Around the Horn: Cleveland Indians

My "Around the Horn" series returns (finally) and this time I'm heading up to the shores of Lake Erie and exploring one of my team collections ... the Cleveland Indians!

The Indians have been around since the founding of the American League in 1901 and had many different names in their formative years until settling on "Indians" in 1915.

League Park
Photo: wikipedia.org

The team played in League Park (aka Dunn Field) from 1901-1932 and a lighter schedule of games from 1934-1946 when they split home games at both League Park and Cleveland Stadium. League Park also hosted the two predecessors to the Indians, the Cleveland Spiders of the National League and the Cleveland Lake Shores of the Western League.

These Conlon cards represent players from the early years of the Tribe. I love the Colon cards because not only are the usual players featured but you also get forgotten players of the era like Neal Ball, Sarge Connally, and Ab Wright. The Neal Ball card I'm particularly fond of as it just shows how primitive major league baseball was back then. The outfield wall is littered with advertising and beyond that there are houses in the background. As for Ball himself, he was a journeyman infielder who played 7 seasons with Cleveland, New York, and Boston. The back of the card tells how he turned an unassisted triple play on July 19, 1909. 

Cleveland Stadium
Photo: wikipedia.org

The Indians abandoned League Park for good after 1946 and moved into the massive Cleveland Stadium on the shores of Lake Erie. During their time there, the Tribe had some pretty lean years but it hosted two World Series (1948 and 1954) and the All-Star Game four times (1935, 1954, 1963, and 1981).

My actual Indians card collection begins with this 1957 Topps Don Mossi. It's the oldest Indians card I have in my collection. 

Jumping ahead to the 1970s now and some of my favorite Indians cards from the 70s, including two players who played for both the Reds and the Indians, Vada Pinson and Buddy Bell. The most interesting thing here is the Ken Aspromonte manager card, not because of the manager himself, but because of the coaches, especially the pitching coach, Warren Spahn. I find it terribly hard to imagine Warren Spahn in an Indians uniform.

The 1980s were pretty thin on good teams for the majority of the 1980s and had only two winning seasons (1981 and 1986) but still never rose above 5th place during the decade. They had some good players though like Len Barker, who threw a perfect game in 1981, Toby Harrah, Andre Thornton, and Brook Jacoby. Speaking of Jacoby, checkout the dark blue uniform top on him. I don't remember that uniform at all.

To anyone else, this would be just another 1989 Topps card. However, to me, it's one of the most interesting cards of the set. The Indians drafted Mark Lewis out of high school in 1988 and it was out of Hamilton High School, which is only about 15 minutes from me. While I never went to school there, I hung out with a bunch out people there years ago and got to know the area quite well. Hamilton itself is quite the neat little city with a really awesome downtown area and a branch campus of Miami University. The neat thing about this card is that I know exactly where those baseball fields are where that picture was taken and it's of a local guy proudly representing Hamilton on a Topps baseball card. As for his career, he carved out a nice 11-year career as a journeyman infielder with two different stops in Cincinnati.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that the Indians gained prominence being featured in the movie "Major League" which was released in 1989. When I first saw it, I didn't think much of it but over time it's definitely grown on me and is one of my favorite baseball movies now. It spawned a successful 1994 sequel "Major League II" and a third, not so successful entry "Major League: Back to the Minors" in 1998 which bombed at the box office.

Progressive Field (aka Jacobs Field)
Photo: wikipedia.org

The Indians began the 90s the same way they ended the 80s, near the bottom of the standings. However, Mike Hargrove took over as manager in 1992 and the team moved out of tired old Cleveland Stadium after the 1993 season and into shiny new Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field) and had brand new uniforms to match. I've seen a couple games at the stadium and it's a wonderful place to see a ballgame.

The Indians dominated the American League pretty much from 1994 to 2001 with players like Jim Thome, Albert Belle, Roberto Alomar, Manny Ramirez, and Kenny Lofton mixed along side older stars like Bip Roberts, Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez, and Orel Hershiser.  The early 90s weren't without some interesting players too like Keith Hernandez, Eddie Taubensee, and Jeff Shaw, both of who were part of some of the better Reds teams of the 90s as well. I've still yet to figure out where that Kenny Lofton card in the first photo came from. If I had to guess, it was probably from a giveaway to commemorate the final season of Cleveland Stadium.

Here's a bunch of IP autographs I've acquired through various trades. I've mentioned this in a previous post but my favorite of the batch has got to be Dave Burba, with Charles Nagy a close second.

These cards from the 2000s are just awesome. I never bough any Upper Deck Sweet Spot as my collecting had pretty much fizzled out by then but it's nice to have them now.

I don't even remember Doc Gooden's stint in Cleveland but he pitched there in 1998 and 1999 amassing an 11-10 record and a 4.92 ERA over 45 starts in those two seasons.

Some modern cards now celebrating the rich past of the team from early stars like Nap Lajoie to more modern stars like Jay Bruce who spent the the latter part of the 2017 season with the Indians to help them in the playoffs.

I've talked a lot about the team itself but haven't really talked about my player collections. There are really only a handful of Indians players I focus on with Jim Thome being at the top.

Of course, I can't talk about the Indians and not mention Dennis Eckersley. I picked up that 1976 Topps card for five bucks at the flea market probably about five or six years ago.

Bert Blyleven is another pitcher from the Indians I tend to collect. Not so much a lot of his other stuff but definitely his Indians cards for sure.

I can't talk about the current Indians without talking about one of their top players, Francisco Lindor. These are my five favorite Lindor cards I have. 

I wanted to close this out with this card, my absolute favorite card I have in my Indians collection. I acquired this card in a trade with P-Town Tom and it's absolutely stunning. As a matter of fact, it's one card I actually keep in a penny sleeve and top loaded because I like it so much and I don't want anything to ruin it. 

So there it is, a look at some of the Indians cards in my collection. I know this was rather lengthy but I dug through two binders worth of Indians cards, hence the length. The next installment should be a bit shorter. Speaking of which ...

On deck for the next entry ... the Seattle Mariners

Retail Repack Adventures #6: Quality Control Fail

Happy New Year everyone!

I had planned on getting a post up right after Christmas but the combination of getting back to work and not having much free time caused my holiday hiatus to be a bit longer than anticipated. However, things are finally starting to settle down and I'll have more time to write. With it being a new year, I figure what better way to start things off with than with another lovely repack from the local Walgreens.

Dont panic! It's just the cover card of one Joe Panik from the 2015 Topps Update All-Star Access set. When I first got one of these in one of those holiday boxes from Target, I was confused. They weren't the normal All-Star cards I was used to seeing in Update. Come to find out, they were a retail only insert set. Even though I'm just a few cards shy of completing the All-Star cards from 2015 (I really need to check on that), I'm not planning on going after these.

A repack wouldn't be complete without a giant lot of 2014 Topps. I only opened 3-4 packs of it at the time so I'm definitely making up for it now. The Luis Valbuena card is pretty awesome with the throwback Cubs jersey.

Some nice cards from the 2000s which have since been added to my binder. Does anyone else remember Impact? I didn't until the Jim Thome card revealed itself. 

More recent Topps cards, this time from 2012. I like that set, no matter what anyone else says. It's the set that got me back into collecting.

Anytime I can pull some 86 Topps cards from a repack, it's a good day. One day I might decide to put together that set but I have some other projects I want to work on first. 

1989 Topps was well represented with cards not only from the main set, but also from the Traded set. I've always sort of liked the design of these cards as it felt kind of fun but it also stands out because it followed a very bland 1988 design. Also, I had no idea that Buddy Bell had played for the Astros.

This is interesting. It's a 1994 card of Alma Ziegler from the Ted Williams card company. Ziegler was one of the top stars of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the 40s and 50s. She played for the Milwaukee/Grand Rapids Chicks from 1944-54, won the 1950 Player of the Year award, was a four time all-star, and was the official team captain. This is a pretty cool card that will have a nice home in my 90s binder.

Getting oddballs out of repacks is always neat. I'm always a fan of these Post cereal cards from the 90s as I had a pretty extensive collection of them back in the day. I don't think I had this Bonds one though. I've never been a fan of Bonds in all honesty but an oddball card of him as a Pirate is one that I'll hang on to.

Here's where things get a little screwy. First there were two of these Tom Brunansky cards ....

... then two of these Alejandro De Aza cards ...

... then two of these Todd Hundley cards ...

... and then this! What happened here I wonder and how did this get past quality control? Also, how did this, what was once a Dan Plesac card, get so horribly damaged?

Puzzling right? 

Anyway, that lays to rest this Walgreens repack. I've got one more of these left that I picked up and hopefully it doesn't have the egregious issues this one had.

You've Got Mail #52: Infield Fly Rule

I've never been to Colorado but sometimes I have the urge to visit. Denver I hear is a happening place with all manner of wacky restaurants, entertainment, and sports teams. If I ever went, I think the main thing I'd have to do is eat at the Denver Biscuit Company and see either and Avalanche game or a Rockies game. One person who I know had seen his share of Rockies games (but not sure about any Avs games nor am I sure he's ever been to Denver Biscuit) is Adam K. of the Infield Fly Rule blog. Recently, he sent over a box full of Indians cards which helped fill in some gaps in my ever growing collection of Tribe cards.

The contents of the package was a good variety of junk wax stuff up through mid 2000s. The cards show above are all cards I don't have a lot of currently in my collection. I was pretty happy to see some mid-90s Score and while 1992 Donruss isn't exactly my favorite, it was pretty neat to get an Eddie Taubensee Rated Rookie card in there. 

Some more junk wax that will fit in nicely. I really like the photo on the Mark Lewis card as it's him in the uniform of Hamilton High School which is about 20 minutes from where I live. Joe Carter cards of him as an Indian are always welcome too. I've always preferred the 1989 Topps design over 1990 which just seemed a little bland, but there are a few gems in there.

Here's some more recent stuff, including back when Upper Deck was still making baseball cards. I forgot how good the Indians pitching was back when they had C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, and Jake Westbrook. Team cards are always neat and in the future I might make that a mini-collection. Not sure yet. Also, there's a shiny card in the form of Bowman Platinum!

I'll end with some Manny Ramirez cards. I think I've got every Manny rookie card now from the 90s, not that I'll really complain. The middle card is a Sportflics card of some sort, I can't really tell as it didn't scan all that great. This package definitely helped bulk up my Tribe collection, including filling in some much needed stuff from the 2000s. I'm nearly to the point where my Tribe cards will be moved to their own binder sooner rather than later. 

Like I said in the beginning, Colorado seems to be a happening place, just like this trade package. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go make some biscuit sandwiches and watch an Avalanche game, just like they to in Denver.