Take A Seat

A few months ago, I wrote an article about the liquidation of some 90 percent of my baseball memorabilia collection, and its resurrection as a team-specific man cave, that being the Yankees. The cornerstone for the old collection was Stadia — seats, signs, turnstiles and other related fixtures and artifacts from baseball ballparks. Items can take the forms of everything from railings to urinals, from programs to hot dog vendor carry boxes, from ticket stubs to ushers’ uniforms, and everything in between, including bricks, dirt, and Astroturf!

The cool thing about Stadia is that it’s different, and displays well. The problem is that many of these items are bulky and take up space. In my former home, I displayed some 25 vintage stadium seats, almost all of them wood and iron models, as well as an early 1900s Shibe Park (Philadelphia) turnstile. And I needed all of my basement’s square footage to fit them around the perimeter of the room, whose 7-foot walls were decorated with framed prints of ballparks as well as bats, gloves, nodders, autographed balls, etc.

So then what would you think of the space about that same size that houses more than seats, ballpark signs, framed pieces, numerous) recommended that I look up an old acquaintance, whom we’ll call Richie B., a guy I had corresponded with back in the ’90s and early 2000s as he was amassing his collection. Richie B. would call or write to pick my brain on items he was looking for or buying in this specialized area of the sports collecting hobby. Fast forward to today.