Washington Wednesday: March Madness 2015

MARCH MADNESS
a Complete Team Set: Bullets Edition

First this post is not about College Hoops championship games which occur this time of year. This is about a completion of another Homie Team Set. This time one of the easier Basketball sets of the Bullets from the 1990s. The only "rare" card I think this team set contains is a color swap/error variant which isn't really all THAT rare. It isn't necessary to have all variants for a team set to be considered complete, but it is fun having them. The other cards seem to be super easy to find as this set is smack dab in the middle of the junk years.

1990-91 Fleer Basketball: Washington Bullets

164 Pervis Ellision

190 Mark Alarie

191 Ledell Eackles

192 Harvey Grant: EER First name in black letters

192 Harvey Grant: COR First name in white letters

193 Tom Hammonds

194 Bernard King

195 Jeff Malone: Traded to Utah Jazz

196 Darrell Walker

 1990-91 Fleer Basketball Update: Washington Bullets

U-97 Pervis Ellison

U-98 A.J.English

U-99 Greg Foster

The set is 1990-91 Fleer Basketball The Washington Bullets. I have included one player that was traded to the New Orleans Utah Jazz Jeff Malone because he is pictured in his Bullets uniform even though the card is branded with the Jazz logo and the "Traded to Utah" bubble. I also have included the three cards from the Update set which technically is a smaller team set. The design of the set makes me want to get the rest of the set. I do have a lot of cards from this set, but haven't cataloged all of them. **sigh** a collector's work is NEVER done.

I also have three cards from players who used to be Bullets a few seasons before. I think I'll reserve yakking about them in a later post.

Interested in a Basketball Group Break? Check it out.

New Feature: Team Lot Mailing List

Want Cards From Your Favorite Team?

For Free?

Attention Team collectors!

Do you want to get cards from your favorite team?

At any time Out of the blue? 

All you have to do is sign up for my "Team Lot Mailing List" by filling out the form on the right hand side bar (it should send me an email with your name and teams) Please make sure you include your mailing address along with your team in the main message field. I'll add you to a mailing list that I will refer to periodically and randomly pick someone to send a batch of cards to.

I will periodically send out cards from Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball. You can sign up for all 4 sports if you wish. You can also sign up for 2 teams from the same sport, but most of the time I will just send one team to keep me from getting confused while pulling cards to ship out.

The cards will be from random years. They could be fairly new cards or they could be vintage cards, or anywhere in between. Any and all brands will be included as well. Sometimes inserts and higher end cards might be included. The amount of cards will vary also. Sometimes just a small poker hand of 5 or 6 cards or sometimes a huge lot of 100 or more. You will never know exactly what will come your way. I won't know until I cram the cards into a bubble mailer.

Due to postage rates I can only guarantee shipping to the US and Canada. If you live in another country please contact me first before signing up. Non-US packages will not be as often but will almost always be big batches.

Right now I have Basketball cards I need to purge.

You don't have to send anything back in return, but I realize some people feel obligated to reciprocate from time to time so if you just have to return the favor My teams are the Washington and Baltimore teams. Plus you can check out my Master Want List and What I Collect page to cater stuff to me.

Joy of a Complete Team Set: 1965 Senators

OH hey a trip to my LCS over the weekend helped me with some Homie team goodies including the official Joy of a complete team set. Unfortunately I won't mention them on this regular blog, but fortunately I do yack about it on my Curly W Cards blog. The story includes this dog of a card:

and how I turned it around from this:

To this:

Yeah that is much better and Don likes it better too. See no more moss growing on his hat:

So this helps with my Strive For '65 campaign. It now stands at 157/598 (599)

Washington Wednesday: All Gibbs All Day All The Way

ALL GIBBS ALL DAY ALL THE WAY!

OK, OK, its been a very very long time between these things. I really should do them more often, and yeah don't get me started on my Mascot Monday feature. Its been over four months for that one, but as the kids used to say "What Ever!" (with the eye rolling).

So in my "daily" (not really but sometimes seems like it) overspending on Ebay I picked up an auction lot of four cards, I was going to say "set" but lot is more accurate. It was an actual auction that I bid on near the ending time, not my usual BIN "Buy It Now" spending spree. I had no problem or competition for it. Plus the seller was a fairly new seller only 1 feedback at the time, now they have 3 or 4. The pricing was $4.99 + $1.81 shipping, and surprisingly came in the proper bubble mailer packaging. Each card was in its own toplaoder and penny sleeve.

The cards were all of one person one team: Joe Gibbs Coach Washington Redskins. There was a duplicate so even though there are physically four cards there are only three designs. I already had three of the four cards, or rather two of the three, which makes the duplicate a triplicate at least. Well Homie Team and multiple copies of individual cards, and all that. "What Ever!"

The Cards:

1989 Pro Set Football 440 Joe Gibbs Redskins Coach (2) Had it

 

1990 Pro Set Football 333 Joe Gibbs Redskins Coach Had it

1992 Pro Line Profiles Football 127 Joe Gibbs Redskins Coach needed it 

The Pro-Line card is card number 127 but is also marked "1 of 9" meaning it is card number 1 of a 9 card subset, not a serial numbered "card number one of only nine total cards made" (1/9) like they do now days, so there could be 10,000 of these 1 of 9 1992 Pro Line Joe Gibbs cards. It seems that set is composed of nine card sub-sets for each player/coach featured.

Mascot Monday: Screech

SCREECH

 

I resisted the temptation to post this mascot in the First Mascot Monday post. My main Homie Mascot who represents the Washington Nationals Screech.

NO! NOT That Screech.

Today I am showing the card I believe to be his Rookie Card 2007 Topps Baseball Opening Day card number 215.

2007 Topps Opening Day - 215 Screech RC

(Front and Back)

 

Screech was "hatched" on17 April 2005 at RFK Stadium in Washington DC (much in the same way as the Orioles Bird Mascot) the inaugural season of the Washington Nationals formerly the Montreal Expos.

Screech Hatching 

(Wasington Nationals at MLB.com)

 

As you can see Screech started out as a pretty chubby eagle and wore only a team jersey with the number 05, his "hatching" date, and an oversized cap. In 2009 Screech slimmed down, he still wears an oversized cap, but he now wears pants and shoes more of a real uniform. I wasn't sure about the change at first, the first picture I saw of the slimed down Screech I didn't like, but now I think he looks better slim. Oh and his jersey number is now 00 the standard jersey number reserved for mascots I guess. I miss the 05 though, but I guess it confused people when they saw a team player with the number 5.

Screech circa 2009

A longtime Senators/Nationals fan that goes by the name "Screech's Best Friend" has a blog called Nats320. The 320 is the seat section the blogger had when the Nationals were playing at RFK before their new stadium was built and opened in 2008.  I'm a little concerned as the last post on that blog is from last year and with the success that Nats have had here in 2012 I would expect at least a "Yippie We are Number One!" when the Nats clinched the NL East Division. Screech himself also has a blog Screech's Spot over at MLB.com/blogs.


I am always on the lookout for Mascot cards. I also accept Mascot Postcards and team issued promo cards/photos of mascots.

Mascot Monday: The Baltimore Bird

The Oriole Bird

(AKA: The Bird, Baltimore Bird, Orioles Bird)

The Orioles Mascot was officially "hatched" on 06 April 1979 at Memorial Stadium. (I guess last week's The Chicken started a trend with the bird like mascots hatching like The Nationals Screech and Lady Gaga.)

Previously a cartoon Oriole bird face (which looks more like a duck) had appeared in the form of shoulder patches on the player's uniforms from 1955 to 1962, not quite a mascot yet but an icon and a logo. Then a variation of the cartoon bird flew into the team's caps from 1966 - 1989 and then returned in 2012. Previous caps and interim caps had a more Ornithologically correct bird. The cap logo I really don't like is the alternate plain "O's" logo.

I could have shown a regular card for the Bird but I decided to show this team issued post card instead.
 

 Baltimore Orioles Team Issued "The Bird" Postcard w/Autograph.

Measures 4.5" x 6" - Issue date unknown (estimated 1999-2008).

(Front and Back)

If anyone knows the year this "card" was issued I'd appreciate knowing. Since it has a website on it obviously it is no older than mid 1990s. Judging from the logo on the bird's hat it is from between 1998-2008 probably closer to the later years. The Team logo in the corner seems to be from around that same time too, a similar logo first appeared in 1995 with a plain white dot for an eye. It was redesigned in 1998 and apparently modified yet again in 1999 this logo seems to be the 1999-2008 variation (based on the variation in the tail). I'm pretty sure the autograph comes standard with this card.

I am always on the lookout for Mascot cards. I also accept Mascot Postcards and team issued promo cards/photos of mascots.

Bullets 1975-76 Topps: Chenier to Kozelco

1975-76 Topps Basketball Washington Bullets Cards Collage

 Back in the day 1975 to be exact I had gotten a few basketball cards from Topps for the 1975-76 NBA season. Fortunately I had gotten a couple of my Homie Team the Washington Bullets. I first became aware of them a few years before when they were the Baltimore Bullets. I think I started getting into them around '71 when they made their move, anyway I digress. It was around this time 1975 or 1976 when I attended my first Bullets Game of maybe 2 or 3 total in my life. I do recall their opponent was The New Orleans Jazz (years before they would move to Utah - UTAH? JAZZ?) I think the Bullets won. I'm not sure if that was the game that was the free T-Shirt Jersey game, or the School Safety Patrol discount game (maybe it was both). Anyway for the t-shirt game they gave away t-shirts that looked like the players jersey's. I wanted either Wes Unseld, or was it Phil Chenier I wanted? I ended up with Leonard Robinson. I don't think I have that shirt anymore, and never took a photo of me in it.

Of the basketball cards I had collected as a kid the 1975-76 Topps was one of the few I had gotten. My brother might of had some of the 74-75 Topps and definitely some of the tall boy 1970-71 cards.Once again I digress (you will notice I do that on this blog a lot. Shall we get on with the 1975-76 Bullets cards then?

1975-75 Topps Basketball  220 Washington Bullets Team Card

220 Washington Bullets: Team Card and checklist. I think I had this card back when I was a kid, not sure I only had 4 or 5 of the 12 cards in this team set. This card is an uncorrected error card, check out the back.

220 back of Team Card/Checklist Uncorrected Error

The uncorrected error on this card is that both the cards for Leonard Robinson and Wes Unseld are listed as card number 151. The correct number for the Wes Unseld card should be 115. The team card they talk about is the Team Leaders card Which I will get to at the end of my list.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 190 Phil Chenier AS

190 Phil Chenier: This is one of the 4 or 5 cards I had when I was a kid. I always thought it was cool that of the few Bullets cards I had from this set it has been one of my favorites. I thought it was cool that he was on the All-Star team (2nd team).

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 173 Clem Haskins

173 Clem Haskins: Yep had this card as well. I didn't follow the team well enough to know much about how good a player Haskins was. I just had his card from this season.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 60 Elvin Hayes

60 Elvin Hayes:  Don't think I had this one as a kid. I do however have a good maybe very good conditioned Elvin Hayes card from 1970-71 Topps #70 from when he was on the San Diego Rockets, it's warping dinged on the corners and some sides and a light crease at the bottom. I used to think it was in worse condition but I was confusing it with the 1976-77 #133card I have of his. That one has creases that look like lighting strikes and major corner bending falling apart. Someday I'll have to scan those. Both of them I've had since the day, the 1970-71 card was my brother's I'm fairly sure about that. This card is pretty well off center to the left and bottom, maybe I can do with an upgrade.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 23 Jimmy Jones

23 Jimmy Jones: Didn't have this one. Don't have any stories about Jimmy I don't remember him from those days since I didn't wholeheartedly follow the Bullets even when I was following them. Sorry Mr.Jones. It's an OK action shot but for a card the image of him is pretty small.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 202 Tom Kozelko

202 Tom Kozelko: Gesundheit, but seriously didn't have this card. He might have been the last card I got from sportlots for this set or was it Wes Unseld? My first thought was he looks awful scrawny and white to be a basketball player. He is another player I don't recall from those years. I should upgrade this card since it is soooooooooooo off center to the left and top (thus the back also has centering issues).

Mayor Dave Bing 1975-76 Topps Basketball

1975-76 Topps Basketball

Dave Bing - Detroit Pistons

Here is a basketball card I've had since my childhood. As I said in my post about my Phil Chenier RC yesterday (well actually just a few minutes ago I'm scheduling these posts at a later time) I don't follow basketball anymore, but when I did the man on this card was one of my fave players. In 1975 he played for my fave homie team the Washington Bullets. I saw him play a few games during his career with the Bullets from 1975-'77. Not many but a few in fact at one game a friend and I attended we got to the "Cap Center" a little early and got to watch the warm-ups/shooting practice (or whatever basketball calls "batting practice") and got a close up look at some of the players including Dave. The Capital Centre was located in Landover, MD later renamed US Air Arena but I will always know it as the Cap Center. Sadly it no longer exists.

OH by the way Mr. Bing is now the Mayor of Detroit. When he was elected or started his campaign I blogged about it at my regular blog in the post titled "The Politics of Sports".

*A Homie team is the team located in your home city/town or area that you root for so calling them my "fave homie" team is a bit redundant. It gets the point across anyway.