30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Thursday, November 29, 2018

One Step Closer

When it comes to collecting sports cards, there's truly no shortage of ways to collect.  A few years ago, I started a collection of autographs featuring famous left-handed athletes since I'm a proud lefty myself.  Then about a year ago... I took this project one step further when I began targeting an autograph of every left-handed Cy Young Award winner.

Named after the winningest pitcher in MLB history, the award was originally given to the best pitcher in baseball.



Warren Spahn was the second pitcher to win the award in 1957, but was the first left-handed pitcher to accomplish the feat.



Four years later, Whitey Ford became the second lefty to win the award.



Sandy Koufax was the first pitcher to win multiple Cy Young Awards when he took home the award in 1963, 1965, and 1966.

Since then, only five other lefties have won multiple Cy Young Awards: Randy Johnson (5), Steve Carlton (4), Clayton Kershaw (3), Tom Glavine (2), and Johan Santana (2).


1995/1999/2000/2001/2002


1972/1977/1980/1982


2011/2013/2014


1991/1998

Unfortunately there are six left-handed Cy Young Award winners signatures that I'm currently missing and Johan Santana happens to be one of them.  He has a few signatures out there, but I'm not ready to spend $20+ on an on-card signatureMaybe one day.

In 1967, Major League Baseball decided to honor two pitchers with the award... one from each leagueMike McCormick, a San Francisco Giant southpaw became the first National League Cy Young Award winner.  He's another autograph I'm still currently trying to track down, along with Frank Viola, Mark Davis,and CC Sabathia.

Some of these guys are a little easier to find than others, but I'm confident that I'll be able to eventually add them to the rest of these guys:


Mike Cuellar1969 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Vida Blue1971 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Randy Jones1976 NL Cy Young Award Winner


Sparky Lyle1977 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Ron Guidry1978 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Mike Flanagan 1979 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Fernando Valenzuela1981 NL Cy Young Award Winner


Willie Hernandez1984 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Barry Zito2002 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Cliff Lee2008 AL Cy Young Award Winner


David Price:  2012 AL Cy Young Award Winner


Dallas Keuchel2015 AL Cy Young Award Winner

And the newest addition to my collection...


Blake Snell2018 AL Cy Young Award Winner

Okay, it's your turn to chime in...

Who will be the next southpaw to win the Cy Young Award?

Do you think it'll finally be Chris Sale?  How about Kyle Freeland (who was gosh darn good at Coors Field)?  Or maybe Kershaw and/or Snell will bring home another one?


I realize it's not very likely... but I'd love to see Madison Bumgarner (unless he's traded to the Yankees) bounce back and win the National League Cy Young Award at least once during his career.

By the way, if you're interested... I found a really cool website that's dedicated to left-handed baseball players.  It has some pretty interesting stuff if that's your cup of tea.

Well... that's it for today.  Only one more day and one step closer until the weekend.

Until then... happy Thursday and sayonara!

15 comments:

Jon said...

It won't be a popular opinion, but I too would like to see MadBum win a Cy Young.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

A lot of PC guys there, love those Braves!

Chris said...

Very nice collection here! I just want to point out that Fernando Valenzuela has the longest name and the nicest signature (maybe second to Sparky). while Barry Zito can hardly be bothered to scribble more than a sideways heart. smh.

I'm going to predict that the next lefty to win a CY will come from the AL East: Sale, Price, Snell again..or maybe James Paxton.

Dennis said...

Amazing, amazing collection here, Fuji!

JediJeff said...

Sale has been robbed twice in my opinion. He's due.

The Lost Collector said...

Neat idea for a collection! I’ll go with Paxton!

sg488 said...

As a long time Oriole fan I love the Cuellar card.

night owl said...

I'm a lefty and I'll be thrilled if Bumgarner never gets near a Cy Young.

SumoMenkoMan said...

I didn’t know you were a lefty. My son is a hardcore lefty. Have you visited the left-hand shop in downtown SFO along the waterfront?

Alan Deakins said...

-Great post as always.....very informative.

Hackenbush said...

Great collection. I have a bunch of those but still envious of the Koufax.

Peter K Steinberg said...

Unbelievable collection. Speechless.

Fuji said...

jon - if he does... i wonder if it'll be out here or in philly. either way, i'd be happy to see it happen

john miller - me too. they're one of those teams that i quietly root for (although i was bummed to see kurt suzuki leave.

chris - great observations. i won't hold it against zito. he's a pretty cool dude. as long as it's not a yankee... i'd be okay with the winner coming out of the al east.

dennis - thanks! it's a work in progress

jedijeff - i'd be okay with that. love that guy.

the lost collector - ugh. it would me i'd need to add another yankees autograph to my collection. ;)

sg488 - the cuellar is actually a recent pickup. he doesn't have a lot of certified autographs out there.

night owl - lol. what if he's pitching for the phillies?

sumomenkoman - is it the one at pier 39? if so, yeah... but it's been five or six years.

alan deakins - thanks for supporting the blog.

hackenbush - i'd love to add another koufax one day. there's one in particular, but it doesn't come up for sale very often.

peter k steinberg - lol. thanks. autographs are one of my favorite things to collect.

arpsmith said...

Like the collection, my choice of course would be MadBum (as a Giant).

Sounds like you are only looking for on card autos but if interested I could probably stand to trade my 2007 Ultra Autographics of Johan Santana. There is one on COMC if you want to see what it looks like:

https://www.comc.com/Cards/Baseball/2007/Fleer_Ultra_-_Autographics/AU-JS/Johan_Santana/3634709

Good luck on finishing this off.

Fuji said...

arpsmith - i really hope he stays in the bay area... although radio personalities are pretty confident he's not going to be here much longer. as for the 2007 ultra autographics card of santana... it's a nice looking card. but you called it... i'm pretty much looking for an on-card speciment. thanks though. truly appreciate the offer.