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."

A Day Late and a Father Short.

     When I decided to start this blog in the dead of winter, I didn't have a job and my social life was a barren wasteland.  Needless to say, I had spare time to spare.  Now I suddenly find myself (mostly) gainfully employed and my social calender has a little more ink splashed upon it and my blogging has suffered for it.  While most people would blame my short attention span for blog abandonment, rest assured, I have not left Starting Nine on the side of the road, nor do I plan to.  I just gotta prioritize my time these days and this poor cardblog has suffered for it.  Oh for the days when I spent all my time in my pajamas waiting for the phone to ring and I had hours to sit and think of something to write about.

Anyway, yesterday was Father's Day, which is usually a rough day emotionally for me.  For the most part, I grew up without a father - and the brief time he was around was not exactly Ozzie and Harriet quality parenting - so having a designated greeting card day allocated to remind me of that fact is not my idea of a good time.  One nice thing we did in my family a while ago is we decided, since my poor mother was the only parent, she got both holidays in celebration....and we still all get her cards and gifts on Father's Day.  And since she somehow kept me and my siblings out of prison and the morgue, it seems the least we can do.

Baseball has a rich tradition of fathers and sons, so it seems like the perfect day to showcase the good the bad and the ugly of baseball families.  First off is the absolute epitome of father/son perfection, the Griffeys.

Ken Griffey Sr. was the first player in major league history who got to play with his son at the same time he was still active.  They upped the ante when, in 1990, they became teammates and got to play together on the Mariners for a year and a half.  Then they put the cherry on top of the feel-good story when they hit back to back homers on September 14, 1990.  To me, that is the alpha and omega of father/son feats in major league history.

Bobby Bonds is probably the best father who is also the second best player in his family.

Bobby Bonds was a player way ahead of his time.  He was a speedy power hitter who struck out a ton.  These kinds of players were all the rage in the 1980's, but Bobby played all through the 1970's, for seemingly every team in the league at one point or another.  He retired in 1981 with 332 homers, 461 steals and 1757 strikeouts.  Then, in 1986, his boy Barry came up with the Pirates.  Now, I was way ahead of the curve in hating Barry Bonds, so the less said about him in my world, the better.  If he had retired in 1999 with his 445 homers, 460 steals, .288 average and tiny head, he would be a first ballot hall of famer.  Instead, he took his jerk factor and multiplied it by 10 by injecting himself with lots of B-12 and ruined a bunch of great records.  Man, all I can say is, fuck Barry Bonds.

On the other end of the jerk spectrum is Pete Rose. 

I was never a Pete Rose guy, but I could understand those who were.  Rose was never the most talented player or greatest athlete, but he played his ass off.  Sadly, his nickname Charlie Hustle now applies more to his gambling and lying about it then to his play on the diamond.  His kid, who was on a 1982 Fleer card with his dad at the age of 12, is also a disgrace even though he worked his ass off.  Even less talented than his father, Pete Rose Jr. played for a decade in the minors and then got himself a cup of coffee with his dad's hometown Reds in 1997.  Sure, it was probably a publicity stunt, but he made it.  He played in the minors for another decade, until he was busted for selling steroids.  So both father and son have been in federal prison.  Classy family.

And then there is Yogi Berra...

...Yogi could never be described by anyone as anything other than loveable.  Everyone loves Yogi Berra.  Being a swell guy does not guarantee having a fine son, unfortunately.  Dale Berra was a fringe player, and there is nothing wrong with that, but he was also a junkie and a dealer, and in the end, there is something tremendously wrong with that.  I wonder if Dale and Pete Jr. had the same parole officer?

As an aside, let's cover my favorite Father's Day moment:

...granted, it was done 11 years before I was born, but Jim Bunning throwing a perfect game on Father's Day is pretty damn sweet, even if it was against my Mets.  Jim Bunning has seven kids, so he knows a thing or two about being a father.

Right now, the best player with the worst kid recently in the majors is probably Phil Niekro.

Phil was the master of the knuckleball and won 318 games in about 1000 years in the majors.  Plus, Niekro looked old and paternal even on his earliest cards.  His kid, Lance knocked around for the Giants for a few years and then tried to reinvent himself as a knuckler as well.  That didn't go so well.  He is currently a free agent and coaching for a college in Florida.

The best "son" in the majors right now is no doubt Prince Fielder, son of the titanic Cecil.

I always had a soft spot in my heart for Cecil Fielder.  He was a big dude who hit the ball a long way.  It took him forever to establish himself in the majors, with a detour to Japan thrown in there as well, and he fell off the cliff just as quickly as he rose to fame.  He was grand and larger than life and played ball like every game was gonna be his last, I always loved Cecil.  Then he showed himself to be a bit less jolly and more of a lunatic when it comes to his relationship with his son.  They are estranged, a nice way of saying Prince wants nothing to do with his dad.  So sad.  Other than the Griffeys, it seems all these father son stories are kind of a bummer in one way or another. 

Post script- Some people believe in the triplet (game used, autograph, rookie card); I like the quad (game used bat, game used jersey, auto, rookie card).  I have a great Quad of the Fielders:

I never did find a jersey card of Cecil to complete his quad, so I have Prince in there to pinch hit.  I also love that the autograph I have from him is from his Japanese days.  That bat card didn't scan well, it is actually quite shiny and the 1986 Donruss rookie of Cecil is a great looking card.  I was never one for the 1986 Donruss design, but the Blue Jays cards look great with that border and you get that great 80's BJ logo not once but twice.  I'll have to scan and bring out some more of my quads to help keep this blog going.