30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, December 17, 2012

Little Orphan Dickey

What happens when you're a pitcher who has his breakout season at the age of thirty-eight and ends up winning the NL Cy Young Award?  Well a few things happen.  You get shipped off to Canada where you'll be playing for a contender in 2013.  And... people start checking their commons boxes to see if they own your rookie card.

That's exactly where I found this:



It's R.A. Dickey's 1997 Bowman Chrome International parallel.  I know it's not his rookie card, but I've always been one of those collectors who actually likes rookie card parallels.

There's not a lot of upside in terms of value for this card, since he's at the tail-end of his career.  But... who cares?  For years, it was crammed into a box with thousands of other commons... unprotected and forgotten.

Now it has a new home that includes a penny sleeve, a toploader, and a team bag for protection.  As the proud owner, I promise to treasure it and never leave it feeling neglected again.


What are some of your famous common card box finds?

Happy Monday and sayonara!


It's not always rainbows & butterflies...

Here are a pair of records I'm sure Dickey doesn't want:

Most Wild Pitches (Inning) - 4 (5th Inning on 8/17/08)
Most Home Runs Allowed (Game) - 6 (4/06/06 vs. the Detroit Tigers)


And since I'm being a Negative Nancy, what's up with Pete Carroll in Seattle... what are you trying to do buddy?  Do you want the Seahawks to be America's Most Hated Team?  You're up by 30 in the 4th quarter and you decide to run a fake punt?  Not cool.  At least you sort of apologized.


Then there's Mason Crosby missing two more field goals yesterday.  Eight consecutive games.  You've missed a field goal in eight consecutive games?  That has to be some kind of record... right?

I know I'm just a spectator who doesn't have a clue what it takes to be an NFL coach or player... but I'm also a fan who buys your memorabilia and like most fans wants to watch good football.

Okay... enough ranting... looks like somebody is moody and needs a nap.  Sayonara!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was given a lot of cards as a kid at ages that I was much too young to appreciate/care/or know what they even were. When I got older, like 8, the large moving box the majority of them had been shoved into proved to be a real treasure trove.

The one I remember being most excited about was pulling an '85 Topps Eric Davis circa summer of '88, when it was far and away the most expensive card in the set. It was badly creased and had a poorly written red magic marker "C" in the upper right corner, but it immediately became one of the center pieces of my collection.

(...Joe) said...

I think the best I've ever found were a pair of '06 Turkey Red Matt Kemp RCs. Nothing earth shattering, but still a nice little surprise!

Dawgbones said...

That's a good looking card. Beycha BA Benny would flip out for it!!

jacobmrley said...

I don't know why, but the one that flies into my brain was that I found a 1966 Bob Uecker in a commons box a long time ago, like at the height of his Mr. Belvedere/Major League fame. I still own that card.

Chris P said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris P said...

Back in 95 I made a trade with my cousin a couple of Ripken inserts and a Don Mattingly 94 Donruss MVP insert (don't know why i vividly remember that card) for a couple Griffey inserts and my cousin threw in some 95 bowman cards as well just cause. I had no idea who they were, but one of em ended up being a Vlad Guerrero RC. Not a big deal today, but it was in the late 90s!

Fuji said...

What an awesome card... I lived through that era and can completely understand what you're saying. I just looked him up on Baseball Reference (love that site)... and noticed in 1986 he hit 27 home runs and stole 80 bases. Those are Man of Steal numbers.

Fuji said...

Nice find. I wasn't collecting from 2002 to 2008... but every now and then I'd buy a pack and throw them in a box. One of these days I'll go through those boxes... and maybe if I'm lucky, I too will have a Kemp rookie.

Fuji said...

Lol... I'm already flipping out over it. The card design + the U.S.A. flag + Dickey in his Rangers uniform = Awesome & I can't stand the Rangers.

Fuji said...

Thanks for reminding me... I just added a Bob Uecker card to my wantlist ;-)

Fuji said...

Not too shabby of a freebie... IMHO he'll one day grace the walls of Cooperstown.

Martyn said...

I didn't see the Seahawks game, but i'm a firm believer in playing the full 60 minutes. Sure if it is a one score lead, take a knee, but bring in your rookie RB, back up QB & try to build their confidence.

A 60 minute game lasts close to 4 hours, of the 60 minutes, are there 50 minutes of action?

Zippy Zappy said...

A little after the Yankees got knocked out of the playoffs in 2012 I was looking through my unorganized cards and I found a Raul Ibanez rookie card from 1998 Pinnacle (and yes I'm aware that Pinnacle also made a card for Ibanez in 1997 but the one I found has the word rookie on it as well).
It was immediatly thrown into my box of valuable rookie cards, although it's probably one of the few in there because of sentimental value as opposed to market value (Ibanez, one of the two Yankees who actually showed up in the 2012 ALDS & ALCS).

Fuji said...

Please don't get me wrong... I am a firm believe of a team playing for 60 minutes too. And if Buffalo and Arizona aren't going to bring it, then I have no problem with the Hawks scoring 100 points on them. But there are certain things I'm not down with... and a fake punt up by 30 is one of them.

As a fan of the Hawks, I asked myself... what do you gain? You give the other team more gasoline to burn you with the next time you play. Plus... it's not the best sportsmanship.

Fuji said...

Love those cards with "rookie card" written on it... but they're not really rookie cards.

sg488 said...

In 1980-81 me and a friend were just learning about rookie cards,values etc..(we had been collecting since early 70s),so he checked his doubles box and found 2 1975 George Brett mini rookies.Not bad.

Fuji said...

Wow... that's definitely hitting the jackpot! Cha-ching!