sports columns

Dear Babe: My Dad received a ball before I was born. It has Babe Ruth's name printed on it. Our family has believed it to be genuine, because he did. As I have compared it with images from the Internet of Babe Ruth signatures, it appears to be quite different. The ball has the two color stitching (red and black), but I am afraid it's either a bogus signature or a trace.

Dear Babe: I was looking through my 1977 Pepsi baseball disc set, and yes, I know that the value is lowered because they have been separated from the gloves. I noticed that there are four variations of Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson -- different colors on the card edges. I haven't seen any collector's almanacs that list these variations.

Drugs couldn't kill baseball. Despite the morality plays, the kangaroo court, the mass hand-wringing about rewriting record books, the sport emerged from the steroid era having paid much lip service and offered much penance, and as a business stronger than ever.

Dear Babe: I have a newspaper photo dated Aug. 8, 1928, that pictures Lou Gehrig, Johnny Evers and Babe Ruth. All three signed it. -- Ron Hermann, Riverside, Calif.

Dear Babe: I have a Notre Dame football signed by all the former Heisman Trophy winners -- Angelo Bertelli, John Lujack, John Lattner, Leon Hart, Paul Hornung, John Huarte and Tim Brown. It says No. 3,589 of 5,000. I think I bought in the 1980s. -- Bob Higgins, Lawrenceville, Ga.

There few limits to how far Da Babe will go in his quest for information. That probably explains how I ended up chatting about autographs and memorabilia with Pietro Piller Cottrer, Italy's top cross country skier, in a "palestra (gym)'' in this small town in the Italian Alps near the Austrian border.

Dear Babe: Are you familiar with the original (oil painted proofs) from Topps of 1953 that were purchased by Marriott? Marriott then had a special printing of four different players -- Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Whitey Ford and Bob Feller. At the time my roommate worked for the printer who was contracted for the special prints and he gave me a set. They are 7-x-10 inches.

The Atlanta Braves' 5-1 loss to Colorado on Monday was, by and large, unremarkable. The 2009 season is still in its infancy, with another couple of months to be played before pennant races really begin to take shape.

Today's topic deals with the home losses in Game Seven of their respective playoff series by both the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins.
What in the name of Lucky the Leprechaun is going on at the Garden?

Dontrelle Willis, not surprisingly, didn't have all that much to say about his treatment for anxiety disorder before he made his first start since coming off the disabled list Wednesday. That made sense. It wasn't the time.