The Perfect Cubs Card

I knows a Card of the Week when I see one.

That package of '54 cards I got from Crinkly Wrappers included a few cards of coaches. You don't see a lot of coaches in Topps sets, but Topps was in the middle of a player war with Bowman at the time and I guess they needed to fill out the set. Most of the coaches they used were former MLB players including a few who were stars in their time so it was a decent way to pad a set. One of the cards is of Cubs' coach Ray Blades. Ray was an outfielder on many of the St. Louis Cardinals' Pennant winning teams of the late '20s and early '30s. His best season was in 1925 when he hit .342 over 122 games. After his playing days were over, he managed the Cardinals for a couple of seasons, was a minor league manager and coached for several different teams. In 1953 he was brought on as a coach for the Cubs resulting in this fantastic card:

Look at that man's face. That poor man's face. That is the face of a man who just watched a runaway train wipe out his brand new truck which was being driven by his wife who just ran off with his life's savings because she was having a torrid love affair with his best friend's dog. He then went to the ballpark and watched the Cubs lose to Milwaukee in the 14th. That's what I see when I look at that face.

This is absolutely perfect for a franchise as horribly forlorn as the Cubs. They are one of the two remaining teams that were a part of the original National League Charter, but they lose out on being the oldest MLB franchise because they lost two years to the Great Chicago Fire. The last time they won a World Series, they had to go beat Ty Cobb to do it. The last time they won a pennant, Harry Truman was President. They've won exactly one playoff series since 1908 and followed that up with one of the most infamous collapses in playoff history. This is not a happy franchise.

So how perfect is this card? On one of the most colorful sets in history, it has a blank white background. Ray's black & white 'action' photo is cropped in such a way that it appears as if he is pulling an errant javelin out of his chest. The Cubs logo has a completely vacant stare, as if the poor animal is trying to go into its happy place. And that sad sack photo of poor Ray... why did Topps choose that photo? Maybe the designer of that card was a fan of Norman Rockwell.

Absolutely perfect.

A Tale of two Jackies

AKA Card of the week 1/24/11 (fine, so it's late)

Topps is catching a lot of crap about their quality control lately. People are whining and kvetching about miscut cards, curled up Chrome, boogered redemptions and Honus' polyester jump suit. There are mumblings and grumblings about Topps' lax attitude after receiving a monopoly on officially licensed baseball cards. Talk that the lack of competition has made them lazy and inattentive towards the needs of the customer. Even worse - the perception that they don't care about the hobby at all and are just out to make a quick buck is taking hold. I'm here to tell you that this is all wrong. Topps hasn't all of a sudden lost interest in producing a quality product. They're just bloody incompetent! Poor quality control has been a hallmark of Topps for decades! It's practically their heritage! Submitted for your approval is a pair of cards from days gone by.

Here's a card from the 1958 Topps set.

Ain't that gorgeous? Good 'ol Jackie "MVP" Jensen. Might have been an all-timer if he didn't hate to fly. We'll call this card Jackie #1. Observe the bold colors and crisp photo and oh-so-nice centering. Now here comes another one...

Here's Jackie #2. Observe closely, but not too closely lest you hurt your eyes. Note the red stripe below the Sock Monster logo. The white outlines around Jackie's earlobes. The overall fuzziness of the whole shebang. That there is poor photo register. Downright mis-registered if you ask me. This occurs when one of the color plates prints just slightly off from where it's supposed to print during the printing process. This is pretty a pretty common occurrence in items designed to be printed quickly and cheaply. You see it all over vintage baseball cards sometimes to spectacular extents.

Ok, so one card is printed correctly, the other not so much. Now let's look at the backs.

This back is printed perfectly. Well, a little off center, but let's not be picky. The red is where it's supposed to be and so is the black. Good printing job all around. Now here's the other back.

Hey! this one's centered! The red's all over the place though. Jackie watching TV has a huge red beard. Jackie the football player has a river of blood pouring out of his neck and off his shoulders. Everything else has a 'colored outside the lines' vibe to it. Well, obviously the poor printing job is on the card with the off register front, right?

Nope. The good front has the bad back and vice versa. Remember, the off-center card had the jacked-up front. So weird quality control had been happening since forever at Topps. To be fair, I just happened to have doubles of this particular card and by blind luck they both had register problems. Less than 5% of the '58s in my collection have crummy register and I loves crummy cards. They're still there though and pretty common, just not with the ubiquitousness of curly Chrome. So don't be thinking Topps' quality control recently took a nosedive, they've had issues forever.

So there's your answer. Topps cares about cards, they just aren't really good at printing them quite right. Chillax! They're just cards, people! It's not like they cost $100 a pack or anything! That would just be absurd! Now, why the shade of blue on both cards is completely different, I have no freaking idea. You'll have to ask Topps about that one.

Card of the Week - 1/17/11

The plan was to feature cheesy '90s inserts for each Card of the Week feature this year. Then I got sick, caught up in work and family and stuff, then the blizzard hit, I realized in a panic I am way behind in packages and e-mails and such, then the Falcons utterly choked and I went into mourning and I got finally fed up with it all and never got around to picking out a card and scanning it and all that other rubbish. So no '90s insert for you, you all didn't seem to like them much anyways. Instead here's a badly abused 1956 Topps Herb Score with the border removed that I had lying around in my draft folder. I might not post again until at least this weekend so I really needed something nice to show up as my image in your RSS feeds for the next few days.

What is it with pitchers having unfortunate names for their line of work? Bob Walk. Homer Bailey. Kevin Slowey. Grant Balfour. Herb Score. I'm not sure why the kid who pulled this card in 1956 decided the border had to go. Maybe he was trying to make it the same size as the new '57s that came out a year later. Maybe it was done many years later by a kid trying to fit it into a standard 9 pocket page. Maybe the kid just got a little happy with the scissors. I do know one thing, the 1956 Topps set looks fantastic with a full bleed border.  Hey Topps, just make this your 2012 design. '56 Topps, full bleed. Exact same design, no '89 Topps Bigging it up. You can even print the name in foil to make it unreadable and slap a giant Topps logo in the middle to squeeze out the photo, we won't mind.

The back of this card always bugged me. I don't understand the Hall of Fame cartoon at all. Herb had a fantastic rookie season, sure. I don't think it's too hyperbolic to be declaring him a future HOFer after winning the Rookie of the Year in 1955. Hell, I've already hung Jason Heyward's plaque at Cooperstown, they just haven't noticed it yet. It's the year that bugs me. Why is Herb putting in his reservation for 1965? He was a rookie in 1955. In '65 he would be only 32 years old. If he retired in 1964 he would just barely have the requisite 10 seasons to be eligible and the only way he'd actually get in would be to die in the offseason and get an exemption. 1975  I could see. 1965, no. Maybe Herb was a big fan of Pud Galvin and anticipated Pud's induction thanks to the Veteran's Committee in '65 and wanted a front row seat for Pud's speech. Wait, Pud died in 1902, nevermind. It's probably just a case of the cartoonist getting the date wrong. It really should not bother me this much.

BUT IT DOES.

Card of the Week - 1/03/10

Card of the Week is back! Featuring the greatest cheesy 90's insert ever!

1998 Donruss Crusade

In the '90s, Donruss had some of the classier inserts around. Upper Deck pioneered the AutoGamers,  Pinnacle corned the market on Dufex, Fleer was known for sheer quantity of inserts, Pacific went overboard on die cuts and Topps... Well, Topps inserts sucked. Donruss inserts had class. The Danes call it  "Quality". Donruss led the way with Diamond Kings, Elite, Spirit of the Game. They could also do cheesy and gimmicky  with the best of them, but in general they were a bit more highbrow than the rest.

In 1998, Donruss did two things: they released the apex of of '90s inserts and they dropped dead. Well. not exactly dropped dead, the company that gobbled them up (Pinnacle) went bankrupt and the company that picked up the scraps (Playoff) missed out on the baseball license, so for all intents and purposes Donruss was dead in the baseball market until 2001, when they produced one of the most ridiculous card sets ever. I digress, however.

In 1998 Donruss released a pretty solid stable of products including Donruss, Leaf, Elite and Signture Series. Of course all 5 of the competing brands (I never fully accepted that Pinnacle and Donruss were the same thing - you still had to choose between a pack of  Leaf and a pack of Pinnacle  in the card aisle) also had similar decent lineups of base, mid-level, high end and WTF products. In order to stand out from the crowd you have to have some kind of draw or gimmick to catch people's attention. To prop up their low-end products, Donruss tried Crusade.

Basically Crusade was a shiny Chrome Refractor looking card with bold colors and an eye-popping font for the name that had some kind of Midieval Times theme going on. There is no way to describe in words how fantastic these things look, you just have to see them in person. Like any Donruss gimmick worth its salt it was also horribly confusing, fractured and low-numbered.

There were three different versions of the base Crusade card. The most common Green card shown here that is numbered to 250. A better looking Purple parallel was numbered to 100 each. The scarcest and best looking Crusade card was colored Red and numbered to only 25 cards. Thanks to later shenanigans by the next incarnation of Donruss and Topps with their Moments and Milestones set, you can find cards numbered to 25 in the "please take these crappy cards free and get this junk out of my store" box at your local card shop. Back in 1998 a card numbered to 250 was an underwear-ruining experience.

The cards were pretty scarce to begin with, add to this that the set is 100 cards in size and you have a real beast of a set if you want to try to collect it. Oh, but wait there's more... This insert set was fractured amongst four different sets. 40 cards could be found in 1998 Donruss, 30 more in Leaf, and the last 30 were found in Donruss Update. Then Donruss tacked on 30 more Crusade cards of up-and -comers like Jaret Wright and Bobby Estallella in their Leaf Rookies and Stars set. In all, you have 130 cards spread over four sets. Oh but wait there's more... The first 100 cards are skip numbered across the two Donruss sets and Leaf. If you want the Ken Griffey Jr. card, you can buy 1000 cases of Leaf, you ain't gonna get him. If you want A-Rod, don't buy any Donruss. So in summary, 130 cards, numbered to 375 cards each across the parallels, spread out over 4 sets, in a seemingly random manner. Yeah, good luck with that one.

BUT DAMN, IT'S PURDY. 

Even this Helton here which is horribly flawed by a refractor seam going right through the middle (which looks like a design element in the scan, but it's not) looks utterly fantastic. Sure, it's a ridiculous set that is almost a prototype for all the the excessive parallels and nonsensical gimmickry that emerged in the 2000's but sometimes you have to distance yourself from the marketing absurdity and just enjoy the beauty of the design.

Card of the Week - 1/07/10

Card of the Week is back, moved from Mondays to Thursdays. I seem to have a little more time on Thursdays to do this kind of thing properly. Well, I'd have more time to do it properly tonight if I didn't start watching The Big Lebowski on Vs. and start over on tape 20 minutes into the thing when I realize that it's the cut version and decide I don't want to find any strangers in the Alps. So once again I'm typing the thing up like mad at the last possible second, secure in the knowledge that blogger marks the timestamp based when you first open the new post so even if it takes 'til two AM it will still be published on Thursday. Luckily, I have a card where the picture is worth a thousand words. There's a picture on the back too, so that's two thousand. So you'll get a post with at least 2,200 words.

1993 Upper Deck Jeff Huson

This card illustrates perfectly why 1993 Upper Deck is one of the best sets of all time. Check out that picture. Kenny Lofton slides hard into second to break up a double play. Huson leaps out of the way to avoid the slide, bumping his head on the UPPER DECK logo on the top of the card. There's even a blurry hat logo on the wall behind them offering hours of entertainment while you try to figure out what team that's supposed to be. Upper Deck was really good at sneaking in star players into their photos to make the cards more interesting. In 1993, they couldn't possibly know that Lofton would become one of the best leadoff hitters of all time, so good choice by photo editor. Let's check out the back...

Oh, looky here. THE greatest lead off hitter in the history of baseball. Nifty pair of pics here, All told between Huson Lofton and Rickey ypu're looking at 2092 stolen bases, 5922 hits and 4065 runs. Not bad for a common card.

Thanks to Duane for chipping away at my '93 Upper Deck list. See, the good cards get posted eventually, I'm just takin' my time...

Card of the Week - Dodger fans, look away

I would first like to take the time to apologize to this guy, this guy and ESPECIALLY this guy. I'm so, so sorry. you may want to look away at this point, because things get bad.

Everyone else, Check out this sweet card of Steve Garvey!!!

SP Legendary Cuts! Shiny! Foiley! Nice big picture on a relic card!

Wooooooo! Steve Garvey! Dodger legend! NL MVP leads LA to Pennant!

Let's check out the jersey swatch!!!









(seriously, Dodger fans need to leave right now)











(Still here? You brave, brave soul. We'll get through this together.)

BROWN.

A brown Jersey on a Dodger card.

Upper Deck did a relic card in tribute to Garvey's 1974 MVP season and stuck a chunk of a Padres jersey in there. CLASSIC. Richard McWilliam is such a prankster! Maybe they indicate that it's a Pads uniform on the back...

Nope. Certified to them as having been used in an official Major League Game. Dodgers logos plastered all over the card and there's a Padres swatch embedded in the thing. There are several explanations for this odd pairing of jersey and card:

1. It's a jersey that Garvey wore when he was playing for the San Diego Padres from 1983-1987.
2. It's a uniform worn by a member of the San Diego Padres (most likely Gene Locklear or Fred Kendall) in a game against the Dodgers during Steve's tenure with the club.
3. Upper Deck's relic choosing methodology is to place buckets on the floor with a card inside, cut every jersey in the joint up into little swatches and then throw 'em all up in the air like confetti. The swatches that fall into the Upper Deck Player Bucket™ go into that player's card.
4. A curious UPS employee delivering new game-used material to the UD factory got curious and leaned in a little too close to the Jersey Chopper Upper.

I don't mind the brown uniform swatch because my fondest memory of Steve Garvey was when he got thrown out of a Braves - Pads game after mouthing off to Eric Gregg. I don't know what Mr. Clean said to Eric to warrant an ejection, but I'm sure I've yelled worse to Eric, especially during tthe 1997 NLCS. Speaking of Mr. Clean, are people still mad at Steve for having sex? With women? Jeez, he'd win Man of the Year for only doing that with some of the stuff that goes on now.

Card of the Week - Old Hoss

Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn. Hall of Famer. Boston Beaneater. 300 game winner. 60 of those wins (give or take a win or two) came in ONE SEASON. Pitched 73 complete games that year. Was a grouchy old drunk, which is the best kind of drunk. Threw a wicked curve underhanded. A charley horse is named after him. Really knew how to pose for a picture. Greatest contribution to American culture: the very first person to ever flip a bird in a photograph. Lost an eye in a hunting accident. Died of syphillis at the age of 42.


And now, Old Hoss Radbourn Twitters from the Grave

This is pretty much the best thing ever.

Old Hoss on:

Players and Managers:
Derek Jeter
Pedro Martinez
Alex Rodriguez
Chase Utley
Mark McGwire
David Ortiz
Ryan Howard
Mark Buehrle
Jake Peavy
Jamie Moyer
Hideki Matsui
Curt Schilling
Tommy Lasorda
Mariano Rivera
Prince Fielder
Joba Chamberlain
King Kelly
Carl Pavano
Chien Ming Wang
Steve Carlton
Bobby Cox

Announcers:
Tim McCarver
Joe Buck
Chip Caray
Ken Rosenthal
John Sterling
Jayson Stark
Mike Lupica
Creepy Tweets about Joe & Tim

Other people:
Bud Selig
Edith Wharton
Roy Hobbs
Bill James
Barack Obama
Bernie Madoff
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Grandpas

Random musings:
Mustaches
Value Over Replacement Player
Philly Fans
Celebrations
Showboat Umpires
Beanballs
Warnings for beanballs
Tommy John surgery
Illegal Drugs
Winning 300 games
Erectile Disfunction
The Olive Garden
The USS Maine
Field of Dreams

I read every single tweet this weekend and I have to say, why the f&#$ didn't they invite him to that damn cornfield??

Card of the Week - World Series edition

Since this is my World Series Card of the Week post, I really need to write this post before there is no more World Series. Unfortunately, I am being distracted. Did you know Google Chrome is now available for Ubuntu? A highly unstable developer version, hooray! Plus there's positive thoughts to think. I need some positive thoughts since the Falcons vs. New Orleans game preempted my favorite TV show. Egad. Oh yeah, the actual World Series is going on right now. After that obnoxious Avatar intro on Fox last night, I'm with Cole Hamels on this one. Let's just get it over with already. Here's some good old timey World Series, before Fox even existed.

Lew Burdette and Bobby Shantz, facing off in the 1957 World Series. Lou, I mean Lew, got the better of Bobby as he won three complete game victories against the Yanks in the Series. Bobby was in his first year with the Yankees after being involved in a ridiculous 13 player deal between New York and the Kansas City A's that also saw Clete Boyer become a Yank. Bobby won the AL MVP in 1952 with a 24-7 record for Philadalhia. He went 13-26 for the A's the next four years and was finally dumped to the Yankees in '57. Bobby had a bit of a comeback in New York, and went 11-5 with a league leading ERA. Shantz finished up his career as a pretty good relief pitcher for the Yanks, Cardinals, Colt 45's, Pirates, Cubs and Phillies. Lew and Bobby faced off as startes in game 2 of the series and met again in game 7 as Shantz came in to relieve Don Larsen. I have a suspicion the real reason Topps put these two on the same card is because 6'2" Burdette looks like a monster next to 5'6" Shantz.



I got this card pretty cheap in that vintage haul a few weeks ago. It's one more hole filled in my 1958 Topps team set that I'll never finish. No, I'm not worried about finding the Aaron. I'll pick up one of those sooner or later. It's that damned Mickey Mantle - Hank Aaron combo card that's going to ruin me. People are absolutely insane about vintage Mantle cards. One of these days I'll find one that a dog chewed up or was put in the bicycle spokes one time too many or that fell behind a cushon in the couch and got all moldy from crumbs. It will still be damned expensive though. I wonder if an A-Rod - Ryan Howard World Series combo card will be as coveted in 50 years?

Card of the Week - Lucky Jack

So, about a week and a half ago I was getting ready for work and I saw this sticker on the floor. I had gotten all my '82 Topps stickers together earlier that week and this one must have escaped. I picked it up, put it in my fold-up cell phone and forgot about it.
I had the best day at work ever that day. No crisis, it wasn't so busy that I couldn't think, I got a whole lot done and the sun was shining. When I walked out of the building that day and checked my cell was surprised to find Jack Clark. I almost left Jack at home that night but thought "If I leave Jack home and I have a bad day I'll get superstitious and blame it on Jack, which is stupid. I'll bring him to work tomorrow and have a crummy day and then bye bye to superstitious nonsense." I brought him to work several days after that and they were all very good days. Since Jack was about an eighth of an inch wider than my phone, he started to get a little beat up, but Jack's tough. He didn't mind. Then last Wednesday morning I left Jack at home.

Worst day ever. Everyone got chewed out at the office, two people were canned and all their work was dumped on the survivors. It rained. The weather turned cold. I started making dumb mistakes just due to panic from the shitstorm that welled up. I got home, saw Jack and decided that I would defy my superstitious urges once again. Thursday was colder. nastier and even more miserable at work with me screwing up again. I fully planned to bring Jack on Friday, but in my effort to get to work early I forgot. Another horrible day, another co-worker gone, and I once again fucked something up real bad. So, with Jack: three lovely days at work. Without Jack: unmitigated horrors. This weekend I did this:


Jack is now where he rightfully belongs. I can no longer rely on him for his magical powers however. Will today be dreadful? Wonderful? Will I be the next to get canned? I'll know by the time this is posted... So kids, what do you think? Is sticking Jack in his new album home going to doom me forever, or will my selfless act of allowing a poor weary sticker to finally return to his proper home be rewarded in the end?



(or has overly stressed Dayf finally flipped?)

UPDATE:

Good day at work. No angry customers, no screwups, no yelling or crying, no one escorted out the door, no communist invasions, no alarms, no surprises, nice and quiet all around. HOWEVER. Now I'm superstitious that pasting a sticker in the album is the magic secret to workplace bliss. So until horror strikes again (or I get lazy and forget), you're going to see more stickers going in that album. I'm sure you're all devastated.

Cards of the Week - Holiday edition

YEAAAAAAH!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Canadian Thanksgiving!

I hope all you hosers out there ate a lotta turkey or back bacon or whatever ya'll eat up there for Thanksgiving or at least downed a few beers, caught a hockey game on the tube and made a drunken Tim Horton's run in the snow. You guys do it right, no crazy ass shopping madness the day after. In honor of Canada and all things Canadian, Here's a Canadian Great:

Jeff Reardon was a helluva closer. 367 saves, the first closer to 350 and for a brief time was the all time leader in saves before Lee Smith and Eck passed him. The man wasn't called Terminator for nothing. He had his greatest years with the Expos before winning a championship in 1987 with Minnesota, which is practically Canada anyway. I was always a fan of Jeff just for the beard if nothing else. Then he was traded to the Bravos in 1992 for the playoff stretch and helped them fend off the Reds (sorry, Joe). Some Braves fans still hold the infamous Ed Sprague home run in game 2 of the World Series against Toronto. I don't hold it against him (and won't hold it against Canada, at least for today*) because he won a game in that year's playoffs. A game in the NLCS, as a matter of fact. THE LAST GAME. Yep, Sid got him the win!

Jeff has suffered through some terrible tragedy since his playing career ended and was bounced his first year of Hall eligibility even though he's one of the top ten closers of all time. People who know the '80s know this is terribly unfair to one of the best of the decade. I know Jeff was a great closer and it's time to remember the good things again.

So why Canadian Thanksgiving? Isn't there another holiday today? Something about 1492? Forget that, man... Columbus was a fink and the Vikings got here first anyway!

YEAAAAAH VIKINGS! I picked up this card from that show I told you about last week. Turns out it was a one man card show, but that guy was the best dealer from the big time card show I went to last year at the Cobb Civic Center. The guy with Turkey Reds and Babe Ruths and pristine Clementes and Mantles and 1954 AARONS and piles and piles of vintage as far as the eye could see, or at least 20 feet or so. He was back in town (and will be back again in January) with the thing I wanted to see most, THE CHEAPO BOX. I picked out some great stuff (too much stuff, actually) that I will show off as time allows. This card here was part of a Non-Sports binge that I shouldn't have done in retrospect, but I couldn't resist. I love flag cards and this "PARADE - Flags of the World" card was too cool and too old looking to resist. There's a Viking on the back! Raaar! Skeery Viking! AND LIEF ERICSSON BEAT CHRIS BY 500 YEARS! Sez so right on the back.

I had no clue who did this set when I bought the card. It just looked cool and was obviously a pretty old bubble gum card. Turns out it was an early Topps set! Various links identify it as being from 1949, 1950 or maybe 1951. Wikipedia says 1949 and they couldn't possibly be wrong, so until I find a vintage non-sports card price guide on the cheap I'm going to go with that. Oddly enough, this card I bought as an afterthought just because it looked cool is now the oldest Topps card in my collection. Funny, that.

* Every game the Braves lost that series we lost by one freaking run. Good Grief.

Card of the Week - 7/13/09

Post originally started at 7/13/09 8:52 PM, finally published on 1/02/11 12:28 AM. This is going to play holy hell with my RSS feed.

RED MOORE!

Found this buried in the draft folder and decided to post it anyway a year and a half later. Still the best card out of 2009 Allen & Ginter as far as I'm concerned. 

Card of the Week June somethingorother

I'll be straight with ya folks, I'm not in a very writey mood this week. I almost just took a week off, but I figured any posts is better than no posts. Today's (whatever day it happens to be) Card of the Week will be low on word count but high on awesome. Behold:

2007 Allen & Ginter Mariano Rivera black press plate 1/1

A couple reasons why this one got chosen: The obvious, and the fact that I'm trying to ramp myself up for upcoming 2009 Allen & Ginter release. It's sad that I'm having to pump myself up about that product, but I am. While stuff like this isn't helping, the main problem is that I want to get a box on the release date, but I probably won't have the money 'till August. I'm probably just overthinking things though and it will all work out in the end. This card right here though is a reminder of why I love the set in the first place. The mini cards, the ornate frames, the faux lithographs (that were even better in 2007 as seen by Mariano's shadow there) and the vintage 1888 design. If this card can't get me pumped about A&G nothing wil.

This card came from Mr. Kickass himself, Mario at Wax Heaven. He pulled this out of the box of A&G he bought in his early wax-shredding days. We were working on a trade for every Jose Canseco card I owned (yes, all of them) for some Braves when he pulled it and I mentioned that I might be interested in trading for that card at some point when I found something good to trade in return. Then Mario up and sent it to me as a gift for the one year anniversary of this blog. Mario isn't just generous with his directory, he's generous period.

Cards of the week 06/22/09

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?

Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.

So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.

The Chippers, the dreamers and me.

(Thanks to Jack for this rainbow connection)
(Also: Debbie Harry: Rawr!)

Card of the Week - Mycological Edition

You wanted to see the grab bag fungus card, so you get to see the grab bag fungus card:

Poor Dwayne Murphy. Stained all over and losing structural integrity up at the top. It's really bad when you can see the card sticking out like a sore thumb in a pile of other cards. Most likely this card was left near some water where the mold took root and then took over. Here's a close up of the top:

Now that damage could have been caused my a number of things. Water damage may have caused it to disintegrate. A rodent may have nibbled on it. It could have been scraped across a concrete floor. There's no proof that this was caused by the fungus. The fungus has done enough damage though:

Bllleeaaauuuuggghhh! (click to see the full size moldy horror) Oh yeah, that mildew has burrowed deep into that card. I'm thinking I should dispose of it by fire instead of dumping it in a landfill. It might mutate and grow and become sentient and escape!
THE FUNGUS CARD THAT ATE KENNESAW

Why in the world this card made its way into a grab bag is beyond me. I've got to sanitize my scanner now and the rest of the '81 Fleer out of that brick is in quarantine. This poor thing deserves a final rest and a Viking funeral. It's a shame that this had to happen but there are many dangers out there for cards. Don't let this happen to your cards. And even if it does, don't pawn it off on unsuspecting collectors, mmmmkay?

Card of the Week 6/08/09

I can't think of a much better card to choose for Card of the Week when the Pirates

are playing the Braves.

Larry's holding his 1981 Fleer card in the photo for his 1984 Fleer card. And it's autographed as well! This does lead me to a serious question... Do I now need one more card to complete my 1984 Fleer Team set? What about my 1981 Fleer team set? Fleer really opened up a can of worms with this card.

Card of the Week 06/01/09

Ok. Time for Card of the Week. Gotta do this quick so I can have a beer and get to bed for an early meeting. Remember I promised to show of the centerpiece of my trade with A Cardboard Problem in its own special post? Well here it is:

Taa Daaa!

1934 Goudey Baxter Jordan of the Boston Braves. Baxter (Better known as Buck) had a healthy 10 year career in the bigs as a first baseman. Most of his production was with the Braves, but he also played for the Reds, Giants, Senators and Phillies. There isn't much to say about Buck, he was a good defender with not much of a bat. While he had virtually no power, he could definitely hit for average. He was an amazing contact hitter and only had 109 strikeouts in 3216 at bats. His stats sort of reminded me of Ken Oberkfell on first glance.

Here's the back of the card. It's a pretty sharp looking card overall, no real creases and only a slight glue or wax stain underneath the team name. It's definitely one of the best looking Goudeys in my collection. Check out the text on the back though. First you'll notice that everything is in quotes as if Lou Gehrig actually said any of that drivel. "He is a native of North Carolina, 27 years old." Thrilling commentary there. Also note the multiple use of "altho". The "ugh" just got cut right out of "although". It's not like they were tight for space, there's plenty of room on that back for 6 more characters. Lou Gehrig was a lazy speller. Or was he?? You'll note that these bios are "By arrangement of Christy Walsh". Who is Christy Walsh? Let's check Baseball Library.com:

Walsh was a pioneer of sports licensing. His most frequent device was getting sports stars to put their names on ghostwritten articles in newspapers and magazines.

Baseball cards too, apparently. He sure didn't waste a whole lot of that licensing money on the ghostwriter either. How else can you explain this gem:

"[Buck] is now considered one of the most dependables of the Boston Braves"

Oy. How can you put words like that into a Legend's mouth. I guess Gehrig wasn't officially a Legend with a capital L yet in 1934, but still. I wouldn't even put words like "Altho he is the most dependables" in A-Rods mouth without a serious crisis of conscience.


Marie pulled this card out of a blaster of Goudey and now I wish I had bought a lot more blasters of Goudey. I still would never in a million years pulled a buyback of a card I actually needed for my team set though. I now have four out of seven from the 1934 Braves team set which is pretty dang cool. I also have this nifty Goudey Buyback card. It reminds me of the Title card from a non-sports set and it a nice addition to my Goudey set.

The odd thing is that the buyback comes with the card but there's really no proof that the particular Baxter Jordan I have actually was a buyback unless you pulled it from the pack yourself. It doesn't really matter in the least since I just wanted the card for my team set, but I guess if an unscrupulous person could just put this card with any other Goudey they wanted to and pawn it off as a buyback. I don't know why anyone would want to do that, but it's technically possible. On the other hand, I'm very glad that Upper Deck didn't foil stamp the card or emboss it or number it or put a matching holo sticker on the back of the vintage card to prove that it was in fact an official buyback. I'm very happy with a vintage Goudey and a nifty buyback card. Thanks Upper Deck for keeping this one simple. And thanks again to Marie, I hope you're enjoying those Yankee Stadium Legends cards. I think this is one of those trades where both parties are amazed and somewhat ashamed that they were able to pawn off some junk they didn't want for something truly awesome. That's the best kind of trade, is it not?

Card of the Week 05/25/09

This week's subject is Babe Freakin' Ruth.

Why Babe Ruth on Memorial Day? To memorialize the last home run Ruth ever hit on this day back in 1935. He hit three of 'em actually. Bopped them right out of Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. And he did it as a Brave! As anyone who has ever played 30 seasons in Front Page Sports Baseball '98 knows, the team a player is on when he retires is the team he goes into the Hall of Fame with. So chisel off that NY off his cap and put a script A on there instead. I know the Braves didn't move to Atlanta until over thirty years after the Babe retired. This is my twisted fantasy, I'll do what I want. Babe's a Brave! Look right here, there's proof:


See, Braves uniform. Move all those statues outta Yankee Stadium and put them in front of Turner Field where they belong. Then again the Braves promised to let him manage the team and they screwed him over so maybe we lost our Babe privileges. This card from 1962 Topps is probably the vintagiest Ruth card with a Braves logo on it that I'll ever get. Babe only lasted a couple of months with the Bravos and there are not a whole lot of contemporary memorabilia of Ruth with the Braves. Not that I could actually afford a vintage Ruth card from the '30s anyway. Here are some of the few pieces I could confirm that shows Babe as a Brave:

The 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 card is the best known. I would trade one of my kidneys for this card.

Less known, but the only other semi-mainstream card with Babe as a Brave is the 1935 4-in1 Exhibit postcard. I'm kind of shocked by the final price of that card. If I blew out some of my vintage basketball stuff I could actually maybe afford that. ?Asuuming my wife would ever let me spend the money on it. Forget the PSA-6, anyone got one in crummy condition I could buy?

These two are not actually cards, but they are the only other pieces I've ever seen from the '30s with Babe wearing a Braves cap. A 1935 Quaker Oats scorer promotion and a 1935 Quaker Oats pin. I'm not even going to say what the pin went for because it makes me sick. That could have been mine!

There are other issues from that period like the 1935 Clark's Bread Babe Ruth, but I can't find a picture of any of them to see if he's with Boston or New York. Ruth had no shortage of cards, but the year he was with the Braves wasn't a great one for collectibles. Depressions tend to mess up things like that. Thank goodness for Topps and their Ruth worship subset in 1962. The masses must remember that Ruth is a Brave!