Laborious.

       It's funny, sometimes I sit down at the keyboard to do a post and the words flow like endless rain into a paper cup (to steal a line).  For example, I did the walk off one from the other day in no time - I had a "moment" watching baseball highlights on TV, and I sat down and wrote about it.  Also, the other night I had one idea, switched gears midway, and it all came out no problem...this post has been sadly underread, go look at it, I'll wait... Did I mention it's a drunk post? (I cannot become one of those people who can only write when he drinks).  Even some of the longer, more specific and involved posts that took a week or more to write came pretty easy.  But right now, I have been sitting here for half an hour looking at a blank screen and you know what?  I got nothing.  I understand that no one really wants to read about the writing process and even fewer want to indulge an author trying to work through writer's block by writing about it, so I am gonna shut the hell up about it and just grab a few random scans out of the 'unused' folder.  Maybe the muses will conspire for me better tomorrow.

This is a very recent scan.  I promised to show this page when I wrote a trade post after my near month long hiatus.   I simply adore the 1994 Fleer design, so simple, so effective.  And like most simple, effective designs, it works both horizontally and vertically.  I can't decide which I like more.  In fact, I might have to make two pages of these, one for each.  Looks like I gotta update the wantlist again.

I am not sure why I scanned this page, but damn is it cool.  Upper Deck loved their multi-exposure photos in the early 90's.  The Canseco and Valenzuela work best, I think, but the Griffey is probably the most famous one, that or the 1989 Nolan Ryan (not shown on this page).  The other thing that this page reminds me of is the recent State Farm commercial with Kerry Wood.  If you have seen it, you should know what I am talking about; if you haven't, go watch it, it's damn amusing. 

I also could not for the life of me tell you why I scanned this page of John Olerud cards.  I have two pages of Olerud in my retired stars book and I only scanned this one for some reason.  Very odd.  I recently got into a big argument with my brother about John Olerud.  It would help you to know that my brother's favorite baseball player of all time is Keith Hernandez and he will rant to whomever will listen how Hernandez belongs in the Hall of Fame.  My argument was that Olerud was a superior player to Hernandez and no one of sound mind can make a strong, legitimate case that he belongs in Cooperstown, so how could Hernandez belong?  Now, I am not even sure I believe this, but the argument really drove my brother crazy.  My instincts as the younger brother to constantly tweak and antagonize my older brother have not dulled with age. 

 I do know why I scanned this page of J.R. Richard.  I have been kicking around the idea of doing a series of posts about players who were either complete failures, or players who didn't live up to their potential due to unfortunate circumstances, or some combination of the two.  James Rodney here would obviously fall into the latter category.  If you look at his statistics, if he didn't have that stroke, he probably would have had a career along the lines of Bob Gibson or Jim Palmer.  He was that good.

Whoa, I actually know why I scanned this page as well.  When I was writing my opening day post, I wanted to use the word "moments" so I scanned both pages of Milestones and Moments that I have and chose one and threw the other into the 'unused' folder hoping to find another use for it.  I am racking my brain here and I can't figure out any reason I would use this page unless I wrote a post about "crappy overpriced crappity crap crap."  Hey!  Maybe I should write that one down, it sounds like a good idea.

This page was also scanned for the aforementioned opening day post.  I scanned two pages of Play Ball and used the faux vintage one rather than this page of straight reprints.  I wouldn't have wanted anyone to get the idea that I was hoarding a page of near mint cards from 1941 and just casually using it in a post without paying it any mind.  A while back, I went through a brief (and expensive) infatuation with vintage Play Ball cards.  Looking back, like any lost love, it was worth it, even though almost all of those cards I had are now gone. 

Last but certainly not least is this page of 1999 SP Signature Edition autographs.  At the same time I went through my vintage Play Ball phase, I also became enamored of this set.  It was brand new at the time and, being an autograph-in-every-pack type product, it was very expensive.  I probably bought the equivalent of a case of this stuff.  I would sell the really good hits to fund my purchase of more packs and boxes; it was a vicious cycle.  And while I pulled a lot of the high end cards, I never did get my white whale.  I don't own a Mike Piazza autograph at all (they are quite rare) and I think this is the nicest one of the few that are out there.  Once every couple of months, I still get (and try to resist) the urge to blow $100-$150 on this Piazza.  Until I do finally give in, I have this page of lesser stars and rookies to keep me satisfied.  You will probably see this page again since I am sure I could easily do a whole post out of it, but for now, showing it here means my 'unused' folder is empty and I have no more "writer's block" crutches to fall back on.

Even More Joy.

       Complete pages are what my collection is all about.  Starting Nine is not just a name, it's a philosophy.  These eight pages have all been finished recently and then added to their respective books.  Each one has its own story of who, what, where, and why and I will fill in the blanks if circumstances call for it.

I didn't buy much 2010 Topps.  I believe I bought a series one jumbo out of habit and it was not long after when I realized the bloom was off the rose for me constantly purchasing new product strictly "out of habit."  This is not to say 2010 Topps was a bad set, quite to the contrary, I rather liked it.  I especially liked the Franchise History cards they gave each team.  It was a good way to add a little wrinkle to the base set.  I recently gathered the doubles from that aforementioned jumbo box and wouldn't you know it, I had nine of the Franchise History cards in there.  That calls for a page:

Sometimes I go out of my way to find nine very specific cards for a page.  This is a good example of the exact opposite, making a page out of only nine cards.  I mixed up the horizontal and vertical and got a nice mix of old and new teams, not to mention a nice mix of different pictures. 

I think I have made a good point of emphasizing my love of dime boxes.  I am the guy who, when he finds a nice one, will pull up a chair and pour over the whole thing while at a show.  I take care not to block others with equal love of the dime box, but I have been known to make an afternoon of especially good full boxes.  I found one such box at the White Plains show over the winter.  I plucked 442 cards from that one.  That particular haul has been poured over and divided a few times, but there were some leftovers that I never got around to sorting until this week.  The following five pages come from those cards.

I love Topps Finest, but in my typical contradictory fashion, I have never really bought any of it.  I can't really tell if it is a price thing or a fatigue thing (Finest usually comes out later in the year).  Finest, more often than not, lives up to its name, at least visually.  They are usually very good looking cards.  I found a vein of the 2010 base cards in this box and made a pile of them.

I then, while still sitting at the dime box, went though them, found a nice mix of players and poses, and plotted out my page.  I do this a lot and while it usually illicits a funny look, it hardly ever gets questioned aloud.  Eventually, I will make a page of all the Finest offerings, for now, I have a lot of mid 90's stuff and only a smattering of recent offerings. Quick aside: I once bought a box of 1993 Finest for a (relatively) cheap price just to find a refractor - and, of course, hope it was a good rare one.  Oh, and I got a refractor...the player I pulled: Lee Smith.  Oh well.

Dime boxes are usually the dumping spot for a lot of unwanted base cards plus unnumbered and unautographed inserts.  While this is a sad end for some nice cards, it also lets me build pages I otherwise never would have even considered for less than a buck.  Much like Finest, SP Authentic is a venerable brand that I have long admired but rarely purchased.  This is a page of abandoned 2008 SP Authentic inserts, a handsome little set called Authentic Achievements.

I kind of like these little orphan inserts.  The scan doesn't show it, but the writing is all in a shiny rainbow foil, and the set itself is like 50 cards, which is large but not unwieldy.  Anyway, there were only about 12 of these and this was the best I could do with what I had.  While not the most aesthetically pleasing group of pictures, I think it fits with the whole nature of this set and the reasons for me finding it.

Ahhhh, the 2008 UD Documentary set.  This set has been run through the ringer so many times, I am not going to dig up the corpse and do it again.  Needless to say, it is one of the perfect examples of a great idea poorly executed.  So poor, in fact, that this set may have been the nail in Upper Deck's coffin in the eyes of many collectors.  I avoided this set like the plague.  I heard so many bad things, I never bought a single pack and never even asked any one about it.  In this dime box seemed to be about 1000 of these cards. 

Enough time has passed since the initial release of this horrorshow, so I took a chance.  I made a pile and, once again, carefully selected a nice assortment of photos and players for the page.  I purposely ignored any write ups on the front or back, knowing that I would be infuriated by what I read.  Overall, I think this is a very good looking page, as long as I never read a word and just look at the pretty pictures.

I need to learn to write things down.  I know how unorganized I am and yet I do very little to remedy the fact.  If I consistently wrote things down, both important and trivial, I could save myself a lot of headaches.  Every once in a while, though, I randomly remember something at the right moment and those little moments of synchronicity make good things happen.  While going through this box, I found a little run of 1993 Stadium Club stars.  Big stars.  This made me recall that while looking at my Topps books recently, I noticed that the only SC year I was missing was 1993.  Instead of rummaging through all my boxes to see if I had any, I now had all I needed to make a page.  Well, almost...

...I got eight cards from this dime box.  Look at the names here and I will let you decide which is the one that does not belong.  That card was found amongst my endless team piles and placed on this page to complete it. 

The nice thing about collecting your way is you get to make the rules.  Every once in a while, I get to make an executive decision about a page and that word is law.  We're still in that same dime box and I found a bunch of 1994 Fleer inserts.  These inserts were as understated as the base set.  But, much like that set, they work.  And while they all seemed to be the same, it turns out, they were different.  I found 6 Team Leaders and 5 Prospects.  Not enough to make a page of each, but, since they looked so strikingly similar, I decided to make a page that combined the two sets:

Both sets have gray borders, super imposed players, gold titles, and big colorful logos in the background.  If you just glanced at this page quickly, chances are you wouldn't even realize they were different sets.  The differences and similarities contrast very nice, I think.  It makes for a nice change up in my Fleer book, if you are even paying attention. 

The last two pages here have been a long time in completion, at least in my definition of completion.  This first one has been sitting in my retro book since the set came out in 2002.

Well, eight of those cards have been in that page for 10 years, that middle one was only recently procured from COMC. These cards are specifically a subset called the All-Time Series Team and it is from the 2002 Fleer Fall Classic set (a most handsome faux vintage set as has ever been produced IMHO). I have no idea why it took me a decade to complete this page.  The middle card was forever a random insert from this set featuring Yogi Berra and Thurman Munson.  I am not sure if I didn't like the three outfielders breaking up the nice symmetry of the two players on the other cards or if I just never pulled one of the two outfielders cards from this subset. Recently, I decided I didn't like how this page looked - unfinished - so I went online and fixed that. 

Last but not least is a similar dilemma I found a distinctly different solution to.  I have, since they started the set in 2001, bought some of the Topps Heritage set when it came out.  Heritage has a nice regimented sameness to it.  The inserts always have the same theme yet a unified look to the design of the year in question.  Since I am a sucker for faux vintage in general and nostalgia specifically, the Then and Now inserts have always been a favorite of mine out of Heritage.  But what to do?  Having page after page of the same kind of insert set would be dull.  Plus, there is always 10 cards in the T&N set, which ruins my love of 9 card pages.  Who do I leave out?  Do I leave out the same card for every year?  Not to mention the cost of accumulating all these inserts would be prohibitive to the overall result.  What to do, what to do?  Well, make a page with one from each year, of course. 

I had between one and eight of just about each year of the Then and Now inserts.  I didn't have any from this year, nor did I have any from 2001, 2002 or 2004.  So, to complete the page with a run of years, I went back to COMC and grabbed the 2004/1955 Herb Score/Kerry Wood card you see there.  Perhaps in seven years, if Topps is still marching the Heritage set out every year, I will make another page, including the missing 2001 & 2002.  Please check back in 2019 to see if I do.

***

Robert of $30 a Week Habit has claimed the 2012 Topps Stickers from last post.  The system works.

Jaybarkerfan's Junk Part 2 - The Lots

       Yesterday, we covered a card draft held by the esteemed Jaybarkerfan's Junk on his blog.  But Wes wasn't done getting rid of his cards, oh no.  He was also offering team lots.  Lots!  My favorite.  And Mets! also my favorite.  So you can tell what a fool I am for lots of Mets.  Basically, all he wanted was the cost of shipping for them, so how could I resist (spoiler! I couldn't).  So along with my draft pickings came four jam-packed team bags full of Mets:

Also, altruistically or practically, I cannot tell which nor will I speculate, Wes was giving some lots away.  Yup, just giving them away...so because I also have an odd enjoyment of defunct teams, I grabbed his lot of free Expos, because, hey, free stuff! (what's with all the exclamation points? and parentheticals? I guess I shouldn't have had that third cup of coffee).  Before we break down the Mets, lets  take a quick look at some of those Expos...

...and we are already in a cardboard happy place.  Overly colorful Larry Walker rookies, dust-flying plays at the plate, those sharp mid 90's Expos unis, fabulous early 80's record breakers, and Mike Fitzgerald, one of the four quarters the Mets gave the Expos for their Gary Carter dollar.
I love players on odd teams; everyone remembers the Mark Langston trade because it had Randy Johnson in it, but few recall that a) it even involved the Expos or b) Langston was only in Montreal for half a season.
One can criticize Milton Bradly for his shitty attitude all they want, but no one can deny his awesome name.  He'd just be an ordinary malcontent if he was Robert Jones, but instead, he was a colorfully named malcontent.
Last, but not least, is Woody Fryman.  I always enjoyed Woody's cards as a kid because he looked 150 years old on them, even when he was 35.  Now, Woody is 42-43 in that picture there, and sadly, looks younger than I do now at 37.  Oh the ravages of time.  Of course, Woody is now dead and so are the Expos, but they will both live forever on cardboard.  

OK, lets break down that Mets lot.  Yes, there was a bunch of junk wax in there, I didn't expect anything less.  When one is dealing with lots, especially team lots, you know that 12th 1987 Topps Keith Hernandez All Star card is waiting for you.  But there were plenty of gems as well. 

I can never pass up Mike Piazza cards.  Ever.  I always loved that 1998 Finest card, his white uniform just pops out from the dull silver background.  I didn't have that 2002 Ultra short print, I only have the gold medallion version, so now we've got new cards...yay!
As you may have read earlier, my brother and I went to Jackie Robinson Day in Philly last weekend.  Since all the players were wearing #42, the Mo Vaughn jokes came fast and furious.  My favorite: "Are those Mo's old jerseys?"  "No, they saved three or four of them and sewed all of today's jerseys out of them..."
My other favorite card on that page is Don Schulze.  Why?  Well, in 1987 the Mets pitching staff was the walking wounded.  Everybody got hurt one way or another. My brother and I went to a game in early August expecting to see Sid Fernandez pitch but instead, we got Don Schulze (they never said what El Sid's injury was, but we are pretty sure it had to do with the buffet).  And he got brutalized.  And for the last 25 years, Don Schulze has been a punchline in our family.  Sadly, that was Don's last appearance in a Met uniform, yet he got himself a 1988 Topps card, so he's got that going for him.

Look! Nolan Ryan cards!  In a Mets uniform! (more exclamation points? really?)

I have often said that I have more cards of Nolan Ryan in a cowboy hat than a Mets uniform.  While that joke is not quite as accurate the last few years with all the faux-vintage cards around, the 1991 Pacific Nolan Ryan set seemed to be nothing but Ryan in a cowboy hat.  I see now that the problem I had with that set is, I bought nothing but the second series.  Obviously, Wes bought a lot of the first series, because I got a boatload of Nolan Ryan from him...in a Mets uniform!  I got several of each card, so if any other Mets fans have the same issue I (used to) have, I would be glad to part with some of the doubles.  Plus look at the baby picture, jeez he was born with that giant head....I feel bad for his mother.

Oh yes, there is plenty more...

This mishmash of stuff does have a theme.  Gregg Jefferies, one of the great disappointments of my life, did get some wonderful cards in his day.  I love that shot from the '91 Upper Deck set.  As I have gushed before, I love double play cards, and Rey Ordonez got himself a few nice ones, that Stadium Club shot included.
I have a bunch of those Tom Seaver Baseball Heroes cards, but I have never looked to see if I have them all.  That is one I didn't have, so the answer to that question was "no" and now is back to "I don't know."
Tim Teufel was always one of my forgotten favorite Mets.  He didn't look like a ballplayer, he didn't move like a ballplayer, heck, if you saw his batting stance, you might swear he wasn't a ball player at all.  Yet, he was a pretty solid contributor.  He was greater than the sum of his parts and scrappy, to use two horrible cliches.  Plus, his last name means "devil" in German - he is literally the devil...how cool is that?
Ryan Thompson is another in a long line of Mets disappointments (Jeff Kent was shown earlier but not mentioned - they came together from the Blue Jays in the David Cone trade - double disappointment!).  But I have a large Ryan Thompson collection.  Why?  Well, besides the fact that you always seem to accumulate cards of your teams failed prospects in gross, I have not one but two friends with the moniker "Ryan Thompson."  If I had the same name as a major leaguer, I would have my business cards printed on my same-name player's baseball card. 
I am currently infatuated with the 1994 Fleer set, a set I never really collected or even really looked at much before.  I am looking to pick up nine cards for a page (I have 2 so far) and I am looking to put together the Mets team, this is two more cards towards that goal.

There were some minor league cards too...

As I get closer to acquiring all the Mets cards from major manufacturers from the last 50 years, I find myself contemplating whether or not I should start picking up minor league Mets affiliates team sets.  You know, so I can have something new to drive myself nuts about. 

One great thing about baseball cards is, even when you think you have All The Cards, you don't...

...there is always an oddball you have never seen, an insert from a set that you didn't collect, a shiny variation of a vague set.  And, of course, stickers.  That Strawberry is an OPC sticker, to boot.  Oh yeah, and that cool graded Johan belonged in the Draft portion from yesterday but somehow wound up here.  Ahhh, my wonderful organizational skills.

There was a large vein of recent Mets cards, which is good, because I am still filling in the gaps from the last couple years:

There was an abundance of 2011 Topps, which I think finishes off my team set (I'll have to check).  I didn't have a Lucas Duda from the 2011 Bowman set, nor the Ike Davis from Heritage, and now I do.  I think James Fuller invented the steam engine or the hair brush or something, I'll have to check that as well.

Last but not least are some more contemporary Mets:

I think I now have 2 of those Gold R.A. Dickey cards.  I also think I am now one away from completing the Golden Tom Seavers, I have four and I believe there are five of each player.  I read a lot of trashing of the 2012 Topps design, but it has grown on me.  It is simple and modern with a little elegance and a little pizazz.  It fits in nicely with the last few years of designs with its white borders and curves.  I think I prefer the 2010 Topps design, but certainly not those two...is there a more apropos indicator of how lousy the Mets have been recently than Oliver Perez and Francisco Rodriguez?  I think I better wrap this up.

One man's Junk is another man's treasure.  Thanks Wes!