The Inside the Park Home Run

Card blogs rule.  They've been a big part of my life for eighteen-plus years.  I'm constantly learning about new cards and discovering interesting sports trivia from people around the world who share a common interest.

Last month, Greg over at Night Owl Cards wrote a post about the 1980 Burger King Pitch, Hit & Run set which was the inspiration for this post.  He showed off the back Willie Wilson's card which happened to mention his five inside-the-park home runs in 1979.  That blew my mind and led me down this road of research into inside-the-park home run trivia.  If you're interested in this topic, my two primary resources were Baseball Almanac and Wikipedia.

Here are five facts that stood out to me...

1956 Topps #33

On July 25th, 1956 Roberto Clemente hit the only walk off inside-the-park grand slam in MLB history.

1975 Cramer Circle K Phoenix Giants #12

On September 2nd, 1975 Johnnie LeMaster hit an inside-the-park home run in his first MLB at-bat.  What's kinda cool is that he'd only hit 21 more home runs during his MLB career that spanned 12 seasons and consisted of over 3,000 at-bats.

1986 Topps #162

On October 4th, 1986 Greg Gagne hit two inside-the-park home runs in a single MLB game.  It's the last time anyone has accomplished that feat.

1992 Leaf Gold #435

On May 8th, 1992 Butch Henry hits the first and only home run of his MLB career.  It's the last time a pitcher hit an inside-the-park home run in a MLB game.

2007 Topps Update #UH222

On July 10th, 2007 Ichiro Suzuki hits the only inside-the-park home run in MLB All-Star Game history.  

It's the first and last inside-the-park home run of his career.  I was kind of surprised that Ichiro didn't hit more.  The same thing goes for Rickey Henderson.  Did you know he only hit one inside-the-park home run during his 25 seasons in the MLB?

1980 Topps #482

It happened on July 6th, 1980 in his sophomore season.  

Thanks Greg!  Not sure I ever would have spent so much time looking into inside-the-park home runs had I not learned read the back of Willie's card, but I'm glad I did.

I was also happy that I purchased the 1975 Cramer Circle K Phoenix Giants team set (for the Johnnie LeMaster), because it contains a card of Mike Cramer (founder of Pacific cards):

1975 Cramer Circle K Phoenix Giants #26

Speaking of LeMaster, I also discovered on When Topps Had Balls that he wrapped up his career in Oakland with the A's.  Thank you Gio!

That's why card blogs rule.  They continue to teach me interesting facts about sports and our hobby.

I'll wrap things up with today's question of the day:

Do you have any favorite inside-the-park home run trivia?

Do you ever purchase a card or cards to fit a post you are writing?

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments down below.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #180a: A 15 Pound Collection

September has been rough.  But things at work are starting to settle into place... which means that I should be able to spend more time doing hobby related stuff like sorting cards, writing posts, and sending out some care packages that I've been sitting on.

In the meantime, here's a recap of my trip to the De Anza Flea Market back on September 6th.

Purchase #1:  A Box of Cards  $20

 

The flea market was packed with new vendors and tons of people walking around.  I even ran into an old friend while walking down the first aisle.  As luck would have it, he spotted this box of cards under a vendor's table.  He's not into cards, but knows they're my favorite thing to collect.

I probably could write an entire post on this box, but it took me about a week to sit down and sort it... so I'll just show off some of the highlights.

There were four stacks of inserts, parallels, and rookie cards from 2018 to 2022 baseball products.  Nothing too crazy, but the box helped me fill about forty slots in my star binders.  I also found some football and basketball cards scattered in the box.

2018 Topps Chrome 1983 Topps #83T-1

2018 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor #1

1994-95 Ultra Premier Pad Men #2

Under the scattered semi-rigid and top loaders were several rows of Pokemon cards.  I didn't bother counting, but there were probably two hundred hologram cards:

There was also an unopened pack with Will Clark in the box as well:

1993 Milk Bone Super Stars

Here's a peek at the back:

But there were two cards that stood out and made this purchase and me walking with a 15lb. box of cards around the flea market worthwhile.  The first one stood out immediately:

1990 Leaf #300

I have loved the look of this Frank Thomas rookie card since 1990.  This might not be worth the entire twenty dollar purchase price, but it's about half.

This card made the purchase worth every penny:

1988 Pro Cards Vermont Mariners #NNO

I wasn't exactly sure what this card was, but apparently it was a promotional card handed out after the 1988 Pro Cards Vermont Mariners set had already been released.

It sounds like there's a counterfeit version in circulation, but based on this blog post, they are usually well-centered and feature different fonts.  This particular copy appears to be legit.

I'm sure I'll sprinkle some of the other cards from this purchase into future posts, but this post is already starting to drag on.  In fact, I think I'll end up splitting this trip into two posts to keep these recaps a reasonable length.

But before I wrap up this part, here was my second purchase of the day...

Purchase #2:  Baseball Card Game  $3

1991 U.S. Games Systems Inc. Baseball Legends Card Game

The early 90's saw the release of a bunch of baseball related decks of playing cards.  I wasn't familiar with this one, but a quick search on COMC revealed that there are thirteen legendary baseball players featured.  Haven't decided if I'll keep this deck sealed or put the singles into my hall of fame binders.

Well that's it for today.  I'll try to get the second half written up and posted by the end of the week.  Plus I need to recap last Saturday's trip to the Branham Flea Market, but I'm that probably won't happen until next week or later.

Until then...

Feel free to share your thoughts on either of these purchases down below.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Paving the Road

Things are beginning to wind down around here.  The regular school year ended twenty days ago.  I immediately headed up to Lake Oswego for a few days, then drove down to Ashland for a few more days.  We're now into the summer school phase.  It's not my normal gig.  This time around I'm working for my district... and absolutely love it.  I've got two more weeks and my official summer break begins.

Until then... cards and the blog are still on the back burner.  I have a few posts I've been tinkering with that are sitting in my drafts folder.  However this one was more of a spur of the moment post.

Over the weekend, I opened up a PWE from Tom over at The Angels, In Order.  Back in January he sent me a BAG (blogger appreciation gift) and it only took me five months to get around to it.  Sorry about that Tom.

There were six cards in the envelope, but one card stood out:

1991 Line Drive Pre-Rookie AAA #175 

Lenn Sakata is one of those ballplayers that takes me back to my childhood.  Obviously he wasn't a superstar, but he was the only Japanese MLB player I knew at the time... and he rocked a perm.  In a sense, he paved the road for my Japanese Athlete PC.

Fast forward three decades and he's probably more known for minor league managerial career where he holds the record for most wins in California League history.  Most of those wins came while he was managing the San Jose Giants off and on from 1999 to 2021.

Over the years, he's managed and coached all over the place.  As you can see from this card, he was the hitting coach for the Edmonton Trappers back in 1991.  And thanks to Tom, it's the sixth Sakata in my Japanese binder.

I'm sure there will be at least one reader who is curious or interested in the other guy on the card.  If that's you, you can read more about Gary Ruby here.

Tom also sent me these 1992-93 Upper Deck checklists of my Jordan PC:

When this product came out, I was taking a break from the hobby.  I had just finished building my 1992 Fleer Ultra baseball set... and the card shop I had worked at closed its doors.  That's my long winded way of informing you that I never opened any of this stuff.  And all five of these Jordans are brand new to my collection.  Thank you Tom.

While we're on the subject of Japanese-Americans, here's a card I picked up off of eBay back in mid-April:

1998 DuoCards Happy Days #11

Just like there weren't a lot of Japanese baseball players back in the 80's, there were a lot of super famous Japanese-American actors either.  Only two really come to mind.  George Takei is one of them.  Pat Morita is the other.  That's why I was very happy to see that Mr. Morita had a card in this set after it was featured on A Pack To Be Named Later back in April.

I was first introduced to Mr. Morita as Arnold on Happy Days, but as the back of his card states... he is "perhaps best remembered as the indomitable Mr. Miyagi" from the Karate Kid movies of the 80's.

I recently discovered that my father and him were born only three weeks apart.  His birthday was last Friday.  Happy belated birthday Mr. Morita!

As for the rest of you...

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Extra Innings!

Just realized this is the perfect opportunity to show off a ton of new additions to my Japanese Athlete PC that were sent by John over at Johnny's Trading Spot across several care packages.

Let's start off with the hits:

Shogo's stint in the MLB only lasted two seasons, while Ishii spent three seasons with the Dodgers and one with the Mets back in the 2000's.

Like Akiyama, Hirano's MLB stint was short, but when he returned to the NPB he was very successful.  Kenta on the other hand is still pitching in the MLB after eight seasons.

 

Johjima was one of those players (along with Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, and Kurt Suzuki) that made me decide to start collecting Japanese baseball players.  

Yamamoto is a Hawaii guy.  When I went to the Giants game a few weeks ago, my cousin's son brought him up.  He mentioned that he was now coaching high school and had just won a state title in Florida.

Kazuo had a decent MLB career back in the 2000's, but he's probably best known for being the first Japanese infielder to sign a MLB contract.  Yamaguchi spent his first fourteen seasons in the NPB before coming over to play with the Blue Jays.  After less than two seasons, he went back to Japan.  But he pitched in more MLB games than Shunsuke Watanabe.  If his name sounds familiar, he is credited as giving up the longest home run ever hit at the Tokyo Dome to Big Papi:

I don't have the best of luck when it comes to sharing YouTube videos on my blog, so if this clip didn't load, you can watch it here.

Moving along... here's a card of a Japanese chef throwing out the first pitch at a Mariners game:

2017 Topps First Pitch #FP-31

Can't say I am familiar with Mr. Morimoto, but I definitely know Mr. Fuji:

1991 Classic WWF Superstars #47

Honestly... this guy deserves to be up there with Mr. Sakata and Mr. Morita... because he's another one of those Japanese performers that paved the road for so many others.

Here are a few other WWE wrestlers with a sumo wrestler and a UFC fighter:

Technically Ulambayaryn Byambajav isn't Japanese, he's Mongolian.  But I collect sumo wrestlers too.

I also collect Japanese F1 and NASCAR drivers as well as soccer and hockey players:

And don't forget... golf is a sport too:

I wouldn't consider myself a huge PGA fan, but if I had to pick a current golfer to root for... it would be Mr. Morikawa.

Thank you John for this massive contribution to my Japanese Athlete PC!

Extra Extra Innings!

Back in February, Rod over at Padrographs pulled this jumbo Masataka Yoshida out of a 2023 Topps Update Super Box:

2023 Topps Update Oversized #US5

As I stated in the comment section of his post, I'm a sucker for oddball stuff like this.  As you can see on the back of his card, he had a solid MLB debut:

And he finished 6th in the AL ROY voting last year.  He's cooled off quite a bit this year.  Regardless... this is another massive contribution to my Japanese Athlete PC:

This card is huge!  It's more than 4x larger than Yoshida's standard rookie card.  Thanks Rod!