1988 Pittsburgh Pirates Negro League Stars (Part 4 of 4)

Happy Labor Day!  I hope everyone is enjoying some time with their family and celebrating things like the weekend, overtime pay, and other things brought to us by the labor movement.  We have had a family cookout (just me, my wife, and our 3-year-old son), involving hamburgers, hot dogs, and kicking around a soccer ball.  Now with our guy taking his nap, I am watching the Bucs game and writing this long-planned post, finishing out my series on the 1988 Pirates team-issued set of Pittsburgh Negro League stars.

Previous posts in this series:

• Part 1 (Cards 1-5) (Rube Foster, 1913 Homestead Grays, Cum Posey, 1926 Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Gus Greenlee).
• Part 2 (Cards 6-10) (John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, Oscar Charleston, Smokey Joe Williams, Judy Johnson, and Martin Dihigo).
• Part 3 (Cards 11-15) (Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Sam Streeter, James "Cool Papa" Bell, and Ted Page).

#16.  Walter "Buck" Leonard.

Buck Leonard is one of the Negro Leagues players inducted long ago to the Hall of Fame, in 1972.  His mention on the Cooperstown website starts off saying that he was a key part of the Homestead Grays dynasty, as a gifted hitter.  Leonard played 1934-1948 with the Grays.  He played in Mexico afterwards, but declined a major league contract feeling that he was too old (according to Wikipedia).  He and the late Josh Gibson entered the Hall together.

#17. Ray "Hooks" Dandridge.

Ray Dandridge, similarly to Buck Leonard, was too old to play in the majors by the time of integration, although he did keep playing into the 1950s.  He was a great third baseman, sometimes credited as the best defensive third baseman of his generation.  He made the Hall in in 1987.

#18.  Willis Moody and Ralph "Lefty" Mellix.

Here we have two players, Willis Moody and Ralph Mellix.  There isn't much information available for either, so I'll say what the card back says: both played for the Grays, Moody as an outfielder and Mellix as a pitcher.  But their greater contribution is in the community as organizers of a sandlot team, 18th Ward, in the black neighborhood of Beltzhoover in Pittsburgh.  The 18th Ward team played for 33 seasons.

#19. Harold Tinker.

There is similarly little information on Harold Tinker, and I'll again go with what is said on the card back.  Tinker did play for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, in center field.  He is remembered in this set for his work in the Pittsburgh sandlot teams, leading a racially integrated team for the Terrace Village housing projects.

#20. Monte Irvin.

We close out the set with another Negro Leagues great who did make the transition to Major League Baseball, Monte Irvin; he made the Hall in 1973.  On my want list is a good card of Irvin with the Giants, for my small PSA-graded subcollection.  Irvin passed away fairly recently, in January 2016.  I can't tell that Irvin had a Pittsburgh connection, as he appears to have played with the Newark Eagles before integration, and with the New York Giants and the Cubs after.  I guess they wanted to include another star in the set, whether or not their was a Pittsburgh connection.

This set is one of the best things by far I've picked up since resuming my collection.  I'm glad to have been able to acquire it, and to have showcased all the cards here.  Thanks for reading!

1988 Pittsburgh Pirates Negro League Stars (Part 3 of 4)

Before I got overwhelmed with work, in April I had been posting a set of cards of Negro Leagues players; this is a team-issued set by the Pirates, in celebration of the Pittsburgh-area Negro Leagues teams and players.  It's a 20-card set, and to try to do a fair job of highlighting each card, I'm showing the set over four posts of five cards each.  I had managed to get the first two posts out in April, and now finally have the third post ready.

Previous posts in this series:

• Part 1 (Cards 1-5) (Rube Foster, 1913 Homestead Grays, Cum Posey, 1926 Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Gus Greenlee).
• Part 2 (Cards 6-10) (John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, Oscar Charleston, Smokey Joe Williams, Judy Johnson, and Martin Dihigo).

#11. Satchel Paige.

Leading off the post with card #11, we have the immortal Satchel Paige.  Paige's 1953 Topps card, with the St. Louis Browns, is on my PSA-graded subcollection wantlist, and I'll be thrilled to get it, if I ever do.  Not much needs to be said about Paige, I think: he may well have been the greatest of all time.

#12. Josh Gibson.

Next we have another candidate for greatest of all time, but as a slugger: Josh Gibson.  I once saw a made-for-TV movie about Jackie Robinson, which I think must have been Soul of the Game, starring Blair Underwood as Robinson and Mykelti Williamson as Josh Gibson.  According to the TV movie, Gibson would have been the first black MLB player if not for concerns for his health.  Sure enough, he died in January 1947, just before Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

#13. Sam Streeter.

Sam Streeter was a pitcher with several of the Negro Leagues teams, including stints with the Homestead Grays in 1928 and 1929, and the Pittsburgh Crawfords from 1931 through 1936.  Statistics are incomplete, but Baseball Reference records him with a 86-63 record.  There are some whole seasons without stats, though.  The card back says that he was the top vote-getter and starting pitcher at the first black All-Star game.  This is the only card of him listed in the Trading Card Database, and there are no cards of him for sale on COMC.

#14. James "Cool Papa" Bell.

Cool Papa Bell was known for being fast, and was a great center fielder and hitter.  He played in the Negro Leagues from 1922-1946, for a number of teams, including both the Grays and the Crawfords.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1976.

#15. Ted Page.

Like many players in the Negro Leagues, Ted Page played for many teams over the years, including the Buffalo Giants, the Newark Eagles, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, the New York Black Yankees, the Philadelphia Stars, and both the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords.  Page is in the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.  He was murdered in 1984, at age 81.

That's it for this installment.  I'll feature the final 5 cards from the set sometime next week.  Thanks for reading.

Blog Bat-Around: My Current Projects

This is my first Blog Bat-Around.  What am I working on?  Here's a look at most of my current collecting projects.

1972 Topps Bob Gibson.

1. Collecting a 1972 Topps Set.
I've posted about this a few times now. I have never, thus far, collected a vintage set, but I always wanted to. This past October, I started on the 1972 Topps set. This is partially in honor of the 1971 Pirates championship team. I already had a handful of the Pirates (including Clemente and Stargell) and a couple of the World Series subset cards, plus a few more players. I am currently at about 33% complete.



1959 Topps Curt Flood.

2. Collecting a 1959 Topps Set.
This project is in its infancy. When I got my collection out of storage this past summer, where it had been since 1994, I had exactly one 1959 Topps card: a young Harmon Killebrew. I then decided I wanted a good card of Curt Flood, and chose his 1959 card. Next, I thought of 1959 when adding another pair of Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn cards. I decided that I kept choosing 1959 for these things because I really like the set and would like to have the whole thing. So, my current goal is to pick up three 1959 Topps cards per month, until the 1972 set is complete, and then really work on the 1959. I've added a few more in addition to those I just listed, but I'm still at about 1.5% or so of the complete set right now.



My recently purchased complete 1979 Topps set.

3. Purchasing some complete sets.
I don't think that I need to personally assemble all the complete sets I get.  As a teenager, I got a Christmas gift one year of a 1981 Fleer set, and another year of a 1984 Topps set.  I've written several times recently about my recent purchase of a 1979 Topps set. I plan to buy a handful more: 1978 Topps are the oldest cards I saw before I started going to card shops; a neighbor across the street was a year older than my brother, so he had some from 1978. The oldest we had in my house were from 1979. So, I'll look to get a 1978 set to go with my 1979. Then, 1981 Topps made a big impression on me, too; I love the design with the caps. I actually think that reading the team names off those caps is how I started to learn to read. While I started seriously collecting in 1987, and have several thousand 1987 cards, my collection is spottier before that. I'd like to fill the gap a bit with a 1986 Fleer set. I'm also considering adding 1986 Sportflics to my list, and I may add a couple of Score sets that I'm missing, too. I expect I'll get these complete sets from my list this year, just getting one at a time here and there off eBay, with 1978 Topps being next on my list.




1940 Play Ball Jimmie Foxx.

4. A small PSA-graded collection.
When I was collecting 1987-1994, there was no card grading that I was aware of. For many of the oldest cards I've been buying, I like the idea that someone has authenticated the cards, so there's less risk of getting a counterfeit of something valuable. I bought a storage box from PSA that they say holds about 60 graded cards. So my goal is to get 60 graded cards, either by buying them already graded (with a goal of PSA 7 for most of them), or by sending a few cards that I already had in to be graded. I think of the cards in this sub-collection as representing who I am as a collector in one box. So far, I have 22 PSA-graded cards, and I have two set aside that I plan to send in for grading.



Recently acquired 1981 Topps Fernando Valenzuela.

5. Filling in the front of my main binder.
When I started seriously collecting in 1987, I was 11 years old, and there were other kids in my neighborhood who started seriously collecting at the same time. We each got a binder that we put our best cards in.  The contents of that one binder are still central to my collection. When I resumed collecting this past summer, I did buy a few more binder pages, and I've been buying cards to fill them in. The front of the binder features my favorite Topps (flagship) cards from various years, then similar for Donruss, and then for Fleer, and a few Score, Sportflics, and Upper Deck. With the pages I added, there are about a dozen openings still in the front.  The Fernando Valenzuela rookie card above took one of the new spots.



Recently acquired 1975 Topps Mini Gorman Thomas.



Recently acquired oddball: 1962 Post Roberto Clemente.

6. Filling in the back of my main binder.
The back of the binder is mainly for oddballs, but also for players that I find interesting but who lack the star power of players in the front of the binder (example: Gorman Thomas is in the back). I have about 20 spots left in the back, and I'm working on filling them with cards from sets that were unrepresented in my collection previously. For example, I recently showed some 1962 Post cards, the above Gorman Thomas is my first 1975 Topps mini, I just bought some Ziploc cards I'll be showing soon, and I have some Rawlings/Yoo-Hoo cards in my COMC account.



1983 Milton Bradley Mike Schmidt.

7. Some small player collections.  The collectors I knew in the 80s/90s didn't organize their cards by player collections.  Purchasing cards on the internet makes it much easier to pursue a lot of different cards of one player than it was in the 80s.  So, I decided to put together small player collections for some of my favorites: Willie Stargell, Mike Schmidt, John Candelaria, Tony Pena, Lee May, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, George Brett, Dave Parker, Manny Sanguillen, Harold Baines, and George Foster.  I'm not trying to get every card of any of these, or a certain number of cards, or anything.  I'm satisfied that my Candelaria, Pena, and May collections are big enough at present, for example, and for the rest I just want a few more cards to fill out my pages at this point.  

So, that's what I'm doing, more or less.  Thanks for reading!

Happy Halfiversary! Six Recent Pickups to Celebrate Six Months of Blogging

I started this blog exactly six months ago, on August 8, 2017, writing two posts, an introductory post and a post about my 1953 Topps Bill Bruton card.  Thanks to all of you who come to hear my stories and see my cards.  To celebrate these six months, I am showing today six great cards I bought recently and just received in the mail.

1960 Topps Frank Robinson.

This 1960 Topps Frank Robinson is both my first card from the 1960 Topps set, and also my first card of a young Frank Robinson.  I showed before the best other cards I have of Frank Robinson, his 1972 Topps and 1972 Topps Traded cards.  Robinson, of course, made a big mark with the Reds and with the Orioles, and afterwards also played with the Dodgers, Angels, and Indians.  The 1972 Topps card marks the end of his time with the Orioles, the 1972 Topps Traded is with the Dodgers, and I also have his 1973 card with the Angels.  It's great to add an early-career card of him like this with the Reds, before he won either of his MVP awards, the triple crown, or either of his two World Series.

1968 Topps Game Roberto Clemente.

I've posted about Roberto Clemente a few times, including how my copy of his 1973 Topps card is my all-time favorite card, and my recent acquisition of his 1969 Topps Deckle Edge card.  As a fan of both "The Great One" specifically and the Pirates more generally, you might think I would try to develop a deep collection of Clemente.  The drawback, though, is that I don't want most cards calling him Bob, but rather look only for cards that call him by his name, Roberto (at least on the front of the card).  This card from the 1968 Topps game fits the bill, as his name only appears as his signature.  I do have his 1971 Topps and 1972 topps cards in addition to the 1973, and will look to buy a 1970 as well.  Otherwise, I suppose a 1955 rookie card is on the long-term wishlist, but I don't expect to pick that up anytime soon.  This card also makes my second from the 1968 Topps Game; I showed my Jim Fregosi previously.

1959 Topps Robin Roberts.

I post a lot about Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn, I think.  Dad grew up in Philly in the 50s, and they were the big stars of the Phils back then.  I'm planning to pick up the 1959 Richie Ashburn, soon, to go with this just-acquired 1959 Robin Roberts.  I previously posted about picking up the 1951 Bowman of Richie Ashburn, which I'm using to commemorate the 1950 NL pennant-winning Whiz Kids team, and I will work on getting the 1951 Bowman of Roberts, too. I have a long-term goal of putting together a 1959 Topps set, and I haven't really started yet, but that's why I picked 1959 when I was looking to get another pair of Roberts and Ashburn cards.

1977 Topps Rookie Outfielders, including Andre Dawson.

I've posted the occasional card of Andre Dawson before, but none of them have really been notable.  Perhaps the most interesting time I've shown Dawson was him on the cover of the first Beckett I ever owned, from September, 1987.  Buying his rookie card, this 1977 Topps Rookie Outfielders card, shared with Gene Richards, John Scott, and Denny Walling, falls under the category of things I probably couldn't afford around 1990.  The 1977 Topps set isn't one that means especially much to me, so I don't generally expect to go looking for many more 1977 cards.  I'm delighted to add the Hawk to those 1977 cards I do have in my main binder.

1978 Topps Eddie Murray.

Here we have another 1970s rookie card of a great slugger, Eddie Murray of the Orioles.  Again, I expect that this would have prohibitively expensive for me around 1990.  At today's prices, though, of course I was going to pick this up eventually.  Where I grew up in Newark, Delaware, we're close to both Philadelphia and Baltimore (just a bit closer to Philly).  Almost everyone was Phillies fans, but there were a few Orioles fans in town, and my Dad's company had season tickets to the Orioles.  He'd get them every now and then, and we saw about 5-10 games at the old Memorial Stadium.  I've still never been to the "new stadium," as I call it, Camden Yards, which opened just as I was graduating high school.  But, when my son is old enough to go to a major league game (maybe this year, maybe next year), we'll make the trip down.  

1978 Topps Mike Schmidt.

Eddie Murray and Mike Schmidt were the two local sluggers when I was growing up, but Schmidt was the bigger star -- like I said, just about everyone in town was a Phillies fan.  I never had any cards of Schmidt from the 70s, though, because they were just too expensive -- on top of the regular price, I feel sure that there was a local premium for them in the pre-internet age.  When I started collecting again last summer, I addressed this collecting gap immediately, acquiring a Schmidt rookie card.  I followed that up with the follow-up card, his 1974 Topps.  As a collector, I don't usually try to get all of anything, and I instead try to represent lots of different things in my collection.  I don't need every Schmidt card or even every Schmidt from the 70s, and I'm happy that I do now have some of those oldest cards of him in my collection.  I wanted to pick up this 1978 card in addition to the 1973 and 1974 for a couple of reasons: I think the card looks incredibly 70s, which I like, and, he didn't have his mustache in the 1973 or 1974 cards, so he didn't quite look like himself. 

As always, thanks for reading.  Six months have flown by, and I look forward to much more to come.

Sets in My Collection: 1987 Topps K-Mart Baseball's Stars of the Decades

In this week's edition of Sets in My Collection, I am presenting the 1987 Topps K-Mart set, Baseball's Stars of the Decades.  The ubiquitous 1982 K-Mart set was issued for K-Mart's 20th anniversary, and so in 1987, this set celebrated K-Mart's 25th anniversary.  I guess that means K-Mart is 55 years old this year, even if it may not be with us much longer.

1987 Topps K-Mart set box.

Like the 1982 set, this is of a nostalgic variety, and features stars of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  I love that in addition to the cards, they put a piece of the Topps gum into the box, too.  I'm sure I chewed the gum at the time.

Roberto Clemente.

As always, instead of showing the whole set, I am choosing a handul to highlight.  This time, we start with Roberto Clemente.  Despite him being one fo the very few best Pirates ever, and legendary in a number of ways, and a personal all-time favorite, I only have a handful of cards of him.  It's going to stay that way, too -- the obstacle is that I don't want cards of him which call him "Bob," and most cards from his playing did so.  From what I've read, it's clear that he wanted to be called by his name, Roberto.  My standard is that I'm not looking for cards which say "Bob" on the front; I do have his 1971, 1972, and 1973 Topps cards, and I just acquired a Post card and a Topps Deckle Edge.  The Deckle Edge says "Bob," but it's on the back, at least.

Hank Aaron.

I have a handful of Hank Aaron cards, from the last couple years of his career, and some league leader cards I posted before.  I do have a plan to get more of his cards, from the 50s and 60s.

Roger Maris.

I have no cards of Roger Maris contemporaneous with his career, and I do plan to remedy that.  This will be part of my plan to commemorate the 1960 Pirates championship team in my collection -- rather than aim for a whole Pirates team set (like I'm doing for the 1971 and 1979 Pirates teams), I'm looking to get the 1961 Topps World Series subset, and cards of a few key Pirates and a few key Yankees.  Maris figures as one of the key Yankees.

Steve Carlton.

The three players above, Clemente, Aaron, and Maris, are in the set as Stars of the 60s.  Moving on to the 70s, we have Steve Carlton.  Carlton of course was still a star in the first half of the 80s, but let's not argue with his placement as a representative of the 70s here.  Two of Carlton's Cy Young awards and a number of his All-Star appearances occured in the 70s, but his most impressive feat was probably being responsible for almost half of the wins on the pathetic 1972 Phillies team.  Things turned around for the Phillies, though, after having acquired Carlton and having promoted Mike Schmidt to the majors around the same time.  I have a number of Carlton cards already, but I do have one on my wantlist, for the PSA-graded part of my collection: his 1972 Topps Traded card, representing his joining the Phils.

Reggie Jackson.

Then we have Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, five-time World Series champion in the 70s.  I've posted before about my collection goals for Reggie Jackson -- I plan to get a couple more cards from his original run with the A's, for the PSA-graded part of my collection.

Rickey Henderson.

Rickey Henderson was, naturally, a huge star of the 80s, and beyond.  Since this set was produced in 1987, they didn't know he would go on to be the all-time steals leader and the all-time runs leader, but they might have guessed.

Fernando Valenzuela.

I'll close this post out with this Fernando Valenzuela card.  If you wanted to highlight just one player from the first half of the 80s, Valenzuela would be a good choice.  I was young then, so I only remember the littlest bit of Fernandomania; I've mentioned it before, but I remember a specific game he pitched against the Phillies in which he was just about unhittable.

Recent Acquisition: Reggie Jackson with the A's

I talk a lot on this blog about Mike Schmidt; we lived just outside Philly, about 30 minutes from Veterans Stadium, and he was the local hero.  I was born in 1975, and from the time I have any memories of baseball, around 1980, Schmidt still had several good years left in him.  While Schmidt garnered most of the attention locally, there were other great sluggers of the day; I have some Reggie Jackson cards in my collection, but not enough, I would say.

1972 Topps AL Home Run Leaders; not a recent acquisition.

The only card I've had of him in his original run with the A's is this 1972 Topps AL Home Run Leaders card.  He finished tied for second in 1971 with Norm Cash with 32 homers, behind Bill Melton who had 33.  I don't think I've even heard of Melton otherwise.  While this is a nice card -- I am fond of the 1972 design when it works, and I think it works here -- it's a poor representation of Jackson's early greatness for my collection.

1979 and 1981 Topps Reggie Jackson cards; not recent acquisitions.

The first good card I have of Reggie Jackson is his 1979 Topps card; he's already halfway through his career, and this is after he has won all of his five World Series.  My 1981 Topps is slightly beat up, indicating that I've probably owned it since 1981 when I was a little kid.

1983 Fleer and 1984 Topps Reggie Jackson cards; not recent acquisitions.

I have a variety of cards of him with the Angels, like this 1983 Fleer and 1984 Topps card.  The Angels had amassed some good talent, even if some were slightly past their prime; it's no wonder they won the division in 1986.

A Score tribute card and an Upper Deck tribute card; not recent acquisitions.

Then, at the very end, Score and Upper Deck both produced tribute series.  I have very many 1988 Score cards, so I have all 5 of the Reggie Jackson cards.  I hardly have any Upper Deck cards, though, so this is the only one of that series I have.  This Score card also helps represent Jackson's original run with the A's in my collection, but it really isn't very satisfying in that regard.

Recently acquired 1973 Topps Reggie Jackson, graded PSA 7.

So, in recently writing out my wantlist, I added "Reggie Jackson with the A's, from the 60s or 70s."  I left it a little vague as to whether I only wanted one card or not.  I also have given myself a monthly budget with regards to acquiring new cards, and can't just get everything at once.  So, I recently picked up a less expensive card of Jackson which meets my criteria: this 1973 Topps with a grade of PSA 7.  I like the card, although I have to say in my opinion it doesn't look much like Jackson.  I guess that's partially because he's so young and partially because of the in-action nature of it.  I've decided more definitely what I want for my wantlist, and in addition to this, I'll be looking to add his 1969 Topps rookie card and his 1970 Topps, also both in PSA slabs, graded 6.5 or better.

From My Collection: 1969 Nabisco Team Flakes Cut-Outs (Mays, Brock)

Minor correction: in my post on 1987 Kraft Home Plate Heroes Cut-Out cards, I said that I also had a couple of Kraft cards from the 60s.  There were no Kraft cards in the 60s, as far as I can tell.  I had mixed up Kraft with Nabisco.  I have two cards from the 1969 Nabisco Team Flakes set.  Team Flakes was a cereal with which I have no familiarity; according to Cereal Graveyard, it was produced from 1963 until the 1990s, changing the name to just Team at some point; I don't remember it at all.

Lou Brock and Willie Mays.

I believe that I bought these at the consigment shop, Partners, at which I also bought my 1972 Frank Robinson Traded card.   I think I barely paid anything for these -- as I said in the Frank Robinson post, I think the owner had one or two boxes of baseball cards, and they were all the same price, like 50 cents or something.  Later, instead of having a consignment shop, the owner must have realized there was money in baseball cards, and she moved her store to a better location as just a card shop.  I think she had a good feel for the market -- I remember my last interaction with her, too, when I was in college and barely collecting anymore.  She told me she thought new cards weren't going to be worth anything, since they were making so many and everyone was stockpiling them.  I told her that my collection focused heavily on the 70s, and said she thought that was a good idea.  I don't know when her shop went away, like almost all the other card shops in town.

I have a couple of other Lou Brock cards from when he was playing, from the end of his career.  As I've said before, finding cards from Hall-of-Famers at the end of their careers was a strategy I had to get some of those players into my collection in an affordable way.  It didn't work for every Hall-of-Famer, though, and this is my only Willie Mays card from when he was playing.  I will seek to remedy that -- there is a Willie Mays card (1960 Topps) on the PSA-graded part of my want list.  Other than this, the other Willie Mays cards I have are what I would call nostalgia cards, like Pacific Legends, or Hygrade All-Time Greats, or Baseball Immortals.

I really like these cards despite the roughness of the cutting, the lack of logos, and the many creases.  That's partly because of the relative obscurity of the set, and also because I got a good deal on them.  As for the obscurity, I really had no idea for quite some time what these cards were.  Eventually, I got a book, the Great Book of Baseball Cards.  I looked and looked, and eventually I found a couple of pictures and a description of the black frame with yellow border in the 1969 Nabisco Team Flakes page of the book.  This was what research was like in the old days.

The Great Book of Baseball Cards.

The Great Book on the 1969 Nabisco Team Flakes set.

Two more Manny Sanguillen cards

I posted before about Manny Sanguillen, including how he was Roberto Clemente's friend, how he was an integral part of the 1971 World Championship team, and how he contributed to the 1979 World Championship team despite only having one at-bat in the World Series.  I posted the two cards I thought I had of him, his 1973 and 1974 Topps cards, which I'll put here again:

1973 Topps Manny Sanguillen.

1974 Topps Manny Sanguillen.

Looking through some more cards, I found two more of Sanguillen.

1972 Topps card commemorating Game 6 of the 1971 World Series.

I have this 1972 card of the 1971 World Series, and it turns out the Pirates player suspended in midair is Manny Sanguillen.  There's another of these World Series cards featuring him out there.

1990 Pacific Manny Sanguillen.

I also have this 1990 Pacific Legends card of him.  I'm glad they included him in the set.  He certainly had a good run in the 70s; I hadn't realized that he placed highly in the batting race multiple times.  There are multiple Topps Batting Leaders cards from the 70s featuring him (in third place); his lifetime record includes a career .296 batting average, three All-Star appearances, and the two World Series wins.

I've decided two things about my collection goals, partially based on these Sanguillen cards.  I'm going to add Manny Sanguillen to the list of players of whom I am developing deeper player collections.  That list is Willie Stargell, Mike Schmidt, Tony Pena, Dave Parker, John Candelaria, George Brett, George Foster, Eddie Murray, Rickey Henderson, Harold Baines, and now also Manny Sanguillen.  The Candelaria collection -- which I've posted about a few times already -- is basically complete.  For the others, beyond what's already in my collection, I've only bought a few cards each so far, which I'll be posting soon.

Also, there are a few World Series-winning teams which mean something to me: the 1960 Pirates, 1971 Pirates, 1979 Pirates, 1980 Phillies, and 1989 A's.  The 1980 Phillies are already very well represented in my collection, through, for example, the 1980 Burger King Phillies set (subject of one or more future posts) and the 1981 Coca-Cola Phillies set.  I'm going to aim to complete a 1971 Pirates team set and 1979 Pirates team set.  For 1979, I already have about half the cards which I collected in the 80s and 90s.  For the 1960 Pirates, I'm not going for a full set, but will try to get some key Pirates and some key Yankees, as well as the 1961 Topps World Series cards.  For the 1989 A's, the team mattered to me at the time, but in light of all the steroids, I won't be looking to get any more Canseco or McGwire cards.

From My Collection: Robin Roberts post-Phillies

Robin Roberts is important to me since he was a favorite of my dad growing up.  I've posted two Robin Roberts cards before, which I'll repeat here:

Red Man Tobacco Robin Roberts card (without tab).

Pacific Robin Roberts card.

I have a few more nostalgia cards of Roberts, including more by Pacific and also Baseball Immortals, and maybe others.  But, I have two more regular Topps cards of him as well.  Unfortunately, these are not with the Phillies.

1962 Topps Robin Roberts.

This 1962 Topps card of Roberts says that he's with the Yankees, and he isn't wearing a hat.  You can tell, though, that the pinstripes are red.  So, he's kind of still with the Phils in this one.  He never even actually appeared for the Yankees during the regular season; he played with them in spring training, and was released in May.

1963 Topps Robin Roberts.

He then went to the Orioles.  There, he played three and a half seasons, going 42-36 with a 3.09 ERA, and mentored Jim Palmer; not bad for someone at the end of his career.  After Baltimore, he briefly played with Houston and Chicago.  Roberts was one of the great pitchers of the 1950s, and made the Hall of Fame on the 4th ballot in 1976.  I've said before that to commemorate the Whiz Kids in my collection, I'll be looking to add his 1951 Bowman card, and some of his teammates.  It will be good to have another regular card of him with the Phillies, in addition to the Red Man card above.

Yogi Berra in My Collection

I have a number of Yogi Berra cards, but I only consider one to be a real card.  To me, a card is "real" if it's issued for a year in which the player was still playing.  So, anything more than a year after retirement doesn't fully count.  The one real card I have, then, is a 1954 Red Man Tobacco card; I posted my similar Robin Roberts card earlier, where I said that I bought these from a friend in high school.

1954 Red Man Tobacco card (without tab).

All my Berra cards after that are either as a manager, a coach, or for nostalgia.  I guess manager cards are "real" in that he was serving as manager at the time, but they're just not as satisfying as cards as a player.  Here he is in 1974 as manager of the Mets, together with his coaching staff.  He did a respectable job managing the Mets from 1972-1975, with a record of 292-296, plus a 6-6 postseason record, losing the 1973 World Series to the A's in 7 games.

1974 Topps Yogi Berra.

In 1975, Topps celebrated its 25th annual base set with cards celebrating the league MVP's.  Berra was a 3-time MVP and there were three of these cards of him, but I only have two.  Berra won in 1954 and 1955, along with Willie Mays in 1954 and Roy Campanella in 1955.  I only have one "real" Willie Mays card, and none of Campanella, so these cards help represent them in my collection.  I do have one card each of Berra, Campanella, and Mays on my wantlist, though.
These next two are of him as a coach in a 1982 Donruss card, and as manager in his 1985 Topps card.  While I'm sure there are other individual cards of coaches out there in existence, it sure isn't common, and I would bet Donruss made the card of him just to be able to offer a Yogi Berra card.

1982 Donruss Yogi Berra.

1985 Topps Yogi Berra.

Finally, we have two nostalgia cards, the Leaf Candy City Team and the Circle K Home Run Kings.  I'm sure I have more cards like this from other sets, either Baseball Immortals, or SUPERSTAR, some Pacific cards, or from K-Mart sets, or whatnot.  It's no wonder there's no shortage of such cards of him, given how likeable and popular he was, not to mention how accomplished (10 World Series wins as a player, 3 more as a coach, 18 All-Star appearances, 3 MVP awards, 358 career home runs, and 1,430 career RBIs).  Somehow it took two ballots to make the Hall of Fame, though.

Leaf Candy City Team Yogi Berra card.

1985 Topps Circle K Home Run Kings Yogi Berra card.