From time to time I will see an appeal from an OBC member on behalf of someone else. It may be a sick friend or someone victimized by crime, things like that. I think all of us are happy when we have something that fits the bill and are able to send off some cardboard.

Many years ago I decided to see how many cards I could collect and send off to troops in Afghanistan. It was overwhelming. I think I ended up mailing over 12,000 cards to some troops donated by OBC members.

So recently when a friend of mine, Kevin, fell on some hard times I decided to put together a team set collection from his birthyear, 1968, of his SF Giants. Kevin doesn’t collect cards but I thought this might cheer him up.

So I put it out there to the group. Within 2 weeks I had received 28 of the 39 cards in the set. In the end I only had to buy 3 cards. It was amazing. 12 different OBC members dug in to help out.

Kevin teared up when I presented his album. It was a great idea and showed the kindness of this group of fine folks.

A few weeks later I was with my friend Mike from Cleveland and we talked about this, his 2nd round of prostate cancer. Well, inspired by my recent success I decided to do the same for Mike. His wife told me he was born in 63 and I already knew that he was an Indians fan. Like Kevin Mike is not a collector> Almost the same results as before. 47 cards this time and almost as quickly this time 11, some of them the same, looked through their dupes and sent along some cards. I only had to buy a few to finish it off. I have an event in a week and so will give him the album then and report to the group his reaction.

The moral is easy, this is a wonderful giving group of people. I encourage any OBC member to look at this type of opportunity for any friend in need of cheering up. I look forward to paying it forward

Back in my days of researching Eau Claire baseball, I was trying to track down and interview as many former players as I could, including career minor leaguers. I focused on the more unique names from the roster, went to Yahoo (maybe even Ask Jeeves...I'm not sure), and found addresses that might match. I'd send a note, and if I was lucky it would be the correct person and I'd get my interview most of the time (and maybe even some vintage photos to use for my book). One of those notes went to northern Illinois, and the recipient confirmed I had found the right guy, but said he had very little impact in Eau Claire and I should instead contact a good friend of his (with a much more common name, by the way): Henry "Hank" Meyer. This was around 1998 or so. A long-distance friendship was born. Henry and I traded letters mainly, but every once in a while we would spend an hour or two on the phone. He would tell me stories and ask me about the town. He sent me a bunch of pictures, and in return I sent him photos of present day Eau Claire, including the home he stayed in when he was there more than 60 years before. He was the last link to a bygone era, as he played his home games in a park that was abandoned once Carson Park opened in 1937 (and is still open today). And he was sharp as a tack, both physically and mentally, which was absolutely amazing. He had made his mark in Eau Claire as an 18-year old in 1936, when he hit .338 with 20 homers and 129 RBI, a city record that still stands (you may recall, we had another fellow named Henry that began forging his Hammer here in 1952). That performance drew the attention of the Chicago Cubs, who gave him an invite to spring training in Catalina Island in 1937. He was sent to Moline after that, and he battled injuries and kicked around the minors until he served in World War 2. He was always a good hitter, but he never made the majors. But back to Catalina Island--apparently he was good enough there to warrant production of a BF-3 pennant by the Chicago-based company whose name escapes me at the moment. Long about 2011, I learned about the existence of the BF-3, and told Henry about it. He said he would love to see it if I could ever find one. I finally did in late 2014, and I wrote to him about it. But didn't hear back. He didn't send me a Christmas card that year, either, breaking a tradition. Knowing he was 97, I feared the worst. We hadn't talked on the phone for a few years, and the number I had for him wasn't working. In January, 2015, he sent me a note (along with a Christmas card) explaining he had been in a rehab facility following a fall, but he was feeling much better and he was thrilled to hear of the pennant. I sent it to him immediately. It's early February, 2015, and I am watching my son play in a basketball game. My phone starts to ring. I see it is Henry. I think about not answering because the gym is loud, but then notice a door to what looked to be a quiet hallway just off to the side. I answer the call and Henry cannot thank me enough. I could hear the tears in his eyes! He was just so proud! He said it was the nicest gift he could ever hope for, and he would treasure it always. He was hoping we could meet in person so he could shake hands with his good friend, so we planned for that summer. He could probably hear the tears in MY eyes by this point. Two weeks later, I receive another call. But this one is from his son. Henry had passed away. A few days before, he had given his son the pennant and asked him to keep it in the family. It was on display at his visitation and funeral, which he had also asked for. In OBC, the old saying is we keep what we give away. I enjoy sending out stuff, but I will never enjoy it more than I did in this case. And yet, I still wanted to have one in honor of my friend. They aren't very expensive, but they seem to be pretty tough to find. I tried to coax one out of a Net54 collector, but no dice. Every National I would scour the tables for it, but no one had seen one. Today, following a surprise notification a few weeks ago from my preset eBay search, I finally have my own Hank Meyer BF-3 pennant in hand. I'm going to frame it with a picture of Henry and his last note to me and hang it along with my other Eau Claire memorabilia. For me, this will outshine even the Hank Aaron stuff.

Hi gang, It's been too long since I posted one of these. Part of the problem was that the emails I was trying to copy were on an old computer. It's pretty much completely useless and obsolete, as there's no browser on it that will connect to any of the web pages (security certificates, javascript errors, etc.) I was finally able to cut and paste a few (from AOL version 2.7 !!) via a text editor and a flash drive to get it over to my current laptop. I'll let the emails speak for themselves. The first one is from Kevin Lohse with an update on his health, forwarded by Sal Domino, where he presented one of the ideas. We had another Stan Hack project going on at the same time where we finished his 1975 Topps set in a weekend. We even sent out the updated list with the TIME on it. Then we mailed cards from all over the country and they all happened to converge at the post office on the same day. The last two emails are from Kevin Lohse and his reactions to what is still one of the all time highlights of my membership in OBC. Even 25 years later, I still get choked up reading these. RIP Kevin. Thanks for reading, Ken M

Kevin Lohse email from Ken

Kevin Lohse email from Sal

The masked man is Ed Pike, and thanks to him, many of the rest of us are masked men. The year 2020 was rough on everybody, including many of us in OBC. During lockdowns and sheltering in place, some of us kept our sanity by getting more involved with our baseball card collections. Ed arranged to acquire and distribute many dozens of face coverings with the OBC logo front and center, in a large-scale instance of what we call "RAOK" - Random Acts of Kindness. Ed's generosity combined a prudent social safety measure with a positive marketing message for OBC.

One of the core principals of OBC is that we believe the group is, "It is not just about the cards". In November, 2017 my mother passed away. My mother was the one who first got me interested in collecting baseball cards. I was blown away when a number of OBCers got together for a Stan Hack (an anonymous gift) to send me an E card for my collection to let me know they supported me during that tough time. Additionally, Jerry Barnes, an OBCer who lives 4 hours away in the Dayton, OH area drove up to the metro-Detroit area on the day of my mother's funeral. He just wanted to show his personal support. Jerry could not even stay for the funeral as he had to get back for a shift as a Police Officer. So he made an 8 hour trip to see me for 5 minutes. While Jerry was not the only OBCer who attended the funeral (Mark Talbot did as well), that sacrifice and the card received showed me the level of support OBCers have for each other.
A truly grateful,
Mike Rich

In September 2022, Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc in southern Florida. One family, the Lampilas -- a single dad and two kids -- lost their entire memorabilia collection to the flooding caused by the brutal storm. Jeff Baker got wind of the Lampila's plight and wrote an article in Sports Collector's Daily, asking for help: If anyone had a few spare cards to send the Lampila family, to help them to start rebuilding their collection, they would greatly appreciate it. Baker gave an address of where to send cards.

Not surprisingly, the OBC community immediately stepped up, sending hundreds of cards -- mostly Marlins, the family's favorite team -- to them. Baker, who also hosts a collectibles podcast, reached out to one OBC member, Mark Camps, as a way of acknowledging the group, its RAOK philosophy and its humanitarian effort in this particular case.

Baker's original article about the Lampila kids

Interview with Rich Mueller and Mark Camps