Ten Records

The godfather of baseball card blogging, Night Owl, threw down a challenge earlier this week: to name 10 albums that were significant to you and tie it to baseball cards.  This is my effort.  I've gone a little further and added videos of songs from the albums (with one exception) and tied the cards to the song.    So, here we go:



1. Styx - Cornerstone

Why this album: This album changed my musical tastes.  Prior to buying Cornerstone, I listened to the worst of 1970s pop music, like The Village People and KC and the Sunshine Band.  The song Babe was what drew me in, but it was the rock power anthems on the record that converted me over to rock music.

Why this card:  Well, I am nothing if unoriginal.  Babe is the song that introduced me to Styx.  And what other baseball player to show?  Sure, there were many ballplayers with the nickname babe.  32, according to Baseball Reference.    But, none are greater than Babe Ruth

2. AC/DC - Back in Black

Why this album:  This album, bought at the KMart in Chili Center, NY really led me into the hard rock world and away from the (sometimes forced) theatrics of Styx.  A lot of Styx music sounds dated now.  Back in Black, at 37 years old, still fits into the modern music landscape.  Plus, I remember driving to Buffalo in a blizzard to see AC/DC as a college freshman.

Why this card: What Do You Do For Money, Honey?  Don Money?  Like I said, I don't pretend to orginality.

3.  Sammy Hagar - Standing Hampton 

Why this album: The first concert I ever attended was Sammy Hagar (with Aldo Nova opening) at the Rochester Auditorium Theater in my junior year in high school.

Why this card:  Well, standing hampton is a NSFW slang.   Look it up and you'll understand.

4. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

Why this album: I remember hearing a cut from this album, SRV's debut, on the radio during my senior year in high school and being completely blown away by it. The cassette tape was pretty much on loop for me the summer between high school and college.

Why this card:  Well it is Curt *Flood* and he was born in Houston, Texas.

5. R.E.M. - Reckoning

Why this album:  I first heard this playing on the store sound system as I wandered about The Record Archive in Rochester during college. It blew me away and I bought it immediately. It was my entrée into alternative rock.  The video is a bit of a stretch. I really spent some time thinking about this and never got anywhere.  I finally googled "R.E.M. " and "baseball" and found out two members of the band formed a group called The Baseball Project and released two baseball themed albums.  So, I went in that direction instead of beating my head on a wall trying to tie Harborcoat to baseball.

Why this card:  Well, the song is called Harvey Haddix.

6. Metallica-S&M

Why this album:  This brought me back to heavy metal after a long time away. I don't have an extensive metal library, but I do appreciate watching people that are really good at what they do.  And Metallica is that.

Why this card:  I defy anyone to come up with a different player.  Enter Sandman played whenever Mariano Rivera came in from the bullpen at Yankee Stadium and Metallica played at his final game.

7. Pine Valley Cosmonauts - The Majesty of Bob Wills

Why this album:  I came across this album in the music section of the late, lamented Borders Bookstore.  They had headphones along the rows of CDs that would allow you to listen to selected albums.  This album was one such selection.  It introduced me to Western Swing music, an amalgam of country and jazz most popular in the 1930s and 1940s.  It is still around, most notably by the Austin band Asleep at the Wheel.  Bob Wills is in both the Rock and Roll and Country Music Halls of Fame.

Why this card:  Well the song above is about the Alamo, which is in San Antonio. Cliff Johnson, a player on the Yankees teams of my youth is from San Antonio.

8. Social Distortion - Social Distortion

Why this album:  I really like the SoCal punk sound here.  And, when I found out that there was a fair amount of crossover between the SoCal punk scene and the classic country and Bakersfield sounds (typified most recently by Dwight Yoakam), I was hooked.

Why this card: Well, Casey Stengel wrote a book titled "Casey at the Bat: The Story of My Life in Baseball."

9. Slaid Cleaves - Broke Down

Why this album:  I don't rightly recall if this was my introduction to Americana music, since that is a fairly broad label that encompasses a number of other genres, like folk and alt-country. I will say that, after hearing this song on a locally produced radio show, I did go right out and get the CD and it did contribute to a new direction in my music listening.

Why this card:  Well, what else is the baseball equivalent of one good year other than the one year wonder.  And Joe Charboneau falls into that category

10. Metamodern Sounds in Country Music by Sturgill Simpson

Why this album:  Sturgill Simpson is the man.  Along with Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell, he is saving country music.  Much to the chagrin of Nashville's Music Row. But screw them. They are peddling crappy pop and bro country. If you haven't seen his performance on Saturday Night Live recently, you should.  Go here and here.  While I expect that Beyonce's "Lemonade" will win, I'd love Simpson's "A Sailor's Guide to Earth" to win the Record of the Year Grammy.

Why this card:  Okay, this is a stretch. I admit it. But, I do need to show some faint glimmer of originality. Turtles all the way down is a colloquial expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology.  It is also considered an example of the Anavastha concept in Indian philosophy.  So, here is a card of two Indian natives who joined the Pirates minor league organization in 2009 as part of the reality show, Million Dollar Arm. Dinesh Patel only hung on for two years, both in Rookie ball.  Rinku Singh made it 4 years, getting as high as A ball.  He resigned with the Pirates in November 2015 and managed to pitch one scoreless inning in rookie ball during the 2016 season.

Card Show Goals Achieved

I had three goals for the show today and managed to achieve each one, although the level of achievement varied. My first goal was to complete my 1969 Deckle Edge set. I was fairly confident of getting this done because I knew a dealer out of Wichita had them. And, indeed, I did finish the set.

As I mentioned, I don't have the Joe Foy and Jim Wynn short print variations, but I am not particularly worried about that. I will get them at some point. But, with 33 filled pockets for a 33 card set, I am going to call it good.

I also wanted to add a few cards to my 1960 and 1961 Fleer sets.

I found two 1961s I needed. I am still a long way from finishing the set.  So, finding two was pretty much the lowest level of achievement on that goal. A solid C-.

I also wanted to make some progress on my 1971 set that I have been working on for nearly a year and a half. Unfortunately, Roger Neufeldt wasn't at the show today due to a family commitment, so I was only able to find four 1971 high numbers I needed from a seller out of Lawton.

But, among the four were two Hall of Famers.  Or six Hall of Famers if you consider the fact that Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Gaylord Perry, and Juan Marichal are probably on that Giants team card.  So, I was able to knock off about 10% of the remaining cards I needed. I am down to 36 to finish the set.

So, all this only cost me around $25 total. I could have called it good and been reasonably happy with the cards I got. But I found a few cards I needed for other sets I am working on.  And, of course, I weakened and bought a couple nice cards that were priced to move. But, more on that in the days to come.

A Return to Normalcy

After the high of actually possessing two Mickey Mantle cards that were issued during his playing career, you might expect that I would experience something of a letdown. Not true.  As a set builder, every card is a goal unto itself.  And, as a set builder, I find the importance of a card is not measured by it's book or historical value.  On the contrary, the importance of a card to me is measured by when it is acquired.  A star card can be less important than a common if it was acquired earlier in the set building process.

Example.  When I bought a 1971 starter set last summer, it included a very nice version of card 513, Nolan Ryan, which books at $150.  However, since it was part of that initial set of cards, it is less important than the following two cards.

I got these for $3 each, which isn't too shabby considering they are high numbers. My progress on 1971 has been stalled for almost 3 months.  I didn't get a single card towards completing the set during that period. So, I was quite pleased to find these.  I am down to needing 50 cards to complete 1971, 4 of which will be upgrades to poor quality cards I already have.  I had hoped to finish 1971 by the end of the year, but with the holidays coming up, I am quite sure that won't happen.  There is another card show coming up December 15 and 16, which I may go to, but I don't expect to have much of a budget. And if my main (non-incarcerated) source for vintage commons isn't there....well.....forget about any more progress at all on 1971 until the calendar flips over.

One other cheap pickup yesterday:

I now have 27 of the 33 cards in the 1969 Deckle insert set. Luckily, none of the cards in this set are expensive. So, even though I still need Willie Mays, it won't be a hard set to complete.  Actually, the most expensive card in the set is 22B - Joe Foy, a short print variation (22A is Rusty Staub.)  Even that only books at $25 and generally sells on Ebay for less than half that.

So, with that, my collecting activity goes into hibernation and I'll probably go back to featuring interesting cards from 2011 Tristar Obak, with a couple brief interludes when I get some cards back I sent out to be autographed.

What I am listening to:  "The One that Got Away" by Dave Pahanish

Surprise Card Show!

It is still hellaciously hot here and, having had 100+ temperatures and no rain for weeks, the area is a tinderbox.  Yesterday, wildfires broke out south of here and, at their closest, were about 4.5 miles away. Needless to say, I have been stressed and in a poor mood lately.  But today, I got a little pick me up.

I had to head up north to get feed and West Nile vaccines. Just a bit further up the road, so to speak, is an LCS that holds a show the first Saturday of every month.  It isn't a big show, usually just 6-8 dealers.  But, I figured I'd stop in and see what was up. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, since next weekend is the two day bi-monthly show in OKC.  I figured I'd just paw threw a few quarter boxes and call it good.  Well, I had a good visit.

In the quarter boxes I found about 8 Heritage inserts that I will need at some point.  I also found some neat Sportflics cards.

This is a neat little card from 1989. Unlike most 3-D cards, which have two images, this one has three images.  And, unlike most multi-player rookie cards, this one has three players that all went on to long and productive MLB careers.

1991 Kellogg's Baseball Greats cards! I am showing Yogi here, but also got the Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Warren Spahn cards.  I am already a third done with the set!  Maybe I'll build it!

I also found a few vintage cards in the quarter box.

I would have called that a good day, but I found another dealer who had a about 4 cards I actually needed for my 1971 set, including this Tommie Aaron high number card.

With that, I was ready to leave when I spied a stack of 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards.

 
The guy made me a sweetheart deal on the entire stack, which was 70 cards. Of course, the deckle insert set was only 33 cards in size and the stack I bought only had 24 unique cards. So, I now have a stack of deckles available for trade including several Maury Wills, Juan Marichal, and Frank Howards.  Any one interested?