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

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.