Memorabilia Monday: Got More Carters than Carter's Got Liver Pills

I take some pride in having both a depth and a breadth of random trivial knowledge.  I mean, a couple weeks back, a neighbor was cheating at, er, playing, bar trivia and texted me a question saying, "we need the answer quick!"  The question was to me a pretty simple one: Name one of the two pitchers in baseball history who lost over 300 games (answer at the end).  I texted him the answer back immediately and his response was, "you got that text already?"

My foundation of trivial knowledge was shaken slightly today when I named this Memorabilia Monday post. As a little kid in the 1970s (born at the end of 1971), I really would have sworn that the phrase of having more of something than "Carter's got liver pills" referred to then-president Jimmy Carter.  I stuck that phrase confidently into Google and was shocked to find out that it had no such relationship.  Instead, it was some placebo drug from the 1960s that people took just because...sort of like those same people raised kids who took cocaine, just because....but I digress....here's a television ad for Carters Little Liver Pills:

Now that my whole foundation has been rocked, let's get to the memorabilia.  I have mentioned in the past that I bothered Gary Carter frequently for autographs even though I had to come up with Canadian postage somehow to get the SASE addressed properly and with the correct postage.  He was my favorite player, after all, because he seemed like the nicest guy, always had a smile on his face, and he was a catcher like I was.

Don't get me wrong -- I liked the Brewers catchers -- but I had to have a non-Brewer player collection back then so that I could "compete" with my friend who was a Dale Murphy fan. If you would have told me then that only one of them would make the Hall of Fame, I would not have hesitated to say that it would have been Murphy.  But, the 1986 World Series title gave Carter the big victory, and playing catcher made his numbers stand out more than Murphy's numbers did as an outfielder, so Carter was the guy who is now enshrined.

With no further introduction, here are my Gary Carter autographs on regular-sized cards and stickers:

1982 Fleer

1982 Donruss Diamond King

1982 Donruss

1982 Topps Sticker

1980 Topps

1981 Topps Scratch Off

1981 Donruss

1982 Topps Foil Sticker

1981 Topps Scratch Off unscratched

1983 Fleer

1982 Fleer, and what horrible photography this is!

2008 Topps Stadium Club -- the only one I have gotten in a trade

1982 Fleer

1982 Topps

1983 Zellers

1980 Topps

1982 Topps All-Star

1982 Topps All-Star (#2)

I only wish that Gary Carter had not succumbed to cancer as early as he did.  I also wish that I had more of his autographs.

And, for your trivia answer:  the two pitchers who have lost 300 or more games in their career are both Hall of Famers: Pud Galvin and the incomparable Cy Young.

Hopefully tomorrow night I will be doing the finishing touches on my painting job from over the weekend, so that means that on Wednesday I should finally be able to break the suspense on my 2013 Topps Series 2 case break.

Thanks for reading.

Through The Mail Autographs

I remember to this day why I started sending mail to get autographs through the mail.  In fifth grade, as a project, I had to send a letter to one "famous" person to get their autograph and ask them a series of questions.  I used that project as an entry into the world of the TTM.

In looking through my old card boxes, I came across two of my first successful TTM autographs.  One of these guys is actually in the Hall of Fame -- Lee MacPhail.  Lee and his father Larry are currently the only father-son pair in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  At the time, Lee was the American League president.

The inscription is "To Tony, Best Wishes, Lee MacPhail".  Deep, I know.  

The other guy is Chub Feeney.  At the time, he was the National League President.  His daughter Katy was brought into baseball by her father.  Katy is the person with Major League Baseball responsible for sorting out the master schedule each year.

Chub went all out and wrote, "Best to Tony, Chub Feeney"