Blair, Oklahoma boasts one stoplight. Its bright bulbs are bolted to the brick façade of a local steakhouse—a rustic decoration.
At 800 residents, Blair is hardly a commercial center in the state. But Stadium Sports Collectibles, across Main Street from the steakhouse, draws customers from miles away.
“We’re about the only true sports collectible store probably within 100 miles, maybe close to 200 miles in any direction,” said Ray Elliott, who owns the store with his wife, Sandy.
The two are retired law enforcement officials who worked in Oklahoma City. They retired to Blair, Ray’s hometown, in 2022.
Tucked in the southwest corner of Oklahoma, 30 miles north of the Red River and 140 miles west of Oklahoma City, Blair is an unexpected place to find a Baltimore Orioles mug and a miniature semi-truck dedicated to the Florida Marlins’ 1997 World Series victory.
Elliott, though, understands the unique geographic crossroads of his hometown.
In the summer, visitors to nearby Lake Altus-Lugert drive through Blair. And 10 miles south, Altus Air Force Base hosts thousands of young military families from across the country.
“I try to get sports items from Milwaukee or Boston or Miami,” Elliott said.
Airmen and spouses often stop in and are surprised to see their hometown teams represented by the shop’s offerings.
“It’s a little piece of home for them that they can see…while they’re here in Oklahoma,” he said.
Elliott sells sports cards from his own collection as well as sealed retail packs and boxes. His more collectible items come from so-called “buying trips” he takes with Sandy several times each year. They travel to flea markets and antique stores across the region, from Texas to Tennessee.
“We just look for odd and unique items to purchase for the store for resale,” he said.
Resting against a shelf of Topps baseball card boxes is one of those items—a four-foot-tall Citgo sign beckoning the next Boston Red Sox fan to step foot in the shop.
As interesting as Elliott’s items are his stories from his life as a New York Yankees fan. He brags how, by meeting Joe DiMaggio, he “shook the hand that touched Marilyn Monroe.” He owns autographs from the entire 1961 Yankees starting lineup, except for Roger Maris, who, “died too young.”
And at a sports card convention, he drank at the hotel bar with Tom Henrich, a former Yankee who roomed with Babe Ruth. Henrich told stories from early evening until last call.
“There were many times, in his opinion, Babe Ruth would be so inebriated that he needed assistance to get up the [dugout] steps to get on the playing surface,” said Elliot.
But Henrich swore the drinking never affected Ruth’s play.
“He even made the comment it looked like the minute he stepped onto the playing surface he immediately became sober,” Elliot said.
Perhaps Elliott’s most tangible brush with history, though, came on an average working morning in April 1995.
Both Ray and Sandy were in the Oklahoma City courthouse when a 4,800-lb bomb detonated two blocks north, in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Still the largest act of domestic terror in American history, it killed 168 people.
“Everybody was running out of the building,” Sandy said.
But she was working a case with a very regimented judge, and the jurors had just left the courtroom to deliberate.
“We ran in to tell the jurors to evacuate, but they wouldn’t move because they were afraid of the judge,” Sandy said.
“It rained debris from the sky for hours,” Ray said.
Sandy served as the lead counsel for the prosecution on the case against Terry Nichols, one of the three men tried for the bombing.
Thus began a period of recovery for the city and the Elliotts, who knew victims of the attack. They remained in Oklahoma City until Ray retired in 2022. Though now in Blair, Ray still enjoys reunions with former law enforcement officials and friends.
In the 1980’s, Ray began organizing an annual baseball trip with coworkers. Still going strong, the group of about 20 men traveled to Pittsburgh for a Pirates game in 2023.
“Ray plans the whole thing,” said Don Biddy, a trip-goer. “Flights, game tickets, hotel rooms.”
This season, they plan to drive to Kansas City. Next year, they plan to attend a Rangers game in Arlington, Texas, the same location where they attended their first together.
“Ray will drive every mile,” Biddy said. “Just don’t eat his M&M’s.”
He learned that fateful lesson a few seasons ago after a snack stop.
In retirement, the Elliotts are enjoying their return to Ray’s hometown and the people drawn to Blair by the shop.
“In grade school, I would tell people that someday I would own a store in Blair,” Ray said.
“Anybody who ever asked, I would tell them ‘I live in Oklahoma City, but my home is Blair.’”
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