These are a few of my favorite baseball things #2 - Mike Schacht artwork

It occurred to me as I started thinking about my favorite baseball things that you're probably going to be hearing a bit about my ex-wife. This is to be expected in a way. It's pretty difficult to spend over fifteen years with someone and not have them impact your life. Most notably, I probably wouldn't have the baseball library I do without her. That, though, is a story for another day.

Today's story involves art. My ex is an artist. She never produced any baseball art for me. She did, however, acquire some art-related objects for me over the years.

Mike Schacht was an artist and a member of SABR for many years. His artwork was used in a variety of publications, including many SABR publications (this one of Nap Lajoie is the one I always think of when I think of Schacht):



In addition to being a talented artist, he was a really nice guy. He passed away in 2001 at the age of 65 after a battle with cancer.

Over the years, my ex acquired these two prints for me as well as a signed copy of Schacht's book Mudville Diaries. The book is a collection of work from Fan magazine. She engaged with Mike more than I did and always speaks highly of him.

The first print was one of Old Comiskey Park (which I can call Comiskey Park. I just never call New Comiskey U.S. Cellular). Wait a minute....you learn something every day....This isn't a Mike Schacht work. It's still a favorite thing. I cannot make out who the signature is. I was checking it to see the print size and was surprised to see it as 950. That's large for a Schacht print. It's not Schacht. It is Comiskey Park:



The other is a Mike Schacht print, limited to 200 copies, of Hall of Famer Ty Cobb.



While the Lajoie image is the one that comes to mind to me, I love the Cobb one best. The shadows, Cobb's stare, the red background, the edge of the bat in the corner. I don't know that you could capture Cobb's essence any better.

There's my artwork collection. Next time we'll almost finish looking at stuff on the walls by checking out some cool photographs.