Zach Selwyn

Actor. Musician. Host. Writer. Dinner Guest.

  • DOWNLOAD ALBUM HERE!Hungover at Dlandhungover at disneyland TRACK LISTING:

    The Only Gym That I Like to hit (Jim Beam).

    LA Ski Hat Weather.

    Bad Night in Bro Country.

    Yo Jay-Z! (Be My Manager).

    The Web MD Song.

    Dudes.

    Hungover at Disneyland.

    Too Old for Molly, To Young for LSD.

    Kirk Cameron vs. Charles Darwin

    Gramma on the Front Porch!

    Look for it soon on itunes and beyond!!!

  • In the late 90’s I was lucky enough to sleep with a Playboy
    Centerfold. For the sake of this story, let’s call her “Miss July.” She
    wasn’t the current centerfold by any means, in fact her issue had
    already been off the racks for nearly seven years at the time of our
    tryst, but she had been a popular Playmate in the 90’s… and one that I
    had admired for years. For some reason, the planets aligned and she
    and I shared a three-night fling at our respected apartments doing all
    we could to pretend that we had anything in common outside of our bed
    sheets.

    Following our little hook up, I rifled through a used bookstore for
    her back issue, buying at least six copies to give to my high school
    friends. I called nearly every guy I knew to share in my glory and
    walked on air for a good three months after our encounter, knowing
    that I had achieved one of the ultimate male fantasies. I even sent a
    back issue to my dad. After all, Playboy was my bible growing up and
    bedding one of the world’s most beautiful women suddenly made me feel
    like I could accomplish anything in my life.
    Last week, while walking through a grocery store with my 10-year-old
    son, I ran into Miss July in the produce section. At first, I stopped
    and stared at her, like every man in the store had been doing since
    she walked in the vicinity. She was still gorgeous and shapely and
    wearing an outfit that only a Playmate can get away with.
    Her breasts were still high and on display. He hair still blonde and
    bountiful, with ringlets cascading beneath her shoulders – as if she
    was currently in the middle of a photo shoot. I ogled for a minute,
    before coming to the realization that she was, indeed, Miss July. My
    Miss July. The girl I had slept with all those years ago. I hadn’t
    thought of her in so long, I assumed she had moved to the other side
    of the country where I would never see her again.

    And now here she was fondling a pair of avocados.

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    “Why are you staring at that girl?” My son asked, snapping me out of
    the coma my 40-year-old mind had drifted into.

    “Oh, I think I know her,” I said, secretly hoping that he might
    recognize her beauty and high-five me after we left the grocery store.

    “Cool,” he responded. “Can I play on your phone?”

    I gathered my thoughts and strolled around to the coffee aisle. I
    wasn’t sure if I was going to say hello to her, afraid that she would
    think I was some stalker from her Playmate days. I also didn’t want
    her to blurt out something stupid, like “Oh my GOD! You were that guy
    I slept with in the 90’s!” Worst of all, I thought, she wouldn’t
    remember me at all. I let my son pick out some cereal as I mulled over
    my next move.

    Like most happily married men, I still harbor the memories of my
    single years when one-night stands were so daring and fun and
    whimsical. After all these years, they hold a nostalgic place in my
    heart as something fantastic and perfect – when in reality they were
    normally panic-riddled and led to health concerns and loneliness.
    My week with Miss July began at a nightclub in Hollywood. She was
    gorgeous, fending off the masses with her icy stare and constantly
    turning down drinks from potential suitors clamoring to be in her
    airspace. I had no idea she was a Playmate at the time, but she
    certainly had the look. She was dressed to the nines in a fur jacket
    and sipping on a vodka drink when my friends dared me to go speak to
    her. As I was in my cups, I waltzed directly up to her and began
    rubbing her jacket.

    “Interesting. A New Zealand back country field rabbit coat… Very
    rare,” I said.

    She laughed and stared me deep in the eyes.

    “Are you on ecstasy?”  She replied.

    “No,” I exclaimed. “Not at all… why?

    “Normally when I wear this coat out a bunch of druggies just want to pet it.”

    I laughed and thought of a quick comeback.

    “I’d rather pet you,” I blurted out confidently.

    She actually laughed and wrote her number down on a bar napkin. I told
    her I’d call her and I did – the next day – breaking any rules which I
    had learned from popular movies like Swingers. She was surprised to
    hear from me. We made plans to go out to a Casa Vega, a Mexican
    restaurant in the valley for margaritas the following night. When she
    cancelled on me two hours beforehand, I thought I was doomed. When I
    asked her why she had to cancel, however, my eyes lit up.

    “I have to fly to Iowa for a Playboy convention in the morning, I’m so
    sorry,” she said.

    “Why? Do you sell advertising for them or something?” I inquired.

    “No, silly – I was Miss July a few years ago! I thought you knew…”

    I didn’t know. Now I did. I immediately called my friends and sang
    them J. Giels Band lyrics through the receiver. Yes. My baby was a
    centerfold.

    Playboy Playmates

    A week later, we hit Casa Vega. At one point she went outside
    to smoke and I let her go alone. (I was trying to quit at the time).
    When a guy at the bar saw this, he motioned to me and said, “Dude, you don’t let a girl that hot out of your sight for any amount of time.”

    I ignored him, assuming she would brush off any potential creeps and
    return back to our bar stool where we’d finish our drinks and continue
    our evening. After 20 minutes, however, I began to grow nervous.
    I went out to the smoking section, and sure enough, there they were:
    MEN. All kinds… Guys who had intended to come inside for dinner but
    were so mesmerized by her beauty that they decided to hang outside a
    little longer. Guys who didn’t even smoke were bumming cigarettes from
    her and chain smoking. One guy even flipped her a business card and
    said, “I scout for Playboy, if you ever want to be in the magazine,
    let me know…”

    She laughed and to my surprise grabbed me by the arm. All the men’s
    faces dropped as they saw this 23-year-old kid with a Strokes haircut
    coyly slip his hand around the top of her waist. Dejected, the guys
    all walked inside with their heads down, preparing to settle for
    baskets of chips and salsa and not the ravishing creature who I was
    lucky enough to be spending the night with.

    We went to another bar and then went to my place. Two nights later, I
    joined her at her place. We went out once more, on a Saturday, but she
    got swept up in a crowd of famous actors and I stood around waiting
    for her to return to me, feeling like the unpopular kid in junior high
    who can’t muster up the balls to ask a girl to dance. Eventually, when
    she began partaking in their bottle service vodka, I grew frustrated,
    knowing my time was up. Without even saying good-bye, I grabbed my
    jacket and made a quick exit, calling my buddies to meet me for a
    heartbreak beer at Coach and Horses, my old favorite dive bar.

    “So what if it’s over?” My buddy said. “You were with a Playmate!”

    “Yeah dude, my last hook up was with the hostess at Yankee Doodles in
    Agoura Hills,” said another.

    As the drinks flowed, my confidence returned and I quickly got over
    the fling with the help of some good friends. The next day Miss July
    and I exchanged a few phone messages, but never reconnected.
    Even though it was over, I was still waking on air, feeling as if I
    had done all I could and was now exuding an air of confidence that
    nobody could touch. I even kept two of her back issues for myself. One
    to put on the coffee table, and one to put in a pristine cellophane
    folder where it would remain intact on my bookshelf until the end of
    my days… It still sits there today.

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    As I rounded the bread aisle, I saw her again. As luck would have it,
    we were approaching the check out line at the same time, inspecting our carts and reaching into our wallets for ATM cards. I purposefully took the spot in line directly behind her and noticed as she unloaded
    an unusual amount of dog food onto the conveyor belt. She also bought butter, apples, avocados, bananas, Kombucha and a pre-made tray of
    sushi. I was still staring. My 10-year-old took advantage of my distant
    gaze and slipped two packs of M & M’s into my cart. I didn’t care. I
    had butterflies in my stomach as if I was back in that Hollywood
    nightclub 17 years earlier… But then it hit me: I was married. I was
    standing with my child. I had no reason to not say something. If
    anything, I thought, it would extend the memory a few more years. I
    decided to go in for the kill.

    “Is your name Taylor? (Not her real name)” I asked.

    She looked up at me and smiled.

    “Yeah, who are you?”

    “My name is Zach,” I said. “Not sure if you remember me, but we sort
    of dated about 17 years ago… we met at a nightclub and went to Casa
    Vega…?”

    She looked me over, perplexed.

    “Were you that drummer?” She asked.

    “No, but I play music…”

    “Oh, you were the guy who knew Green Day!”

    “No,” I said.

    “Oh. Did you know Quentin?”

    “Nope,” I responded, realizing that I was barely a flicker of memory
    in her mind all these years later – whereas she had held the top spot
    in my gallery of former flames for close to two decades. I was a bit
    embarrassed.

    “Oh, wait!” She said. “Did you used to have long curly hair? And you
    lived on Harper Avenue and you played me Crash into Me by Dave
    Matthews Band on your guitar?”

    The cashier chuckled.

    “Uhh, yeah, that was me,” I said, blushing.

    26288a71d9878f6519c7ca018a8dca5d-36296
    23-years-old with a Strokes haircut…

    She hugged me as if we were long lost siblings. I felt my wobbly arms
    go around her body once more, immediately wondering what would have
    happened if I hadn’t been so stubborn at that bar all those years ago.

    My chest pressed against hers and for a brief moment I was 23 again,
    stupidly running around Hollywood with a group of horny friends
    worrying about nothing but a 10 a.m. commercial audition and where I
    was going to be drinking that night. She pulled away and paid for her
    groceries and stood behind the bag boy waiting for me to pay and
    rejoin her. When I did, we caught up briefly and I introduced her to
    my son… who seemed to not have any interest in this beautiful woman
    that his dad was talking to.

    As it turns out, Miss July still did Playmate conventions. She was
    living in the valley, had been married for a year but was divorced and
    was raising her 3 small dogs, Gucci, Dorito and Mr. Farts-A-Lot. She
    didn’t go out anymore, was disappointed with Tinder and loved
    The Big Bang Theory. I felt like she was reciting her “Turn-On” list
    from her Centerfold interview page – but had updated it as a
    middle-aged woman.

    We exchanged numbers and she remarked on how handsome my son was. I
    told her I’d invite her out to see my band if we ever played again and
    I watched her speed off in her Prius. I thought back to the nights we
    had shared together and then looked back at my son, blissfully playing
    on my phone, seemingly unaware of what had transpired between his father and
    that mysterious girl in the produce section 17 years earlier.

    As we drove home, he handed me back my phone and stared out the
    window. As I watched his eyes dart around the city, I thought of his
    future and how he was still so young and innocent and had the entire
    world ahead of him. I realized how happy I was to be spending my life
    with my wife, my daughter and him, and not a smelly pug named Mr.
    Farts-a-Lot.

    And then, after a few minutes of driving, he broke the silence.

    “Dad, I wanna learn some Dave Matthews Band songs on guitar,” he said.

    They grow up so fast…

    READ ZACH’S NERDIST STORY “RE-EXAMINING THE NBA DRAFT ID I HAD BEEN SELECTED!”

    https://nerdist.com/re-examining-the-1997-nba-draft-if-i-had-been-selected/

    CVH4QMaI

     

    bukowski david sedaris essay fiction hugh hefner humor Playboy playmate sex short story stories writing Zach Selwyn
  • In these scary times, we all need a little sports and a little humopr to get us by – Zach has been hired by theoddsfactory.com/runthetable to host a comedic sports trivia show EVERY DAY!!! 2pm EASTERN/ 11 am PST.

    You can win $100! – Test your sports knowledge and LAUGH!

    Screen Shot 2020-04-28 at 6.54.29 PM

     

    Attack of the Show entertainment ESPN G4 hosting humor MLB NBA NFL NHL quarantine sports trivia Zach Selwyn
  • T-Shirts $25.00 – includes S&H

    z@zachariahmusic.com for more info!

    TANK TOPS $20.00! Includes S&H!!!
    ZACH’S NOVEL! ORDER NOW!

    For signed copies – z@zachariahmusic.com

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  •  

    Antonio Brown? Punching refs? Mitch McGary going all 420? You’re on blast with Zach and his TBS web series “Out of Control Athletes of the Week.”

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  • By Zach Selwyn

    I recently came across this class picture from my elementary school in 1985. Oddly enough, I have a vague memory of taking this photo and trying to express my disappointment with the world at that time. I had no idea back then that the photo seemed to say to my parents that I’d rather be dead at the tender age of 10 than at my school picture day. 

    I look depressed. I look like I had already lived five lives. I resemble the type of child who would be marked as a potential serial killer in the future. Amazingly, I remember what was going through my head that day. I was dealing with things like my parents recent divorce, the fact that my “spike haircut” would never want to stand up straight like the other kids. I didn’t smile because my two front teeth resembled something that would have made all species of pacific northwestern beavers jealous. I also remember that my mother made me wear the cloud patterned shirt I am wearing in the photo that day. Maybe if I was Prince I could have pulled that look off, but as a sullen, depressed 10-year-old Jewish kid stuck in Tucson Arizona in the 1980’s, the cloud shirt just felt like a desperate plea for attention. 

    At the time I was rudderless. The girls were not interested in me. I had become somewhat overweight. My baseball ability had dwindled following a broken arm the previous summer and my basketball skills were starting to translate to bench time more than the starting five. To top it off my grandparents had taken my sister and I on a two-week Caribbean cruise a few weeks before where I spent the majority of the trip being bullied in the youth center by a freckly-face kid from Florida named Robbie who insisted on flicking my ears until I cried almost daily. Perhaps the most embarrassing thing about that cruise was when my grandmother came down to the youth center, smacked the kid across the head and said, “Stop flicking my grandson’s ears!” 

    As you can imagine, it only made him go after me more. 

    In fifth grade I was forced to go to Hebrew school three times a week with the looming threat of a Bar Mitzvah hanging over my head presenting quite possibly a challenge that I could never live up to. My main interests lie in collecting baseball cards  – which is where I spent every penny and has been well documented in my previous works. I was also trying to make my 3-year-old brother a future baseball Hall of Famer – but he wasn’t interested in the slightest. Baseball cards were everything to me and the bottom line was, when my mother came home and saw me lying on the floor alphabetizing the 1982 Atlanta Braves Fleer set, she didn’t exactly think I had any sort of bright future.

    My house was less than peaceful, with my sister and mother not getting along and a new presence in the home – my mother’s boyfriend. He was a recovering alcoholic who had moved to Tucson for a fresh start and began working at a $40,000 a month celebrity rehab facility that was frequented by movie stars and rock stars. His saving grace was that he loved music, and played it constantly around the house.. and that he was pretty funny.  

    He also loved baseball. 

    My other obsession with skateboarding, which I was not very good at due to a massive fear of falling and breaking my arm a second time. Yet, I wore the clothes and accepted the fact that I was a “poser” to the cooler kids because it made me feel somewhat connected to something. I was also being forced to take piano lessons by my mom although I was technically allowed to quit in sixth grade. 

    I quit the day I started sixth grade. Again, another regret. 

    37-years-later, looking back at this photo, I distinctly remember Mrs. Knight’s fifth grade classroom. It was small  – with only eight of us  – because they had to separate certain students into a fifth/sixth grade combination class. Luckily the two cutest girls were in class with me. Laura Krapa (tough last name, I know…) And Tina Jarem, who I mercilessly teased and occasionally punched  because she had absolutely no interest in me. 

    And then, there were the three other boys in the class.Ryan, Brandon and Bryan. Being the lone Jewish kid, I was constantly mocked with slurs and insults that I learned to turn into comedy – but I was never invited to their Cub Scout meetings or their swim meets. The three boys were all terrific athletes and overachievers had surpassed me in almost every single category in life at the time – from sports to girls to popularity. When you’re 10-years-old, you feel as if you will never grow out of these situations. 

    One day in the lunchroom, I overheard the boys discussing their three-piece band that they were going to assemble to play the talent show. Being that my obsession with the Beastie Boys had grown to absurdly fanatical following their appearance in the hip hop movie “Krush Groove,” I somehow thought that if I could just be AdRock or Mike D I could climb out of this despair in which I had been wallowing for the majority of 1985-86. It certainly helped my cause to know that the Beastie Boys were actually Jewish… So, I offered up my services as a rapper and at first, they laughed. 

    “Dude our song is not a rap song” they said.

    I said it didn’t matter because I could rap over anything.

    Lo and behold, it worked. That night, I wrote eight of the worst hip-hop bars ever assembled and brought it to school to audition for my three classmates. They were blown away and my career as a performer started just as the 5th grade began to come to a close. 

    The first rush of adrenaline that you get when you walk off of a stage while wearing your coolest T & C Surf Design shirt and Gotcha shorts with a pair of knock off Ray-Ban Wayfarers you had to borrow from your mother, is a feeling that cannot be described. But any person who has ever performed live knows  what it is… It’s the moment when you receive that first look from a girl in your class that says, “Oh my God you’re so much more than I thought you were!” In this case, it was Tina Jarem. Still, I was too afraid to be her boyfriend. She moved away that summer. 

    Music helped me turn my life and outlook around. If you look into the dead eyes of the kid in this photo, you can see how that experience helped turn me into a more positive person. Within a few months I had my first non-camp girlfriend, Amy. We only lasted about a week, but for me that’s all I wanted. It was like a résumé builder. I developed more humor more confidence and as luck would have it even grew a few inches by the next year. 

    That summer at camp my longtime counselor Mark took me under his wing as his ‘project’ hoping to develop me into a ladies man. Looking back, it seems weird that he would spend 30 minutes doing my hair before Shabbat services on Fridays. I guess he wanted to make sure I looked ‘fresh.’ With gallons of Dep Gel being slathered into my “never wanted to spike up hair” – I was finally able to get it somewhat reaching towards the sky. Only later, when my hair went curly, did I realize that I had always had wavy hair and that a spike haircut doesn’t look too great when you’re 10-years-old and trying to look like Billy Idol.

    When sixth grade came to a close, we reformed the band. The baseball cards took a backseat a couple years later when the guitar was picked up and I suddenly discovered all elements of performing.

    Today, at 46, looking back at that photograph of that lost child makes me think of my own children today. I can often spot in a family photo my son’s eyes adrift, looking like there’s no reason for him to be there. My daughter occasionally blinks on purpose to ruin a picture too – the way I did many times before as a kid. The only advice I can try to give my children is that it all gets better and that they need to try new things or else nothing will ever change. I never say that they have to stick with those things, but one of them will hopefully catch their attention and change their lives the way that music did for me on that talent show night in Tucson, Arizona. 

    I’m not sure why I wrote this today other than the fact that I’m getting older and I think you start to look back at moments in your life where things change. As your own parents get older you start to think about how innocent it all was back then and how we all grow up so quickly and what really matters is love, care, kindness and friendship. 

    I still keep in touch with those guys from the band even though they have all gone onto different pursuits. I’m still releasing music, however, even though not many people listen to it. It’s still therapy. It is hands down the best medicine that there is and it comes out whenever I am lucky enough to perform live with my current band. 

    My only regret? I wish I still had that cloud shirt so I could wear it on stage… 

    5th grade beastie boys Comedy depression funny humor memoir Music
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  • Hey guys! I’m finally able to announce the release of my second novel “DROP DEAD GORGEOUS” – today on KINDLE! If you’re a digital reader, please take a look and enjoy! Sample chapters available in the link. Hard copies will be available in a week or so – so thank you all for your support! This is the official SEQUEL to “Austin Translation” – when Rob Stoner travels to Nashville to solve the mysterious suicide of his ex-girfriend. It’s murder, mystery and mayhem in Music City!

    DROP DEAD GORGEOUS: AKA THE NASHVILLIANS

    When True Crime Podcaster Rob Stoner is summoned to Nashville to investigate the mysterious suicide of his ex-girlfriend from 20 years ago, he suddenly finds himself making his way through Music City still holding onto lost dreams of his own music stardom. Things get even crazier when he discovers that his ex was holding a piece of paper in her hand with his phone number on it when she died. Now, Rob has to solve the crime, navigate his way around the shady side of the music business and try to get it all done without losing his marriage, his career and his mind…

    PRAISE FOR “DROP DEAD GORGEOUS”

    “I voiced a character in a musical comedy podcast which Zach wrote and produced. I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with Zach, but felt strongly that the project was lacking the comedic device of death. I’m glad to see that Zach has combined all elements into this fast-paced murder comedy set in Music City.”

    – Will Sasso, actor

    xoxo MUCH LOVE!

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Tag: don mattingly

Read Zach’s New Short Story “MUSEUM OF YOUTH”

  • December 19, 2012
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Short Story · The Writer

It has been nearly 19 years since I left my childhood home for college.

In that time, the closet in my old bedroom has been housing the rotting souvenirs of my youth. Souvenirs that eternally remind me of my precious, fading juvenile memories. Items that will forever sentimentally call out to me, and ALL of us children of the 1980’s… Invaluable, beautiful trinkets that I have been unable to part with since I was 13-years-old.

Closet
The author’s childhood closet looked a lot like this until last week.

Of course, I am referring to thousands of ridiculously worthless Pac-Man key-chains, Garbage Pail Kids and armless GI Joe figures. Go-Bots and Star Wars spaceships that were shoved into back drawers directly next to a myriad of autographed baseballs – ranging from superstars like Gary Sheffield to busts like onetime Cleveland Indians prospect Luis Medina. At least 120 baseball-themed posters, like the Jose Canseco-Mark McGwire Bash Brothers print and the Bo Knows Bo Nike series. And finally, a colossal amount of baseball cards littering the back wall of my closet, long ignored and cast aside.

From what I remember, there is even a small collection of stuffed animals that somehow found themselves packed into a moldy cedar trunk – not unlike the toys from Toy Story 3 – who were forgotten when Andy eventually headed off to college…

They are all there. Forgotten and lonely, praying that someday their owner would return home and rediscover them – bringing them out for one last play date…

As mentioned, the majority of the closet was packed with my onetime extensive collection of baseball memorabilia.

My mother always told me typical stories of her mom accidentally throwing away all of her toys and collectibles when she went off went to the University of Wisconsin in 1964. She never forgave her parents for tossing out scores of Mickey Mantle baseball cards and rare Howdy Doody collectibles, which were now worth thousands of dollars. So, in my early years, she encouraged me to save certain things and to collect potential items for future profits… So, I jumped into my collecting with a furious passion.

Back then it was cool to own 123,000 baseball cards.

Today, they call it hoarding.

My closet has virtually lain dormant for 19 years. In that time, a certain online website known as ebay has shattered the dreams of memorabilia collectors everywhere, revealing that there were a lot more Mike Schmidt rookie baseball cards in the world than we once would have thought. Onetime Topps Nolan Ryan rookie cards – that the Beckett Baseball Card Monthly previously listed as being worth 725 dollars – are now available online for eight bucks. And the glorious holy grail of all kid collectors nationwide – the 100 dollar Don Mattingly 1984 Donruss rookie card – was suddenly available for a paltry $14.99 on ebay.

Even the crown jewel of my collection – my grandfather’s 1920-21 Christy Mathewson W514 Strip Card – which had once been admired by a middle-aged man willing to trade me a used car for it, was now selling for 250 dollars online… or best offer…

The goldmine in my closet has officially gone belly up.

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My grandfather’s 1921 Christy Mathewson card. Once worth a car. Now going for $250 on ebay.

My mother finally placed the phone call that I always expected would come… The newsflash that it was time I went home to clean out my closet of all my old childhood memorabilia. The alert that she was turning my room into an office – and that she needed some ‘at home’ space.

“What?,” I said. “Clean out my museum?”

“If it’s a museum, nobody is taking the tour,” my mom responded.

So, reluctantly, this past weekend, I returned home to Tucson, Arizona to begin cleaning out the two-decade old treasure chest that I once swore would only be sold to pay for my kid’s college fund.

I arrived in town like a cast member of American Pickers. It had been so long since I had explored my collection of stuff, I wasn’t sure what was still in that closet. After all, 19 years? I wasn’t sure if moths had eaten away at everything… or if I would discover some long lost prize that would pay off my student loans and credit card debt.

When I opened the door to the lost tomb of my childhood, I was immediately hit with a warm wave of nostalgia that spread over me as if I was a 13-year-old screaming at Ken Griffey, jr. for an autograph in 1988. Everything was there. All the busted bats I convinced players like Joe Carter and Cory Snyder to give me during Spring Training. The scores of batting practice foul balls I had gathered and had signed by one time major league prospects like David Taylor and Craig Smajstrla – and tens of thousands of baseball cards. Other souvenirs like pine tar rags, batting gloves and lineup cards from my days of following the Tucson Toros and the Cleveland Indians helped compose my makeshift museum. I had stored unopened Kraft Macaroni and Cheese boxes that had cut-out baseball cards of Angels’ rookie Wally Joyner on the back panel sitting in the corner of my closet, adjacent to a Michael Jordan Wheaties box. I even found a few Kathy Ireland Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues that had been dear companions to me on lonely junior high afternoons… It was a beautiful assemblage of my long lost childhood. And I couldn’t quite figure out where to start.

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My unopened box of macaroni and cheese featuring baseball cards of Wally Joyner and Eric Davis.

From1981 until about 1990, I rearranged my bedroom in a tribute to the game of baseball. Don Mattingly was my boyhood hero, and box scores, batting averages and ERA’s practically ran my life for nine splendid and unforgettable years during my adolescence.

When other kids went to Golf-N-Stuff on the weekend to meet the cute 6th grade girls like Amy Foust and Erin Shelly, I went to Tucson’s premiere baseball card shop “The Sports Page” with my collector-geek friends. My mother would often walk by my room and see me obsessing over Dave Winfield’s career batting average or Rickey Henderson’s stolen base record and casually mention that she had heard some of my other friends were going to a local water park with some classmates… I offered up a simple shrug of my shoulders and poured directly back into rearranging my baseball cards, occasionally choosing to alphabetize them so that I would always be able to pull them out at any given moment.

Girls were certainly around, but I was way to insecure too ever do anything about them. I left the girls at school to the skater kids who were dressed in Vision Street Wear and rode designer Gator skateboards…

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80’s Skater Steve Caballero was the envy of the cool kids at my junior high. I refused to get a “skater cut” until much later…

Me? I was a baseball card kid. The Vice President of the baseball card club and a hip-hop music fan who used to write songs like The Baseball Card Rap to perform with some of my friends at a school talent show.

Basically, I was a complete fucking geek.

My parents seemed to never truly understand my obsession with America’s pastime. Perhaps it was because my own personal baseball career had come to an abrupt end when I broke my arm in fifth grade. My much-hyped little league comeback fell through and I hit a combined .216 over the next three seasons. So, I found my true baseball success in collecting memorabilia and autographs from big league ballplayers.

My mom could only stare in bewilderment as her oldest son spent all of his allowance and Bar Mitzvah money on what she viewed to be merely useless pieces of cardboard. In fact, the only time I remember talking to my mom about baseball cards was when I asked if I could fly to her childhood home in New Jersey to look in the attic for all those Mickey Mantle rookies she claimed her mom once threw away.

My travel wishes were never granted.

I started picking through my closet at a snail’s pace. Initially, it was mind-blowing.

Old baseball cards and memorable pictures brought me back to those hot summers spent in drug stores scrambling for the newest rookies, slipping Wade Boggs rookies into plastic album sleeves and standing outside in the 92 degree Tucson weather trying to get minor league players like Craig Biggio to sign a baseball.

The majority of my memories came rushing back to me all in the cards. It was like a Rorschach test…I was thrown back into Mattingly’s clean-shaven face on his ’84 rookie… Dwight Gooden’s pre-cocaine gold tooth on his ’85 Fleer card. Even Ryne Sandberg’s impossible youth on his 1983 Topps rookie that I traded for back in 1985.

Every scrapbook, picture and signature recalled a memory of a childhood full of innocence and a passionate love for the game of BASEBALL.

It was actually a fairly peaceful and calming experience. For the first hour, I was suddenly 11-years-old again. Going through common cards and rediscovering lost names like Alvaro Espinoza and Steve Sax was both magical and cathartic… However, when I came across a poorly-forged Mark McGwire autographed baseball shoved deep inside my closet, I suddenly burst into tears.

The first friend I had ever had in my life was a kid named Nathan. Our parents had lived together when we were born -two months apart- in 1975. At age two, Nathan’s family split Tucson and moved back east to Fairfield, Connecticut. My family stayed in Tucson. Still, by that time, a brotherly bond had already been formed and as the years moved on, Nathan and I grew closer through written correspondence, summer travel and phone calls.

Around first grade, we discovered that we shared an intense passionate love for the New York Yankees – forced upon us by our fathers. We also both had an extensive collection of baseball cards, inherited from older kids who had moved onto skateboards and girls, and we both began collecting them with fervor. As the years rolled on, our collections grew endlessly, as did our friendship.

My first Yankees game was in 1983 – with Nathan and our dads – against George Brett and the Kansas City Royals. (It was the day before the Pine Tar Game). Dave Winfield hit a home run and Nathan and I split about 5 hot dogs and 3000 calories of stadium treats. A lifelong obsession had been kicked into high gear and the memories are still there – from Winfield’s homer soaring into the bullpen to that first view of the infield as we walked up from the escalator. I get chills just thinking about it.

As the years rolled along, Nathan and I continued to share our baseball card collecting stories through the mail. However, it wasn’t until 1986 or so, when I had begun obtaining hundreds of players signatures at spring training, that Nathan began to get somewhat jealous of my collection. At the time, if you were a kid in Tucson, you could walk up to Hi Corbett Field and practically stand in the on deck circle as the teams warmed up to play each other. My buddies and I would skip school and get to the field to watch guys like Mark Grace and Rob Deer take batting practice before snagging their signatures. It was the end of an era, when ballplayers still made the league minimum of $62,500 and didn’t face any threat of being harassed and jumped by some stupid drunk fan hanging around the dugout… Even though they did offer Dollar Beer Night time and time again.

Meanwhile, as my autograph collection grew, I found that more and more collectors from across the country began asking me to get them signed baseballs from the superstars of the day like Canseco and McGwire…(This was way before the steroid era and Canseco’s tell-all book Juiced).

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McGwire and Canseco. The 1980’s Superstars who made me a lot of money as a kid.

Still, realizing that I had an inside advantage to any collector from, say… Vermont, I recognized a little business opportunity.

So, I began charging a fee.

It was actually Nathan’s idea to charge. I was so adept at getting autographs, that I would charge five dollars to a guy in Nebraska for a Canseco ball and maybe a little bit more for a team ball. I went to at least 25 games that spring and got everything I could get signed. From there, it was  sold, stamped and shipped. By the end of spring training, I had made roughly $375 and was buying any baseball card I wanted at The Sports Page. It was easy money. It was actually quite perfect and even a bit business savvy… I had become an entrepreneur.

But it was about to get easier.

That August, Nathan wrote me a letter and suggested a way to make even more money.

Have you ever considered forging the autographs?

 I was on it like Tony Gwynn on a knee-high fastball. Within days, I had mastered every All-Star’s signature. I spent hours perfecting Will Clark’s end of name “K-tail,” Mark McGwire’s curvaceous bubble “cG” and Dwight Gooden’s sloping, elongated “D.” I had handwriting intonations down pat… And nobody could tell the difference. I was suddenly, a MASTER FORGER.

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McGwire’s autograph was my specialty. I took specific pride in having it down perfectly.

Nathan came to visit the following spring and proceeded to take back about 50 forged items to Connecticut. We had agreed that he would sell them to his local card shop and we would split the profits. Within two weeks, after convincing his local baseball card shop that he had been collecting autographs in Arizona at Spring Training, he had pulled in 750 dollars.

All on 100 percent forged material.

I guarantee that if you ever bought an autographed baseball or card in Fairfield, Connecticut or Tucson, Arizona during the late 1980’s… Nathan and I had something to do with it…

I’m sorry.

So that moment, when I held the poorly forged Mark McGwire ball, it made me cry.

I knew I was feeling emotional, but it was for many different reasons. One was because Nathan passed away 15 years ago at the age of 21, long before we ever got to reunite and laugh about our little criminal business venture. Back then, our operation was so easy to pull off, because nobody would question 13-year-old kids who were selling really legitimate-looking autographs. In the years following, I have read about dozens of teenagers and adults getting arrested and caught in the forgery game. (Most recently Babe Ruth baseballs were the subject of a criminal investigation).

babe-ruth-baseballs
Color-treated FORGED Babe Ruth baseballs. Can YOU tell the difference?

I am happy to say that we got out before there was any industry crackdown.

Our little gig continued for a few years, until Nathan and I both stopped caring about baseball cards and retired from the forgery racket about $2500 richer. Girls and music and pot had entered our lives and we suddenly realized that maybe those cool skater kids had the right idea all along…

So, there I was. In my childhood bedroom, holding that poorly forged Mark McGwire baseball – obviously feebly done with a nervous, shaky hand back in 1987. It was a touching return the last days of my innocence… Long before overdue bills and property taxes. Long before I followed a girl named Leslie around the country on the heels of a Grateful Dead tour just to hope she would consider me as a boyfriend, and long before I had a family of my own to feed… And long before Nathan’s demons got the best of him.

And now, here was my mother demanding that I throw away everything in my closet. I decided to take a stand.

“Mom, I can’t do this right now,” I screamed from across the house.

“Oh shut up and get rid of that crap,” she responded.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and approached her in the living room about five minutes later.

I sat down and relayed some of the stories and forgery adventures I had shared with Nathan all those years ago and told her I wasn’t able to emotionally get through the memories stored in the closet just yet. Having recently lost her best friend to cancer, my mother sat me down and talked me through it.

She totally understood.

She also informed me that it had been 15 years since his death and that I needed to get over it. She had to go clean out her best friend’s house in San Francisco just after she had passed away a year earlier… All I had to do was throw away some baseball cards and get back to my family in Los Angeles.

It was as intense of a moment I have ever shared with my mother and we have never felt closer.

After agreeing to keep a few items, but sell the majority of the cards to a baseball card shop, I managed to get through the rest of my closet somewhat easily. I found some special bits and pieces that, worthless or not, meant the world to me and tucked them away for my son.

My grandfather’s Christy Mathewson card passed down from my uncle for my Bar Mitzvah.

A Craig Biggio Tucson Toros cap.

Even that 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly card.

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Every 12-year-old’s dream card. The 1984 Don Mattingly rookie.

The rest of my collection was bundled up into a box and headed towards a baseball card shop. I decided I was going to sell it all to the “Sports Page.”

I dialed the number from memory. 886-5000, expecting to hear Mike or Orby answer, the way they did back in 1988.

Instead, a woman answered. She did not work at the Sports Page.

She went on to inform me that the Sports Page had closed roughly 12 years earlier, and that she used to get people calling her looking for the shop all the time. Turns out, I was the first caller looking for The Sports Page in about 9 years.

Wow. Had it been that long?

I was shaken again, but I eventually managed to find another store in Tucson willing to look at my collection. As I brought the nearly 120,000 cards into the shop, I looked around at the changing face of what was once my obsession. Gone were the display cases full of modern rookie cards. The new collector’s items of choice were LeBron James or Kobe Bryant autographed game-worn jerseys. Both of which came with a certificate of authenticity. I couldn’t blame ‘em.

I sat and talked to the two baseball card employees for roughly 45 minutes about the changing face of collecting, the effect ebay had on the hobby and the future. After they scoured through my cards, they told me there wasn’t really much they’d be interested in, and I told them I kind of figured that would be the case. They suggested Goodwill. I admired a Derek Jeter autographed baseball mitt in a glass case and a Josh Hamilton signed bat before thanking my new friends for their time.

However, before I packed it all in and left for the parking lot, they informed me that if I had any autographed items of value I’d be willing to sell, to come back and they would take a look.

I surveyed the store and thought long and hard.

“Well, I do have a Mark McGwire autographed baseball…”

I looked towards the sky. Nathan would be so proud…

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