At the National, it's always great to see Phil Schaefer, long time friend and collector from my Atlanta Braves days and before I was even producing old VHS tapes!   Phil is best known to Georgia fans as Atlanta area sports broadcaster on WSB Radio, 1963-1980, and the voice of Georgia Bulldog basketball, 1978-1985.   Phil's voice can be heard introducing the starting lineups on one of my latest DVD releases, the 1977 UCLA-Tennessee full-game TV broadcast.   In those days Phil was also the P.A. announcer for the Atlanta Hawks at the Omni in Atlanta.   Phil told me one evening he was scheduled to introduce the players in a special basketball game with an all-conference All-Star team playing against the Russian Olympic basketball team.   As usual, before the game Phil walked down on the floor to get the correct pronunciation of each player's name, but none of the Russian players or personnel would even talk to him!   "In a situation like this," Phil says, "you WING it!   For the Russians I introduced a lot of names ending in 'yuck' and 'chuk' that evening, but nobody seemed to care!   The YUKS were on me that night!"

The National is always a fun time to greet friends and many of our loyal customers from all over America!   Probably our most enthusiastic customer of all is Dan "D.J." Johnson from Seal Rock, Oregon, always a Giants fan, but even more a BASEBALL fan!   I was working at the White Sox and Rare Sportsfilms was still a part-time business when Dan bought his first title from us in early 1988!   He has since purchased EVERY TITLE on baseball, football and basketball that we have ever released!   In 1990, I met Dan in person when we both attended the memorable final game at old Comiskey Park vs. the Seattle Mariners!   We value his loyalty to our firm, but even more his friendship through the years!