Traveling box loot

White Sox Cards' post on what he picked up from the Traveling Card Box of Awesomeness reminded me that I haven't done my post on that yet. And I was the first one to get the box! I am a bad blogger. What is the Traveling Box? It's a little project Bad Wax put together. A group of collectors all donate some good cards that they don't need and/or want. All the cards get put in a box and shipped around the country to various collectors who take out cards they want and replace them with cards of equal value. There was a ton of great stuff in the box but I limited myself to 5 cards and I let my son pick out one for himself. Here's my loot:

This is actually my son's loot. I allowed him to choose one for himself and he went with the Orioles' hat logo card of Jim Palmer. He almost snagged Steve's Frank Thomas/Jeff Bagwell/Carlos Delgado triple relic but opted for the Manu-Patch instead. I was relieved because I wasn't entirely sure what I could replace that one with.

First pickup out of the box was a 1969 Joe Niekro card I needed for my 'set'. I'm not really working on the 1969 Topps set and I probably never will, but I attacked the vintage in this box with great ferocity. If I didn't have it before, I had it now.

Next up is a 1971 Topps card of Barry's pop. 1971 Topps I will most likely end up collecting in full force as soon as my 1972 set is complete through at least series 4. I'm actually pretty close to completing Series 1.

1960 Topps is another of my favorite sets so I had to pick up the Ashburn. Richie Ashburn on the Cubs is a tad odd. Also odd is that I picked up more Cubs cards out of the box than Braves cards. Yes, I even left Braves in the box. I tried to replace relic with relic, vintage with vintage, etc. but this one I couldn't find a good match so I snuck in a nice Cub card as a replacement.

Ah, now we're in serious card territory. All cards were ranked in tiers, $5-10, $10-15, $15-20 and so on. I don't remember the exact tier of this card but it was in the next to highest tier worth of cards in the box. I have an accidentally good collection of Al Kaline cards as my mother brought me back a 9-pocket page full of vintage Kalines from a business trip when I was a kid. I did not have the '59 already, so this was good luck.

Ok now the doozy:

Amidst the vintage a 2012 card appears! So. I love Yogi Berra. He's right up there with Kurt Vonnegut, Bill Hicks and Pinkie Pie as far as personal spiritual gurus go for me. I also like old coins, especially silver ones. I saw this and thought I MUST HAZ. So I did. I had to pony up a fairly serious card to get it but I think I left the box in better shape than I found it.

I also snagged this custom card of a 1976 Topps Dale Murphy card. There were three custom cards in there but they weren't on the main card list for the box. I left two sketch cards in the box in exchange for this one. One silly, one mostly not silly.

We were instructed not to give away what cards were added to the box so the suspense would be greater. I scanned all of 'em anyway and I'm going to cheat a bit by showing off a little teaser of the stuff I put in the box. I hope I'm not kicked out of the rotation! Two cards I put in the box were picked up in this haul so at least the peeps like my stuff.

I refuse to make an immature joke in the title of this post.

I got no problem doing it in the body of the post.

HAY GUISE WANNA SEE MAH BALLS???

Of course you do, everyone wants to see my balls. Except my wife. She wants 'em downstairs with the rest of my useless junk. That was like a quadruple entendre there, but I digress. Fuji wants to see my balls, and I want him to give me some pussy, so you're gonna see my balls whether you want to or not.

One of the great collecting feats I've accomplished in my life was getting autographed baseballs from every Brave whose number was retired, not counting Jackie Robinson. This feat has been blown completely out of the water in the past few years since Atlanta is now in the process of retiring the number everyone who was on the team in 1995. But at one point, I had actually achieved this goal. Here's my balls, badly photographed because all my cameras suck ass at the moment.

First autographed ball I picked up ever was this Phil Niekro ball. I was working down in Conyers at the time and there was a little hole in the wall baseball card shop in a strip mall that I would check out from time to time. Lots of cheap Braves singles, not much else. One day they had this ball in the shop for $25. Phil's one of my favorites so I picked it up. I must have gotten this in late '97, since it has the H.O.F. - 97 inscription on it and I left that job that year. I didn't realize until after I bought it that it was an American League ball, but oh well, it's a Knucksie.

In the early '00s I was swimming in money (no kids!) so I splurged on this Eddie Mathews ball. Got this one at BP Sports down in Marietta. It was surprisingly inexpensive for a Hall of Famer 500 home run club auto but still more than I was accustomed to spending at the time. In retrospect, I wish I had taken a tenth of the money I blew on early 'aughts wax and dropped it on stuff like this instead.

The kids started showing up so I was no longer flush with cash. I found this Hank Aaron ball on Yahoo! auctions (anyone remember them?) for $50 and convinced my grandmother to make it my birthday present. The great thing about this pickup is that the card in the plastic case on the right was originally a 1958 Topps Hank Aaron All-Star card. It has since been replaced with the 1994 Topps gold card you see here. These ball stands suck by the way, the card holder broke and it was hard as hell to replace. the ball also falls out constantly unless you scotch tape the holder. Maybe I just got a crappy one, I dunno. The stuff inside the holder was more than worth it though.

Another birthday, another ball. I opted for the Warren Spahn ball this time which was a good thing because Warren sadly passed away the year after I got this one and the vultures came out and jacked the prices up. I also got this one from BP sports. On either the Spahn or the Mathews I forgot to get a COA, but I can't remember which. It doesn't really matter because I can't find the one COA I have anyway. I don't even care anymore because with all the shenanigans going on in the hobby 99% of everything is probably fake anyway. Including the stuff I got signed in person.

Dale Murphy capped off the retired number collection.  I got this one in 2007 for my birthday and was my second to last birthday present that I received from my grandmother. The ball was was purchased from Champion Sports Cards in Kennesaw which is my official LCS. This one is inscribed NL MVP 82, 83. Eventually I will pick up one that reads Dale Murphy - HOF but we'll have to wait for the veteran's committee for that one.

Since I got these balls, Maddux, Glavine, Bobby and Smoltz have gotten their numbers retired. Chipper's gonna get his retired next year. I knocked out these in ten years, you think I can knock out the next five in another ten?

Congrats Barry

I remember Barry Larkin fondly. Mainly because my Braves walloped him in the playoffs in his MVP year on their way to a Championship. The only one we'll ever get. Now he's in the Hall of Fame and I can show off this card which is relevant tonight and tonight only.

Also congrats to Jack Morris who hit inevitable status today with 68%. He might not go in next year (next year's ballot is gonna be CARAAAAAYZEEEE!!!!) but you can't get 68% of the vote and not get in eventually. The Vets committee will be cleaning up a LOT of the BBWAA's messes in the next 20 years so rest easy, Jack.

I have resolved not to kvetch about the Hall of Fame Voting this year, so I'd like to go the opposite route and post a link to the greatest Hall of Fame Ballot "this is who I voted for, chumps" circlejerk article of all time. Words simply cannot describe the sheer beauty of this piece, even though it is in fact completely made up of words itself. The powerful emotions this scribe stirred in my heart compelled me to commit a shocking act of copyright infringement and quote for you this tenderly sweet passage about Dale Murphy's candidacy.

My favorite team growing up in the 1920s was the Kentucky Bourbons, and no player better exemplifies the spirit of the Bourbons than ol’ DALE MURPHY. Murphy loved his bourbon, and his crack. Always willing to share, always a great teammate, and hardly ever getting hit by a pitch. It’s too bad he was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald. I don’t know who I’m talking about anymore, but when I hear Dale Murphy, I think of a walrus being eaten by a wolf, on the roof of the Baseball Hall of Fame. So I can’t deny a vote to this one. Eight down, one more makes ten, I am on a roll. And also eating a roll, because I’m hungry.

Never before has the true Dale Murphy been adequately described in print. Not like this. These kind words inspired me to take pencil in hand and draw this man's vision to the best of my ability.

Don't feel bad for the walrus, he's going up to Heaven to eat oysters with Jesus

I raise a glass of Kentucky Bourbon to you, oh Strawman Sportswriter. As well as a crack pipe to ol' Murph. The Veteran's Committee will put you in eventually.

October Card Show - Doubles from the $2 box

I didn't realize that the Freedom Card Show was happening until I got an e-mail from BP sports literally the day before. As a result I was completely unprepared. Combine that with my perpetual state of being disorganized and I didn't even have my wantlists with me when I went. I am one of the few luddites left without a smartphone so no pulling up all the wantlists on my blog on the phone for me. I have to have scribbled up pieces of paper in a ratty red folder. But, like I said, I didn't even have that, I had to make do with some hand written pieces of notebook paper hastily scratched after pulling out the binders and doing a reality check. This, obviously caused some problems at the show with missing and miswritten lists. I managed to only pick up two doubles though, which is not too bad considering. Both are ones I don't really mind having and they were from the cheap $2 box at Uncle Dick's (remembered the name that time!) so it didn't cost me much. One was a complete accident, one was kinda on purpose. I'll show off the advertent, then the inadvertent.

Dale Murphy rookie card for two dollars. TWO DOLLARS. How can you sell a Murph rookie for two freaking dollars?! I pined for this card for YEARS when I was a kid. Years I say! It always had a $35-$50 price tag on it so I slowly sulked over to the bargain boxes while my dream card remained imprisoned in its glass case. Now I got it for two bucks. My 14 year old self is dancing right now.

But wait there's more! Bonus abstract artwork of a red Gumby scratching his head in the upper corner! Or maybe that's a 9. Still! Extra artistic augmentation! I already have one of these for my team set, now I have a second for my '77 Topps set. Or, who knows? I may becone a Rick Cerone SuperCollector. Stranger things have happened.

At Uncle Dick's I hit the '53s hard. Came up with a very nice little haul too. Five cards were found for the set. On my hastily scribbled list was card #109. This Alvin Dark card right here. I looked at this card quizzically when I saw it on my list. Surely I had Alvin Dark already? There's no way I don't have this card already. But... it's on the list. I just went through the binder last night and did a reality check on what cards I needed. There's #109! Right there! I have pretty much memorized all the cards in this set between the 1991 '53 Archives set and the placeholders I printed out for my set. So I got Alvin for $2. A 1953 Topps card for the price of a retail back ain't bad at all.

I got home, opened the binder, went to Alvin's page.. and there was Mr. Dark staring at me. Yep, I already had Alvin. Yogi I didn't have. Card #104. My 4s kinda look like 9s when I write. This is why I type my wantlists. Oh well. Time to make a trade bait post maybe?

I never have to buy another pack of Bowman ever again

Thanks to Project '62:

I HAZ A HEYWARD

I'm so happy I'm putting a moratorium on Cubs bashing until at least the All-Star break. Lou Piniella is still fair game though. I still want the Topps 100 and Expectations card of J-Hey but I know that it will be much easier to just buy those, even at inflated Atlanta prices. I'm scrounging for Cubs tonight so I can make a post office run tomorrow. Such a beautiful thing does not come without a price however....

MURPHY BIPPED

Oy, I wasn't expecting that one. There was a good Murph in the package though to make up for it.

Aw yeah, Chicle Murphy. Gotta love it. Wait.. what the fungus?

nnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

BAZOOKA'D

Well played, Mr. Gritz... Well played...

Favorite Artist -National Chicle pack 5

When I first started doing these favorite artist posts for National Chicle there were two things I didn't realize. I didn't know hat the eight packs I got would last me several weeks for one. I also didn't think that they would have to last me this long because I still haven't seen hide nor hair of them in retail outlets. Unfortunately, Topps series 2 comes out this week so Chicle might be on the back burner for me until after Ginter Madness subsides. I know I'e seen blasters of this posted on other blogs, so I guess my local distributors are just lazy about restocking right now.

At any rate, my favorite card from pack five was a no brainer. Here is the artist:

Jason Davies has done a ton of sketch art for Topps and has quite a few cards in the Chicle set. Unfortunately, after all that work Topps still didn't get the web site right in the box topper checklist. Www.daviesart.com goes to Martin Davies art web page. To get to Jason's just drop the www and put a j in front of the Davies like so:  http://jdaviesart.com/  It's well work the effort just to poke around in the gallery for coolness. Check out this Darth Maul. I'm not sure yet how I feel about Ryan Zimmerman in an Expos uniform.

The card I picked as a favorite from this pack was pretty inevitable even though there was a very nice Richie Ashburn in there.

Yeah, I couldn't not go with Murph. There's a lot to like about this card. The huge swing. The grandstand Chicle background. The powder blues. The thing that really struck me though was the red halo around Dale. I don't recall seeing another card in the set using that technique, but I like it. It's kinda like Dale is radioactive, which he may very well have been from 1982-1984. If I were to pony up for one of the original sketches that are being sold right now, I would very likely go for this one. I'm not going to link to the auctions until Joe wins all of his Reds players though. You people are smart, use that Google if you really want to buy some originals.

Random Brave #5

Blue 1990 Donruss? WTF? Yup, you haven't gone color blind all of a sudden this is a real card. Donruss put out a cheesy AL and NL Best set in '90 and they ran out of red ink so they went with blue. I don't know about you, but these look a hell of a lot better than the red eye bleeders from the regular set. If you are intrigued by the color change, their yearly "Rookies" set featured green borders. You can make a whole rainbow of Donruss with these things if you're so inclined. Or not. 

Backs are boring but stat filled. back in the days before Baseball-Reference.com this was highly useful.

Murph Variation from a Met Fan

Got this in the mail the other day, totally out of the blue from Stats on the Back. Maybe because I helped him with his Allen & Ginter project, maybe just for the halibut. Who knows? It was one 'variation' card, with a note:

OH DEAR HEAVENLY JEEBUS WHAT DID THAT MET FAN DO TO DEFILE POOR MURPH???

I was almost afraid to look...

Huh. Just a nice normal 1986 O-Pee-Chee Murphy card, totally undefiled. Not even mildly blasphemed. I really like the '86 Topps set and this is a nice card of the two time MVP who hit the crap out of the ball without taking anything stronger than an aspirin to enhance his performance. The O-Pee-Chee logo clipping his hat is odd though. So what's the variation? I flipped the card over:

GUM-USED RELIC CARD!

Brilliant! Anyone who has ever opened n old O-Pee-Chee pack knows what's going on here. Old gum. Permanently fused to the card. Never to be completely separated. Awesome. If I had the money to burn, I'd send this puppy to PSA to get slabbed.

1986 OPC Dale Murphy With Gum: PSA 10 1/2. Population: ONE.

Awwww yeah.

The Cheesiest

I got this little goodie in the mail recently:

A panel of 1987 Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft Dinner for the Canuckleheads out there) cards featuring Eddie Murray and Dale Murphy. Mix the two up and you have Dale Murray and Eddie Murphy which would be almost as awesome as this panel. I ate about three tons of Mac & Cheese in 1987 chasing after these cards. My grandmother questioned me "Do you really like this stuff or do you just want the cards?". I assured her I luuuuurved Mac & Cheese and then didn't eat a bite of it for about 3 years after the cards stopped being printed on the box. Incidentally, I ate about 392 Domino's Pizzas in 1991. The 16 Dan McGwire cards was totally worth it. I have a pile of these panels lying around somewhere that I ripped off those old boxes in 1987. But not one of them had this:

THE FRONT OF THE BOX

I haven't seen the front of this box for a couple of decades. It seems kind of plain today but this was cutting edge graphic design back then. The FREE is as big as the Kraft logo! A couple of interesting things (to me at least) on the box:

The cooking directions on the old box fascinate me. They specifically say to add 1/4 cup Parkay Margarine. I have a box of 2009 vintage Mac & Cheese here and Kraft no longer requires Parkay (butter!) for their dinners. The 2009 version is also heavily illustrated with fun cartoons instead of the wall of text. The other big difference in the preparation instructions is the including of microwave directions for cooking the macaroni. Microwaves were a big deal back then, I remember my grandparents treating theirs like a mini fusion reactor. Don't stand in front of it! You'll get the Cancer! Nowadays if you want to cook Mac & Cheese in the microwave you get Easy Mac. There's even microwave reheating instructions on there. Add milk, cover with plastic wrap, microwave on medium, who does all that? Modern instructions: 1) take out of fridge 2) throw in microwave 3) press a button 4) eat 5) steps 2 and 3 are optional. The newfangled box has no microwave instructions but they do have directions for a light preparation to cut down on the salt and fat. Basically, use unsalted butter and skim milk. There's a nutrition comparison underneath the light preparation which brings us to...

The nutrition information on the old and new boxes are also mind blowing. First of all, this stuff is absolutely dreadful for you. Lots of fat and TONS of sodium. I didn't worry about that crap in1987. The serving size also jumped a bit over 20 years from 3/4ths of a cup on the old box to one cup on the new. I'm not sure why they did that because it makes the calories and the sodium and the fat look worse. It does bump up the fiber and the calcium percentages, although Vitamin A and Iron stay the same somehow. I have the whole wheat version of Mac & Cheese so there might be something different in the formula that accounts for that. The information on the side has also changed a lot in twenty years . Out: Thiamine, Riboflavin and Niacin. In: Calories from fat, Saturated Fat, Trans Fat, Dietary Fiber and Sugars. The ingredients list is odd in that over the years the macaroni ingredients got way more complicated while the cheese sauce mix got less complicated. It probably all has to do with obscure government labeling regulations, but the parentheses inside brackets inside parentheses in the ingredient list of the '87 era cheese mix amuses me. One thing hasn't changed though: both boxes has "The Cheesiest" on there somewhere.

Oh wait this blog is about baseball cards isn't it... Eddie Murray is one of the best switch hitters of all time along with Mickey and Chipper and has the sideburns to back it up. Dale Murphy will be elected to the Hall of Fame in about 15 years by the Veteran's Committee once they flood the hall with '70s and '80s stars as a backlash against all the inflated numbers of the past 15 years (in Murph's hall class: Steve Garvey, Bobby Grich and Rick Cerone). Both Dale and Eddie look very sad that their team logos were airbrushed off their respective headgear. Thanks to Duane who added this bit of history in a big trade for some Allen & Ginter cards.

Saving Braves - part 1

A whole lot of Braves were saved from the landfill by Captain Canuck and myself. I received my rescued cards yesterday and spent all day scanning them. Mark sent a lot of stuff! Supposedly Canuck got an even bigger package than I did, so many Braves were spared. I'm going to have to break up this post into two parts, there's so much to go over. Let's begin with the best card in the universe:

1983 Dale Murphy

Mark said he had a 1983 Fleer card that was "Mangled-you are getting this one whether you want it or not" in an e-mail a while back. Well, this was the only 1983 Fleer card in the box and it's in gem mint 11 shape. I'm kind of disappointed, I would love to have a mangled Murph.

1970 #413 Sonny Jackson

Woot! A card off my 1970-1985 Braves wantlist that isn't finished and I told everyone to ignore! Hooray! Why does no one ever listen to me.... Surprisingly this is not the only Sonny Jackson card I got from Mark.

1975 #105 Buzz Capra
1975 #367 Craig Robinson
1975 #633 Paul Casanova

I'm not 100% sure, but I think if I combine my 1975 regular size and mini Braves cards I have a complete set. Of course if I were to do that all life as you know it would stop instantaneously and every molecule in your body would explode at the speed of light.

Pete Smith Autograph
George Lombard autograph

Two can't miss players who just sort of... did. Lombard is especially hard to swallow since he had committed to the Georgia Bulldogs as a running back before the Braves drafted him. Appropriate that this card be from a minor league set because now we have

A TON OF MINOR LEAGUE CARDS!

1988 Richmond Braves

Three cards from this set including ol' Blausey. These cards are slightly larger than normal, almost the size of Topps cards from the '50s.

1988 Durham Bulls

I have gotten a ton of Bulls cards recently... I'm posting another trade tomorrow that will make you moo from all the Bulls. Fielder's Choice must be jealous. For some reason Paul Marak's card was in a penny sleeve, so I'll show off him.

1989 Durham Bulls

The backs of these cards are all different colors for some reason. White with orange print, pink with blue print and white with blue print. Strange.

1990 Idaho Falls Braves

How'd you like to get drafted by a big league club and then be shipped off to Idaho?

1992 Richmond Braves

I told you there would be another Sonny Jackson popping up. That's all for the minor leaguers, it's time for some old timers!

1991 Conlon Collection

11 beautiful black & white Conlon cards of old Braves. Danny MacFayden shows off his specs in this card, also included are Pinky Whitney, Shanty Hogan, Stuffy McInnis and Heinie Meuller. Why don't we have nicknames like that anymore? Imagine Whiffy Francoeur, Jingle Bells Jurrjens, Bubsy McCann and Kumquats Kotchman playing for the Braves. It would make a 90-loss season more entertaining at least. Ok, last card before cutting off part 1.

1990-91 Skybox Doc Rivers

My favorite player in one of my favorite sets. I went berserk over these cards when they first came out, a condition that was exacerbated by the fact that I was a completely broke ass high school student. I didn't have a dime to my name the winter of '91. I only ended up shoplifting a couple of packs... three or five at the most. What, you thought Mario was the only card obsessed criminal around? Au contraire, mon frere! Gotta have my Skybox.

Up next, a whole lotta Braves who got a reprieve from the landfill!

Dropkicked Murphy

I got a package in the mail from reader Hollin Norwood yesterday, and since it's my rule that I have to post at least one card withing 24 hours of receiving a package now, here's the card: Dale Murphy on an O-Pee-Chee card in a Phillies uniform. Now, before you get on Hollis for sending such a sad thing as Murph in Philly, the rest of the box he sent is amazing. I'll show it off next week. Besides, I haven't sent him his stuff yet because he's in the middle of a move. Red Sox are comin' whenever you're ready, buddy.

So here's an appropriate song for Murph.



Get it? Dropkick Murphys? And the Braves dropkicked him to the Phillies? And I wanted to drink heavily* when that happened? Get it?

Ahem.

Ok, so I just promised a card and a song. I didn't promise to be funny.

(Besides, the song kicks ass)

* To be fair, he was traded when I was in high school and I always wanted to drink heavily back then.

Dale Murphy Autographed Ball

Now that I have a new toy to play with I can start posting stuff that I had wanted to feature for a long time.


The Dale Murphy autographed ball was a birthday present from my grandmother last year. Autographed balls sort of became a yearly present from her, and she helped build most of my Braves collection. The first auto ball I ever got was from a card shop down in Conyers. I don't remember the name, or even if they are still in business, but it was a small shop in a strip mall and they had a ton of cheap Braves cards. I would go these once every other week or so and pick up a little pile of Braves. One day they had a Phil Niekro autographed ball for $25 and I snapped it up. This was back in the mid-'90s and I had never seen a ball for sale in a shop that was in my price range before, let alone one of my favorite player. A few years later I got the idea to get autographed balls from every player who had his number retired by the Braves. So my grandmother got me an Eddie Mathews ball for a birthday present, then a Spahn, an Aaron (with a '58 Topps All-Star card thrown in!) and finally this Murphy. A project I have planned for one of these days is to build a custom display to show off all five. I probably need to stretch my carpentry skills quick though, because one the Big Three pitchers decide to hang 'em up there will be a few more numbers displayed at Turner Field.

Dale has a pretty nice looking signature as you can see. The NL MVP 82, 83 is extra cool since he was winning those awards when I first really got into the Braves. Granted, I liked Bob Horner and Phil more than Murph, but every Braves fan was proud of their superstar back then. A couple of years later my grandmother started really getting into the games as well. My grandfather and I would be watching them every night while she sat and read a book, but after a while she ended up as big a fan as us. Her favorite player was Greg Maddux. She knew that when Greg pitched the game would usually not be "lousy", as she called just about every Braves loss whether the score was 1-0 or 12-3. The past few years she watched more games than I did. My goofy work schedule had me listening to most of the games on the radio or following on GameCenter over the net while she was glued to the TV almost every game night. West coast trips were a pain in the butt, but she would sometimes stay up till midnight watching them. We'd usually talk about the games the day after the late nights where I got to watch the game on TV.


Ah, the shiny serial numbered sticker that proves this is a real ball with a real sticker. None of my other baseballs have one of these, although I do have a COA for most of the others. I forgot to ask for one for the Spahn, so now it's obviously fake to everyone else but me. The season is over and there's not much to talk about the Braves anymore. I recently talked with her about Chipper's batting title and the fact that Hampton is finally off the books and that we might be able to spend some of that money on someone good now. It's a long offseason with no baseball though. Baseball will be back next spring, and until then I have these autos to remember the good times watching the games with her.

1990 Score Dale Murphy

I got 1990 Score on the brain right now, so why not.