Flea Market Finds - 6/13

Flea Market! It's just like... it's just like... A mini. MALL!

WHERE HAS THIS SONG BEEN ALL MY LIFE

I hit the flea market yesterday and walked out with three purchases totaling well under five bucks total. They were good purchases though and stuff you could very likely only find at a flea market. Here are two things I got, the third I'm going to try to get up on YouTube later tonight.

I've mentioned before that there's a booth at this particular flea market where this guy sells cards and magazines and videos of an adult flavor. I don't often go there because there is another seller that usually gets all my cash, but that guy has moved up to a market in Alabama. I stopped by the booth looking for one thing in particular: the 1983 Topps Cal Ripken Jr. card that will complete my 1983 Topps set. He had one but it was sold already. Drats! However while looking through the Ripkens I noticed a cardboard box filled with a bunch of old Fleer basketball stickers. Since there was no Ripken to buy, I decided to check out the stickers. Jackpot! Behold...

'70s Fleer Sticker Atlanta Hawks Rainbow

This. Is. AWESOME. I think these cards are from 1978-79, because the back of the stickers have a puzzle on them that show a piece of a Sonics logo, and bits of text that read "l's Large" "Crowd" "-39,4" "Seattle King Do". I'm guessing that refers to the 1978 playoff game that hosted 39,457 fans. I would have bought all of them had I unlimited funds, but I ended up getting 16 different stickers featuring some very outdated logos. This is the coolest:

It's still got the old ABA ball in the logo!

I also found a dime box from a seller who got real high pressure after I looked at some coins he was selling. I picked up three cards from the seventies instead of the $50 Matt Ryan autograph he was pushing.

I wanted to get a '76 card just because, and I chose Bruce solely for the utterly bewildered look on his face.

Somebody Night Owl did a post on the mind bending background of this card a while back and as soon as I saw it I knew that it Must Be Mine. The combination of the seats and Paul's twister delivery is classic. The next card was the key acquisition though:

Dick Pole rookie card! Plus Wayne Garland too, who wasn't a slouch. Here's the lifetime stats from the four rookies:

Wayne Garland:
9 seasons with Baltimore and Cleveland
1040 IP, 55-66 record, 3.89 ERA, 1082 hits, 328 walks, 450 Ks.
Wayne went 20-7 with a 2.67 ERA with the O's in 1976

Fred Holdsworth:
7 seasons with Detroit, Baltimore Montreal and Milwaukee
182 IP, 7-10 record, 4.40 ERA, 182 hits, 86 walks, 94 Ks.

Mark Littell:
9 seasons with Kansas City and St. Louis
532 IP, 32-31 record, 56 saves, 3.32 ERA, 416 hits, 304 walks, 466 Ks.
Mark's the guy who gave up Chambliss' homer in game 5 of the 1976 ALCS.

Dick Pole:
6 seasons with Boston and Seattle
531 IP, 25-37 record, 5.05 ERA, 607 hits, 209 walks, 239 Ks.

Ok, so none of them were All Stars or anything, but at least they all stuck around for a few years. Upon doing a reality check, it turned out I had both '74 cards already, but the Pole RC was a major upgrade from the one I had. If anyone wants a crumpled up Dick Pole rookie let me know.

The last thing I got was a $1 grab bag of baseball cards. I've bought bricks from this guy before and there's usually a lot of interesting schtuff in them. This one was no different and I videoed it so you could all share the experience. Unfortunately, it took just over 10 minutes, so if YouToob barfs I'll have to edit. It will be up later tonight though so stay tuned.