Little Big.

       I often wonder what I would do if I were rich.  I live a comfortable middle class lifestyle with very few complaints: I get to go on vacation, work on my terms (mostly), want for very little, and, hey, I even get to indulge in my hobbies.  I also collect baseball cards on my own terms with my own little group of rules - but much like my lifestyle, I can't help but imagine what would change in my piles if instead of $100 of disposable income a month, you suddenly injected millions of dollars. 

I adore old tobacco cards.  I love the look of them, I love the feel of them, and I even love the smell of them.  I really hate graded cards mostly because all you can touch is the little plastic prison and you don't get the tactile joy of colorful pieces of century-old cardboard.

I like to think that if I were suddenly flush with cash that the page you are looking at would be full of real cards rather than knockoffs.  Fourteen of these cards sit in a sort of limbo of unofficial reprint and unscrupulous counterfeit.  You'd know this if you look at the backs. 

The one in the middle is a Hygrade reprint from the 1980s.  It announces with great pride that this card, if real, would be worth $700! I have one of the t206 Honus Wagner that tells us it would be worth north of $8000.  Eight grand for a Wagner?!?! Sign me up with or without a lottery win, I'll take out a loan for that price. Today's hobby puts that card in a six-figure number and you can easily go into millions for it.  If I were rich, would I invest in Hans rather than stocks?  You're damn right I would.  Alas, they would all be in graded slabs but I would be willing to forgive that this one time.  I have even seen one of these in person at the Cooperstown hall of fame.  I am pretty sure that is as close as I will ever get to one, much less owning one.

Here in the top row, you see more beautiful legitimate reprints of t206s, this time by Capital - courtesy of our friends at Renata Galasso - also from the 1980s.  But then they take a turn, as now sadly, our narrative will as well. Let's get back to those backs for a moment. 

You will see that they reproduced the backs nicely and also, wisely, put the line 'Capital Reprint' at the bottom.  In that lower corner, you will see what looks like legitimate looking aged cards and yet when you look at the backs, you see that there is some paper loss, right at the bottom. Hmmm.... What that means is some low-life imbecile tried to make these look and feel real, and to the non-collector they might have gotten away with it.  I picked these up at a show in a dime box years ago and the seller and I had a giggle over them.  He forgot where he got them from but I am certain he was not the perpetrator of the awful attempt at fraud.  But see, in the end this is why we can't have nice things.  This is one of the main reasons we have graded cards in the first place and have to hide cardboard away forever behind plastic.  Sure, any good collector would know these are garbage, but they were made to fool the layman into thinking they had vintage treasure.  They make me sad and I am glad they are now in my collection, free to be ridiculed for the trash that they are.  But they still look neat in and of themselves and I like to think the other reprints make fun of them when I close the binder, like some weird outtake from Toy Story.

Let's cleanse the palate with the opposite in size and stature.  These are 1971 Topps Supers and they are firmly ensconced in the oddball section of the hobby.  And they are some of my favorite things ever.

Once again, it is definitely a touch thing.  They are the size of a postcard and they feel heavy in your hand.  They are made of a thick cardboard that almost seems like they'd make moving boxes out of them otherwise.  They even make a neat sound when they smack together (though I don't recommend doing that if you care about future value).  Plus the colors and faces on these really pop.  Topps did similar supers in 1969 and 1970 too, but I think they perfected them in 1971.  Of course, sigh, they never made them again after that.  They've made plenty of big cards, sure, but these were not just parallels or fancy inserty box toppers or anything, these were their own set and a completely different thing. These eight will have a place of honor in my book of weird things.

I added these recently in a Facebook marketplace purchase, in fact it was 10 cards for $10 (a bargain at twice the price) so if anyone needs a Rico Carty or a Larry Dierker from this set, let me know and we can work something out.  If I were rich, I could just altruistically send them to you but instead, we'll have to trade like the unwashed masses do.

***

Post script: the title of this post refers to a very odd band, if you know them you know what I am talking about, if you don't you can click here (so so NSFW) and feel your brain melt for a few minutes.  Give it a chance, it is catchy, though, seriously.

Mail Call: Dog Sitters Aren't Supposed To Sit On The Dog.

       I recently spent a week dog sitting my brother's dog Stella.  You have seen her here before as this is certainly not the first time I have done the staycation thing with my favorite canine.  A lot of people think this is not a good way to spend your off time but I honestly cannot think of a better way.  I am not big on travel and adventure; the notion of going to Rome to see the Colosseum or to Tokyo to try to figure out a language that is way over my head sound like more trouble than they're worth.  Plus, going to Disney World with two small children, like my brother did this time around, sounds like pure unadulterated torture.  But spending a week of solitude in a large mostly secluded house with a very low maintenance and adorable yellow lab?  Pure heaven.  In fact, part of my motivation to reignite the blog came from my memories of writing curled up on a couch with the dog sleeping at my feet.

       The only really good part about coming home to real life is the big pile of mail waiting for you. Specifically the cards, the bills can go get fucked.

So let's take a look at the goodies inside these envelopes and packages.

       There is one Listia seller that I really enjoy buying from (he also has a dog as his profile pic. Coincidence? I think not...).  When I order a lot of 6 cards from him, there is always 9 or 10 in the envelope.  I like this both for the surprise and for the maximum efficiency of his mailing as this is about as many cards as you can get into a PWE before you have to add extra stamps.

Can you guess which card I bought this lot for?  Hint, it is not the Bobby Bonilla.  Oddly, it is also not the amusingly named Pete LaCock, who has a wonderful family history.  X for the center square if you knew the answer without clicking.

       There were some players I collect in that pile too.  That is a Frank Thomas I needed as well as a couple of Big Papis. Saints vs. Colts? I always like how that turns out. Also, that's Ron Meyer (no relation).

Joe Flacco has officially been categorized, the verdict is not elite.  But also, still not the worst QB to lead the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory. So he has that going for him, which is nice.

This year is an Olympic year so when I saw this lot, I had to have it to make a page.

These are 1996 Collect-A-Card Centennial Olympic Collection cards and I'd be lying if I said I had ever heard of them before.  The photography is nifty but you would expect that since the Olympics are pretty much the Olympics for sports photographers too.

       Speaking of collections, these are from the famous (and infamously overproduced) 1992 Sporting News Conlon Collection.

While this batch seems to make a tidy page, they are actually destined for other things.  A few name collections, a couple photo collections, and one is going with my Babe Ruth cards.  Your rudimentary knowledge of baseball history should tell you which.

       Okay, now things get a little more random.  That 1960 Joe Cunningham All Star card is bound for a small collection of cards that I will reveal, well, around the All Star Break (I bought that one on eBay).  That Rocky IV card is one from a set I never knew existed and captures one of the more ridiculous moments in a most ridiculous movie. Apollo Creed deserved better, dammit, and Rock should have thrown the damn towel.  I got that lot of Piazza cards for the MLB Debut insert that I didn't have but it included that UD Masterpieces which might be my favorite non-Met Piazza card. 

Lastly, I bought a set of cards on eBay that I ran into by accident looking for something else, but seeing it, I just had to have it.

        I am sure they are going for a Where's Waldo thing here, just another example of manufactured whimsy from Topps Opening Day.  While nine card sets are ideal, I don't mind ten when I can pluck one of the cards for a player collection - in this case, David Wright - and use the rest for the page (even if it includes a Chipper Jones card). 

I do love how busy this page looks and it will find a place of honor in my weird insert collection binder.  There was also a 2020 Topps blaster waiting for me, but that will have to be another post.  I needed something to cheer me up from missing that cute damn dog.

Leap of Faith.

       Eight years ago, I decided to start a card blog, this card blog in fact.  And for a few years there, I was pretty good at it.  I had a clear directive, I made some fun posts, got at least a dozen readers or so that seemed to enjoy the writing, and I even had an enjoyable time doing it.  Alas, lately that has not remotely been the case.

After posting regularly and then semi-regularly and then erratically, things pretty much dried up the last few years. I didn't post at all in the last year, not even my usual silly Christmas Eve post or anything.  A lot of things conspired to do this: life in general, my health specifically, photobucket pretty much ruining 90% of my work in the first five years of this blog, and then the anxiety and inertia of the more you don't do something, the more you don't do it even if you want to.  It's a vicious circle.

I still collect with a passion and I still read a lot of your blogs and honestly, I do miss it. I miss the trades and the silly inside jokes and all that nonsense. Even though blogging is so passe in the year 2020 and this certainly wouldn't be the first time I have promised to come back and do more posts, I am going to try again.  I have a lot of fun pages I have made - like this one of dudes born on February 29th.  I have so many opinions to share with you that I know you are on the edge of your seat to read (how about those Houston Astros, huh?).  And finally, the reasons I started this blog are still true: I love this stupid hobby and I want to share that with people who also stupidly love it enough to share it.  So *fingers crossed* hopefully this is the start of a whole new round of blogging and I look forward to hearing from you and bringing it to you. 

p.s. I do not miss scanning stuff. Ugh.

Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?

I planned out our whole day: First, we'll make snow angels for two hours, and then we'll go ice skating, and then we'll eat a whole roll of Toll House cookie dough as fast as we can, and then to finish, we'll snuggle.

I passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer, is Singing Loud for All to Hear.

RIP Le Grand Orange.

        Rusty Staub 1944-2018.

        Opening day is supposed to be a joyful day and instead it is a sad occasion this year because of the death of Rusty Staub.  Rusty was a great player and a great man.  He led many baseball lives: teenage phenom for the Colt 45s, expansion star Le Grand Orange for the Expos, World Series catalyst for the Mets, all-star DH for the Tigers, washed up fat guy for the Rangers, and then reborn pinch hitting specialist for the Mets (again).  He is also part of one of my favorite bits of useless trivia as one of only four men to hit homers as both a teenager and a 40-year old (with Ty Cobb, Ken Griffey Jr. and Gary Sheffield)***. 

Rusty is one of those players who I always use as an example of being not-quite a hall of famer (along with the likes of Rocky Colavito, Harold Baines, and Vada Pinson).  This is no insult what-so-ever; there is no shame at all in being in the top 3% of baseball players of all time but I like to imagine the hall being reserved for the best 1 or 2% at most.  And sure, there are players much much worse than Rusty in the hall of fame (Ross Youngs? Rabbit Maranville? Bill Mazeroski? I'm looking at you...) but there is a line that has to be drawn and it is a sad fact that Rusty would be on the outside of that line.  But few players in history are as beloved or will be missed more that they are gone.  I hope Jesus has a rack of ribs cooking for you up in baseball heaven.  Godspeed Le Grand Orange.


***It was not Griffey Jr., it was A-Rod who became the 4th person to pull this trick. Starting Nine regrets the error.