Immortal Help from a Legend

When it comes to adding new cards to the collection, I don't really discriminate.  Sure... I might not go out of my way to purchase Panini baseball cards, but that doesn't prevent me from adding singles to my collection when the price is right.  Heck... I even collect damaged cards, Broders, and draft busts.

But when I first started collecting baseball cards back in the early 80's, my collection lacked diversity for several years.  It primarily consisted of flagship Topps, Fleer, and Donruss... with the occasional oddball issue like Fleer Star Stickers or Donruss HOF Heroes.  Why?  It had to do with what I had access to.

If the local pharmacy, 7-11, or Long's didn't have it on their shelves... then it wasn't part of my collection.  That's why I completely missed out on cool sets like the Baseball Immortals in the 80's.  Based on my limited research, I'm pretty sure these colorful cards that resemble the 1975 Topps set were sold and distributed as complete sets.  I remember seeing them offered for sale in older trading card price guides like Tuff Stuff and Baseball Cards and even sports magazines like Baseball Digest.

Unfortunately... my parents never allowed me to order anything from a magazine ad... which meant I didn't have access to these cards as a kid.

Fast forward several decades... and a CCW buddy of mine sent me a generous package of these cards consisting of over 80% of the set... leaving me with 39 cards on my wantlist.  In 2020, Jon over at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts sent me four cards for my set build.

Back in April, Night Owl wrote a post on his blog celebrating the completion of his set.  In the comment section, I mentioned my set build and gave him a link to my wantlist.  Two weeks later a PWE arrived in my mailbox.  It sat in my office for almost six weeks, but I finally got a chance to open it up last week and inside were five more cards for my set:

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #44

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #54

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #70

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #128

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #139

I'm now thirty cards away from completing this set myself:

Four years ago, I talked about placing a Sportlots order to get me closer.  It never happened.  But Night Owl's PWE motivated me to get off my butt.  I was able to find one dealer with reasonable prices and enough cards to make it worth the price of shipping.  Five dollars ($2.50 + $2.50 shipping) later, I'm eleven steps closer to completing the set:

While we're on the subject of set builds, my most recent purchase from the Online Dime Box added twenty-one cards to my 1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame set build:

It's a shame non-sport cards aren't available on Sportlots.  Anyways... getting back to Night Owl's care package... he also tossed in these two 2021 Big League cards:

I debated on buying a box of this product.  I like the simplicity of the design, but ultimately saved my money for some upcoming card shows, flea markets, and set builds.  Heck.  Maybe I'll even flip through the Fritsch Cards catalog and place a good old fashioned mail order.

What about you?

Did you ever buy cards through magazines ads or catalogs back in the 80's and 90's?

My first catalog/mail order purchases were made after I got my hands on a credit card.  I bought a bunch of Signature Rookies boxes from a company called Mail Order Concepts.  I also bought cards from another mail order company that carried discounted wax boxes.  Can't remember their name though. 

Thank you Greg for helping me out with this set build.  And thanks to everyone who took the time to read and comment on this post.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Passing Down Knowledge

Ted Williams might have been one of the greatest hitters of all-time, but his managerial career wasn't quite as stellar.  That being said... he definitely made an impact on his players.

1969 Topps #539

Mike Epstein entered the 1969 season with a career .229 batting average, but his first year under Williams tutelage, he hit a career high .278 and 30 home runs.

Another player that significantly improved was Frank Howard.  Last year I read a very interesting tidbit over on Horizontal Heroes about how Williams told him to lay off bad pitches which impacted his walks:strikeouts ratio.

Howard went from leading the league in strikeouts (in 1967) to leading the league in walks (in 1970).  Before The Commish's post, I was familiar with Howard's career... but hadn't heard his nickname:  The Capitol Punisher.  How sweet is that?  It's definitely one of the coolest nicknames in baseball.

I loved it so much, after reading his post I immediately headed over to COMC and picked up this autograph:

2019 Topps Heritage High Number Real One Autographs #ROA-FH

The card back mentions that Howard broke Babe Ruth's record by hitting 10 home runs in one week during the 1968 season.

According to The Guinness Book of World Records, he still holds the record.

Like Epstein, Howard hit the most home runs of his career in 1969 and matched his career high in batting average as well.

1972 Topps #510

Why this post, right now?  Well... this past Sunday was the anniversary of Williams signing a five year contract to manage the Washington Senators.  He only fulfilled four of those five years before quitting at the end of the 1972 season.

1970 Topps #211

But he left behind a legacy as being the only Senators manager to have a winning season (1969).  That year, he won the AL Manager of the Year Award.  Unfortunately it's easy for this piece of hardware to get lost in the shuffle when it's sitting in the trophy case of one of the greatest hitters of all-time.

Today's question of the day:

Who do you think has the coolest nickname in MLB history?

In addition to The Capitol Punisher and The Splendid Splinter... I really love these nicknames:

The Human Rain Delay:

2019 Topps Archives Signature Series

1992 Topps #609

The Sultan of Swat:

1995 JSW All-Stars #3

Man of Steal:

2017 Topps Fire Monikers Blue Chip #M-4

The Chairman of the Board:

1977 TCMA Renata Galasso #25

But I think if I had to pick a personal favorite, it would be:

2006 Fleer Greats of the Game Nickname Greats #NG-AH

If you don't believe in mind over matter or the power of facial hair, then you're not familiar with Al Hrabosky.  This guy would psyche himself out and mentally become the biggest, baddest, beard yielding guy on the mound.

Well that wraps another post.  Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

The Broder Version of Graded Cards?

If you write about Broders... there's a good chance you'll get featured on This Week in Blogging.  Jay over at Card Hemmorrhage showed off some nice looking Broders last week on his blog.  Unfortunately... my Saturday post ended up being the baseball card version of The NeverEnding Story.  So I had to make some last minute revisions and presto... you have today's post.

I have probably close to one hundred different Broders sitting in a box that I'd love to show off at some point.  But for today, I present to you this not-so-nice looking "wannabe" rookie card of The Kid.

I've been told on multiple occasions that these cards are completely worthless, but the fact is... a card is worth what someone is willing to pay you for it.  And there are actually collectors out there who are willing to pay a few bucks to add this mass produced unlicensed piece of cardboard to their collection.  Just saying.

Getting back to Jay... he recently sent me a padded enveloped that contained what I would deem to be the graded card version of a Broder:

2000 Archives Reserve #23

Okay.  So this card grading company looks to have been legit at one point, but I'm gonna bet the majority of you have never heard of Snaggletooth Grading.  Have you?

I did some research and it looks like the website might have been up and active in 2002 and 2003, but that's a long time ago.  Just like Broders, there are some collectors out there who don't have an appreciation for defunct grading card companies or the cards they've graded.

Me?  I love this card.  It's a piece of history.  While many collectors would pop this card out of its plastic prison, I have zero intentions of doing so.  My goal is to collect an example of every grading card company slab in existence and I thanks to Jay, I can officially cross Snaggletooth Grading off of my list.

He also sent me some other cards for random collections:

I was very happy to add another Ramon Laureano Topps rookie card to my collection.  He struggled after trying to attack the Astros coach, but I'm confident he'll return to top form next season.

And as much as I avoid purchasing Panini cards myself, that Pinnacle Swing for the Fences acetate insert of Albert Pujols is a nice looking card.  Thanks Jay!

While I'm covering care packages, I received another large padded envelope in the mail last week.  The other one was from Jon over at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts.

Let's start off with the largest item in the envelope:

The Raven DVD

One of my favorite things about Jon's blog are his pickup posts where he shares his DVD and VHS purchases.  It reminds me of my days of walking around the flea market before I started hunting for cards.

Back in the 90's and 2000's... movies, CD's, and video games were actually the #1 thing on my list to buy at the local flea markets.  I'm sure I'd stop and look at cards, but I don't remember finding too many deals on them.  Used media was a completely different story.

These days, I'll still pick up a DVD or video game if it's cheap and something I really want to see or play, but it's not very often.  In fact... I haven't been to the flea market in over nine months.  Maybe I'll look into walking around the De Anza Flea Market in November.

Getting back to cards, Jon sent me some of those too in the form of set needs:

Two years ago, my buddy Woody hooked me up with a nice starter set of 1980-88 TCMA Baseball Immortals.  Over the past twenty-four months, the only four cards I've crossed off my list are the ones sent to me by Jon:

This is one of those sets that I have stored in a binder on my office shelf.  I probably should make a stronger effort to complete it.  Right next to that binder is a binder holding these sets:

Jon helped me get one step closer to completing the Greatest Sluggers set with this Jimmie Foxx:

1982 TCMA Sluggers #20

Another set that I just need to sit down and finish.  I absolutely love these 80's TCMA sets.  They're like if Broders and Topps Archives hooked up and had a baby.  I mean it in the best possible way.

In addition to these set needs, he also sent me a nice stack of A's, Padres, and Japanese guys:

That top row of A's are shiny refractors... and both bottom rows of these pages are buybacks... including the two 1987 Topps A's cards and the 2011 Topps Padres team card in the middle rows.

I tried to pick a favorite and narrowed it down to the Terrence Long Bowman Chrome refractor, the 85T Mike Davis, the 86T Garry Templeton, the 88T Benito Santiago, or the 2011 Padres team card.  They're all awesome, so I'll leave it at that.

Thanks Jon for this very generous care package.  As soon as I sit down and watch The Raven, I'll let you know.  Today is the first day of the second quarter and I spent most of the weekend grading, getting my next unit lined up, and then resting, sorting some cards, and writing this week's blog posts.  Maybe over Thanksgiving break?  Hopefully sooner.

Okay... time to get ready for class which starts exactly when I have this post scheduled to publish.

Happy Monday and sayonara!