Progress on my 1955 Bowman set

I posted the other day about being nearly finished with my 1972 Topps set, so I thought I'd give an update on how I'm doing with my 1955 Bowman set as well.

Jocko Conlan.

I focused my Black Friday shopping on knocking out 1972 Topps needs, but I did buy a few 1955 Bowman cards.  And this Jocko Conlan, the Hall of Fame umpire, just arrived in the mail yesterday from an eBay seller.  Jocko here puts me at 178/320 cards, or 55.6% complete.  The high numbers are about the last one-third of the set, so about 106 cards or so, and I have 26 of those.  I have two of the four highest-value cards -- of Mantle, Aaron, Banks, and Mays, I have the Mantle and Aaron.  So, my plan is to keep slogging through it for the next year, sometimes getting the more expensive cards while focusing on completing the more easily attainable part of the set.  I don't expect I'll quite finish the whole set in 2020 but I hope to be much closer.

Jocko Conlan card back.

As for Conlan himself, on the one hand, I think everyone likes these umpire cards and I'm no exception.  On the other hand, besides the novelty of the umpire cards, I learned from this card back that Conlan was actually a player himself, and started umpiring when he filled in for a sick umpire.  Wikipedia says that in those days, "a player with a reputation for honesty might be pressed into service if one umpire became incapacitated."  It was a different time, for sure.

Thanks for reading!

Closing in on my 1972 Topps set

Only nine cards left!  I am currently at 778 cards out of 787 for my 1972 Topps set; the remaining nine cards are all high numbers, naturally.  I won't list out the ones I need here because I don't want anyone sending me any cards -- I want to finish on my own.

Steve Garvey.

Jim Kaat In Action.

This feels really great; I always wanted to collect a vintage set.  Back circa 1990 I was working on a 1979 set and didn't get far.  With everyone focused on buying and selling the junk cards of the day and it being pre-internet, it was harder to come across large quantities of older cards.  So now it's easier, and I've done it (almost!).  While I'm sure it's easier, it's still taken me more than two years.

I was at about 40 cards needed recently, and then got to this point by putting some money into both COMC and eBay on Black Friday.  These two cards, Steve Garvey and an In Action card of Jim Kaat, arrived in the mail from an eBay seller yesterday.  I don't have definite plans as to when to knock out the last 9 cards, but I think I'll probably do it in January or February.

Thanks for reading!

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!

5 from 1955 Bowman

My COMC spring cleaning box was almost entirely made up of cards for my two set-building projects, 1955 Bowman and 1972 Topps.  Here I'll show a few highlights of the 1955 Bowman cards.  I'm currently just over one-third complete with the 1955 Bowman, with 107 out of 320 cards.

Gil Hodges.

I'll start off with Night Owl's nominee for someone who should have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago, the Dodgers legend Gil Hodges.  I would say that this is my first good card of Hodges.  That's because this is my first card of him produced while he was playing.  I do have a good managerial card of Hodges, from the 1972 set I'm building.  And then I have a couple of cards from later, the Hygrade All-Time greats, and the 1985 Circle K Home Run Kings.  When the Circle K set was produced, Hodges was 29th on the all-time home run list with his career total of 370.

Enos Slaughter.

This is my first good card of Hall-of-Famer Enos Slaughter, too.  I have the Hygrade of him, and also a Pacific Legends and a Swell Baseball Greats.  Slaughter was from Roxboro, NC, a place I visited at least once when I was in grad school in Durham, NC.  Roxboro has a prominent "Home of Enos Slaughter" sign when you enter town.

Mickey Vernon.

Then we have Mickey Vernon, pictured with the Washington Senators.  It's slightly jarring going through the 1955 set to see how different the teams are then as compared to today.  In about 65 years, a lot has changed.  To be precise, there were only 16 teams back then, and 5 of them have undergone major changes since -- the A's, Giants, Dodgers, and Braves all later moved while retaining their team name, while the Senators later moved and became the Twins.  So, there are only 11 teams from the set that still exist in the same form.  One of those, the Orioles, was brand new at the time.

Lew Burdette.

Here we have Lew Burdette of those Milwaukee Braves.  I showed another card of Burdette before, in the TCMA set of the 1957 Braves.

Bill Jackowski.

Finally, we have NL umpire Bill Jackowski.  It goes without saying that the umpire cards are a highlight of the set.  Jackowski was the home plate umpire in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, the game with Mazeroski's famous home run.

That's all for today; thanks for reading!

Progress on my 1972 set

I've posted before that I'm working on a 1972 Topps set.  I've always wanted to put together a set like this.  I started in October, 2017, with a goal of being finished in about two years.  My progress so far is that I'm at 62.13%: 489 out of 787 cards, including all of Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3.  For the hardest part, Series 6, I have 50 out of 131.  I hardly have any of Series 4 and 5, and I guess that will be the main focus of the coming year.  I'm pretty happy that there are fewer than 300 cards to go at this point.

Now, let me show a few favorites from 1972 which appeared in my COMC Black Friday box.

Roberto Clemente In Action.

Bucs win the series.

That's a great Clemente card, whatever just happened to induce that expression.  Maybe he had just struck out?  And that's a great shot of Manny Sanguillen's joy upon winning the 1971 World Series.

Gene Mauch.

Johnny Callison.

Here we have two former Phillies, since scattered to other teams.  The one thing that I heard about Gene Mauch in the 80s was that he had never won a pennant.  That was partially because of the Phold, the epic collapse of his 1964 Phillies, who ended up finishing second in the NL.  Johnny Callison was the starting right fielder, playing in all 162 games.

Jim Fregosi and his accordion.

Earl Weaver.

Then we have two managers who did win a pennant.  Jim Fregosi was still in the middle of his playing career, and this card caught him when he was briefly with the Mets.  Of course, it's not just any Fregosi card, but a Boyhood Photos card, with him holding an accordian that's almost as big as he is.  Fregosi led the 1993 Phillies -- Dykstra, Kruk, Mitch Williams, and the like -- to the World Series and a loss to the Blue Jays.  And Earl Weaver was in a number of World Series, winning one and losing three (two of those losses to the Bucs!).

Del Unser.

Art Shamsky.

There are a bunch of cards in this same pose, featuring the underside of the bill of the player's cap.  And I chose Del Unser and Art Shamsky to feature in the close-up pose.  Unser won the World Series with the 1980 Phils, and was one of two pinch-hitting specialists on the team, along with Greg Gross.  And Art Shamsky is well known to fans of the show Everybody Loves Raymond, as the favorite player of Robert Barone, who named his dog Shamsky.  Shamsky of course was on the Miracle Mets who beat Earl Weaver's Orioles in the 1969 World Series.

Frank Howard.

Cardinals rookies, including Jim Bibby.

Finally, we have these two, including Frank Howard, also featured in the underside-of-the-cap close-up pose.  I've posted a few times about my Frank Howard cards.  I'm always impressed by how the slugger manages to look like an old man.  Then we have the rookie card of Jim Bibby and two other Cardinals.  Bibby of course was part of the We Are Family 1979 champion Pirates.

Thanks for reading!

First Blogiversary; 245th Post; Roberto Clemente Acquisitions

It's been one year of blogging for me today.

My original goal was to tell stories about the cards I bought as a kid, with the idea that my son (who is now 3 years old) might one day read them.  Collecting cards was the best part of my childhood, and I wanted to get some of that down in writing.  Things quickly evolved, though.  While the original goal still holds, I also started a vigorous program of adding to my collection.  I posted as part of a blog bat-around what I was working on with my collection.  I originally said that I felt that I was working on completing my collection, and I think at this point, it's almost complete.  In the bat-around post, I said I was working on completing my main binder and some small player collections, and that's all done now with my most recent COMC shipment.  I am working on a 1972 Topps set, so that I can say that I've put together one vintage set on my own.  I'm about half done with that and will see it through.  I said I was starting to work on a 1959 Topps set, but I've decided to cancel that plan.  The 1972 set plus a few select 1959 cards will be enough for me.  Other than the 1972 Topps set, the only big thing I still plan to do is finish my small PSA-graded subcollection.  I have about 30 cards there, and have a plan to get about 30 more, over time.

While I feel like my program of adding to my collection is winding down, I do plan to keep blogging, perhaps for as much as a couple of years.  I think I have more to say about the cards I do have.

For now, I will show four cards of The Great One, Roberto Clemente, that came in my recent COMC box.

1970 Topps Super Roberto Clemente.

1970 Topps Roberto Clemente.

I posted a while ago some 1971 Topps Supers that I picked up from eBay.  The point of getting them was in part to get the 1971 Clemente Super, and in part to get any of the older Topps Supers.  (I had some 1981 Topps Supers before, which I showed here and here.)  Knowing that there was a 1970 Super of Clemente, I naturally wanted that as well.  So here it is.  I also picked up the regular Topps 1970 card of Clemente; in my original collection, I had the 1971, 1972, and 1973 cards of him.  I object to any card which calls him "Bob" rather than his name, Roberto, so I am uninterested in most other Topps cards of him.  In 1970, though, they were back to calling him Roberto, so this is a good pickup for me.

1994 Yoo-Hoo Rawlings Gold Glove Roberto Clemente.

My original collection stops at 1994, although I mainly switched to collecting comics around 1991 or so.  Still, seeing these 1994 Yoo-Hoo cards on COMC, I had to pick up a few.  I've posted many cards in my collection that were sponsored by various food products, like cereals, sodas, and fast food chains, among others, and adding some Yoo-Hoo cards seemed like a natural choice.  So of course Clemente was one of the Yoo-Hoo set I chose to pick up to represent this set in my collection.  Clemente won 12 Gold Gloves for his play in right field.

1972 Topps Roberto Clemente.

Finally, like I said, I'm working on a 1972 set, but I already had the 1972 Topps card of Clemente.  I decided to pick up a second copy, so that my old, beat up version can stay at home in my main binder.  While the 1973 card is my all-time favorite card because it's the first good card that Dad and I bought together, I have to think that this 1972 might be just about the greatest baseball card of all time.  In addition to the card itself, I have fond memories of it from the 1987 Topps Turn Back the Clock subset, since 1987 Topps is the set that got me seriously collecting in the first place.

Thanks for reading!  It's been a good year.

My 1988 Topps Set Project: Cards 201-400

Today we're checking in on my 1988 Topps set project.  To remind you, I have about 1600 cards that I bought pack-by-pack back in the day.  I was 12 years old when 1988 Topps was released, was still living very near a 7-Eleven that my friends and I could walk or bike to, and we also started going to a baseball card shop (Stale Gum, on Main Street in Newark, DE), and later that year I went to my first show.  The cards I have are roughly the equivalent of having opened 3 wax boxes; I was hoping that I would have a complete set since it's about twice as many cards as is needed, but, it's turning out that I only have about 85%-90% of a set.  In these posts, I'm highlighting the cards that I have the most copies of.

Mike Marshall.

We have a new winner with Mike Marshall of the Dodgers.  In the previous post, covering cards 1-200, the most copies I had of a single card was 6.  I have 8 of this Mike Marshall.  I remember Marshall for two reasons -- he was on the Dodgers, who won the 1988 World Series, and his rookie card with Topps also features Steve Sax, who was something of a star (perhaps a minor star) at the time.  After leaving the Dodgers after the 1989 season, Marshall played briefly with the Mets, Red Sox, and Angels.

Bob Walk.

The rest of the cards I'm featuring here I have six copies of.  First up, cardblogosphere celebrity Bob Walk.  I've posted about Walk a few times before because I talk frequently about how the 1980 Phillies winning the World Series is one of my earliest memories, and Walk pitched and won the first game of the series for the Phils.  Walk was a reliable starter for the Bucs through their early 90s postseason run, and had a solid year in 1988 with a 12-10 record with a 2.71 ERA.  Walk was an All-Star for the only time in 1988; he pitched 1/3 of an inning in the All-Star game, getting Carney Lansford to ground out.

Rafael Ramirez.

Richard Dotson.

Rafael Ramirez played with Atlanta from 1980-1987, and then with Houston from 1988-1992.  He was an All-Star in 1984, and put up 1432 career hits and 484 RBI.  Richard Dotson pitched with the White Sox from 1979 through 1987, and then was with the Yankees, White Sox again, and Royals before retiring after the 1990 season.  He was also an All-Star in 1984, and led the league with 106 walks in 1983 and with 17 losses in 1986.  His career record is 111-113 with a 4.23 ERA.

Drew Hall.

Alejandro Pena.

Reliever Drew Hall pitched in the majors from 1986-1990 with the Cubs, Rangers, and Expos.  In 125 career games, he had a 9-12 record with 5 saves and a 5.21 ERA.  Alejandro Pena I do remember, probably mainly from the 1988 World Series, in which he went 1-0 pitching in two games in relief against the A's.  I might also remember him for pitching against the Pirates in the 1991 NLCS, when he was with the Braves.  Other than 1988, he was on two other championship teams, pitching in the 1981 NLCS with the Dodgers, and in the 1995 NLDS, NLCS, and World Series with the Braves.  He was a starter for a couple of years, and in 1984 led the NL in ERA with 2.48 and in shutouts with 4.

Tom Henke.

Mike Trujillo.

The Blue Jays had a number of great players in the run-up to their back-to-back World Series wins in 1992 and 1993, and Henke was their closer for many years (including the 1992 championship).  He played for Texas in 1993 and 1994, and then for the Cardinals in 1995 before retiring.  He had 311 career saves.  Mike Trujillo pitched for the Red Sox, Mariners, and Tigers between 1985 and 1989, compiling a 12-12 record with 3 saves and a 5.02 ERA in 83 big league games.

That's it for this installment.  We're making progress, and soon I'll know exactly how many 1988 Topps cards I fell short by from a complete set.  It's looking to be about 10% short, but I don't know exactly yet.  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!

My 1972 Topps Set Project, again

I made a blog mistake yesterday, accidentally pushing the "publish" button as I was drafting my post about my project to determine how close I am to having a complete set of 1988 Topps.  This bumped down my post about my 1972 Topps set project, so I thought I'd post some more 1972 Topps cards today, some recently acquired, and some which have been in my collection for many years.

To recap, I started working towards a complete 1972 Topps set this past October.  I'm hoping to finish in 2019, although I understand the high numbers are difficult.  I'm currently at 240/787 cards, or 30.50%.  So far, so good.

Now, some more cards.

Skip Lockwood.

Don Baylor, Roric Harrison, and Johnny Oates.

Brewers pitcher Skip Lockwood is the only non-star from 1972 that I had in my collection before I started trying to collect the whole set.  The card is a little beat up and a little off-center.  That's fine.  Lockwood pitched in the majors between 1965 and 1980, including with the Kansas City A's and the Seattle Pilots.  His career record was 57-97 with 68 saves.

This Don Baylor/Orioles Rookies card has also been in my collection since circa 1990, and it would be even better if it were Don Baylor's rookie card.  But, alas, he was also featured in the 1971 set.  No problem, though, it's always good to have a Don Baylor card.  I've posted about Johnny Oates a few times, since I remember him as Orioles manager back when I was in school.  Roric Harrison pitched to a career 30-35 record for the Orioles, Braves, Indians, and Twins between 1972 and 1978.

Greg Luzinski.

Ron Reed.

Then we have these guys, Greg Luzinski and Ron Reed, two members of the 1980 World Champion Phillies.  Luzinski was a second slugger for the team, whose career numbers are 307 home runs and 1128 RBI (the main slugger, of course, being Mike Schmidt).  Pitcher Ron Reed was in the Phillies' bullpen, pitching in 55 games in the 1980 regular season, finishing 29 of them.  Reed was a two-sport guy, also playing in the NBA at the start of his MLB career.

1971 NL Victory Leaders.

Tom Seaver, In Action.

In 1971, Fergie Jenkins led the NL with 24 wins, and Steve Carlton, Al Downing, and Tom Seaver all tied for second with 20.  Carlton was frequently compared to Nolan Ryan because of all the strikeouts the two produced, but Carlton insisted that Tom Seaver was his real competition.  Downing is the only one of these four not enshrined in Cooperstown; 1971 was his best year by far.  I think that this Tom Seaver In Action card has been in my collection for these past 25 years; the pitching leaders card is new to me.

Billy Martin, In Action.

Jim Fregosi.

Then we have Billy Martin on a managerial In Action card.  I showed a selection of Martin cards once before, including his famous "middle finger" 1972 Topps card.  Jim Fregosi of course was a long-time player, but I remember him better as manager of the Phillies, winning the 1993 pennant with the Phils, and on a 1987 Topps card with the White Sox.  I've posted some Fregosi cards before, too.  This Martin and this Fregosi are both recent acquisitions, while the "middle finger" card has been in my collection for many years.

So, that's it for showing some 1972 cards, again, for now.  I'll post updates on my progress towards the set every now and then.