TWiB: Scorpions, Saito, Stone Fingers, Soccer, and Storage Boxes

Yee haw.  Baseball is back.  Sure it's only Spring Training... but it's better than basketball or even following my beloved San Jose Sharks who have flirted with .500 the entire season, but haven't been able to hold my attention.  I guess I'm still adjusting to the new and not-improved era of Sharks hockey.  I'll still support them by wearing my jersey and collecting their cards, but I'm ready to focus my attention on baseball.

Okay... let's kick another This Week in Blogging post off with a minor league card of his Airness...

#1:  An Expensive Minor League Card

1991 Upper Deck #SP1

On Monday, Ryan over at This Card is Cool showed off a really cool jersey card of Michael Jordan from his days with the Scottsdale Scorpions.  Back in the mid 90's, I was one of those collectors who chased his baseball cards.

2001 UD Prospect Premiers Heroes of Baseball Dual Jersey #J-JJ

It took me awhile, but I finally added my first and only memorabilia card of MJ back in 2010 that also happens to have a Scorpions swatch.

#2:  Super Saito!

Greg over at Night Owl Cards showed off the COMC haul he recently received and included were some Takashi Saito cards.  He mentioned him being a pretty big deal during his two years with the Dodgers and he wasn't kidding.  You should check out his 2007 stats.

2008 Topps Silk #NNO (#'d 44/50)

Saito has gotta be one of only a handful of players who had a lower career ERA in the MLB than across the Pacific in the NPB.

#3:  Stone Fingers

No idea how or why Toby Harrah received that nickname... but it's an attention grabber.  He was featured in a post I read over on The Shlabotnik Report this morning and it reminded me of when I was a kid.  Back in 1982, Harrah hit .304 with 25 home runs... which made an impression on the ten year old version of me.

2013 Tristar Signa Cuts Bronx Edition Red #NNO (#'d 1/5)

Although I mostly associate him with the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians, I just couldn't pass up this terrible looking cut signature of his.  I found it at a card show back in 2019 for a buck.

Looking back at that card show haul reminded me of another really cool purchase I made:

2019 Chrome Negative Refractor #203

I purchased this card off of a dealer for $20.  These days regular Chrome rookie cards of Tatis sell for $80 to $100 on a regular basis.  This card is over $500 now.  Crazy times people.  Crazy times.

Anyways... getting back to The Shlabotnik Report... if you enjoy learning interesting 70's baseball trivia, please check out his series:  The 1970's: A to Z.

#4:  Another Interesting Collection

The Best Bubble has some of the most interesting mini collections around:  Bubble Blowing Cards, Athletes Balancing Bags and Balls, and Marlboro Man Advertisements just to name a few.

2017 Archives Fan Favorites Autographs #FFA-BV

On Monday, he showed off some cards from his Fans In The Stands collection.  It's so cool and unique.  Anyways, outside of the famous Mark Jackson Hoops card (which I don't own yet)... this Yankees fan was the only card that came to mind when thinking of fans.

#5:  Creative Design

I just wanted to give P-Town Tom over at Waiting 'til Next Year a huge shoutout for his custom storage box.  If you haven't seen it, please head over to his blog and check it out.

#6:  Entertaining Errors

Matt over at Big Blue Cardboard showed off an interesting error card this week... where Panini placed a David Wilson sticker-graph on a Rueben Randle card.

I just happened to be watching a Tony Gwynn Jr. card featuring his father's autograph earlier in the week on eBay.  Due to collecting cutbacks, I let it go.

2006 Exquisite Collection Dual Rookie Signatures #55

However I did grab this one a few years ago off of COMC.  If you're bored, I wrote a post about this goof in further detail five years ago.

#7:  An Entertaining Soccer Card Post

Are you a soccer card collector?  Head over to A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts to check out his Kaka card.

2013 Topps MLS Kit Relic #KIT-CW

Outside of the occasional San Jose Earthquakes autograph or memorabilia card, I don't really chase soccer cards... but I do enjoy watching them play at Avaya Stadium (when there's not a pandemic).

#8:  Football Card Blog Bat-Around

1975 Topps #525

1975 Topps #60

Ryan (SumoMenkoMan) is hosting a "Living" Blog Bat-Around over on his blog.  For details, please click either of those links or you can read my response post from Thursday.

#9:  Leaving Your Collection Behind

Dime Box Nick gave his readers something to think about this week, when he wrote about what would happen to his collection if he had to leave it all behind.  It's something I've thought about on numerous occasions.

And it's one of the reasons, I've started to clear out some of the stuff cluttering my place...

Last week, I threw this collection on Craigslist for $100 and three different people reached out to me within an hour.  The only interaction I had was with the first guy... and I immediately accepted his $70 offer.  He was happy... I was happy.  That's what I call a win/win situation.

Yesterday, I listed some boxes of basketball cards for $400 and sold them this morning.  However I'll hold off on showing the photos until I've actually completed the sale on Monday.

As for the rest of my stuff... I'm going to slowly move duplicates of sets and graded cards I've accumulated over the years.  No... I'm not dumping my collection.  But do I really need ten 1992-93 Fleer Ultra Shaquille O'Neal PSA 10 rookie cards? 

That wraps up another This Week in Blogging post.

Feel free to throw down your thoughts on Spring Training, MJ's baseball cards, custom storage boxes, selling sports cards, or collecting soccer cards down in the comment section below.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

TWiB: The Real Sam Malone, Coins & Stamps, Another 80's Variation, and my 1st 2021 Card

The news about people being stuck at home, the loss of power, numerous traffic accidents, and the impact of freezing temperatures around the country was heartbreaking.  It honestly put a lot of things into perspective for me.  That's why I thought I'd start things off by stating that I hope all of you are able to stay safe and reasonably warm.

Hopefully some trading cards and blog posts will help distract some of you who were impacted by Mother Nature personally this week.  So let's dive into This Week in Blogging...

#1:  Let's Celebrate

1991 Stadium Club #1

Figured I'd try to start off with some happy news and wish Dime Box Nick a happy 29th birthday!  He celebrated his special day by ranking his Top 5 Dave Stewart cards.  Stewart shares the same birthday as him and happens to be one of my favorite 80's pitchers.  If you want to see which cards made his list, click here.

1999 Pokemon Fossil #58

1999 Pokemon Fossil 1st Edition #58

1997 Pokemon Fossil #NNO

This week also marks the 10th anniversary of This Card is Cool, which is a blog that focuses on everything from Japanese baseball cards to Pokemon cards.  Happy anniversary Ryan!

By the way... if you're interested in Pokemon cards, please check out Matt's latest post on Cards Over Coffee, which covers the McDonald's Happy Meal cards.

1995-96 Fleer Flair Hardwood Leader #9

Oh and I almost forgot... Billy over at Cardboard History just celebrated 25 years of being an NBA fan.  Congratulations Billy!  He mentioned that 1995-96 Fleer Series 2 was the first pack of basketball cards he opened, so I dug into my binders and this was the first card from that set I found.  Although... technically these Hardcourt Leaders inserts were in the Series 1 packs.

#2:  Factory Team Sets

On Monday, The Shlabotnik Report featured a great post breaking down the 2012 Topps New York Mets factory team set, which offered player photo variations and unique numbering.

2017 Topps Yankees Factory Team Set #NYY-16

I've purchased a few of these Topps factory teams sets over the years, because I enjoy the rookie card variations that are sometimes offered.

#3:  The Real Sam Malone

1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated Autograph Collection #NNO

On Monday, Matt over at Cards Over Coffee showed off the Ted Danson signed photo he recently acquired in a trade.  He talks about a few of the television shows and movies that Danson has appeared in over the years.  The one that stood out to me was Cheers, because it was one of those 80's television shows that I'd watch with my mom as a kid.

Sam Malone (Danson's character on Cheers) was inspired by a real MLB pitcher from the 60's and 70's:  Sam McDowell.  According to this article, McDowell struggled with alcoholism... but later turned things around and became a substance abuse counselor for a few MLB teams.

By the way... anyone else notice the error on the back of the McDowell card?  He never played for the Cincinnati Reds.  That being said... I've confused those old Cleveland hats with Cincinnati hats more than a few times myself.

#4:  Two Hobbies Unite

2003 Topps Gallery Currency Connection #CC-WM

In celebration of President's Day, Collecting Cutch showed off some fantastic coin cards on his blog.  I've always been fond of these collectibles that combine two popular hobbies into one.

2010 Panini Century Collection Souvenir Stamps #45

The same thing can be said for stamp cards.

#5:  The Big Hurt in Oakland

Peter K. Steinberg featured a sunset card of Frank Thomas over on Baseball Every Night earlier in the week.  I'm a huge fan of the guy and love it when I see him wearing Green & Gold.  Figured I'd share one of my cards as well:

2006 Flair Showcase Stitches #SS-FT

I'm always looking for an excuse to show off one of my Frank Thomas A's cards.

#6:  Check the Back

1987 Sportflics #31

If you own some 1987 Sportflics, you might want to flip them over and check out the copyright date.  If it says 1986, then you have a factory set version, while the ones with 1987 were pulled from packs.  Looks like the Gwynn sitting in my binder came from a pack:

By the way... I learned this little variation tidbit earlier in the week over at Kerry's blog: Cards on Cards.  

#7:  My 1st 2021 Gwynn

A lot of bloggers have written their 2021 Topps flagship reviews and check out my blaster posts.  I personally haven't seen or looked for any blasters myself, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I get my hands on some singles.

2021 Topps Blake Jamieson 1951 Topps #20

In the meantime, a post over on Wrigley Wax reminded me that I actually own a few 2021 Topps trading cards.  It's from the Blake Jamieson 1951 Topps online set that was released a few weeks ago.  I picked up the Week 2 box, because it included a bunch of players I collect including the Gwynn you see above.

#8:  Other Sports

As much as I enjoy collecting baseball cards, I actually enjoy reading non-baseball card related blog posts almost as much.

1996 SPx Tribute Autograph #T1

Paul over at Card Boarded  (a hockey card blog) announced earlier in the week that he's going to start collecting Jeff Gordon cards.

And Billy over at Cardboard History wrote a nice post about Jarome Iginla in honor of Black History Month.  He mentioned Iginla's interest in diabetes even though he doesn't suffer from it.

1994-95 SP #181

Anyways... seeing his name reminded me of the days of busting packs of 1994-95 SP searching for Sergei Samsonov rookie cards.  These packs also contained one of Iginla's rookie cards too.

#9:  Movie Mania

If you're into watching movies... then you should check out Elliptical Man's new blog series:  Film Friday.  It's a series where he'll be giving his readers 100 movie recommendations.

Yesterday was the first post in the series and the topic was Books & Plays.

1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame #143

It wasn't featured in his post, but the first movie that popped into my head was To Kill a Mockingbird which features Gregory Peck.

By the way, this week I opened up two boxes of 1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame and combined with a stack of singles I purchased at the flea market... I was almost able to produce two starter sets.  I know this is a long shot, but if anyone has any singles from this product laying around here are the 35 cards I still need.  I have a ton of duplicates available for trade.  Collation was terrible.

That wraps up another This Week in Blogging post.  As much as I enjoy and appreciate the number of views each of these posts receive, I'm thinking about scaling them down.  Between the research, writing, and digging up cards from my collection... these posts end up taking up a large portion of my Saturdays.  And in this day and age... rest and relaxation is something my mind and body needs for mental health purposes.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!