Mike Schmidt - The Wall

I'll get back to the 30-day Baseball Card Challenge on Monday, but first this...

A few days ago I saw the movie "Pink Floyd The Wall" on TV. I wasn't buying a lot of records in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and although I'd been a fan of Pink Floyd in the early 1970s, I'd completely missed their 1978 album "The Wall". And somehow, I didn't know that there's been a movie made.

So anyway, a few minutes into the movie there's a riot at a concert and as the rioters are being rounded up by the police, this flashes across the screen.

What a surprise, to me, at least.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 6

Day 6: A card you spent more than $10 to get.

There are hardly any baseball cards I'm willing to spent more than $10 for, but I made an exception in this case. It's the single most money I've ever spent on a single card. And of course, it is Mike Schmidt.

1999 SP Signature Autograph

I paid $46 for this back in November 1999. More even than I paid for his rookie card. It's the only Schmidt auto I have and I'm very happy with it. Earlier in the year I had paid $6 for the non-autographed version.

1986 Dorman's Cheese Mike Schmidt

A quick break from the 30-day Baseball Card Challenge.

Just when I think I have every 1980s Mike Schmidt card, another one comes along. It's one of the things that makes collecting cards so much fun.

1986 Dorman's Cheese

A card from this set was featured on tradingcarddb.com's Card of the Day. I figured that a 1986 set should have Schmidt in it and it did. There were several available on eBay. These cards came as a 2-card piece, perforated between cards. As it turns out, the featured card of the day was Rickey Henderson, the other half with Schmidt.

It's hard to tell the card size on tradingcardb so I was surprised to see how small the card is, smaller than a Topps Sticker. But, it's still a Mike Schmidt card I didn't have.

Players being interviewed on cards

Pretty much every baseball game I've every watched on TV features either pre-game interviews or post-game interviews with players. Sometimes, both. There should be more baseball cards featuring interviews. I have 20 cards featuring players being interviewed. I showed about half them in an earlier post. Here are the rest, in chronological order.

1984 Fleer #28

Dernier had two stints with the Phillies, 1980-1983 and 1988-1989. In 1984 he actually played for the Cubs and he won a Gold Glove.

1987 Fleer Limited Edition #3

Bedrosian led the league with 40 saves in 1987 but he doesn't look too happy here.

1989 Upper Deck #406

I've shown this card before but it's my favorite card from this genre of cards. It's 1989 Upper Deck, it's Mike Schmidt and the guy with the microphone is Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry Kalas who passed away 8 years ago.

1991 Upper Deck #728

 In a not very remarkable career, Perez had his best season in 1991, going 9-3 for the Cardinals. And this may not be in interview card but that black thing looks like a camera to me.

1991 Upper Deck Final Edition #92

Clark probably got interviewed a lot in 1991. He was an All-Star, hit .301 for the season with a lead leading .536 slugging percentage.

1996 Collector's Choice #220

I have two cards featuring Franco giving an interview. He looks like he'd be a fun interview.

1998 Collector's Choice #60

I image "The Big Hurt" gave a lot of interviews too.

1998 Pinnacle Inside #86

The Rocket won one of his 7 Cy Young Awards in 1998.

2005 Upper Deck ESPN #2

I'm guessing pre-game interview. 

2010 Upper Deck Season Biography

If the caption on the card is to be believed, Rivera is being interviewed after his 524th save. You never know with Upper Deck.

2014 Topps Update #234

Hernandez earned his 2014 All-Star slot with a lead leading 34 saves and an ERA of 2.14.

9 Years and Counting

As usual, I missed the anniversary of my first blog post because I always think it was late in February when actually it was February 2, 2008. This will be my 1,669th post, that's 185 a year on average. Not as many as some but enough. These days I get 200-400 hits on each post which just astonishes me. Thanks for reading. My normal practice for my anniversary post is to re-post my favorite card, Mike Schmidt's rookie card. So here it is.

The Green Grass of Baseball

I've probably told this story in the blog before. How I saw my first in-person baseball game when I was 8 or 9 years old at Philadelphia's old Connie Mack Stadium. My strongest memory of that game was coming through the tunnel and seeing how green the grass was. I'd only seen baseball on a black and white TV. The green was just stunning to me.

So, here in the dead of winter, are some randomly selected baseball cards with a lot of green grass.

1990 Upper Deck

1994 Leaf

1997 Topps

2001 Stadium Club

That's probably Astroturf, but it's the right color.

2007 Topps

2009 Topps Target

2008 Bowman

1994 Yoo-Hoo

2007 Upper Deck

2008 Upper Deck First Edition

My 400th Mike Schmidt Card

My regular readers (you know who you are) should know that Mike Schmidt is my favorite player. I reached a minor threshold with my 400th Schmidt card. I don't have nearly that many cards of any other player. I've actually had this card since May but am only getting around now to scanning it.

The bad news is that the number of Mike Schmidt cards dropped dramatically in 2016. According to tradingcarddb.com, there were 204 Mike Schmidt cards last year, if you count base cards, inserts and parallel cards. This year there are only 19. And all but one of them are various Panini releases and parallels. The only non-Panini card this year is a Topps Tier One relic, serial numbered to 1. Fat chance I'll ever see that.

Anyway, here's my 400th Mike Schmidt card.

Panini Diamond Kings Heritage Collection

1987 Mike Schmidt Odd-ball cards

Fellow blogger and Facebook friend Baseball Dad, saw a comment I made on Facebook a few weeks ago that I wished I owned a Jeanmar Gomez Phillies card. Gomez, at the time had 14 saves and led the NL in saves. Mr. Baseball Dad (known as Jack to his friends) said he'd send me one. I got a nice package of Phillies cards from him the other day. Not only did he send me the Gomez Topps Heritage card but a few other items. As much as I liked getting the Gomez card, this was my favorite thing in the envelope, a Mike Schmidt card I didn't have.

1987 Ralston Purina Collectors' Edition #14 Mike Schmidt

According to tradingcarddb.com, there are 81 Mike Schmidt trading cards or other items (like coins or disks) available. from 1987. 81! Well, now I have 28. Thanks Jack!

Here are a few other Mike Schmidt odd-ball cards from 1987.

1987 Donruss Pop-Up #17 Mike Schmidt

These came with packs of Donruss All-Star cards.

1987 Fleer Record Setters #35 Mike Schmidt

This was one of several 44-card Fleer sets produced in 1987 that were available at drug and department stores. They came in a box like a box of playing cards. This set was available only at Eckerd Drug Stores. I found a complete boxed set at a card store in 2009 for 2 bucks.

1987 Boardwalk and Baseball #1 Mike Schmidt

These cards were produced for the opening of an amusement park in Florida called “Boardwalk and Baseball” as a 33-card boxed set. I got this one in a trade with a fellow blogger, Cardboard Junkie.

1987 Woolworth #8 Mike Schmidt

Like Fleer, Topps also produced small boxed sets (these had 33 cards) available in retail outfits. This card also came from Cardboard Junkie. And finally,

1987 M&M's #3 Mike Schmidt

You've probably noticed that some of these cards don't have logos. That's because they didn't have a license from Major League Baseball. This card was produced by Mike Schectner Associates (MSA) who produced many such sets in the 1980s and 1990s. I got this in my 2010 Summer Clearance Trade.

Card Show Finds 3 - 65 cent cards

Another dealer had $1 cards with 15 cards for $10. That works out to about 65 cents/card.

1991 Conlon TSN #250 Ty Cobb

Since I just finished reading Cobb's bio I bought this card. Turns out I had a colorized version of this card that Conlon printed as a test in 1992. It has SAMPLE printed on the back.

1992 Upper Deck Comic Ball 3 #51 Ken Griffey Jr.

Along with various Warner Bros. cartoon characters, this set features just two actual players, Griffey and Jim Abbott. This is a gruesome card of Daffy Duck being used as a baseball bat.

1995 SP Top Prospects #64 Bob Abreu

Upper Deck issued this minor league set for most of the late 1990s. At this point Abreu is both a future Astro and Phillie. I always liked him as a player.

1995 Jimmy Dean All-Time Greats #4 Mike Schmidt

I should make a post of odd-ball Mike Schmidt cards. I've got a bunch of them. This 6-card set was probably available by mail redemption rather than included in a package of sausages since it doesn't smell like some meat product.

1997 Pinnacle Mint Coins Brass #15 Mark McGwire

 In my opinion, one of the weirder products from a time of weird products. The cards and the coins came separately, but the dealer had both together. I was never sure if the coin would really fit in the hole in the card but it does.

2001 Bowman Heritage #371 Jeff Bagwell

 A short-print Jeff Bagwell for $0.65 works for me.

2004 Flair Hot Numbers #21 Jeff Bagwell

Another Baggy, this one serial numbered to 500. I was surprised to see that no one had entered any images for this insert in tradingcarddb.com. I previously had a jersey card version with Mike Piazza. Mike Schmidt is my favorite player overall, but Jeff Bagwell is a close second. This is my 506th Bagwell card.