First off, can you let me know how the museum got started and what it is?
It started as a hobby. I always liked logos and jerseys. I eventually made excess money and wanted to figure what to do with it. I saw a Mike Rozier Maulers jersey pop up on eBay – I loved the Maulers – I used to go to games with my buddies. It went from there and I started collecting things from there.
Some people can be cutthroat – I’m not into it from that standpoint. I found others guys who enjoyed collecting items as well. Since then we’ve stockpiled over 1,500 items – jerseys, helmets, equipment, patches, banners, media guides and much more from over 37 Pittsburgh teams – from the Steelers, Pirates and Penguins to the Pipers, Rens, Maulers, Yellow Jackets, Power, Crawford Baseball, Stingers etc.
How did you start this all as a virtual project?
I learned how to code – I was the world’s oldest person studying coding at Georgia Tech. I was determined and made the whole website – even including the credit card function!
All the items are real – it’s a virtual museum of the 1,500 plus items we’ve collected. That’s not included the thousands of cards. There are places that have auctions and photos of items but these are real items across over three-dozen teams.
Who knows, maybe someday we’ll have an actual physical display of the items! The work is all done – we’d just need to out it somewhere!
What types of items do you collect most?
Most of the stuff are jerseys from common players – not as famous guys – but rare items from those teams. My grandfather introduced me to hockey and the Penguins. A Crosby jersey for example would run $15,000-$20,000. But the items are rare.
I have collected about one of every style of jersey. Pittsburgh teams have the best visual looks of anyone. Miles better than Philadelphia or New York and a marathon better than Cleveland!
My favorite jersey a Lynn Swann rookie jersey – number 22. It has a ’74 patch which are hard to find. You can get into the weeds with this stuff!
Once I got into it I started looking for more and more stuff. Things would pop up on eBay, and I’d find other items through networking. You have to watch out for the snakes and frauds and outright thieves. There are a lot of people who will tell you your items are fake to get you to dumb them for nothing. It’s no fun dealing with that kind of stuff. I’ve helped a lot of guys determine if what they had was legit
What are some of your favorite items?
I love the old AHL Hornets wool jerseys – you could go your entire life without ever finding one.
I love the old Pitt Basketball jerseys as well. They are hard to find. The early 70’s Billy Knight ones when they made their run to the Elite 8. I never in my life felt I find one.
The Maulers stuff too is really hard to find. They had an auction when the team went bankrupt in the Civic Arena. I was upset as a kid that I couldn’t go. Baldwin High School ended up getting them and stripped the nameplates off of them and used them as their football jerseys. So they are really hard to find.
Also – there was a bunch of Pipers letterhead we saw – and the listing said they were throwing in this old pair of shorts. It turned out they were Connie Hawkins old shorts from the Rens!
This is a favorite—an autographed pennant by Lemieux I got at the Monroeville Mall Kaufmann’s in November 1984 – his rookie year. Me and my buddy went out to get an autograph and I brought this pennant which was on the wall in my room and he signed it. I wanted him to sign it in Sharpie but he didn’t speak English and he used this dinky pen that was there instead. There were like 10 people in front of us when we got there, he was sitting at a folding table way in the back of the store. That’s just an example of a personal story attached to one of the items on display.
What’s the plan for it now?
People can go to the site at https://pittsburghhalloffame.com/.
It was just a great time in Pittsburgh sports growing up in the 70’s. We had the Steelers and Pirates and then Mario Lemieux. We’d stay out of trouble by just going to a Penguins game!