Another Trade Post from Not Another Baseball Card Blog

Before I introduce some cool cards I received from Mike at Not Another Baseball Card Blog, I heard some very sad news today. Hobby legend Bob Lemke passed away today. 

For those of you who do not know that name, Mr. Lemke was the Editor for the final version of which I am aware of the bible of cards, the 2011 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. He also edited the Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, which was published in October of 2011 and the Standard Catalog of Minor League Cards, which does not appear to have been updated since It came out in 2000. For many years, he worked for Krausse Publications in Iola, Wisconsin -- the publishers of Sports Collectors Digest and Baseball Cards Magazine -- and his Wisconsin background showed itself regularly in the custom cards he made available through his information-packed blog. His knowledge about all things in our hobby and his proselytizing for the hobby will be missed.

After that somber note, the only appropriate way to respond is to be reverential. Mike from NABCB sent me a number of Canadian cards that I needed for my various team sets and player collections along with some Pacific Legends -- for which I think I now have a complete Milwaukee Braves set.

Let's start with the Pacific Legends



The Pacific Legends set is a concept that I feel like should be brought back by someone other than Topps to highlight the stars of the 1970s and 1980s. I don't trust Topps to do it -- we'd probably end up with 12 variations of Dave Collins and Dale Berra on the Yankees and then one card of Lloyd Moseby to represent the Blue Jays.

But doesn't that sound like a good idea? 

If you look at the list of players who were featured in the original sets, it is a hodgepodge of players from all through baseball history and of varying abilities. It's got everyone from Ty Cobb and Eddie Mathews to Ed Kranepool and Gary Peters. 

I feel like a set of nostalgia like this could do well. I mean, we don't need another set with Paul Molitor and Robin Yount in it, but would you say no if Molitor and Yount and Brett and Gossage were joined by Chris Chambliss, Steve Balboni, Willie Mays Aikens, Lonnie Smith, Vince Coleman, Joe Charbonneau, Mel Hall, Greg Walker, Mickey Rivers, Oddibe McDowell, Jody Davis, Eric Davis, George Bell, Charlie Lea, and Bob Welch?

Archives started out like this, but Topps gave up on that concept quickly and started adding more current players/rookies to drive sales. It's too bad.

Why in the world would I put up two Fleer 1990 cards -- especially a checklist? Because these two cards were the final two Fleer Canadian cards that I needed to complete my team set. I happened across an eBay seller who had two team sets at a reasonable price, so I bought them. It was easier than having to turn over literally every single 1990 Fleer card I ever see to check for "PTD IN CANADA" on the back. Mike happened to have these last two cards that did not come in the team set, and so he sent them to me.

Proving that guys that make the major leagues are special -- especially if they are from a small town -- George Canale was honored in May of 2016 by Cave Spring High School by having his jersey retired. Canale is a Virginia Tech legend, having set the Tech record for career homers (76) and RBI for the Hokies during his three seasons there (1984-1986). Canale retired after the 1999 season and owns a batting cage facility in the Roanoke, Virginia area.



See, here are two guys who should be in that 80s Legends set. Ted Higuera won 20 games in his second season in the majors -- completing 15 games in the process and finishing second in the Cy Yount Award voting behind Roger Clemens's 24-4 season. Funny thing: according to WAR on Baseball-Reference, Higuera was 0.5 wins better than Clemens even though Roger was a unanimous winner.

B.J. Surhoff had a long career in the majors -- 19 years, in fact -- and finished his career with 2326 hits. Perhaps if he had gotten more playing time in Atlanta in 2000-2002 and not been a catcher for much of his early career he would have had a better start offensively and gotten to those major milestones. 



And finally, we have almost certainly the least interesting O-Pee-Chee cards to have ever come out -- the 1990 versions. Keeping the Topps logos on the front and being different only by the occasional "Now With" notation on the front along with the bilingual backs, 1990 O-Pee-Chee really just mailed it in. 

I will say, though, that Jerry Reuss and perhaps Bill Krueger also should have places in that 1980s Legends series I'm advocating for. 

Krueger is an interesting case -- almost certainly he stayed in the major leagues as long as he did because he threw left-handed. He didn't make it to the majors until he was 25, but he stayed until he was 37. In that time, he played for Oakland, the Dodgers, the Brewers, the Mariners, the Twins, Montreal, Detroit, San Diego, and back to Seattle and split his time almost evenly between starting and relieving. He was both more accomplished and more nondescript than I had ever recalled.

And that is saying something.

Perhaps Chris Bosio should be in the 90s Legends version instead. 

Mike, thank you very much for plugging up some gaps in my Canadian baseball card collections -- it is much appreciated. 

Thankfully Another Baseball Card Blog Popped Up

Writing all the time is not easy. This is especially true when the writing being done is blogging. It is legitimately difficult to come up with new or different or at least interesting topics or angles or themes for blogs. New voices can be lost in the wilderness or missed entirely. Voices that have been with us for a while lose their enthusiasm, though thankfully they have not left entirely.

For others, life gets in the way. Some folks sign off for a while because they move. Thankfully, Robért at $30 a Week Habit has come back, though posting much less frequently. Others shutter up shop completely only to return in yet another excellent new form.

Still others get new jobs that prevent regular updating. I'm still waiting for Julie from A Cracked Bat to emerge from her slumber, for instance, and I hope she's still collecting and reading.

I was at that point back in late 2014, as I transitioned away from the massive law firm I worked for then to now working in a small firm more for myself. The fall is tough for me generally with college football thrown in too.

Another blogger who has seen his energy and time taken up with a new venture in life is regular commenter Mike from Not Another Baseball Card Blog. Mike is kind enough to comment frequently on the drivel that I post here, often ignoring my horrible non sequiturs and providing insight on Canadian cards that only an Ontarian can provide. I look forward to those comments.

Mike was kind enough to put together a sweet package of cards to send my way. To accompany these cards, let's talk about Mike's homeland about which he is rightfully proud.

1. Mike lives in Ontario. At 1,076,395 sq. km (415,598 sq. miles), it has more land area than France and Spain combined.

Thank you, TripAdvisor, for that fun fact. I mean, all you need to do to see that Ontario is huge is to look at a map. It stretches from almost all the way to Montreal almost due north of New York City all the way to the oddity that is the Lake of the Woods north of Minnesota. Interesting side trivia tidbit: Lake of the Woods features several islands and two peninsulas (Elm Point and Angle Township) which can only be accessed by boat if you do not want to leave the United States.



To accompany the Lake of the Woods and the huge size of Ontario, let's go straight to O-Pee-Chee from 1984. I live so far south that finding O-Pee-Chee is like seeing Ogopogo/Naitaka (an alleged lake monster that some call the Canadian version of the Loch Ness Monster), so I'm always psyched to see the OPC.

2. Until 1999, a popular misconception was that Yonge Street was the longest street in the world.

Yonge Street starts on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto about two blocks east of the Air Canada Centre. The reason that I say it was a misconception is that Wikipedia said so -- that Guinness mistakenly gave credit to the rest of Ontario Highway 11 as being part of Yonge Street. Seen that way, the road would have been 1,896 km (1,178 miles) long. In reality, it's just 86 km/53 miles.



Fitting the realm of being something of a mistake are Topps Opening Day cards. Don't get me wrong -- I like the general idea of the Opening Day set, with its limited number of parallels and not being driven by hits. Its problem is well documented, though -- it's the same card as the Topps Flagship, making it just another lazy parallel rather than being something cool and different.

The problem is, though, how lazy Topps has gotten with its exclusive license. I doubt that will change any time soon.

3. Ontario is Canada's most populous province with over 13.5 million people -- about 40% of Canada's overall population.

Most people live along Lake Ontario -- from Brantford to Kitchener through Brampton and Toronto and all the way east to Peterborough (Mike's hometown). This "Greater Golden Horseshoe" area (I didn't make that title up -- the Ontario Provincial website did) has more than 9 million of the 13.5 million people in Ontario.

Outside of that area, Ontario is probably about as populated as Alaska is outside of Juneau and Anchorage. Including everyone in the equation, Ontario has approximately 32.5 people per square mile (sorry, using miles here for ease of comparison). If Ontario were a U.S. State (no jokes, folks), it would be less densely populated than Kansas and Utah and would rank 42nd overall -- ahead of Nevada, Nebraska, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska (which has 1.3 people per square mile). 

In terms of pure size, Ontario is still dwarfed by Alaska -- in fact, the difference in acreage between Alaska and Ontario is nearly equivalent to the area in the State of California (about 155,000 square miles) but it would be second overall. One more odd comparison: the difference in square mileage between Ontario and number 3 Texas is 154,366 square miles -- again, nearly the size of California. And yet, between California and Texas, there are over 67 million people.

That got a little too into the weeds for most of you, I'd bet, but stuff like that kind of fascinates me. My weird, trivia-filled head thrives on crazy information like that in a way that my collection thrives on receiving great serial numbered cards like this one from people. It's actually my third one, but since all three are serial numbered, they all count as separate cards in my Yount Collection, which has ballooned to 910 as of Saturday. I still need 90 more new items to get to my goal of 1000 by the end of the year, though.

4. Newfoundland is where the first Europeans settled in North America -- around the year 1000.

I know most of you are educated sorts such that you realize that Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of America was less like discovery and more like finding a new restaurant because you took a wrong turn, got hopelessly lost, and ended up stopping because otherwise your partner would kill you. I think most people understand that the Vikings -- perhaps an offshoot from Vinland under Leif Erickson around the year 1000 -- came and settled at a place now called L'Anse aux Meadows.

While not a good analog in anyway, I think this 1959 Topps Wes Covington is a worthy way to finish out this fantastic envelope of cards from Mike.

I hope some day to visit L'Anse aux Meadows where the first settlement is located. It's at the very northern tip of Newfoundland and it's truly a place that is difficult to reach -- basically, it's at least two or three flights even from a major metropolis like Atlanta, and even flying into Deer Lake still puts you nearly 5 hours away driving.

I guess R.E.M. had it right, though. You really can't get there from here:

Mike, thanks a ton for these great cards. Sorry I didn't choose Canadian music to go with this post, but this R.E.M. song leapt into my head!

Not Another Music-Filled Trade Post

Of course I'm lying.

I received an excellent envelope in the mail today from north of the border -- Ontario, to be exact. Mike from Not Another Baseball Card Blog packaged up some Brewers to send my way in response to a package I sent to him. I made him wait quite a while to get the cards I sent his way, so I was very happy when the return envelope came my way. 

I know that I can be slow to send out packages to others at times, so I never take any offense when others take a while to send me cards. Heck, I am pretty sure that I have sent out packages of cards to folks on more than one occasion that I'm pretty sure weren't reciprocated. You know what? It doesn't really bother me.

All that said, these cards -- and Mike's blog -- have a distinctly Canadian feel, so it's Canadian music time. I'll start with a song that was stuck in my head literally all day until I listened to the whole song at about 2 PM this afternoon:

If I were more ambitious, I'd probably go to see The Strumbellas (a Juno-award winning Toronto band whose music has been called "folk popgrass") live this weekend for free for a St. Patrick's Day Party here in Atlanta this Saturday. Instead, I'm pretty sure that -- if it isn't raining -- I'll have a lot of yard work to do.

I'm praying for rain.

Anyway, here are some cards to go with that very catchy tune:

A literal fistful of O-Pee-Chee cards! Now, I wouldn't expect to receive anything less from a Canadian collector. Or rather, I'm pleased to see that junk wax Canadian-style is as ubiquitous in Canada as it is here in the United States.

Now, I just need to find some of those 1990 Fleer "Printed in Canada" cards. Are those things legitimately rare, or are they just rare because I'm in the Southern United States?

What's next on the Canada playlist?

I went through a period where I was really listened to a lot of Flogging Molly. By way of that, and back on Yahoo radio or something crazy like that which no longer exists, I heard of both the Dropkick Murphys and this band from Vancouver -- The Real McKenzies. Whenever I was in a super-contemplative mood, I'd listen to this song. When I wanted upbeat music, I'd listen to this:

I mean, what's better than punk music with bagpipes?

Absolutely nothing. Don't even try.

Cal Eldred recognized in his photo 22 years ago that he would be competing with -- and losing badly to -- such fantastic music. It's pretty clear, though, that Greg Vaughn is happy just to be associated with it.

Okay, time for some 90s Canadian music...

Sure, Our Lady Peace sounded like maple-syrup grunge to a lot of people, probably. But "Starseed" is a damn good song from a band that really is underrated in my opinion. At the same time, though, I did hear this song a ton in the mid-1990s, so perhaps they aren't underrated at all.



Dude! Mid-90s Finest? AWESOME! Maybe it's just that I wasn't around for these cards when they were new, but these just struck me as being really great cards today. It sort of like listening to some of those 1990s bands again "for the first time" today -- it can be very surprising how ... good some of the songs/cards are.

Now, for the early/mid 2000s....

Maybe it hasn't been long enough since this song was released. I haven't listened to this song in a long time. If I'm honest -- and unlike "Starseed" -- I could have done without hearing this song. For whatever reason, this song sounds like it is the musical personification of Johnny Knoxville and "Jackass"...and to be honest, I've never been a fan of that. Can't tell you a good reason why other than it just doesn't appeal to me.

Anyway, don't get me wrong -- I didn't turn off the radio when Sum 41 came on. But, I was okay when the song ended and Jimmy Eats World started playing.



Again, don't get me wrong about these cards either. They are cool, in that I need them for my team collection. And these guys even did reasonably well for the Brewers (well, other than Rigdon and his career FIP of 5.67 with Milwaukee). I just don't mind when the next card comes off the pile.

Finally, let's move back to more contemporary times.

While I've heard songs off Arcade Fire's first album Funeral, I really got into the band when they released Neon Bible with such great songs as "Keep the Car Running" and "No Cars Go." "Reflektor" is a song that I've liked since it was released a couple of years ago.

I will say, though, that one bad thing about having Spotify at my fingertips is that I don't often listen to full albums any more. I really should listen to this full album.

This song was hitting the alternative charts around the time I got back into collecting and into blogging a couple of years ago -- 2014 -- just like the coup de grâce of this envelope from Mike:

This is just fantastic. I tried for many months back in 2014 to pick up one of these at a decent -- not even reasonable...just decent price -- and failed. Since then, they seem to elude me regularly. So, for this card to have been included in this cross-border trade package is unbelievable.

Mike, you're awesome dude! Thank you SO much for these cards!  And I never even played Barenaked Ladies!

Couldn't resist!