johnson only
My Podcast - Now FEATURED on iTunes
<< <i>Very cool that they both were able to fit their signatures into such tiny spots on the card. How much has it run you so far? IIRC, the Johnson was from a book signing, correct? >>
Sean,
Yep, the Magic was at a book signing that I paid a guy to attend for me. Including the cost of the card, I have about $350.00 into it right now.
Mike
NICE AUTOS! I say you HAVE to get DR. J to sign! Personally, I have a lot of great memories of Dr. J. I grew up down the block from the Nassau Coliseum (where the Islanders currently play and the Nets of the ABA used to play) and I watched Julius Erving play MANY games. One of the first players (that I can remember) that went airborne at the foul line and dunked the ball!!!!!
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
<< <i>Mike,
NICE AUTOS! I say you HAVE to get DR. J to sign! Personally, I have a lot of great memories of Dr. J. I grew up down the block from the Nassau Coliseum (where the Islanders currently play and the Nets of the ABA used to play) and I watched Julius Erving play MANY games. One of the first players (that I can remember) that went airborne at the foul line and dunked the ball!!!!! >>
Doug,
I'm going to get Julius hopefully, but before I get my 80/81 Topps one signed, I have this beauty planned for him first!
Mike
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.