I don't think so, Tim

I had an interesting success today from Diego Mandagaran.

As with my request a few years ago, Diego included several additional items, namely two signed photos. But as I looked at them, one was personalized to Tim.

Along with it, there was a hand-written letter, also to Tim.

And I then realized the card in there (1990-91 Pacific MISL) was not the one I sent (1992-93 Pacific NPSL).

So, I believe that Tim may have the card I sent and need for my project.

Tim, if you're out there and somehow happen to see this, please contact me so we can swap our items!

And if anyone reading this knows who Tim might be, let me know or let him know. I already messaged indoor soccer video guru Tim Nichols via Facebook to see if it might happen to be him. Other ideas are appreciated!

By request: an updated Want List

First up, big thanks to Ray in Baltimore for helping me out again with a few unsigned cards that I needed from my previous post.

Over on my YouTube Channel, I had a request from Rob, an avid blog and channel follower and collector of indoor soccer and hockey (and maybe other sports too? I know those two at the least...), asking if I had an updated Want List for this project.  So I may as well just go ahead and post it on up here. I also put in some notes on any recent communications and such, plus any specifics for multi-player cards.

Lastly, I mailed in the latter half of 2019 to Waad Hirmez, Greg Ion, Kia, Dennis Mepham, Omar Gomez, Pasquale Deluca, Jan Goossens, Steve Kinsey, Dali, Dale Ervine, Chris Hundelt, and Chico Borja without success. So, you can figure out the placement of "Tried TTM with no response" on the list below with those guys.

1987-88

36 Dennis Mepham (No response to Facebook message)

38 Pasquale Deluca

48 Poli Garcia

57 Hugo Perez

61 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

88 Steve Kinsey

1988-89

2 Stan Stamenkovic (deceased)

8 Slobo Ilijevski (deceased)

12 Erik Rasmussen (No response to Facebook message)

25 Victor Nogueira 

36 Alan Hinton

48 Frank Rasmussen

60 Slobo Ilijevski (deceased)

62 Billy Ronson (deceased)

65 Carl Valentine (No response to Facebook message)

66 David Byrne (Mailed recently after a Facebook message)

68 Desmond Armstrong 

70 Terry Rowe 

75 Erik Rasmussen (No response to Facebook message)

92 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

95 B.J. Esposito (No response to Facebook message)

97 Joe Papaleo

1989-90

6 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

26 Joe Papaleo 

33 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

47 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

66 Greg Ion 

67a Chris Hundelt / Kevin Hundelt ERR

67b Chris Hundelt COR

100 Dennis Mepham (No response to Facebook message)

1990-91

8 Arturo Velazco

9 Damir Haramina (Mailed recently after Facebook message)

18 Mike Reynolds (deceased)

28 Terry Rowe 

29 Gregg Willin

31 Keder

34 Slobo Ilijevski (deceased)

37 Claudio De Oliveira

39 Stan Terlecki (deceased)

47 Dali 

53 Steve Kinsey 

58 Dennis Mepham (No response to Facebook message)

75 Nenad Nikolic (deceased)

78 Ed Anibal

84 Barry Wallace (deceased)

98 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

104 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

111 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

114 David Byrne (Mailed recently after Facebook message)

147 Pato Margetic 

150 Greg Ion

159 San Diego Sockers Champions (Need signed by all players)

161 Domenic Mobilio (deceased) / Wes Wade (Need signed by both)

166 Majid Jay

173 Tacoma All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

174 San Diego All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

177 Wichita All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

178 St. Louis All-Stars (Have signed by all except the deceased Ilijevski)

189 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

202 Haaskivi/Quinn (Have signed by Haaskivi; need Quinn)

204 West Goal (Have signed by Ingram; need Kia and Segota)

205 Byrne/Fernandez (Have signed by Fernandez; mailed recently to Byrne) 

207 Wright/Smith (Need both)

213 Joe Papaleo

216 St. Louis Arena (not sure who to have sign it; perhaps a former team owner)

217 Earl Foreman (deceased)

1991-92

2 Waad Hirmez (No response to Facebook message)

20 Greg Ion 

37 Keith Weller (deceased)

40 Omar Gomez

41 David Byrne (Mailed recently after Facebook message)

47 Terry Rowe 

56 Domenic Mobilio (deceased)

68 Chris Simon

69 Chris Haywood

79 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

83 Dali 

84 Marcelo Carrera

95 Carl Valentine (No response to Facebook message)

98 Paul Peschisolido (No response to Facebook message)

113 Rick Snyder

118 Claudio De Oliveira 

140 Gregg Willin 

153 San Diego All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

154 Baltimore All-Stars (Have signed by all but the deceased Mobilio and Ronson )

155 Kansas City All-Stars (Need signed by all players)

158 Wichita (Have signed by all but the deceased Weller)

160 Earl Foreman (deceased)

1991-92 Bonus Inserts

2  Claudio De Oliveira

1992-93

1 Eric Dade

4 Doug Neely

16 Chris Szanto

22 Jimmy Daka

27 Alex Tarnoczi

30 Teddy Krafft

34 Russ Prince (No response to Facebook message)

37 Tony Csiszar (Responded to Facebook message; mailing this week)

39 Zoran Karic

60 Tim Schulz

63 Pedro DeBrito (deceased)

75 Saeed Bakhtiari

80 Diego Mandagaran

82 Jason Putthoff

85 Jim Gabarra

87 Joe Kirk

89 Rene Ortiz

93 Terry Brown

94 Daryl Doran

98 Doug Kriska (No response to Facebook message)

99 Dan O'Keefe

102 Chico Borja

103 Brian Enge (No response to Facebook message)

104 Dale Ervine

107 Kris Peat

109 Kim Roentved

1992-93 Gold Inserts

3 Fahmi El-Shami

4 Zoran Karic

6 Joe Mallia

8 Victor Nogueira

9 Kia

My Christmas List and A Podcast Appearance!

A rare non-indoor, non-autograph post!

First off, the podcast: I appeared on the awesome TTMCast with Jeff Baker. We mostly talked about other sports autographs, but I did touch briefly on the indoor soccer project for a bit as well, stuck in between a lot of hockey and baseball talk.  Check it out though, it was fun to do!

TTMCast.com is the site for all of his podcasts; mine is on the 12/22 episode.

And now, let's see if some of you can help me out. I'd like to try to finish a few unsigned soccer sets that I have. Got lots of doubles, inserts, and parallels to trade in these sets and a few others. Here's what I need...

1992 Score Italian: 392, 419

2016-17 Aficionado: 8, 24, 39, 46, 56, 66, 82, 86, 87, 98, 103, 108, 110, 136, 139, 144, 148

2018 Prizm World Cup: 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 31, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 74, 78, 79, 82, 88, 89, 91, 93, 96, 97, 101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 176, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 188, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 210, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 229, 230, 231, 232, 235, 236, 242, 244, 245, 246, 247, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 268, 272, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 284, 286, 287, 288, 289, 293, 299, 300

2018-19 Donruss Soccer
Base: 13, 40, 55, 83, 97
Dominators: D-7, D-8
Donruss 89 Tribute: DT-6, DT-8, DT-10, DT-16
Elite Series: ES-1, ES-2, ES-7, ES-11, ES-13, ES-18
Legends Series: LS-1, LS-4, LS-5, LS-6, LS-9
Magicians: M-2, M-5, M-9, M-10, M-17
Out of This World: OW-2, OW-9
Optic Base: 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 18, 22, 24, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 64, 65, 66, 69, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 105, 117, 120, 132, 133, 139, 140, 151, 152, 154, 191

I'd prefer to trade rather than buy, though I know I can get several of these on SportLots. Let me know your needs in a comment or an email (drewpelto at gmail) and I can see what I have up for trade.

What's the deal with Majid Jay?

Bad news from the failbox: Waad Hirmez came back RTS, having moved from the address I had down for him. I have a good three others to try out though.  Anyways, on to the main point of this post...

*Cue the music from Unsolved Mysteries*

As I've been delving back into this project, I know I'm going to have to do some searching. And so one major mystery to me has been former referee Majid Jay, card #166 in the 1990-91 Pacific set.

All the referees in that set have signed for me: Esse Baharmast, Brian Hall, Gino D'Ippolito, Marty Templin, Herb Silva, Kelly Mock... all but Majid Jay.

When I wrote to Hall, he told me that no one knows where Jay is now.

Searches for him mostly bring up this card, MISL boxscores, the fact he officiated the 1990 CONCACAF Champions Cup, the 1991-1993 Gold Cups, and at least one 1991 NCAA game (a Cal State Fullerton vs. UNLV game that ended in a brawl). He was even listed on the United States Soccer Federation's Referee Honor Roll from 1989-1993, representing California.

Searching out addresses brought up the name Majid Abotalebi, and at least one MISL boxscore confirms this as a likely alias.

Further searching on addresses brings up that he is 64 years old (which would be approximately correct) and what appears to be a wife, Brenda M. Ortega-Abotalebi, age 71.

Now here's where the oddities begin...

The last listed address that I could dig up on Majid Jay was in Riverside, CA. This address was tested by my friend Brian, and met with a note saying "Wrong address, Please Return" and the dreaded yellow Return To Sender sticker back in early 2016. Most addresses tied to his name have been in Riverside, Corona, and Los Alamitos CA, from 1995 to 2017.

The last listed address for Ortega-Abotalebi was in Capistrano Beach, CA. Her addresses have been in California from 1989 to 2010.

The last listed address for the Abotalebi name was at a Las Vegas extended stay hotel.  In fact, the previous three addresses for him were all Vegas extended-stay hotels and a PO Box, dating 2011 and 2012.  Prior to being in Vegas, his is associated with addresses in Houston (2010 and 1997), Virginia (2008 and 2009), Riverside CA (2007-2011), Los Alamitos CA (1996-2002), Waco TX (1998-2000), Kirkland WA (2001), Hewitt TX (1998), Irvine CA (1989-1996), and Cypress CA (1989-1993). That's a lot of movement, and the Vegas ones are an interesting touch.

And then we get this strange comment dating back to 2002: "Call the university to verify; I am no Majid Jay."

*record scratch*

Is this a fraud allegation of some sort? For no one to question the Jay comment makes it seems like there's something widely known about him that I'm missing. And I can't ask the person who said it: Robert Evans died in 2016.

Digging further, it appears he (or someone with his name) was arrested in Clark County, NV in February 2012: Burglary with intent to commit a felony, and possession or sale of false identification.

Alright, help me out here. I can find no record of Jay's involvement in soccer post-April 1993 or in anything at all post-2012. Most in this project I can find info on-- current jobs, addresses, places they're coaching. Even those who are deceased, I can typically find their date of death and place of burial. But aside from a string of seemingly unconnected addresses, some associated names, a fairly low-level arrest, and a previously unknown-to-me alias, Majid Jay has completely disappeared.

It's just... bizarre. I'm at a loss here. And I say that as one who was able to find Nenad Nikolic's death that it seemed no one knew about, and have been praised for my ability to find the whereabouts of a lot of players that no one else could track down.

I've reached out to the BigSoccer forum linked above, and was simply told there's "way too much to go into here." Egad man! Inquiring minds want to know!

If you have any information (or if any of the above is factually incorrect), leave a comment here. I'm intrigued, to say the least.

UPDATES
JULY 27, 2019, 10:30 PM: I was messaged by a member of a soccer forum with some information and the whole situation sounds almost Dolly Gray or Byron McLaughlin-esque; I just would prefer not to have to pull a Dave Cameron to get my cards signed (I tried to link to the Cameron story but it's in a Facebook group and the post is set to Members Only; I'll post it as a comment).

JUNE 18, 2020, 12:25 PM: He did indeed legally change his surname from Abotalebi to Jay. This name change, as the link shows, came up again in 2008 and 2013. I still am lacking information on him and my aforementioned forum source never responded with more. I plan to reach out to him again soon.

JULY 28, 2020, 4:29 PM: I have been in contact with two former referees, one of whom seemed insistent on Jay being deceased, saying "he was killed years ago, virtually 100% sure." The other said that Jay is alive, living in California, and either he or an associate of his has spoken to him recently, but also that Jay himself said he can't sign my card (not sure of the reasoning-- whether physical ability or just something related to not wanting to be found). I have also been communicating again with the forum source, but we have agreed that anything that he tells me will remain silent and not posted here. Several pieces from the forum source were corroborated by the referee though, without me even having to ask-- he just dropped some of that info himself.

MAY 28, 2021, 7:55 PM: My forum source has gone radio silent for several months now. I've pretty well given up on getting the whole story here.

AUGUST 9, 2021, 3:22 PM: My attempt at mailing the last known address for his (possible) wife ended with my letter returned from Fiduciary Real Estate Services, and a note that he did not live there. I also found some info back in May that he (under the Jay surname) was a registered flight instructor in Las Vegas through 2015. I have seen Vegas addresses for him, but they appeared fairly temporary (a hotel and a mailbox rental) so I didn't try them. Ditto on most recent California addresses.

An Attempt at Identification

About two weeks ago, I posted the pennant that I brought back from my dad's place in Ohio.  Here's an attempt at identifying all the signatures.  Assistance is appreciated if I got any wrong, or on the ones I can't identify. I can also take closer photos of individual signatures in better light if requested.

Click To Enlarge

1	Sean Bowers
2	David Beltran
3	Kia Zolgharnain
4	Ulf Ryberg (1)
5	Richard Chinapoo
6	John Kowalski
7	Ulf Ryberg (2)
8	Ali Kazemaini
9	Tatu
10	Michael King
11	Cris Vaccaro
12	Bernie James
13	Denison Cabral
14	Slobo Ilijevski
15	Kai Haaskivi
16	Chris Handsor
17	Chris Mormon
18	Doc Lawson (1)
19	Branko Segota
20	John Ball
21	Peter Ward
22	Doc Lawson (2)
23	Pat Morris
24	Simon Look
25	Scott Hileman
26	Lou Cioffi
27	Troy Dusosky
28	Nick Corneli
29	Erich Geyer
30	Paul Kitson
31	Dino Delevski
32	Gino DiFlorio
33	Benny Dargle
34	Jim May
35	Dave Grimaldi
36	Chris D'Amico
37	Trevor Dawkins
38	Gary DePalma
39	Wes Wade
40	Carl Valentine
41	Walter Schlothauer
42	Ron Newman
43	Charley Greene
44	Kiley Couch
45	Joe Reiniger
46	Joe Raduka
47	Jim Pollihan
48	David Bascome
49	Kevin Koetters
50	Daryl Doran
51	Zoran Savic
52	Mike Powers
53	Wayne Jentas
54	Keith Tozer
55	Lance Johnson
56	Kevin Terry?
57	Victor Nogueira
58	Lovelace Ackah
59	David MacKenzie
60	Omid Namazi

There were a total of 78 people there that weekend who played and/or coached on either the All-Star or Legends teams. Courtesy of Ray in Baltimore who has the game program and ticket stub (which I plan to acquire soon), here are the players who were there but either aren't on the pennant, or are ones I can't identify...

Paul Wright, Paul Child, Scott Manning, Kim Roentved, Mike Stankovic, Peter Pappas, Fred Grgurev, Fernando Clavijo, Stan Terlecki, Mike Sweeney, George Nanchoff, Andy Chapman, Ruben Astigarraga, Joel Shanker, Mark Moser, Glenn Carbonara, Hector Marinaro, Carlos Farias, Chris Handsor.

Of those, I know Carbonara was at the signing since I got him on a card there.  I also know Marinaro was not since I only got him on a card while he was near the field.  Zoran Karic was also at some events over the weekend but did not play in the game or do the signing. Some other Crunch players like Otto Orf and Andy Schmetzer may have been around too. Gino DiFlorio was not listed as playing, but was at the signing.

EDIT: Big thanks to Ray for sending me some scans to help nail down some of these ID's. I'm down to just one that I'm not certain on.