Jaybarkerfan's Junk Part 1 - The Draft

       This post was going to cover my recent dealings with Wes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk but it seems there is so much stuff, I am going to have to split it into two parts, Kill Bill style (definitely NOT Twilight style).  Wes recently cleaned house, or at least cleaned card pile, and had all sorts of stuff up for sale, trade, and such.  He also decided to run a trade bait draft, a brilliant solution to get rid of those middle of the road cards - too nice to give away, not substantial enough to sell on eBay, not beloved enough to have been directly traded for.  I decided to buy into this draft since he wisely had a complete preview of all the cards he was going to have up for bid (a most welcome bit of organization) and there seemed to be some stuff I would want.  Part one here is going to cover the draft.

       This was a most deliberate process.  It went round by round via lists we sent by email.  I am surprised it didn't take longer than it did (which was actually quite a while).  As an organizationally challenged person, I appreciate Wes' patience and thoroughness.  It was quite a nice little distraction to see what cards I got and missed on.  In the end, I am quite pleased.  Let's take a look at what came in:

The 1952 Coogan there was my #1 pick.  How can you turn down a such a perfect piece of imperfect vintage cardboard?  While I don't think it was my first choice, it does fit a very specific purpose.  My 1952 Topps page is mostly very well loved cards.  One of them, though, was not.  This specimen will fit right in with the rest of the well-loved original Topps cards and I can move the more handsome card to a toploader or to eBay.  I plan on starting a series of posts highlighting my Topps pages, since these pages cover every set since 1952 (and a lot of them replace the sets I built myself).  You will see the Coogan there.  Also here is a Nolan Ryan insert I didn't have, in fact one I have never heard of...it is from one of Donruss' Spanish language sets.  The two Reggie Jacksons here are wonderful; great contrasting images and uniforms.  Plus, shiny!  The Gary Carter there is actually not the 1978 Topps card, but the 2011 Cards Your Mother Threw Out insert (observant students of fontage will notice the difference).  If my mother ever threw out my baseball cards, I'd disown her.  The rest of the cards are all pretty predictable: a David Wright insert, a 1992 Gold Winner Met, a groovy UD Decade Gaylord Perry and a Allen & Ginter Mickey Mantle.  Well, OK, that last one isn't exactly predictable, but I can't turn down A&G vintage stars, even Yankees.

On to the next nine:

Right off the bat, three Mets inserts of three of my personal favs.  I looked and could not believe I didn't have that Wonder Years Mike Piazza card.  I own the UD Retro Lunchbox of Piazza for crying out loud, but somehow that piece of nouvelle psychedelia missed my collection.  The second row has some Sportflix Cecil Fielder goodness, a Paul Sorrento über-shiny Pinnacle card that I did not have (click here to see why this is important), and a Joey Votto insert from last year for his player page.  The last three there are: a 3D Topps insert of Ubaldo Jimenez - this set is so wonderful, plus it matches will with the Fielder above it.  I have a soft spot for ol' Froot Loops, so I had to snag that Mickey Tettleton insert...after all, how many Mickey Tettleton inserts can there be?  Lastly, I grabbed that Neil Walker Topps Gold card for Robert's Insanity Set, but it turns out it is a number he already has, so it will find a spot in my Rookie Cup collection.  Oh, and these were kind of in drafting order, but I think I mixed them up for aesthetic layout purposes.   I am a slave to my particular fashion.

Last batch:

First card here is a 1998 SPx Finite Frank Thomas.  I was obsessed with this set when it came out.  It was the first all serial numbered set and I fell for it head over heels.  I bought boxes and boxes of it.  It has three levels of shiny to each card and they are numbered accordingly.  This is the "spectrum" level, the highest thus the lowest numbered, this one is numbered to /1750, which in 1998 was pretty damn low.  Plus, the scan doesn't give it its proper blinding due.  Second, there is another Mike Piazza insert I didn't have, as well as a Tom Seaver shiny insert that I didn't have.  In the very middle there is a Carlos Delgado insert which I picked late, just because it is a Met and I am a completist when it comes to having all the Mets.  Also picked late was that 1983 Topps ERA Leaders card.  I am a sucker for league leader cards.  The rest of this scan are minis, all with various destinations.  The Adrian Gonzalez mini is going to Night Owl, since he is more obsessed with minis than anyone ever.  The Reggie and Seaver minis are going right into my player collections.  The last three are Allen and Ginter minis of various years and subject.  I will probably keep them, but the McGehee might go to Thorzol when he has his "Trade Me Anything" posts.  I keep oddball Brewers around for just such emergencies.   

So I picked up 28 cards for about 50 cents each.  How can you beat Seaver and Piazza inserts, 1952 Topps cards, and Allen and Ginter mini inserts for 50 cents a piece?  Point is, you can't.  Thanks again Wes for running your draft and having such marvelous cards to choose from.

Coming tomorrow: Lots from Jaybarkerfan's Junk.  Lots and Lots of Lots.

Hometown.

       I grew up living in a few different places in northern New Jersey before my family finally settled in the town of Ramsey.  Now, Ramsey's big claim to fame is...well...come to think of it, it has no claim to fame.  It is the epitome of the upper middle class, white, bedroom community, suburban ghetto.  It isn't rich or special enough to have famous people live here nor is it poor enough for anything nasty to transpire here leading to infamy.  Anyway, I could not get out of this place fast enough when I turned 18, going away to Boston first for college and then to live.  But, of course, in the usual It's A Wonderful Life cliche turn of events, I came back here to live seven years ago - and have been plotting, in vain, to leave ever since.  So, if you were to ask me what my hometown was, I would reluctantly yet firmly say "Ramsey, NJ."

       I was surfing around some card blogs a night or two ago (stay with me, the point is coming) and I hit upon an especially odd group of players being discussed and in one of the comments, a player was given props merely for being from someone's hometown.  That little defense got me to thinking of my childhood. Going further in the WABAC, I was a pretty terrible athlete as a kid.  At first, I was short and chubby, than after puberty hit me (like a ton of bricks), I became lanky and awkward.  While I am tall and wide, I lost the overall natural lottery with an overall goofy body with no discernible center of gravity.  All in all, though, I was very enthusiastic about playing sports and went out for all the teams, sometimes even making them.  When I was in middle school in the late 80's and then high school in the early 90's, Ramsey was known as a local hotbed of athletics.  Unfortunately, it was the classes behind me and ahead of me that had all the good jocks (it seems the mid-70's were not a particularly fertile time for those kinds of genetics in this town).  The late 70's and early 80's had brought a couple county champions in baseball and one state champion.  That state championship team featured a player that was spoken of in hushed tones in my hometown: Mike Laga.

Mike Laga is by far the most famous baseball player to come out of Ramsey.  There was a brief time when he was thought of as one of the best prospects in all of baseball.  You could just ask Sparky Anderson (except he's dead) and my long time local high school baseball coach and they would tell you all about it.  Unfortunately, Mike flamed out and never amounted to much.  He had power to spare, but never got that contact or defense thing down.  He is known in card circles, sadly, for his awful airbrushed 1987 Topps card (oh the pink! see above) and in baseball circles for hitting the most impressive foul ball in Busch Stadium history.  Not a grand legacy...but in my hometown, he is still held in high regard.  I got that autograph on the 1986 Donruss card in person at a card show in Ramsey High School sometime in 1987 or 1988 and, I can say from experience, Mike is a very nice guy...the very definition of a hometown hero.

The other three cards on that page are of Frank Eufemia, and 64 silver dollars to you if you'd ever heard of him.  He is, though, a bit of a North Jersey legend.  He made the big leagues in 1985 (as you can plainly see by his three 1986 cards) with the Twins.  He got hurt and bounced around the minor leagues for years trying to get back.  Around 1991, he was the star of the local Hackensack Troasts, a semi-pro team.  Having family and once even having lived in Hackensack, I knew the team well.  On more than a few occasions, I got to play catch and warm up Frank Eufemia, my closest brush with the big leagues.  For a 15 year old, this was a pretty big deal (his time with the Troasts led him to being signed by the Mets in 1992, but he never got higher than AAA). I never got up the nerve to ask Frank for his autograph, but he does teach gym a few towns over now, so maybe if I am ever bored, I could go over and make up for that oversight. 

Fast forward a decade or so to when I lived in Boston and, as I have described before, I worked in a baseball card store.  I actually lived in a suburb of Boston named Somerville.  At around the same time, a slugger named Paul Sorrento was bouncing around the American League.  He put together a pretty decent big league career all through the 90's.  He was even an original Devil Ray:

So, one day I had this big, happy Italian customer in the baseball card store and when he handed me his credit card, I saw his last name was "Sorrento" - for whatever reason, I mention Paul Sorrento and asked if he knew of him.  "Know him, he's my cousin!" was the reply and he went on and on about his cousin Pauly.  I then had a customer for life and he came in the store all the time.  One afternoon, he walked in and introduced me to his cousin, Paul.  Both of them were big, goofy, friendly guys.  Turns out, I also lived about three blocks from Paul's parents. I ended up becoming pretty decent friends, for a time, with the entire Sorrento clan.  Very nice people, definitely hometown guys.

So, those are my hometown people and a couple of interesting little brushes with greatness.  As I said, I was not great, or even a very good, baseball player.  Luckily, by the late 80's, that didn't matter.  Most little league teams got their own homemade baseball cards, myself included:

I think I was 12 in that picture.  The other two homemade-type cards are of my cousin (Robbie) and a childhood friend (Jared).  They were nice enough to autograph their cards for me.  And yes, I signed my own card. Sad, sure, but practicing your autograph is what you do at 12 when you just know, with a few breaks, you'll make the majors.  Alas, my cousin and my friend never made the majors, either, but their autographs are priceless in my book.  In an odd twist, another one of my cards had an awesome brush with greatness:

It is very hard to tell, since it is blue sharpie on a blue jersey, but there is an autograph on that card, and it isn't mine.  My mother was traveling through Baltimore on business one time in the late 80's and there was some kind of meet and greet in her hotel with local famous folks.  She saw one of them was a baseball player and, not having anything for him to sign, she pulled out my baseball card from her wallet and had him sign that.  She had no idea who he was (my mother is not much of a baseball fan) but that card has a unique place of honor in my collection.  The player?  Brooks Robinson.