Two Koufax For A Kovacs

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. It's been a while and I hope it's been real.

Every once in a while when I mention EK to someone who isn't all that familiar with him or his work, they will say "Oh, yeah, that guy who used to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers." Some of them are being "HAH, HAH, FUNNY!" and yet others are actually serious.

To all those folks I say that EK actually had his own version of the baseball card so you're not too far off the mark. I picked up Ernie’s "Starline Hollywood Walk Of Fame" card on eBay. They show up there quite frequently and aren't very expensive so if you’re looking for a fun EK collectible that won’t break the bank then this is it. These cards were released during 1991-1992 and clicking the link above will take you to a list of all the cards in the set.

According to the "The Movie Card Website" there were some mistakes made in the initial run of cards which were corrected for the second run. They listed Ernie’s death as November 3, 1962 when in actuality it was January 13, 1962. The web site does not mention Ernie’s card as having been corrected and since I’ve never seen one with the correct date I'm assuming they always went out this way.

When looking at EK’s "stats" you'll notice that "The Nairobi Trio" is referred to as a "monkey band", they list one of Ernie’s lesser known characters ("Irving Wong Chinese Songwriter") and they actually mention his hosting of "The Tonight Show". "Monkey band" is an odd choice of wording and Irving is too arcane of a character to make the cut but the "The Tonight Show" belongs there; readers of this blog may remember that when Conan O'Brien was slated to take the helm of the program we wrote some posts trying to convince NBC to list EK as a past host. They never did and given the way that whole fiasco turned out it was all for the best.

Should you wish to visit Ernie’s star on the "Hollywood Walk Of Fame" the address is listed, a new one on me since I never knew that marble slabs had addresses.

I'd like to wish a Happy Memorial Day to all the members of the Armed Forces past and present. And by the way if you want to trade and don’t have two Koufax cards I’ll take two Ernest Borginines and a Gene Barry. They both had a better slider than Kovacs (OOPS! I MEANT KOUFAX!) last year.

Until next time, "It’s Been Real!".