Sorting things out.

       A few leftover notions from my 2018 Topps post from Sunday.

I spoke of the look of the new flagship set and while I don't hate it as much as I have 2017 or 2016 since Topps has gone to a borderless design, they have started to take on the vibe of late era Donruss base cards and this is not necessarily a good thing.  I think one thing that always made Topps special is that they had a specific feel and natural progression and the border is one of those things that now seems is lost. I feel this year's design, unlike the last 2 years, would look great with a border.  My awesome, utterly professional and in no way amateurish photoshop skills came up with this:

You can add a border and they look much more like classic Topps cards (think 1996 perhaps) and if you need to have things extend out a bit, you can see I took the ribbon to the edge of the card and continued the disintegrating name plate into the border as well as the team logo (where applicable).  I am sure somehow Topps thinks borderless cards are all "futuristic" but they have been around since 1990-91 and used on regular base cards since 1994 Donruss and Upper Deck.  I am not sure those are touchstones to be aspiring to. Flagship Topps always had a classic look and they seem to love to celebrate their history, so why have they turned their back on it the last few years in the name of "the future?"

***

We all recognize what this is:

I have collated cards for as long as I can remember yet I have never given it much thought.  I don't know if it is like scoring a baseball game but I suspect a lot of people have quirks to the way they do it, as I have seen folks in card shops and at shows do it their own way.  If I have a few dozen cards, I just do it in my hand like shuffling a poker deck.  If I have a few hundred, I sort them as you see above, into blocks of numbers of 50, e.g. 1-49, 50-99, 100-149 etc.  Then I sort them further.  If there is a few thousand to do, I so the same thing, then break them down into the 10s as I do it and then hand sort.  It is a monotonous activity but I have always found something relaxing and a little zen about it.  When I was a kid, my mom referred to it as me "playing solitaire" (which I supposed when you are 10 has a whole different meaning than when you are 15, but I digress).  And this is just numerically.  Anyway, does anyone have any different way they do things?  Let me know since I am momentarily obsessed with whether there's a whole different system I have never been privy to.  Not to mention there is also the classic 8x4 grid of sorting things by team, another issue all together.  I always do the teams alphabetically but maybe you do them by league and/or division?  I must know!  

***

And finally, a wonderful bit of card serendipity that I am sure we've all had or hoped to have at one time or another.  As I was searching for the new Topps on Friday, I was also meeting a friend for coffee at a Dunkin Donuts I don't normally go to.  I was a little early and there was a comic book shop next door, so I ducked inside there to kill the 10 minutes I had to wait.  Now, I am not comics guy but I can always enjoy a comic book shop just for the nerdy vibe, the toys, and there's always a chance they have some sports stuff stuck in among their wares.  They had a few long 5000 count boxes full of MTG and Pokemon cards and the like but then my eye caught the unmistakable dull gray cardboard color that can only be vintage Topps cards.  There was only a couple hundred of them, but what a vein of joy it was.  They weren't in sleeves or priced but going through them, there were some I just had to have...

How often does a coffee date turn into 1975 Topps?  More than that, was some of these...

I love the 1973-74 hockey design and there are a couple of wonderfully miscut ones as well.  So I only had a few minutes with these cards and I had no time to go through them all.  These are the few I nabbed while I was there initially.  When I went to check out, the n̶e̶r̶d̶ dude behind the counter said, "oh, anything in there without a sleeve is 10 cents"  I had lucked into a 10 cent vintage box in the middle of Wayne NJ on a Friday afternoon!  I had my coffee and caught up with my friend, and then you better believe I marched back into that shop and bought just about every one of those cards that even remotely interested me.

All because of my efficiency in finding the new Topps and over-promptness in meeting my friend, I now have a few hours of bliss ahead of me this week.  Oh, and I also have this:

If you need an explanation, I don't think we can be friends.

First Things First.

       Ah, Opening Day.  There is nothing else like it.  Except, well, it is now stretched out over a few days so I guess MLB should just trademark Opening Few Days and get it over with.  But enough with the awful march of commerce, let us embrace the wonderful march of time.  The sun is up, the sky is blue (etc.) and the Mets are out in Flushing adding to baseball's best record on Opening Day.

This year at CitiField, the ceremonial First Pitch was very emotional.

My favorite meaningless statistic is that the Mets are now 36-20 on opening day, the best percentage in baseball history.  Also quirky - and often pointed out - is that they won a World Series (1969) before they actually won on opening day (1970) which means they are 36-12 since that Miracle happened.  Fascinating and stupid.

On a more card related point, this is what the 2017 Topps page ended up looking like:

I am still not crazy about the design and it has yet to grow on me.  That along with this year's Heritage being the burlap abortion that is 1968 Topps, I am not in a collecting happy place right now (and let's not even bring up that Panini decided that the 1990 Donruss design needed to be brought back, ugh).

I did, however, follow through on my threat to tweak the Salute inserts into a better looking base design:

My photoshop skills are weak at best, but I think by making the photo a tad larger by dragging out the half-border and replacing the insert title with the position, you have at least a good starting point for a much better and cleaner design than the inception angle boxes Topps gave us this year.  With a little more skill and time, I am sure the gold stripe could match the team colors and the city name in that right border could be something else as well (though I kinda like the half-font thing going on there).  But this is what I was driving at when I critiqued the 2017 base design and in a rare instance, I don't think I am crazy or wrong here.  What do you think? Has anyone else done something similar recently?  Let me know since this is the first year I have been that turned off by the Topps design since I started the blog.

Nacho Break.

       I did something last month I hadn't done in a long while, I took part in a group break.  The recent maestro of such activities, Nachos Grande, had one that was all product I didn't plan to buy by the box, so I saw a good opportunity to score some Mets cards and maybe luck out and nab an Amazin' hit.  $35 was my entry fee into this little lottery, so let's see how I made out. 

The first thing busted open was Opening Day. 

There seemed to be a copious amount of Mets because if I didn't get the whole team, I came damn close.  So far so good. I also scored a couple of the shiny blue parallels. 

The next box was Gypsy Queen.  I have never enjoyed busting packs of this stuff, but I kind of liked this years dark borders and not-so-overfancy design, so having the Mets cards was optimal.  Once again, the card gods shined a little light on me, and while they didn't see fit to grant me any of the major hits, I did get most of the team set and a couple inserts, including a mini Tom Seaver.

Okay guys, gimme the leg-up pitcher pose!

After years of pedantic sameness, Bowman has an eye catching design this year, with half bleed pictures and a nifty way to tell prospect cards from regular cards (simply reverse the design).  I didn't get much in the way of unknown rookie players (I got the same guy twice) but at least I got my first Steven Matz and Kevin Plawecki cards. 

Alas at this point, the card gods stopped smiling on me and scowled tremendously for the last three components of the break.  I got one card only from Topps Museum Collection, though it was Jacob deGrom, and just a single base card from the Diamond King box, but at least it was the right player - Gary Carter.  There was a bonus blaster involved as well and I did score a single Tom Seaver card from it.  Something is better than nothing, I suppose, but my dreams of a low number white whale hit were dashed with extreme prejudice.  Oh well, such is the nature of the beast. 

Nacho took a little pity on me and was nice enough to include some bonus Mets cards. 

I didn't have one of those Dwight Gooden rookie all star cards for his player collection, so that was a very nice bonus indeed.

And while I am sure I have multiple copies of all these cards, I never get tired of 1987 Topps cards.  I am in a very small minority in that feeling, I know. 

Nacho also packaged this cards impeccably and included a nice note.  I always appreciate such courtesies.

Oh, and there was one last little surprise, a pack of 2012 Triple Play.  I really enjoyed that initial Triple Play offering from Panini, so I tore into that pack with gusto.

Those cartoon caricatures are great and I scored a David Wright sticker.  Sweet.

I'd like to thank Nacho for doing this break and since you do so many, I am sure it won't be my last.  You should go check out his page and keep an eye out for one you'll like.  He obviously likes to make sure everyone gets an autographed card, so he included his own:

"This is not a Topps product" the back gloriously trumpets and you're right, it's a whole lot better.  I now own four or five personalized cards of bloggers as well as a few custom cards.  These never cease to tickle me, hell, I should make a page of them.

Break It Down For Me, Fellas.

Due to the copious amount of half-writtten posts therein, I have declared March to be the month where I settle all unfinished draft folder business.  This next week, I am bound and determined to get up and thank all of the kind souls who have traded with me and sent me cards. 

      Yesterday, I posted a contest winner and low and behold today I discovered another pile of booty I won from a generous blogger that had not been given proper showcase.  This batch comes from Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown, a fine blog I suggest highly (mostly because of stuff like this).  Last June, defgav held a One Year Anniversary contest where the prizes were lots and lots of lots of autographs.  And when he announced the winner in early July, the randomizer had given me the magic number of 21 which came up, so thank you random chance and Marquis Grissom for the following lot:

I chose the lot with the nicest Mets autograph - shocker, I know.  The Ron Swoboda has found a happy place in my Amazin' auto collection; odd coincidence that this is the second mention of good ol' Ron this week.  The George Foster auto is also pretty cool, and as for Toby Harrah and Daryl Boston, well, they aren't bad guys, are they.  Heck, those Topps Retired autos are cool no matter what.  The other 5 cards here I think are in return for the aforementioned Marquis Grissom rookies I sent Gavin.  Or maybe he just threw them in because he's a nice guy.  I honestly can't recall.  Who knew that Jacob DeGrom would pitch so well and win Rookie of the Year?

Oh, but that's not all for this little post, look at this:

You gotta love the use of old school stamps for the job they were intended.  When I worked at the baseball card store back in the day, we used to buy stamp collections for pennies on the dollar (since most stamps aren't worth more than what they are issued for, after all) and then used most of the stamps to just mail stuff.  It was a slightly ingenious/diabolical way to keep shipping costs down.  Lastly, take a good look at the note Gavin included...

He drew me a David Wright sketch card!

As you can see, I cut that beauty out right away and believe me, it has since found a place of honor in my Wright collection as (technically) my first 1 of 1 of him.  Thanks Gavin!

October Fools?

       One of the crazy reasons my blogging has dried up recently is my building anxiety over having so many half-written posts.  Seems more and more, I scan some cards and start writing and for whatever reason(s), I just stop writing.  I don't think it is a mental block, per se, but the more it happens it seems, the easier it is to let happen.  The whole point of starting the blog was to have something simple to accomplish during the day and showcase my collection and writing and now, it would appear, like most things in my life, I am way way overthinking things.  It is a vicious cycle I am now trying to break.

Sitting amongst those 34 drafts are a variety of topics: trade posts, mailbags, clever over-the-top card commentary, design and brand analysis etc. But also, there are some very timely things like player debuts and retirements and the like whose time has come and gone.  You will probably never get to hear what I had to say about the sad goodbye tour of Mariano Rivera (too bad I never got around to Jeets either) or how my hopes and dreams for Travis d'Arnaud compare to the other Mets great catchers.  There are even some holiday themed posts that I could get around to (next year, of course) and I was reminded of one while reading Night Owl's post yesterday.  He misspelled a name - a rarity for a newspaper editor - one Sidd Finch.  I suppose he could be forgiven since Mr. Finch never really existed in the first place except in the mind of George Plimpton and his classic Sports Illustrated piece "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch."  All of this connects through an insert set from last year's Allen and Ginter called Curious Cases.  I remember seeing that set name before the product was released and thinking 'man, Sidd Finch had better be part of that.'  Unfortunately, the checklist is mostly conspiracy theory hokum and mystical mumbo jumbo.  I decided last March to rectify that with my first homemade original card:

While I am no cardboard Picasso (very few are), not to mention that this isn't exactly an original idea, I really like how the card turned out.  It is self evident that if there was anyone ever who needed to be in an insert set, it is Sidd Finch in Curious Cases.

So for whatever reason, I had this all ready to post for this last April Fools Day but never finished it.  And there it sat, a draft only really appropriate to post on one day of the year and I missed it.  But then today I thought, what better way to fool you fools than to post an April fools post as far from April fools as you can possibly get?  It is this kind of thinking that is gonna get that draft folder emptied in no time. 

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.