My Post-Halloween Post

Last year, I took Supergirl and a cowboy while my wife stayed home to wait on trick-or-treaters and cook the traditional Halloween spaghetti dinner. Yesterday, I got to watch my wife, a snow princess, and Batman, go on their annual Trick-or-Treat walk around the neighborhood while I stayed home and cooked. And all that time I realized that I didn't post anything special for Halloween. This hopefully should make up for it.

I'm not too much into the Halloween spirit (no pun intended) since I was in 6th grade. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I dressed up for Halloween since then (and even then, I hated it...not good for a theatre worker in high school). But all the same, stories of ghosts, monsters, and mysteries of the unknown always fascinated me. I don't mean the stories that were made up (okay, few exceptions here), but real stories about ghosts and haunted houses and buildings. I try not to scare easily, but when there is a good real ghost story on the television or a book that I'm reading, I let all of that go, and just get spooked.

While I don't have any Halloween themed baseball cards, here are some cards that could pass, especially with their involvement with the unknown...(cue Inner Sanctum crypt opening music...)


There have been many stories about visitors seeing the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House. While he is probably the most famous ghost residing at the Oval Office, there are others who haunt the Presidential Mansion.


Okay, there were those on the Topps Message Boards who questioned the sanity of the Topps Company when they created this card for the 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter set. Why glorify a murderer was asked a number of times? There wound up even a guy who signed on as Satan (or a reasonable facsimile of) and said that he had an autographed copy of the card. Funny stuff.

The fact is that because Topps was honoring the Allen & Ginter sets of the 1800's, it only made sense to include important events of that time. And sadly, this was one of them. I was going to provide a link that showcases the history of the Ripper Murders, but due to the subject matter, and the fact that the one site I went to goes into really graphic detail on the subject, with pictures, I'm going to pass on doing so.


Whether or not you believe in vampires, you can thank Bram Stoker for giving the world Dracula.


And who knew back then (remember, this is the late 1800's) that a teenaged woman could create one of the most complex and terrifying tales of all time with the classic "The Modern Prometheus." This was just the subtitle to Mary Shelley's classic tale of a mad scientist's quest to give life to the monster known as Frankenstein.

Victor Hugo showed us all that not all "monsters" are bad when he wrote his classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So that ends my little jaunt into Halloween. I promise that next year I'll do better.

(Previewing another What??! of the Week)

Topps, he's been with the Yankees, since the 50's. He's wathced everyone from Mantle and Maris, to Jeter and ARod, and everyone in between.

What were you thinking when you picked THIS picture of the "Voice of God" Bob Sheppard??? He looks like the Crypt Keeper. Wasn't there a better picture to use. This one scared my daughter when I opened the pack in 2004. I know Mr. Sheppard's health is deteriorating (as noted at the All-Star Game this year), but was this the way to include the guy in a set called "All-Time Fan Favorites??!"

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama