I Love The 80s : 1982 season preview

I've nearly completed a post on each MLB team in the various 1981 set, and I've started to organize and strategize for the following season. Here is a sneak peek at some of the cards that are going to be seen in the 1982 team frankensets.

The 1982 O-Pee-Chee set doesn't feature much in the way of alternate photos like 1977 or some other years, but I do like to have a little Canadian Connection in these sets.

Hairstyles in the early 80s still had a distinctly 70s flavor to them, and there will be quite a few interesting entries displaying some amazing follicular feats.

1983 comes up a lot as a voluminous Hall Of Fame class, but 1982 still has plenty to offer. You'll older stars nearing the end of their career, and younger players still in their prime.

There will be a fair amount of catcher cards, as they routinely have some of the most interesting cardboard in every set.

Fans of Managers and even bench coaches will have plenty of options to enjoy.

There's sure to be something for everyone on these team sets... I will say that in putting together these teams, Fleer's set is sneaky good. Donruss was a bit of a disappointment, though it is saved by managers and coaches. Topps is still the big man on campus. I'm also thinking that the Pirates team will be one of the harder ones to narrow down to just 9 cards!

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).

Ordering up a Barrel of fun!

There's no limit to the wonders that await you on the world wide web. Something that would be inconceivable to us in 1982 when this card was released is a website called Cardbarrel. I used the site in the past when it was known as "Just Commons" to knock off some junk wax wants, and now I am back since COMC is no longer an option for me.

See? Look how fun that is! I purchased about 60 cards in all, and it cost under $20 including shipping for everything.

It wasn't all 80s cards either, I found a fair amount of recent items as well. A lot of what I picked up will be featured in future "I love the 80s" and Topps All-Star Rookie posts. I had been using COMC to fill out those gaps in my collection, but they are now dead to me. Oh well!

Hey Look! Willians Astudillo! Can't beat that. I'll be back on Card Barrel again soon to add more cards to my cart.

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!

Arbitrary Acquisitions

Summer keeps on rolling - I haven't been to a card show in a few months now, both for financial and for scheduling reasons. Missed out on the National, as well. But that doesn't mean I was completely shut out of new cards.

"Twinkletoes!" I only have a pair of 1940 Play Ball cards, after adding this George Selkirk over the summer in a COMC bundle.

I don't think I will chase the set, but I couldn't pass up the awesome nickname. The other Play Ball in my collection? Stormy Weatherly, of course.

On to a set I am building, I added a short stack of 1959 Topps. Wally Post and Sherm Lollar were probably the biggest names of the bunch. The 1958 NL shutout leader, Johnny Antonelli is also in the group.

When I saw this Ted Williams  / Paul Bunyan mashup, I assumed that it was a photo taken in Minnesota, but Bunyan gets around. This was taken in Maine, where Ted was given an 8 foot long baseball bat.

Once you fall down a COMC rabbit hole, there's no telling where you'll end up, like fence leaning rebels, Robbie Alomar on the horn, Nolan Ryan selling out for Classic, and even a Felipe Alou photobomb on Tim "my moustache is the 11th Canadian Province" Blackwell's card.

I did actually buy some new retail - including a blaster of Allen & Ginter, which yielded a couple big rookies and a couple even bigger egos. No problem though, Reggie and Rickey proved they could back up the talk.

Saw this one on eBay and made the decision to buy it right away - several of these SPs have dropped in price since they were released, I may have jumped the gun on this one. But this may even count as a bat rack card - there are shipping boxes of Louisville Sluggers in the background!

This card, however, I waited a few decades before snapping up in an eBay auction. I was the only bidder for this well-loved card.

Bob Bonner didn't pan out as the Orioles' shortstop of the future. Good thing they had a backup plan.

Highly Subjective Definition of "Vintage" with Completely Arbitrary Collation

Ok, what do you consider to be "vintage" baseball cards? Pre-war/pre-Topps? 1960s/70s? 1995? I was curious about Rollie Fingers' definition of vintage when he put his name on this box in 2004, promising "7 Vintage Cards Per Pack."

A Brief Video Interlude of the first 2 packs...

This was an impulse purchase - I wanted to bust open some packs and I was looking at a wall of uninspiring 80's and early 90's offerings when I spotted this box all alone for $10. 

This is a typical pack - there's no vintage there, at least based on most accepted definitions. I would say "vintage" should be 15 - 20 years old, at least. Technically 2003 to 1983 works, but to me that should be the most recent card. The definition of vintage today is generally 1979 or older-- the offerings from the 1980's and 1990's are rarely placed in vintage bins or boxes at card shows.

The "vintage" definition aside, after opening a few packs, patterns began to emerge.

It was borderline comical! P.S. there were no Rollie Fingers cards in the box, though he was still in the league in the early 80's.

Ha, joke's on you, Rollie! Technically those two shades of red on the '91 Topps logo represent variations! So you didn't give me 6 identical Tom Glavines, instead there were 3 each of the two variations. Don't know if it counts, but half of the Kent Hrbeks had printing smears on the front, the other half did not...

The oldest card in the whole box? 1980 Topps Hosken Powell. The newest? 1995 Pacific Omar Olivares. 1995?!?! Less than 10 years old when it was placed in the box. C'mon, man!

The best thing in the box was in the very first pack (I'm thinking this is by design?) - a 1983 Starline Sticker of Mickey Mantle. You can find a copy on COMC for around $5, so I can say that I spent $5 to get this sticker, and I paid another $5 for some very elaborate packing material.