Saturday would have been Card Show Day

Buckle up, this post is going to get Rosier. There was a card show scheduled today here in the Twin Cities, but it was cancelled (May show is still on for now, but I suspect that too will be cancelled). The local Card shops in town are basically doing online sales only right now, which I think is perfectly reasonable and smart. I have added a few things recently buying online as a replacement for the monthly show. This post is pretty close to what I might pick up at a show if I attended in person.

If you are already sick of my Rosie Rainbow ravings, please scroll on down to Ichiro and start there. 

The release date of Bowman was pushed back, which has me wondering if series 2 will also be delayed. I am stretching my Rosie Rainbow muscles early on Topps Heritage. Rosario is one of the Twins' short prints, that one actually ended up costing more than the purple refractor after shipping. Chrome refractor, Silver refractor, White refractor. There's a gold refractor I missed out on (didn't want to pay $130 for it), and there's probably a 1/1 and printing plates out there too. I might call this Rosie rainbow "complete"

Oh, except there's also an online exclusive 5x7 numbered to 10 that I found. Added that too!

Ok, this is as Rosie as it is going to get! Josh Donaldson signed with Minnesota in the off-season, and this is pushing me even closer towards the 1974 Topps set build. His Throwback Thursday online exclusive features the underrated design. Rosie also had a Topps OnDemand Black and White card, an UTZ card, and GQ came out this week somehow, so I found the Gold Chrome parallel of Rosie for that set.

Ok! Here is something different. Jim from cards as i see them posted this one a while back and I was happy to add Ichiro's "sunset" card to my collection. He was creating a backlog of them with his 2018 comeback with the Mariners, then the 2019 Tokyo series that opened the season. He's probably actually retired now for real. I wouldn't be opposed to another cameo in the future though! Let him play whenever he wants like Minnie Miñoso!

I saw this card on Twitter and immediately grabbed a copy on eBay. This is the Topps 75-76 Seattle Supersonics team card, complete with 747 jet (not supersonic) and coach Bill Russell (definitely super)!

Speaking of team cards, I'm still working on the 1959 Topps set, and I have just two team cards to go, Pittsburgh and the Yankees. I picked up this Cleveland card with a couple of All-Stars

Specifically these two All-Stars!

Then I watched about 10 different Mantle auctions for this card for three weeks, and ended up doing a Buy It Now anyway for the best possible deal I could find. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't win any of those auctions. Paid a little more than my highest bids were.

Willie Mays, widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game, still criminally underrated and I picked this up for a fraction of what I spent to acquire Mickey Mantle. Not complaining, but that's messed up!

My favorite thing about these All-Star Cards are the cartoons on the back - Awesome! I think I prefer the back of Mazeroski's card to the front. I waited this long to get it just because I didn't like the photo selection. (similar to my 1961 Topps Killebrew holdout).

Go find the closest card shop (or your favorite one if you have options), find out if they sell online, and buy some cards from them if you have the means to do so this weekend! But above all, please take this thing seriously and stay safe. We'll all be back to the new normal eventually in the meantime everyone's health should be the number one concern.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Saturday is Card Show Day (for the first time in 2020)

I like going to card shows without a real agenda, like I did today. I was thinking about needs for the 1959 set build, and wanted to look at some 1970s cards to try to pick my new set build for 2020.

But beyond that, it was going to be anyone's game. I actually only spent money at 2 tables today, but each had their share of fun and surprises. The modern stuff all came from one table, and the vendor also had a stack of vintage which was a very rare occurrence for him.

The other vendor was the regular vintage / oddball guy and he did not disappoint. I picked up a Wheaties Minneapolis Laker . . .

And added some Yogi for a balanced breakfast of champions.

You'd think I was over the Moon by then, but that was not the case.

In fact, I found 2 Moons, all part of my quest to build the 1959 Topps set.

The vintage guy also brings a large stack of in person and/or through the mail autographs to the shows, and I don't know, am I going to start collecting Autographed Rookie Cup Cards? Seems pretty ridiculous to even attempt that. Why did I get the Donn Pall? So glad you asked. He's in Vancouver, at the home of Vancouver's AAA team, a stadium called B.C. Place. This stadium was designed by the same group that built the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, and I thought it was a quirky trip down memory lane to see another Teflon roof.

Back to the first vendor - I scored a small stack of 1970 Topps. I don't think this will be the set I build, but I got a decent deal on these, so why not?

He also had this. I had no intention of adding a Mickey Mantle to my collection today (unless it was that 1959 All-Star card), so both of us were surprised when I asked what he wanted for it. I won't bore you with the details, but the price was so low that even if I wasn't planning on ever owning this card, I still had to pull the trigger on it today. Yeah, it's creased to hell and back, off-center with rounded corners, but it's Mickey Mantle!

Mickey Mantle: good at baseball.

If I had made a plan, I would have skipped his table altogether because he didn't have anything from any sets or collections I am working on right now... but that's the beauty of not making plans!

Page Five - At the Bat Rack Frankenset

The Legend Continues! Page Five of the "At The Bat Rack" Frankenset is here. 

Page One

Page Two

Page Three - UPDATED BELOW!

Page Four

Rules -

9 different players
9 different card sets
9 different teams
player is at the bat rack (or bat pile) in or near the dugout
Have fun (most important)

and the backs:

37- Wes Covington  2002 Topps Super Teams
38- Richard Hidalgo 1994 Upper Deck Minor Leagues
39- Mickey Mantle 2001 Upper Deck Legends
40- Joe Morgan 1992 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes
41- Kevin Wickander 1994 Topps
42- Bip Roberts 1993 Fleer
43- Roger McDowell 1989 Fleer
44- Edgar Gonzalez 2008 Bowman
45- Miguel Cabrera 2018 Topps 1983 All-Star design subset

Wes Covington, of course had the same picture on his 1961 card, one of the early classics of bat rack cards. The Joe Morgan card might be my favorite on the page, just because it's rare to see good photos of Joe from his early Houston days. If possible, I will be looking for a different #41 to break up the Reds on the page...

Page Three (cards #19 through #27) had a Cubs problem - three Cubs in slots #20, #25, and #27. I went back through all of my boxes and looked for anything that could replace 2/3 of those cards, and I think I made some good finds :

#20 - Bob Elliot 1950 Bowman

#25 - Ozzie Smith 1990 Baseball Card Magazine

So here's what the page looks like now, with 9 different teams and 9 different designs.

Much better!

Page Three - At The Bat Rack Frankenset

The Legend Continues! Page Three of the "At The Bat Rack" Frankenset is here. 

Page One

Page Two

Rules -
9 different players
9 different card sets
9 different teams
player is at the bat rack (or bat pile) in or near the dugout
Have fun (most important)

Page Three!

The Backs:

19- Denny Walling 1984 Mother's Cookies Houston Astros 
20- Mark Grace 1993 Fleer
21- Nolan Arenado 2016 Donruss (1982 Retro design)
22- JJ Hardy 2001 Upper Deck
23- Eric Helfand 1994 Mother's Cookies Oakland Athletics
24- Dave Cohea 1983 TCMA Alburquerque Dukes
25- Ernie Banks 2010 Topps (Turkey Red Insert)
26- Bill Skowron, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle 1982 The Mickey Mantle Story 
27- Sammy Sosa 2003 Upper Deck Sweet Spot

Well, I really wanted to follow those basic rules to start out, but it is hard to find more than one card at the bat rack for each number. I'll be looking for replacements for 2 of the 3 Cubs so I can have 9 different teams represented. Even though they are 10 years apart, using 2 different Mother's Cookies cards felt like a cheat as well. They are very bat rack heavy sets.

On this page, my fave is probably the Mark Grace card. The best factoid was that JJ Hardy is listed as a SS-P as he was his high school team's closer. 

I am already pretty close on page 4, just need to find 2 more to finish it. Look for it some time in 2021!

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.

Start Spreading the News The 1956 Topps New York Yankees Team Set

One of the fun things about a completed set is deciding how you want to organize it. I have the 1956 Topps set in a binder, sorted by team, in the same order that the teams finished in the 1955 Standings. In 1955, the New York Yankees were the American League champions, with a 96-58 record. They would lose the World Series in seven games. 

I will say only nice things about the Yankees today, an objectively great team in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Since opening Yankee Stadium, the Yankees had won at least 3 World Series per decade, and by 1955 they had already won 3 championships and were on their way to a total of 5 World Series victories in the 50s. Few things are more "New York" than the Yankees, but how about Frank Sinatra? His album, "Songs for Swingin' Lovers," was released in 1956:

While the AL Champions did not win the 1955 series, they would not have to wait long to return to the Championship -- it would be the first of 4 straight World Series appearances, winning in 1956 and 1958.

The Yankees' best hitter in 1955 was the great Mickey Mantle, who was just 23 years old and the toast of the town, He led the league with a ridiculous 180 OPS+, playing a superb center field while getting on base with a league leading .431 OBP. He hit .306 with 37 homers, and scored 121 runs.

While the 1955 season was impressive, it didn't hold a candle to 1956. Mantle would win the triple crown, hitting .353 with 52 homers and 130 RBI. He scored 132 runs and his OPS+ was 210, meaning his season was 110% better than the average Major League outfielder. He'd win 3 MVP awards over his career. The well-known and well-traveled narrative is that injuries would rob Mantle of his full potential, and certainly it directly changed the 1955 Series. Mantle played in just 3 of the 7 games, and had just 2 hits in 10 at bats. For his career, the Hall of Fame, Switch hitting Center Fielder would still hit 536 homers, and have over 1500 RBI despite chronic knee and back pain.

The Yankees' best pitcher shared a nickname -- The Chairman of the Board -- with Sinatra, and the lefty made his teammates sing his praises throughout his career. In 1955, Ford had a 18-7 record with a 2.62 ERA. While his 137 strikeouts in 254 innings is not eye popping by today's standards, it was among the league leaders in '55. He hurled 5 shutouts that year, and was the staff ace all season long. His 18 wins (and 18 complete games) led the AL.

For his career, Ford had a 236 - 106 record. His 45 shutouts ranks 29th All-Time. His best season was 1961, while Maris and Mantle were chasing Babe Ruth, so too was Whitey Ford, but as a pitcher. Ruth's World Series scoreless innings streak was 29 and 2/3 innings, and Ford matched then beat it en route to a World Series MVP award. During the '61 regular season, he won 25 games and his only Cy Young Award. 

Casey Stengel, Yankees' irascible manager, was quoted often for his humor, but he also said -- "I never play a game without my man." That man was Yogi Berra. Berra led the Yankees on the field, and in 1955 had a team high 108 RBI, while hitting 27 homers. Oh yeah, and he was the AL MVP for the second consecutive season.

Berra is a 10 time World Champ, 18 time All-Star, 3 time MVP. As a catcher, Berra never led the league in a single offensive category, but his value was measured as much for his baseball knowledge and on-field leadership. It didn't hurt with sportswriters that he was always ready with a goofy quip, but Yogi was a tremendous baseball player regardless of his funny quotes.

Phil Rizzuto was at the tail end of his Hall of Fame career, and 81 games in 1955, he drove in just 9 runs. Of course, Rizzuto was never known for being a great hitter, but the production had slipped to a point at which he was supplanted at Shortstop by former Oriole Billy Hunter in 1955, and by Gil McDougald in 1956. McDougald was in many ways a forgotten star in the Yankees dynasty. In 1955, he was the Yankees' primary 2nd Baseman hitting 13 homers for the Bronx Bombers. Mantle and Berra were joined by Bill "Moose" Skowron and Hank Bauer as power bats on the '55 team. Skowron had an OPS+ of 140, hitting a team high .319 - Bauer crushed 20 homers.

Ford was the best Yankees pitcher, but their #2 starter Bob Turley wasn't far behind. In fact, Turley struck out 210 batters and had a team high 6 shutouts. Jim Konstanty was a stabilizing force in the bullpen, saving 11 games but finishing 30 games overall with a sterling 2.32 ERA. Don Larsen was just 25, still a year award from the perfect game in the 1956 World Series that made him a baseball immortal.

Even the Yankees' bench was stacked - with the great Elston Howard waiting in the wings to provide relief for Yogi Berra behind the plate. Billy Martin would once again become the Yankees' starting second baseman in 1956 and was already a fixture in Yankees' lore. A host of veterans like Eddie Robinson who hit 16 homers off the bench in 1955, and Jerry Coleman provided sage leadership.

Showing Up Is Half The Battle

It's been several months since I made the trip out to the monthly card show. Months of poor weather - cold temps and feet of snow and ice - kept me from the long trip. But a little rain couldn't stop me today, and it was a chance to take a collecting road less traveled with some oddball cards.

Snodgrass always reminds me of Ken Burns' documentary, Baseball, and the George Plimpton interview in which he talks about how something as small as a single play in a baseball game can come to define a person's legacy.

Can't explain it, but I was feeling like looking at and buying some 70s basketball cards. The ABA just had some great style. Dr. J is front and center.

Speaking of front and Center - it doesn't get much better than Chocolate Thunder! This is Dawkins' Rookie Card, shortly after he arrived from the planet Lovetron to dunk on you.

Pete Maravich with the appropriately named New Orleans Jazz.

Okay, back to baseball, but let's start small - I just need a few more of these Deckle Edge cards for a complete set.

Of course, I'm still working on the 1959 set, adding 9 today. Seven of these were in a 50 cent bin, and there were two high numbers, future manager Bamberger and "current" manager The Old Perfesser hisself, Casey Stengel.

Love the backs of these All-Star cards.

I made room for some Twins - Shannon Stewart is numbered to 100. This Liriano card was a hot ticket back in the day, the vendor I bought it from pointed out that it was going for nearly $40 back when it first came out. $3 was more reasonable today.

That's not a typo, Jake is Joe's older brother and long time Twins minor league coach and Manager. They had pretty similar signatures back in the day, Joe's was / is a little more legible.

No COA included with this one, so not certain it is legit, but I don't have any plans to re-sell it. I now have Newcombe, Mudcat Grant, and Dontrelle Willis autographs, I will keep an eye out for the rest of the "Black Aces," African-American 20 game winners.

And the big ticket item for the day was this gem, for just $20! I am always on the lookout for the Mantle/Aaron card from the 50s, but this one is just as great if you ask me!