Ed Loyd

We start our occasional notebook of notable people that have recently passed away and this time we may have a first - someone that I knew personally.

Ed Loyd was a regular in Richmond through the years attending the AAA Braves games at the Diamond and later the AA Flying Squirrels when baseball returned after a one-year hiatus without baseball.
I read an article on Ed by Ben Hill of Ben's Baseball Biz (Hill travels around minor league parks writing about the quirky people, places and things that you find in the minors) over the summer and I didn't know that he was known for ChapStick or that he worked for the company that made it for years.
I was introduced to Ed by a mutual friend as Ed was one of the larger dealers of minor league team sets and I was fairly new to the hobby and was looking to buy from someone reasonable in price and someone that would understand that in this hobby time-sensitive purchases are pretty common.
Ed was very understanding and we hit it off immediately.
I'm not sure how long I dealt with Ed, but it had to be around ten years or so and if I needed a set on a few days notice, Ed would pack it as soon as he heard from me and within an hour or two, I'd get an email that would say "Ed Loyd Here, package sent".

I never had a cross word in my dealings with Ed, who from day one never demanded payment upfront because that would slow things up as far as getting cards to me when I needed things.
I would receive these little white handwritten invoices from him in each package and then I'd send him a check.
Almost always a check, because Ed didn't believe in Paypal and their extra charges.
Cherie used to always joke about certain times of the year being "Ed Loyd" season because, in the digital age, Ed Loyd was the only person that I ever wrote checks to.
I say almost always because the last transaction that I made with Ed this year, he wrote saying "I can take Paypal now, the times are always changing."

Over the last few years, I didn't buy as much from Ed and he understood.
As fast as Ed was, he couldn't compete with the person that I was buying from locally that I could get them even faster at the ballpark and not have the worries with the postal service getting them lost.
I still bought a few things from him though and we wrote back and forth fairly frequently.

Ed always thought of me as a Giants fan and two acts of kindness always stick out to me.
The first was Ed, who knew I was always looking for 1988 and 90 Score cards to be signed, writing to me and asking if I needed Will Clark for those sets.
Clark had just one card in 1988 Score, but three in 1990, as the Giants won the NLCS in 1989 and Clark, was on cards commemorating that series.
Ed wrote and told me to "watch my mailbox" shortly and within a week or so, Ed had sent me all four Will Clark cards signed.

The other was only a year or so ago, early in the season, Ed had a customer that needed three Hagerstown Suns sets ASAP as the Suns were coming to this gentleman's town very soon and Ed asked if I would grab these sets for him and send them straight to the customer with him paying me for them.
I was happy to do so and I wasn't worried about the money as I figured it would even out eventually.
Ed would write to me and end our notes with "I still owe you a big one".
Ed's Flying Squirrels never seem to be early in getting their sets out and when the team set was released, Richmond was finished for the year in Altoona and Harrisburg.
It looked unlikely that I was going to get the set signed for the 2018 season, but Ed remembered my constant asking when that set was coming out and when it did, he asked if I still wanted it.
I replied Yes as a Giants fan, but I wasn't going to have an opportunity to get them signed.
Ed said he would have someone do it for me and what I didn't find out until later was that Ed, who wasn't a grapher, did that set himself for me.

I actually met Ed in person only three times, once at the Chantilly VA. card show (the only time that I have ever attended that show), one at the Diamond in Richmond ( My only visit there thus far) and once in Harrisburg, when Ed traveled there to see the Squirrels on the road.
Harrisburg was the last time that I saw him in that 2018 season and we talked for most of the game about baseball, the minors, and minor league baseball cards as he was getting tired of dealing with more and more teams that were so difficult to work with.

Ed used to always push me to come down to the Richmond Hot Stove dinner as one of his guests and he used to tell me how badly he wanted to introduce me to the Squirrels owner Lou DiBella.
DiBella promotes several champions in boxing and promoted one of my favorites in retired middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, so Ed would tell me that "you gotta come down here and meet Lou, you guys will spend all night talking boxing".
I was never able to make that trip and now I wish I had made the time to do that.

I started this post as a "passings" tribute as usual and now I see I've written so much about Ed Loyd that I think I'm going to leave this as a stand-alone article.
I'm sure others have stories about Ed as well and from people that knew him far better than I, but he'll be missed by me and so many others.
I'm positive that baseball at Richmond's Diamond won't be the same without Ed holding court there and I'm also sure that the Squirrels will come up with something to honor Ed next season.
A bobblehead of Ed with either ChapStick or a pack of baseball cards in his hands would be so fitting to honor his memory at the place that he loved so much.
Rest well, Ed- you'll be greatly missed.

Father's Day in Harrisburg

I had a long and great Father's Day that saw a visit from Ryan, a trip for the lovely Cherie and me to Harrisburg for brunch with Fred and Linda Landucci, an ice cream cake from Rachel, and a meeting with a should-be HOF member that I'll never forget.

I've never been a person who worried much about Father's Day.
It's nice to have the children acknowledge me, but I look at that as part of the job of being a parent.

However, on this one, Fred Landucci graciously invited Cherie and me to Harrisburg for a brunch on the field before the Senators game against the Richmond Flying Squirrels.

I worked all night and had to leave as soon as I got home from work, if I was going to arrive on time, so it was a bit tiring to be out in the sun on a very hot day.
It really wasn't so bad when the cloud cover was available, but when it wasn't, it was blazing!
The Senators only sold a handful of these packages for brunch, and they placed the tables on the infield, so we were eating on the field.

Harrisburg has a terrific suite area for eating that Fred took us to last year, which is prepared by tremendous chefs, and they did great work again for this event.
They had a steak that just melted in my mouth, and the other items (especially the potatoes) were terrific, and Harrisburg's food in that area ranks at the top of the food chain on the local minor league circuit!
A great event, and thanks again to Fred and his wife Linda for hosting us!

We had about 45 minutes to kill before the gates opened, but the Senators graciously allowed the people from the brunch to stay in the stadium, if they desired.
While I am sure that sounds like a small thing, it isn't.
Most teams would have rushed you out of the stadium and dumped you in line with the other fans after they collected your money.
Harrisburg didn't do that, and on a hot day, it was very much appreciated.

As we sat underneath the stadium in the cool, we noticed Giants roving instructor Kirt Manwaring walking by.
Manwaring works with the catchers, and I have him for my two Score sets.

Manwaring was nice enough, but he lives fairly closely (Elmira, NY was on his baseball card), and when Richmond comes to Harrisburg, the usual rover is Manwaring for that reason, I suppose.
I thought to myself, "Manwaring again. Why can't we ever have one of the other rovers?".

This is mainly because the Giants have some pretty good rovers with not only cards in the sets that I collect, but also excellent big league careers such as Lee Smith, Vince Coleman, and Ellis Burks.
Because I try (not always possible) to see Richmond, I always carry cards with me for the Giants' rovers, but it's almost always Kirt Manwaring.

Well, on this day, whether it was divine intervention, blind luck, or karma-about five minutes after that thought crossed my mind, Lee Smith came out of the locker room, texting on his phone and sat down at the table beside us.

I hate to ever interrupt people when they are on the phone, so I didn't go straight over to him, but I did scurry through the box for the three Smiths that I needed for my set.
With my luck, Lee Smith was in BOTH traded sets for 1988 and 1990, so I needed four cards for him (It was actually three, as I had forgotten that Ed Loyd in Richmond had gotten the 1990 Smith with the Red Sox signed for me a while back) and that's not always an easy get with former major leaguers, let alone one with Lee Smith's resume".

Fred and I waited quietly for a few minutes, and then Linda looked over at Smith and said, "Thanks for signing".
A puzzled Smith looked at her oddly as he hadn't signed a thing, but it did break the ice enough for Fred and me to walk over and ask him to sign -so thank you, Linda, for that!!

What followed was arguably the best interaction that I've ever had with someone since I started this, as Lee Smith talked to Fred and me for 15 minutes and signed everything that we had.
We talked about his days as a Cub, pitching at Wrigley Field, and most of all the Hall of Fame and what he thinks has been held against him by the voters, along with his feelings on the Veterans Committee, where his candidacy will be considered next.

Lee Smith has the third most saves of all time (A few players below him have less) and was the last of the old school closers that pitched more than one inning to get a save.
Smith should be in on those facts alone...
It was fifteen minutes of old school baseball talk with Fred called him "a classic baseball man".
It's times like these that make me glad that I do this often crazy hobby...

I then watched warmups for Richmond and got some guys finished with just two other graphers.
I gained a nice addition in former major league outfielder Jerry Sands, who signed three cards and got to talk for a while with one of my favorites in Richmond pitching coach Steve Kline, who not only is a good guy, but one of the most hilarious people around!

The player that I had the most cards for was Sam Coonrod, a pitcher in the system that I just never seemed to get in various visits.
Coonrod never visited Hagerstown with Augusta, wasn't with Richmond on one of their Harrisburg visits last season, and I couldn't make the other.
Add to the stack of team set cards that he is in two Bowman sets, and I had plenty.
I was hoping for two- his SAL prospect card with Augusta and his 2016 Richmond card.
I settled for one...

I begged off early with the heat and the 90-minute drive home after working all night; I was worn out.
It was in the second inning, and I knew if I had stuck around longer, I would have stuck it out and gotten the rest of my stuff signed.
Instead, I did the smart thing for once and took Cherie home.
Once I got there, Ryan had written me and said he wanted to see me for Father's Day, which was very nice.
As I waited for Ryan, Rachel gave me an ice cream cake for Father's Day, which was very nice.
I'm eating better (38 pounds down!),So I had just a small piece before Ryan's visit, which was very nice and welcome.
Ryan was nice enough to get me an Amazon gift card, which I'm sure will be used someday soon!!
Finally, I went to bed, collapsing and sleeping from 7pm to 8am (with one small break in between) to complete a long day..

A better Father's Day, I cannot remember, and one more thanks to Fred and Linda Landucci for the brunch, my children for visiting with me, the lovely Cherie for coming with me to Harrisburg, and Lee Smith for talking baseball.

The schedule looks like this (breaking news permitting)-another cleaning out the inbox, the NBA draft (Cleveland doesn't have a pick unless they make a deal Hmmmm), the Devils picking first in the NHL draft, and something else from the archives of my past....