Stuff of legends

Monday, July 28, 2003 | 8:59 a.m.

Linda Ellen gathered a few items in the gift store of a Lake Tahoe hotel as her husband, Ron, soared in an elevator toward a penthouse autograph event.

When she eventually stepped into the elevator, Linda told another female occupant of the fantastic show taking place "up there," how Pete Rose, Craig Nettles, Juan Marichal, Rollie Fingers and Stan Musial were all signing items.

"I was telling her all about it, how my husband was dying to see Stan Musial," said Linda Ellen. "What do I know? I'm not an observant person.

"My husband played baseball," said the other woman.

"Really? Who's your husband?" said Linda.

Just then, the elevator reached the top floor. The doors opened. And Mrs. Stan Musial pointed just outside the door, at Stan Musial.

"Oh, my God! That's the person we came to see! The biggie!" said Linda Ellen. "I'm in my own little cocoon, or I would have noticed she was setting me up. Then we sat next to them at dinner, and it was so funny. She told everybody what she did.

"She has the devil in her, that little lady. It was so funny. Such a setup."

Since Ron and Linda Ellen started collecting sports memorabilia 13 years ago, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Stan Musial stands out as a highlight of a hobby that has become a passion for them.

The Ellens' home in a gated Henderson neighborhood is a sports shrine, with hundreds of autographed baseballs, bats, caps, pucks, footballs, posters, photographs, action figures, cleats and cards adorning every shelf, and in every nook and cranny.

Dozens of autographed jerseys, including a 1968 USC football jersey with O.J. Simpson's No. 32 and signature, hang in plastic covers on a rack upstairs.

Ron, a Brooklyn native, favors a framed collage of seven signed photos, a World Series scorecard bearing half a dozen signatures and a yearbook from the 1955 championship Brooklyn Dodgers, which hangs behind a living-room couch.

Linda is a fan of the sweet science, so she enviously looks at a stand with a Muhammad Ali-signed robe, and Ali-autographed gloves, and another that holds two dozen gloves bearing signatures of various boxers.

When respectfully pressed, Ron estimated the value of the entire collection at more than $500,000. He guessed that the montage tribute to the '55 Brooklyn Dodgers is worth about $5,000.

To him and his wife, though, all of the items are priceless.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson calls them "mom" and "dad," and they own some of the rare pieces to which Johnson has penned his given first name. Johnson introduced one of the Ellens' three sons to his future wife.

They asked Harmon Killebrew to sign a 1970 box of Milk Duds, adorned by his mug, and got Joe Namath to autograph an April 1969 stock certificate from his Broadway Joe's restaurant.

Both former athletes believed the items they signed to be so unique that they asked to buy them from the Ellens, who declined.

"We said, 'Sorry,' " Linda said.

Ron is also partial to a home plate that is signed by more than 100 players who ever donned a Dodgers uniform. Don Drysdale, months before his death 10 years ago, was one of the first to autograph the all-white plate, an event the Ellens photographed.

It is now covered with signatures, including NBA Hall of Fame guard Bill Sharman's, right on the front. A Texas League outfielder, Sharman was called up to the Dodgers at the end of the 1951 season. Because the pennant race was so tight, though, he never played.

Six days before Bobby Thomson's famous "shot heard 'round the world," so many shouts were heard from the Dodgers' dugout that umpire Frank Dascoli ejected the entire bench, which included Sharman.

Thus, Sharman, who spent five years in the Dodgers system, is the only player who ever got tossed from a major-league game without ever actually playing in one.

"Most people don't know that," said a grinning Ron Ellen, a former stickball player on the streets of Brooklyn who cherishes a mid-'80s Nike poster of Dwight Gooden throwing to Dale Murphy in a stickball scene in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge.

Both players autographed it, and it hangs high above the Ellen's foyer.

Ron still remembers the sight of Duke Snider in center field, right below him, in the Ebbets Field bleachers when he was 6. Eight or nine years later, Ellen and friends wandered by a glorious scene at a Coney Island batting cage.

Snider, Gil Hodges and Roy Campanella were getting in some practice, tattooing baseballs over a netting and over a fence, taking out windows on stationary subway trains way off into the distance.

"They were hitting them like golf balls," said Ron, 69. "These guys, they were breaking windows on the el 400 feet away. It was like child's play to them. Nine shots for 50 cents. Wow."

That's the reaction the Ellens, who recently celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary not long after the arrival of their 14th grandchild, get whenever a first-timer enters their museum.

That framed montage tribute to the '55 Dodgers contains autographed photographs of Snider and Campanella, along with Jackie Robinson, Clem Labine, Sandy Koufax, Pee Wee Reese and manager Walter Alston.

On the left side of the entry way, a Dick Butkus handprint, bearing his signature, rests on a shelf.

"It's neat," Linda said. "Everyone who comes in puts their hand in it to see how big his hand is."

Across from the Gooden-Murphy poster, on the wall heading up the stairs, is a framed letter from Curt Flood, in which he elegantly thanks the Ellens for contributing to a fund of his, that Flood wrote not long before his death six years ago.

On a shelf high above their living room, a life-size, cardboard image of Sparky Anderson, wearing a Detroit Tigers uniform, overlooks the collection.

When the Ellens lived in Westlake Village, in Southern California, they heard Anderson would be attending a show at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Theater. They brought the cardboard, and Anderson eagerly signed it.

"People looked at us like we were weird," said Linda, 60. "I took a picture of Ron, standing next to Sparky and the cutout. It looked like there were two Sparkys. Silly."

The couple moved from Westlake Village -- and a 5,000 square-foot home whose wall, show and storage space Linda still raves about -- to Henderson eight years ago, and Ron has been a financial consultant for 34 years.

The memorabilia collection, however, is his pride.

He believes the oldest of his three sons, Marc, might have triggered his and his wife's collecting craze when he gave them a 1964 Koufax baseball card.

Since then, the Ellens operate on one basic premise -- if Linda hasn't heard of the subject, the item must not be worth much.

"That was our theory -- if I heard of them, they had to be great," Linda said. "It's introduced us to a lot of fun people, and a couple of jerks."

The latter includes a second meeting with a gruff Joe DiMaggio, a mean Willie Mays, a grouchy Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a petty Johnny Bench and Reggie Jackson, whom they have dubbed "Mr. Hot & Cold."

The former is a much more extensive list, which includes Mike Schmidt, Mickey Mantle, Moose Skowron, Barry Sanders, Jerome Bettis and Johnny Unitas.

"At one show in San Francisco, a promoter said, 'C'mon, Johnny. You've got to get these people through,' " Ron said. "He said, 'Wait a minute. These people are paying to see me and get my autograph. I'll take my time and do it the way I should. Don't bother me again.'

"What a real people person."

The Ellens also adore Pete Rose. Ron was once mesmerized when Rose conducted an interview of more than a half hour, all the while precisely signing bats, balls, hats and jerseys.

"They were exactly the same, as if he were stamping it. Ten dozen baseballs, six dozen hats, five dozen bats ... my mouth was slack. The focus on this guy is unbelievable," Ron said.

"We have really nice stories about him," Linda said. "He'll sit and talk, anytime. He's a down-to-earth guy. He just has this little gambling habit."

From Mrs. Stan Musial's little tease, to Johnny Unitas' impatience with a promoter and then to the extreme focus that drove Pete Rose, Ron and Linda have experienced more incredible sports thrills than most.

Fortunately for others, the stories that accompany the grand tour of their home are as classic as the magnificent memorabilia it contains.

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