Flea Market Finds #185: Taro, Terry, & Talkin' Baseball

Mother Nature helped California with their drought concerns by dumping a lot of rain throughout the state over February Break.  It cleared up on Saturday enough to motivate me to check out the Branham Flea Market.

The ground was dry and the skies were fairly clear, but I think the cold temperatures scared away a lot of the regular vendors.

I did manage to purchase a few items for my collection though...

Purchase #1:  Sports Related LP's  $13

There's one vendor with sports memorabilia that you can always count on to be there.  I've purchased plenty of stuff from him over the years.  He's the guy that sold me the uncut Mother's Cookies sheets last month.

He had a box filled with sports related record albums, but only two were still sealed in cellophane:

Terry Cashman One Stop Along The Way

The Ballad of Johnny Bench (1983)

Terry Cashman Talkin' Baseball

American League (1982)

Sometimes I buy record albums because I enjoy the band.  Other times I just think it's a cool piece of history that fits into my collection.  These two LP's fall into the latter category.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Cashman's Willie, Mickey, & The Duke found on Talkin' Baseball.  If not, it's a classic you can listen to here.  I wasn't familiar with the other song, but I found it on YouTube.  If you want to hear a slow jam about The Little General, click here.

Purchase #2:  A Classic from my Childhood  $1

My second purchase was from a vendor I hadn't seen before.  He had a bunch of old books.  I'm always on the lookout for books I read as a kid.  I might have struck out on finding baseball cards, but I did find this:

Taro and the Tofu by Masako Matsuno

I don't remember owning this book when I was little, but I was very familiar with the cover.  It's one of those books I checked out during our weekly trips to the library.

It's a story about a boy who received too much change from the tofu salesman and is faced with the decision to keep the money or give it back.  Not going to try and convince you that this is a timeless piece of literature, but I will say that it's a tale that stuck with me all these years.

That wraps up my flea market finds for this past Saturday.  I still have some free time, so I'm going to continue sharing some gifts from Ryan's advent calendar.

Let's start from the beginning with his Day 1 haiku:

There were two parts to this present.  The first part is a vintage trading card that pictures Mt. Fuji rising above Katase Beach on Enoshima:

Here's a look at the card back:

Thanks to Google... I was able to translate the card back which essentially talks about Enoshima and Mt. Fuji being in perfect harmony and beauty.

The second half of the Day 1 present was this Christmas card from 1912:

The cover features another great look at Mt. Fuji.  Here's a peek inside:

According to Google, this image shows off Itsukushima Shrine located on Miyajima Island in Hiroshima Bay.  I'm super impressed at how well crafted this Christmas card was for being 114 years old.

Both of these items are huge additions to my Mt. Fuji PC.

Well that's it for today.  Hopefully the weather is nice in two weeks for the De Anza Flea Market, because this recent trip to the flea market wasn't very memorable.

And thank you Ryan for these two vintage Mt. Fuji items.  They're awesome!

Everyone else, here is your question of the day:

When you think of sports, are there any songs that immediately pop into your head?

I've got two:

#1:  Celebration by Kool & the Gang (1980)

Whenever the A's won at the Oakland Coliseum, this song played.  Can't hear this song without it taking me back there.

#2:  Winning It All by The Outfield (1992)

I was a huge basketball fan for decades and I watched as many NBA Finals games as I could.  This song played after the Chicago Bulls won the NBA Title in 1996.  It's a great song by an under-appreciated group.

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments.  Until then... 

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Best of Luck

Woke up and Team USA had a 1-0 lead.

Mike Eruzione Signed Puck

*This signed puck was a flea market freebie from 2013.  I turned a Pokemon find into some free items.  One of them was this puck signed by the captain of the 1980 Team USA hockey team.

As I'm starting to write this post, Team Canada has tied it up.  Obviously I'm rooting for Team USA, but I've got nothing but love and respect for our friends in the north.

1997-98 Donruss Canadian Ice National Pride #1

**If this card looks familiar, it's because it's the third time I'm showing it off on my blog.  That's how much I love it.  It's one of my favorite hockey inserts from the 90's.  Gretzky only suited up for Team Canada once in the Winter Olympics (Nagano 1998), but represented them a bunch of other times during the Canada Cup tournaments in the 80's and 90's. 

As we head into the 3rd period, best of luck to both.  May the best team win.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Overtime

Jack Hughes scores in overtime.  Team USA wins.  What an amazing 3rd period.  Honestly I thought Team Canada was going to win with their stellar play and all of their shots on goal.  Kudos to Connor Hellebuyck.  He made some insane saves.

2012 UD Goodwin Champions Memorabilia #M-BL

***Brian Leetch represented Team USA in three Winter Olympics.  In his third and final appearance, he helped Team USA win the silver medal in 2002.  Anyone remember the team who took home the gold?  Yup.  Team Canada.

Unfortunately I don't own any cards of Hughes or Hellebuyck, so this Leetch will have to do.

A Beary Cool Set

One of the coolest things about being a "team collector" is you're often exposed to some team issued cards you might not see often unless you live in the area.

Today's post features a book of cards and postcards featuring a dozen Oakland Athletics from the 1987 season.

I'm not sure how these were distributed, but according to the inside cover... it was "given as a Public Service in Wildfire Prevention".

This particular book was sent to me by Angus over at Dawg Day Cards back in December.  I had seen the cards and postcards pop up on TCDB awhile back, but never owned any myself until now.

Inside there are twelve perforated pages.  Each page contains one card and one postcard like this:

The postcards are designed to be colored with colored pencils.  As a collector, I will keeping mine uncolored.  Here's a peek at the back:

Each of the twelve postcards features unique illustrations.  Due to lack of time, the Reggie Jackson is the only one I took the time to scan.  I did however take the time to scan each of the cards and postcards.

Here's the complete set of baseball cards:

And a closer look at what the back of the cards look like:

Each of the backs have a unique Smokey the Bear cartoon illustration that comes with a public service announcement.

Here is the set of postcards:

These aren't just postcards in name, they are actual postcards intended to be mailed to people:

And rounding out this post is the back of the beary cool Smokey the Bear card from the cover of the book:

Based on the response from my To Cut or Not to Cut post from a few weeks ago, some of you might think I'm crazy to tear apart this book.  Don't worry.  The day I pulled this out of Angus' care package, I went out to eBay and bought an extra one to keep intact.

Thank you Angus!  This is truly an awesome addition to my Oakland A's collection.

Everyone else... here is your question of the day:

Do you have a favorite team issue?

1983 Granny Goose Oakland A's #35

The first sets that popped into my head were the early 80's Granny Goose Oakland A's sets, but I'm pretty sure they were only released with bags of chips and not issued by the A's.

1984 Mother's Cookies #2

It didn't take me long to decide on the 80's Mother's Cookies SGA sets they'd pass out at games.

I've written about my brother taking me to Candlestick and the Oakland Coliseum for trading card day on several occasions.  They'll always have a soft spot in my collection and I'm still actively trying to hunt down the ones I don't have.

Looking forward to reading your responses.  Heck... maybe it'll inspire me to add a few more team issues (even if they aren't the A's or Padres) to my collection.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Still Celebrating the Holidays

While a lot of sports fans are focusing on this year's NBA All-Star Weekend, the Winter Olympics, and pitchers & catchers reporting to Spring Training... I'm still coming down from my Super Bowl high.  But I did open up a padded envelope yesterday that's getting me back into the spirit of baseball.

Pennsylvania Mike left a comment on my 2025 Topps Holiday advent calendar post.  He offered to help me out... and he wasn't joking.  It's probably easier to let this visual do the talking:

After combining the singles from my advent calendar and my buddy's duplicates, I needed 59 cards from the 200 card set.  Mike crossed off thirty-five of them:

That's a jump from 70.5% to 88% complete.  He included some key cards including the Jacob Wilson & Roki Sasaki rookie cards, plus the batting version of Shohei Ohtani and a bunch of other MLB superstars.

My set needs are down to twenty-four cards:

Oh wait, there's more.  He also sent me these three A's parallels:

2025 Topps Holiday Gold Lights #H48

2025 Topps Holiday Light Blue & White Glitter #H80

2025 Topps Holiday Gold Lights #H80

The Topps Holiday advent calendars only came with the holiday green plaid parallels, so these two parallels were new to me.  I haven't been this excited about one of these holiday sets in several years.

Thank you Mike for helping me out.  I have a stack of Tigers from the 2025 Topps Update that I'll be sending your way this week.  I still have this wicked cough, but other than that... I'm pretty much back to normal.  Plus I have this week off from work, so I'll definitely schedule time to hit the post office.

As for the rest of y'all, here is today's question of the day:

Anyone watching the Winter Olympics or NBA All-Star Weekend events?

If so, which ones?

Although I won't be watching any of the Olympic events live, I will definitely watch all of the snowboarding highlights.  I'm also interested in seeing the highlights from both of Team USA men's hockey games.

I hope all of you enjoy your Hallmark holiday!  Happy Valentine's Day and sayonara!