Onus Is Placed on Grandfather for Profits Going Up in Smoke

To many, smoking is a foul habit. To two men from Pennsylvania, smoking is an expensive habit--to the tune of a quarter-million dollars.

The men, Steve Yilit and Sam Yareck, bought a Honus Wagner baseball card from Yilit’s uncle. He had bought the card from a woman in Ohio who said it belonged to her grandfather.

It seems the card was a giveaway, contained in cigarette packages in 1909 and 1910. The woman said her grandfather had a habit of keeping the baseball cards in a tin container. One day, while caught without a match, the man took a baseball card, folded it and held the rolled card on a coal stove until it ignited. He lit the cigarette, then extinguished the card before the image of Wagner was obliterated, but not before doing substantial damage to the card.

Considering that Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall recently paid $451,000 for a Honus Wagner baseball card, Yilit and Yareck thought they had a real find. However, dealers have estimated that with the fire damage, the card’s value may have dropped by $250,000.

Trivia time: The scoring career of one of hockey’s most enduring stars began on this date, Oct. 16, in his rookie season with the Detroit Red Wings. Name the player and the year.

Black and blue brothers: When Jimmy Connors and Joe Montana taped a television commercial for a pain reliever in San Francisco recently, Connors offered Montana some first-person advice on how to deal with being injured.

Connors, who rebounded from serious wrist surgery to reach the U.S. Open tennis semifinals at 39, told Montana the key to coming back is to be serious about rehabilitation after the 49er quarterback underwent career-threatening elbow surgery.

“I don’t like listening to anybody, but that’s what I listened to,” Connors said. “As for Joe coming back and playing again, I like his shot.”

Add Connors: Connors couldn’t believe his ears when he heard Andre Agassi mention during the U.S.-Germany Davis Cup matches that he had changed his attitude. Agassi said he now viewed competition as a challenge instead of an inconvenience.

“You’ve got to salute him for coming up with that,” Connors said. “These guys . . . not only are they great players, they’re bright, too. That didn’t sound sarcastic, did it?”

Jackie Oh? George Michael must have pushed the wrong button during his “Sports Machine” show Sunday night. A couple of minutes into yet another Michael feature on the dangers faced by rodeo clowns, the image of a charging bull was replaced by that of a scene from “A Woman Called Jackie,” a TV movie that had aired on Channel 4 earlier in the evening.

The scene lasted about four minutes, which was how much time remained in Michael’s show.

Double or nothing: For die-hard Indianapolis Colt fans--assuming such a group exists--here’s a bit of reassurance: Although the Colts were routed, 42-6, Sunday by the Buffalo Bills, the score represented progress.

The Colts’ six points, scored on two field goals, were twice as many as they had scored in each of the previous two weeks.

Trivia answer: Gordie Howe, who scored his first NHL goal at 13:39 of the second period--in 1946.

Quotebook: Gabe Kaplan, host of the radio show, “Sportsnuts,” suggesting a new spin on an old commercial for Victor Kiam, whose New England Patriots have been taken over by the NFL for at least 30 days: “I’m so lousy, I lost the company.”