Sort 'em If You Got 'em.

       Yesterday was National Baseball Card Day and no, I couldn't get to the National this year (or any year, yet) and no, I didn't get out to my local card shop.  But if you saw my last post, you know that I had plenty to do - I had 925 cards sent from COMC to sort through and revel in.  And that's exactly what I did:

These piles all make sense, to me anyway.  The majority are baseball cards but there are also football, hockey, basketball, bowling, tennis, golf, softball, gaming, movie (James Bond, Batman, and Star Wars among others), music (Beatles and Guided By Voices), and all sorts of Goodwin Champions which include all those things and more. There are three separate piles of Mets cards alone, and also one each for the Saints and the Devils and the Knicks, and a couple of players even got their own piles, Tom Seaver and Todd Hundley (no, really, I am a Hundley super-collector at this point). After that there are Hall of Famers and current stars and retired stars and birthday boys and all-star rookie trophy cards.  It was a fun few hours to go through all these.

I obviously can't highlight and scan 925 cards (103 scans! That would more than double my Seaver memorial post) so I will semi-randomly grab some cards that are either fun or fun to look at or just interesting, to me anyway.  Plus there were a few surprises even for me because after two-plus years, I had forgotten I'd bought them.

The top three here are some multi-player game used cards, one with Gary Carter and Mike Piazza - basically my two favorite players of all time - one with a "Bat Rack" of Mets with the aforementioned Carter and Piazza plus Jose Reyes and Kaz Matsui (remember when he was a thing?) and the third is a glorious mix of 1973 World Series adversaries from the UD Decades set, that one has Tom Seaver and Bud Harrelson along with Reggie Jackson and Bert Campaneris.  THAT is the best card I completely forgot I bought and I was giddy when I saw it.  But it also begs the question, how could I ever forget that card?

 

There is also a Ralph Kiner announcer card, a rarity of him with Mets colors, a great Lee Mazzilli from 1979 Hostess (I have the panel with Steve Garvey and Mike Schmidt but I needed it solo), a 1970 OPC Mets World Champions #1 card, a low numbered Frank Thomas jersey card (with pinstripes!) and a pair of one of my favorite unusual uniform subjects - Pete Rose on the Montreal Expos - I now have a complete page of him in French red, white, and blue.

Let's do a second nine, shall we, I can't just show you less than 1% of these, can I?

First off is the other side of that Carter/Piazza tandem jersey card.  Now I have to decide if it goes with the Carter collection or the Piazza.  Maybe Carter because he's technically the 'front' of the card?  Then you have two modern Topps Hall of Fame short prints.  I am not a big fan of these but sometimes Topps picks really cool photos for them and these two definitely fit that category.  The Koufax is a magnificent shot of him admiring the scoreboard from his perfect game and the Nolan Ryan is a brilliant candid shot that should/could have been one of his 70s cards.  Topps should only pick pictures of this quality when doing these short prints (alas, they often do not).

 

 

There's also a few fun vintage cards here, a 1974 Tony Oliva with its proud position designation of Des(ignated) Hitter, and a late 70s run of Tom Seaver O-Pee-Chee cards.  That last one in the left corner is a 1998 Fleer Tradition Todd Hundley '63 Classic card numbered to /63.  I told you I was becoming a Hundley super-collector.  I also had my eye on a Piazza version of this card but alas did not pull the trigger on it and now it is gone and I might never see another.  I have put that card in my Needed Nine, you can find that list on the right side margin of the blog.  

I teased it in the post from the other day so here is a much better view of the 1952 Andy Pafko #1 I acquired:

I am not certain why I ever bought into the hype of this card but somehow over the years I did and I just decided I must own this stupid thing.  I ended up getting it during the COMC Black Friday sales and the price was right for this condition.  I think what I really like most is the randomness of someone like Andy Pafko being the first card in their first big set.  He was a good ballplayer but nothing anyone would ever consider a superstar.  Donruss went with Ozzie Smith, Fleer went with Pete Rose, Score went with Don Mattingly, Upper Deck lucked out and chose Ken Griffey Jr. over Gregg Jefferies and Gary Sheffield for their lead off but somehow Topps went with Andy Pafko as card number one. If anyone knows the solid reason why they chose him (I don't recall ever seeing one) please enlighten me.  For now, Andy has a hot date with the other two 1952 star cards I keep protected: my Gus Zernial and my Bob Feller.  

I have gotten to the point in my Gary Carter collection where the only cards I don't have are either strange local oddball issues, low numbered monstrosities, or (somewhere in between) just plain old stuff I don't think is worth the money.  I did pull the trigger on a solid gold Gary that I just couldn't pass up during that black Friday sale.  I must say, it is shiny!

I doubt these Danbury Mint cards will ever be worth much (I also bought a Jerry Koosman one in this batch) but I suppose if times are tough I could melt them down and make fillings out of them or something.

Lastly is a card that probably only means something to me but I am so happy that I got it, the nerd in me is still glowing.  It is a 2019 Goodwin Champions Robert Pollard printing plate, a yellow 1/1. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pandemic left me a lot of time at home to sit and listen to music and Uncle Bob here cranked out something like seven albums (and counting) during 2020 and 2021.  Maybe it is the old man in me, but I don't listen to a lot of music the way I did when I was a younger man but the pandemic did a lot of strange things to all of us so it was nice to have new Guided By Voices albums flying out at the rate they used to in the 1990s.  This card will now be the centerpiece of my Bob Pollard collection from that Goodwin set and I have to trust in myself that I don't become that lunatic who needs to hoard the one-of-one cards.  It helps that I haven't seen any of the others for sale...you know, not that I've checked or anything.  Now excuse me, I have 905 other cards to put in their proper place in my collection. 

Fork In The Road To Immortality.

       Last night, it was announced that two men had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza.  I am going to get my favorite quirky statistic about this out of the way first:  Junior is the first number one draft pick to be chosen, and as a 62nd round pick, 1390th overall, Piazza is (by far) the lowest draft pick ever granted membership to Cooperstown.


Ken Griffey Jr.


Ken Griffey Jr. set a record with 99.3% of the vote, getting named on 437 out of 440 of the ballots. Whoever the three dudes are who decided not to vote for him should be publicly shamed, stripped of their vote, and kept in the stocks on Main Street in Cooperstown during induction weekend.



I have shown my pages of Griffey before so I dove into the boxes for his inserts for this occasion.  Above you see two of my favorite food issue oddballs of all time.  Not that getting cards out of Oreos or Ritz Crackers is all that bizarre and they certainly are as plain looking as possible.  No, I am tickled every time I look at the back of the cards and see the height and weight measurements.  Every. Damn. Time. I am a simple man.



Griffey is one of the saddest "What Might Have Been" baseball stories of all time.  Yet, he is also one of the most complete and beloved figures the game has ever known.  The only people who didn't like Junior are really old curmudgeonly writers back in 1991 that hated that he smiled and wore his hat backward.  How dare a man have fun playing a child's game!  Luckily, all those men are either retired or dead now. 



It is hard to imagine that had Griffey stayed healthy in the second part of his career, we wouldn't be celebrating Bonds as the all-time home run king.  With the Reds over 8-plus years, he missed 480+ games with various injuries and given the conservative average of a homer every 4 games, that adds about 120 homers to his total.  As it is, he hit 630 dingers which is good for 6th on the all-time list.


I have collected and cherished Griffey's cards since he hit the scene in 1989.  I am not saying I was ever a supercollector or anything, but I do seem to have a lot of his cards laying around and I seem to find more every time I look.  Given his status and statistics, Ken Griffey Jr.'s election to the hall of fame is the very definition of a no-brainer.

***

Mike Piazza.


Mike Piazza was also a no-brainer choice for the Hall of Fame, alas it took the BBWAA four freaking years to find their brains.  He was elected with 83.0% of the vote, named on 365 of 440 ballots. 



I wish I could claim some kind of nonpartisan point of view when it comes to Mike Piazza, but alas I cannot. He has been my favorite player since May 22, 1998 when he was traded to the Mets.  He had been someone I admired before then but the moment I found out he was a Met, it was head-over-heels, love-at-first-sight, you-and-me-forever.  There had never really ever been a player like this in team history and unfortunately, there hasn't been one since.   



Unlike Junior, I have been a crazed Piazza Supercollector since that day.  What you are seeing right now is just the game-used and fancy encapsulated cards I own of him.  I have done huge player collection posts before, but doing ALL of my Piazza cards at once will require 102 pages and another 1800+ inserts in top loaders to be sorted and scanned - not to mention random assorted memorabilia like lunch boxes, figures, 8x10s, bobbleheads, etc.  Yeah, I should have anticipated this day and had it ready but that just didn't happen after a few years of crushing January disappointment.  You will have to wait until July and his actual enshrinement for me to tackle this massive project.  For now, you'll have to make do with the 15 scans here of some high end goodies. Like that Leather Bound card above, which is one of my whales; not only is it a rare type of relic, but it has a lace hole right in the middle of it.  Just a wonderfully neat card.



I never got into the eTopps craze much but I did snag in hand versions of Piazza's cards, some of the very few encapsulated cards I own that have stayed in capsule.



Here you see some later bat cards of him as not-a-Met.  Everyone seems to be arguing if he should go into the Hall as a Dodger or a Met - and joking that he should go in as a Marlin - yet no one has referenced his last couple years on the west coast as a Padre and Athletic.  My view is simple: he made his legend as a Dodger and cemented that legacy as a Met so it is an absolute toss up as to which is appropriate as either one could be (see Jimmie Foxx).  In a case like this, it should then come down to the player's preference and Mike has made it clear he is far more fond of his time as a Mets player and of the Mets fans and organization.  That should end the discussion right there. (Note: as I was writing this post, it was announced that he would, in fact, go in as a Met)



Mike Piazza's offensive statistics are overwhelming.  396 home runs as a catcher - most all time (427 overall).  Highest single season batting average for a catcher - .362 in 1997.  Five 100 RBI seasons in a row - 1996 to 2000 - and an average of over 100 RBIs over 10 years - 1993 to 2002.  Highest lifetime batting average in Los Angeles Dodgers history - .331.  Ten Silver Slugger awards.  Twelve time All Star. 



Conversely, he is known as a horrible defensive player.  This reputation is way way waaaay out of line.  Yes, it is undeniable that he did not have the best arm in the world; his career caught stealing percentage was 23% when the league average was 31%.  But remember that he played in the most drastic offensive slugging era ever so the stolen base was not the weapon it was in, say, Johnny Bench's day and therefore Piazza's arm was not a grand liability.  If his defense was truly as terrible as it is reputed, he would have been moved to 1st base in 1995 and not 2005.  Early in his career, he did lead the league in passed ball twice.  But he took great pride in and worked very hard to improve his defense.  By the year 2000, he led the league in fielding percentage for catchers - bet you didn't know that.  People somehow forget that throwing is not the only thing a catcher does.  Other than his bad arm, all he did was frame pitches well, go back on pop ups quickly and vigilantly, call a game brilliantly, and get down and block pitches in the dirt like a fiend.  And that's not me talking, that is Bobby Valentine his manager.



Enough about the player, let's focus on some of these nifty cards.  Mike's trade to the Mets coincided with the explosion of game used cards, so just about all the stuff he has is in Mets gear.  This makes me very happy (and broke).  I usually only pick up the very best or most interesting relic cards of a player to have one or two to represent him, but I have been a little more loose with that rule when it comes to Piazza.



This scan shows a rare hat patch card and a jersey card that is just filthy and I mean filthy in the true real 'dirty' meaning of the word, it is the filthiest jersey card I have ever seen.  It also shows four manufactured patch cards, including one that I gave quite a famous write up.



There are hundreds of Jersey relic cards of Mike Piazza, of that I am certain and I somehow have had the restraint to only own a couple dozen.  I try to keep it, like the above, to interesting subjects, photos, or even cut outs to showcase the swatch.  There is also a piece in this scan with a teal stripe on the piece, meaning it came from his week long side-trip as a Marlin.  One marvelous little statistical blip in his line is that he hit a triple for all five teams he suited up for, including one of the five total hits he got as a Florida Marlin.



Here are five of the most interesting die cut jersey cards and one of the most staid and plain looking one's in my collection.  The piece is even gray.  That is more than made up for by the round, square, crownish, cartoonish nature of the other cards. 



I have not one, not two, but three of his swatches from the Topps 206 sets of the early aughts.  I think there are bat cards from this set too but I like that these cards showcase the front and back of the pieces, something very few cards actually do, and that is more interesting with the jerseys.  They are color coded to each series of that vast set.  I often wonder if they would fall apart if I took them out of their plastic holders...alas, I am too chicken to test this out.



Jeez, I just realized, seeing them all laid out like this, that I might have enough jersey cards to sew together an actual patchwork Mike Piazza jersey.  But then I would have to pick up some of the rare button cards from ten years ago that were all the rage and I refuse to spend that much money on anything less than a used car. 



Now we've reached some multiple swatch cards.  Here you see him paired twice with battery mate Al Leiter, who was very excited on MLB Network about Mike's election.  There's also one with Mo Vaughn from that one year the Mets thought Mo Vaughn was going to be good for them.  There is also three cards with my all-time all time favorite player, Gary Carter.  Chances are if you play for the Mets and play catcher, you are going to get my attention/affection.  I also love the one there with Piazza, Carter, and Rickey Henderson - that is three Hall of Famers on one card.  I think that is a first for my collection.

Last but not least are a few other multiple player swatch cards below.  One of them is a Mets themed one, the others with various guys like Carlton Fisk (makes sense), Pudge Rodriguez and Jason Kendall (sure, okay), and Sammy Sosa (um, what?).  By my count, that is 73 game used cards, 4 fake manu-patch cards, and 3 magic encapsulated cards.  I am insane - and remember I sold off a lot more than I have bought in recent years.



Each year Mike did not get elected to Cooperstown, I promised to write a scathing diatribe denouncing this folly.  And every year, I got so mad trying to put together this post that I abandoned it in self-righteous frustration.  I am now so pleased with the result that I am going to forgive and forget and let it all go.  Mike Piazza has been given his rightful place in Baseball's Hall of Fame, what is there to be upset about?

Reciprocation.

I have ended a long fallow period of blogging and declared this month the one where I settle all draft folder business so I can move on anew without dozens of unfinished posts hanging over my head.  This past week, I have concentrated on trade posts that for whatever reason, did not get completed. 

       In one week of August 2014, I received not one but two packages in return for my sending out unsolicited cards.  The first bunch is a perfect little pile from everyone's favorite chronicler, Fuji.  Apparently, I had sent him a little something in a fit of mass mailing and these are the cards he came back with:

I must say, two game used cards and two autographs is tough to beat.  I especially love the Jorge Toca, one of my favorite Mets prospects that never panned out.  He was supposed to be the Cuban savior and he wasn't even as good as a Cuban sandwich.  Plus, it is hard to beat a shiny Dickey and an even shinier David Wright.  Allow me to extend a 遅ればせながら ありがとう to Fuji for these great cards I know I can use.

The other package that arrived in the dog days was one from Robert of $30 a Week Habit.  I had sent him a stack of gold numbered parallels I had found in a dime box over the summer for his Insanity Set.  Finding cards for this project of his has been one of my favorite altruistic distractions and he always returns the favor in kind.  This time, he outdid himself:

First of all, more than anyone, Robert looks at and follows my want lists.  He sent me a half dozen 1983-84 OPC hockey cards for one of my pages.  And then, not to be out done, he sent a low numbered camo Mets card from 2013 and a Johan Santana game used Heritage jersey card.  Johan will always be a hero to us Mets fan, so this piece of cloth was greatly appreciated.

I always refer to how endlessly polite Robert is, and his friendly note that was included in the package is no different.  Thank you, Robert.

Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Altruism.

       I am going to settle all my draft folder business this month.  This week, specifically, I am going to post the half dozen or so trade posts that are languishing half-written or merely just scanned in.  You can't move forward with things half done. 

First off is a package I got in January of 2013(!) from the very generous Matt of Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius.  I had send him a Mars Attacks 1 of 1 sketch card I had pulled with no strings attached and while he promised reciprocation, I couldn't have expected the haul he would answer with just a few months later:

Three game used cards (that's Dwight Gooden, Jeff Bagwell, and David Wright - he read my wantlists, obviously), a Jose Reyes manu-patch, and a glorious vintage combo card?  Are you kidding me?  How could I have not posted this right away?  I am going to blame my swooning lightheadedness and the winter of two years ago for this oversight.  But, better late than never, thanks Matt!

Mail Call: Double Dutch.

       As of the beginning of March, I had never traded with continental Europe and now, just six weeks later, I have done so twice - both times have been with the appropriately named Dutch Card Guy.  When I posted my Topps Heritage box break, the big "hit" I got from that box was a CC Sabathia Mint card with a 1965 nickle embedded in it numbered to /15.  A neat card for certain, but not one exactly in my wheelhouse.  Enter DCG.  I knew he was a CC collector but I wasn't sure if he'd want the card so I put it on eBay.  I got a bid on it immediately, which wasn't too surprising, but low and behold, it was by the aforementioned DCG, which was.  He messaged me that he wanted the card and was willing to bid for it.  I told him, nonsense!  I am sure we can come up with a trade for it.  He told me he had this card he pulled last year:

A coin for coin swap?  Perfection!  I pulled the card's auction immediately and we hammered out some details and this wonderful trade was complete.  I don't know if I am ready to become a Mike Trout super collector but a card like this might get the ball rolling on such a thing.  If I can trade awesome hits for cards like this, it might be doable; his cards aint cheap, ya know...

The details included that wonderful 2005 Topps Steve Trachsel red x-fractor you see below.  Those red refractors really pop and I have found for some reason, the 2005 ones really work, not to mention that is a nifty picture of The Human Rain Delay.  I didn't have a Mets one of these and now I do. As good as the scan here shows it, believe me, it is ten times shinier than that, even.

He also threw in a couple awesome unexpected goodies, that 2014 Donruss Puig and that 2008 UD Masterpiece Ryne Sandberg, great cards both, ones I did not have and will definitely keep.  So thank you once again, Jeroen, for a unique trade. I also want to thank the Dutch Postal Service, which once again got a package across the Atlantic to me in less than 10 days. Sometimes the USPS can't get things across two states in less than 10 days.

***

Also in the mail today were these two cards, both interesting in and of themselves even if on the surface they appear rather bland.

I picked up that Roy Campanella on the right from Listia and is just a glorious card.  It is a TCMA card from 1979 and it emulates the classic 1953 Bowman Color set.   It does two things for me: it completes my Campanella player page and it also shows him on a card with a full photo standing - something I neither had seen before nor owned.  Given his tragic accident, I think this was a necessity for his page. 

I picked up the other card on the left from eBay and it doesn't certainly look extraordinary at all, does it?  I mean, it is a player so obscure I had to look up since I have never heard the name - turns out Mike Leclerc had himself a decent couple of years in the NHL before retiring at the tender age of 30.  I will chalk up his anonymity in my world to the fact that he played on the west coast and the Devils don't play the Western Conference much.  I kinda like it because it shows the old garish purple and teal-green colors of the old Anaheim Mighty Ducks plus that so-awful-it's-kinda-neat logo of theirs.  It is a jersey card too, so I get to touch the fuzzy.  But the key to this card is the serial number; anyone who has dug deep into my wantlists knows I have an affinity for the number 527 and lo and behold, yes, this card is serial numbered number 527.  But there is something very special about this particular card, look at the back and see if you can spot it:

Here, I'll make it very obvious for you, in case you are missing it...

Enhance!!!

^^^^^^^ look here dummy.                               

Yes, you are seeing that correctly.  That is a card serial numbered higher than its supposed edition.  I gotta say, there is a lot of reasons that Pacific went out of business and I wanna say quality control might be one of them.  I have never seen such a thing on a trading card?  Have you?  

Hammer.

"Henry Aaron

in the second inning

walked and scored.

He’s sittin’ on 714.

Here’s the pitch by Downing.

Swinging.

There’s a drive into left-center field!

That ball is gonna be…

Outta here!

It’s gone!

It’s 715!

There’s a new home run champion of all time

and it’s Henry Aaron!"

— Milo Hamilton, April 8, 1974

Dispatch From My Bed While I Recover.

       Last Wednesday, I left on a five day excursion for a little well earned R&R.  Most people (wisely) go south for such Spring Break-esque getaways, but me?  I went north to Boston - this breathtaking picture was taken the day after I got there.  But there was a method to my madness, it being the week before St. Patrick's Day and me being 12.5% Irish, I saw some great old friends, took in some local culture and followed the perfect vacation pattern of eat, drink, sleep, eat, drink, sleep, eat drink, sleep.  Not being 23 anymore, this has left me exhausted.

I did get to snap this photo Saturday afternoon after I dropped off a friend at the airport:

I have driven by this sign a million times but only on a traffic free March afternoon did I get to finally capture it on my camera phone.  This has always been a dream of mine.  I think I need to dream bigger. 

I did not stay for the actual amateur night of St. Patrick's Day because, much like Mardi Gras or New Year's Eve, it only brings out the idiots, the tourists, and the people who cannot hold their liquor and then get behind the wheel of their car.  No thanks.  I got home Sunday night to a pile of mail stuffed in the box, the most exciting of which was a cardboard flat from Topps:

I assume this is from their new fulfillment center since I have never gotten one like this.

Inside was a nice treat:

I had gone on a little eBay Triple Thread shopping spree back in January and one of the things I picked up was a redemption for this card.  Nice that it only took them two months and not over a year like last time.  With the season fast approaching, it looks like Zack Wheeler here is going to be a key piece that needs to fall into place if the Mets can even hope to contend.  When I am feeling up to it, I will expand on my whole array of feelings regarding the Mets up coming season.  I will also show you all the goodies I picked up in Boston.  For now, I just need to lay here very still and rest.  My goodness, I am old.