Card Show Purchases: The Vintage

When my interest in baseball cards was rekindled earlier this year, the one new spark that produced a flame in me immediately was to seek out cards that I did not collect when I was a kid -- either because I couldn't find them or, more likely, because I couldn't find them in a price range that I could afford then. Since I now can afford some of those cards, I decided to collect some of those cards.  

Once again being choosy, though, led me to decide to collect only Milwaukee Braves cards. Yeah, I have nascent player collections of Joe Adcock, Warren Spahn, and Eddie Mathews, and I'll probably add 1957 World Series MVP Lew Burdette to that. But, I want to collect all the Milwaukee Braves cards I can. At least from the major sets.

Since I haven't catalogued those PCs yet, I was careful about what I bought from any of those players.  But, I knew that I had not picked up the Mathews or Spahn from Gypsy Queen.  

Those photos are nothing original from Topps; I'm pretty sure that the Mathews photo has been on at least four different inserts in the past several years, and the same is true for Spahn.  

Now, these cards are new so they better be in perfect shape or else they better be free.  I'm not all that choosy on vintage cards, though, when it comes to condition. Let's be honest -- finding a few dime or 50 cent cards from the 1950s or early 1960s is likely to lead to finding these cards in less than ideal condition.  But, when I saw the vintage binder with dollar cards, I got sucked in.  

Hank's brother was nowhere near as good as he was, but not many people have ever been that good.  

Future GM Woody Woodward is looking very serious in his pose in foul territory during spring training.  He never hit any homers as a Milwaukee Brave and had a slash line of .207/.241/.257.

Did he have blackmail photos of the Braves GM?
    

Blasingame was touted as being the heir apparent to Warren Spahn when he was signed straight out of high school in 1961. He ended up on the Houston Astros in 1967. Eventually, his sartorial style featured in Ball Four.

Someone before me thought that Ty's hat looked better Red. Ty attended Clemson University, so after Clemson's recent trip to the land of Red and Black in Athens, he may disagree with that assessment.

Yup, it's a 1966. Joe's as disgusted about my inability to identify a 1966 Topps as I am. Topps avoided showing guys in hats so as to avoid the whole "Atlanta stealing the Braves and leaving Milwaukee without baseball" discussion.

Mack had to be happier than most of the Braves when the team moved to Atlanta, since he grew up in the ATL. Mack passed away 10 years ago and is buried in Forest Law Cemetery here in Atlanta.

Rico was one of the first players from noted Dominican baseball factory San Pedro de Macoris to make it to the major leagues, and he was the first San Pedran to be an All-Star. Indeed, he still stands fourth all-time in games played by San Pedro natives -- though Robinson Cano probably will pass him in the next year or two.

Lee Maye (not Lee May) played 7 years with the Braves beginning in 1959. He was a far better R&B and soul singer under his full name, Arthur Lee Maye.

See?

I love YouTube.

Bob Buhl to me will always be the pitcher who couldn't hit. I think it came from going 0 for 1962 -- 0 for 69 at bats, to be exact, with the Chicago Cubs.  With the Braves, his worst hitting year was probably 1954, when he went 1 for 31. 

Pisoni got a badly-drawn boy card in the 1959 Topps set. He had never played for Milwaukee before and had appeared in 9 total games for the Braves that season -- going 4-for-24.  After that performance, the Braves decided to send Pisoni back to the New York Yankees from whence he came in the Rule 5 draft.

Covington came up with the Braves in 1956. He and Hank Aaron were contemporaries in the Braves system and, according to his SABR biography, Covington had a propensity for two things -- getting hurt and pissing people off by opening his mouth.

I'm a lawyer, so I can relate with that second one.

This card of the Nitro, West Virginia, great is what may spur my starting that Lew Burdette collection.  It's actually in much better shape than most of these cards are, but that's not why I am going to start the Burdette collection. I'll start the Burdette collection because Lew went 179-120 with a 3.53 ERA with the Braves (6-11 in Boston in 1952, otherwise with Milwaukee) and he was the MVP of the 1957 World Series -- which, to date, remains the only World Series victory for a Milwaukee team.

When I tell people about my collecting the Braves, I tell them that while some kids went to bed with stories of giants and beanstalks, I went to bed with stories of Giants and Brutons. He didn't get to the major leagues until 1953 when he was already 27 years old, and he immediately led baseball in stolen bases in 1953 (with 26), 1954 (34), and 1955 (25). 

People didn't believe in stealing in the 1950s.  It was a simpler time.

Ray Shearer got a baseball card in 1958 for playing in 2 games with the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 -- one on September 18 and one on September 29. He passed away very young -- at the age of 52 in 1982 in York, Pennsylvania.

Bob Buhl appears to be questioning me about why I'm picking on him for his hitting when Al Leiter didn't get all kinds of crap in 2003 when he went 1 for 53 for the New York Mets.  

I'm sorry Bob -- I didn't know. 

Like I said at the top, I'd have rather these cards been in better shape than they are, and perhaps some day I'll seek out better and better copies of these cards for my collection. But I'm not buying these for "investments" so frankly, I really don't care if Ty Cline's hat is colored in red. I just care that I have the cards.

Even for Ray Shearer and his 3 at bat career.

Card Show Purchases: The Main PCs

Admittedly, I have a lot of player collections.  I have them broken into tiers at this point because I have so many. I think I'll end that practice and have them in just two groups -- the guys whose cards I'll collect no matter what team they are on and guys whose cards I'll collect as a player collection only on the Brewers/Milwaukee Braves.

I'll get there eventually, I suppose.  

Right now, though, I have four "primary" player collections: Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Gary Carter, and Ryan Braun. I was able to add to each of those collections -- and to help my team collections as well for those guys -- through my purchases I made yesterday at the card show.

Yount was the one guy whose collection did not grow by much -- just two cards:

The top card is just an A&G base from this year, but it helped me finally get over not pulling a single Yount card in two hobby boxes.  The bottom card is a Cooperstown Card that Score inserted as part of its factory sets back in 1992. Strangely enough, I own a factory set of Score cards, but the Cooperstown Cards were nowhere to be found. So, these two bring my total of Robin Younts up to 604.

The Molitor collection added a couple of cards and also picked up a condition upgrade:

So, the Donruss Elite and the Hot Numbers were ones I had only seen on websites before, and both of those were fairly inexpensive. In fact, the Donruss Elite turned up because I sat down at one last table before I left -- when there were literally less than 10 people at the show other than dealers because everyone was watching the NFL -- and started chatting with the guy behind the table. He pulled it out of a box he had (along with a few others) and I bought it. Otherwise, there's the Topps A&G from this year (for the team collection), the 2012 Topps Tribute (which is just a gorgeous card), the 2009 Topps Manu-Patch that came with my trade bait from yesterday, the "StickUm" from Collector's Choice, and the 1981 Topps condition upgrade.

The Gary Carter collection also added a couple of more cards to it thanks to my Sunday shopping spree:

Of these, I could not believe how absolutely pristine the Kellogg's card from 1976 of Gary is. It's pure white and incredible. It almost seems strange to see the fresh faced kid before he became "The Kid" (which Robin Yount also was called but hated). The cut-off Colgan's disc was also a pretty cool card to find, as was the Topps Tribute. And, as much as I am not a huge fan of the "boring white border" cards, Gypsy Queen and its photos really pop with a white border.

And, finally, there is the Ryan Braun collection. I finally got it catalogued this weekend while I was watching other college teams play football while my team had an off week.  So, I went into this weekend with confidence in buying Braun cards. 

I found a lot of them.

There was a lot of Topps Chrome and Bowman Platinum available this month. While I was in a box-break on Chavez Ravining for the Topps Chrome product, I really didn't get that many cards out of it. So, I bought a few Chrome to at least make sure that I'd have at least my PC guys covered.  There are two platinum that look alike, but one's a gold. Also, that A&G relic was a nice find, and so was this year's Donruss Series 2. I was very pleased to find Topps Finest available as well. As the Cynical Buddha has pointed out, only three Brewers made the base set -- Braun, Gomez, and Jimmy Nelson. So, I fished those out and now I do not have to buy any of the Topps Finest base cards.

So, these are just the tip of the iceberg from Sunday's purchases.  I will have more later in the week, and I'll also have a PWE that showed up as if in response to my "out of mail" post!

Breaking Out of a Rut

I've been a bad blogger lately. Yeah, I've been writing some over at the 1982 Topps blog, but those are easy -- post the card, research and write about the player, and set the post for publication. Granted, readership there isn't terribly high -- I'm too verbose for most people's tastes, I think, but in many respects I write that 1982 blog almost for myself.  It keeps me writing and researching and reading on a regular basis, and I've learned a ton about baseball in the 1970s and early 1980s in the process.

But I've let this blog -- and my trading -- languish a bit. I've been busy with other things, too -- organizing a 28-team, 2-league fantasy football monstrosity for our local Lawyer's Club, for example, and going to the Georgia v. Clemson game last weekend.  But I also have not been buying or seeking any new cards lately.

That changed today. After a few months away, I went back to one of the local card shows. And today I was ready like I had not been ready before.

The first time I went in January, I was bewildered and confused. I hadn't really dove back into collecting at that point; it was more along the lines of sticking my toe into the water to see if the temperature was okay. I did not know what to expect then, and what I saw was confusing and disorienting.

The second time I went in April or May, I was much further along in my return to collecting. I had started blogging by that point, and I had been sorting through all the cards I had from my youth for a few months by that point.  I may have even been I spent nearly all my time at a couple of tables. But, I also made a major mistake: I had not eaten lunch before going to the show.  So, at some time around 1 PM or so, I started getting so hungry that I had to leave.

This time, I went a little bit later to the show and picked up food before I got there. I've also started making lists as subpages on here of all the cards that I have for each of my player collections.  I've gotten through Ryan Braun and Yovani Gallardo at this point, so it's still in its primordial stages, but it's a start that allowed me to check on my phone to see if I needed cards that I found in my digging. That probably saved me at least a buck or two today, so it's already worth it.

I ended up spending about $100 today. That number surprised me at first, but I stopped at a bunch of tables and picked up a ton of Brewers. I also got some trade bait.  Today, I'll post that, and probably for the rest of the week I'll be posting about the rest of what I got.

The first group of trade bait resulted from wanting a Paul Molitor from a particular set. In 1997, Collector's Choice/Upper Deck had a set of 30 stickers called, imaginatively enough, Super Action Stick Um's, Surprisingly, on COMC, most of these are going for around a buck a piece. If you collect any of these players and want your guy or if you just want one for your oddball set, let me know.

Since I got that whole package for $3, I am glad to share these around.

The other package of trade bait also came from wanting a particular Paul Molitor -- this time, a manu-patch from 2009 Topps.  That one came with the following 8 manu-patches -- all of which are available for trade.

I tried to get this guy to sell me the Molitor patch by itself, but he wouldn't do it. Since the asking price was not exorbitant, I ponied up the money and figured that it gave me some pretty cool trade bait.

So, are there any Mel Ott collectors out there?

When The Mail Runs Out...

I was incredibly lucky during August in terms of blogging material. I started the month with the Gint-A-Cuffs contest. I probably could have drawn that out for 25 posts, but I was impatient and blew through all 24 packs and the boxloader in 8 posts. But, it was blogging material for the dog days of Summer.

Then, in the time that GAC was going on, envelopes started showing up in my mailbox. Some were a part of trades, others contained contest winnings, and some were just bloggers being really nice and sending me stuff. That all came to an end after Sunday's post. 

Since then, I've been thinking about that eternal question that many of us face: what in the world am I going to write about? I kept hoping that another envelope would appear -- nothing so far -- so I decided to write about my player collections.  I have a ton of them -- 41 to be exact. I've written a lot about Molitor, Yount, and Carter.  But, why do I have a PC for, say, Bob McClure?

I wonder that to myself sometimes. So, now, I'm going to try to explain some of these collections.

I'm a Brewers fan for obvious reasons -- growing up 30 miles from Milwaukee County Stadium in the 1970s and 1980s in an area too rural for cable companies to care about until literally the mid-1990s meant that my baseball was entirely local until I got to college. Even then, my mindset -- my fandom -- had been determined already.  

By the time I started caring about the team and consciously remember things, it was 1978 and I was 6 years old.  I guess I repressed that 1977 season. But a quick glance at the 1978 Brewers roster provides some key insight already into my PCs:

Most Appearances at Catcher: Charlie Moore

Charlie was always a favorite -- even early on. His willingness to play wherever the team needed him, his genuine humility, and the joy with which he played the game made him easy to root for. He stands fifth all-time in games played with the Brewers with 1283. He was never a star, never a power hitter, never a speedster, and hit over .300 just twice -- in 1979 and in 1981 (in just 48 games and 156 at-bats).  

But Charlie was an easy addition to my collection for all of those reasons. He was patient with fans and with kids especially, finding time to sign autographs before and after games. He played with a smile on his face and a desire to do anything to win. Not to say that those particular attributes make a player a successful player -- they don't. Yet being that kind of player makes it easy for the hometown fans to cheer for you.

Opening Day Starter: Jerry Augustine

As I mentioned about Augie on the 1982 Topps blog, he was never really among my favorite players as a kid. So why am I collecting him now -- especially since he was a mop-up man of the highest order?

When I got back into collecting, I thought for a long time about how I would go about determining which players I would collect and why. To be honest, I've always been a fan of hitters and not pitchers. So, when I looked at the list of Brewers pitchers all time, I was struck by the fact that only five pitchers in Brewers' history lasted 10 or more seasons with the team -- Jim Slaton, Bill Wegman, Moose Haas, Bob McClure, and Jerry Augustine.

I thought about this further. Augustine was one of two "local boys" whose entire careers were spent in Milwaukee (with Jim Gantner being the other). There's something to be said for carving out a career with your hometown team as a lefty mop-up junkballer who grew up north of the Mason-Dixon Line.  So, into the player collections went the Augustine cards.  

Besides -- what's wrong with a little love for a complete scrub whose saving grace was a gargantuan contract handed to him in an overreaction by the owner afraid that the Wisconsin boy would leave home?

One more from 1978 for tonight:

All-Star Game Starter: Don Money

Don Money was elected to the All-Star game as a starter. Seriously. In fact, he was an All-Star four times for the Brewers in the 1970s.  In 1978, he was a Tony Phillips-type long before Tony Phillips was. He played 61 games at first, 36 games as second, 25 games at third, 2 games at shortstop, 15 games at DH, and pinch hit 6 times.  According to WAR, he was only the sixth-best player on the surprising third-place team that season -- 4.8 WAR for Money put him behind Mike Caldwell (8.1), Sal Bando (5.6), Larry Hisle (5.3), Lary Sorensen (5.0), and Robin Yount (5.0).

Money's play at those various positions allowed the Brewers to account for injuries, days off, and platoons around the diamond. In fact, the only player to play more than 150 games that season for Milwaukee was Sal Bando. With staying reasonably fresh that season, Money got minor MVP consideration for his .293/.361/.440 season.  It was his last season that he played over 100 games for Milwaukee, but he stayed with the Brewers for 11 total years and 1196 games. That number put him 7th all time in appearances for Milwaukee -- fitting for the guy who wore number 7.

Money was an underrated minor star of the 1970s who was okay with being a role player on those great Milwaukee teams of the early 1980s. He was an early favorite for his veteran leadership and for being an All-Star.

*                    *                    *

That's three guys I collect and some of the reasons why I collect them. I collect them because they were childhood heroes or friendly, nice guys, or just were the local boy who hung around for a while. 

And I'll gladly take your Don Moneys, Charlie Moores, and Jerry Augustines if you don't want them.