1557 - Tribute: Jack Smalling, Baseball Address List

Foreign. Doctor James Beckett Sports Card Insights. Thanks Sponsors Tops Panini, Upper Deck Heritage Auctions, Huggins and Scott Auctions, Mike's Stadium Sports Cards, Burbank sports cards, compsed.com and Beckett Media. Beckett Grading. Beckett Authentication. Today's episode is a tribute to Jack Smalling. A man that I knew older than me passed away a week ago. I actually waited because I was hoping to get the more complete obituary yesterday. This will be released tomorrow morning, which will be a week after his passing. He was 85, and he was young when I met him. I was even younger when he met me back in the 70s. A real giant of the hobbies. We weren't close. I don't think he really traveled that much. He lived in Ames, Iowa, his whole life. But I saw him at some of the Midwest shows back in the 70s, and he was very much of a autograph guy. An autograph address list was his claim to fame. But if there's a Mount Rushmore for autograph collectors, he's the first, the left. Because there almost wouldn't be an autograph through the mail hobby if not for Jack. I got his books, and before he had a book, I think he had these mimeographed things. And then later it became book form, like my first books. And then it grew and he added the new players and worked his way back like I did in my publishing. Really trying to be encyclopedic. So absolutely on the outrush. More of a baseball autograph collecting. I used his stuff all the time. In fact, we traded books, I think, because I had my price guide books back. Now we're talking the late 70s, early 80s. We'd trade back and forth this little fraternity of hobby authors. We connected really through Denny Eckes, my publisher, was more of a publisher than a co author. Actually. He was listed as a co author on Jack's book. He did some introductory material. Actually, Denny was an excellent writer. But I did the price guide. Jack did the autograph list. But Denny filled in all the gaps of all the other stuff. So Denny was really a jack of all trades and a really solid distributor and publisher. He really understood the process. So he helped me and he helped Jack, too. But then he passed away. And then Jack went on with some other relationships that were good. He had no competition. He wrote the book. You couldn't outdo him. He was a lifer, completely committed to that. Anyway, I waited so I could get this obit from his hometown paper. He lived in Ames his whole life. It said he attended five different kindergartens. Because his dad was a US Navy officer. My dad was a US Navy officer too, but he did not make me go to five kindergartens. But we did move a lot. I've said that. But he came back. In fact, Jack went to army rotc. I went to army rotc. He got a master's degree, I got a master's and later a PhD as well. We both wrote books. The other thing, this is fascinating from his obituary. He said two significant events in his life occurred just 10 days apart back in 1964. He hit a single because he was a big baseball player and really into baseball. Hit a single against hall of Famer Satchel Page. Now, Satchel Page will be a little bit older at that point, but I have never got a single off Satchel page. And then 10 days later, he married the love of his life. And that was great. My story, I can't top that. But I did get a single off George Brett. And then shortly thereafter, I met Diane, the love of my life. Okay, so now the catch is that George Brett was pitching left handed. For those of you know, he's a third baseman, but this was up at the hall of Fame. So a little. But still a great memory I could share with Jack that juxtaposing those loves of baseball and collecting and your wife. He started out as a teacher, as many people did in those days, and says he stopped teaching when his fourth son was born. And he wanted to be closer to home. And so he moved into insurance. And I'm thinking, I thought education kept you close to home. But he was very active with coaching and different things like that. Very committed to his town, committed to the Sport. He did 20 different editions of his baseball autograph list book every two years. In the beginning, like I said, it was pretty rudimentary, but he just kept polishing and I totally respect that. In 1988, he was nationally recognized, one of the top 10 autograph experts in the U.S. and I just think if it's baseball, it's more than the top 10. Basically, he was foundational to all the other people that came after. Yes, he could recognize signatures, his exemplars. He had stuff that nobody else had that this was not a superstar oriented hobby for him. He was encyclopedic and inclusive and that he wanted to get every player that ever played baseball and he'd have their debut year, he'd have their address and when they died and he was trying to get an autograph, typically on a three by five card. And lastly, that takes the cake. And I Don't think I get any credit for this, but one of his grandchildren listed in the obit is named Beckett. As a first name, I'm presuming that's a son. But there are girls out there that have been named Beckett. I'm not saying after me. I'm just saying it's a name I was born with and love and to do it proud. Always happy when I hear other people named in that way. I said the Mount Rushmore thing. He'd be the whole mountain if it's through the mail stuff. He was there when nobody else was doing that. I don't think he really got into football and basketball and hockey that much because he was a baseball guy. And this is pre Internet. You'd send out mail. I did that. I sent out to the people on his list and they were generally good. You didn't have to send a lot of money in those days. But what he did is make it so you could send. You didn't have to send to the stadium at the clubhouse and hope that it got to the player. And I'm not sure how he got started started. But again, he was a smart guy and he was diligent and hard working. And there was a network of other collectors out there that would share. It was very collegial in those days. But instead of going to the ballpark, you'd get these addresses and fraternity. There was. You didn't want to abuse it. But if you sent a few baseball cards or three by five cards and asked the player. Most of the players were really pleased to be remembered. But some of them were ticked off at Jack. Not many, but a few. You published my home address. But again, most collectors, as I've said 99% of them are not jerks. They are just people that love the hobby. And I was one of those back in the 70s when I sent off to the addresses that Jack had in his book. I didn't know it was a book when I got it may have just been stapled together and I don't remember sending him updates. But I certainly would have if I'd have gotten a bounce back again. Postage was so cheap in those days and cards were so cheap. He was successively correcting and if somebody died he would immediately get that in there. It's really upsetting if you're the wife of a deceased player and you keep getting contacted. That's kind of hurtful. He was big on the debut years, which I think the modern autograph hobby is more superstar oriented and trying to get things in person and certified autographs. But he was trying to be exhaustive. He wanted to find the address of every player. And the other thing that has come in vogue now are the Venezuela. There are players from Venezuela and he had international addresses. My buddies that used to go down to Venezuela and get cards down there were autographs. They could have the addresses of some of the players. And I know that one of the guys was their contact. That they probably got through Jack's book. Not a beautiful book, but an indispensable and very valuable book for me and others. I knew him in the 70s. I think I mainly saw him in the 70s. He was younger, I was younger. The show circuit was simpler in those days. A lot of action in the Midwest. He was in Iowa, I was in Ohio by 75. There's mention in his obit of somebody that was with him at the 76 Indianapolis show. I was there. So he would have been in the hospitality room and I would have been visiting with him. And it just was great. But through that same thing, by the late 70s, when I strongly connected with Denny Eckes. Denny was already doing distribution for hobby products. So when he approached me with a business plan to do the price guides, it made a lot of sense to me. He's the first person that did make sense. But Denny also worked with Jack for many years. And so we were in that same group. Denny owned the rights to the label Sport Americana. Had bought that from Charlie Brooks back in the mid-70s. But Denny on those books, he usually tried to take a co author credit. And he did do some authorship of some of the introductory material, which put him on the copyright list. And same thing with Jack, which again, he was more the publisher and he was valuable as a publisher. And later, Bill Dodge formed Edgewater Books in the summer of 79. I hope to have a conversation with Bill soon. That was a masterstroke, that Bill was in the right place at the right time, with the right attitude and the right skills. And so he really saw an opportunity to take the books that Denny and I were doing, that Jack was doing, and to make them available in the bookstores. And he had that experience and he had an associate. So they started a small company that was lean and very effective for us. So we were very pleased to do that. So that was another connection that we had. I just feel some kinship in the sense that we both were catalogers and we both love the sport. And we really wanted to be accurate. We wanted to be comprehensive. We hated mistakes, both of us. And the early products were not Very glamorous. But we were the only game in town in the beginning, and we just kept improving it. We both thought, every autograph has value, every card has value, some more than others. He wanted to get everybody in his book. I wanted to get every card in my book. And that's why Rich and I were on the prowl every national and to big shows to be finding cards that had not been discovered yet or cataloged yet. I don't know if this was when he was in bad health or whatever, but when he was getting close to 80, he sold his collection through Heritage, which again, is a recommended auctioneer of something this big and this comprehensive. Again, he was not able to market it with a superstar orientation, even though there were some great. The most valuable autographs are the more obscure autographs. And so. And that doesn't. So it's hard to package it. He had his collection organized by debut year, which really makes it easier to find. But it's not the way people collect anymore. Maybe the autograph collectors do it that way, but so much of the action is in the pre war and the turn of the century stuff. It's just so obscure. And the pricing, some of these signatures. There's less than 10 known of some of these players. One thing that happened, which I find reprehensible, but sometimes when somebody died, there would be people. Again, there's a low percentage jerk factor in the industry, but there are individuals that I'm aware of. I'm not naming names, but would contact the widows and say, I'm so sorry that your husband, the player died, but do you have any canceled checks or something like that? That's below the belt to me. But again, Jack provided a tool and sometimes tools can be misused. One of the things that was valuable for me for Jack's work was the whole idea of disease states being on there. And sometimes he'd have a player that he didn't have the address, or he would put on there when the guy had passed away, or that it was a bad address, something like that, or what his debut was, or where he lived, which could have been overseas. All those things were clues to how to price your cards because there wasn't any autographed price guide. I attempted that and I had some rudimentary efforts in that direction. But It's. Jack had 13,000 different baseball players, so I couldn't go toe to toe with that. But you could tell if somebody died in 1910 as opposed to died in 1990, you would get some indication about how long they'd been alive to sign autographs. Again if there was no address there, that was somebody that in most cases didn't want to be found because Jack was a sleuth. So that was a big part of my hobby in the 70s. I was finishing my sets and when I got all the basic sets done and started working on getting them autograph, which was an impossible, very challenging quest. But then later when I sold off some of that stuff, I did. Well over the course of time people are dying and then they can't autograph anymore. Pretty obvious. But back in the day, this is before the Internet, you'd write a little short note and in fact sometimes I'd write the note on a three by five card. I'd put a couple of three by five cards in there, a couple of baseball cards. You put it in the self address stamped envelope. Postage was really cheap then and you might get em back in three months, you might get em back in two weeks, you might get em back in a year. But the cards weren't really worth that much. And I wasn't as exhaustive of keeping track of when I sent and when I got back. And that still goes on a lot of players now, even when you have their address, they're not eager to. Some of them just say can you make a donation to my charity? And I really haven't been involved in that TTM through the mail stuff in many decades now. But as I said, Jack sold his collection through heritage. And as the obit said, he's got several kids and grandkids and all that. So it's part of your estate. Like I've said, how could he have a son or a daughter or grandson or granddaughter that's really interested? To the degree he's interested, they might be somewhat interested. But this guy was iconic. He was so exhaustively encyclopedic, very impressive to me. These are the obscure guys that you never even heard of that came up and played one game and he's trying to track down their autograph and provide the address for somebody else or if they deceased, checking out the obits and all that stuff. So again, just a labor of love, but as I've said, certainly emphasis on labor and a lot of work involved in that. He wasn't real boisterous when I was around him, but he did some coaching, he was a teacher, he did insurance. So he's a personable guy. But I think also like me, not a real big self promoter or a big marketer. He just loved to do the work. He loved to do the research. And at my heart, that's what I did. Not. It expanded to where I had to market somewhat because I had employees that were counting on me to figure out how to make money so they could get paid and how to sell more books or magazines or grading. But I think Jack was always doing this as a side gig, but an important side gig. And the work probably was conducive to Ames, Iowa. He wasn't in a population center, and that was good. The other last thing of just the comparing is that I really think I've been a collector, investor, dealer. But through a lot of that, Jack exemplified collecting, including serving other collectors. So part of his collecting lane was a serving lane. And I've tried to do that too. But it became vocational for me and for him. I think he just was doing it because he loved it. That's so admirable. I probably still have some. I know I have some cards that I got through Jack's addresses. In fact, the famous one where I got written back by, I think, Brooks Robinson. I'm still digging to find that. That'll complete the story. But Jack's legacy, amazing guy. Truly a lifer. And to get 85 years, the great majority of it being a huge baseball fan. He scouted for the Mets at one time. And I think from my account, a great life. I'm sad he's gone and I'm sad there hasn't been more fanfare within the industry, within the hobby, for a guy, because again, pure baseball and autographs. He was foundational to our industry, industry. The hobby is better for having had Jack in it at that time. Earlier, later, I don't know. People come at the right time and they serve. And he served condolences to his family. And thanks to Ben Brand for bringing this to my attention. Because I don't search the obits, but when something happens, I'm thinking, I wonder who's going to say something about it. And somebody should. And that somebody right now is me. Rest in peace, Jack Smalling. Thank you for your contributions. And I'll be back again on Monday. The man in the house of God is doing all of that.