1990 Topps Minis #51: Ryne Sandberg

We have another of the 1990 Topps Mini League Leaders today, which is also another single-card Ryne Sandberg post after yesterday's 1992 Slurpee disc.

#51, Ryne Sandberg.

Speaking as someone who is more or less a Phillies fan, Ryne Sandberg always feels like the "one who got away."  The late 80s Phillies were terrible, so if they had Sandberg maybe they would have just been terrible but with a good second baseman.

Ryne Sandberg card back.

Sandberg (and the Cubs) had a good year in 1989.  He made his way into this league leaders set by tying for first in runs with 104, and placing fifth in both hits and home runs.

Thanks for reading!

One more 1992 Slurpee disc

I made a couple posts before of what I thought were all my Slurpee discs; I split them into my discs from 1992 and those from 1985-1991.  I also showed a 1982 Slurpee cups checklist I bought recently.  I grew up down the street from a 7-Eleven, and that's where I bought a huge number of my 1987 Topps cards when I started seriously collecting cards, in 6th grade.

1992 Slurpee Ryne Sandberg disc.

We moved out of that house in 1988, and I no longer had convenient access to Slurpees.  But by 1992 I was driving, and could get myself to a 7-Eleven.  So I have a bunch of 1992 discs. 

I got all my cards back from my parents' house a couple of years ago, and left behind some related stuff like wrappers and Donruss puzzle pieces.  I was going through that other stuff just recently and found this Sandberg disc had slipped in.  It's now back with the cards where it belongs.

Disc back.

The 1992 Slurpee discs are branded Score, while earlier ones may have been made by the same company but were unbranded.  I also bought some of my first Score cards at that same 7-Eleven, when they came out in 1988.

Thanks for reading!

1990 Topps Minis #50: Greg Maddux

We now resume our series of blogging the 1990 Topps Mini League Leaders set, today with Greg Maddux of the Cubs.  We're at card #50 out of 88, so we've started I think we've made some substantial progress through the set.

#50, Greg Maddux.

I was watching the Bucs lose yet another game on TV the other day, and Cardinals pitching coach Mike Maddux came out at one point.  I used to see Mike Maddux play at the Vet, when he was on the Phillies from 1986-1989.  Turned out Mike had a more-talented younger brother.

Greg Maddux card back.

Greg Maddux made it into this set by placing second in wins in the NL in 1989 with 19.  Maddux would lead the NL in wins for the first time in 1992, still with the Cubs, and twice later with the Braves.  That's all en route to his career 355-227 record.

Thanks for reading!  A couple more Cubs are next in this series.

Two more oversized cards

A little while ago, I showed some oversized cards I got in a recent COMC box.  But I forgot a couple, which I had put away in a different place.  So here those other two are.

1991 Pepsi Bobby Bonilla.

This card checks a couple of boxes for me -- I loved watching those early 1990s Pirates division winners, and I love Pepsi and Pepsi products.  But this is a terrible card!  The logo-less uniform and the largely empty stripes at the bottom, and the can of Pepsi being tossed into the glove just don't work.  And the fact that it's oversized seems like an accident -- it's slightly too wide, making it seem like they didn't investigate what the standard baseball card size was before they manufactured them.

1984 Smokey Bear Garry Templeton.

These Smokey Bear cards are always oversized, but maybe not always the same size.  This looks like it's my fourth (and probably last) Smokey card; my previous ones are of John Candelaria, Tony Pena, and Brian Downing.  Candelaria and Pena are two of my favorite players, while Downing and Templeton I like but chose the cards somewhat arbitrarily.

Thanks for reading!

A St. Louis Wolves card

This is the only Action Packed card in my collection; I picked it up on COMC a few months ago.  I don't remember Action Packed although my original period of collecting did last long enough for them to have appeared.

Who's on first?

Like many baseball fans, the Who's on First routine has a special place in my heart.  So I thought I would see if there are any cards to commemorate it, and sure enough, there are one or two.  This one is great for showing Bud Abbott in a St. Louis Wolves baseball uniform.

Card back.

The back includes the known lineup, including infrequently mentioned players I Don't Care, Tomorrow, Today, Why, and Because.

Thanks for reading!

A Robinson and a Mantle

I recently was able to pick up a couple of nice cards for my small PSA-graded subcollection. 

1956 Topps Jackie Robinson.

When I resumed collecting two years ago, one of the first cards I bought was a 1954 Jackie Robinson, graded PSA 4.  As a kid I never imagined owning a Jackie Robinson card, but now that I have one, I thought two would be even better.  I mentioned getting some good news at work earlier this year, and to celebrate I would be getting a few nice cards.  So in addition to the Monte Irvin and Larry Doby cards I showed before, I now have my second real Jackie Robinson card.

1961 Topps Mickey Mantle World Series card.

There are a few championships that are especially commemorated in my collection, such as the 1971 Pirates, the 1979 Pirates, and the 1980 Phillies.  And I'm working on getting PSA-graded versions of the 1961 Topps cards recognizing the 1960 Pirates World Series win.  This is the fifth of the eight cards that I have from the series; they're mostly graded PSA 6, but one is PSA 7.  It's not the best example of a Mantle card, but I think it still counts.

Thanks for reading!

Three vintage Phils for my second blogiversary

I just caught my blogiversary in time to make a post for it.  Today is two years blogging, although the blog posts come infrequently these days.  In a sense I write for a living; I'm a math professor, and I mainly write research papers.  There's a lot of other writing, too, though, which in various forms involves either advocating for my own research (like in grant proposals) or evaluating other people's research (like in reports on other people's papers, theses, grant proposals, and tenure cases).  Much of this involves responsibility to other people -- if I don't work on writing a paper, I might be letting a coauthor down.  Which is all to say that writing on a blog sometimes has to take a back seat.  But I try to get back into it after I've been away for a while, and I see that it's been more than a month since my last blog post.  So as usual when I've been away, I'll say now that I want to get back to it, and I'll start now with three vintage Phillies.

1961 Topps Dallas Green

Dallas Green was a hero to us kids in the greater Philly area in the early 80s, although perhaps not in the same ways as Schmidt and Carlton, or even Bowa, Trillo, Bowa, Boone, Maddox, or McGraw.  But Dallas Green was the manager who delivered the first World Series for the Phillies.  He didn't hang around much after that, and was soon off to the front office of the Cubs.  But he was in Philadelphia long enough to deliver.  His 1980 Topps Burger King card has always had a place in my binder.  I decided to get a card of him as a player; he didn't only play with the Phillies, but it looks like all his cards have him with the Phils.  He was only briefly with the Senators and the Mets.  Green also is another special collection of mine, which is of Delawareans who made it to MLB.

1961 Topps Clay Dalrymple

Another 1961 Phillie is catcher Clay Dalrymple.  He played with the Phillies from 1960-1968 and with the Orioles from 1969-1971.  Wikipedia claims Dalrymple is second only to Campanella at percentage of throwing out baserunners attempting to steal; Baseball Reference puts Dalrymple at 30th place all-time.  In any case, he was a good defensive catcher for a number of years.  I wanted to pick up a card of Dalrymple for a specific reason, which is that I have his autograph.  The autograph is on a Phillies hat, and Dad and I got it at one of the many games we went to back in the late 80s/early 90s.  I don't remember exactly how it worked, but I think we gave some money to charity, and got the hat as a prize?  I don't know if it was a raffle situation or a grab bag or something.  But however it worked, I now have a card to go with the autographed cap.

1967 Topps Rick Wise

Dalrymple wasn't the only autographed cap we got, either.  I also have a Rick Wise.  Wise was a solid pitcher but is most famous for being traded for Steve Carlton, of course.  I had some Rick Wise cards in the 1972 set that I'm building, but wanted another outside of that set for my main binder.  So this 1967 will do nicely.

Thanks, as always, for reading!