A Nightmare Deferred.

       If there is something we can all agree upon, it's that Bobby Bonilla was an unmitigated disaster as a New York Met. Oh sure, his numbers weren't too bad, heck, they almost look decent in and of themselves.  Problem was, that was, quite literally, the worst team money could buy.  The real issue was Bobby Bo's attitude was, um, not good.  Yes, he was in over his head in New York.  And yes, they never should have put the burden of being the alpha dog on him when he was obviously a second fiddle.  And yes, that was certainly not the first, or last, time the Mets would make that mistake.  But when they finally traded him away in 1995 (for "5-tool" prospect Alex Ochoa - although none of those tools were baseball skills) it was a divorce of absolute relief.  A most wise mutual parting of a grand error in judgement on both parties.  The biggest problem of all is, this is not where our story ends.  In a move about as baffling as any in baseball history, the Mets inexplicably brought Bonilla back in 1999.  The Mets wanted Bonilla as a bat off the bench while Bonilla wanted to play every day.  This went as well as you could imagine and he sulked his way to a .160 average and an infamous card game.  The Mets were then ultra-desperate to unload Bonilla for a second time.  And because it's the Mets, they continued doing stupid things.  If you have been anywhere the last few July 1sts, you know exactly what I am talking about.  And yes, the whole thing is very embarrassing.  But here's the thing...

This isn't the first deferred payment contract in baseball history, and heck, it isn't even the worst deferred contract in baseball history but somehow, it is the only ever mentioned deferred contract in baseball history.  Why?  Well, the fact that the Mets are an eternal punchline doesn't help; the media have just made Bobby Bo the personification of that.  When you are paying a hated 52-year old ex-player more than your two best players, it just makes for sexier headlines.  The thing that bothers me most is that this nonsense has leaked out of the grimier blogosphere and into the mainstream media.  I have had to hear about this shit all damn day.  So let's turn this around and mock some other contracts for a change.

When the Reds traded for Ken Griffey Jr. in 2000, they deferred a portion of his salary that is now being paid to him through 2024.

At least the Mets have been to the World Series since 1990. 

Okay, if that's the measure, what about Manny Ramirez?  The Red Sox are currently paying him close to $2 million until 2026. 

The Sox will be shelling out for those 2004 and 2007 seasons until Manny is 54. 

The Rockies played the those 2007 Red Sox in the World Series.  The first baseman for that team?  Todd Helton, who the Rox deferred a boatload of salary for in 2011 and will be paying him a cool million bucks a year until 2024.

I'd just like the interest payment from that kind of money, I'm not greedy.

There are active players still getting deferred money.  Ichiro is grinding things out in Miami in his quest to get 3000 hits.  He is still a serviceable 4th outfielder, really. 

Meanwhile, the Mariners are paying him, and will keep on paying him, deferred salary until 2032.  Mr. Suzuki will be 59 years old by then and much closer to collecting social security than giving his Hall of Fame speech.

How about dudes named Ryan?  Zimmerman will be rewarded deferred money big time a good 5 years after he retires.

Ryan Zimmerman, much like David Wright, is a beloved hot corner star who has seen more of the injury rehab clinic than the batters box of late. 

If that is too cuddly, how about the opposite end of the Ryan spectrum, Ryan Braun. 

Hell, Braun isn't even getting interest on his deferment, but he will get paid 7 figures until 2031.  I wonder how many specimen jars you can buy with that kind of scratch.

Quick...guess which one of the 8 teams who Gary Sheffield played for deferred a bunch of cash in his contract and will pay him $1.9 million until 2019, which is ten years after he retired?

If you guessed the Detroit Tigers, come get your prize - a purposefully overthrown ball from third base.

Think desperate teams are the only ones that defer money as a quick fix?  Think again. 

The Cardinals will be giving Matt Holliday a nice fat check from 2020 until 2029.

But what is the grandfather and Granddaddy of all foolish deferred payments?  That begins and ends with Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter.

I am not sure how Sutter even got into Cooperstown, but perhaps he spread around some of Ted Turner's money to help him in his cause.  The Braves have paid Sutter $1.3 million a year since 1990 and will keep on paying him until 2020.  Sure, Sutter made the Hall of Fame, but he earned that status with the Cubs and the Cardinals.  The Braves have and will cough up $44 million over 36 years for 112 games pitched, 40 saves, and a 4.76 ERA.  Nice work if you can get it.  But somehow, the Mets are the ones that are held up as fools for the whole Bonilla thing. 

Not Shown: Steve Young, Kevin Garnett, Rick DiPietro, Bronson Arroyo, Mario Lemieux, and most of the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks.

Trade with Dime Boxes.

This month has been declared the one where I settle all draft folder business.  This week I am focusing upon the trade posts that I scanned and set up, but for some reason, did not complete. 

Last July, I had a card overload, full of show trips, dog sitting, and sorting through a lot of new product that I had ripped but not collated properly. I had a great time doing nothing and as I read through blogs, I could go through want lists and help out.  Enter Nick and his blog Dime Boxes - The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey (sort of the blog equivalent of How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). I am a huge fan of this frugal and eclectic approach to collecting.  When I posted Topps series two, Nick let me know he was building the set and would like to swap to get my cards since I was not.  I checked out his wantlists and saw he needed a bunch of other 2014 stuff as well and I sent him an email and after the usual back and forth, I sent off a metric fuckton* of cards from his lists.

In return, a few weeks later, I found a fat and heavy jiffy pack full of Mets cards. 

That John Maine covers not only my love of Mets cards but one of my favorite collecting quirks. It is also impressive to find a Mike Piazza card I do not have.

This pack was loaded with oddballs and oddities.  I mean, when was the last time you got a package with two pitchers batting cards?  Not to mention a player taking photos card?

Plus there was two vague shiny Mets I didn't have, that 3D Bonilla and that dufex Murray.  The early 90s were a black hole for the Mets, but the cards were pretty sweet.

And the oddballs keep coming fast and furious here.  Food issues, box sets, Ted Williams faux-vintage and...

...SSPC cards.  How great is it when an Archives reprint is the least oddball of any card in a scan?

Speaking of faux-vintage, there was some Tom Terrific cards too.  And some Nolan Ryan on the Mets cards. I need to make a Nolan Ryan Mets page now that I finally have more cards of him in blue and orange than cowboy hats.

And low and behold, it's one of my all time favorite card sets from the 1990s, that hot pink Classic update set.  I have the whole set somewhere - I recall buying a bunch of those on clearance at Bradlees back in the day - I just didn't have a single of that Julio Machado card. Machado was a pretty terrible pitcher but he is famous for eating iguana and randomly killing a woman after a car accident.  Seriously, I couldn't make that up if I tried.

Not only were there great Mets cards in the package, there were some cards straight off my want lists too.  He sent cards for my Mike Trout collection and my Jim Bunning and Jim Kaat pages.  I am still torn if I should start a Trout collection but I am accumulating his cards anyway.

Also from my player collections were a couple of Jeff Bagwells and Reggie Jacksons, two of my faves.  That center Bagwell hologram is so beautiful yet so vague, I'd never even seen it before. 

There was so much in that package, I obviously ran out of patience for it and just did a Gilligan's Island "and the rest" on it.  Just from here, I see Diamond Kings, more food issues, more Classic, some 1985 All Star cards, 1990 Score Traded, a couple more Reggie Jacksons, and I wisely emphasized the 1966 Topps Dan Napoleon. That is a super card.

Nick put a friendly little note in with the trade pack and yes, I can assure you these cards found me well.  I am just sorry it took me so long to post this awesome trade.  Thanks, Nick!

*it's an industry term

Trade O' the Day.

       Kevin of O's Card of the Day (and about half a dozen other blogs) is my oldest online trade partner.  Way before this blog existed, my first online trade was sending him some 1965 Topps cards for his set.  After seeing that his love of the Orioles is as strong (if not stronger) for my adoration of the Mets, I started putting O's cards aside for him almost immediately.  It has now become an unbreakable habit.  If I am opening a pack or a repack or even if I am at a show, I just instinctively put aside Baltimore cards and when the pile becomes large or interesting, I send them off to Maryland.  When I am lucky, a return package arrives and a couple of weeks ago, such a package was waiting for me and boy is it a doozy.

There was some 1970's Mets goodness:

Granted I have most of these cards, but the Torre is destined for my page of 1978 Topps manager cards that is now almost complete and the Hodges will find a home on his player page, which is now finished.  That Mike Jorgensen was somehow missing in my collection.

There were some new Mets in there too...

I didn't have any of those 2012 Triple Play cards nor that Lucas Duda.  The 1993 Leaf Fernandez was also a new edition (the backs of those cards are magnificent). And speaking of the backs, that mini Strawberry's back is full of such teasing at how good he could/should have been - "After Darryl's final Mets campaign in 1990, his 252 home runs were 2 more than Willie Mays and 14 more than Babe Ruth through their age 28 seasons" *heavy sigh*.  And then there is Bobby Bonilla, the scourge of both Mets and Orioles fans.  I'll get back to that card...

Kevin also seems to mine this endless vein of oddball and vintage (and oddball vintage) football cards and sends me the Giants and Saints he finds. 

Yup, that is a 1960 Topps Frank Gifford.  Drink it in.  Next to that is a pair of 1969 Topps stamp books for the aforementioned Giants and Saints.  Simply amazing stuff.  And perhaps I can start a rumor that Gary Jeter is Derek's half brother and cause a sudden spike in the value of his cards. 

More 1990's football goodness:

I have precious few 1993 Score baseball cards and even fewer football cards.  I guess you can say I spent my senior year of high school and first year of college doing things other than collecting cards, so those are good additions to my collection.  That Stadium Club card of the Saints punter spinning the ball is great and then on the bottom far right is a Bo Jackson SI for Kids card.  That card is so perfectly early 90's, it scares me.  It will find a place of honor in my Bo collection. 

Last but not least, Kevin sent a little note on the best stationary possible:

He not only mocks the Yankees in it, he apologizes for putting Bobby Bo on top of the package.  Way to scare the shit out of me, Kevin.  The back of that card lists Bobby's hobby as golf and lord knows with the Mets and the Orioles, he did a lot of that after September.  I assume that card was a giveaway with a pack of Ultra Pro pages, man did anyone who bought that package get ripped off.  I will begrudgingly put it with my Mets oddballs and hopefully it won't show anyone the Bronx. 

They Arrrrrr Goin' For It, Matey.

       I do not like the sports teams of Pittsburgh.  The Steelers seem to think they are the best team ever, when before 1970 they were, quite literally, the worst team ever.  Six championships in 40-odd years is impressive, but forgetting the 40-odd years before that seems selective at best and delusional at worst.  The only thing I like about the Pittsburgh Penguins is their cute little logo.  Every other single thing can die in a fire.  And that brings us to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Pirates replaced the Cardinals in the early 90's as my most hated team.  Sure, the Cardinals certainly had more hateable players, but the Pirates were far more infuriating - quality over quantity, I suppose.  It was a joy and a comfort to me that they have been invisible for the last 20 years.  Now, suddenly, they are back.  After a couple of near misses the last couple years, they are loaded up and ready to make a run to and through the playoffs.

Currently, they are led by NL MVP candidate Andrew McCutchen:

He is a fine enjoyable player to watch, except for the uniform.  I look forward to 2018 when they trade him because he wants too much money (of course, it will probably be to the Yankees...yuck).

The embodiment of my hatred for the Pirates can be stated quite simply:

Most people hate Barry Bonds now.  Like some kind of music loving hipster, I was a Bonds hater way before it was cool; my dislike for him started his rookie season (1986) and never waned. 

I have to admit, I didn't always hate every single Pirates player.  Willie Stargell was pretty awesome.

He won the MVP in 1979 as a fat 38 year old.  That is a feat I can get behind.

If you have read my required posts, you know that I am also a huge fan of Roberto Clemente:

I covered this a while back.

The most striking reason I hate the Pirates, other than the fact that they stole 2 or 3 division titles from the Mets, is they gave the world - and more specifically the Mets - Bobby Bonilla.

This is the only Bonilla card I have highlighted anywhere in my pages and that is only because I love the look of that insert set.  The worst part of the saga of Bobby Bo?  Because of the Mets stupidity - or Bonilla's incredible business acumen *eye roll* - he will be getting over a million dollars a year from the team until 2035.  Yes, I am probably just jealous I am not clearing all that cash for doing nothing myself, it's just that the Mets make me sad sometimes.

So why spew all this hate for the Pirates?  I mean, they are gonna make the playoff after two solid decades of utter futility after all.  Well, I am not wishing them well nor am I rooting for them, but...

Today, September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  And while I think I have certainly made my point that I hate baseball Pirates, I love plank walking, keelhauling, sword fighting, ship ramming pirates.  So raise the mizzenmast and a cup of grog and tell your mateys you be lovin' them today...and root for the Red Sox in the playoffs.

Complete Set Sunday: 1990 Starline - Long John Silver's.

       In my last post, I went on and on about my birthday presents to myself, one of them being a repack.  In that rather disappointing pile of cards was four cards that immediately sparked my memory and yet, at the same time, made me say "hey, I don't remember these at all."  The cards belonged to the 1990 Starline set.  Now, I remember these posters being everywhere when I was a kid.  It was a very clean design and if you went to toy stores or shoe stores or sporting goods stores, they were everywhere.  I cannot, though, for the life of me, recall them releasing a card set of them.  On one hand, this makes perfect sense - I have never eaten at a Long John Silver's joint ever.  I don't even know if they have them in Jersey, to be honest.  On the other hand, I pride myself in owning oddball food issues, so I am truly surprised this set got by me.  I went to ebay and picked up the set of 40 cards for $3- shipped.  Plus it was sent from a town in New Jersey, so I got it the next day; practically instant gratification. 

The set came still sealed in the original packs that came from the restaurant.  I assume you got one with each purchase, meaning you'd have to choke down 8 different meals of fried mystery fish to finish this set.  Yuck. 

I was kind of torn how to handle this set.  As you may well know from reading this blog, I am kind of obsessed with having everything neatly fitting in to 9-pages (thus the name).  If fact, I have covered this particular predilection before.  A 40-card set does not fit neatly.  Even with the 8(!) header cards, this would be 48 cards, also not neatly divisible by nine (checks 3rd grade math flash cards, hey! I'm right).  So I looked at the way the cards were packaged and realized that these are eight pretty big stars.  Plus I had the leftover cards from the repacks to fill in the one blank, so voila:

They all work very well aesthetically and the loose Chris Sabo breaks up the color scheme.  I love it when a plan comes together.  

Let's look at the back:

Wow. That is pretty ugly.  You do get to see one card back, and it is not Chris Sabo but Glenn Davis (I like to keep people guessing).  I checked my set books before I decided to keep them wrapped to see if there was a set with a 4 or 3 card gap and there was not, so for now, I am satisfied to keep the set this way.  Maybe one day in the future I will get the urge to spring them from their decades-long plastic cocoons.

      Click here to see the checklist, if only for posterity and understanding.  And if you would like to actually see all the cards in the set, check out this post from Fuji, who covered them better than I ever could.  For now, this thick awkward page will sit in my set binders as a monument to the fact that as a teenager, I liked to get fat on burgers and doughnuts and not fried fish.