Do You Believe in Miracles?

 Kind of.

This package was waiting for me on my doorstep yesterday:

yes, that is a 1952 Topps #1 Andy Pafko along with 1989 LJN Baseball Talk. Fun Times!

If you cannot read that tiny little print on the label, it came from the glorious Seattle suburb of Redmond WA from a company you might know, COMC.  Remember them?  Well, I requested this package in February and it was scheduled for a May delivery - I doubt you need a calendar to see what today is but I can assure you, it is not May.  I am not saying I completely gave up on ever seeing it but their pandemic combination of horrible customer service and empty promises made me wonder if 2022 was out of the question.  But it did arrive.  They have answered emails faster of late and it was very well packaged when I got it.  You can see a nice tease of the stuff that was on top and I am going to spend the weekend sorting and enjoying the 900+ cards that are inside.  I am not here to praise COMC or bury them right now since the world is still knee deep in madness but I will say to anyone reading this wondering if they will ever see their package: miracles do happen.

Just Because.

Keith Hernandez is the only one mentioned in this graphic three times, a minor upset.  I've always felt Rollie Fingers had the definitive mustache in the 20th century.  What do you think?

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."

Laborious.

       It's funny, sometimes I sit down at the keyboard to do a post and the words flow like endless rain into a paper cup (to steal a line).  For example, I did the walk off one from the other day in no time - I had a "moment" watching baseball highlights on TV, and I sat down and wrote about it.  Also, the other night I had one idea, switched gears midway, and it all came out no problem...this post has been sadly underread, go look at it, I'll wait... Did I mention it's a drunk post? (I cannot become one of those people who can only write when he drinks).  Even some of the longer, more specific and involved posts that took a week or more to write came pretty easy.  But right now, I have been sitting here for half an hour looking at a blank screen and you know what?  I got nothing.  I understand that no one really wants to read about the writing process and even fewer want to indulge an author trying to work through writer's block by writing about it, so I am gonna shut the hell up about it and just grab a few random scans out of the 'unused' folder.  Maybe the muses will conspire for me better tomorrow.

This is a very recent scan.  I promised to show this page when I wrote a trade post after my near month long hiatus.   I simply adore the 1994 Fleer design, so simple, so effective.  And like most simple, effective designs, it works both horizontally and vertically.  I can't decide which I like more.  In fact, I might have to make two pages of these, one for each.  Looks like I gotta update the wantlist again.

I am not sure why I scanned this page, but damn is it cool.  Upper Deck loved their multi-exposure photos in the early 90's.  The Canseco and Valenzuela work best, I think, but the Griffey is probably the most famous one, that or the 1989 Nolan Ryan (not shown on this page).  The other thing that this page reminds me of is the recent State Farm commercial with Kerry Wood.  If you have seen it, you should know what I am talking about; if you haven't, go watch it, it's damn amusing. 

I also could not for the life of me tell you why I scanned this page of John Olerud cards.  I have two pages of Olerud in my retired stars book and I only scanned this one for some reason.  Very odd.  I recently got into a big argument with my brother about John Olerud.  It would help you to know that my brother's favorite baseball player of all time is Keith Hernandez and he will rant to whomever will listen how Hernandez belongs in the Hall of Fame.  My argument was that Olerud was a superior player to Hernandez and no one of sound mind can make a strong, legitimate case that he belongs in Cooperstown, so how could Hernandez belong?  Now, I am not even sure I believe this, but the argument really drove my brother crazy.  My instincts as the younger brother to constantly tweak and antagonize my older brother have not dulled with age. 

 I do know why I scanned this page of J.R. Richard.  I have been kicking around the idea of doing a series of posts about players who were either complete failures, or players who didn't live up to their potential due to unfortunate circumstances, or some combination of the two.  James Rodney here would obviously fall into the latter category.  If you look at his statistics, if he didn't have that stroke, he probably would have had a career along the lines of Bob Gibson or Jim Palmer.  He was that good.

Whoa, I actually know why I scanned this page as well.  When I was writing my opening day post, I wanted to use the word "moments" so I scanned both pages of Milestones and Moments that I have and chose one and threw the other into the 'unused' folder hoping to find another use for it.  I am racking my brain here and I can't figure out any reason I would use this page unless I wrote a post about "crappy overpriced crappity crap crap."  Hey!  Maybe I should write that one down, it sounds like a good idea.

This page was also scanned for the aforementioned opening day post.  I scanned two pages of Play Ball and used the faux vintage one rather than this page of straight reprints.  I wouldn't have wanted anyone to get the idea that I was hoarding a page of near mint cards from 1941 and just casually using it in a post without paying it any mind.  A while back, I went through a brief (and expensive) infatuation with vintage Play Ball cards.  Looking back, like any lost love, it was worth it, even though almost all of those cards I had are now gone. 

Last but certainly not least is this page of 1999 SP Signature Edition autographs.  At the same time I went through my vintage Play Ball phase, I also became enamored of this set.  It was brand new at the time and, being an autograph-in-every-pack type product, it was very expensive.  I probably bought the equivalent of a case of this stuff.  I would sell the really good hits to fund my purchase of more packs and boxes; it was a vicious cycle.  And while I pulled a lot of the high end cards, I never did get my white whale.  I don't own a Mike Piazza autograph at all (they are quite rare) and I think this is the nicest one of the few that are out there.  Once every couple of months, I still get (and try to resist) the urge to blow $100-$150 on this Piazza.  Until I do finally give in, I have this page of lesser stars and rookies to keep me satisfied.  You will probably see this page again since I am sure I could easily do a whole post out of it, but for now, showing it here means my 'unused' folder is empty and I have no more "writer's block" crutches to fall back on.

Homemade.

       As I have mentioned before, I have a deep adoration for oddball cards and food issues.  It would seem that a very specific aspect of that particular kind of card has been fodder for some recent debate.  I'd be lying if I didn't often look at other posts and say "me too!" and I am going to do that here, but add a twist at the end.

Here is a page of random unsorted retired players that I have in a binder but have not fully organized nor integrated into the rest of my collection:

I am going to do something that haven't done on this blog (I don't think) and just focus in on three of the cards on that page:

What you see are three old school food issues cut off the sides and/or backs of boxes, all to varying success.  I am pretty sure whoever snipped off that 1976 Hostess Bake McBride sneezed somewhere near the bottom.  How else do you explain the sudden and inexplicable chunk taken out of the lower right corner?  That 1962 Post Felipe Alou has been well loved all around.  It was cut with B+ precision, but then obviously put into the kids' back pocket.  Those are some impressive creases, even by my low standards.  That 1961 Jim Coates is cut rather well, but it is the back thatI find much more interesting...

...I believe that is a baseball rubdown from one of the 1960's oddball sets floating around (someone with a better knowledge of the 60's could help me out on that one), a rather ingenious use of them, by the way, to fill in the empty brown cardboard void.  That is why that random Yankees common has remained in my collection all these years.

But those three cards are before my time.  How did I do as a kid when the scissors were allowed out of the drawer (there was a nasty incident in my extreme youth where I played "haircut" with my little sister, thus eternally banning me from using scissors without permission.  Even as an adult I find myself asking permission to use the scissors, rather than asking where they are.  But I digress...)  The following cards have been in my collection for decades and each and every one of them were cut off of their cardboard panels by yours truly:

Not too bad, if I do say so myself.  The top two 1987 Fleer cards are box bottom cards.  The Grote is a 1976 Hostess card that I cut off of a panel I bought at a show in the late 80's.  That one is the only one with some suspect trimming.  It would seem that I had the same issue with a lower corner as the aforementioned Bake McBride card, though quite not to the same extreme.  Perhaps there is something about those cards that just begs for poor trimming.  The 1986 Topps Gooden is also a box bottom card - very sharp.  The other four drakes cards are slightly smaller by nature, not by butcher.  I included that Gooden Glossy All Star card as a visual guide of a standard issue size card (I am also amused that the two pictures on the 1986 Drakes and that card are practically identical).  So, perhaps it is cheap 1970's cardboard that makes for bad card cutting, not over-caffeinated or under-intelligent children.  Oh, and it seems I have doubles of that 1986 Drakes Gooden in the middle, so if you want/need/desire that card, drop me an email. 

So where was this twist I promised?  Well, I have done other things with scissors and baseball cards and  boxes.  First, I like to make binder labels out of them...

I have about a million of those "Topps of the Class" cards laying around, so it made sense to tag my Topps binders with them. Here I do the same thing for a football binder...

I also noticed that the graphics on the boxes were kinda neat, so maybe I could make labels out of them:

I am pretty sure that football label is the first one I consciously made to be a label for my binders.  I also noticed that recent modern binders use a label that is the standard size of a baseball card.  So making binder labels out of card boxes then grew into me finding the best 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 bits on a box and making my own unique cards out of them:

One of the obvious drawbacks of this little art project is they use a lot of Yankees on baseball card boxes.  Luckily, I have Big Papi and Bruce Lee to balance out all that Jeter and A-Rod nastiness.

That middle card there is from a blaster of 2009 OPC, I believe, and it makes for a better ad than any of the advertisement cards Upper Deck put in their packs the last few years.  These cards are also the only time I ever put cards in back-to-back, since the opposite side is either blank cardboard or very abstract bits of the reverse of the box. So what you are seeing here is only two pages:

That middle card is the closest I will ever get to having the Abraham Lincoln DNA card in my collection, but that is certainly good enough for me.  I even got some of the A&G box seal onto that one.  I like to see if I can get odd little bits into the card like that...like the hologram on the Drew Brees card, or the kung-fu dude flying out behind the Ken Griffey card.  The bottom right card is not from a baseball card box, it is actually from a Whiffle Ball display.

Since I so rarely buy any new product, much less entire boxes of new product, I am afraid those last four or five spaces might never get filled in.  I have a bunch of other homemade box cards scattered in my collection, so perhaps I will bring them all together just to have the pages complete.  I thought with all this talk of cutting out cards off of boxes, I would go a little outside the lines and show you what someone with a pair of scissors and a lot of time (and boxes) on his hands could do.