They're Here.

I shared a Kent Merker card from an old Durham Bulls set earlier in the week.  It was from the 1997 BellSouth Bulls to Braves set, which I have been trying to track down forever with little luck.  For whatever reason, someone listed half the set on Ebay earlier in the week.  I made an offer, it got accepted, and now the cards are here.  Definitely some positive feedback for shipping.  

I am pretty excited.  

There are a few cards here that are duplicates, but there are also cards here that I have never even seen before the Ebay listing, like Chipper Jones.  

Here is a look at the set. 

The checklist has the 9 players included in this half of the set, but also a brief description about the player selection.  One thing that I really like about the Bulls to Braves set was that they included players who great while they were in Durham.  It would be really easy, especially with a long running Minor League team, to just throw together 10 players who were good in the Majors.  Love that we get cards of Dennis Burlingame and Melvin Nieves who made their mark with the Bulls for various reasons.   

Player cards.  

Good career with the Braves and Padres.  Ryan Klesko had cool sideburns and liked surfing.  

Avery was toast as a Major League player when this set was released.  The Braves had let him walk as a free agent where he ended up signed with the Red Sox.  If you talk to people who watched the Bulls in the 1980s and 1990s, he was apparently absolutely incredible in the Minors.  Scary that he was 18, fresh out of high school, and was that dominate right away.  How do you lose 4 games with an ERA of 1.45?  I know the answer, I am just saying. 

Burlingame is sort of a local legend with the Opening Day perfect game.  He was on the same team as Steve Avery, only his ERA was even lower at 0.50 in 11 starts.  He was a top 50 prospect as a teenager, but as the card says, his career was ruined by injuries.  

Turned out to be a pretty good player.  

Hit 300 home runs, and was not happy that the Oakland A's had a soda machine that changed players $1 for can of Coke.  

Maybe skip this one if you're a Padres fan.  

Melvin had a career year in 1992, which included time with the Bulls.  I have run into the occasional Padres fan who will use unkind words about Melvin, but I have met more Braves fans who are really grateful that he played so well in A Ball.  As the card states, Melvin was traded for Fred McGriff.  Melvin made it to the Majors, played a few years with the Padres, Tigers, and Reds.  

Another really good Major League player.  He killed my Cardinals during the 1996 NLCS.  They could not get him out.  He hit .542 with 7 extra base hits (2 home runs, 5 doubles) in 7 games.  

Second time this week I have posted a copy of this card.  Great Minor Leaguer, solid Major Leaguer.  

Good Minor Leaguer.  Decent outfielder for the Pirates during the 1990s.  Although, Harry Carey once compared an Al Martin home run against the Cubs to Babe Ruth hitting home runs.  There is even video. 

Just 10,000 COPIES!!!!

You haven't had to waste time going to a retail store over the summer to know that the card aisle is completely picked over at the moment.  Maybe you have been and seen the empty shelves and stacks of unsold MLB Sticker Albums with your own eyes.  Maybe you've seen photos of the empty card aisle on Twitter or in card groups on Facebook.  Maybe you've seen people selling their $20 Topps Series 2 blasters online for $50.  

It's pretty crazy out there.  

Meanwhile, I have been sitting here collecting other things besides 2020 Topps cards over the summer.  I just haven't made good time or progress with posting the cards that I have added, which stinks because I am doing a really good job with one of my beginning of the year goals.  

My three collecting goals were:

1. No New Sets From Packs  

2. More Cardinals and Durham Bulls single cards 

3. More Posts About Sorting Cards 

I will save my full performance review for the end of the year, but I am doing incredible on the Durham Bulls part of goal 2.  I know, if you read my blog you're probably thinking that you've seen plenty of Rays players on this page who used to play in Durham a year or two ago.  That's every other post.  

Right?  

I have not only done well with find the Michael Brosseau and Kirby Yates cards this summer, I have also loaded up on all sorts of fifty-cent and quarter cards of older Durham Bulls players.  The kind of players you don't have to go look up on Baseball Reference or ESPN because they're not weird three outcome super utility players on the Rays.  

I have a few new cards to share today that mostly fit my title, "ONLY 10,000 COPIES".  

Be excited.   

Do you remember the first serial numbered cards in your collection?  I am not exactly sure which was my first, but I do remember the 1994 Leaf Limited cards being amongst the first in my collection.  They were so exclusive that even the boxes the packs were in had a serial numbered.  I bought a pack or two of these, but you weren't guaranteed a serial numbered card in each pack. 

I ended up with a few of them, almost all Cardinals.  Not pulled from a pack.  

Just 10,000 copies!  

The Cardinals were terrible in 1994.  I could wait until someone else pulled one and get the Cardinals cards when they ended up in the $0.50 box at my local card shop.

So, one of my summer Durham Bulls pick-ups was a copy of the 1994 Leaf Limited David Justice card.  He played for the Bulls during the 1986 season.  Good looking card.  

The back of the card.  

Just 10,000 copies.  

Serious, these were awesome cards in 1994.  Way cooler than any Luis Robert card that you could pull out of Topps Series 2.  Although, Luis Robert is a really good player.  David Justice was too.  Luis Robert is just 294 home runs behind him.  

What's better than one card numbered to 10,000?  

If you were thinking, "Two cards numbered to 10,000", you are correct.  I will even stick with David Justice.  

Look at the top of the card.  It says 23 KT.  This card quite possibly cost me my entire paycheck, or the equivalent of two hot dogs on dollar hot dog night at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  This card is from the 1992 Bleachers David Justice set, which featured three cards of Justice each numbered to 10,000.  One Justice card showed him in a Braves uniform, another as a member of the Greensville Braves, and this one on the Durham Bulls.  

That jersey is pretty sweet.  That's got to be a throwback jersey of some kind.  

Back of the card.  

Just 10,000 copies.  

Three things stand out on the back of this card.

1. That dog next to the word "BATS".  Why is that there?  

2. "World's Largest Manufacturer of Genuine 23 Kt Gold Border Cards".  Sounds so fancy.  Wonder why this company did not make more of a splash.  I bet these sets sold fast on QVC or Home Shopping Network.  

3. Love the faux signature at the bottom of the card with the inscription "Durham".  The other cards in the set have something similar.  If you are going to make cards that feel exclusive, they should get an inscription that feels more exclusive.  Give me "Bull City" or "City of Medicine" or "Research Triangle Park" or "Vinegar > Tomato".  

We've made it through two David Justice cards and a Gregg Jefferies that I barely acknowledged.  Can we get a third David Justice card?  

Last card of the post.  

Just 10,000 copies.  Make that 6,000 copies.  

This is from the 1999 Flair Showcase set.  Really nice looking set, which has a bunch of serial numbered parallels.  I believe that this was one of the easier ones to find.  Not sure of the exact odds, but I think you got two or three of these in a box.  Also not hard to find, and not very pricy either.  I am sure are there are some other good former Durham Bulls in this set that deserve a spot in the collection.  

That's it for today.  Hope everyone has had a great weekend.  

Project Durham Bulls #35 - David Justice

1986 Durham Bulls 

Background-

The Braves drafted Justice out of high school in the 4th round of the 1985 MLB Draft.  Justice played for the Bulls during his first full season in professional baseball.  Durham was one of two stops for the outfielder that summer, along with Sumter in the South Atlantic League.  Justice made the Majors at the end of the 1989 season, but maintained his rookie status heading into the 1990 season.  He ended up hitting .282/.373/.535 with 28 home runs, and 78 RBIs during that season.  The performance was good enough to win the Rookie of Year Award in the National League.  Justice would go on to spend 14 seasons in the Majors playing for the Braves, Indians, Yankees, and A's.  He ended his career with more than 1,500 hits, more than 300 home runs, and more than 1,000 RBIs.  Beyond his Rookie of The Year Award in 1990, Justice also took home the American League Championship Series MVP for his performance against the Mariners while playing for the Yankees.  He retired from baseball in 2002, but since he played with the A's that season, he managed to get into the movie Moneyball....

Well, not really David Justice.  Just some guy playing David Justice.  We're cool.  

Card- 
Justice has had a lot of different autographs over the years, several from his playing years, and several since he retired.  I actually have an autograph of him from the 2004 Topps base set, it's from the World Series insert set, so I wanted something a little bit different.  At the same time, I also really wanted an autograph of Justice on the Braves.  I know he was a good player in Cleveland, New York, and Oakland, but I best remember him in Atlanta.  Plus, the Braves were the parent club of the Durham Bulls at that point in history.  I was really happy to run across a Topps Tribute card of him on the cheap.  This set has been in my last three posts, all about Durham Bulls players, like I found a huge bundle of them on Ebay.  They did not sell for much.  He's got a great signature too.  Happy to add this to the stack of Durham Bulls cards.  

Venerable Old Card Part 19

I have posted a Bob's Camera Richmond Brave card before in the past and found my second card from the long running team issue a few weeks ago.  For those catching up, the Richmond Braves for the better part of a decade had a weekly giveaway of one baseball card that was sponsored by Bob's Camera.  Since there was only one card given away each week, there are very few complete sets of these cards.

It seems that some of the cards have a higher demand and are harder to find.  I am not sure if they were short printed, or they just did not pass out the left over cards.  Such much unknown about some of these cards which is part of what makes them fun.

My latest Bob's Camera card is a big name, but not too difficult....

This is a 1988 Dave Justice Bob's Camera card.  He was in Richmond multiple years and has several of these cards, this was his first.  While some of the big name players in this set have a some pretty pricy cards, the star of the 1988 set is John Smoltz.   The David Justice card is one of the more inexpensive cards I have ever run into out of this set.  During the 1988 season Justice split the year between Double Greenville and Triple A Richmond and easily had the worst year of his professional career with a .203/.311/.357 line and just 8 home runs in almost 300 at bats.  Not sure that has anything to do with the card being cheap, but it might mean that there were more of his cards given away.  

1998 Topps Tek David Justice

During my "vacation" at the beginning of the month I managed to add a few more of the Topps Tek cards I was still trying to track down to finish off my set.  As of last week I was down to a David Justice and a Jason Kendall.  Two cards from a set with no short prints does not sound too bad at all, but it is proving to be most challenging.  After looking for the past month and a half for the two cards, one of them finally appeared in an Ebay auction.

1998 Topps Tek David Justice

That one auction was the first time I had seen this card during that time on Ebay, COMC, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else on the internet where cards are available for sale or trade.  I called several card shops around Raleigh, Charlotte, St. Louis, and other destinations too.  Nothing.  Basically, when I saw the card post I knew that if I did not win the auction I might not see another copy of this card for a long time.  I ended up winning the auction, but also paid almost $10 shipped for a base card of David Justice.  Pretty steep.

Finding this card has narrowed my list of 1998 Topps Tek cards needed down to just Jason Kendall.  Similar to the David Justice card, there are no 1998 Topps Tek Jason Kendall cards anywhere.  In fact, for a week or two I was wondering if the card even existed.   However, there is a picture of one, ONE, on Google image search.  While there are no short printed cards in this set, there are some Jason Kendall super collectors somewhere with a giant stash of these cards.  I just need one.

2004 Topps World Series Highlights David Justice Autograph

I am going to go ahead and file this card in my Durham Bulls collection.  Last month I did a non-baseball card blog post about my take on the greatest Durham Bulls players.  I compiled my list based on the players impact in the Major Leagues.  One of my five greatest Durham Bulls on that list was outfielder David Justice.  Justice might be best remembered for being in the book and movie Moneyball (his likeness), or being briefly married to Halle Berry, but he was also a pretty good baseball player.

2004 Topps World Series Highlights David Justice Autographs

Justice appeared in a Durham Bulls uniform in the late 80s when the team was affiliated with the Atlanta Braves as an A ball team.  Justice would go on to win the 1990 National League Rookie of the Year and the 2000 American League League Championship Series MVP while playing for the Braves, Indians, Yankees, and A's.  I was approached about this card awhile ago and it took awhile to wrap up the trade, but was happy to add this card to my collection.  The autograph is an on-card signature which has become a rarity for a Justice signature.  He has several autographed cards in the past few years, but they are all sticker autographs.  The card has a dark background, which is a little bit of a drawback, but Justice signed the card in a light spot in the bottom corner.  

2001 Upper Deck Seventies Baseball Manny Mota Bat Card

 I also picked up a cool Manny Mota bat card in this trade from the 2001 Upper Deck 70s baseball card set.