Dear Babe: In a box of stuff I picked up at a yard sale, I found a Red Sox-Yankees game program autographed by then manager Dick Williams with the stub for Sept. 28, 1968 -- Mickey Mantle's last game. -- Greg Robinson, Chicopee, Mass.
Hall of Fame managers get little respect from collectors to start with, but when you add in a stub for Mantle's last game, Williams' signature is extraneous material.
"The program and ticket have value because of them being from Mantle's last game," said Mike Heffner, president of www.lelands.com auction house. "The Dick Williams signature is sort of irrelevant. I would say that the program and ticket are worth at least $1,000. They are rare. It would be worth even more ($1,500 to $2,000) if the ticket stub was one of the regular pre-printed versions and not taped in the program."
Dear Babe: I am looking for any cards that the late Harry Boykoff might be on. --Thom Boykoff, Madison, Wis.
Questions such as yours are perfect for a Beckett alphabetical checklist. It's great for looking for vintage cards of a particular player. Beckett hasn't cranked one out in recent years, but there are older ones out there. If you're looking for vintage cards, it doesn't really matter if the guide is up to date on newer issues. Da Babe has older copies of alpha guides for baseball, football and basketball. It looks like auto racing was in the current yearly guide (No. 9 for 2009); while the last hockey checklist was included in a yearly guide a couple of years ago.
I checked my old copy of a Beckett alphabetical basketball checklist. There are no cards listed for Harry Boykoff. I guess there might be a team photo out there. You might consider looking for programs or yearbooks.
Boykoff, 6-9 or 6-10, depending upon which Internet article you use, played his college ball under Joe Lapchick at St. John's University in New York. He was an all-America selection in 1946. In one game at Madison Square Garden in 1947, while playing for St John's, he scored 54 points by himself, more than the entire opposing team combined.
He played 109 games in the NBA, including a three-month stint with the Celtics from November 1950 through February 1951. He was supposedly the highest paid player in the NBA at $15,000 when he was with the Celts. In his later years he appeared in a couple of films and TV shows. He died of lung cancer in February 2001 at the age of 78.
BABE NOTE: Phil Regli, Owner of P&R Publications in Irvine, Calif. and a long-time magazine dealer, is compiling an e-book on yearbooks with more than 200 pages of images on Major League, minor league, woman and Negro baseball teams. He'll send a PDF copy on your favorite team if you can help with the project. "What I'm looking for are true yearbook collectors who collect all the variations made each year, what we substitute for a yearbook when there isn't an official yearbook and what else they want in it," Regli explained. If you're interested in helping, contact him at Regliaol.com.
(Send card questions to Babe Waxpak, PO Box 492397, Redding, CA 96049-2397 or e-mail babewaxpak@charter.net. If possible, include card number, year and brand or a photocopy. Please do not send cards. For Babe Waxpak's blog, see www.scrippsnews.com/waxpak. Babe Waxpak is a feature of The Record Searchlight in Redding, Calif.)
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