Post 1,000 - Time for Another Arbitrary Giveaway.

I can't believe it myself, but this is my 1,000th post on blogger. The first 8 folks to comment here will get some free stuff from me. Why 8? I dunno. Just being arbitrary. In that same spirit, here a few of my favorite cards added while blogging. I had this Mudcat Grant card signed in person at Twins Fest, and marveled at Grant's kindness and grace- especially the time he took with kids.

Remember when Bartolo Colon was a Minnesota Twin? We lived through some wondrous and strange times over the life of this blog.

Building the 1965 O-Pee-Chee set was my first set build on the blog, which included finding this instant classic "rare 1/1" of Brooks Robinson.

I am still looking for the 2015 Topps Series 1 "Clear" parallel of Kennys Vargas, numbered to /10. I may never find it, as the majority of them are probably still sealed in series 1 Hobby Jumbo Pack boxes. If you really want to get some cool free stuff from me, help me find that parallel!

From my very first post!

By May of 2014, I was back in the hobby with both feet and began building sets new and old. What am I collecting? A little bit of everything. 2014 Topps Heritage turned into 1965 O-Pee-Chee which turned into Topps' All-Star Rookies 1960-present which has snowballed into any number of wild tangents.

Thanks for reading this first post - I'm excited to share my love of old school vintage, new school shiny things, and just plain weird things, like this Mike Cubbage card autographed by Twins bench coach Joe Vavra.

Check Out My (Final ?) COMC Order

Dude, Where's My Cards?

Still waiting for an update on the shipment I requested on 12/2/2019. I emailed on 12/23, they replied the same day and said they'd look into it and get back to me. 

No response/update for over a week, so I sent a follow up on Jan 3rd. No Reply.

I emailed again on January 8th - no reply.

Hmm, maybe they aren't getting my emails? I started a new email thread on January 22nd - no reply.

I emailed again this Monday, after hearing nothing for another week, with no communication from COMC since that first response way back on December 23rd.

So, I have pulled all of my cards from sale on the website. I tried to have them shipped back to me, but they wanted to charge me $81 to ship my own cards back to me. Fine, you can keep them, I marked everything I sent to them as "For Charity."

I still had a sizeable number of cards that I already paid for, on the site, ready to ship. I had been using a strategy of placing a shipment order at the beginning of each month (after the $5 bonus), then adding store credit a week or two later and starting the process again. I would eat up all the store credit, save $4 of the bonus $5 to cover shipping, then repeat.

My first shipment request from COMC was way back on 9/17/2014. I had been ordering one shipment a month, EVERY MONTH, since March of 2015. This was before I even had a COMC account.

After not seeing my shipment change over to "packaging" status for 6 weeks, I decided to divest in the website altogether. I didn't have enough "store credit" to cover shipping, so I added $10 in store credit (the minimum allowed), and added my last cards to my last shipment to bring the amount left to $0.01

While I will really miss the site for its ease of navigation and all the great inventory, I decided that I didn't want to reward this poor customer service any longer. It's one thing if they lost the cards, or damaged them, or sent them to the wrong address... Any reason would have been better than not replying at all after 2 months. These were the last cards I ordered from COMC, they still owe me 61 cards from the December shipment that never materialized, and probably an apology too.

This is the only time I've had an issue in over 5 years using the site, but it's ridiculous to be ghosted on a simple shipping inquiry. What do you think, am I overreacting?

Mudcat Grant and the 'Black Aces'

Jim Grant was the first African American pitcher to win 20 games in the American League, going 21-7 in 1965 for the Minnesota Twins, propelling the team to a World Series appearance. Over time, the feat meant more and more to him as new players joined the exclusive club of 20 game winners. He made the club more official by dubbing African American pitchers with 20+ Wins "The Black Aces"

Don Newcombe was the first 20 game winner in the National League, going 20-9 in 1951. His best season was his 3rd 20 win season in 1956. He went 27-7, winning the MVP and Cy Young Award.

"Sad Sam" (Thanks Fuji) Sam "Toothpick" Jones was a 20 game winner in 1959 for the Giants - He led the NL with a 2.83 ERA, 4 shutouts, and 21 victories.

Hall of Famer Bob Gibson won 20+ games 5 times, including 22 in 1968 when he won the MVP and Cy Young award. He led the NL with a 1.12 ERA that year. He would lead the league in victories again in 1970, with 23 victories, winning his 2nd Cy Young award.

Fergie Jenkins, born in Canada, won 20 or more games 7 times in his Hall of Fame Career. He won at least 20 games every year from 1967 through 1972. He would win 284 games in his career and 49 career shutouts.

Earl Wilson won 22 games in 1967, and is one of the very few players in MLB history to hit a home run and throw a no-hitter in the same game. He would hit 35 homers over his career.

Al Downing won 20 games in 1971 with the Dodgers. He was an All-Star in 1967 with the Yankees, and pitched in 3 different World Series.

J.R. Richard pitched to a 20-15 record in 1976. A prolific strike thrower, Richard struck out over 300 batters in 1978 and 1979. He led the NL with a 2.71 ERA in 1979 as well.

Vida Blue was a 20 game winner 3 times. He was also an MVP / Cy Young winner, going 24 - 8 with a 1.82 ERA and 8 shutouts in his first full season. Blue was a 3 time World Series Champ with the Oakland A's in the 1970s.

Mike Norris was a 20 game winner in 1980, finishing 2nd in the Cy Young vote. He won a pair of Gold Gloves and was an All-Star in 1981.

Dwight Gooden had one of the greatest pitching seasons of All-Time in 1985, with a 24 - 4 record including 16 complete games and 8 shutouts. He led the NL with 268 strikeouts, a 1.53 ERA and the 24 wins for a pitching Triple Crown. He ran away with the Cy Young award, one season after winning the Rookie of the Year award. Though he only won 20+ in one season, he had 6 seasons with 15 or more victories.

Dave Stewart was a 20 game winner in 4 consecutive seasons with Oakland, starting in 1987. He was the ALCS MVP twice, and was a World Series Champ in 1989. He didn't win a Cy Young award, but in his 4 seasons of 20 wins, he finished in 4th place or higher in the voting.

CC Sabathia was a 20 game winner in 2010, with a 21 - 7 record for the Yankees. He was the AL Cy Young winner in 2007 for Cleveland, and has been an All-Star 6 times. He was a World Series Champ in 2009 with the Yankees as well, and currently has a 246 -153 career W-L record.

David Price won 20 games in 2012 and won the Cy Young award -- He currently has 143 wins in 11 seasons. Price is fresh off a World Series victory with Boston in 2018. He's been the AL ERA leader twice, and led the league in strikeouts in 2014.

Day Seven - 1959 Topps Mudcat Grant #186 (IP Auto)

Day 7: A Card You Bought in Person and the Story Behind It

Taking the lead from Tony at Off-Hiatus Baseball Cards this will be the seventh of 30 posts, using the prompts provided. I won't necessarily post one every day, but I will do one for each card, toss in a few "insights" (as insightful as I can be, anyway), and usually include an honorable mention or two, just because I'm like that.

Here's my pick - I made a post about this one back in January of 2016, when I attended TwinsFest. I was really bummed out that my favorite player Kennys Vargas was not going to be there (He was on the schedule when I purchased my ticket, but a few days later he was removed from the list), but I had plans to get Glen Perkins and Kurt Suzuki to sign some things, so the day was not a total wash. Suzuki was in the very first round of players on the day, so I was kind of wandering around the vendor tables aimlessly while I waited for Glen Perkins to arrive later in the day.
I assumed that Suzuki and Perkins would be the only autographs I would try to get at the show (they were the two players I actually brought things to sign), but out of curiosity I checked the schedule again, and I'm really glad I did. The line was already forming for the next group. It was then that I noticed that the table would include Jim "Mudcat" Grant, signing autographs for just $5!

The only problem-- All my vintage was at home. It's not like I carry all my cards with me everywhere I go. So, I had a very simple goal - to find the very best Mudcat Grant card of all-time (in under 10 minutes). I made a bee-line for one table in particular, having purchased vintage from this vendor many times before. No Luck! I went to two more tables before I found it staring right back at me.
Normally when I buy I card I already own, I kick myself for not updating my lists, or not checking them before buying. This time I did it on purpose. The 1959 Topps card is the only one that shows Grant as Mudcat instead of Jim. A fair consolation would have been his 1972 Topps card with the A's, but this was the one I wanted him to sign. I waited in line about 90 minutes to get Grant's auto. I was towards the end of the line that started forming about half an hour before the signing session started, and I joined it after A) realizing Grant was there and B) finding a card for him to sign.
But it was totally worth it. As the line snaked back and forth, I would get closer to the table, then farther away. He was a great sport, very patient with the adults. But you could tell that he preferred signing for kids much more. The kid in front of me was 6 years old (Mudcat asked him his age) and the two of them had a great short conversation. He'd been signing autographs for nearly an hour by that point, so I was glad that a younger collector was in front of me. When I got to him I didn't say much other than thanks for coming to Twinsfest and thanks very much for the autograph.  

Since these are basically one card posts, why not show the backs, too? This card might actually be an upgrade condition-wise over the card with my other '59s.

An Honorable mention:

I picked this card up on Saturday at my local card shop. I wanted to find a sorting tray, which I found out about from the Sport Card Collectors blog. I was able to get a tray for just a few bucks, and I was happy to get it at the shop instead of online. Not a particularly interesting story, but now I am having a really exciting week sorting cards!

Twinsfest 2016 - the cards

 The Twins hold a mini yard sale within the Twinsfest event, selling items from their archives - This official scorebook from the 1991 World Series was like new.

 1979 Sportcasters - these are really thin and really big- Bert was a couple teams removed from the Twins when this came out, pitching for Pittsburgh. The back even referenced the trade from Texas for Al Oliver.

 Larry Jansen! This one gets me one card closer to finishing 1948 Bowman. No Rizzuto Rookie at the show.

 1964 Topps Giant.

 the back of the Giant Killer.

 Lots of cheap Mauer cards...

 And Puckett cards - though I had most of the cards for sale. There were three vendors selling the 1984 Fleer Update card, but none for the price I was offering to pay.

 My first IP auto - ever. I always feel a little weird about getting these, and I hate lines with a fiery passion. But getting this auto allowed me to do this:

 Getting a Twins Team Set of the 2014 All-Star Game, autographed.

 This was a real treat! Mudcat was having a great conversation with a 6 year old in line in front of me, and had a big laugh. I didn't even know when I came to the show that he would be there, but once I saw that he was signing for just $5, I found a copy of his 1959 Topps card (the only Topps Base card with "Mudcat") and got in line. I had to wait for about 90 minutes to see him, but it was more than worth it.

 Just a couple more fun ones I found for a great deal. Then it was time for some Set Building:

 Can't beat 1956 Topps.

 There was a copy of Mantle available - but I didn't have or want to spend $300 total at the show, let alone on one piece of cardboard. It has some flaws (rounded corners, a tiny speck of paper loss on the back, some light staining on the edges) but it was otherwise a beautiful card. Oh Well, we'll have to see how I do after tax time and after I invest in my house a bit.. Probably not meant to be!

 Here was my favorite of the new 56s - Billy Pierce running out a bunt!

And I couldn't end the post without showing at least one of these 1956 backs.

Twinsfest 2016

There were long lines for some of the stars, but we waited patiently like good Minnesotans.

Mudcat! 80 years young.

from L-R: Dan Gladden, Cory Provus (Radio Play-by-play), and Jose Berrios. Gladden was sharing stories about playing baseball in Puerto Rico and eating goat for the first time.

A view of the field and the Minneapolis skyline - That Snow is going melt before Opening Day, we hope.

One of three autographs I waited for this morning.

Twinsfest was a great time - I'll share the great finds tomorrow!