Card of the Year

Anyone else remember P-town Tom's annual Card of the Year contest?  It's been five years since he last held it, so no judgement if you don't.

Anyways... it happened to pop into my head when I was scanning this card last week:

2025 Topps First Pitch #FP2-3

I realize we're only seven months into 2025, but I don't envision Topps, Panini, Leaf, or any other card manufacturer producing anything else this year that would bump Rickey.  This card is not only my favorite card this year, it's one of my favorite cards... period.

I'm sure some of you are scratching your heads as to why I think this card is so cool.  Well... it has nothing to do with the rarity, design, or overall value... which are things I might usually take into consideration.  Nope.  It's all about the sentimentality.

It captures my second favorite baseball player throwing out the first pitch at the final A's game at the Oakland Coliseum.  That in itself makes this card awesome.

But the sentimental part is that I was in attendance and watched him throw it out:

Over my lifetime, I've had the opportunity to watch Rickey in person on dozens of occasions.  Unfortunately back in December, he passed away a few days before his 66th birthday.

As a fan of the A's and the Man of Steal, 2024 ended up being a rough year.  But at least I have the memory of being at that game.  And this First Pitch insert will keep that memory fresh in my mind, along with this card:

2024 Topps Now #761

Speaking of First Pitch inserts, I have been sitting on two 9-pocket pages worth of them since May.  Check out these beauties:

These eighteen cards were part of the care package I received from Kenny over at Torren' Up Cards earlier in the year.  I had been saving them, because I knew I would eventually add the Rickey Henderson to my collection and wanted to share them all together.

Here's a peek at their backs:

Thank you Kenny for sending me all of these First Pitch inserts.

By the way... if you enjoy seeing Zippy Zappings, he sent me another care package last week.  The plan is to open it up today and publish a post either this weekend or next week.

I'd also like to thank Jim over at cards as i see them.  He's the one who let me know that Rickey was going to part of this First Pitch set.

As for the rest of you, thank you for checking out this post... and allowing me to get all "sentimental" with you.

Today's question of the day is...

Do you have any 2025 Card of the Year candidates?

If so, share them down below.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #176: Cards & Stuff

The third Saturday of the month means another trip to the Branham High School Flea Market.  On Saturday, I walked around... but this post isn't about that trip.  It's a recap from my purchases on June 21st.

There's a bunch of random stuff, so let's get to it...

Normally I usually hit up the regular card guy that sets up on the end of the parking lot, but he had a crowd of people around him.  So I skipped him and continued down the row.

Purchase #1:  A Roman Coin  $3

Inquisitive Minds: Coins of the Roman Empire

That's where I found this item on a table.  I'm guessing this was a family doing some summer cleaning, because they were very organized and had everything labeled with price tags.  I'm not really in the market for blenders or tools, but I have always wanted to own a Roman coin.  I'll definitely conduct the dig at some point... and share the results in a future post.

Purchase #2:  Lego Brickheadz  $5

I met a guy who is part of the Lego Ambassador Network, who receives free sets from Lego to review.  He ran out of space to display all of the sets, so he brought the excess stuff out to Branham.  His prices were really good, but I resisted the urge and bought the cheapest thing he had: a bag of Brickheads:

Lego #75317

I actually already own this set, but haven't built it.  Now that I own it, I probably will just give away the new set to my co-workers kids.

Lego #40630

The Mandalorian and Grogu will be displayed at home.  As for Frodo and Gollum, I'll take them into my classroom in a few weeks.

Purchase #3:  70's & 80's Vinyl  $10

Not sure if the vinyl market is starting to cool off, but I've been able to find some good deals on albums from my childhood.  This guy had a bunch of them for $5 each, but I asked him if he'd take $10 for three and he accepted.

Here's what I grabbed:

Men at Work: Business As Usual (1981)

This album has some classics.  I memorized Down Under and Who Can It Be Now... which eventually became my go-to karaoke song.  Be Good Johnny was another favorite.

Pat Benatar:  Get Nervous (1982)

Pat Benatar is one of my favorite female artists... right up there with Stevie Nicks.  This was the first Benatar tape I ever owned and it contains my favorite song of hers:  Shadows of the Night.  I'm very happy to add the album to my collection.

Steve Miller Band:  Greatest Hits 1974-78

Grew up listening to my brother's copy of this album (which I inherited a few years ago).  It contains a ton of classics.  I added this to my stack, because the cover was in such good condition and the price was right.

Purchase #4a:  Dollar Cards  $2

When I walked back down the first aisle, everyone who was hanging around the card guy cleared out.  I stood around and chatted with him, while digging through his boxes.

Here are a pair of dollar cards I grabbed:

1996-97 Finest Bronze Refractor #162

I will never pass up 90's refractors of stars for a buck.  Oakley was part of those star studded New York Knicks teams of the early 90's.  The only downside to this card is the obvious "greening" that plagues 90's refractors.

2003 UD Authentics #102 (#'d 594/999)

The other card I grabbed was this numbered rookie card of Godzilla.  I was out of the hobby in 2003, but was still watching baseball.  Gotta imagine this card was a nice pull back in the day.

Purchase #4b:  Cheap Bin Cards  $1

The vendor also had cheap bin.  He had all three of these cards marked at 50¢, but gave them to me for a buck:

These are the kind of cards I'd prefer to find in dime or quarter bins, but this guy has given me some good deals over the years.  I figured I should buy more than a pair of dollar cards.

Purchase #5:  Baseball Masks  $7

1990 MLB All-Star Masks: Hot Rookies

This book contains four masks that can be punched out and put together.  I should have done a little more research, but I saw the word "rookies" and Ken Griffey Jr.'s face and wanted it.

It ended up being manufactured in 1990, so it's not a rookie item.  Then again... even if it was... I doubt many collectors would care about these masks.

Purchase #6:  New Movies  $2

I've started stock piling new VHS tapes and DVD's of movies I love or ones I think I'd love.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

This is one of my all-time favorite movies.  I could watch it once every few years and not get bored with it.  I still own copies of my original VHS tape and DVD.  Now I have a sealed copy too.

The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)

I've never seen this movie, but I do own a collection of sports related VHS tapes.  This one has been added to it.

Well that wraps up another trip to the Branham Flea Market.  Like I mentioned earlier in the post, I just went again this past weekend.  I promise it won't take me a month to complete my write-up post this time around.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Set Building Season

Summer break started on Thursday afternoon at 12:30 and I've been busy ever since.  Between family, friends, a flea market, and random errands... I have been working in the office organizing and targeting set needs on COMC and Sportlots.

I also opened up the first of three blogger care packages sitting on my desk.  It was from Jeremy over at Topps Cards That Never Were and as luck would have it... he had a few cards for my set builds.

The first set he targeted was my 2022 Opening Day Triple Play set:

Crossing these three cards off of my list leaves me with just one more:

The next set he helped me with is the 2006 Topps Opening Day SI for Kids:

Jeremy crossed off the only hall of famer I had on the list, along with a Padres I'm surprised I didn't already have.

After adding these two, I went over to Sportlots and picked up the final two, so this set will be complete as soon as it arrives in the mail.

He also helped me with a biggie:

It's the 2006 Topps Allen & Ginter set I started back in May.  With the help from a few fellow bloggers, Sportlots, COMC, and Jeremy... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel:

Jeremy also sent me a starter lot of 2025 Heritage Notable Americans:

I absolutely love this set, but it's big (100 cards) and I have never seen any singles sitting in dime or quarter bins.  However with Jeremy's push... I've added an eBay search for more starter lots.  I'm not going to create an actual "want list" until I'm at least 30% of the way though.

Moving along... here are some colorful Oakland A's cards for my collection:

This is the first Brent Rooker card I've added to my collection since his stellar All-Star game performance.  He came so close to becoming the first Athletic to win the All-Star Game MVP Award since Terry Steinbach in 1988.  Damn you Schwarber!

The coolest card in Jeremy's care package was this color-matched Reggie:

2023 Topps Archives Double Headers Green Foil #89DH-23 (#'d 37/99)

Mark McGwire is on the back...

McGwire and Jackson are #1 and #2 in home runs in Oakland A's history and both helped them win World Series titles.

The next card probably seems like a head-scratcher...

1990 Bowman #492

Until you flip the card over...

Check out that glorious gum stain on this Juan Gonzalez rookie card.  I'm pretty picky about which cards make it into the Damaged Card PC, but the rookie card of a 2x AL MVP Award winner definitely meets the minimum requirements.

Thank you Jeremy for helping with all of these set builds... and for adding cards to some of my personal collections.  I'll take a look at your want lists and see if I can help.  Regardless... I know I have some Rays I can send your way.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

On This Date

2012 Topps Archives 1968 3D #NNO

On this date in 1921, Babe Ruth hit his 139th career home run against the Detroit Tigers to become MLB's all-time home run leader.

2010 Topps Vintage Legends Collection #VLC20

On this date in 1927, Ty Cobb hit a double against the Philadelphia A's and became the first player in MLB history to collect 4,000 hits.

1987 Topps #500

On this date in 1987, Don Mattingly hit a home run against the Texas Rangers to tie Dale Long for the MLB record of most consecutive games with a home run (8).

On this date... a long time ago... Papa Fuji was born.  He would have celebrated his ninety-third birthday.  If you're wondering why the photo of him is cropped so poorly, it's because we wanted to capture the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in the background.

If you're interested in reading about our trip along the Pacific Coast Highway in the summer of 2022, you can click here.

Happy Birthday Dad!  I hope you and Mom are celebrating your special day together.  I miss both of you guys.

Happy Friday and sayonara!