Hologram Card Sponsored by Cereal Features Player Who Retired Six Years Prior

Did you ever wonder what would happen if Kellogg's Corn Flakes combined forces with Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Player's Association and also SportsFlics? Yes? Of course you have! WE ALL HAVE. And have you also concluded that this hypothetical joining of forces would inevitably produce the greatest ... thing, in like, forever? No doubt. Well wonder no more, fellow daydreamers! For today we unveil something that was unveiled in 1992 but that you probably never even knew about because it was too hot to handle/too cold to hold at the time.

Tom Seaver, 1992 Kellogg's/SportsFlics Corn Flakes All-Star

HIGH-DEFINITION.

Tom Seaver retired in 1986, so Kellogg's was mad timely with its Tom Seaver Corn Flakes All-Star hologram card from 1992. Say you were a kid in '92, and you were eating cornflakes because you were weird or your mom made you eat at least one bowl of cornflakes after downing six bowls of Chocolate Fruity Pebbles, and you were like, "I wonder if there's a super thick card inside this box featuring two indistinguishable images of an old fart baseball player* ..." Well, in this oddly specific scenario, you'd be in luck!

Tom Seaver: Never thought I'd see the day where I'd be featured on a hologram card! It's true what they say -- we're living in the future!

Kelloggs: Indeed, Tom! We here at Kellogg's, the cereal company, are at the forefront of hologram technology.

Regular kid: This is instantly the worst card I own. What is going on?

Seaver: What I want people to take away from my career the most is that I was a Kellogg's Corn Flakes
All-Star.

Kellogg's: Please, everyone, remember that the term Corn Flakes is trademarked and the phrase All-Star is
also copyrighted and owned by us, so ... be careful out there.

Regular kid: This card looks like someone took a Polaroid of a picture in a newspaper that was printed off-center, and then took a picture of that.

Seaver was the ultimate hard-working professional.

Tom Seaver drank a glass of orange juice and ate a bowl of Kellogg's Corn Flakes each and every morning before kissing his family goodbye and going off into the treacherous world of making hundreds of thousands of dollars for throwing a baseball once every five days.

He used excellent control and pitch selection along with a 98-mph fastball

Pretty sure the 98-mph fastball exceeded pitch selection in importance. When you have a 98-mph fastball, pitch selection is either a) not every important, or b) fastball.

to exceed his team's winning percentage 16 of 20 seasons.

Being able to exceed your team's winning percentage for X-amount of seasons is just a weird thing to mention. For starters, as we always say, wins are stupid for a pitcher. Also, it means the team(s) you pitched for kind of sucked, which is neither here nor there. Also, the pitcher's wins are shared by the team, which actually works against the pitcher in this statistical nightmare. Also, wins are stupid for a pitcher.

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed today's installment of Hologram Cards Sponsored by Cereal Featuring Players Who Retired Six Years Prior. Hat tip to Bill, blog-follower and lover of cornflakes, apparently.

*Only on this blog can a player of Tom Seaver's stature be referred to as "an old fart baseball player." You're all getting your money's worth.

Hall of Fame Brain Teaser

When I'm bored or trying to fall asleep, I like coming up with baseball brain teasers. Here's one that I haven't figured out yet:

Name a current Hall of Famer who never played on a team with another Hall of Famer.

I thought I had this figured out. I thought that George Brett was an answer, but then I remembered that Gaylord Perry was on the Royals in 1983, and Harmon Killebrew in 1975.

Another potential answer was Tony Gwynn, but he played with Roberto Alomar back in the late 1980s. Or how about the newly inducted Barry Larkin? Well, Tony Perez was on the 1986 Cincinnati squad, the year Larkin was called up.

It's sort of like a reverse Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and harder than you think. I'll post a list of the permutations later in the week, but in the meantime, post your responses as comments on this post.

Gaylord's Wet Stuff

Gaylord Perry, Baseball's All-Time Greats

A few years ago I was covering a celebrity baseball game in Scottsdale to kick off spring training. I was in the dugout taking pictures, and at one point everybody had left to warm up and the only people left in the dugout were me and Gaylord Perry. Now, if I were to make a list of Hall of Fame baseball players I'd like to meet, Gaylord Perry would probably not be on that list. That said, it was somewhat surreal, sharing a space with a Hall of Famer. I was actually kind of nervous; too nervous to make small talk -- "So, Gaylord ... baseball, huh?" He did pose for a few pictures though, action shots of him sitting there and looking like Wilfred Brimley. He was nice.

So anyway, I hope you liked that story where absolutely nothing happened.

Gaylord Perry made many moves -- fidgeting here, touching his face, or anything he could before delivering his pitch --

"Gaylord: Cheatin' or tweekin'?" would have been the headline of a snarky blog post had Perry pitched in 2012 instead of 1965.

a pitch widely suspected of resembling a "spitball".

That is how Joe Morgan would have described a Gaylord Perry pitch. Widely suspected of resembling? Here is how I would have written this:

"Gaylord Perry made many moves, like throwing a spitball and writing a book called, Me and the Spitter, which was about the spitball that he totally threw all the time."

But even though he was practically undressed by umpires in search of his "wet stuff,"

Umpire: Alright, Gaylord, take yer pants off. Been hearing some rumblin' from the fellas 'bout yer wet stuff, and s'bout time I went in to check for m'self.

Gaylord Perry: Can you buy me a drink first?

Finding the wet stuff was akin to locating WMD in Iraq, and ultimately led to the embarrassing end of that particular Umpire Administration's regime. Voters and fans wanted to know, "Where's the wet stuff?"

none was ever found

Except for: On August 23, 1982, he was ejected from a game against the Boston Red Sox for doctoring the ball, and given a 10-day suspension, and, again, Perry titling his 1974 autobiography, Me and the Spitter. Other than those things, and the endless anecdotes from catchers and opposing players and Perry himself about how he totally threw a spitball, all this spitball stuff is hearsay.

"Without the wet stuff, I've had enough." -- Johnny Cochrane

Perry presents the all-too-familiar dilemma: do we ignore his accomplishments due to his cheating, or do we ignore his cheating -- sometimes even laud it -- and focus on the overall package? The answer, as with steroids, lies somewhere in between. No doubt Perry's success was aided by an illegal pitch that both physically and mentally messed with hitters. He also, however, in 1972 threw 342 (!) innings, 29 complete games, struck out 234, posted a sub-2 ERA and sub-1 WHIP, and won the Cy Young. That's impressive no matter what he was doing to his balls.

Regardless, thanks to this very card, I think we can all agree that Gaylord Perry's legacy primarily involves the term wet stuff, so poetic in its construction. After all, is it not true to say that, at one time or another, each and every one of us has hid from view our proverbial wet stuff?

Inside Informant

Don Mattingly, 1989 SCD Baseball Card Pricing Guide Monthly

I am posting this as a public service announcement so that nothing like this ever happens again. Granted, Don Mattingly is no longer an active player, so this probably will not happen again. But still. Let us never forget ... that this is the worst picture of Donnie Baseball ever produced.

Look at this! He looks like a guffawing, double-chinned, mustachioed redneck who spent his life savings to attend Yankees fantasy camp.

Uhh, where'd ya'll said the port-a-johns wuz?

UNACCEPTABLE. Where is the eye black? Why is it so dark outside? Why is Donnie so sullen when he is the undisputed champion of life? If this picture were on facebook, Donnie wouldn't be able to untag himself fast enough.

If my scissor hatchet job does not adequately come across here, allow me to inform you that I cut this beauty out of, apparently, SCD Baseball Card Price Guide Monthly. Yes, I was cutting baseball cards out of a monthly guide that priced baseball cards. Man, I was cool back in the diz-ay. Unfortunately, the SCD Guide did not price its own cards, probably because they weren't cards and were not meant to be cut out of the magazine. Nevertheless, this card is worth, according to me, $18, if only because the back includes a picture of Donnie's rookie card, and a picture of a Mattingly rookie card is worth a minimum of $15 even in the current financial climate.

INSIDE INFORMATION

Interesting. Here I am, an 11-year-old kid, thinking I know all there is to know about my favorite player and hero, and along comes this card claiming to have inside information. Delving any deeper into the world of Mattingly could, I suppose, uncover some truths I may not be prepared for, but I am willing to take that risk.

Although he suffered through an untypically slow start, Don Mattingly rebounded early enough in the '89 season to earn his sixth straight trip to the All-Star Game and salvage an otherwise off-year.

A few things:

1) Even at 11, I disliked the word "untypically."
2) "he rebounded early enough ... in an otherwise off-year." Makes zero sense.
3) Also, he didn't rebound to earn a trip to the All-Star Game; he earned a trip to the All-Star Game because he's Donnie freakin' Baseball and the All-Star Game is a popularity contest, and he's the most popular player in the game who plays in the biggest market.
4) All-Star Game participation does not salvage a season. If a dude got invited to the All-Star Game because three guys ahead of him got injured, then posted a .228/.264/.301 line in the second half and cost his team a trip to the playoffs after his pants fell down running the bases and he tripped over his pants and was tagged out on his bare butt, we wouldn't say, "He was terrible and that was totally weird, but it was a successful season nonetheless!"
5) Unless the All-Star Game is a private affair played at an undisclosed location and its participants are never revealed, this is not inside information.
6) I would also like to mention that, although '89 was certainly an off year by Donnie's standards, he did post a surface stat line of .303/23/113. The would be Justin Upton's greatest on year.

The left-handed Yankee slugger

INSIDE INFO! THOUGHT HE WAS RIGHTY, PLAYED FOR THE REDS???

remains one of the most popular players in the game today, a fact reflected in the value of his baseball cards

Popularity is the defining metric of card value. For example, my Luis Sojo second-year card is worth $4,000.

which held their value despite the early-season slump.

MAKETWATCH 1989: CARDS SURPRISINGLY SHOW LITTLE-TO-NO FLUCTUATION IN VALUE AFTER MATTINGLY GOES 1-FOR-4 TUESDAY; SUBTITLE: CARD NERDS HOLD FORT BASED ON 'FIVE-YEAR TRACK RECORD OF AWESOMENESS'

One sub-par season won't affect the long-term investment potential of a popular megastar like Mattingly, but it may delay future increases long enough to offer collectors a good opportunity to invest in a sure thing.

Take it from someone who collected Mattingly cards almost exclusively: it wasn't a sound long-term financial investment. Nor did I care if it would be. I collected baseball cards because it was fun as heck, and I love(d) baseball, and I had a hunch the Internet would be invented one day and I could post old cards that I cut out of weird magazines and hopefully make people laugh and what not.

For what it's worth, the '84 Donruss Mattingly rookie card is available on Amazon for $597 or, ya' know, $29.99.

My National Experience: What I Got

I saw a lot of great stuff at The National, most of which I will never be able to afford. Gem-mint high-series commons from 1952 Topps. Autographed game-used bats, jerseys, posters, and one-of-a-kind pieces. A 1967 Kabaya Leaf Sadaharu Oh. An Ozzie Smith Gold Glove award trophy. Another one presented to Derek Jeter. A Muhammad Ali bathrobe. The Black Swamp Find.

But equally impressive was the range of dealers focused on 25-cent cards, three-for-a-dollar, and dollar cards. I got 30 commons for my 1965 Topps set for $10 total. I got five early Pedro Martinez cards for $1.25. I found one of the holy grails of my childhood (1987 Fleer Will Clark) for 25 cents.

I also found a dealer specializing in autographed cards. Now, that might not sound like a big deal to you, as autographed cards are everywhere, but I'm not talking about new, serial-numbered cards. I'm talking about old-school late 1980s, early 1990s basketball cards and 1980s baseball cards. This guy had easily 5,000 different basketball cards, and more than 20,000 different autographed baseball cards. I could've spent my entire budget with this dealer alone. Instead, at four for $10, I got these three basketball cards and an auto'd Dave Henderson rookie (1986 Red Sox represent!).

Now, I didn't get to the show until around 1pm on Saturday, but by 4:30pm I knew I didn't need to come back Sunday. I had seen much of the floor and really wasn't interested in shelling out a ton of cash on any of the autograph guest lineup. (I had also spent much of my budget.) Here's how I closed out the day:

I also purchased Gary Engel's Japanese Baseball Card Checklist and Price Guide - Vintage Edition. At $30 it was a bit pricey, but completely worth it, as Japanese cards are never included in any of the Beckett guides or the Standard Catalogue of Baseball Cards and Engel's guide is exhaustive. If you weren't at the show, Engel's guide also can be found on eBay.


In my next post I will include my overall review of the convention.

My National Experience: How I Stumped The National

I want to start by saying that The National was awesome. I saw the greatest variety of sports cards and memorabilia I've ever seen under one roof. Granted, that roof was over 300,000 square feet in size, but you recognize the sentiment. And even more impressive than the stuff I saw and bought were the people I met there, from Gary Engel, author of the Japanese Baseball Card Checklist and Price Guide - Vintage Edition, to Rob Klevens of the Japanese card–specializing Prestige Collectibles, to Ryan Christoff of CubanBaseballCards.com, who confirmed that that 1950 Toletero I had bought and sold on eBay a few years ago was indeed genuine (and that I was sort of an idiot for selling it...but I knew that already).

I also met John Parker of 99% Basketball. With a dealer booth a-splayed with cases containing the most bizarre basketball memorabilia and international rarities, I thought Finally! Someone who can identify my old poster and tell me what it's worth!

I had brought an old poster with me that I had found (i.e., ripped off a street-level billboard) while on a family trip to Amsterdam back in the early 1990s. As an aside, you ever walk through the non-tourist section of the Red Light District with your kids? I don't recommend it. It was scary. Anyway, I've kept the poster folded up in a drawer for the last 20 years, and actually had forgotten about it until I went back to my parents' house to sort through some stuff last year. Here's the poster:

Now, I wasn't expecting it to be worth a fortune. I know enough about poster collecting that anything with creases (that didn't start out with creases) doesn't have much value. Also, the back has significant paper loss, as it started its life pasted on a billboard. But the colors are still bright and the subject matter is unlike much else on the market. Granted, this is post–Dream Team, but the idea of a major American sports star like Magic Johnson barnstorming in another country is right up there with Babe Ruth's barnstorming tour of Japan in 1934. Surely, I thought, this is something with value that would defy condition sensitivity.

Here's where it gets interesting. The convention's unofficial tagline is that if you can't find it at The National, it doesn't exist. Well, Mr. Parker had never seen this poster. In fact, he had never heard of this European tour. So much for finding out more about it! Now, I have seen one or two references to the Pepsi Magic Tour on the Internet, including this YouTube video of the Magic All Stars versus a team called New Zealand All Stars.

But that's where my knowledge ends. Judging from the video, I'm guessing there are T-shirts and other memorabilia out there—certainly country-specific player uniforms worn by Magic and his all stars.

In my next post I'll showcase some of the cards I purchased at The National and share my thoughts on the experience.

Racquetball Wrists Come in Handy for Guy

 Jeff Conine, 1991 Score

Curly mullet, no sideburns. Holla atcha boy.

You can’t start out much lower on the totem pole than Jeff did in ’88.

Here is Major League Baseball’s Totem Pole of Future Awesomeness, from lowest to highest:

Homeless person who just learned baseball thanks to a genie’s lamp found in a dumpster
Undrafted person
62nd round draft pick/vague relation to Tommy Lasorda
57th round draft pick/racquetball champion
Best player in Japan
1st round draft pick out of college
Foreign person who washed ashore on a raft
1st round draft pick out of high school
#1 overall draft pick
#1 overall draft pick + son of current/former major leaguer
Bryce Harper

A pitcher at UCLA and a National Junior racquetball champion at 18, he was drafted in the 57th round by the Royals.

The Royals, desperate for a first baseman, had targeted Conine as a potential late round pick in ’88. Their draft board analysis of Conine read:
Pros: Plays baseball, sort of, hustles (assuming)
Cons: Is a pitcher, not a first baseman, two-sport star - will he flee for racquetball $$$???

And two years later, you can’t stand much higher as a prospect than Jeff in ’90.

Stand forth, ye who stand highest among prospects! I don't know how a person stands high, but this is already a great story. Sometimes life is a just a constant reminder that baseball players are not necessarily bound by the Major League Baseball Totem Pole of Future Awesomeness. After all, a pole IS for moving up and down (twss).

Called "The Barbarian" for obvious reasons,

Because he ... hurls his feces at the competition before rushing them with a sharpened sword (illegal, by the way), and/or is a non-Greek living outside the Roman Empire with no literary skills? The reasons -- there are more than one reason? -- are not obvious to me.

According to Wikipedia, Jeff Conine's middle name is Guy. I like this because Jeff Conine totally looks like such a guy. Look at him.

I would have called him "Guy," personally, which would have been funny because it's his middle name and not his first name.

Jeff has extraordinarily strong wrists

Wrist-off! (twss)

and hands from playing racquetball.

I would enjoy an intense montage of Jeff Conine playing racquetball in order to get his wrists and hands strong enough for baseball. Oh, you think you're good at racquetball, balding CPA who is wearing goggles and a headband? Take THAT! Bam! My point or whatever you call it! Tell 'em "Guy the Barbarian" did it to ya'! NEXT! I'm almost ready for baseball! (I wonder if playing baseball is also a good way to improve wrist and hand strength for baseball. My friend is a physical therapist. I will ask him.)

"The day he gets to the big leagues, he'll be the best fielding first baseman in the league," said Joe Klein, the Royals director of player personnel.

Said Joe Klein, director of grandiose statements and person unfamiliar with one Donald Arthur Mattingly.

Jeff Conine played professional baseball for 17 very productive years. He is still awesome at racquetball and now he does triathlons. A bust of his hands and wrists are enshrined in Cooperstown next to a totem pole, and by Cooperstown I am referring to Alice Cooper's restaurant. And also that is not true.

More PBS Cards From The National...

While he was still at the National Sports Collectors Convention, Ben sent me some more cards from my wantlist. These two had been on my list for over a dozen years.

1999 Topps Stadium Club Triumvirate - Luminescent

#T7A -Tom Magliozzi

1999 Topps Stadium Club Triumvirate - Luminescent

#T7B -Ray Magliozzi

Yup. That's right! Click and Clack... The Tappet Brothers from Car Talk on public radio. I don't even change the oil in my own car, but I love this show. It is consistently hilarious.

These cards were hard to come by back in 1999. The basic versions were merely Luminous. These more rare versions were Luminescent. Word around the campfire is that there were ultra-rare versions called Illuminators, but I've never seen one. (Good thing. I heard they were so refractive they would immediately blind you if you stared directly at them.)

As happy as I was that Ben sent me two of my favorite radio stars, there was something that made it even better...

It completed my Triumvirate!

Yeah. Back in '99 I pulled a Mo Vaughn. He had been lonely for so long...

Thanks again, Ben!







PBS from the NSCC...

Unfortunately, I was not able to travel with our fearless leader, Ben Henry, to the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore. I'm getting married in less than a month. A prenuptial, cross-country journey to support my hobby was strongly discouraged. It's not that I didn't try to persuade her:

"Baby, it isn't just about baseball cards. It would also be important for the blog... Expand coverage, bring in new readers, get some great new ideas for posts..." I implored.

"When was the last time you posted on either of your blogs?" She asked.

Sooooooo... Needless to say, I am still in San Diego.

I really wanted to stay in touch with what was going on at the convention. Following the action on twitter was fine, but it was more voyeuristic than participatory. I felt the need to be a part of the action, so I asked Ben if he could find me some cool cards to inspire some new posts.

Ben has a pretty good grasp on what I collect, so I left it up to him to do the shopping. Here are the first two cards he found for me:

1968 Topps AS - Mr. Rogers

Ben certainly knows what I like! It isn't the famous '68 rookie card that he shares with Daniel Striped Tiger, but nonetheless awesome! Despite the all-encompassing amazingness that this card represents it isn't my favorite one that he bought for me...

1998 Topps Gallery of Heroes - Richard Lederer

This bad boy takes the cake! If you aren't familiar with Richard "Verbivore" Lederer, you really should be. Mr. Lederer hosted "A Way with Words" on PBS radio. I rarely made time to listen to a radio show, but from 1998 through 2006 I hardly missed an episode. The show was (and still is) wonderfully informative and entertaining. While Richard co-hosted the show it was amazingly pun-tacular. I love puns, and Mr. Lederer is the undisputed king of wordplay.

The Gallery of Heroes inserts from the 1998 Topps Gallery set were a pretty tough pull at 1:24 packs. I didn't buy more than three or four packs that year, and beat the odds by pulling TWO of them! Of course, both were Jeff Bagwell. Nothing against him, but I am pretty sure every insert card I got in the 90's was a Bagwell.

But I digress... Did you now that Richard Lederer is the father of poker superstars Howard Lederer and Annie Duke. Annie got a card in this year's Allen & Ginter set. Now I have a card of her dad too!

Thanks Ben!

I'll continue posting some of the best cards that Ben found for me at the National...

Maybe.

A Taste of Two Gundersons

Eric Gunderson, 1991 Score

So apparently there is ANOTHER Eric Gunderson out there, amazingly, who is a member of the country trio Love and Theft, whatever that is. The presence of other Eric Gunderson was an unwelcome deterrent to my exhaustive research on real Eric Gunderson, baseball person. I got through it okay, guys, but it was tough. It was tough mainly in the respect that there is nothing out there regarding real Eric Gunderson. Meanwhile, other Eric Gunderson is on Twitter and stuff ... where is the justice here? Anyway, if my information overlaps, it's not my fault.

Eric gave the Giants a taste of his darting fastball in '90 and they liked what they saw.

Sorry, Score, but you can't see taste. Try this on for size:

Eric gave the Giants a taste of his darting fastball in '90, and they liked what they tasted.

Or:

Eric gave the Giants a taste of his darting fastball in '90, and what they (the Giants) tasted (the darting fastball) was delicious.

Or even:

Eric gave the Giants a taste of his darting fastball in '90, and they tasted it and were like, "This darting fastball tastes like heaven. Bring him to the big leagues, where he can taste success!"

Any one of these could have won "Lede of the Year, '90." Just saying. Where were we?

A mentally-tough southpaw,

I'm sorry, is there any other kind? I have literally never met a weak-minded left-handed person. It goes completely against science.

he was arrested for trying to board the plane with a large hunting knife.

That is ... something. I am lost. (By the way, that article describes Love and Theft as a duo. WHAT HAPPENED TO THEFT?) I need some manager-speak to bring everything back to normal here.

"He can't throw the ball straight," said manager Roger Craig.

Maybe the greatest managerial compliment (?) we've ever featured here on The BBC Blog. Outstanding stuff. I realize what he's trying to say here, that Gunderson's fastball has such natural movement he couldn't throw it straight if he tried. Still, you should probably, as a pitcher, be able to throw straight sometimes, yes? No? I am wrong? Okay, fine.

"He's got a heavy sinker that can get you out of an inning quickly with a DP. Actually, it's not a typical sinker, but a fastball that moves everywhere."

"He's got a curveball that can bend a guy's a knees. Actually, it's not a curveball, but a fastball that curves. It curves almost as much as his changeup, which isn't so much a chanegup, but a fastball that moves everywhere and a little bit slower, for some reason. It reminds me of his slider, which is also a fastball and not a slider, contrary to what I just said two seconds ago. He only throws a fastball, Gunderson."