Bryan Stow Event Plans Come Into Sharper Focus

That wise baseball sage, Yogi Berra, once suggested that when you’re at a fork in the road, to take it. We love Yogi here at Grubby Glove, and we usually follow his advice to the letter. We see no reason to deviate here, so for now, we’re going to pursue at least three forks. Here’s our thinking at this time. 

First, we have to resolve any legal aspects of our undertaking, so we have reached out to a variety of groups and individuals who are willing to assist. Our goal is to obtain a 501(c) status, which will enable us to direct  the lion’s share of the funds we raise to assist Bryan. 

Second, we’ve realized after honoring the principle of due reflection, that it’s smart to start off with a small event, and then move on to something larger. We have to learn to walk before we can run. We’ve decided to start with the San Francisco Giants baseball cards for several reasons. First, they’re relatively easy for us to accumulate. Second, they don’t take up a lot of space. Third, they’re portable. In our last post on this subject, “Planning A Fundraiser For Bryan Stow” (April 7, 2013), we mentioned we had roughly 1,500 Giants baseball cards on hand. We now have over 5,000. Baseball card collectors from across the country have made one donation after another. And, best of all, we’ve connected with a serious, Bay-Area based San Francisco Giants fan and baseball card collector, Henry Martinez, seen here holding some of the cards from his recent donation. You will be hearing his name again. He has become one of our primary baseball card  advisers, and we’re very happy to have him on board. We’re going to need him.

You see, back in the day, a baseball card was a baseball card. To our way of thinking, that’s no longer the case. There are varieties that we haven’t even seen yet, which is stunning when one considers the number of cards we have on hand, let alone those that still need to be sorted, Henry. What price do we ask per card? What is a premium card? What is a chrome card? How can we acquire more short-print cards? What do we do with some of the game-used cards (ones that have a small piece of the player’s uniform on it) we have on hand? What card era should we concentrate on? Are we going to attract an appropriate audience for cards that date from 1958, the Giants first season in San Francisco? Will forty year old adults want to revisit their youth by getting a Will Clark or Robby Thompson card? At this point we don’t even know all of the questions regarding this aspect of our endeavor, and we’ve decided to take the cheerful, uptempo approach as we find the answers. So here are a few of our happy issues:

In the top we see Buster Posey’s 2013 Topps card in its emerald and standard formats. Below Madison Bumgarner is shown on one of this year’s four World Series cards, which for obvious reasons, are devoid of photographs of Detroit Tigers players. This is the World Series Game # 2 card and it’s blue border variation immediately below. Are collector’s going to want these variations separately? Will someone want a complete, emerald variation 2013 Giants team set, or the World Series set in the blue border format? What do we do with these limited, numbered cards shown below? Should these be saved for the silent auction we are planning for our second, larger event? These are beautiful cards made on thick cardboard stock and we’ll put them in plastic cases to keep them sharp. From left to right, the McCovey cards are limited to 199 and 799 cards each. In the case of the Orlando Cepeda card, only 60 were printed. All of these questions will be answered.

Third, we are going to continue reaching out to individuals, especially sports artists, who will commit to donate a work of art that will feature a San Francisco Giants player or event.

And there you have it. We’ll work on a tax-free status, figure out our baseball cards and recruit future donors. In case you’re wondering, we now have a date and venue in mind for the first, smaller event, and we’re keeping it in our hip pocket while we do some serious persuading. We welcome any thoughts or suggestions you would like to offer. To those of you who have contributed baseball cards and/or volunteered to help, we offer our sincere gratitude. Stay tuned.