The InternationAlous

While working on building the 1964 Topps Venezuelan set, I have run into several other sets from other countries. I'm not going to even think about building those sets (yet), but every once in a while I see something I can't ignore. I am a big fan of the Alou brothers - Felipe, Matty and Jesús.

I found this 1962 Topps Venezuelan of the big brother Felipe. The original Topps version mentions his brother Matty Alou, but the Venezuelan version only includes the first factoid about Felipe, noting that he's getting better every year for the Giants, and became a "top star" in 1961. It also mentions his PCL betting title from 1958. The cartoon is the same for both, mentioning another batting title, this time for hitting .380 in the D-League in 1956. 

Speaking of brother Matty, after being released by the Padres in 1974, middle brother Matty traveled west to Japan. He played 50 games for the Taiheiyo Club Lions in 74, hitting .312 with 12 doubles and a pair of home runs. This card is from the 1975-1976 Calbee set, and features a full bleed photo like Stadium Club some 15 years later in the States. He actually has a pair of cards in this set, you can read about the other card on the blog "Getting Back into Baseball Cards . . . In Japan" 

Here's the back of the card - I don't speak or read or write Japanese, but I can tell you that this was card #602 in the set. I randomly stumbled across this card while waiting for a different eBay auction to end.

And just for the sake of a full set of Alou brothers, here's an American Jesús. Overwhelming millions everyday, like the song says. 

Jesús may not have had the same statistical success as his older brothers - he didn't win batting titles like Matty, he didn't go on to managerial success like Felipe, but he did manage to win 2 World Series championships while playing with Oakland, more than both his brothers combined. 

I'll continue to keep my eye out for more Alous, no matter where their cards were printed. Thanks for reading!

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 Family That Plays Together, Stays Together

Felipe

Matty (sorry, this card is still stuck in its original Topps holder)

Jesus

Moises

Now the family is all together!

Off The Wall and Back in the Game

It's been a while since I posted, the blog has taken a back seat to some important things on the home front - I won't belabor the details, things are good, baseball is just a couple months away (at least for pitchers and catchers in Spring Training).

I completed a trade with Shane from Off The Wall - the wall in question being the Green Monster. He's been working on some sets that I was happy to help him out with, and in return I was treated to an avalanche of vintage.

 Some 60s Twins!

 Some big time Twins!

 Some Hall of Famers! Frank Robinson in particular is really really sharp. I was excited to add these to my collection.

 Shane went to work on my vintage wantlist and covered a little bit of everything. Kitty Kaat!

Of course there were Twins from the recent past as well. Corey Koskie signed his card - he lost the prime of his career to concussion issues. but he was sneaky good - go ahead and look him up if you doubt it...

Shane, thanks so much for this trade! I hope to accumulate some more set needs for you in the coming months so we can do it again!

Le Triple Break

Super Trading is a ton of fun, and I really had a blast putting together PWEs for everyone. Two Super Traders and I also have a monthly break - The Transatlantic Triple Break!

Kevin from The Card Papoy had the Honors this time around, and opened some 2014 Panini Classics.

 The base cards - I received Twins, the NL Central (minus Matthew's Pirates), and the AL West.

 The inserts.

A Hit! A Taijuan Walker sig/relic combo numbered to 299. I am probably hanging onto this one for a while.

Kevin, being the generous soul that he is, also included a variety of Twins and guys I collect:

 This Joe Mauer jersey / bat relic is numbered to 99! Diamond Kings would be unstoppable with a license. As it is, still really nice cards.

 What the heck is this?

 It's a poster! ALOU!

 ALOU TIMES TWO! I think Jesus was not featured in this poster set, so that's a complete Alou set!

This is a 1976 Laughlin Diamond Jubilee card of Mr. Harmon Killebrew. R.G. Laughlin also made sets of art cards for Fleer in the 60s and 70s. This card is oversized, so I am keeping it in its rigid holder for now.

Awesome Kevin! Thanks so much for these anda new Break is heading back your way (and to West Virginia) from Minnesota soon!

Something I Alou-ded to Earlier . . .

 Well, it's late in the day and I haven't posted yet, trying to keep coming up with things to post about, there will be another Twins Frankenset post on Monday and the next season of Topps Rookie All-Star will happen some time next week.

With my upcoming move, I've not been buying very many cards. I haven't been doing a lot of trading, either, but I did send out a couple packages today.

So, here's one thing I will be working on in the next few months - Certified autos of the Alou family!

Matt from Bob Walk the Plank alerted me to existence of this Moises Alou auto, and I found a copy on eBay for just 8 bucks. 

This is a terrible image, but I got this Felipe Alou auto at the National. I've got most of my cards in boxes inside of other boxes right now, so this a cropped version of a photo from awhile back.

So, just looking for certified autos of Matty and Jesus at this point, and maybe getting a different Felipe to match up with the other brothers.

More oddball Alous!

I couldn't take the card buying drought any longer and I went onto COMC to do something about it. The result was to pick up a nice collection of Alou oddballs!

 For as much as the three brothers were in the league at the same time, it was actually hard to find oddball sets that features all three of them

 Here's a different 60's game set.

 The Topps Fan Favorites are super classy cards! Pacific before they lost their minds in the 90s made some fairly boring but solid sets of retired greats in the 80s

 This one of middle brother Matty is probably the coolest.

 It's a 1977 Padres Schedule / Baseball card! I think "English Leather Cologne Jacket Night" must have been a hit.

Finally, here's a Moises for good measure.

The Brothers Alou

I've been working on my Alou Brothers collection this summer, and now I can showcase two completed pages of Alou awesomeness.

Big brother Felipe's first Topps card was in 1959, Matty joined the trading card fraternity in 1961, and Jesus rose to the ranks of the big leagues in time for the 1964 release.

 I inserted the Post Felipe Alou so I could line up the brothers starting with Jesus' Rookie Year:

 Honorary Alou Brother Ron Herbel* makes an appearance. These two pages are the first two completed, hoping to add a few more of the short prints (it's like Topps picked a different Alou Brother to be Short Printed every year....)


Enjoy these Matty Alou oddballs:

*Ron Herbel is NOT an honorary Alou brother, as far as I know...