Every Dog Has His Day - Ken Sanders

Ken Sanders career day (WPA of 0.775) was an April 18, 1971 contest in Milwaukee between the home town Brewers and the Kansas City Royals.  His day started in the top of the 8th inning with one out and two on and the teams locked in a tie with 2 runs apiece. It should be noted that Ken's entrance was as part of a double switch, in which he actually replaced catcher Ellie Rodriquez and Phil Roof entered in replacement of pitcher Marcelino Lopez, who had previously relieved starter Lew Krausse in the sixth,  and took up station behind the plate.

Lopez had started the inning off well enough, getting Amos Otis to fly out to right.  However,  after a walk to Jerry May and a single to Bob Oliver, Lopez's day was done.  Sanders entered and promptly gave up a single to Cookie Rojas, but the batted ball hit lead runner May for the second out. Ken induced Lou Piniella to ground out to end the frame.  He retired the side 1-2-3 in the ninth, allowed a lead off single to Dennis Paepke in the 10th, but retired the next three batters to escape unharmed.

Similarly, he gave a leadoff single to Cookie Rojas to start the 11th, but Cookie was caught stealing.  Two ground outs( the second a 1-3 putout,) surrounded a single by Royal third baseman Paul Schaal, and the 11th ended without any runs.  Sanders again allowed single baserunners in the 12th and 13th innings, but closed out the frames without allowing any runs.  After 5 2/3 innings pitching, Sanders was due to be the second batter in the bottom of the 13th.  Brewers manager Dave Bristol sent Ted Savage up in his stead.  Savage drew a walk, moved to second when Roberto Pena also walked, stole third, and scored the game winning run on a single by Tommy Harper.

Sanders final line:  5.2 innings, 5 hits, 1 BB, 6 SO, and no runs for the win. The win was his first of the season. Over the whole season, Sanders went 7-12 with 31 saves in 83 appearances as the Brewers main closer. He had a 1.91 ERA, 1.064 WHIP and finished 16th in the voting for AL MVP (though he garnered no votes for that season's Cy Young.)

Great News!

So, it seems like a done deal that the Yankees have traded with the Cubs for Alfonso Soriano. This is great news for a number of reasons:

1. Now every day will be Old Timer's Day at Yankee Stadium
2. It will help the Yankees lock up the one category where they lead the league: number of players eligible for Social Security.
3. His .287 OBP is a whole .002 improvement over current Yankee leftfielder Vernon Wells.
4. He provides a vital link back to the Casey Stengel era Yankees.  He can teach the under 35 set how the Bombers won back in the day!
5. He and Andy Pettitte can combine forces and buy Metamucil in bulk.
6. He'll have a better chance in NY of getting signed up to appear in a Cialis commercial.
7. In 2004, the Yankees traded him to the Rangers for A-Rod.  Now that he is back *and* A-Rod is still around, it should be blindingly obvious NY won that trade!
8. With Curtis Granderson out of the lineup, the Yankees don't strike out nearly enough.

LOL,What?

Obviously owned by someone without enough sense, so to speak, to come in from out in the rain.

Mo

My local Fox station, which was broadcasting the All-Star Game, went off the air sometime around the fourth inning.  After 45 minutes, it was still not back on line, so I went to bed. Unfortunately, I missed seeing Mariano Rivera. I think it was an awesome tribute that the position players stayed in the dugout and let Mo take his warm up pitches as the only player on the field (save the catcher.) I have seen the video and it appears to me that he was having a hard time keeping his emotions under control.

My disappointment, however, is lessened by the fact that I saw Rivera close out the Royals-Yankees game I went to in Kansas City back in May. I have been woefully behind on sorting through and posting some of the pictures I took at the game, but here is one of Rivera taking his warm ups.

Free Cards!

I am trying to get my home office in shape and part of that means cleaning up the shelves where I keep my card collection.  Ever since I made up my mind to focus only on vintage cards, I have been staring at boxes of random modern cards and wondering what to do with them. There wasn't enough of value there to bother with the effort of selling on EBay, but I am generally opposed to throwing them out.

So what to do?  I'm going to give them away if anyone wants them.

What you see here are two boxes filled with cards. They include cards from the overproduction era right up through 2011 and include most, if not all, manufacturers.  There may be a few cards in there that have some nominal value, but most are just base cards.  They aren't sorted in any way. It is just two big boxes of cards.

Anyone want some free cards? Claim a box. The only thing I will ask is that the first person can only claim one box initially.  If, after a few days, no one has claimed the second box, I'll send it to the first claimant.  Fair enough?

So, who wants some free cards?

July Card Show Haul - MOJO!!!!

So, it isn't really MOJO! in the sense that I found some shweet Steven Strasburg Bryce Harper Yasiel Puig cards. But, for a vintage collector, such as myself, it felt like it.  And, yeah, I spent most of my cash on 4 cards. I really should have pocketed it.  Next weekend, my wife is flying off to San Francisco on a long planned cousins weekend. Going to one of the local LCS to work on my 1973 set would have been a great way to spend some time.  But, that plan is out the window. With the four cards below, I am officially tapped out until August.  So, what did I do?

You may have noticed I have a real hard time not picking up cards of major stars when they are offered at a price that is a fraction of what they would cost me at an LCS or on Ebay.  And Bill from Wichita is always making me such offers.  So what did I end up getting for a bit over a C-note?

Three more cards towards the 1956 set and all Hall of Famers.  I now have 51 cards from 1956. That is only about 15% of the 340 card set.  But, I am probably at the point where I need to put together a formal want list and work on building the set, albeit still slowly. So far, I have been haphazardly working on it by getting cards in the G to VG range and I think that is probably where I need to stay. Anything of higher quality would be way too expensive.

Oh, the fourth card? Behold:

1958 Sandy Koufax. Although there is no visible water damage, the card does feel as if it might have been damp at one point.  But the colors are still bright and there is no creases,bends or stains/marks, so I am quite pleased to get this card.

So now, with empty pockets, I am going to have to focus on producing some original content. I've got the preliminary research done for a couple more "Every Dog Has His Day" posts, I just need the time to sit down and write them.  I also have a whole mess of pictures from the KC-NYY game I went to in may, but I need to work through them and decide which I like.  Stay tuned!

July Card Show Haul - Set Additions

I am back from the card show up in OKC today. I mainly wanted to pick up some cards towards my 1973 Topps and 1960 and 1961 Fleer sets. Measured against those goals, it wasn't a particularly productive show for me.  I did manage to find 7 base cards from 1973.

I also managed to find 5 of the unnumbered checklists.

I picked up seven more 1968 Topps Game Cards. This leaves me only five to go to complete the 33 card set.

This 1970 Topps Giant Super Hank Aaron was only $5, so I picked it up on a whim.

This 1977 Cloth Sticker is more appropriately labeled trade bait. I seem to recall that some card blogger was interested in collecting these. So I dropped the princely sum of $1 on it.  Of course, I cannot remember for the life of me who it was that was collecting them.   Any one out there collect these or remember who does?

Anyways, since these big shows come around once every other month, I tend to save up so I am not running short of funds if I find something cool.  Since there was really only one vintage seller today, I could have pocketed what I hadn't spent on the above cards and used it to work on my 1973 set at a second LCS next weekend.

But, as you might guess, I didn't.  Coming up tomorrow: MOJO!

What I am listening to:  Nashville Blues by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Awesome Trade!

 I have been diligently working on the 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game set for several years now.  I really wanted to make a push to finish it up this year. But, I was concerned about the Announcing Greats subset, which pairs famous baseball announcers with a star from the team they announce for.  There was 10 cards in the subset and when I made the decision to really try and finish the Greats set I had exactly zero. I figured that they would be the last cards I needed towards completion. I was wrong.
 

With this Vin Scully - Steve Garvey card, I have finished the Announcing Greats subset. I had found 9 of the 10 on EBay, but this one eluded me.  So, I started googling to see if I could find one.  A page or two down in the search results, I came across a trade bait page for a fellow named Dave and this card was on it.  A wantlist was also available and I had cards he needed. So, a trade was born. 

 I also got this Greats Blue Parallel Paul Blair. I already have it in my player collection, but not in the Blue Parallel set I am slowly working on. But, Dave wasn't done. He looked at my blog, saw my fondness for Topps Fan Favorites and sent along a stack of over 30 of those as well.  Here are few, chosen because they use the design of some of my favorite vintage sets.

I am over the moon getting these cards and I am really going to need to get my Fan Favorites organized and get a want list up for them. 

Now, to anyone reading this, I would urge that you go take a look at Dave's wantlist. He appears to be a big Allen and Ginter fan, like a lot of you. Help him out.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand Done!, Part 2

With this Ken Boyer, I have now completed my 1963 Fleer set.  I don't have the checklist, but given the high price that decent, unmarked versions bring ($200 plus), I am not going to actively pursue getting one.  If I can find a version for under $50 that doesn't look like it was chewed on by a teething infant, I may get it.  But, I am quite happy calling the set done with this card.

A Trip to the LCS

I haven't taken a lot of time off work this year.  It has been crazy busy, and will continue to be like that for a while yet.  But, with July 4th landing on a Thursday, it gave me a chance to string together a decent amount of time away from the office without actually being away from the office much, if you get my meaning.  So, I started off today clearing some old fencing off the 5 acre pasture I bought recently and, after the heat drove me inside, I headed off into town to run some errands.  I also took advantage of having a weekday off to stop at my nearest LCS, which is only open from 12-6 on Monday through Friday.

I haven't been there in probably a year, when I exhausted their supply of good quality 1971 cards.  So, it was nice to get back.  My goal was to work on my 1973 set, particularly the high numbers.  I did just that, although I was hoping to find more than the 31 cards I walked out with.

I got a total of 13 high number cards, including this Darrell Porter, his first solo card.  These only put a small dent in my high number needs, but it is a dent nonetheless.  I also got a total of 11 non-high number commons, but nothing real exciting to show.  So, with only a small stack, I decided to go through the stores star card box and got a few more cards.

Including this Rich "Goose" Gossage rookie card.

And this Nolan Ryan.

 I also picked up 4 of the All Time Leader cards.

I also picked up my first team checklist card.   I am guessing that these will be the last cards I get to complete the set. They don't seem nearly as prevalent as the similar cards from 1974. In fact, the store only had two team checklists from 1973 and the other was marked up and in rough shape.

The store did have a copy of the Mike Schmidt rookie card, but with a book value of $150 I couldn't afford it on top of everything else I got. So, I left it behind.  So, where do I stand overall? Well, I need only 21 cards to finish the low number cards (528 and below) and only one has a high book value (#1, the All Time Home Run Leaders.) I still need around 100 high number cards and 23 team checklists.  Still a ways to go, but it is good to make progress. 

There is a two day show up in OKC next weekend. I'll probably hit that and see if I can find any more high numbers, although I am not optimistic. I have already gone through the 1973 box of the one vintage seller who is always there.  The other major vintage seller, Roger Neufeldt of Sports Memories of Oklahoma, probably won't be there.  He only does a few local shows a year and was just at the April show.  But, on the off chance he is, I need to at least check in the first day.