Sweet Treats

Nick from the fantastic Dime Boxes Blog sent over a package of Twins including this sweet Saint Paul, MN native Tom Johnson. Johnson didn't reach the heights of other Saint Paulites like Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, or even Joe Mauer - - but he was a decent relief pitcher. In 1977 he won 16 games and didn't start a single one! He also notched 15 saves, so he ranked in the top 10 in the AL in both categories.

Nothing wrong with some high quality reprints!

The genuine article is pretty great as well! Tony O is looking good here, making yet another All-Star squad.

Jim Perry, less famous than his HOF brother, still managed to win 20+ games in two straight seasons for the Twins, winning the AL Cy Young in 1970 for his efforts.

A healthy dose of Big League came through too!

The 90s are alive and well in Minneapolis!

Nick also provided a hit! "Pronk" and Morneau were the AL Central's heavy hitters for several years in the 2000s.

Thanks so much, Nick!

Serve & Volley

Jim aka grcl from cards as i see them claimed a couple cards from my Allen & Ginter post last week, and he's already forwarded a return package! Larry Walker at the bat rack fills two mini collections at once!

Mitch Garver has been a busy guy recently - making headlines at the plate, behind the plate, and on the mound for the Twins. He pitched a clean 8th inning for the Twins in a blowout loss to Cleveland, then blasted a 3 run homer in the very next game. He's starting to get more regular playing time as the season has progressed.

Zack Granite, on the other hand, is now buried on the depth chart in AAA after some bad injury luck and some subpar play on the field. Very surprising to get this Jose Berrios auto, thanks so much for including that!

Speaking of Jose, this is my first look at the National Baseball Card Day issue - at first I thought "Is Jim some kind of Wizard? NBCD isn't until this coming Saturday." Jim explained that this was given away at a Twins game earlier in the month, which makes much more sense than my theory.

This is one of those stats that is impressive, but made less impressive if you think too hard about what it's actually saying. Berrios had a really hot start in 2017, won 7 games before the end of June.

Jim, thanks much for the great cards!

A Not Bad Vlad Add

I think I purchased the last packs of my childhood in 1996 - I didn't start collecting cards again in earnest for almost twenty years. It almost perfectly mirrored the career of one my favorite players, Vladimir Guerrero.

It was great to see Guerrero inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, and I realized that I had very few of his cards - so I hopped onto COMC to find some affordable gems.

I mostly missed out on the crazy inserts of the mid to late 90s, so it's nice to find them again now that the hype has died down a bit.

Hardly ever share the backs of these inserts, that's a very 90s looking font.

This one is sort of a farewell to the Expos card.

I wonder sometimes how Guerrero leaving the team via free agency was foreshadowing what was to come. Not having Vlad in the lineup must have hurt ticket sales in Montreal, even with a downward trend in attendance as the years went on.

I haven't seen many full body shots in A&G recently, they've shifted to almost exclusively headshots. This card jumped out to me.

This one doubles as a bat rack mini collection card!

Just to cover all the bases, I picked up Vlad as an Oriole as well. I still don't have one of him as a Ranger, but the ones I saw for sale recently didn't do much for me, so I'll wait on that for now.

The 1974 Topps Rookie All-Star Team - Bucky Dent

Here they are - the Topps All-Star Rookie Team, selected "by the Youth of America" following the 1974 season and featured in the 1975 Topps set. 

I have completed the run of these up through 2018 Series One, at least all regular issue cards that bear the All-Star Rookie Trophy. 

Topps decided to skip the Trophies on the 1974 Topps Set, but they made a triumphant return in 1975. I wanted to show my appreciation for this expression of good judgement, so for the 1974 Lineup, I will do a separate post for each player. This was a pretty good crop of players, so let's dive in! 

Shortstop - Bucky Dent

Bucky Dent was the 6th overall pick in the June 1970 MLB Draft, though he had already been drafted twice before by Saint Louis without signing a contract. Dent would agree to sign with the White Sox and became the heir apparent to the position long held by Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio on the South Side of Chicago.

Whoa - Thanks to this card, it has been revealed that the Youth of America have been disenfranchised! The Rookie All-Star team is now voted on by MLB players. Dent began his White Sox career at just 21 years old. In his first full season, he finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, and led the AL in Sacrifice Hits. His batting average of .274 would be a career high.

Expectations for Chicago Shortstops would always be high - whether the player is trying to replace Aparicio or Banks. Comparisons would never really go away. He did make his first All-Star roster in 1975, this time as a reserve. He would enter the game as a pinch hitter (batting for Reggie Jackson), and struck out.

Sharing this for the cartoon - Dent's family history was complicated, I don't want to make light of it. You can read all about it in his SABR biography.  While Dent wasn't exactly setting the world on fire at the plate or in the field, there was a intangible quality to his play on the field, and it was that "grit," "heart," and/or "hustle" which appealed to the New York Yankees.

The Yankees gave up Oscar Gamble, LaMarr Hoyt, a minor leaguer and $200,000 to get their new Short Stop, and both teams went away thinking they made out like bandits. Dent would continue to play regularly at short, and despite mediocre statistics, he was widely regarded as a team leader.

I won't bore you with the details, but he's given much of the credit for the Yankees' 1978 World Series victory over the Dodgers -- He hit .417 and drove in two big runs in the deciding 6th game. 1978 of course was his 2nd World Series victory, the first coming the year prior.

Dent would be on the move again in 1982, traded to Texas for Lee Mazzilli following two straight All-Star appearances. In Texas, Dent would find it more difficult to get those fan votes. His time in Texas was unremarkable. If not for his above average defense, we would have been an exactly replacement level player, earning 0.0 offensive WAR.

In 1984, Dent was released by the Rangers in April. He was granted a mini-reunion in New York - the Yankees signed him in June. He would not appear in a single game and was granted his release in July. The Kansas City Royals called, and he played his final 11 Major League games in the City of Fountains. After his playing career ended, Dent would return to the Yankees as minor league manager, moving quickly from single A to AAA. He briefly managed the major league team at the tail end of 1989 and the start of 1990, but was caught in George Steinbrenner's coaching carousel and was fired early in the 1990 season. He would join Joe Torre's staff in Saint Louis with the team that originally drafted him from 1991-1994, then coached in the Rangers system until 2001.

Johan Santana, Twins Hall of Famer

Johan Santana was acquired by the Minnesota Twins on December 13th, 1999 in a trade with the Florida Marlins. The Marlins were asked to pick Johan in the Rule V draft from Houston in exchange for pitcher Jared Camp. Johan had been in the Astros minor league system since 1995, but was only 21 years old.

Due to the rules of the Rule V draft, Santana spent the entire 2000 season on the Twins' 25-Man roster, but was more or less hidden at the back end of the bullpen. It wasn't until 2003 that Johan was added to the Twins' rotation, and even then he was shuttled between the bullpen and the starting five. In 2004, Johan became JOHAN.

No more bullpen duty in 2004, Santana earned his first Cy Young Award, and led the AL in ERA, Strikeouts, FIP, WHIP, K/9, H/9, and ERA+. He would remain the AL WHIP leader for as long as he pitched for the Twins, leading the league every year. He would win a 2nd Cy Young award in 2006, including a Pitching version of the Triple Crown (league leader in ERA, Ks, and Wins).

As a Twin, Santana was a 3-time All-Star and won a Gold Glove to go along with his 2 Cy Young Awards. He finished his Twins career with 1,381 strikeouts in 1,308 and 2/3 innings. In his 8 seasons with the Twins, he was only asked to intentionally walk 2 batters-- Miguel Tejada in 2003 in a relief appearance, and Mike Sweeney in 2005 in the 8th Inning of 2-1 victory over the Royals.  Every other batter was in serious trouble.

Even after being traded to New York, it was hard to not think of Johan as a Minnesota Twin first and foremost. At the time, there was a little bad blood - not just because he wouldn't re-sign with MN, but by stating it publicly that he wouldn't, he damaged what little leverage the Twins had in trade negotiations.

It's all forgotten now, of course, and during Santana's attempt to return to MLB, I kept hoping that A) he could return to his prior success, and B) that the Twins would try to bring him back. Yesterday, the Twins inducted him into the Twins' Hall of Fame, and fittingly it was phenom Jose Berrios on the mound for the team, blowing away Royals batters just like Johan used to.