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Jewish World Review July 27, 2005 / 20 Tammuz, 5765 Cool and quirky baseball cards; who is soap actress Susan Lucci's mother?; fun with vanity plates By Jeff Elder
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Q: What are the most famous baseball cards? — Eddie
A: Hey, Eddie, let's ride our bikes to the drugstore!
My mom gave me a dollar for doing a mostly bad job on the lawn. You
other kids get your bikes, too.
When we walk into the store, the cashier gives us an annoyed look.
Tough! We've got money THIS time. I fish out the balled-up dollar
and grab a Butterfinger (represents quantity AND quality), and five
packs of Topps baseball cards.
Out front we sit on the curb by our thrown-down bikes. (We didn't
lock `em — why would we?) And start gnawing on the candy while we
slide open the wax paper of the first pack of baseball cards.
We toss the gum. (That stuff's TERRIBLE.) Then stare with the
unblinking sobriety of high-stakes poker players at the cards we've
been dealt:
Ted Sizemore: chump. Checklist: pointless. Joe Torre: already got
him. (What a face on that guy!) PHIL NIEKRO: No way! PHIL NIEKRO!
Hey, you guys, I got a Phil Niekro!
That's what card-collecting meant when I was a kid. Not investing.
Not appraising.
Opening a pack of baseball cards was a two-bit miracle. The summer
equivalent of catching snowflakes on your tongue.
So I'm glad we're looking into a shoebox of famous baseball cards
today — rather than just a plastic-cased display of the most
valuable ones. I don't care which cards are worth the most money. I
want to know about the interesting ones. Joe Juhasz, owner of San
Diego's baseball-cards.com, tells us these are some of the highs and
lows:
If you'd like to see some of these, click on
http://baseball-cards.com/funcards, a page that Juhasz has kindly
set up to showcase some of these notable cards. It's almost as fun
as riding your bike to the drugstore.
Q: Who is soap actress Susan Lucci's mother? — Alex Beltzhoover
A: It's NOT Phyllis Diller — despite countless Web sites and e-mails
perpetuating this juicy urban legend. According to the actress's Web
site, myth-busting site snopes.com and interviews with Lucci, the
"All My Children" star is the daughter of Victor and Jeanette Lucci,
a contractor and a nurse.
Diller had five children with her first husband Sherwood — none of
them Lucci.
And just like a good soap plot, the rumor has a hint of the bizarre.
Lucci is something of an ageless beauty, still portraying
super-vixen Erica Kane after decades. Diller, by her own admission,
has always been a bit of a frazzled-hair fright.
What celebrity might have these vanity license plates?
1. ROBNCR8L, KRAZ4KT or LIKMYUNG
2. B4IDOIGO, NOT4KNOT or CHAPELG8
3. DAMSADAM, NOMAND8 or NEWCULER
Answers:
1. Smitten actor Tom Cruise
2. Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks
3. President George W. Bush
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Jeff Elder is a columnist for The Charlotte Observer. Comment or try to stump him by clicking here. If you send him a great question, he'll send you a Glad You Asked T-shirt. © 2005, The Charlotte Observer Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
