The Shining Dream Star Team Player Guy

Let’s say you’re the Topps baseball card company. It’s 1989. You’re living large. You operate out of a 48-story, massive, completely out-of-place skyscraper in Topps, Iowa. It used to be called “Townville,” Iowa, and had a rich history, but you were like, “Screw it—it’s ‘Topps’ now.” You’re trading on Wall Street. You’re sending employees to Bora Bora for inspiration. One of your executive officers was recently featured on a controversial cover of Fortune 500 magazine, shirtless, his man breasts covered up by the hands of an otherwise unseen Janet Jackson.

Your stature has inspired indifference. You’re about to release another awful set of cards featuring mostly nobodies. You’re getting lazy. The excesses of your front office are not trickling down to the blue-collar employees, and you’re sending cameramen to spring training for three days and asking them to come back with sets. You’re displaying no knowledge or forecasting ability of rookie call-ups, and you don’t really care.

Everyone wants a piece of you, and you do, to your frequent dismay, have prior commitments and arrangements with the titans of other industry. Bazooka calls. They’re like, “Topps! What the eff? WHERE IS OUR SHINING STAR MARK GRACE CARD? It’s a crucial part of our ‘Starter Set!’” You’re like, “What does ‘Starter set’ even mean, bro? Is this set for kindergarteners?” Bazooka’s like, “’Starter set’ means nothing! They’re just words! YOU KNOW THIS! Get me that card or we’re pulling out!” You’re like, “That’s what she said.” They hang up. You’re like, “Whatever.”

Meanwhile, Kmart calls, line two. Kmart’s like, “Topps, what’s the freakin’ deal-e-o? WHERE IS OUR MARK GRACE DREAM TEAM GLOSSY CARD?” You’re like, “Sorry dude. Forgot.” Kmart’s like, “FORGOT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Get me that card by the end of the week or have fun dealing with Bradlees!”

You figure you better get on this. “Get me Phillips!” you scream into the intercom. A few minutes later Phillips walks in, shirt untucked, sucking his fingers after having just finished a Rueben. It is 8 o’clock in the morning. “Phillips,” you say, “I need you to get to Chicago today, and get me pics of Gracie for these stupid sets. Marge will set everything up for you. Don’t mess this up!” Phillips, still chewing, gives you a thumbs up, and turns around to walk out of your office. “Oh, Phillips,” you say, “one last thing. You disgust me.”

The following Monday, Phillips and a dude from production walk in. Phillips is like, “Got the shots, boss. I got one of him in his stance, and another one of him ... in his stance, but like, a little different.” Production shows you the cards.



You look a little closer. Hmmm. Same bat. Same blue undershirt. You check the background.



There’s a guy in a red hat.



There’s a guy in a red hat.



There’s a guy in a white hat sitting in front of lady wearing sunglasses.



There’s a guy in a white hat sitting in front of lady wearing sunglasses.

You look up at Phillips. “Lemme get this straight,” you say. “I sent you to Chicago for an entire weekend, and you come back with two pictures that are not only of the same exact thing, but that were taken literally like, two seconds apart? Do I have that right?”

Phillips shrugs his shoulders.

“Well,” you say, “ … nice work!” You slap Phillips on his butt. Then you’re like, “What did you do for the rest of the weekend, anyway?” Phillips is like, “I got pretty drunk on Saturday. Then Sunday I pretty much stayed in the hotel and watched movies. Oh, also, I crashed the rental car into a ‘historic’ (Phillips does air quotes) oak tree somewhere in Cedar Rapids.”

You’re like, “Talk to Marge.”

Happy Anniversary, Brady Bunch!

This morning, while watching the History Channel, I noticed an interesting tidbit scroll across the bottom of the screen. On this day in 1969, The Brady Bunch debuted. I watched a lot of Brady Bunch growing up. Actually, I watched a lot of EVERYTHING on TV growing up. But, I can't think of a television family that I have spent more time with than the Bradys. In honor of their 42nd anniversary, I decided to give the Bradys a gift. Coincidentally, the proper, traditional gift for the 42nd anniversary is cardboard*:

1969 Topps - #665 Rookie Stars Brady Adults

*Since I couldn't find a list showing the traditional gift for the 42nd anniversary, I had to assume it was cardboard... That's what I'd want. Oh, and apologies for Mr. Brady's position. I couldn't resist.



Custom Card Gallery A-Go-Go

I've started working on a custom-card project for my wife's organization and it got me thinking: there are a lot of writers and artists out there creating great custom card work on their individual blogs. The problem? The work is scattered all over the Internet.

There have been previous attempts at collecting custom work in one place, but there are so many great artists that a custom card hub has been hard to put together all at once. 

So here's what I'm suggesting. I'm going to start a dedicated gallery page on this blog of custom card artwork. We here at The Baseball Card Blog will add a few pieces to it, and if you want to submit and add to it, we'll post your custom work. In a few months, we should start to have the makings of a comprehensive custom card museum gallery.

Interested in adding your work? Here's what you should send us: 

1. Your card, sent as a jpg.

2. Your name and a URL, if you have one.

3. Any artist's description, limited to two sentences.

Send us your work!

Staying Power

Last night I reached a pinnacle in my collecting: I completed the 2003 Topps Heritage baseball master set. It only took me eight years, which means, when I start thinking about it, that my passion for this set outlasted many of its subjects' desire or ability to compete at the major-league level. 

(In fact, just a quick scan of the set yields roughly 130 players who aren't in the big leagues anymore, including two (Roberto Alomar and Rickey Henderson) who are in the Hall of Fame.) 

My love of this set began back when it came out. I was living in Coolidge Corner, Brookline (just outside of Boston) and remember buying the equivalent of three full boxes from the New England Comics shop on Harvard Ave. Right there we're talking about easily $200, which is saying something, since I was making roughly $10 an hour at a bookstore job. I had pulled a Topps Teams Don Larsen autograph and traded it for about 100 cards I was still missing, including a few short prints and the Alex Rodriguez #250 (for those of you unfamiliar with the set, Topps included Rodriguez on two cards, #1 and #250, as an homage to the original 1954 set on which the Heritage design was based). Yes, I probably got the short end of the trade, but at the time, commons were going for 40 cents. I stockpiled the chrome and refractors inserts and sold them on eBay to pay for other short prints. I was on my way to finishing the set.

Then the 2004 Heritage set came out and my window of opportunity shrank considerably. It became harder and harder to find these cards. And for whatever reason (me being out of touch with other online resources, no physical card shop to visit, etc.), I put the set on the back-burner and turned my focus to other things, like starting this baseball card blog. 

That's why completing this set is extra sweet. It was the reason that I got back into collecting, and the fact that my hunt for short-printed commons like Corey Koskie (retired 2006) and Fernando Tatis (retired 2010) took a quarter of my life (I'm 32) means that it took me just as long — eight years — to complete the set as I had stayed away from collecting back when I thought some distance between me and my nerdier side might make me appear cool (sadly, I was wrong). 

So what does all this mean? That I have the collecting mind of a 24-year-old? That I should take the set out of pages and turn my focus to starting another set? In the last year, I've also completed the 1976 Topps master set (basic plus traded), and the 1978 and 1979 Topps sets. I'm also halfway done on the 1977 set, 50 cards from completing the 1961 Fleer Baseball Greats set, and five cards away from finishing 1956 Topps. I really want to start collecting a different set, and am leaning towards either 1965 or 1967 Topps baseball. But the problem is that I can't build any of these sets by opening packs. Collecting them means assembling them through eBay wins and Sportlots purchases (which is a heckuva lot cheaper than Beckett Marketplace, by the way). And right now that doesn't appeal to me. 

But then again, neither does spending a fortune on a new box of cards of a set that doesn't have staying power. The fun thing about sets like 1965, 1967, or even 1986 Topps is that they have staying power. 

By staying power I mean an iconic longevity that will guarantee it followers and a certain ubiquitousness throughout the hobby. It's a quality usually absent from many of today's gimmicky retro sets that try to replicate a classic; they may be popular one year, but they're relegated to the bargain bin the next—despite their perceived scarcity. And laugh all you want: 1986 Topps has been a bargain-bin resident since around 1993, but you can still find those cards everywhere (probably because Topps printed a billion of them), rendering it a cheap set chock full of Hall of Famers. 

Admittedly, 2003 Topps Heritage doesn't have staying power. The fact that it took me this long to put together a small 488-card set speaks volumes about its decided lack of popularity, despite its hobby cornerstone original, 1954 Topps. 

Dat King Cole

Pinnacle sports cards was facing the problem of every sports card company at the time, which was: how the heck in the freakin’ heck can we adequately capture the utter dramatics of Major League Baseball player and career zero home run hitter Alex Cole?

Topps tried. FAIL. Avid card peeps was like, “Pfft.”

But Topps, the Yankees of sports cards, could afford to fail. Pinnacle, the Pinnacle of sports cards—as they so claimed—could not. Not with their multi-million dollar investment in advanced card-imprint technology, which left them little-to-no money for marketing purposes, even within the freewheeling financial structure of Clintonomics. Thankfully, Pinnacle became a word-of-mouth phenomenon and titan in the industry after doing what they set out to do—create the greatest Alex Cole baseball card ever.



Alex Cole, 1994 Pinnacle

Avid card peeps was like, “Bam! Whaaaaat? What just hit my face? Awesomeness, that’s what!” These were literally the things that avid card peeps were saying when they saw this card for the first time. Taking their cue from such linear stalwarts as “Master Blaster” and “Rifleman,” Pinnacle upped the ante and overproduced the living crap out of this card to the point it is actually hurtful, in the eyes, to look at. It hurts, however, so good.

“What about Alex Cole?” you may be asking. Alex Cole slid past second base into another dimension, never to be heard from again. We don’t know a lot about the this other dimension, but we do know that there, Alex Cole is king, and time is triple what it is here, and everybody wears Ray Bans and silver suits, and there are no clouds, only floating mathematical equations, and also there is a Johnny Rockets.

I bet you’d like to know more about pre-other-dimension-traveling Alex Cole, in which case:



.315 BA/RUNNERS SCORING POS.

There you go. Alex Cole hit .315 with runners in scoring position … for his career? Last year? I don’t know; doesn’t say. I hope you have enjoyed this ride down information lane.

More importantly:



Indeed, this card is part of Pinnacle’s famed “Museum Collection.” This card belongs in a museum. Also, it is. The name of this museum is, “The Alex Cole Museum of Weird, Hurtful to the Eyes, Alex Cole Baseball Cards,” which is in South Amboy, New Jersey. We actually went there on a class trip when I was a sophomore in high school. It was on this trip we learned that, in 1991, the Cleveland Indians, uncontrollably smitten with Alex Cole’s 40-stolen base and defensive speed, moved their outfield walls back, resulting in the squad hitting a total of 22 home runs at home. I thought that was hilarious, and one of the six dumbest things I had ever heard in my whole life. Then my buddy Tim got food poisoning from the Alex Cole cafeteria and almost passed out. Still, it was awesome, mostly because we got to take a charter bus instead of a school bus.

A Tale of Four Wrists

Eric Davis, 1991 Score, "The Franchise"

Don’t get me wrong—never once in my whole life did I ever question my unrelenting admiration for one Donald Arthur Mattingly, nor did I ever wish I had latched on to a different baseball player for such a one-sided endeavor of unconditional love. That said, if, during this time, some unbelievably unfortunate circumstance had forced me, kicking and screaming violently, to set my Donnie aside—gasp!—and choose another, if only so that my family could survive—bastards!—and this “other” could not be a member of my chosen team—sorry, Pags!—then, and only then, I would have chosen … Eric Davis.

Why, you ask? Let’s let Score explain:



Even in a season like 1990 when Eric was hampered by bad knees and a bum shoulder, he is the man who can make a difference.

Say it’s a year like 1990, and you’re sitting at home in your Skidz overalls with your bad knees and bum shoulder, thinking to yourself, “I don’t feel like making a difference today … look at me! Ugh!” Then you turn on the television only to see that Eric Davis, the baseball player, has hit 24 home runs and stole 21 bases and has an OPS+ of 123 despite similar ailments. “Did that make a difference?” you wonder. Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you go ask the World Series.

The most talented player in the game,

No offense to Eric Davis, but people say this like Mattingly couldn’t steal bases or hop over outfield walls to rob home runs. I mean, Mattingly chose to not to steal because his advanced sabermetric mind told him not to. (Smartability is now the sixth tool.) Besides, Mattingly beat an ostrich in a race back in ’87. It was on Fox. Then he jumped over the ostrich to rob a home run, except the ball was an ostrich egg. You didn’t see it? It was awesome.

Eric came through when it counted, hitting a solid .280 in the second half of the season.

Coming through when it counts = having a batting average of .280 in the second half of the season. I just read that sentence over like, 30 times. The ratio of extremely boring thing said about extremely exciting player—boring thing/exciting player—is off the freakin’ charts. Literally, it is impossible to make a chart about this.

Here’s the thing. Eric Davis was awesome. Super fast, tons of power, exciting as heck to watch defensively, etc. But ask anyone from my generation of baseball fandom what they admired most about Eric Davis, and they’ll all tell ya’ the same thing—his remarkably strong wrists:

Eric’s remarkably strong wrists generate enormous power;

A lot of regular guys generate home runs with their arms, or chest, or legs, or bat, or head, or shoulders. Eric Davis? All wrists. In fact, many longtime baseball men-slash-wrist scientists believed they’d never see another player who could equal such remarkableness in the wrist department.

That is, until …



Mike Piazza, 2001 Topps Stadium Club

Goodness, gracious! Look at those … wrists!



ANALYSKILLS:

Let us recall that ANALYSKILLS are a complex formula of skills, analysis, the analysis of those skills, and the skills at obtaining such analysis.

Long, yet powerful stroke.

Not taking the bait.

Not taking the bait.

Not taking the bait.

Not taking the bait.

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID! Arg! I have no self-control.

… Big into weight training, but generates power from unusually strong wrists…

“Chapter 8: From Remarkably Strong To Unusually Strong: From Davis To Piazza: Baseball’s Power Wrists,” was the colon-filled title of one section of Ken Burns’ famous PBS documentary, “Baseball Stuff.” I also enjoy how Piazza generated power not from his weight lifting, but only from his wrists. What kind of adept analyskilltician made this observation? Kind of makes you wonder why Piazza continued to weight train. Was he so vain? Also, did the wrist exercises help? It’s the age-old question of wrist nature versus nurture. We’ll never really know.

We’ll never really know. (Frowny face.)

Monday Night Muppets...

I realize that this is a "baseball" card blog, but it IS the first Monday night of the football season. As a Chargers fan I am hoping that the Raiders lose. Unfortunately, the Raiders are playing the Broncos tonight. Since they can't both lose, I guess I don't care that much about the outcome.

On to the Muppets card of the week...

1962 - Tackle Me Elmo

I don't generally consider all puppets on Sesame Street to be Muppets, but this one was hard to resist. Stay tuned next week for the next episode of Monday Night Muppets*...

*If I remember to do one.

Blackout Lifted...

For those of you here in Southern California, welcome back from the darkness. Yesterday afternoon we experienced a massive power outage that stretched from Yuma, AZ to the coast; and up and down the coast from Orange County to Ensenada, Mexico. I was just getting ready to post on this blog when the power went out. Really. I swear.

To be completely honest, for me, the lack of power was amazing! First of all, I don't have air-conditioning. The 100+ degree weather was brutal, but the knowledge that nobody else had AC felt like a cool breeze. Secondly, my house does not have an elevator. No chance of getting stuck on my stairs! Thirdly, I was able to convince the kids out in the cul-de-sac to stop their noisy squirt gun battle and return to their homes immediately. I'm sure their parents appreciated my instructions to open their freezers every five minutes to make sure they weren't defrosting.

It wasn't all a bed of roses. Warnings were posted on twitter by San Diego Gas & Electric (thankfully my iPhone had a full charge) that the power would not be restored for at least 24 hours, and customers should immediately enact their Family Emergency Plans. Our emergency plan consisted of cooking hot dogs on the BBQ and quickly drinking all the beer in the fridge before it got warm. That was the extent of our plan, so I was looking for something to keep me entertained.

I tried to think of what people did before electricity. Aside from painting on cave walls and succumbing to the bubonic plague, I couldn't think of anything. It was starting to get dark, so I lit some candles and pulled out a box of baseball cards that needed sorting. I imagined a young man back in the middle ages doing the exact same thing. (Well, not exactly! He would be sorting soccer cards.) 

I got about half way through the box of junk wax treasures when I hit some real gems! Apparently, I had stashed some of my vintage Star Wars cards along with the baseball stuff. I rushed downstairs to scan the cards, but was disappointed to find that my scanner doesn't work without power. I had to wait until now to show you these amazing finds:

1962 Boba Fett Special

1970 Grand Moff Tarkin Booklet

1971 Greedo/Han Solo Tattoos (Graded 6!!!)

Power was restored early this morning, less than 12 hours after it went out... I wish I wouldn't have finished all those beers.

The Physiology of Turtles, Necks

Steve Finley, 1991 Topps

The thing about spring training that a lot of people don’t know is: it’s cold out there! I mean, it’s called “spring training,” but it really starts in winter, especially for the pitchers and catchers who report in February. But if you’re an outfielder like Steve Finley, it can be even worse with all the space out there, and inactivity, and air. Even in warmer climates like Florida and Arizona, you can wake up on an early March morning and it could be like, 51 degrees! That is ridiculous!!! Until the blood starts flowing and the lunchtime sun makes its presence felt, you need a turtleneck to keep your neck warm.

Scientific studies have shown that an exposed neck in harsh conditions is not conducive to above-average baseball, and is a risk that should only be intentionally undertaken for entertainment purposes by professionals like Bear Grylls. (Real life safety example: “Gonna sit this one out today, Skip. My neck is freezing!” -- J.D. Drew.) In that respect—and also in the respect of pure fashion (this goes for the outdoor discotec as well), I highly recommend a loose-fitting, multi-layered turtleneck. Don’t have a multi-layered turtleneck? Check it—just fold over an elongated single-layered turtleneck. After all, you want to stay warm, but you don’t want to choke yourself.

Ha, ha! FASHION ROAST! Early 90s, amiright? I totally rocked the folded-over turtleneck—get this—underneath a shirt and tie in high school. Wowzers. Speaking of school, who’s down with physiology?



Steve earned a Degree in Physiology from Southern Illinois (Carbondale) Univ.

I don’t believe that for a second. Carbondale? Physiology? Pfft. That is stupid. I’d like a second opinion.

Finley, who grew up in Paducah, Kentucky, attended Paducah Tilghman High School and Southern Illinois University, where he earned a degree in physiology

I stand corrected. Physiology, according to Wikipedia, is the science of the function of living systems. The human system, for example, cannot function with a chilly neck, as we discussed earlier. Freakin’ science, man. Crazy. What else, Wiki?

He was named MVP in the All-Stars Series between Japan and United States (Tokyo, 1996). Later in 1996, during Rickey Henderson’s first season with San Diego, he boarded the team bus and was looking for a seat. Finley said, “You have tenure, sit wherever you want.” Henderson looked at Finley and said, “Ten years? Rickey’s been playing at least 16, 17 years.”

Ha, ha! I love randomly placed “Rickey Henderson is an idiot” stories that are probably not true. One time I saw Rickey Henderson in an elevator and I said, “Going up?” and he said, “Going up? Rickey just got here. I don’t even know John Olerud. No one goes there anymore that place is too crowded. Rickey runs fast. Two plus two equals hairnet.” Then he started doing jumping jacks and the elevator fell to the bottom floor but Rickey emerged unscathed and hit seven leadoff home runs that same day. True story.

Anyway, let’s get back to Steve Finley and this card, shall we?

He spends off-seasons hunting quail or geese and refereeing basketball games.

- - - - - - - - -

Alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. on a crisp November morning. Steve Finley and his wife sit up in bed, yawn, stretch, kiss each other gently.

Wife: I’m so happy to have you home for a while, honey! What do you want to do today?

Finley: Love being home, babe. Was thinking of calling Marty and going to hunt some quail while the gettin’s good.

Wife: Quail? Really?

Finley. Or geese. Doesn’t matter. If it’s flying around, I’ll shoot it. We’ll eat it. It’s called physiology … ever hear of it? Rolls eyes condescendingly ...

Wife: Okay, well, that shouldn’t take long. What about later? I thought we could go on a nice nature hike together ...

Finely: No can do, babe. Got a grammar school ballgame to ref.

Wife: I don’t understand why you continue to referee basketball games. You make millions playing baseball. You need the extra 30 bucks? It's just weird, is all. It’s like you don’t even want to be home …

Finley: It’s not about the money, babe. It’s about the love of the game. I mean, the rush I get from hitting a home run, or shooting down a giant quail—I get the same rush from running down the court to call a three-second violation on some punk kid. It’s in my genes. It’s my function.

Wife: You’re right, I'm sorry. Well, maybe later tonight we can sit down to a nice romantic dinner.

Finley: Yeah, maybe. Alright, Marty just beeped me back. Gonna head out, babe. Catch ya’ on the flip.

Wife: Okay, be safe. Don’t forget your turtleneck!

Finley: I never do, babe. I never do.