Well D.A.M.

    Looking at today's date, I knew it would be pretty easy to do a post today.  And sure, anyone could throw up a Brandon Puffer or Jung Bong (or Tobi Stoner or Josh Smoker) and call it a day, but I decided to go in a direction few would expect from me, I am going to praise a Yankees player as today is the 59th birthday of Donald Arthur Mattingly.

Mattingly takes up five pages in my retired player books, which is pretty much the most of anyone I can think of who doesn't have a dedicated player collection.  I think I might also have five pages of Mark McGwire and Nomar Garciaparra but I'd have to check on that.

I respected the hell out of Mattingly as a player when I was a kid, his prime years were right in the middle of my childhood obsession with all things baseball plus I was living in New Jersey surrounded by Yankees fans so it was impossible not to know all about him. From everything I could see, he was a good dude with a sweet swing who made the most of his chance with the team since he was one of the few young players the Yankees didn't trade away in the early 80s for washed up veterans.  So seeing his cards is like a time capsule of all those great designs and oddball issues; he was one of the big hits you got when opening a pack.  Plus Donnie "looked" like a ballplayer.  I mean, you don't get a name like Donnie Baseball for nothing.  The mustache, the flowing hair, the pinstripes, it all adds up to a perfect mystique.

I always refer to Mattingly as The Reverse Koufax in that he had five or six amazing seasons followed by five or six mediocre seasons punctuated by a career shortening injury.  Koufax was exactly the opposite.  His first seven years were mediocre at best and then he had five or six of the most amazing seasons you ever saw and sadly had to retire due to injury.  Koufax's career numbers aren't that much different than say Johan Santana or Ron Guidry's and yet the only way they will ever get to Cooperstown is by buying a ticket.  If Koufax hadn't built his legend and left us wanting more, he would never have had the unbelievable awe around his name.  Mattingly's numbers are similar to another player, Kirby Puckett, who also left early due to injury.  Puckett is in the Hall of Fame, first ballot no less, and Mattingly isn't.  It is one of the rare times a Yankees player has gotten shafted by the system and by our memories.  If you reverse his career trajectory and have him build that amazing resume peaking at his 1985 or 1986 season and then leave at 34 with a back injury, he's in the hall no doubt.  This isn't me arguing that he should be in Cooperstown, mind you, but it is a major part of his legacy that isn't always talked about. It is one of the more undeniable examples that perception is reality.

Alas, the one place Don has not acquitted himself is as a manager.  The Yankees passed over him for Joe Girardi so he went to Los Angeles and there, he made less out of more for five seasons and after they got tired of him, he's gone to Miami where most old people go to rot and done less with less.  The less said about all this, the better.   

If you care to notice, this page is nothing but fielding photos of Donnie Baseball.

The other important thing about Don Mattingly that always gets talked about was his defense.  He won nine gold gloves and I can recall more than a few big arguments, both in my childhood years and adulthood, about who was better, Keith Hernandez or Don Mattingly.  There is no denying that Mattingly could pick it at first base about as good as anyone and I am not going to disparage his play.  But Keith redefined defensive play at first and Mattingly then fit into that definition. There is something to be said about setting defensive standards; it is why Ozzie Smith is in the Hall (and Bill Mazeroski for that matter).  Mattingly played like Keith and in most ways as well as Keith at first base but Keith was the first and best one to play the way he did at first.  That is why I always say Keith Hernandez deserves to be in the Hall even more so than Mattingly despite his offensive numbers being lesser.  There is something to being the first one to do something.

***

Some further reading on the subject here.

Father's Day.

       Father's Day is not my favorite greeting card holiday.  Last year, I was feeling sort of morose and gave the five cent version of why and then was pretty negative to the cards I featured.  Well, this year, I have decided to accentuate the positive.  It is quite an exciting time in my family because my brother and his wife are expecting their first child in about six weeks.  Not only will this be the start of the next generation, it will be the first time someone will be happily referred to as "Dad" in this family in decades.  Needless to say, I am very excited for my brother and he is, well, he is scared shitless.  In honor of his impending paternal status, I have decided to highlight my player collection of his favorite player, Keith Hernandez. 

Let's start off with the nine pocket pages:

These are the faux vintage reprint cards.  For such a popular player, it sure seems like there is not a ton of these out there like some other players of similar stature. 

There in the middle you see some great before and after shots of Keith's mustache.  It was quite a big deal last year when he shaved it off.  In fact, his upper lip is still naked and it still looks weird.

See what I mean about not a lot of the new stuff featuring him?  I have a rare empty spot.

Let's get to the section with his playing days.  First off, a page of him on the Indians, a stage of his career that he and all of us would like to pretend never happened. 

The less said about him in a Cleveland uniform, the better.

Here we go, he's in the blue and orange of the boys from Flushing, much better.

The second 1989 Topps card here is a box bottom card, which is baby blue and alas, did not scan well.  Those cards really looked sharp.

The 1959 style card on this next page is from Baseball Cards magazine.  He looks pretty panicked that they picked pink for the border, I think he has a point.  

If it seems Keith has a lot of cards showing him fielding, you're right...and he should. He won 11 straight gold gloves and it is one of the rare cases where a player deserved every single one of them.  He was an artist at first base who practically redefined the way the position is played.

Keith was named the first team captain of the Mets back in 1987. If you look closely, you will notice that on the 1988 Score card he has a 'C' on his jersey.  While I have seen it a few times since, I hadn't seen that in baseball before. 

Hey look! A decent scan of a Sportflix card, you can almost see an actual picture there.

If you check out this picture, you'll see his 1986 Topps All Star card in the background along with former Mets teammate and fellow Met broadcaster Bobby Ojeda.  I know if I had a baseball card, I would keep them around like that too.

It kind of makes sense to have Keith Hernandez featured on Father's Day for me.  My father was a dude with a mustache who could kind of be a dick and Keith is, well...he's had his moments.  My mom liked dudes with mustaches and intimated to me when I was a kid that she also liked Keith's butt.  That would theoretically make that 1984 Topps card a favorite of hers.

Keith was traded from the Cardinals to the Mets in 1983 for two stiffs because of his love of the nose candy.  It was one of the rare cases cocaine did something good for the Mets. 

I have no idea where I got that 1981 OPC card, but I am glad I own it. You can see on the 1978 Topps card there that he is not 100% sold on the mustache.

I remember buying this 1987 Star set from a kiosk in the Paramus Park mall when I was 12 years old.  Why do I remember that so vividly yet I cannot recall important events of my life?  Or even where 90% of the other cards in this collection came from...sigh. 

So those are the pages, but since I am on a roll, let's go into the shoe boxes to see what other goodies I have.

Right off the bat, I have his rookie and the mini.  That mini is really well centered, considering I have seen that card in all sorts of alignment disarray. 

I also have a nice big bat piece and a very handsome autograph.  Not only is it on card, but it looks splendid; you can make out every letter in his name.  That is a quality signature.

Wow, I have a lot of bat cards but no jersey cards.  I should pick one up eventually so I can fill out the quad.

That Team Tribute card with Gary Carter and Lenny Dykstra is all sorts of shiny.  Sadly, the scan does not do it justice.  The quote they used for the Bazooka card is very amusing.  Keith is, of course, famous for his love of the night life to the point where he dated Elaine on Seinfeld.  I hope I don't have to explain that to you.  If I do, you might be reading the wrong blog.  

Some nice low numbered shiny here:

Those Pristine cards look fantastic, too bad Topps felt the need to hide them in gigantic sealed special holders.  I usually bust those out; I have no idea why I left this in its uncirculated prison. 

A couple of inserts of him on the wrong team again:

That is his 1983 Topps Traded card, which was featured in the pages, so I guess I have two of them.  Anyone want to trade for that one?

Finally, a few more nice inserts:

Those Topps Super Teams refractors are pretty much the ultimate in shiny cards ever.  Damn, I adore that set.  The Dynasty Card there has Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden on the front.  I remember having endless arguments in my youth with Yankees fans over who was the better first baseman, Keith Hernandez or Don Mattingly and who would make it into the hall of fame first.  Sadly, the unfortunate answer to that particular question is: neither. 

That's my Keith Hernandez player collection. There are some cards I'd like to add to it, but I think it is pretty comprehensive.  I now leave you with the immortal words of Ralph Kiner - "It's Father's Day today at Shea, so to all you fathers out there, Happy Birthday."

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.

Resolute.

       I am not a man who makes New Year's resolutions.  I am the type who is reflective and then active.  Those "resolutions" people throw around - lose 10 pounds, call their mother more, hike the Appalachian trail, etc. etc. - are just a set up for failure.  I say, if you look at your life and see some thing wrong, fix it; if you see something right, keep doing it.  It's not brain surgery.  I have been blogging now for 10 months and I like my blog.  I think I am doing it right and I hope you enjoy it.  I am resolute in this matter.

Oh, and because I should probably post something, here is a scan from the "unused file":

This is a page of Starting Line Up cards featuring Kirby Puckett and Don Mattingly.  I have no idea where the little plastic statues are.  I have no idea why I scanned this page.  But dammit if it isn't pretty cool: two of the best hitters from the 80's on some righteously ugly cards.

Happy 2013 Everyone.

Cleaning.

       It's been raining the last couple of days.  While I am not exactly Rain Man when it comes to the rain, I tend to mope around the house hoping my sinuses will stop throbbing when the spring showers come.  The rain plus insomnia led me to do a little spring cleaning.  I tackled some of the boxes I have previously shown awful pictures of; I delved specifically into some of the oddball memorabilia boxes, the stuff that is not strictly baseball cards, but more baseball card related. I will just randomly grab a few things and write about them, since I am sick of trying to figure out why I bought most of them in the first place or what the hell I am going to do with them.


OOOOoooo.... off to a good start, a couple of old school Mets pictures.  These are photographs, not cards or post cards.  I have no earthly clue where or when I got them.

The names of the players are written on the back (Al Jackson and Wayne Garrett) in different inks and handwriting.  I recognized the players, I do not recognize the handwriting (it is not mine, anyway).  These are still kind of neat and I will find a spot for them in my Mets books.  I need to catalog my stuff better, I'd like to know where these came from.

These are pretty cool too.  Some of you may have seen these before - they are from the late 70's - they are patches that are 2½" x 3½", so they are baseball card size. 

I do actually know where I got these from...a local card shop had about 1000 of each of these in a box in the back, so I bought a couple of them a while ago.  I am puzzled as to what to do with them and this is obviously not the first time I have been puzzed by them since they ended up in one of these boxes.  Should I put them in top loaders and treat them like cards, or should I find a garment and treat them like textiles?  I guess this conundrum is why there haven't been more issues like these.

OK, crazy food issue time.  It is a promo sheet of Ritz Cracker Don Mattingly cards from 1989...

...in fact, there are two of them...

...and I would be lying if I told you I didn't just look these up on ebay to find out what the hell they are.  My love of wacky food issues would usually be trumped by the subject being a Yankee, but since these aren't licensed, perhaps I made an exception seeing as the interlocked NY is nowhere to be seen.  I also found this in an envelope with these:

A Don Mattingly autograph from a 3x5 signature book.  It is not an index card but a page from one of those little scrapbooks (how odd is it to have this of a living recent ballplayer?).  Somehow, I imagine I was going to combine this bizarre cut signature with the Ritz Cracker sheet to make some kind of framed Mattingly collectable .  Or something like that.  Maybe, I dunno.  I really have no idea where I got either of these things.  Maybe I will now shift gears and make my own Donnie Baseball custom card with the cut signature, perhaps when a streak of arts and craftiness strikes me.  Sounds like a fun project to me.

Oh boy!  A box...a flat box with no identifying marks whatsoever...



It's a collector's plate.  Um, OK.  It 's all gold a shiny, even through the wrapping.  Let's see who it is...

Why, it's Nolan Ryan.  This is from Topps and it is from 1993.  I recognized the photo of Ryan from that card, but...

...the back of the plate clinched that notion as that is the back of his 1993 Topps card.  This thing fit perfectly on my scanner, which should give you some idea of the size.  I would love to eat my breakfast, lunch, and dinner off the all time strikeout king's face everyday from now until the end of time, but alas, that little blurb there on the bottom of the back says that this is a display piece and not suitable for food use.  Sad.  Yet it also says to hand wash the plate, so in a way, maybe they are daring me to eat off of it.  I just hope I didn't actually spend real money on this thing.

Let's go out on a better note than that.  I found these oddball oversized cards:

Well, I don't think they are cards, per se, it says on the front that they are pictures.  I don't remember these at all much less where I procured them.  I only have three of the packs and it says there are five.  I can't see if there is anything on the back of them.  Since they are career leaders, I assume there are some all-time greats inside.  Listings on eBay show that they are from 1983 and that they actually fold out, accordion style, just like on the front icon.  How freaking weird are these things?  I am torn, do I open them?  Tear them apart?  Sell them on eBay?  Does anybody really really want these things and has something to trade me for them?  I might keep the pitching leaders, though, no matter what, seeing as there is no doubt a Tom Seaver in there.  I just wish I could remember where I got them from.  See what happens when you don't organize and write things down?  Maybe I'll just throw all this stuff back in the box and wonder about them all over again 5-6 years from now.  Sigh.

One Week.

       Rest assured, this post is not about an awful, overplayed Barenaked Ladies song.  This post asks a simple question: what did we just witness? Last week, Josh Hamilton just went off.  Here are his stats in handy chart form:

H/AB		R	HR	RBI					AVG	OPS

14/30

10

9

18

.467

1.962

Zoinks!  That is a pretty good month he just had in six days.  Four of those homers came in one game, only the 16th time that has ever happened in MLB history.

I am not ashamed to admit I root for Josh Hamilton.  As someone who has had an issue or two with illicit substances, I know how much strength and effort it can take to lead an ordinary life, much less excel in a professional athletic endeavor.  While I never gave my life over to god (I am a devout atheist), I do not begrudge anyone who has.  I know how hard it is to live one day at a time.  Josh finds comfort and power in the lord, so, more power to him.  Of course, after hitting nine homers in one week, I don't know how much more power he needs.  And that Roy Hobbs card on the page?  That is no accident.  I have heard the comparisons in a few places and I am apt to agree.  Josh Hamilton could have been one of the all-time greats.  Then again, Josh Hamilton could have been one of the all time cautionary tales.  In a way, he is both.  We will never get to see what he could have done with a full career, but we are getting the pleasure of seeing what he can do now.

With apologies to Ken Griffey, Jr., Don Mattingly, Dale Long, Adam Dunn, and Frank Howard et al, I think we just witnessed the most amazing week of hitting in baseball history.  I have never seen someone so locked in and so relaxed about the whole thing.  I hope in a couple weeks I can write another post about the most incredible month of hitting we have ever seen, but for now, lets just go with what we have.  There really is only one person who can trump Mr. Hamilton's having the best week in baseball ever:

Ah yes, the immortal Johnny Vander Meer.  For all intents and purposes, an average major league pitcher (at best), yet for one crazy week, he was untouchable.  On June 11, 1938, he no-hit the Boston Bees at Crosley Field. Then four nights later, in the first night game ever played at Ebbets Field, he no-hit the Brooklyn Dodgers.  This is the only instance of back-to-back no hitters in major league history.  That is a pretty darn good week, if you ask me.  So tell me, what do you think is the best week anyone ever had in big league history?

Quick Trade with gcrl

      You may think that I have abandoned blogging everyday or perhaps my industrial strength ADD has kicked in and my focus has gone elsewhere.  Well, luckily the answer to both of those is no and no.  The truth is I have been traveling and, surprisingly, actually working more the last couple weeks (yay!).  How do you bloggers with a full time job do it?  I guess blogging is like anything else in this world - if you really want to do it, you find the time.

     Tonight I can't sleep, so here is a quick post about a little (yet awesome) trade with jim of gcrl (the man has a lot of ee cummings in him).  I find his main blog a most excellent read (I am a huge Ron Cey fan), but my trade query regarded his side project, oh my o-pee-chee! (oh mon o-pee-chee!), which is a fantastic salute to one of my own obsessions, the variations on O-Pee-Chee cards.  Now, I had recently found a nearly complete 1986 OPC set amongst my piles.  It was missing six odd cards; I can't figure out if they were pulled out of the set by someone (or even myself once upon a time) or if these really were the actual six cards that helped this set evade completion.  Knowing the cards he had on his site were all his, I figured if anyone in the blogosphere had these six cards, it would be him, or he would know someone who would.  After a quick email exchange, I was tickled to know that he had the dastardly six I needed:

Odd combination, don't you think?  Jim also found a few of my rookie all star needs.  In fact, he emailed me that he had a 1964 Jimmie Hall and I ignored it at first, figuring he had emailed me this information by mistake.  But nope, it was on my wantlist and he had read it and found it for me.  The man knew my wantlist better than me...much like Henry Jones Jr., this is why I write things down, so I don't have to remember.  And once again, it is nice to know the system works!  I hope I can find the time this week to get to the post office to drop his cards in the mail.  Plus, his generosity is being rewarded by an all out insomnia driven search for a few of his nebulous nine.

Jim also put a little note in with the cards, always a wise decision, since sometimes packages get misplaced or worse, get to the bottom of the pile...

...no jim, thank you!

Yankees.

       My absolute favorite team of all time is the New York Yankees.  I have been a Yankee fan since birth, when George Steinbrenner himself delivered me in the back of a Checker Cab outside of Shea Stadium in 1975.  My first onesies were all pinstriped, I dressed as Mickey Mantle for Halloween every single year until I was 18, when, of course, my prom tux was accented with a star spangled top hat. 

I was raised hearing all about how great the Yankees were, and I cannot tell you how good a person that has made me.  I heard about all the great players, players like Roger Maris:

He will always be the all time single season Home Run Champion to me.

Of course, Mickey Mantle:

The Mick's even handed lifestyle should be the model for all children to follow.

The ever classy Joe DiMaggio:

He was so humble, I can only imagine his blushing embarrassment at always being introduced as "The World's Greatest Living Ballplayer."

The quiet and reserved Graig Nettles...

...who kept his head and played peacemaker when things got out of hand.

The ultimate teammate Thurman Munson:

I mean, this was a man who stayed with his team through thick and thin and never let them down.

And the selfless Lou Gehrig:

The Iron Horse played every game, no matter what, and that probably made him the best hitter of all time.  And dig those Casey Stengel cards.  There was a man with the gift of gab who won wherever he went.

Speaking of mangers, I am torn over which Yankees manager is my favorite.  I mean, is it the very reserved Lou Piniella, who was the epitome of decorum on the field:

Is it the respectable Billy Martin, who always had his emotions under control and was so good, he was hired five different times to run the team?

Or is it Yogi Berra, who so gallantly stepped aside in times of trouble and was never the kind to hold a grudge?

I don't know, I think they are all tied for first.

Needless to say, growing up in the 1980's, my favorite player of all time is Don Mattingly.



I maintain my gigantic Mattingly collection in a series of hermetically sealed Tupperware bins, waiting for the day he is elected to the Hall of Fame and his cards quintuple in value.  It is a travesty that such a great player never got to play in the World Series.

The mid to late 90's brought about a renaissance in Yankee Nation.  I mean, at one point we had gone a whole 15 years without being in a World Series and a staggering 18 without winning one.  Lemme tell ya, growing up a Yankees fan was oh so torturous and painful.  Luckily, 1996 changed all that with the emergence of my second favorite Yankee, Derek Jeter:


I can't tell if he is more handsome, or a greater clutch player.  Maybe both?  If I had caught his 3,000 hit, I would have just handed it over no questions asked, too.

My other favorite "Core Four" player is Mariano Rivera:

Mariano is the best pitcher of all time and anyone who tells you different just doesn't understand baseball.

They were joined on that great 90's team by the always loyal David Cone:

The quirky and always reliable El Duque:

And my favorite pitcher of all time, Roger Clemens:

I cannot wait until 2013 when the Rocket is elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously and enters the hall wearing the mighty interlocked 'NY'

I spend most of my time building Yankees-themed sets, like the beautiful Upper Deck Yankees Classics:


And I am certain one day I will finish the 6743-card Yankee Stadium Legacy set, only the greatest set ever...


...for the greatest team ever!  We can all dream, can't we?  I'd be a fool not to.