Sayonara Salute: The Cobra

There are moments in your life when you stop what you're doing and reminisce.  That's what happened a few hours ago when Ryan (@ SumoMenkoMan) texted me about Dave Parker passing away.

The Cobra was one of those players from my childhood that stood out to me, because he was such a dominating player.  He had won two batting titles, a World Series ring, a NL MVP Award, and an All-Star Game MVP Award before I opened my first pack of cards.  Luckily I was a baseball fan long before I became a baseball card collector.

However being a baseball card blogger, it's probably a good idea to show off some cards.  So here are some of my favorite Dave Parker cards...

1976 Topps #185

This card captures Parker's swing (and gold chain) on one of my favorite Topps flagship designs.

Let's check out some oddball issues:

1981 Topps Squirt #10

Did you know that he once hit a home run out of Wrigley?

1981 Kellogg's #13

I have a few Kellogg's cards of Parker, but the bright yellow border of the 1981 set compliments Parker's black uniform.

In an effort to squeeze a card of Parker from his days with the Oakland Athletics, here's a box bottom card of his:

1990 Topps Box Bottom #J

Topps honored him with this box bottom, because he hit his 300th career home run on August 5th, 1989 at the Kingdome off of Seattle's Mike Jackson.

1989 was a big year for Parker, because he also won his 2nd World Series ring with the Oakland A's:

1989 Topps #475

That postseason, he only had five hits in seven games... but three of them were home runs.

But even this A's fan knows he's best remembered for being a Pittsburgh Pirate.  So I'll wrap things up with a pair of memorabilia cards, two pack pulled on-card autographs, and a signed rookie card (featuring him in black and yellow):

2001 Topps American Pie Timeless Classic #BBTC-42

2001 UD Decade 1970's Game-Used Bat #B-DP

Writing this post made me realize that I didn't own a jersey card of his, so I went out and purchased this card.

2013 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autograph #FFA-DP

2014 Topps Five Star Autographs #FSA-DPA

The past few years, I've slowed down in purchasing on-card autographs.  Luckily I grabbed these two a decade ago.

Last, but not least...

1974 Topps #252

Rest in peace Mr. Parker.  Your legacy will be remembered by the millions of baseball fans and card collectors who got a chance to watch you play.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Cooperstown Class of 2025

Yeah.  Yeah.  I know I'm late to the party again.  This post was originally scheduled for two weeks ago... but I got behind in my writing.  However it's not often that one of my favorite players gets voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, so better late than never.

Today's post honors the five new members to this very elite club.  Let's start with the two members voted in by the Classic Era Baseball Committee:

2001 Fleer Greats of the Game Autograph #NNO

Dick Allen played his final game when I was in preschool, so I don't remember watching him play.  However I've looked at his statistics and have read enough articles and blog posts to know that he was a great hitter.  I'm just sad that he didn't get inducted a few years earlier.

2013 Archives Fan Favorites Autographs #FFA-DP

Dave Parker is another one of those Hall of Very Good members who has made the jump over to the Hall of Fame... and I'm absolutely stoked for him and his fans.  His career numbers at the plate was super impressive, but I'll always remember him for teaming up with Gary Carter in the 1979 MLB All-Star Game to gun down Brian Downing at the plate.

Moving along to the three guys voted in by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.  Let's start with the guy that many bloggers have been rooting for the past few years:

2016 Archives Signature Series Buyback Autograph

1997 Topps Gallery #178

Out of the five guys in this class... Wagner is the one I'm least knowledgeable of.  I mean... I obviously know that he's one of the greatest left-handed relief pitchers of all-time.  But that's only because I've read that on your blogs.  Regardless... I'm happy there's another lefty headed to Cooperstown.

Speaking of lefties...

1999 Topps Traded Autograph #T33

Even though he spent over a decade with the New York Yankees... I was excited that Sabathia received the call to the hall on his first ballot.  I purchased this autograph back in 2018 for my Left-Handed Cy Young Award Winner PC.  Guess I need to track down another CC auto for my Left-Handed HOF PC.

Last, but certainly not least, the man who inspired this post:

2023 Finest Flashbacks Autograph #183

During the 2000's... Ichiro was one of the greatest and most exciting players in the game.  

Even if he wasn't from Japan, I would have been collecting his cards.  I just loved how he would slap the ball around the diamond like someone was controlling him in a video game.  It just seemed so easy to him.  Then there's the fact that he won ten consecutive Gold Glove Awards for his performance in right field.  If that wasn't enough to lock him in as a first ballot hall of famer... he also helped open the door for a generation of baseball players from Japan.

Congratulations Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Allen, Mr. Parker, Mr. Wagner, and Mr. Sabathia!

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

One of Those Perfect Days

This past week I've been on my February break and the plan was to spend several hours each day doing hobby related stuff like sorting cards, working on sets, opening care packages, reading blog posts, and writing a post or two myself.  Gotta admit, with all of the other things going on this week... I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to stick to the plan.

I'm not nearly caught up on sorting cards.  Honestly that's a never-ending project.  And there will always be sets to build.

As for care packages, I still have two large flat-rate boxes and four PWE's from John (@ Johnny's Trading Spot), a medium size box from Chris (@ The Collector), two padded envelopes from Kenny (@ Torren' Up Cards), a padded envelope from Eric (@ The Snorting Bull), and PWE's from Kevin (@ The Diamond King), Gavin (@ Baseball Card Breakdown), and Tom (@ The Angels, In Order).  Plus I still haven't finished reviewing items from Woody (@ Sports Card Forum) and Reader X.

I apologize to everyone above for the delay.  It's one of those things I prefer not to rush... because I want to enjoy and organize the contents of each package, while also writing a thoughtful post for each.  In a perfect world, the posts coincide with something currently going on within sports or the hobby.

Well... today is one of those perfect days.  It's sunny outside.  It's cool, but not freezing cold.  And I had the opportunity to walk around a card show.  But that's a post for another day.  Today's post follows up one of those feel good hobby stories written by one of our very own:  Zippy Zappy over @ Torren' Up Cards.

It would be hard to pinpoint what he's better known for: his Zippy Zappings or his very impressive Luis Torrens PC.  Well I won't spoil anything, but he made a pretty big announcement over on his blog yesterday.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please stop reading this post and click here.  You won't be disappointed.

Pretty awesome, right?  I'm not surprised.  Pretty sure anyone who is familiar with him... is familiar with his generosity.

I've been zapped by him on several occasions.  As mentioned above, I've been sitting on two padded envelopes from him.  One arrived in September and the other in December.  Yesterday afternoon I opened up both.

Let's start with the box topper of his first package.  He included a nice handwritten note and this very cool postcard:

Next Manga Awards Postcard

In regards to manga, I'm pretty much a newbie... but it is something I've had around me since my childhood.  When I was a kid, my parents would go up to San Francisco's Japantown a few times a year and one of my favorite stops was Kinokuniya which is a large bookstore.  I'd plop myself down in front of the manga books and magazines and keep myself entertained without being able to read a single word.

This postcard is somehow related to the Next Manga Awards which honors the best print and web manga titles each year.  The two characters featured are from the manga Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You.  According to their website, it won first place for top web manga in 2022.

Now if you're not familiar with a Zippy Zapping, Kenny creates his own packs using old wrappers which look like these:

In an effort to keep this post reasonable in length, here are the highlights from each pack.

Pack #1:  2013 Bowman Chrome Mini Lot

2013 Bowman Chrome Mini #311

The first pack contained a bunch of New York Yankees prospects from the 2013 Bowman Chrome Mini set.  Aaron Judge stood out.  I knew he had cards from a few years before his rookie card year... but had no idea they dated all the way back to 2013.  Holy cow this is a very nice addition to my collection.

Pack #2:  BBM Baseball

2017 BBM 2nd Version First Pitch #FP03

2019 BBM 2nd Version First Pitch #FP05

2019 BBM Dancing Heroine #77

The next pack featured a handful of BBM cards.  And it wouldn't be a proper zapping without some beautiful ladies.  Not sure which one is my favorite.  First pitch cards are always cool, but who doesn't love baseball cheerleaders?

2009 BBM Touch The Game Gold Signature #PS05

2010 BBM 1st Version Silver Signature #258

2012 BBM 1st Version Gold Signature #112

There were also three Masahiro Tanaka Japanese parallels in the pack.  The one on the far right is numbered out of 100:

2012 BBM 1st Version Gold Signature #112 (#'d 061/100)

Another huge addition to the card collection.

Pack #3:  Four Ladies & The Big Unit

2021 Parkside NWSL #70, 130, 159, & 194

Yup.  More ladies.  This time they're all Japanese women playing in our very own National Women's Soccer League.  But the coolest card in the pack was this baseball card:

2003 Topps Kanebo Japan Silver #15

This card looks like the 2002 Topps flagship, but it was actually released in Japan as either a food or store oddball issue.  This particular card of Randy is a silver parallel.  How cool is it to see one of his cards with the text written in Japanese on the back?

Pack #4:  Star Wars Cards

The fourth pack was filled with Star Wars cards from two movies:  The Force Awakens and Rogue One.  I picked a favorite from each:

2015 Topps SW: The Force Awakens Stickers #11

2016 Topps SW: Rogue One Montage #NNO

Pack #5:  The Heavy Hitters

There were only three cards in the final pack... and two of them featured signatures from some heavy hitters:

2020 Epoch Chunich Dragons Stars & Legends

Legendary Signature #LS-MU (#'d 13/38)

I had never heard of Masaru Uno before seeing this card yesterday, but I stumbled across this article which stated he's part of the NPB 300 Home Run Club.  Back in 2020 when the article was written, Uno was 33rd on the NPB all-time home run list.  Four years later, he's slid down to 34th.

Remember that note from Kenny that was next to the postcard?  He mentioned sending me an autograph of the current New York Yankees captain as a thank you for some Henrik Lundqvist cards I had given him.  Well, here it is:

2013 Prizm Draft Picks Silver Prizm Prospect Signatures #33

Holy cow!  The New York Yankees might be my least favorite team in baseball... but that's never stopped me from collecting their cards.  And this one is a biggie.

And for the curious, here's the third and final card in the pack:

2022 Takara Tomy WiXoss #WXDi-CP01-051

Honestly... not sure what this is.  But it's Japanese, so I'll give it a nice home.  Kenny also included one in the second padded envelope... so maybe the card holds some special meaning to him.

I'll wrap things up with the contents of that second care package...

December Package:  Unopened Epoch Packs & Godzilla

The bulk of this package were nine unopened packs of different Epoch products.  I'll be keeping one of each sealed for my unopened Japanese pack collection.  Three of these packs will eventually be featured on A Pack to Be Named Later.

Trust me.  It'll happen.  Just don't expect it to happen anytime soon.  Did you see the list of packages I mentioned at the beginning of this post?  They are the priority.

And rounding out the stuff Kenny sent were some top loaded singles:

2012 Sega Card-Gen #135

This one is another biggie.  Matsui doesn't have a lot of cards featuring him with the Oakland Athletics and I'm pretty sure this is the first one to land in my collection.

There was another copy of that 2022 Takara Tomy WiXoss card, but I didn't scan it again.  But I did scan this card:

Luis Torrens Custom #ZZ

I've received this card before in a previous zapping.  It's sort of Kenny's trademark card from his days of being the ultimate Luis Torrens super collector.

Thank you Kenny!  Not only for these awesome cards... but for being such a class act.  Please let us know which direction your collection takes you.  It's my turn to owe you.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!