20th Century Man

The real life John Wayne was born out West - way out West - in San Diego, California on this day in 1918. Williams learned about hard work and stubborn determination from his mother May, who was a dedicated and tenacious advocate for the local chapter of the Salvation Army. Baseball was his way to get away from his home, but also to feed the obsession with perfection that would be a hallmark of his professional life.

His .482 career on base percentage is number 1 all-time. He trails some other all-time greats in counting stats, but in his defense he left his career in Boston during his prime to go fight for Democracy.  He missed three full seasons training to be a Navy pilot, then teaching others to become pilots as well. He would return again to the service in the early 50s, missing nearly 2 more full seasons.

His final minor league season came in Minneapolis, and he led that league in virtually every significant hitting category. His hitting coach was Rogers Hornsby, who instilled in him the mantra of "Get A Good Pitch To Hit" which seems so simple, and yet there's very few guys that could walk down the street and have someone say "There goes The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived." More than just swinging at strikes, the mantra was to only swing at pitches that will generate the most damage with contact. 

There are very few Hall of Fame players to attempt to become great managers, but such was the personality of Ted Williams. It wasn't enough to know he was good, he wanted to make sure you knew it, too. He came to the Washington Senators (the 2nd version), and immediately saw positive results for the hitters. He did not win at the level of the great managers, but some would argue that he never had the right pieces in place to succeed.

He was the AL Manager of the Year his first season- he may be the only .400 hitter to win that award.

Dropping Some Knowledge

Bert Blyleven has been a mainstay during Twins television broadcasts, but the last few seasons have been lighter on Bert with several other former players joining the play by play guy Dick Bremer in the booth. One of the best from that group has been Roy Smalley, not only for his baseball knowledge, but he will often drop in needlessly advanced vocabulary words into his analysis. It's fitting that one of the smartest and most well spoken commentators' card came from a teacher. Mark of The Chronicles of Fuji sent out a flurry of packages, and this one arrived earlier today on my doorstep!

Reach them while they're young to teach them good habits early! Prospects were well represented in this package. Baxendale will pop up again soon. The Twins had a bunch of guys in the Bowman Top 100 prospects, and now it's up to those guys to start living up to those lofty expectations. A new crop is starting to make waves, but the future is still very much in the hands of Buxton, Sano, and Berrios.

This Kolten Wong mini taught me something new! Wong was originally drafted by the Twins in 2008, but he did not sign and instead went to college at the U of Hawaii. A solid education resulted in higher draft position with Saint Louis!

With age comes wisdom and experience! Some sharp vintage cardboard History came my way from 1972 and 1962.

It's a bit of a history lesson to see the early Twins - the uniform hasn't seen many changes, and in fact they still break out this version often.

Pascual was among the best in the AL and was an early star for the Twins.

Naragon hit a "lusty" .344 in the PCL, talk about an education for the kids of the 60s!

Oeltjen was one of several players the Twins signed out of Australia, where they maintain a solid presence. Phenom pitcher Lewis Thorpe is one of the most recent imports from the Land Down Under.

Civics are a very important subject, covering local government and our institutions from the Revolutionary War and the Continental Congress to local elections. Civic pride and patriotism can instill a desire to make one's community and country a better place!

Thanks so much Mark, this was a fantastic multi-disciplinary extravaganza!

The Time That Saturday Was Card Shop Day

I took a trip away from the craziness of the MN State Fair to visit the 2nd location of Three Stars Sportscards in Bloomington, MN. For showing up, a pack of Topps National Baseball Card Day 2018 was mine. For spending $10 on Topps products, I earned the Rhys Hoskins you see above.

I think I will keep Rhys, and I plan on sending Kiermaier to France as part of the next Triple Break / trade with The Card Papoy, but the rest are up for trade.

How did I earn the Rhys? I bought a jumbo hobby pack of Topps Chrome.

Bregman and Bradley are different versions of refractors, Didi and Max are the European representatives in the pack.

I actually pulled a refractor auto! It's a Marlin, though. I have now pulled three autos in packs in 2018, and they've ALL been Marlins. Let's hope that the third time is a charm and it won't happen again.

I always like to dig through the various boxes they put out at the store, scoring this die-cut Bartolo Colon from 1995 Classic.

There was a 3 / $5 auto/relic box, and I found several things to my liking, along with a fair number of cards to add for future trades. The Jesse Crain auto graph is numbered to 99, I think it is a variation because the stained glass is not colored in like the other cards I've seen from that set . . .

There was a stack of oddball box sets, and I picked up three Kraft Singles Sets- 1993, 1994, and 1995. I'm fairly certain I already have the 1994 Puckett, but the others are new to me, and again there's some more trade bait. The sets were all American League only.

2018 Series 2 Kennyssssssssss

Well, it's mid-August now, and Kennys Vargas has yet to crack the 40-Man roster, let alone the 25-Man MLB roster. He's in his age 27 season, and has hit just .221/.308/.381 at AAA Rochester.

But there's always room to hope! Logan Morrison, the player that most closely mirrored the skill set Kennys provides, has been historically bad, and recently underwent season ending hip surgery. For now,  the Twins are rotating Catcher Mitch Garver and 1B/OF Tyler Austin in the DH spot. Kennys will have a tough time breaking up that duo.

I've yet to complete a Vargas rainbow, and I doubt I'll ever see the 2015 Topps Clear /10 that I've been looking for going on 3 years now... The 2018 rainbow seems almost possible. I have tried many of the strategies suggested by the blogging world's rainbow building/player collecting expert Kenny in this excellent post, and I am hopeful that it will happen.

I just need the following for 2018:

Topps Black /67
Mother's Day Pink /50
Father's Day Blue /50
Memorial Day Camo /25
Platinum /1
Printing plates (Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow)

For 2015 Topps, I just need the Factory exclusive sparkly variation and that darn Clear/Acetate parallel.

The Past is NOW the Future

This card ranks right up there with the Diamondbacks' Bullpen Car, or the Astros' funeral for Carlos Beltran's Glove. It's silly, and I love it!

I remember thinking that Turn Ahead the Clock was a fun promotion, but in Seattle there's genuine nostalgia for it. It does seem strange to me to have a 20th Anniversary celebration for a jersey, but I can't deny the fact that it's a welcome breath of fresh air.

Speaking of the 1990s - I took the opportunity to raid the COMC site for its late 90s and early 2000s treasures.

1997 SP looks fantastic, even today. I don't think I had anything from that set before. Bonds before Bonds was BONDS, though he was still getting intentionally walked at a crazy rate. Gonzalez had a ridiculous June in 1996 - 15 homers, 36 RBI, and a .407 batting average.

In the 90s, Inserts look amazing and base cards look almost like inserts.

Collector's Choice had a photofile's dream insert called "Big Shots" - this one of Ripken was my favorite.

And then there's Colon, who is still cruising along in the big leagues today!

This subset tried to predict where Colon would be in 2001 in the new Millenium. The 28 year old (Ahem, TSC couldn't predict that Colon's real birth year was 1973...) didn't find himself as a closer, though he did finish one game that season- he just happened to also be the starter. He would have his first 20 win season in 2002, and it was arguably better than his Cy Young year in 2005. In 2000, Colon was close to the predicted K rate, he fanned 212 batters in 188 innings.