I Needed Some Boxes, Maybe A Few Cards Too

I have been doing a lot of sorting the past few weeks, which probably deserves a post, but not today. Instead, I wanted to post a few cards I picked up while I was purchasing a few boxes from my local card shop this past weekend. It's a newer card shop that I wrote up a few weeks back, but I am impressed every time I stop there. Lately, it's been for boxes. 

Figured I needed to check out some cards. 

Here is a quick rundown.  

First up, is an Adley Rutshman rookie card from Bowman Chrome. I am not an Orioles fan, but I do like a lot of their young players. I saw Adley a few year back in Durham, figured I would add a few of his cards when I get a chance. This was a good starting point......

Also fairly inexpensive.  

Next, an unexpected Cardinals find. This is a 2001 Bowman Chrome Stan Musial rookie reprint. Not sure the scan does this card justice, but I really like the sepia background with the greyscale photo, all with the trappings of a Chrome card. Nice to see a good blend of some vintage and modern design elements on the same card.  

Here is the back, which includes the serial number out of 299. Not the rarest Musial card by any means, but I was not expecting to find a serial numbered of The Man when I walked in the door of the card shop.  

I also found a few Snell commons.......

My effort to collect some non-autographed Blake Snell cards also should probably be there own post, but I will wait until I have time to write about some more exciting cards. There are in the fifty-cent bin at the shop.

Next up......

A few vintage cards. The Curt Flood is probably my favorite card out of the group.  All the players have a connection to the Cardinals or Durham Bulls with the exception of Norm Cash who once tried to take an at-bat against Nolan Ryan with a table leg.  

I demad a game-used table leg card, but nobody has come through for me.  

I Have Never Written A Post About Chris Richard

Who is the Durham Bulls all-time home run leader? 

My Chris Richard collection started while he was in the Minors with the Cardinals. I was at my local card shop and bought a pack of Royal Rookies. It was an inexpensive per-pack-autograph product that was generally not worth your time or money. You also never know when you buy an autograph of a Minor Leaguer. It's like buying a lottery ticket.  

Here is my Chris Richard lottery ticket.  

Almost 5,000 copies sold for $5 each, but worth $2 on COMC.  

I'd have been better off buying an actual lottery ticket.  

Anyway, this was in 2000 and the Cardinals had Mark McGwire and later Will Clark. Chris Richard was traded to the Orioles for relief pitcher Mike Timlin. I got more Chris Richard cards all from packs. At the time I was not really excited about Chris Richard. He was a first baseman on the Orioles who could only hit 15 home runs in one of the best hitters parks in the league.  

"WHERE ARE THE ICHIRO ROOKIES??????" 

Would have likely been my reaction to pulling a Chris Richard Prospect card in 2001.  

Although, this is his Fleer Tradition card, so more likely.....

"HOW THE HELL DID THEY LEAVE ALBERT PUJOLS OFF THE CHECKLIST FOR THIS GUY?" 

I even got the short-printed, serial numbered Chris Richard cards, like this Fleer Focus.  

Fast forward a few years to 2007 and Chris Richard is a 4A player on the Durham Bulls. 

The 2006 season was a disaster for the Bulls, a rarity in these parts, in large part due to several younger, high-end prospects who go off the rails in every way imaginable. Delmon Young hits an umpire with a bat, BJ Upton thinks Triple A parks are beneath him and gets a DUI drinking with UNC students, and Elijah Dukes literally tries to strangle Ryan Knox while the team is waiting for their bus at a hotel. 

Chris Richard was 30 and going to provide a calming presence to the team. 

The Bulls finish first, Richard hits 14 home runs, and nothing crazy happens while the team is waiting for the bus. Success brought Richard back in 2008, 2009, and 2010.  He hit at least 20 home runs each of the three seasons and ended his Durham Bulls career with 84. A record that is unlikely to be broken soon.  

I have actually willingly collected Chris Richard cards since his stint in Durham.  

Love seeing him as a Durham Bull on baseball cards......

but there are not very many of them. 

Chris Richard still has some nice cards for a guy with a short Major League career.  

My favorite being his 2001 Topps Golden Anniversary Autograph, which is short-printed and a tough find.

The Final Giant Update

I have long dreamed about typing this post. 

There has not been much time for writing lately, so I am glad I have a three day weekend to crank out a post or two.  

I did not think it would take this long, but here we are with the final few cards that I needed to finish off my set of 1964 Topps Giants cards. Thank you to everyone who helped out along the way, whether you traded or sold me cards, or were just here to cheer me on. I could not do it without you.  

There are only two Hall of Fame players in this post, so lets start the post with one of them.  

Yaz is not a short-print, nor a very expensive card. The centering is a little off side-to-side, but the condition of the card is good. I like the portrait photo with him looking over his shoulder. 

Back of the card, which mentions the Raleigh Capitols. 

Yaz was actually really young here, so the Minor League write-up on the back does not feel quite as out of place. He played on the Raleigh Capitols before the team folded. Yaz had one of their more memorable seasons by an individual player. The Bulls were merged with the Raleigh baseball franchise at one point, but they do not claim their players, so the season by Yaz flies under the radar locally. It's a shame that there is not any recognition of the Minor League players from that franchise.   

A common theme amongst the final players posted here, I learned a lot about players I knew little about.  

I only own one other John Romano card, which is a 1967 Topps card of him on the Cardinals. I am not going to post it here, but he has some combination of a 1950s flattop and slick-backed hair all rolled into one picture. He's wearing a sleeveless vest uniform, which I had long attributed to the Reds, but now know it's an Indians jersey. 

Romano was actually a really good player for a time in the 1950s and 1960s.  

Romano was a good hitting catcher with pop who made a few All-Star games playing for the White Sox and Indians. He ended his career with the 1967 Cardinals as the backup catcher behind Tim McCarver.  He was not on the Postseason roster, but still spent the season with the team.  

Next, Red Sox pitcher, Dick Radatz.  

The front of the card is a little worn, but I am going to live with it. 

Radatz played in the wrong era. He was a gigantic person who threw really, really hard. He played in a time where relief pitchers were minimized. Radatz struck out a ton of batters and led the American League in saves twice. He seems like he would fit in really well with modern baseball better than the 1960s.    

The second Hall of Famer in the post.....

I know Aparicio spent the second half of his career with the Orioles and Red Sox, but he's a player I always associate solely with the White Sox. It's jarring to see him on a non-White Sox card. Sort of like those Dale Murphy cards where he is on the Phillies or Rockies.  

I really like the back of this card. The entirety is spent on his Major League career and does a good job of focusing on his strengths as a player, which were stealing bases and playing defense.  One of the better write-ups in the set. I even like the small black and white photo of Aparicio sliding into second base.  

Next,Tigers pitcher, Dave Wickersham.  

He actually passed away last week while I was drafting this post. Wickersham was 86. 

Wickersham had an interesting career. 

As stated on the back of the card, the Tigers thought enough of him that they traded Rocky Colovito to the A's to add him to their rotation. He was a middle of the road pitcher with the A's, but was great for the Tigers in 1964. Wickersham won 19 games that season and was ejected in the seventh inning of his final start with the game tied 1-1 in the 7th inning pitching for his 20th win.  

The Vintage Detroit blog did a good write-up on the incident.  

Wickersham did not do much after 1964, but did end up with the expansion Kansas City Royals for his final season, making him one of three players to appear for both the Royals and A's in Kansas City.  The window between the A's moving (1967) and the Royals starting (1969) was narrow enough its surprising that it was not a more common occurrence.  

Next up, Albie Pearson.  

I was not overly familiar with Albie Pearson before tracking down this card, but I do like the picture on the front of this card. It's got to be a Spring Training photo with the mountains in the background. The Angels train in Arizona.  

I like that they mention his height and weight. After looking him up, it seems that he was most notable for being a really small person playing professional baseball more than any single event or season. I tried to see if I could find an Albie Pearson and Frank Howard picture, or some other really huge player, floating around on the internet. Something similar to the Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge photos that pop up everywhere when the Astros and Yankees play.

I found nothing, so here is Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve. I am sure Frank Howard and Albie Pearson would have looked the same.   

Maybe taking pictures of extraordinarily tall players next to extraordinarily short players is more recent phenomenon.  

Next up, "The Turk". 

Farrell was a tall, hard-throwing relief pitcher for the Dodgers and Phillies for the majority of his career. However, the expansion Colt 45s selected him in the expansion draft and used him as a starting pitcher. He had some good years as a starter, but he later returned to the Phillies as a relief pitcher to end his career. Nice portrait photograph on the front of the card. 

The centering on the back of the card isn't great, but I am going to live with it for the moment. The back describes his All-Star appearance in the 1958 game, which I thought was likely to be his career highlight.  It turns out that he actually ended up making the National League All-Star team 5 different times. Four of those were with the expansion Astros, so it could be that he was just the best player on those teams.   

Farrell's son, Richard Dotson, played for the White Sox in the late 1970s and 1980s. 

Another player I did not know much about.....

Chuck Hinton.

You should know this guy.  

He is actually a local player who went to high school in Rocky Mount, which is about an hour east of Raleigh. Hinton went to Shaw University, a small HBCU in Raleigh before he got drafted into the Army for Vietnam. Hinton had a late start to his career, reaching the Majors at the age of 27, but he was a good player for a short time. At the peak of his career, Hinton was a 20 steal, 20 home run player.  

Most importantly, Hinton founded the Major League Players Alumni Association after his career. There are people who, rather convincingly, argue that he is a person who should be in the Hall of Fame as a contributor to the game for starting up the Players Alumni Association. As the argument goes, he is likely tied to Curt Flood for admission into the Hall.  

Here is the back of the card, which spends most of the time talking about his Minor League career.  

Two cards left.  

Dick Ellsworth played during the 1960s, decent pitcher, but was always on the wrong teams. I kind of feel bad for him when I run into his cards. In 1963, Ellsworth went 22-10 for the Cubs. However, he also had a season where he went 9-20, another where he was 8-22. Not his fault. At one point in the late 1960s, Ellsworth ended up on the Red Sox. Otherwise, his career was spent with the Cubs (not good), the Indians (not good), and the Brewers during their first two years of existence (not good).   

Ellsworth played thirteen years and his career record is 20 games under .500. He also has a career ERA of 3.72. If he had been on good teams, you can imagine his career would have been a lot different. People who argue that wins is a misleading statistic sometimes use Ellsworth's career as an example. Decent pitcher with horrible results, largely due to where he played.  

The back of his card focuses on a one-hitter Ellsworth pitched against the Phillies in 1963. Not mentioned is the fact that Wes Covington bunted to break up the no-hitter. Also in the box score, this gem. Top line.  

The last card. 

Dean Chance won the 1964 American League Cy Young Award with 20 wins and an ERA of 1.65. He had some good seasons with the Angels and Twins, but not a very long career. He was much more noted for his off the field activities than his on the field activities at different points during his career, along with Angels teammate Bo Belinsky. After spending his 20s hanging out at the Playboy mansion, Chance spent his retirement working as a carnival operator.  

The back of the card is the standard with a short write up about a single game and a whole bunch of stuff about Chance's Minor League career.  

That's it, the entire 1964 Topps Giants set.  

Bear With Me

I found more retail baseball cards this past weekend. 

I think we have officially moved past the pandemic retail card craze. 

The Target next to my house had physical fights over sports cards that required police intervention during the pandemic. They pulled them from the shelves and they have not returned.  

Fighting. Over. Cards. 

So, the cards from this post came from my local Wal-Mart, which is low on my list of places to shop. I recently wrote about the Wal-Mart that is halfway between the Duke and UNC campuses. The Wal-Mart near my house is interesting for different reasons. It's the cultural intersection of suburban-dwelling transplants and old farmers who can tell you what kind tobacco was grown in your neighborhood before it was developed.  

That's for a different post.  

Unfortunately, I bought a box of Donruss, but bear with me, it does get better at some point. 

I was intrigued since the last few packs of Panini cards I opened were not actually all that bad. Baseball card money is finite, so I am usually carefully and picky about what I buy and how much I spend. I should have looked up the cards online before I handed over money for these cards.  

Here is the basic design.  

There are a lot of cubes and rectangles with different depths. Maybe it's my ADD, but I feel like my eyes are drawn away from the picture of the player and onto the design of the card. Catchy designs are good, but not when they are overwhelming and busy.  

The back is the same.  

The write-up is terrible.  

It's hard to make an argument about someone being the best in baseball history when the stat involves getting hit by pitches. Do people at Donruss know how many times the Marlins have thrown at Ronald Acuna? I bet they account for at least half the total.  

There are other disappointing aspects to this year's Donruss set beyond the base cards. The Diamond Kings cards, long-time personal favorites, now feature a background that looks like a floral sofa pattern from some 1980s living room. 

The inspiration for the background of this Jose Ramirez card?  

There are plenty of other half-assed cards also appeared in the box.  

There is some sort of 1988 Donruss redux.  

Where is the rest of the border?

Why is half of it whited-out?  

Why is the colored pattern on the border on the adjacent corners from the original?  

GET. THE. LITTLE. DETAILS. RIGHT. 

I am not even a details person and it bothers me. 

 

I saved this for last.  

Donruss included some retired Hall of Famers on their checklist, but they could not just airbrush out the logos on their uniforms. They had to take it an extra step and add trim to their jerseys. The Brooks Robinson card leaves me speechless. Ozzie?  The red trim is terrible.  

At least Panini still includes the Rated Rookie cards in Donruss.  

I managed to pull Rated Rookie cards of Vidal Brujan and Juan Yepez. I am still not sure what the Rays are going to do with Brujan. He's played well with Durham this year, but he's played all over the field. I am not sure if they are trying to turn him into a super-utility type or the Rays just do not know what to do with him. Shortstop is obviously taken for the next decade. Yepez has been excellent for the Cardinals. One of the few players who has hit well.  

Then there is this.....

Rated Prospects?  

This feels like New Coke or M&Ms filled with pretzels.  

Okay, so bear with me for a few more cards.  

As bad as the base cards are in the 2022 Donruss set, the inserts are actually pretty nice.  

I pulled two Diamond Marvel cards. I am not a comic book collector, but I like the design here merging them with a baseball card. The cards have a nice finish too. Not sure if it comes through on the scan.  

The other pleasant surprise with 2022 Donruss was the quality of Stan Musial cards. 

Who saw that coming?  

For a card with the logos airbrushed off, this is really nice. I also like the choice of using a black and white photograph versus the red, gray, and black boxes around the edge of the card. Perhaps, Panini should have used black and white photos for more cards.  

The last card is just incredible.  

Growing up in St. Louis, I have spent my whole life listening to stories about Stan Musial. I am not sure that any of them made me think of Stan as being ferocious. What attributes does Stan share with a bear?  

I am not sure, but this is pretty awesome.  

A Giant Project Update #9

I am inching closer to completing my 1964 Topps Giants set. I have a few more cards to post today, including another one of the really tough short-print. I thought I would finish this set quickly, which is not happening, but at least I still have some momentum going in tracking down these cards.  

First up.  

Roy McMillan looks really old in this picture, but he is only 34. I figured he was going to be 40.  However, he was at the end of his career.  If you have ever seen some of his other cards, much like Sparky Anderson, he just always looked old. McMillan was a long time Reds and Braves shortstop, one of the really great defensive players of the 1950s.  He made a few All-Star Games and also won a few Gold Gloves.  Not much of a hitter.  

The back of the card focuses on his standout defense. Many of these cards skew off onto player's Minor League careers, but the writer did a great job with this McMillan card to keep the focus on his fielding.  I like the action picture on the back. I wish I knew who the players was sliding into second base.  

Next up is Red Sox first baseman, Dick Stuart. This is a short-printed card in the set, but I did not think it was too tough to find.  

Dick Stuart could hit.  Dick Stuart could not field.  It's the best summation I can come up with for his career.  During his prime years with the Pirates and Red Sox, he hit 30 to 40 home runs per year. He also led all first baseman in errors almost every year he played. Red Sox pitcher Dick Raditz once suggested that he get a vanity license plate for his car that read "E-3".  

The back of the card starts out by mentioning a three home run game he had for the 1960 World Champion Pirates team. The author does manages to squeeze in a line about his Minor League career, which again is done throughout the set. That last line on the back is something. I am sure many pitchers on the Pirates and Red Sox would strongly disagree with that statement.  

Next up is a pretty good card.  

I like this portrait photo of Brooks Robinson, but it would have been nice to get something where he is fielding or standing with his glove. Although, he actually was a decent hitter at this point in his career.  Plus, the picture on the back of the card more than makes up for the photo on the front.  

Now, this is a great staged fielding photo. Outstanding. The write-up does not involve his Minor League career. Nice card, but let's get to the best card in the post.  

I will let the card do the talking here.  

The centering is off slightly going left-to-right and top-to-bottom, but the rest of the card is fairly clean. 

The back is a little yellow too, but this was a really tough card.

I know I stated in an earlier post that I thought the Mantle was going to be the biggest challenge in completing this set, but I think I completely underestimated this Koufax card. Again, it is short-printed and seems to be the toughest out of that group of cards.  

With the 4 new cards, I now have 33 out of the 60 cards needed to finish the set. I have two short-printed cards remaining with one of them being Willie Mays.  I am going to try to knock out a lot of the common cards over the next two months. More updates to come....

1 Gary Peters
2 Ken Johnson
3 Sandy Koufax SP
4 Bob Bailey
5 Milt Pappas
6 Ron Hunt
7 Whitey Ford
8 Roy McMillan
9 Rocky Colavito
10 Jim Bunning
11 Roberto Clemente
12 Al Kaline
13 Nellie Fox
14 Tony Gonzalez
15 Jim Gentile
16 Dean Chance
17 Dick Ellsworth
18 Jim Fregosi
19 Dick Groat
20 Chuck Hinton
21 Elston Howard
22 Dick Farrell
23 Albie Pearson
24 Frank Howard
25 Mickey Mantle
26 Joe Torre
27 Ed Brinkman
28 Bob Friend SP
29 Frank Robinson
30 Bill Freehan
31 Warren Spahn
32 Camilo Pascual
33 Pete Ward
34 Jim Maloney
35 Dave Wickersham
36 Johnny Callison
37 Juan Marichal
38 Harmon Killebrew
39 Luis Aparicio
40 Dick Radatz
41 Bob Gibson
42 Dick Stuart SP
43 Tommy Davis
44 Tony Oliva
45 Wayne Causey SP
46 Max Alvis
47 Galen Cisco SP
48 Carl Yastrzemski
49 Hank Aaron
50 Brooks Robinson
51 Willie Mays SP
52 Billy Williams
53 Juan Pizarro
54 Leon Wagner
55 Orlando Cepeda
56 Vada Pinson
57 Ken Boyer
58 Ron Santo
59 Johnny Romano
60 Bill Skowron SP