EXTRA: O.J. vs. “Sweetness” – several hundred dollars difference these days

A couple of bucks for his cardboard

I remember back when O.J. Simpson was a big deal as an athlete – an All-Pro football player with the Buffalo Bills who also had charisma and charm and was well on his way to a celebrity lifestyle.

Now, he’s the guy who did nine years in prison (for supposedly threatening to harm people whom he says stole sports memorabilia from him even though many will forevermore think him guilty of the other crimes for which he was acquitted), and apparently became lucky enough this week to learn he qualified for parole from a Nevada corrections facility. He could be released by October.

Worth $1,000 if authentically autographed

I COULDN’T HELP but look up a little bit of data on the sports memorabilia market – particularly that involved with the trading cards that used to be a kiddie-thing, but now get treasured by people wishing to relive their sporting memories.

For what it’s worth, the book value for an O.J. Simpson card from the 1976 set produced by Topps Chewing Gum is $5.63, but only if it’s in prime physical shape. For anything less, a buck or two is about all O.J. is worth these days, according to SportsLots.com.

By comparison, there’s another card from that same set – one portraying Chicago Bears superstar Walter Payton. Admittedly, that card (which I remember actually owning as a kid) gets value added because it was the “rookie” card for Payton – he was a fresh prospect from Jackson State University who was just beginning his days of trying to make the Bears a respectable team. Fantasies of a Super Bowl were still a decade away in the future.

The same price guide gives a book value for the Payton at $207 – and for what it’s worth, I found one person Thursday on eBay who had such a card and already had bids of $449.99 for it.

Book value: About one dollar

QUITE A DIFFERENCE for pieces of cardboard from the months following the Bicentennial whose only real difference is the image they depict.

And also an example of just how far the mighty are capable of falling in life. A point we should all keep in mind on those occasions when we’re tempted to do something stupid.

Although those of us who remember the Naked Gun movies that included Simpson as an actor know that the “real” villain amongst athletes is Reggie Jackson. After all, he was going to kill the queen!

  -30-

Do we really want to relive Lewinsky? Along w/ impeachment nonsense it inspired? Just bring back the Bulls!

One of the reasons six years ago that I ultimately gave my political support (ie., my vote) to Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton was that I suspected any Clinton presidential candidacy would get bogged down in the muck of her husband.

All these years later, with Clinton supposedly the front-runner (as opposed to Vice President Joe Biden) for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, it seems like we’re going to have to relive the nonsense of ’98 regardless.

Do we also want to dance the Macarena?

 

THERE HAVE BEEN many other people who felt compelled to comment on the fact that Monica Lewinsky wrote an essay published in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine. She seems to believe she’s been unfairly singled out for abuse.

She might be right. It’s a shame that too many people in our society seem to be stuck with the mentality of a 13-year-old.

Because the tawdriness of that whole affair between a president and a flirtatious (and busty) intern isn’t something that is good for the nation to linger over.

Presidential kneepads. Thongs. Blue dresses with certain DNA-laced stains.

ANYBODY WHO THINKS back hard enough will come up with a tacky memory from each of those phrases. I could get even more garish if I chose to.

What amuses me the most about Lewinsky’s essay (it’s not that she can actually write readable copy) is that it is in an issue of Vanity Fair that seems loaded with copy meant to remind us of the 1990s.

A story about JFK, Jr. (remember “George” magazine?), and a piece trying to tell us the long-term significance of O.J. Simpson’s first criminal trial (the year-long affair that offended so many of the same people who were bothered by Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 and ’96).

All things that we’d be better off keeping in the past, if we knew what was good for us.

IF THERE’S ANYTHING significant that came out of the whole Clinton affair, it was the fact that it showed us how meaningless the “impeachment” label truly is.

Remember that Bill Clinton was impeached. I have no doubt that if the Senate does shift Republican following the Nov. 4 elections, they will try the same thing with the Barack Obama presidency.

They couldn’t beat him in 2008 or ’12, but are desperate to have something to hang on him so they can claim he was a complete and utter failure.

Real people won’t believe it. But then again, the ideologues have never cared what real people think. They want us to live in their world, and mind our lesser place in it.

I’VE BEEN HAVING these thoughts lately in part to brace myself for the possibility of impeachment proceedings (just as I spent my time right before Barack Obama actually became president in January 2009 re-reading as much as I could of the “Council Wars” days of old to brace myself for the likelihood of a Congress prepared to do nothing to deny the president any accomplishments).

I have no doubt that a Republican-controlled Congress would think nothing of applying the impeachment label again. I also doubt they could get the two-thirds of the Senate to go along with it (because there’s no way they’ll get a 67-percent GOP majority of Senate members).

All they succeeded in the former part, but wound up merely showing us just how meaningless the “impeachment” label truly is. Particularly if it seems the ideologues amongst us are going to want to use it against every single Democrat who has the nerve to get elected as president.

It seems the only way we can avoid the whole affair is to only elect presidents and government officials who appease the social conservative mentality of those people.

WHICH IS JUST something the real majority of our society just isn’t going to do. No more than we’d all start dancing the Macarena all over again.

Although the 1990s weren’t totally awful – unless you were a self-absorbed Los Angeles Lakers fan who had to see your team continually lose out to the Michael Jordan-era Bulls. That part of the decade would be worth reliving.

  -30-