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Business & Tech

Sports Celeb Arrives For Grand Opening

'Beltin' Melton' visited the grand-reopening of AU sports, which deals in sports memorabilia, in Morton Grove.

Commerce was clicking, autographs got scribbled on a myriad of surfaces and former White Sox home-run king Bill Melton was in his element storytelling.

The occasion was AU Sports’ “grand re-opening” Saturday at the old Magazine Memories storefront, 6006 Dempster in Morton Grove. Scores of sports memorabilia collectors from all over the Chicago areas showed up.

While managing co-owner Scott Beatty and his partners were happy old customers from the 32-year-old AU Sports’ two former locations, one mile east on Dempster and in the Village Crossing shopping center, had found their way back to the store, they were also thrilled at new business.

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Like Joseph Windt, who lives on the west side of Morton Grove near Notre Dame College Prep. For all the decades Windt has been a collector, he had never visited AU Sports’ cramped Skokie store. But he heard of the grand re-opening, showed up and was pleased at the store’s spacious digs. Maybe he winced a bit at the $100 asking price for a Patrick Kane autographed card, yet Windt wouldn’t come away unsatisfied.

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"I’ve been collecting cards for 40 years – football, baseball, hockey," he said. "I didn’t know about them. I’ll be coming back.”

“Beltin’ Melton,” as Sox fans called him back in the day, already came back. Now working as the Sox’s pre- and post-game TV analyst on Comcast, the 1971 American League home-run champion was the first sports figure signing at the new AU Sports. Fittingly, Melton also was the last to sign April 30 at the Village Crossing location in Niles before the official move the next day to Morton Grove.

Melton good for autographs, stories

Fans thrust baseball cards along with vintage photos and Sox programs from 1968 and 1972 toward Melton, who gladly signed and usually had an anecdote thrown in free.

The Sox’s fortunes are always close at hand when Melton, who had movie-star looks as a player, holds court. He’s concerned about their starting rotation problems.

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“We have a lot to worry about,” he said. “I said at the end of spring training the offense will be OK, those two guys (Adam Dunn and Alex Rios) will come back. It (the rotation) is a big question mark.

“Look, Chris Sale isn’t supposed to be doing what he’s doing. Jake Peavy wasn’t supposed to be doing what he’s doing. Those guys were supposed to be the ‘if’s.’ Gavin Floyd’s been a mystery for two, three years. It’s tough to diagnose (John Danks’) shoulder.”

The non-cluttered look

There are no question marks about AU Sports’ business in its new location. Beatty displays countless white boxes of cards along each wall. Complementing the cards are posters, bobbleheads and other sports knick-knacks. He’ll have room to expand the displays further without cluttering up the floor space. 

“Saturday’s the day the fathers-sons come in, or the guys get a couple of hours away from the wife," Beatty said.  "Anybody who wants to come in and spend time, we always have a ballgame on. We always are willing to shoot sports trivia across the room at each other. It’s a space where sports fans can hang out.”

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Bob Katzman, owner of Magazine Memories, which now is the Magazine Museum in downtown Skokie, would understand Beatty’s next move. Using only 60 percent of his space now, he plans to display his vintage magazines, such as Sports Illustrated, that are now stored in a warehouse.

“Here, the overstock can be moved into the back room to make way for the other stuff,” he said.

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