1990 Topps Minis #47: John Smoltz

We have another of our 1990 Topps Mini League Leaders today, with the second card from the NL, still with the Atlanta Braves after Monday's Lonnie Smith, John Smoltz.

#47, John Smoltz.

In 1989, the Braves weren't so great.  They were in the NL West back then, and finished in last place with a 63-97 record.  They finished last again in 1990 with a 65-97 record.  It wasn't until 1991 that they started to take off, but John Smoltz, one of the cornerstones of their dynastic rotation, started with the Braves in 1988.

John Smoltz card back.

Smoltz made his way into this league leaders set by placing third in the NL in batting average against, as hitters only hit .212 against him in 1989.

That's all for today; next up we go to Chicago (NL) and Mike Bielecki.  Thanks for reading!

From my collection: Ralph Kiner Red Man cards

Just a brief post today.  I have seven Red Man cards in my collection, and I've shown the Yogi Berra, the Robin Roberts, the Casey Stengel, and the Duke Snider before.  Today we have the two Ralph Kiners.

1952 Red Man Ralph Kiner card.

1953 Red Man Ralph Kiner.

I've told the story before, that circa 1992 in high school, a friend (who was estranged from her dad) got a bunch of these cards from him.  She didn't want them, and preferred to have cash.  She let me look through them for a few I wanted, and let me figure out how much the ones I wanted were worth, and I bought my seven for that much.  If I had more money, I would have taken more, I'm sure.  Being a Pirates fan, I took more than one Pirate, but maybe the only Pirate there was was Ralph Kiner.  So I got two of him.  You see that all they did to change the picture from year to year was change the background.  They did update the text, though.

So that's it for now.  I said I had seven of these cards, so that leaves Pee Wee Reese as the last one I have to show, which I'll do at some point.  Thanks for reading!

1990 Topps Minis #46: Lonnie Smith

Today we start the NL half of the 1990 Topps Mini League Leaders set.  Since the cards go alphabetically by geographic location, we start off the NL in Atlanta with Lonnie Smith.

#46, Lonnie Smith.

Lonnie Smith is a personal favorite since he was a rookie with the 1980 World Series champion Phillies.  He did well after leaving the Phillies, winning the World Series again with the Cardinals and the Royals, and he was also with two pennant-winning Atlanta teams in the early 90s.  Smith was a base-stealer although he never led the league in that, but he did lead the NL in runs with 120 in 1982.  He was caught up in baseball's drug scandals of the 1980s, and you have to what kind of career he might have had without all that.

Lonnie Smith card back.

Smith earned his way into this league leaders set by placing first in the NL in on-base percentage in 1989 with .415, and placing third in batting average with 315.    He also was fifth in slugging in tied for seventh in doubles. 

Thanks for reading!  Next in the series, Smith's teammate John Smoltz.

Six Bucs from 1955 Bowman

As I've said, my COMC Spring Cleaning box focused on my two set-building projects, 1972 Topps and 1955 Bowman.  Today I'll show the six Pirates I got for my 1955 Bowman set.

Bob Friend.

Bob Friend was a longtime Pirate, staying with the team 1951-1965.  He then briefly played for the Yankees and Mets in 1966.  He led the NL with a 2.83 ERA in 1955, while the Pirates finished in last place.  He died just recently, in February, at age 88.

Max Surkont.

Max Surkont pitched in the majors from 1949 through 1957 with a variety of clubs, including the White Sox, the Boston and Milwaukee Braves, the Cardinals, and the New York Giants in addition to the Pirates.  He had a career 61-76 record.

Bob Hall.

Bob Hall last appeared in the majors in 1953, so it's not all that clear why he has a card in the 1955 set.  But he pitched for the Boston Braves in 1949 and 1950, and for the Pirates in 1953.  His career record was 9-18.  Most of those decisions came in 1953 with the Bucs, when he pitched in 37 games, going 3-12. 

George Freese.

George Freese played for the Tigers in 1953, the Pirates in 1955, and the Cubs in 1961.  With the 1953 Tigers, he had one plate appearance, and he had eight for the 1961 Cubs.  So the bulk of his career was his 202 plate appearances with the 1955 Pirates.  He batted .257 for his career with 3 home runs and 23 RBI.

Frank Thomas.

Frank Thomas (well, this Frank Thomas, not the other one) had a relatively long career as a slugger, playing in the majors from 1951 through 1966 for a variety of teams, amassing 286 home runs.  He was part of a trade with the Reds that brought Harvey Haddix to the Pirates.  I have another good card of him, from 1959 Topps, that I've been meaning to show, and which I'll have to get to posting soon.

Lee Walls.

Finally, we have Lee Walls, who played in MLB with a variety of teams from 1952 through 1964 and in Japan in 1965.  He was an All-Star in 1958 with the Cubs, and had a career .262 batting average.

That's it for now.  Thanks for reading!

1989 All-Star Ballot

Voting opened for the All-Star game a little while ago, and this made me nostalgic for the All-Star balloting of my youth.  Back then we voted on punchcards.  Really.  This isn't like how when my dad was in college they programmed computers on punchards, in the 60s and 70s.  This was circa 1990, albeit many years before punchcard ballots became famous again in Florida in 2000.  Fortunately for my nostalgic streak, you can buy old All-Star ballots on eBay for a few bucks.  So I ordered a 1989 All-Star ballot.

Front side of ballot and some promotional offers.

You would punch out the hole next to the players you were voting for.  If you wanted to write in a name not already there, you could punch out the write-in circle and then write them in.  They would have these ballots at the seats at games; Dad and I went to a lot of games back then, so we would vote a fair number of times.

Back of ballot with other promotional offers.

There are ballots from different years available on eBay, but I picked 1989 because that's a special year for the Phillies fans as concerns the All-Star game.  Mike Schmidt retired early in the season, before the All-Star break, and we all kept voting for him.  He was elected to be the starter, and suited up and was introduced with the rest of the NL lineup.  He didn't play, of course, because he was retired.  But it was a nice last chance for the fans to honor Schmitty.  He got an extended standing ovation from the fans in Anaheim.  I've heard some people say that this episode demonstrates why fans shouldn't pick the All-Stars.  But we were glad to have the chance to vote for him after all he did for Philadelphia baseball.

So, not a baseball card today exactly, but also not all that different from a card.  It even has Johnny Bench's picture on it.  Thanks for reading!

Three Clementes and a Van Slyke

Just a quick post showing off four Pirate oddballs.

TCMA Clemente.

Nestle Clemente.

I want a bunch of Roberto Clemente cards in my collection, with two caveats: no cards calling him "Bob" rather than his name, "Roberto," and also no cards manufactured after 1994.  So I don't think there are that many to choose from.  But I picked up a couple more, this TCMA card of him from a 1960 Pirates set, and this logo-less Nestle card from the 80s.

Pacific Clemente.

Procter & Gamble Van Slyke.

I have many Pacific Legends cards, and used to buy them in wax packs when they were originally out.  But I never pulled a Clemente back then, it seems.  So I went out and got one now.  Then I decided to get another Andy Van Slyke oddball as well, since I was a fan back in the day.  I didn't ever know about this Procter & Gamble set in the 90s when it came out, and now it's the only card I have from it.  It looks very much of its time.

Thanks for reading!

Some recent oversized pickups

I do have a soft spot for oversized cards.  In a recent COMC box (or maybe not so recent, I'm behind on posting, really), I had a few oversized cards included.  Here they are.

Jay Publishing Bill Bruton.

Jay Publishing Junior Gilliam.

Bill Bruton is one of my favorite 1950s-era players.  It all started for me when in the mid-80s I pulled my 1953 Topps Bruton card from a "grab bag" at Stale Gum, what was then the local card shop in Newark, DE.  Bruton was a fellow Delawarean, one of MLB's early black players, and a base-stealing champ.  I posted a Jim Gilliam card, one of the first 1955 Bowman cards I picked up, a little while ago.  Gilliam was a mainstay of the Dodgers champions of the 50s and 60s.  These two are both from Jay Publishing, which I had never heard of until receiving one of their cards, or "cards," really since they're more like glossy photos, as a throw-in on an eBay purchase.  I blogged about that at the time.

Smokey Bear Brian Downing.

Cigna Phillies Glenn Wilson.

Then we have a Smokey Bear fire prevention card of Brian Downing.  I picked up my first two Smokey cards a while ago, a John Candelaria with the Angels, and a Tony Pena with the Cardinals.  I probably won't get any more, but I got this one because I did appreciate the talent on the mid-80s Angels.  Then we have a Cigna police set card of outfielder Glenn Wilson, who I saw play a number of times at the Vet at games with my dad.  Wilson went to Seattle after that and was unhappy there, then came back east with Pittsburgh.  He later played with Houston before finishing his career with a second stint with the Bucs.  I've shown the Garry Maddox and the Mike Schmidt cards from the Cigna Phillies police set before.

In terms of size, it doesn't all come across here, but the Cigna Phillies card is a little bigger than a standard card, then next is the Smokey Bear Brian Downing, and the Bruton and Gilliam Jay Publishing are the biggest.  Thanks for reading!