New Postage Stamps

The USPS has released a nice new sheet of postage stamps featuring some of the games greats from the past.

These are really nice new stamps and my wonderful wife got me a sheet of them just hours after our post office actually opened them up at their office.  She surprised me with them the other day when I got home from work just like she did last year when they came out with the Negro League stamps.

The sheet has four different Forever stamps on it including Ted Williams, Larry Doby, Willie Stargell and Joe DiMaggio.  Each stamp is a very nice painted rendition of the stars against a dark green background with their name along one side and Forever along the other side.  

I don't think I posted the Negro League stamps at the time so I've also posted a picture of those stamps here so you can see them if you have haven't already. 

These stamps are beautifully done using a landscape style painting of a close play at the plate on one side and a portrait of "The Father of the Negro Leagues" Rube Foster on the other.  From the back of the sheet:

"Considered the "father" of Negro league baseball, Andew "Rube" Foster (1879-1930) established the Negro National League in 1920, the first successful league of African-American baseball teams.  He served as president of the league until 1926 and established its slogan, "We are the ship, all else the sea".  The Negro leagues operating across the country from 1920 to about 1960.  Drawing some of the most remarkable athletes ever to play baseball, the leagues galvanized African-American communities, challenged prevailing racist notions of althletic superiority, and ultimately sparked the integration of American sports."

I sincerely recommend that you read about the Negro Leagues if you haven't had much exposure to them in the past.  They are a fascinating segment in baseball history and are full of amazing stories of some of the most talented baseball players ever. 

Enjoy the hobby all...it's a great one.