bert, be home blyleven for some final tributes.

bert blyleven - excuse me, hall of famer bert blyleven - attempted to extend his career with the minnesota twins in 1993, but did not make the team out of spring training.  that means that his 1993 cards are true final tributes, and there are a fair number of them.  these are the ones in my collection.

1993 fleer

you can see the deron johnson memorial (post coming soon) on blyleven's right sleeve.  here's the back of the card

which has 10 years of stats, including a portion of his 1992 minor league stats - the first time he had been in the minors since 1970.

1993 pinnacle

the tongue is out!  before michael jordan, there was bert blyleven.

the backs of the pinnacle cards just give the single season stats

so we'll move on to 1993 score

a photo almost certainly from the same game as the pinnacle card's image which makes sense because these cards were both made by score.  here's the back

those are bert's complete big league career stats.  score kind of missed with the text, however, by suggesting that the 42-year old had a 'good shot' at 13 more wins.

here's his 1993 score select card with another very similar photo

and again with the single year stat line, but some interesting text

he 'held' opponents to a .285 batting average?  'amazing durability' yet missed all of 1991 due to injury?  granted, he hadn't missed a full season prior to that rotator cuff injury, although he had missed some time with a broken foot during his cleveland days.  i just found it odd that score used that phrase right before noting that he came back from injury.

no surprise, here's my favorite of bert's final tributes - 1993 topps

good photo for a tribute.  and, of course, topps has the entire career stats on the back

although it gets tough to read with the inset photo.  

one other blyleven card i have in my collection is a 1990 topps card that he signed for a friend of mine back during his time with the angels.

i have come to be quite a fan of bert's since moving to minnesota.  he's reduced his workload on twins broadcasts since being voted to the hall of fame, but that's ok - he's earned the break.  i always thought blyleven should have been voted into the hall sooner than he was.  sure, he fell short of 300 wins, but he pitched for some bad teams and had ridiculously low run support at times.  his 3701 strikeouts were the third highest total of all-time when he retired (now 5th best in big league history) and even though they were a result of his durability (right, score?), they still amounted to a hall of fame worthy total.

here's to you, bert - circle yourself for a change!

card show piazzapalooza

the 1990's were heady days for card collectors.  there were new manufacturers, legion sets, innumerable inserts and parallels.  i stayed pretty close to the topps flagship and traded sets throughout the decade, with a fair amount of upper deck in 1992-95 and again in 1998-99.  other than that, i kind of stayed out of the loop.

that means that i missed out on a ridiculous amount of mike piazza inserts.  a dime box at the card show last week made up for a lot of that.  first, i should clarify.  the box of cards i looked through wasn't necessarily a dime box.  i asked the dealer before looking through the cards what the deal was. he said that the price varied.  after i had found about 100 piazza inserts, he said 10 bucks.  i wound up with about 160 cards (about 120 of piazza), and he charged me 15 bucks.  so, just about a dime box.

on to the piazzapalooza! 

1993 fleer ultra all rookie insert

the colors pop on the black background. 

1993 fleer major league prospects insert

piazza wearing number 60.  the same number he wore at some point in the minors, as evidenced by these 1992 classic best blue bonus

and red bonus parallels

note the carl sawatski memorial patch, too.

here are a couple of inserts from 1994 fleer ultra - homerun king

and rbi king

there's the number 31 that we know.  i think piazza also wore 25 at some point, but 31 is the number he wore for the majority of his career.

1995 fleer update soaring star insert

those rods of green kryptonite are actually bats.  i didn't realize this until i looked at the back of the card just a few minutes ago.

1995 score hall of gold

hall of fame class of 2015? i hope so.

1995 upper deck sp silver parallel

i liked the gray gear that piazza wore.  i also liked the way he flipped his helmet after every game on his way out to the mound.

1994 king-b disc

seventh annual?  where are the previous 6 years of discs?

1997 bowman chrome international parallel

as jimmy kimmel used to say, that's 'italian-american superstar slugger mike piazza'.

1998 upper deck 10th anniversary preview insert

i have a few of these preview cards, but i don't think i have any of the actual 1999 10th anniversary team cards.  no dodgers in that insert set, i don't think, so maybe that's why.

piazza appeared on his share of combo inserts.  two of the most common players he was paired with were tim salmon (the al roy in 1993) and ivan rodriguez.  this is a 1996 upper deck sp marquee matchups insert 

where salmon got the 'marquee' part.

this is a 1996 topps stadium club midsummer matchup insert

which features rodriguez on the other side

rodriguez gets some time on the same side as piazza (and darren daulton) on this 1996 donruss dominators insert

so far, i have resisted the directive to remove protective film.

last card of this post, a 1998 fleer sports illustrated cover card featuring ken griffey jr

so good, so young, and so many inserts.  i'll show some more later today.  stay tuned...

seeing things at the lcs

if you've ever wondered what pete rose, ryne sandberg, and steve garvey would look like if their faces were somehow combined into one, then go pick up a copy of this 1986 sportflics card.

when scanned, it looks mostly like rose.  here's the garvey image, or at least as best as i could manage.

i didn't need a copy, but i couldn't leave that card in the nickel box at one of the local card shops, now could i?  i also picked up a better looking garvey - again, no real need, but for a nickel…it's a 2005 topps pristine card for goodness sake!

i mentioned in an earlier post that i had made a few visits to the two local card shops over the last few months, and had some cards to show from those trips.  some of the nickel and dime boxes at these shops included boxes sorted by player - mostly hall of famers, stars, and notable twins.  some of the lesser organized boxes seemed to include bunches of cards of players who were at one time highly collectible, but now are not really sought after - probably moved out of the star boxes to make room for the bryce harpers and mike trouts of the world.  one such player is roberto alomar.

i found a bunch of alomars, including this 1995 topps d3 double play card

as well as base

and die-cut versions

of his 1995 upper deck championship series card.

like alomar, eddie murray seemed to have been moved into the low rent district.  i picked up a 1991 bowman card of the hall of famer

 it mentions his .330 average on the back

which led the majors in 1990, although murray didn't win a batting title.

here's a 1993 fleer vinny castilla card

on which he is shown turning two as a brave, but listed as a rockie.  i had forgotten that castilla was not always a third baseman.  castilla did not start the season as colorado's shortstop (freddie benavides had the honor of being the first ss in team history) but he took over the role in may.  he didn't move to third base full time until 1995.

there were some oddball cards in one of the boxes, many of which i had not seen before.  i picked up a 1992 fleer citgo darryl strawberry card for the dodger collection

it was a joint 7-11/citgo release, apparently.

there were even some ted williams cards floating around - this one of joe black is from 1993.

the tough thing with the nickel and dime boxes is that they aren't getting any new inventory.  i noticed that at both shops, although the lack of new material seemed to be for different reasons.  at one shop, they didn't appear to be busting any new product.  at the other, they seemed to be discouraging people from digging through boxes.  i'll expand on that next time.

turning two for the gazillionth and one time

for the second time today, let's celebrate the art of turning two.

1982 fleer bill almon

saw that one for the first time in 31 years on jeff's 2x3 heroes blog.  jeff also alerted me to this card, a 1992 donruss wally backman

not completely sure it's a dp thanks to the stand-up slide employed by the pirate player, but i'll go with it until proven otherwise.

1992 leaf pat kelly

and 1993 score select pat kelly

both times turning two against the a's, but different plays.  for some reason, oakland was home to a lot of double plays displayed on baseball cards.

1993 fleer jeff frye

frye is avoiding the forearm shiv to the groin

here are a couple of edgar renteria turns - 1997 pacific

and 1998 donruss

back to oaktown, here is a 1994 upper deck sp die cut brent gates

and a 1996 fleer ultra gates, too

and i still have a bunch more brent gates double play cards yet to show.

here's another guy with a lot of double play turning cards - edgardo alfonzo

that's a 1997 fleer ultra gold medallion edition card, and this is a 2000 fleer skybox card

the fancy artsy detailing on that card almost wiped out any evidence of the player sliding in.  thankfully, there is just enough to know that it is a double play turn.

last but not least, as far as this post goes, is a 2002 donruss jimmy rollins card

looks like the dp has been broken up there.

more double plays to come over the next few weeks.  stay tuned.