Free Stuff Friday #11 - Faster Than You Can Say . . .

Faster than you can say "jack robinson," it's already free-stuff Friday again. I have some 2010 Topps to choo choo choose from for starters...

Inserts featuring the Chairman of the Board, a Moose, Pops, and the masher formerly known as Mike.

Parallels! Tyler Mark is a refractor.

Hockey still going strong, folks are cleaning me out of this stuff quickly!

And in honor of his debut this week 73 years ago, here are some Jackie Robinsons from recent releases. To make it easier, let's say these are Jackie #1 through Jackie #9:

123
456
789

Make sense? If I don't know which one you mean, I'll ask for clarification.



Claim one or claim every card in the post if you'd like!

I have several small piles started from past weeks, I can start one for you too, or add on, or send it out!

If we haven't traded before, or in a long time, please verify your mailing address (you can contact me using the form on the right sidebar of my blog!)

Thanks!

Free Stuff + Free Time

Free Stuff Friday will be back again tomorrow - and you can thank Jon from A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts, for giving me the inspiration to start my own Free Stuff series. Al Smith, a member of the ABA Utah Stars, is a guy I know nothing about, but I did like the photo. I can thank Jon for this card, too, because he offered it in one of his recent Free Stuff posts. I don't have much of a basketball collection, and it's mostly due to my own ignorance. I don't know many of the players before the 1980s. With baseball, I have many points of reference to the past, having been surrounded by books and documentary films about baseball from its early days up to the present day.

I am looking to change that imbalance, and now that we all seem to have a lot more time to kill at home, what better way to spend it than reading some books? Terry Pluto's Loose Balls is considered to be one of the few substantial books about the ABA, however it is also thought of by many fans of basketball history to be high on anecdotes and low on factual research. If nothing else, reading the introduction sheds light on the author's obvious enthusiasm for the defunct league and the stories that it gave birth to.

Bob Kuska's book Hot Potato goes way back to the early 1900s and traces the game of basketball from colleges in the Northeast to the cities of New York and Washington, D.C. Kuska's interest in the way the sport was embraced by the African-American communities and how it came to have the popularity it enjoys today. Thumbing through this volume I notice that there is a baseball connection as well -- Pittsburgh's dynastic all-black basketball team in the 1920s featured Cumberland Posey, who later gained fame as the principal owner of the Homestead Grays. Posey is enshrined in both the Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame. A section of this books details the fierce rivalry between Posey's team and the New York  and D.C. teams that could not beat him.

A little bit on the lighter side, I picked this one up based on the tag line alone. I have been a long time fan of "inside baseball" books like Ball Four and the series of books written by Dirk Hayhurst, so I sought out a basketball analog. I vaguely remember Paul Shirley as a guy on the end of the Bulls bench, and maybe even something about his promotion for this book, but I have a feeling most of what I will read here will be new to me. 

On the other end of the spectrum, this book chronicles the life of Pete Maravich. My knowledge of him begins and ends with some grainy YouTube highlights and various older mentions of him as a great player. No spoilers, please, but I also am just barely aware that Maravich's story has a tragic ending. I don't recall any of the details, so I am only preparing myself to see a modern day tragedy play itself out over the course of this book.

I closed it out with a classic. David Halberstam is very familiar to me for his baseball writing, so I look forward to reading his take on basketball in the late 70s. All of this will hopefully kindle some more familiarity and interest for me in basketball beyond Bird/Magic/Shaq/Kevin Garnett.

The second card I claimed from Jon's post was this 1960 Leaf of Brooks Lawrence. Lawrence is from my dad's hometown of Springfield, OH - and I think I am going to take the plunge and add more Springfield, OH players as player collections. I was actually surprised to find quite a few players from the area.

The following people from Springfield, OH played Major League baseball:

Brooks Lawrence
Jiggs Donahue 1900-09
Pat Donahue 1908-10
Joe Dunn 1908-09
Adam Eaton (OF) 2012- current (?)
Tyler Green (P) 1993-98
Dick Harley 1905
Dustin Hermanson 1995-06
Jimmy Journell 2003-05
Ray Lucas 1929-34
John Malarkey 1894-1903
Will McEnaney 1974-79
Cotton Minahan 1907
Mike Mitchell 1907-14
Otto Neu 1917
Danny Shay 1901-07
Chappie Snodgrass (!!) 1901
Rick White (P) 1994-07

NFL:
Braxton Miller WR 2016-17
Jabbar Threats (!!) DE 1997-98
Mike Davis (DB) 1994-95
Joey Howard OT 1989
Ron Burton HB 1960-65
Bob Myers DT 1955
Bob Hanlon HB 1948-49
Jim McDonald B 1938-39
Bob Haas B 1929
Herb Dieter G 1922
Jerry Zeller WB 1921

NBA:
Butch Carter 1981-86
Jason Collier 2001-05
Wayne Embry 1959-69
Fred Foster 1969-77

NHL:
None!

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!

The Custom-er is Always Right!

"Hello? Is this Jeremy from Topps Cards That Never Were? Yeah he got your mailer, it was awesome. Thanks for making a sunset card for me, bro!" 

I made a trade with Jeremy based on a claim of a sweet Enny Romero patch card that I put in a Free Stuff Friday post. I knew I could catch the attention Rays fan eventually! He sent over a big stack of Twins, and also included some Edgar Martinez cards and a few 80s needs as well.

The Twins portion of the package really sparkled - a big parallel bonanza! The Rod Carew on the bottom left is numbered to just 1,000 copies.

A boatload of refractor / foil parallels as well. But this was just a sneak peek, an apéritif before the main course:

As his blog name suggests, he made some awesome custom cards that never were! Tom Kelly's "rookie" Manager Card, and a great All-Star entry as well, to go along with a pair of Minnesota legends in their final seasons. Molitor of course finished his illustrious career as a Twin but was a high school star in Saint Paul, MN as well. Kent Hrbek was and remains a legend in MN, thanks to his prodigious home runs and jolly disposition.

This one made me smile right away, with Tom Kelly hoisting the Commissioner's Trophy for the 2nd time in 5 years. Jeremy, thanks so much for these - I really appreciate the extra mile you went to to make them!

1996 Topps All Star Rookie Outfielder Jermaine Dye

The Topps All-Star Rookie Team loves the guy who can shine in an unexpected role. Jermaine Dye got the opportunity to start in Atlanta in his rookie year due to an injury to Braves' star outfielder David Justice. Though he appeared in just 96 games for Atlanta, he came up big -- hitting a dozen homers and racking up 134 total bases. He also came to the big leagues ready to hit - his very first plate appearance was a home run! He was the first Brave to hit a homer in their first plate appearance since Chuck Tanner in 1955 (when the team was still in Milwaukee!)

Dye finished in 6th place in the NL Rookie of the year voting, thanks to his key role on a playoff team. Dye homered in the NLDS, though his post season as a whole left a little to be desired at the plate. He was just 22 years old, however, and would use that experience to his advantage.

Jermaine Dye was a 17th round selection by the Braves in the 1993 MLB Draft. He was a three sport (Baseball, Basketball, and Football) at Wood High School in Vacaville, CA. Dye had scholarship offers to play football for BYU, basketball for UNLV. But he grew up idolizing Chili Davis with the Giants, who he could watch often. His father drove the Bay Area Muni bus, and his route would take him past Candlestick Park every day. Jermaine and his sister would get a ride to the game from their dad, who was also Jermaine's primary hitting coach and mentor.  Dye grew to be 6'4" tall and promised power to all fields. Jermaine's primary position in High school and College, however, was as a dominant pitcher. After a season in college, the Braves drafted Dye, ultimately deciding that hitting would take him further than his arm alone. He did boast a cannon from the outfield, throwing out runners with ease.  Dye would jump a level every year, hitting at each stop along the way. His debut with the Braves may have come out of necessity with the injury to Justice, but Dye made the most of it.

Following that promising 1996 season, Dye was traded to the Royals for Michael Tucker and Keith Lockhart. The first couple years in Kansas City could be called disappointing - he was tagged with the label of being injury prone. It turned out that he was just snake-bitten and a victim of some bad luck. Once he was able to play a full season, Dye proved the detractors wrong. His tremendous 1999 led to an All-Star selection in 2000. He made the roster as a starter - the first Royal to be elected to the All-Star Game by the fans since Bo Jackson in 1989. He would also earn a Gold Glove for his solid defensive work in the outfield. His final two and a half seasons in Kansas City made him a rising star, hitting over 100 RBI and scoring over 100 runs in 2000 to go with a .321 batting average.

Dye would be traded mid-season in 2001 to the Oakland A's. He responded in his first full month back in the Bay Area where he grew up by being named the AL player of the month. He hit .330 with 7 homers, 32 RBI, and scored 22 runs in the month of August. The A's would make the playoffs in each of the next three seasons with Dye patrolling the outfield. The injury bug would bite him again in Oakland. He was not much of a base stealer, but Dye's running game was all but shut down at this point in his career due to various leg and knee injuries. Though the lost time made some critical of Jermaine's production in Oakland, he did play better than league average at the plate and in the field over his time in Oakland. He also hit .400 with a pair of doubles in the 2002 ALDS against the Twins, and contributed another homer in the 2003 ALDS despite only playing in 65 regular season games.

The best years of his pro career came in Chicago. He signed with the White Sox after the 2004 season and made an instant impact, as the team went all the way to the World Series. Dye was the World Series MVP, hitting .438 with a homer and 3 RBI in the Series sweep over Houston. Dye would follow that MVP performance with his best full Season in the bigs. He hit 44 homers and drove in 120 Runs with a career high 1.006 OPS. He won a Silver Slugger, made his 2nd All-Star team, and finished 5th in the league MVP voting. Over the 3 year stretch from '05 through '07, no AL outfielder hit more homers than Jermaine Dye. For his Chicago career, Dye crushed 164 home runs and slugged .525. His OPS+ over that span was a robust 121.

Though injuries delayed his emergence as a star and interrupted his career in Oakland, he still had a tremendous 14 year career that included over 1,750 career hits, 325 Homers, and over 1,000 RBI. He was not one to take a walk, with a walk rate of just 8.3% vs a k Rate of 18.1%. Despite those numbers he still had a Career OPS+ of 111, well above league average.

Let's hear your Jermaine Dye stories!