No Vince Coleman Tangents

First off, this post has more 1986 Topps Glossy Mail-In cards, but I am only going to mention Vince Coleman once.  I'm done.  Let's look at some cards.

First off, I skipped a few cards during my first post.  I was trying to show the set off in numerical order, but I missed this grouping of cards.....

with Darryl Strawberry, Ron Guidry, and Chris Brown.  Probably distracted by writing about a Cardinals player and I skipped right over this scan.

Guidry was towards the end of his career, but his 1985 was great.  He led the American League with 22 wins and finished second in Cy Young voting.  Strawberry was not really high on my list in 1986, Cardinals and Mets had a pretty good rivalry at that time, but this is a nice card.  I like the polyester uniform and the action shot.  Nice card.

Chris Brown was a prospect in the set.  Interestingly, he and Strawberry, along with Eric Davis, all came from the same part of Los Angeles, and grew up playing baseball together.  Not sure if Topps put these cards together intentionally.  Brown's baseball career never panned out and he ended up driving trucks in Iraq.  When he returned from Iraq he died from burns as a result of a house fire. Bizarre incident.

The Hershiser card is a second year card.  I often associate the peak of his career as being in 1988 with the Cy Young Award and the World Series title, but 1985 was not far behind.  The 19-3 record with a 2.03 ERA clearly got buried behind Gooden and Tudor that season.

Gary Carter was a catcher.  Again, not a huge fan of the Mets, but he was a really good player.

I learned something with this last card.  I am well versed with Seaver's time with the Mets and Reds, but I also know that I have a bunch of White Sox and Red Sox cards from the time I collected in the 1980s.  Always assumed that those final years were his way to hanging around the game.  It turns out that Seaver still had some good years though.  Picked up his 300th win as a White Sox....

with Richard Nixon in attendance.  Not as good as his years with the Mets and Reds, but not exactly a slouch.  

I actually had all three of these cards when I started this project, but ended up replacing all three of them.  Some soft corners from the younger version of me.  Although, after doing a little cleaning this past weekend, I actually found another copy of the Pedro Guerrero card.  Guessing I might have replaced it while he was on the Cardinals, or at some point afterwards.  

Fisher was a good young pitcher for the Yankees, had a very good 1985 out of the bullpen.  He was actually a member of the 1982 Durham Bulls.  He was traded to the Pirates for Rick Rhoden and was given a chance to start, but injuries derailed his career.  Fisher appeared in only 35 games between 1989 and 1992.  Gibson and Fisk's inclusion is the set is pretty obvious, both very good players at this point.  

The Tommy Herr was the only Cardinals card that I needed for this entire project.  I remember these were sold in groups, but I do not seem to have the break down of these cards.  Obviously I did not get these, I was also missing the Murray and Mattingly.  I used to base the portions of the sets I got on the Cardinals players in each grouping.  If there were enough Cardinals in the set, and they were spread out, then someone got skipped.  Sorry, Tommy.  

Murray is a Hall of Famer, but the Mattingly card would have been a great one to own around this time.  I do not think that Mattingly should be in the Hall, but his first five or six seasons were excellent.  If he had played at that level for a few more years, he would be in.  

 Easy to pick out a favorite card in this set.  That Quisenberry card looks great with the front view of that submarine deliver.  I like that the baseball is a blur in front of Quiz.  I do not specific collect Quisenberry cards, but he was on the Cardinals for a few years at the end of his career.  His cards usually at least catch my eye.  There are a few other 1980s Quisenberry cards with a similar view, but this is the best of them.  

Last set of cards for this post......

This is a hard group to end on.  Who do I like in this group?  I like the brown Padres jersey on the Steve Garvey card.  That's all I got.  The rest of the set next week.  

Set Project Update Take #2: 1983 Kelloggs

Two more weeks to finish off this set.  I know my last update was just a few days ago, but I am actually putting together a set in a timely fashion.  It has rarely happened in this space.  The cards are not very hard to find, nor are they very expensive.  When I made my post at the end of last week I was still roughly 40 cards short from completing the set.  I had already worked out two trades and have a COMC order coming through in the next day which will drastically cut down on the 40 cards needed.

First up.

Ran into a trading partner, who is a huge Angels fan, who sent me three Angels cards that were on my list.  Return package will be along shortly, but I am always happy when other collectors are generous with help on projects.  One of the great things about collecting baseball cards.

I picked up seven other cards from my checklist from another trade.  I got a few of the Kelloggs cards that I needed and they got a little bit of help with an older Topps Heritage set.

I was actually surprised when I started out on this project that I did not already have the Neil Allen and Quisenberry cards.  Both players were Cardinals at one point during their careers, and on most of these 1980s sets that I have started to work on, those are the cards that I usually already have in my collection.  Plus, Neil Allen coached with the Durham Bulls for a long time.  

Updated Checklist:

2 Rollie Fingers 

4 George Brett 

6 Pete Rose 

7 Fernando Valenzuela 

8 Rickey Henderson 

9 Carl Yastrzemski 

10 Rich Gossage 

11 Eddie Murray 

13 Jim Rice 

14 Robin Yount 

15 Dave Winfield  

17 Garry Templeton 

19 Pete Vuckovich 

26 Andre Thornton 

27 Leon Durham 

31 Nolan Ryan 

33 Len Barker 

35 Jack Morris 

39 Jim Palmer 

40 Lance Parrish 

41 Floyd Bannister 

42 Larry Gura 

44 Toby Harrah 

45 Steve Carlton 

46 Greg Minton 

52 Dale Murphy 

53 Kent Hrbek 

54 Bob Horner 

55 Gary Carter 

56 Carlton Fisk 

57 Dave Concepcion 

58 Mike Schmidt 

59 Bill Buckner 

Set Project: 1983-1990 Topps Glossy Send Ins

If you opened packs of Topps cards during the 1980s, you probably remember the contest cards that used to pop up every couple of packs.  They usually involved winning a trip to the All-Star game or Spring Training.  I think in the later 1980s Topps also offered collectors the chance to buy sweatshirts, or a chance to subscribe to Topps Magazine.  Cannot believe I passed up those opportunities.

I actually did save up my contest cards though, and at some point towards the end of each summer, I could usually convince my parents to get a money order to send in for a sweet stack of 10 glossy cards.  I actually think based on the number of cards in my collection, plus the fact that I probably split the cards my brother, I likely got a $4 dollar money order.

In retrospect as an adult, the fact that the money order probably cost $1 to buy, I am surprised my parents just didn't take me and my brother to the card shop to just buy the set of glossy send in cards. 

Four to six weeks later in the mail, we would have a stack of the glossy send-in cards.  They were really the same card design every year with a different colored border.  Still pretty exciting for the time when there were not many choices of sets to collect in the baseball card world.   

I have a few from 1983, but there are too many that are in too good of condition for them to be something that I actually got that year.  Plus, that was the first year I collected.  The first year where I actually have a somewhat significant amount of the glossy mail-ins cards is from 1984.  

Again, same design every year.  

I know that some of these cards that are in my collection have been with me since 1984.  They have rounded corners, or for some reason, the fronts of the cards are different colors than the backs of the cards.  A little weird considering my house was definitely smoke free.....

and I kept my cards in boxes and pages.  You can see the edges of this Quisenberry cards are a little bit yellowed, as is the Carew card above, especially when compared to the back of the card.  I'm actually guessing that I probably put these cards in sheets at some point.  I recall having a notebook for my cards later elementary school years that were filled with the best cards in my collection.  

In other words, my glossy mail-ins and Vince Coleman rookie cards.  

Other copies of these cards in my collection have clean white borders and no rounded edges.  Likely because I bought them as an older collector.  

The Raines card above is not well centered, but is a much better card than the Quisenberry.  There used to be a card shop in south St. Louis County off of Telegraph Road where I actually think I ended up with a lot of these cards.  The guy who owned the store had a lot of sets like these and the cards usually ended up in dime and quarter boxes.

Surprisingly, I have large amounts of most of these sets, but none of them are complete.  Of the sets that I have, I am actually missing a lot of the Cardinals out of the them.  Maybe they were not in the dime and quarter boxes at that store, or some other reason that I cannot think of at the moment.  

I am not going to post the checklists of all the Glossy Mail-In sets, but I will break down each of them and give a percentage that I am starting out at.  Some are going to be easy to finish, perhaps a COMC order, others I am going to spend a little time digging around for the cards.  I have a few road trips coming up in the next few months, plus there are a few card shows around here.   

1983 - 31 out of 40 78%  

1984 - 28 out of 40 70% 

There are several 1984 cards that I will likely replace since my only copies were clearly from my actually collection in 1984.  The seven year old me was not good with corners.  Really lower than 70%

1985- 35 out of 40 88%

These are all pristine, not sure I actually ordered any as a kid in 1985.  Maybe my brother ended up with all of them.  

1986- 42 out of 60 70%

1987-  22 out of 60 37%

1988- 42 out of 60 70%

1989- 58 out of 60 97%

1990- 55 out of 60 92% 

The percentages are all pretty high starting points, outside of the 1987 set, but I still need almost 100 cards, roughly, when taking into account all the different years that I am trying to assemble here.  I am going to say that this is going to take until February.  I will be shocked if I finish it sooner.  

I am going to tack a few other set projects onto this before the end of the year.  

Friday Five: My Top Five Kansas City Royals

I meant to post this last night.  I laid down in bed and was watching a Magic School Bus with my son.  I fell asleep.  Here's my second Friday Five, but on Saturday.


I do not spend very much time on the Royals on my little blog space.  Only 17 posts where the Royals were tagged in my two plus years blogging about cards is a pretty tiny amount considering I almost make one post per day.  In fact, it was pointed out to me about a year ago that I do not make enough Royals posts and I was "ignoring" the other team from Missouri.  Today, and perhaps the next week, the Royals will get their moment in the sun on my blog.  For my second Friday Five post today I present:

MY TOP FIVE ROYALS

I could have made the logo bigger.  This list is not "The Best Royals, it is the Royals players I remember as Royals who were good and enjoyable to watch.  For example, Rick Ankiel was on the Royals and I am a big fan.  I also think of Rick Ankiel as a Cardinal and understand he was not really all that good on the Royals.  Not on the list.  Neither is Todd Benzinger, whom I saw hit a grand slam at the K once.  Although I think it was Royals Stadium at the time.  No matter.    Royals fans may not like my list, don't hate me because I am from St. Louis, but I think it's pretty fair.  

Honorable Mention: Bo, Mark Guicza, Greinke, Willie Wilson, Danny Tartabull, and Brett Saberhagen 

5.  Dan Quisenberry  

He was a Cardinal, but more memorable as a Royal.  Quiz was your typical awesome 1980s relief pitcher.  Funky pitching style, sweet mustache, and he pitched more than 1 inning.  He led the American League in saves five times during his career and he ended up saving more than 200 games for the Royals.  Also had 6 saves as a Cardinal.  I did not know before this last week that he actually ended his career with the Giants.  Really cool pitcher, sad he left us a little too soon.  

4. Kevin Appier 

I tossed back and forth a few different pitchers for this last.  My most vivid memories of Royals pitchers, outside of the current group, is Appier, Gubicza, and Greinke.  While I considered Gubicza for his cool heavy metal t-shirts and Greinke for his Cy Young Award, Appier was really a much better Royal than either of those players.  Some of that has to do with time, Greinke was on the Royals for a shorter time, but is having a better overall career than Appier.  Just not with the Royals.  Appier played in KC for 13 years, won 115 games, and struck out almost 1500 hitters.  He is the team's all-time leader in strikeouts, third in wins, and also leads all Royals pitchers in WAR.  Appier also had that weird delivery where he looked like he was tilted back at an odd angle.  

3. Carlos Beltran 

I always really liked Beltran as a Royal.  I felt really bad for the team when he was traded away to the Astros.  I am sure if the front office had planned a little better with the Mike Sweeney contract, they would have had a better chance to hang onto the very talented center fielder.  I think Beltran is at the point where he is bordering on Hall of Fame numbers, but he was largely ignored for the first seven years of his career in KC.  The switch hitting center fielder posted almost 30 home runs, 100 RBIs, and an average around .300 almost every year he was in Kansas City.  Won a Rookie of the Year too, but should have made a few more All-Star game appearances.  

2. Alex Gordon 

My favorite current Royal.  Alex Gordon is an elite defender and a pretty good offensive player too.  I would actually say that if my list were based on talent, Gordon would be lower down the line here, but we all need a little "grit" with our baseball at times.  Watch the first game of the World Series, ignore the batting average, on-base percentage, and home runs and just enjoy watching him play the game.  On top of all of the "grit"  Alex Gordon has one of the best rookie baseball cards of the past decade.  That boasts him up at least two or three spots on this list, right? 

1.  George Brett 

3000 hits, Mr. Royal, etc, etc, etc.  Pine Tar Incident.