A PWEdnesday Post

Let's open the mailbag! Jeff from Wax Pack Wonders sent over an envelope, hitting both vintage and local hero needs. Since it is in the news, I'll offer my very lukewarm take on team names. To me, nothing is sacred about a sports team name or logo. It might be easy for me to say living in an area where the oldest major sports teams started in the 60s, so it's not like there's a huge extended legacy of any of those team names. If any of these teams change their names or logos, it won't make me any less likely to support them. One thing I will say - there are teams that we have these conversations about every few years, and teams we likely never would need to. So, what does that tell you?

Anyway, off the soapbox and into the shoebox with these Minnesota-centric guys. Neal Broten was one of the last members of the "Miracle on Ice" 1980 U.S. Hockey team to play in the NHL. Aaron Sele was born in MN, but went to High School in Washington. Buster Rhymes is from Miami, but what a great card. It's funny, I sent my brother my only copy of this card a few weeks ago, so it was awesome to see Card Karma repaid so quickly!

There are some awesome facts shared on the back of these - for example, Brent Burns had (has?) a pet shark!?! 

Bringing it all back around again, here's another 1976 Topps card from Jeff's envelope- thanks again!

Nick, the king of the Dimebox and the low-key master of the oddball discoveries, recently had this card one of his Free stuff posts. Steinbach was born in MN, went to the U of MN, and finished out his career as a Twin. I'm a big fan of the 1959 Topps design.

Aquino is officially a guy I collect - I have always thought of the Reds as my National League team, and I thought Aquino was a fun story last season. He was compared to Kevin Maas on twitter recently, which, yeah, I can see it with their stats side-by-side. My hope is that he just keeps getting better.

Rounding out the envelope from Nick are several more Twins, Kirilloff might be playing the big leagues this year, as he was placed in the Twins' 60-player pool. It remains to be seen just how many guys will need to get COVID ahead of him, but so far Miguel Sano and Willians Astudillo have caught the bug. Kirilloff is an outfielder with a sneaky good bat, it will be fun to see what he can do. Thanks again for sending these over, Nick!

You might be asking - why would Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life! send me a Pirates card? Well, look close - this is a bat rack card! Always a treat to find one that I missed. I recently opened a box of this set, 2003 upper deck Victory, but totally missed noticing the bat rack in the background!

Bo also loaded this mailer up with vintage 70s goodness.

Jerry Bell has a bit of a Hugh Jackman/Wolverine look to him! This Jerry Bell is not the same Jerry Bell that is in the Twins Hall of Fame as a long-time executive in the front office during the Twins two World Championships, and helped convince the City Counsel to bill the people of Minneapolis to build Target Field! Snarkiness aside, the Brewers Jerry Bell is a cool looking dude.

1973 Topps has some interesting ideas about action and landscape photography. Hey, I can dig it!

Last but definitely not least, Bo included this Hall of Fame / all-time Great Brooks Robinson! The back references his nickname as the human vacuum cleaner. 

The final envelope in this post comes from SCC of the Sport Card Collectors! I don't think Mascot cards should be inserts / short-prints in Opening Day, to me that release should be for the kids! Nonetheless, it's fun to add TC Bear to the roster. 

Who is going to miss Brusdar Graterol more this year? The Twins, or the Red Sox?

Speaking of Pink parallels, the only parallel (besides 1/1s) that I haven't seen yet in my Rosie Rainbow quest is the Mother's Day Pink parallel numbered to 50. I messed up yesterday and didn't check the eBay auction for the Independence Day Parallel. I put a bid in, with the intention of increasing it later, but forgot. I thought I was being clever by bidding $17.76, but now that I think about it, I am kind of happy I was outbid. Hopefully another one will pop up soon, and I can get it for less than that!

A big thanks to everyone sending cards and everyone reading the blog! 

A Moving Target

Not talking about the retail world, no, the moving target is my want list. Thanks to the generosity of several folks, I am finding it hard to keep track of all the new cards in my collection. Bo from the excellent Baseball Cards Come To Life! blog sent over a PWE of early 70s Topps, including the Bud Harrelson (with Nolan Ryan cameo) shown above.

Some 1970 Topps from Bo - I wish I knew the thought process behind using a player's full name or nickname - there's plenty of room there for "Blue Moon" Odom!

Ever since I started the series on which 70s set I wanted to build, my vintage want lists got a big boost. Just as quickly as I beefed the lists up, traders were coming out of the woodwork to knock them back down again.

Yep, these were all in the same envelope from Bo! Rick Monday was celebrating an anniversary recently - the day he was drafted #1 Overall in the first MLB entry draft! Thanks a bunch, Bo! 

Fellow MN resident blogger Jim from cards  as i see them also got a PWE through to me recently - It looks like I am still a few days behind on receiving mail (but my goodness, give the USPS a hearty round of applause for resuming mail delivery just 2 business days after losing 2 post offices!). 

Some great Twins Greats made it in the envelope - interesting to see Wrigley Field on that Paul Molitor card - he played only 2 games there in his career since he was a career American Leaguer, mostly pre-Interleague play. I am guessing all the cards in that subset have the same background.

This is me, cross-checking all my lists after the avalanche of new trades. Thanks Jim!

Blog reader Mark from Oregon has been dropping big mailers of vintage and 90s cards on me for the last month or so, and he sent over another doozy recently.

The main portion of this mailer was from 1976 Topps, which is easily a top 3 set for me from the decade. 

Getting all choked up by all this great stuff!

This doesn't really do it justice, but this is just a small representation of the variety in the latest mailer, attacking both vintage and modern wantlists with equal fervor. 

Thanks again Mark! Going to keep working on a decent return package for you. 

Thursday Trading Post

Blog trading is back with a vengeance, you just love to see it. Tom from Waiting Til Next Year  sent me a stack of vintage needs, for which I am very grateful!

Tom tossed in some Twins and a Tiger . . . Can't beat a pile of Hall of Famers in your mailbox!

Ford at Forbes Field finally closed out the package. Thanks again, Tom!

Then I was visited by a friendly Night Owl, who offered a stuffed envelope of great cards.

These guys have been prospects for so long that they are now veterans, and hopefully are just now entering their peak years- The Twins are ready to defend their AL Central crown this year, hopefully with a deeper run in the playoffs.

There were plenty of parallels to go around as well, including one of my favorite current Twins, Eddie Rosario, and one of my favorite baseball names of all time, ZACK GRANITE.

It wouldn't be a Night Owl related post without some sweet vintage, now, would it?

Last but not least was this teeny tiny Willians Astudillo. Thanks again for the great cards, Greg!

Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life! bombarded my mailbox as well, with a bubble mailed packed to the brim with sweet sweet junk wax!

No shortage of horizontal heroes here!

Both named and unnamed needs were addressed with cards from the want list and mini collection hits like these bat rack cards of Ben Grieve and Mike Kelly.

I remain an unashamed and unabashed Barry Bonds fan, so these four were very welcome as well. Thanks Bo!

Tomorrow I will have some more free stuff to give away - GTT, if you're reading this. please reach out to me with your address! You can contact me using the contact form on my blog (viewable in the web version).

Showing Some A-PWE-ciation

Hope everyone is having a safe and wonderful start to their holiday season! I was the recipient of a pair of plain white envelopes (or PWEs) this past week, thanks to Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year and Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life.  Tom sent 3 cards,  I was surprised to find a Ryne Harper in the envelope! Tom has a formidable Sandberg player collection, I thought the new generation of "Rynes" might make it into his collection as well.

Harper and this Nelson Cruz insert were both featured in 2019 Topps Update and came in a ZZ Pack War post.

Also in that pack war was this promo card of former Twin Tsuyoshi Nishioka! The reverse side has a promo of a jersey swatch for Kyuji Fujikawa, former Cubs hurler. I might need to start a Chiba Lotte Marines collection between Nishioka and of course the great Kennys Vargas. I indirectly owe a thank you to ZZ as well for this cool card! Thanks for the PWE, Tom, I hope we aren't Waiting 'til Next Year to read a new post on your blog now that you are shifting your focus a bit. Best of luck with that wood-working project, sounds like fun!

Bo's PWE was laser focused on a pair of my collections - The Alou family, and the bat rack.

Moises' proud papa, Felipe featured here from his playing days.

A quartet of Manageri-alous! 

To round it out, Bo included this bat rack bunch. Thanks very much, Bo, these hit the spot!

A Vintage Bo-nanza

Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life! and I completed a trade recently, and Bo came through with a life affirming cavalcade of cardboard excellence. I am thinking about how I'd like to build my copycat Hall of Fame binder (stolen from P-Town Tom via Red Cardboard), and this Lou Brock is probably the #1 contender from his playing days to make the cut.

Luis Tiant is one of those guys on the outside looking in to the Hall - he had a brief but brilliant peak to his career, which came after some lean years.

The trade that brought Tiant to Minnesota sent Nettles to Cleveland. He'd get recognition for his superb defense once he made his way further East to New York.

As you can see, Bo shredded my vintage 70s wantlists, working from year to year.

Maybe I've been too tough on the 1973 set? There are some great cards to be found in it.

An upgraded Alou!

Tiant and Vida Blue were in the middle of some serious dominance of opposing hitters. Dick Allen had a fantastic season on the South Side, and Ken Griffey was about to be a World Champion 2X running for the Reds.

Speaking of the Big Red Machine, a fantastic Johnny Bench card coming through the dusty trail. I really love the shot of the Kauffman Stadium scoreboard for the Royals. Pretty good action shots in the 1976 set.

Seriously, this is just scratching the surface of the haul from Bo - a ton of vintage.

Without overloading the servers, there was also a big stack of 90s cards as well.

and Hockey! Believe it or not, this was actually the spark that prompted the trade. Bo emailed me and said he had some Stanley Cup cards, and tossed in a huge lot of Minnesota North Stars / Wild to beef up my NHL collection.

And there you have (again just a sample) the reason for the trade in the first place, The Stanley Cup is getting some serious love from the various card companies.

Thanks again for the trade, Bo! The cards you sent were fantastic and much appreciated!