Dave, Dick, and Dump Trucks of Money.

     Word came in baseball this week of two things I am very happy about, to the point that I am posting about it. 

     Firstly, that Dave Parker and Dick Allen were elected to the hall of fame. These two men are long overdue to be in Cooperstown. Parker was a great player with a sublime peak.  His great downfall to those pesky writers was he may or may not have enjoyed cocaine a little too much. But hey, in the 1980s, it was the law to do cocaine once you made a certain amount of money and after all, he was the first player to make a million dollars in a year. 

 

I hate to play the if/then game when it comes to the hall of fame, but if Jim Rice and Harold Baines are in Cooperstown, then there was zero reason to keep Parker out. 

His pages in my book are also a fun way to see how my brain works in terms of organization. That first page has him all in a Pirates uni - where he began his career and made his biggest contributions as a player (Stargell was the leader but Parker was the most dangerous hitter). That makes sense. He then was traded to Cincy after the Pittsburgh drug trials, so maybe that next page would be all Reds cards, well not quite. You see mostly Reds but also cards that match cards on the other pages. 

Parker did bounce around a lot at the end of his career, didn't he?  Have bat, will travel. I am glad the veterans committee, or whatever they are calling it this week, came to their senses and immortalized a great player while he was still alive. The same cannot be said for poor Dick Allen. 

He died in 2020 and he belonged in the hall way before that.  His numbers are the perfect illustration of why you need to "normalize" for era. He did all his damage in the 60s and early 70s, when pitching dominated the league. He also committed the cardinal sin of being an outspoken black man in the 60s when all the writers were stuffy old white dudes and Philadelphia was not exactly into loving the brothers. So his family will get to enjoy his enshrinement but he will not.  They did this more recently to Ron Santo as well, so I can't decide if this move is pulling a Santo or pulling an Allen.  The opposite is waiting until a player dies because they don't deserve to reap the benefits of being a hall of fame member; this is now pulling a Rose but someday will probably be pulling a Bonds. 

The second thing that happened is that the Mets backed up the dump truck full of money and unloaded it in the yard of Juan Soto. 

Fun fact: the two world series MVPs in Mets history also wore #22

This signing is obviously a very expensive undertaking for my hometown team to partake in and it is also unique for them.  The Mets usually make big trades for big players (Carter, Alomar, Piazza, Lindor) and then sign them to big deals but have never really signed the prime free agent for the right reasons. The only other time this happened was with the now infamous Bobby Bonilla and they did that as a knee jerk reaction to not signing Darryl Strawberry - when they should have either just given Straw the money or waited a year and paid Barry Bonds. And we all know how Bobby Bonilla turned out in Mets history.  But here they have signed the "generational talent" (they passed on A-Rod) to the biggest contract (and outspending the Yankees to do it) and it actually has a chance to work out for a change, both as a player and his fit on the team. I am hopeful, but with the Mets, it is always tainted with caution.

Life of Pie.

      Things have gotten a little, um, weird, this week for most of us.  But really, is there anything going on that can't be solved with a hot cup of coffee and a beautiful slice of pie?  Alas, my love of Twin Peaks will have to wait for another time (my best friend got me this for Christmas and all that will show up here eventually).  I also was going to post my American Pie sets but I checked and saw that I did already.  That left me with the very obvious choice of Hall of Famer Pie Traynor.

Long ago I made a threat to put together a page of ol' Pie here and in the subsequent five years, look, I actually did.  Pie Traynor, despite his wonderful nickname, is one of those hall of famers that I don't know much about.  I know he was considered the best third baseman in history until Eddie Mathews and then Mike Schmidt and George Brett came along...and that's about it.  I couldn't even tell you his real name (Harold Joseph Traynor).  So a little bit of card back reading and SABR and wiki research has made a ten minute expert in the life and times of Pie. He was considered a wizard with the glove.  He only hit double digits in homers once and hit just 58 in his career.  He did, however, hit 164 triples and while that is a ton, it doesn't crack the top three in Pirates history - Honus Wagner, Paul Waner, and Roberto Clemente all have more.  In fact, those 164 would lead all but five teams in MLB history, including some very old ones (The Yankees and the Giants to name two - I also learned that Lou Gehrig leads the Yanks with 163, a number I wouldn't have come close to guess for him). He is the only player to steal home in an All-Star Game.  He was a player manager for a time and resigned as manager after the Homer in the Gloamin' (one of my favorite event nicknames in all of sport) ruined his confidence in himself and the team.  I also learned that he grew up in Somerville MA (a town I know well) and his nickname came from a grocer who called him Pie Face due to his...love of pie.  I am not sure what I was expecting from a nickname like that, but hey, that'll do. 

Happy Pi Day everyone!

Hall of Fame Foursome.

Hey look! It's late January and that means the white smoke is billowing from Cooperstown and the new Hall of Famers have been elected.  I like that after years of obstructionism and hardcore posturing by the electorate, the lists have been constantly three and four players the last few years.  With Jack Morris and Alan Trammell also elected, you've got a six-pack of players to give speeches in July.  With Bob Costas and the Spink awark winner, have an extra cup of coffee before watching that one.  Let's look at who the writers opened the ropes for:

Vladimir Guerrero.

Vlad was named on 392 of 422 ballots (92.2%) in his 2nd year of eligibility.

Guerrero is the perfect example of the notable bias some baseball writers have even to this day about electing players on their first ballot.  Looking at Vlad's numbers: 449 HR 1496 RBI and a .318/.379.553 slash line, how is he not a hall of famer?  Yet he jumped from 71% to 92% in a single year to walk into the hall; what changed between last year and this one?  It's not like his stats changed or even got reexamined.  There is the infuriating layer of voters who will never ever vote for a first year nominee because of Babe Ruth or some nonsense but the secondary layer is equally as frustrating.  They decide that a player is good enough for the hall but not good enough for the honor of first ballot induction.  The bar for who is a hall of famer is much much lower than Vlad Guerrero and yet the same shit still happens.  While the hall has gotten better over the years about electing obvious players on the first ballot, that Vlad had to wait is why the election system needs to be completely overhauled.

Jim Thome.

Jim was named on 379 of 422 ballots (89.8%) in his 1st year of eligibility.

I am glad Thome didn't get the shabby treatment Vlad received and got in on the first shot.  The only thing missing from Jim's resume is a good sturdy nickname.  He was a jovial mountain of a man who hit baseballs really far.  612 homers and 1699 RBIs speak for themselves but his .402 OBP more than make up for what the uninformed would poo-poo as a pedestrian .276 average.  He is a lot closer to Frank Thomas than Harmon Killebrew. 

Trevor Hoffman.

Trevor was named on 337 of 422 ballots (79.9%) in his 3rd year of eligibility.  Hoffman is proof positive that voters have no idea what to do with closers and especially newer one-inning closers.  Goose Gossage had to wait 9 times to get into the hall yet Trevor waited 1/3 as long.  The convoluted and arbitrary save statistic has come to be exploited in the modern setting and voters can't wrap their heads around what that means.  Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman have similar statistics but saying they were similar pitchers is like saying George Clooney and I are similar just because we are both adult men.  I am not saying Hoffman isn't a great modern closer but with players like Edgar Martinez not in the hall, it really makes you wonder why Hoffman is.

Larry Wayne Jones.

Larry was elected with 410 votes out of 422 which is 97.2% of the vote in his first time on the ballot.  Usually I castigate the voters who leave off an obvious, no doubt, slam dunk hall of famer but in this particular instance, I salute the 12 individuals who decided he wasn't.  I will this one time admit a begrudging respect for how good a player he was but as a Mets fan who lived through the turn of the millennium, my default setting is "wow, fuck that guy."  I made this page of cards for the inevitable day he was elected to the hall and now I can put it in the book and try to forget it and he ever existed.  No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?

Hear Them Roar.

       I was as surprised as you are right now to see that I am posting to hear that last night, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris were elected to the Hall of Fame. First of all, I was completely unaware that the Modern Baseball Committee was even meeting much less that their results would be given a good month before the usual main announcement.  Second of all, this tickles me because they were two of the best players of their time and their exclusion was a glaring omission (and I am not even a Tigers fan). 

The best percentage of the vote Alan Trammell ever got from the writers was 40.9% in his last year of eligibility. This is pretty damn ridiculous.

I believe poor Alan retired and became eligible for the hall at the absolute wrong time possible for a player of his type.  While his career was winding down, A-Rod, Nomar, and Jeter were all the rage and spending their time destroying the cliched concept of what a shortstop could be.  Even though Alan spent 2 decades as the best all-around shortstop not named Cal Ripken Jr. in the American League, with the Big Three as the new hotness, Trammell's career seemed somehow lacking - even though his 1987 stacks up with any shortstop season of those guys (that he didn't win that MVP is proof that baseball writers in the 1980s were all huffing paint or something).  Luckily, it didn't take until he was an old man (or dead) for perspective to sink in.  I always feared that sometime in 2060, some future baseball historian would look at the beautiful double play combination of Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell and realize a horrible injustice had been done and their grandchildren would have to accept their enshrinement.  Now, all someone has to do is realize that Lou Whitaker's numbers are also very hall worthy.  The fact that he fell off the ballot in his first year is a travesty.

The best percentage Jack Morris ever got from the writers was 67.7% in his second to last year on the ballot.  When you get that high a percentage in your 14th year, it is usually practically a guaranteed springboard to induction.  Somehow though, in his last time around, he only got 61.5% and didn't get in.  Obviously, the paint huffing among baseball writers continues unabated.  





































The knocks always came hard against Jack Morris: his 3.90 ERA was terrible for his era, his 105 ERA+ meant he was only a slightly above average pitcher, he didn't have a great peak, he didn't win 300 games, his mustache wasn't as cool as Rollie Fingers' - the list was long and got even sillier than that.  First and foremost, I am a firm believer in looking at the legacy of Hall of Famers in context among and against their peers, though.  Suddenly, Morris starts to look pretty remarkable: 14 consecutive opening day starts, highest paid pitcher several years, started game one of the World Series twice and of the LCS four different times.  Not to mention that minor trifle of game 7 of the 1991 World Series when he threw 10 shutout innings and was the winning pitcher (I am pretty sure he would have thrown 20 innings that night if Tom Kelly had asked).  In short, he was an ace, a horse.  The guy who said "jump on my back boys, I'll carry you home."  The Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson type guy.  Those guys belong in the hall and I am glad they came to their senses and put him in Cooperstown where he belongs.

Three Bad Nicknames For The Hall.

       One of the problems with restarting the blog at the beginning of January is there's just not a lot going on, both in the hobby and life in general.  Luckily, along comes the Hall of Fame to give me something to write and rant about.  Four years after not bothering to elect anyone, the writers continued their unparalleled generosity by humbly decided to allow three men into their sacred realm. 

Jeff Bagwell.

Bagwell was named on 381 of 442 ballots (86.2%) in his 7th year of eligibility. 


I am a little biased when it comes to Bagwell as he is one of my birthday boys, born on the same day as me and the exact same day as Frank Thomas - May 27, 1968.  I am pretty sure this is the first time Hall of Famers have been born on the exact same day, and though my internet research didn't prove this for certain, I am going to make this bold proclamation.  I easily have as many Bagwell cards as I do Frank Thomas cards and it is a secret part of my collection that has somehow not seen much exposure here.  Expect a similar post like the Big Hurt's there with his cards before July.


Bags (or Baggy or Bag Pipes) had his election delayed as so many have due to unfounded rumors of PED use.  Given his amazing and amazingly consistent numbers, his inclusion in Cooperstown is long overdue.  And given his quirky batting stance and fantastic facial hair, he deserved a better nickname than a simple twist of his name. 

Ivan Rodriguez.

Pudge was elected with 336 votes out of 442 for a narrow 76% of the vote in his first time on the ballot.  He somehow overcame the incessant PED rumors (and out right admissions) and got in without years of nonsense.  I hope this is a sign of things to come. 

Rodriguez was a teenage marvel and a 40-year old wonder and pretty damn good in between.  He set the record for the most game caught, threw out runners from his knees, stole an MVP award from Pedro Martinez, led teams with fiery gusto and ended a playoff series about as awesomely as possible.  The man was unique and deserved his own fitting nickname rather than a recycled one, though he did do Carlton Fisk proud in its appropriation.

Tim Raines.

Raines was checked off on 380 of 442 ballots (86.0%) in his 10th year on the ballot.  Given the new rules, I am pretty sure this would have been his last year on the ballot before being turned over to the veterans committee.

Why it took 10 years is pretty mystifying but given the writers usual biases, Raines found himself in a perfect storm of "why players don't make the Hall of Fame when it is obvious they should."  Raines began his career in obscurity in Montreal, hardly a media hot bed.  He was great at one thing and really good at a lot of things, but he was not the greatest at that one thing so the other things got lost.  The things he was best at are kind of obscure and not very glamorous.  Plus rather than stay on one team for his whole career, he bounced around at the end and settled for being a role player on winning Yankees teams rather than compile sexy numbers like 3000 hits or 1000 stolen bases.  The strongest argument as to why Raines should be in Cooperstown is the simple, yet overlooked, figure of times on base: he is right *ahead* of Tony Gwynn, a sure-fire first ballot guy, on that list in practically the same number of plate appearances.  But they don't give fancy awards for on base percentage and they do for batting titles.   He also was the second guy to ever play on a team with his son, and you can ask Larry Doby what the Hall thinks of dudes who do things second.  He even got sick at the end of his career but it was this time, it was lupus, a disease that can kill you but also brings out the jokes rather than the telethons.  And finally, it all comes back around to the nickname Rock, which while it innocently brings an image of a strong, sturdy guy (which Raines most certainly was) that nickname probably did not have such simple origins.  I seriously doubt you will see it on his plaque.

While these are three very deserving men to be inducted, as usual, there are a few elephants in the room.  One is the awful fact that Bud Selig was elected a few months ago by the Today's Game committee, which was inevitable given the penchant for long time commissioners to be elected no matter what the circumstance.  Some of the writers saw through this slight hypocrisy and the votes for many of the PED poster boys went up.  I really wanted Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens to go in with Selig to add to his embarrassment but alas, they will have to wait.  My other issue is with how Edgar Martinez has been treated by the writers.  Follow me here, Trevor Hoffman has been on the ballot for two years and came very close to getting in this year and will probably get over the hump next year.  Closers have been all over the map on the writers' radar - some have to wait, some skate in - but all in all, they have been pretty generous to them.  The writers have accepted that closers are part of the game.  But what did poor Edgar Martinez do?  It's not his fault the American League instituted the DH rule in 1973 and never rescinded it.  And it is certainly not his fault the Mariners were too stupid to give him a starting job before he was 27 years old.  He just played by the rules of the game.  The designated hitter is part of the game and has been for more than 40 years.  They are real baseball players.  Seriously, you can look it up.  Would Edgar Martinez be that much better a candidate if he had played a mediocre third or first base for most of his career like Harmon Killebrew did?  It comes down to a simple question, if you were going to start a team and have a player for 15 years, would you rather have Trevor Hoffman or Edgar Martinez?  Exactly.

Complete Set Sunday: 1919 Chicago Black Sox Team Reprint Set.

       One of the many things I missed posting about during my long hiatus was the Chicago Cubs finally getting over the hump and winning the World Series after 108 years. Personally, I could not care less about the Cubs or so-called curses but I do have a good friend from college who is a big Cubs fan, so I was ecstatic for him when they won (I also mocked him as best I could from a hospital bed in 2015 when the Mets swept the Cubs in the LCS, but I digress). All you heard from the media during that 2016 run was how much Cubs fans were tortured and how Chicago hadn't seen a championship since 1908.  This always made me irrationally angry. Chicago has two teams last time I checked.  The White Sox once went 88 years without winning a championship and broke that schneid only a few years ago in 2005.  I have always felt a strong kinship to White Sox fans because it must suck to live in a vacuum like that where you are barely an afterthought in your own city, much less on the national stage. Being surrounded by the Evil Empire on all sides, I think Mets fans can sympathize.


This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the greatest teams every assembled, the 1917 White Sox.  That team steamrolled the American League, winning 100 games and then taking the World Series from the Giants in six games.  Alas, no one remembers that team at all because of what happened two years after that. I present to you the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, in "reprint" form.



This 25-card set (with one bonus Shoeless Joe card in color) is not so much a reprint as a retrospective set, done in faux-vintage form by a company called TNTL in Toms River NJ.  I have never heard of them before and they haven't done anything since, so I imagine this was a vanity or personal set specifically done by a Black Sox nut.  I think they were going for the look of the old E121 Caramel cards and they came pretty close.  The cards aren't standard size but closer to the size of those old ones.  This is a true oddball set and right in my wheelhouse. I think I picked this set up on Listia a few years ago and I scanned it right away and now comes its time to shine.



The backs have a little write up rather than a candy advertisement, and while not poetry, they certainly capture the feeling of the team and the scandal.  As you also may have noticed, since the cards aren't numbered, I put the infamous Eight Men Out together on the same page.  The stats they quote certainly paint the picture of a great team having a bad week.  The book (and I recommend both the book and the movie if you haven't indulged yourself) isn't quite a perfect history as much as it is a JFK-esque what-if group of scenarios.  I personally believe in the grey area story that the team threw the first couple games but never got paid past the first game, but by then it was too late for them to mount a comeback.  We'll probably never know the whole story since everyone involved in the scandal is long dead and the incident makes for a great and sad piece of baseball lore.



The Black Sox are one of those issues that brings out many passions in people.  Did Joe Jackson really understand what was going on?  Did Buck Weaver deserve the treatment he got since he didn't take any money?  Was the tight-fisted ways of Charles Comiskey as much to blame for the scandal as the players themselves?  I see wonderful parallels right now in the whole Steroid Era kerfuffle that has been going on for the last decade or so.  The hall of fame just elected Bud Selig, who pretty much stood by as the owners profited from the players at the time and then decided to "get tough" when the winds of opinion changed.  Those players made the owners countless millions and made fans happy but then got vilified after the fact, a post hoc nightmare if ever there was one.  So now that Selig has been enshrined, I would like to see the Bondses and Clemenses and McGwires get their chance to go in too.  And with that said, you can then deduce that I also think that if Charles Comiskey is in the Hall of Fame as an owner, then Shoeless Joe Jackson should finally be allowed in as a player, warts and all.

Fork In The Road To Immortality.

       Last night, it was announced that two men had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza.  I am going to get my favorite quirky statistic about this out of the way first:  Junior is the first number one draft pick to be chosen, and as a 62nd round pick, 1390th overall, Piazza is (by far) the lowest draft pick ever granted membership to Cooperstown.


Ken Griffey Jr.


Ken Griffey Jr. set a record with 99.3% of the vote, getting named on 437 out of 440 of the ballots. Whoever the three dudes are who decided not to vote for him should be publicly shamed, stripped of their vote, and kept in the stocks on Main Street in Cooperstown during induction weekend.



I have shown my pages of Griffey before so I dove into the boxes for his inserts for this occasion.  Above you see two of my favorite food issue oddballs of all time.  Not that getting cards out of Oreos or Ritz Crackers is all that bizarre and they certainly are as plain looking as possible.  No, I am tickled every time I look at the back of the cards and see the height and weight measurements.  Every. Damn. Time. I am a simple man.



Griffey is one of the saddest "What Might Have Been" baseball stories of all time.  Yet, he is also one of the most complete and beloved figures the game has ever known.  The only people who didn't like Junior are really old curmudgeonly writers back in 1991 that hated that he smiled and wore his hat backward.  How dare a man have fun playing a child's game!  Luckily, all those men are either retired or dead now. 



It is hard to imagine that had Griffey stayed healthy in the second part of his career, we wouldn't be celebrating Bonds as the all-time home run king.  With the Reds over 8-plus years, he missed 480+ games with various injuries and given the conservative average of a homer every 4 games, that adds about 120 homers to his total.  As it is, he hit 630 dingers which is good for 6th on the all-time list.


I have collected and cherished Griffey's cards since he hit the scene in 1989.  I am not saying I was ever a supercollector or anything, but I do seem to have a lot of his cards laying around and I seem to find more every time I look.  Given his status and statistics, Ken Griffey Jr.'s election to the hall of fame is the very definition of a no-brainer.

***

Mike Piazza.


Mike Piazza was also a no-brainer choice for the Hall of Fame, alas it took the BBWAA four freaking years to find their brains.  He was elected with 83.0% of the vote, named on 365 of 440 ballots. 



I wish I could claim some kind of nonpartisan point of view when it comes to Mike Piazza, but alas I cannot. He has been my favorite player since May 22, 1998 when he was traded to the Mets.  He had been someone I admired before then but the moment I found out he was a Met, it was head-over-heels, love-at-first-sight, you-and-me-forever.  There had never really ever been a player like this in team history and unfortunately, there hasn't been one since.   



Unlike Junior, I have been a crazed Piazza Supercollector since that day.  What you are seeing right now is just the game-used and fancy encapsulated cards I own of him.  I have done huge player collection posts before, but doing ALL of my Piazza cards at once will require 102 pages and another 1800+ inserts in top loaders to be sorted and scanned - not to mention random assorted memorabilia like lunch boxes, figures, 8x10s, bobbleheads, etc.  Yeah, I should have anticipated this day and had it ready but that just didn't happen after a few years of crushing January disappointment.  You will have to wait until July and his actual enshrinement for me to tackle this massive project.  For now, you'll have to make do with the 15 scans here of some high end goodies. Like that Leather Bound card above, which is one of my whales; not only is it a rare type of relic, but it has a lace hole right in the middle of it.  Just a wonderfully neat card.



I never got into the eTopps craze much but I did snag in hand versions of Piazza's cards, some of the very few encapsulated cards I own that have stayed in capsule.



Here you see some later bat cards of him as not-a-Met.  Everyone seems to be arguing if he should go into the Hall as a Dodger or a Met - and joking that he should go in as a Marlin - yet no one has referenced his last couple years on the west coast as a Padre and Athletic.  My view is simple: he made his legend as a Dodger and cemented that legacy as a Met so it is an absolute toss up as to which is appropriate as either one could be (see Jimmie Foxx).  In a case like this, it should then come down to the player's preference and Mike has made it clear he is far more fond of his time as a Mets player and of the Mets fans and organization.  That should end the discussion right there. (Note: as I was writing this post, it was announced that he would, in fact, go in as a Met)



Mike Piazza's offensive statistics are overwhelming.  396 home runs as a catcher - most all time (427 overall).  Highest single season batting average for a catcher - .362 in 1997.  Five 100 RBI seasons in a row - 1996 to 2000 - and an average of over 100 RBIs over 10 years - 1993 to 2002.  Highest lifetime batting average in Los Angeles Dodgers history - .331.  Ten Silver Slugger awards.  Twelve time All Star. 



Conversely, he is known as a horrible defensive player.  This reputation is way way waaaay out of line.  Yes, it is undeniable that he did not have the best arm in the world; his career caught stealing percentage was 23% when the league average was 31%.  But remember that he played in the most drastic offensive slugging era ever so the stolen base was not the weapon it was in, say, Johnny Bench's day and therefore Piazza's arm was not a grand liability.  If his defense was truly as terrible as it is reputed, he would have been moved to 1st base in 1995 and not 2005.  Early in his career, he did lead the league in passed ball twice.  But he took great pride in and worked very hard to improve his defense.  By the year 2000, he led the league in fielding percentage for catchers - bet you didn't know that.  People somehow forget that throwing is not the only thing a catcher does.  Other than his bad arm, all he did was frame pitches well, go back on pop ups quickly and vigilantly, call a game brilliantly, and get down and block pitches in the dirt like a fiend.  And that's not me talking, that is Bobby Valentine his manager.



Enough about the player, let's focus on some of these nifty cards.  Mike's trade to the Mets coincided with the explosion of game used cards, so just about all the stuff he has is in Mets gear.  This makes me very happy (and broke).  I usually only pick up the very best or most interesting relic cards of a player to have one or two to represent him, but I have been a little more loose with that rule when it comes to Piazza.



This scan shows a rare hat patch card and a jersey card that is just filthy and I mean filthy in the true real 'dirty' meaning of the word, it is the filthiest jersey card I have ever seen.  It also shows four manufactured patch cards, including one that I gave quite a famous write up.



There are hundreds of Jersey relic cards of Mike Piazza, of that I am certain and I somehow have had the restraint to only own a couple dozen.  I try to keep it, like the above, to interesting subjects, photos, or even cut outs to showcase the swatch.  There is also a piece in this scan with a teal stripe on the piece, meaning it came from his week long side-trip as a Marlin.  One marvelous little statistical blip in his line is that he hit a triple for all five teams he suited up for, including one of the five total hits he got as a Florida Marlin.



Here are five of the most interesting die cut jersey cards and one of the most staid and plain looking one's in my collection.  The piece is even gray.  That is more than made up for by the round, square, crownish, cartoonish nature of the other cards. 



I have not one, not two, but three of his swatches from the Topps 206 sets of the early aughts.  I think there are bat cards from this set too but I like that these cards showcase the front and back of the pieces, something very few cards actually do, and that is more interesting with the jerseys.  They are color coded to each series of that vast set.  I often wonder if they would fall apart if I took them out of their plastic holders...alas, I am too chicken to test this out.



Jeez, I just realized, seeing them all laid out like this, that I might have enough jersey cards to sew together an actual patchwork Mike Piazza jersey.  But then I would have to pick up some of the rare button cards from ten years ago that were all the rage and I refuse to spend that much money on anything less than a used car. 



Now we've reached some multiple swatch cards.  Here you see him paired twice with battery mate Al Leiter, who was very excited on MLB Network about Mike's election.  There's also one with Mo Vaughn from that one year the Mets thought Mo Vaughn was going to be good for them.  There is also three cards with my all-time all time favorite player, Gary Carter.  Chances are if you play for the Mets and play catcher, you are going to get my attention/affection.  I also love the one there with Piazza, Carter, and Rickey Henderson - that is three Hall of Famers on one card.  I think that is a first for my collection.

Last but not least are a few other multiple player swatch cards below.  One of them is a Mets themed one, the others with various guys like Carlton Fisk (makes sense), Pudge Rodriguez and Jason Kendall (sure, okay), and Sammy Sosa (um, what?).  By my count, that is 73 game used cards, 4 fake manu-patch cards, and 3 magic encapsulated cards.  I am insane - and remember I sold off a lot more than I have bought in recent years.



Each year Mike did not get elected to Cooperstown, I promised to write a scathing diatribe denouncing this folly.  And every year, I got so mad trying to put together this post that I abandoned it in self-righteous frustration.  I am now so pleased with the result that I am going to forgive and forget and let it all go.  Mike Piazza has been given his rightful place in Baseball's Hall of Fame, what is there to be upset about?

Hallelujah.

       About four years later than I should have been, I am finally able to go from this...


To this...



It is a subtle but important distinction.  And if you know anything about me, you know that I am very particular where my binders are on the shelf, so this is a big deal both historically and aesthetically.  There will obviously be more to come about this later.

Hall of Fame Gif.

       Sadly, my life is still a little topsy-turvy for regular posting and with this weekend being Hall of Fame induction weekend and all, you know I wish I had the time and inclination to spout off on my favorite rant subject.  Alas, I doubt I will get any, so in the meantime, enjoy this gif of all the members of Cooperstown in chronological order.



And who knows, maybe you'll get a surprise tomorrow.  Or maybe I'll sleep like a dead person and not make it to my computer.  My life is quite an array of possibilities.