Flea Market Finds

It is coming up pretty quick on a month since I was notified that I would be laid off at the end of January. I swore off any unnecessary spending in order to be ready in case my time off was significant. And that includes cards. While I am, thankfully, situated for a lengthy unemployment, I am hoping it won't be. I have some inside information that I should be contacted for some interviews next week. But, I am sticking by my decision to not buy any cards until I have a job offer in hand.........sort of.....

I was out yesterday running errands. One of which is looking for birthday gifts for my wife. There is one specific item that I am looking for that I have been unable to find. While driving home yesterday, I stopped at a flea market at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds to see if anyone there might have it. Long shot, I know, but I was desperate.

Well, let me tell you, this flea market is one that all the classier fleas avoid. I was amazed at what some people are trying to sell. Need a box of old phone and coaxial cables? Want to stock up on VHS cassettes or old cross-stitch magazines? This is your place. Need any interesting antiques or useful items? Don't even bother.
There was one guy, though, selling sports memorabilia, including cards. Most of it was unwrapped boxes of junk wax, but he did have some individual cards for sale. I went through the box and managed to find 3 insert cards from the 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game set I am trying to complete.


Dave Winfield - The Glory of Their Time (1493/1979)


Ty Cobb - The Glory of Their Time (0138/1911)


Luis Tiant and Carlton Fisk - Battery Mates (0009/1973)

I paid $4 dollars total for the 3 cards, which is about $1 more than I would have paid getting them from COMC. But, obviously, I didn't have to pay shipping, so I came out ahead. As it turns out, I already had the Winfield, but even at $4 for the two cards I needed, I still did alright. The guy also had a couple of the blue bordered serial numbered parallels, but I passed over those for now. I also noticed that he had one of those flat locking cabinets that card sellers had. Inside was the 27 card Willie Mays reprint set that was printed somewhere around 1996. I didn't ask him what he wanted for that since I was guessing that they weren't really worth all that much and the segregation of those cards behind a locked cabinet, and in lucite card holders, indicated he valued them way more than the market did.

So, now I will go back to not buying cards.

1990 Swell Baseball Greats

 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108, 109, 110, 112, 114, 116, 120, 122, 123, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135

Trade with Napkin Doon - Plus an Outtake

I just completed a trade with the oddly named Napkin Doon (you never can tell about them Arkansans. But, at least he only has one first name and isn't known as Napkin Ray Bob Doon or some such nonsense.) Anyhoo, as I have mentioned earlier I didn't have any luck turning a Topps Diamond Die Cut Tom Seaver into anything I actually wanted, so I ended up trading it for a die-cut Adrian Beltre that Nap needed. In exchange, I got a dozen 2001 Heritage cards I needed. I am pretty stoked about getting another good size chunk of that set knocked off.

Most of the cards were of guys who didn't have any noteworthy MLB experience like this guy:


Aah, the joys of set collecting! But there were some good players mixed in, too.



Although he was forgettable in the off-season, Lohse pitched solidly in 2011 for the World Champion Cardinals.




I'm glad the Yankees resigned Freddy for 2012. He, along with Bartolo Colon, really filled in the rotation beyond expectations with Phil Hughes being on the disabled list and A.J. Burnett being very inconsistent.

I want to stop for a moment and let another piece of my life intrude here. As some of you may know, I enjoy doing some amateur photography. I'll never make my living at it, but I have taken some pictures I am proud of. One of the things I like is looking at other people's photographs and trying to understand both their vision and technique. This has given me the chance to meet other photographers that I might never come across in my life. One guy was actually did some work for the Anaheim Angels once upon a time. I had the great experience of seeing some of the outtakes from the studio sessions. In an amazing coinky-dink one of those "lost photos" was of a player who's card was among those Nap sent me. Check it out:

Trade with Cards from the Quarry

I just completed a small, but significant, trade with hiflew from Cards from the Quarry. I knocked about 4 cards off his want lists and, in exchange, I got three cards I needed from 2011 Heritage:


110 - Mark Tiexiera

Though his power numbers are still good, Tex's BA and OBP have been down the last two years. I wonder if a lot of that is due to teams going into a defensive shift when he bats from the left side of the plate. When you look at his platoon splits from 2011, he hit well as a righty, but was positively anemic from the left side when he wasn't hitting home runs. I have heard that he was going to work on hitting to the opposite field as a lefty this off-season. If he is successful in doing so, I predict a monster year in 2012.


202- Corey Hart

Not much to say about this guy (I will not make the all-too-obvious sunglasses joke) other than that is a face only a mother could love. I will note that Hart and Teixeira were the last two non-short prints I needed from the 2011 Heritage set. I am now down to just short prints and inserts to complete the set. I am pretty psyched about knocking these two off.


442- Kevin Gregg

Aaaaand one of the short prints. These guys are like gold and I was also pretty happy to be able to trade for it. I am loathing having to go to COMC or a similar site and pay the extortion prices that short prints command.

Thanks, hiflew!

BOBOC - Pack 8

I tried calling my doctor to schedule a colonoscopy in order to have something to do that was more fun than this post, but he didn't think the procedure was medically necessary. I was like "Dude! Have you ever seen 1988 Donruss?" He wasn't convinced, so I guess I am going to have to write this.

I present to you yet another pack of:





Can you feel the excitement? Me neither.

111 - Bob Forsch - St. Louis


112 - Mike Scott - Houston


113 - Kevin Gross - Philadelphia
447 - Jerry Mumphrey - Chicago Cubs


626 - Pat Perry - Cincinnati
628 - Matt Williams - San Francisco


629 - Dave Hengel - Seattle
630 - Jeff Musselman - Toronto
631 - Tim Laudner - Minnesota
632 - Bob Ojeda - NY Mets


633 - Rafael Santana - NY Mets
BC-8 - Andy Van Slyke - Pittsburg
BC-10 - Andre Dawson - Chicago Cubs


BC-11 - Alan Trammell - Detroit


Diamond King #20 - Mark Langston - Seattle


So, I got one Hall of Famer in this pack. Woo-freaking-hoo.

Up Next: 1990 Panini Stickers.

BOBOC - Pack 7 - 1997 Score

This is a set that I really like. If I had any interest in collecting cards from the 1990s, this would definitely be on the list of sets I'd put together. It has a clean, simple look that appeals to me. The only thing I would change is the whole e.e. cummings lower case text thingy. It bugs me. Why? I don't know. It just does.

No Hall of Famers in this pack. Though, I would make the case that Alan Trammell should be in Cooperstown. Belle didn't receive enough votes his first time on the ballot and was dropped. He was certainly a dynamic player, but his behaviors didn't win him many friends. Bob Costas once said of Belle "Outside of Cleveland, he may be regarded as the man Will Rogers never met." This is, of course, a reference to Will Roger's (1) famous quote "I never met a man I didn't like."

11 - Chili Davis - California


12 - Albert Belle - Cleveland


This card is the Foil front Showcase Series parallel.

48 - Mark Lewis - Detroit
74 - Ellis Burks - Colorado


106 - Alan Trammell - Detroit


152 - Wally Joyner - San Diego



219 - Todd Hundley - NY Mets
229 - Robert Perez - Toronto
267 - Justin Thompson - Detroit
322 - Wendell Magee - Philadelphia



Here is an interesting factoid. Whomever wrote Magee's Baseball Reference Bullpen page, copied from this 1997 Score card. Look at the text on the card, then compare it to the BR Bullpen write-up. The text is almost identical. Certainly, it does not match and I suppose, if we are being generous, we could believe it a concidence. Except for one thing. There is an error on the card back that is repeated on the BR page.

I refer specifically to the sentence "Wendell topped the Florida State League in '95 with a lofty .353 batting average and 177 hits, the second highest total in the minor leagues." The BR page reads "He led the Florida State League in 1995 with a .353 batting average and 177 hits." Those two sentences aren't all that similar, to be sure. So, how do I know the one was copied from the other? Simple. Take a look at Magee's B-R Minor League Statistics page. What you see there is that Wendell did hit .353 in the FSL, but only had 137 hits during his time with Clearwater. He had an additional 40 hits at Reading in the Eastern League that year. So, 177 hits was not his total in the Florida State League, but was his total for the 1995 season across two different leagues. So, there you have it. How did I spend my Christmas vacation (I wrote this on December 23)? Overanalysing the backs of baseball cards.

(1) I believe every place probably has a "You know your from....when..." jokes written about it. This one about Oklahoma pretty much hits the nail right on the head. My favorite is "It doesn't bother you to use an airport named for a man who died in an airplane crash." The main commercial airport in OKC is Will Rogers World Airport. There is a smaller airport in OKC named after Wiley Post. Rogers and Post died in the same plane crash in 1935.

My Collecting Goals for 2012

Working under the assumption that my employment situation is resolved before I add the prefix "un-" at the end of January, I am going to lay out my goals for the year. If it doesn't, I'll have to modify these goals as we go along. But for now, here it is.


Sets I am working on now that I want to finish

1971 Topps

1976 Topps

At least 1 of the 3 Heritage sets I am working on (2001, 2002, 2011)

Sets I want to start and finish

1975 Topps

2012 Heritage

Sets I want to continue working on

1956 Topps

1963 Fleer

Sets I want to start

1973 Topps

Miscellaneous Goals

Add to my Paul Blair and Johnny Antonelli player collections

Do not buy any 2012 product except Heritage