Meeting The Boomer

Sunday July 13th, 2008 - Milwaukee, WI/Kenosha, WI

Up early and up to Milwaukee today to set up at the Gonzaga Hall sports card show. It’s a once a month show and this is the slowest month of the year. I had a table today and had ZERO sales. Not one card. I could have been selling Mickey Mantle’s liver in a jar and no offers would have been made on it. I had a pretty bad spot too stuck way back in a corner.

I’m not complaining about it. I made the choice to do this. I have to pay my dues like all the dealers before me did and earn the right to turn a buck with the regulars. I’m not in the line of fire with them yet and it will take a while to get there even though I’ve been going to this show as a buyer for years. There aren’t enough people who are my customers yet.

Maybe I’ll never get there but that’s totally ok. This is a chance to test out any and all of my sales and marketing ideas for Uranus Factory Outlet. If I can sell THESE people I can sell the world. Milwaukee people are as cheap as they come and prying a buck loose is no easy feat. I have enough cheap cards to set up for the next few months and I will do that.

I need to get out there and test, test, test. That’s what mail order is all about and I know this isn’t mail order but it is a section of the public and I will take advantage of that. I will keep observing and seeing what sells and how the good dealers do it and learn a new craft that I can use to feed myself for many years. This is a new arena for me and I’m learning.

Actually I still had fun even though I didn’t sell a single thing. Most of the other guys in the room ate it too and I was at least near my friends Richard and Dennis. They both were teaching me the ins and outs of setting up at shows and I just shut up and let them tell me how they do it and I picked up little bits and pieces as they did. I am going to learn this.

Richard and Dennis and I are the same age and when we were kids growing up all three of us were big Milwaukee Brewer fans. One of if not THE biggest star on several of those teams in the 70s was a guy named George Scott. His nickname was ‘The Boomer’ and he was a big power hitting first baseman and a slick fielder too. He was my favorite player.

The Boomer was an autograph guest at Gonzaga Hall today and I got my chance to meet him in person. If you’d asked me as a kid to donate a lung for a chance to spend time with George Scott I’d have given up both of them and breathed through a straw. He was a huge star and an icon to Brewer fans. I remember he hit a home run the first game I ever saw.

They announced at the show he was in the back room signing and there was ‘no waiting at all’. I thought that was strange because this was the crowd that should have worshipped his memory like I did and even though the crowd was sparse it was the Boomer himself.

What a huge letdown it was to meet him in person. He’s 64 now and walks with a cane. He apparently is totally broke and goes around doing card shows whenever he can to get a little extra income coming in. He’s from Mississippi and has a restaurant but his family is involved and supposedly it loses money when he’s not there because they steal from him.

The whole story was pathetic and I heard about it from Leroy Kilps the guy who runs all the shows at Gonzaga Hall. He was saying how George was at a card shop signing not far from me in Waukegan yesterday and he was three hours late to that and today he charged a lot more than was advertised for his autograph so he could make a few more dollars.

I for one didn’t try to talk him down. He signed an 8x10 in his Brewer uniform the way I remembered him as a kid. I asked him to personalize it and he just wrote ‘Dobie’ under his name. Usually guys write ‘To Dobie: Good Luck’ or ‘Best Wishes’ or something like that but George didn’t seem to get that concept. He seemed to be out of it. I was uneasy.

I told him he was my favorite player and I wasn’t lying and I saw his eyes light up for a brief second. ‘Your favorite player, huh?’ ‘Yes sir.’ I said. ‘Of ALL time. NOBODY hit a tater like the Boomer.’ I saw his eyes drift off and then he came back and signed his name and that was it. I wanted to shake his hand but he didn’t seem to be in a handshake mood.

Here was a guy who had it all back in his day. He had Cadillacs and jewelry and was an all star and golden glove fielder and now he’s at Gonzaga Hall signing autographs to guys like me who remember how much we admired a guy like him. It was all a surreal picture.

I don’t think he made all that much money and on the way out he had to walk right past my table to get to his car. He had a cane and puffed at every step and stopped to rest right next to me. I tried to not notice him stooped over and out of breath and thanked him again for the autograph and wished him a safe trip home. I wish the guy well. He was my hero.

I watched Richard and Dennis watch the mighty Boomer hobble outside and all three of us talked about how sad an experience it was to watch that happen. He was someone that all of us grew up admiring and to see him now took a little piece of that memory away. It sure was a wakeup call for me to start being better with my money. I need an action plan.

There are no pensions in comedy. George Scott played 14 years in the big leagues and I have to think he gets some money from baseball somewhere. I don’t know how much it is and he’s obviously not handled his finances well but at least he has something coming in.

Nobody is going to pay me 20 years from now for jokes I told 20 years ago. I need to be smart and make myself some residual income so I’m not sitting in some funky gym years from now having some guy gawk at me saying ‘Hey, that’s Mr. Lucky. I used to listen to that guy on the radio. Wow, he sure has hit the skids.’ This was a big motivator for me.

Tonight we had a very good Mothership Connection radio show in Kenosha. We are on at a much better time now and are getting a groove going with guests. I had a meeting for dinner with Gary Pansch and he’s going to contribute a weekly feature that will be good.

The best way to work through my rough spot is to keep busy doing things I love to do. I am doing exactly that and we’ll see how I can parlay that into some financial security. I’d feel a whole lot better if I had some money in the bank so I don‘t end up like the Boomer.