Hit Me

In my last post, I showed off some cards in a box set from the old Hills department store from 1989. Well, the next year, Hills came back with one of my favorite oddball sets ... Hills Hit Men (not to be confused with the "South Side Hitmen" of the 1977 Chicago White Sox). Like its predecessor, it's a 33-card set featuring some of the top sluggers in baseball at the time. 

Here's the back. I have to say this box is in much better shape than the other one. It was still in the shrink wrap too. Remember, this was only a buck from the April card show. Here's the cards as they came out of the box.

Starting off good with Cal Ripken, Kevin Mitchell, Eric Davis, and Eddie Murray. The design on this I think is pretty eye-catching with the Hills logo, a baseball bat featuring the words "Hit Men" and the yellow name-plate at the bottom.

Really the great thing about these sets is that you never know who you'll actually find. Fred Lynn is a good example as 1990 was his last season.

As I mentioned with this sets counterpart, I'm planning on putting this in order and sticking it in my "oddball sets" binder as I think it will just look tremendous when paged up.

More good stuff here, including Dave Parker with the Brewers.

The last batch of nine. It's good to see most teams get representation but the Angels and the Indians didn't have anyone in the set. Yet the Padres had three (Joe Carter, Jack Clark, Fred Lynn). I love the Andres Galarraga Expos card, that blue just pops out.

Somehow I also wound up with and extra of the Kevin Mitchell card so that will be going in the trade bin. I figured I would at least get some use out of it and scan the back.

If I had one complaint about this set, it'd be the back. It's very minimal and only features the career stats and a formula for figuring slugging percentage.

Anyway, that's another set of Hills cards. I think these two were the only retail sets that Hills put out through Topps. Next time I go to a card show, I'm definitely going to be picking up more retail sets like this as these are a blast to go through.

The Hills Have Eyes

I picked up some of these box sets for a buck each at the most recent card show I went to back in April. Since then, they've been sitting around waiting to get explored. I thought now would be a good time to do so.

This is a Hills Team MVPs set from 1989. It's a 33-card set of some of the top names in baseball at the time. I love these old retail oddball sets from defunct retailers like Hills, Kaybee Toys, Toys R Us,  K-Mart, Revco, etc. There's just something about them that speaks to me. 

Here's the back of the box. I love the fact it's still got the original price on it ($1.97) and the checklist.

Now, as far as Hills goes, I grew up with a Hills store that my grandparents would go to occasionally. My grandma mostly went there because of it being a department store and she was able to get sewing supplies like pins, needles, fabric, etc. I remember going there a few times looking at video games and toys. Ames took over Hills, which was having financial trouble, at the end of 1998 and lasted until 2002 when they met their demise due to money troubles of their own.

This is what the local Hills store looks like now. Over the years, since Ames closed, it's housed numerous discount outlets. I'm not sure if the store itself is still open as I haven't been by there in a long time. 

Anyway, enough reminiscing, here's what the box of cards contained. I'm showing these in the order that they came out of the box.

Some pretty good names here with Orel Hershiser and Dennis Eckersley ... Johnny Ray seems out of place but judging by the stats from the 1988 Angels club, he lead the team in batting average so I can see why he was included.

Oooh! Fred McGriff in the all blue Blue Jays uniform! Yes please!

In regards to the cards themselves, I like the design a lot. The banner at the bottom, the giant Hills logo at the top left of the card. The pictures are pretty good as well. This batch features Andres Galarraga with the Expos and Joe Carter with the Indians, which are always a pleasant find.

Next to last batch here. I love the photo on Mike Greenwell's card with the Green Monster looming in the background.

Final batch here. Only one Reds player in the whole set, that being Danny Jackson, who probably would've won the Cy Young in 1988 had it not been for Orel Hershiser's scoreless inning streak. Jackson won 23 games in 1988, with 15 complete games.

If you're interested, here's the back of the card. Not very impressive if you ask me as it only has the player's 1988 stats with vitals and a brief blurb about their 1988 season.

This was a really cool pickup for a buck and I've got another Hills set to go through, this time from 1990. I think every team had at least one player in the set as well, which is another plus. It'll look even better once I put them in order and page them up in my "oddball sets" binder.

Miscellaneous Maildays

The flow of mail in the CCHQ mailbox had slowed to a trickle recently, however I did receive a few small things here and there recently that can be combined into one blog post.

Peter from Baseball Every Night sent over a small sampling of Indians cards via PWE. There were two of the Encarnacion card, which is ok. My favorite of this batch though is the Joe Carter card. Really, how can you go wrong with Joe Carter Indians cards?

Tom at Angels in Order recently did a clearance of some old baseball books he had and he offered some up to the blogging community for a nominal fee each. I picked up one of my favorites, "Big Hair and Plastic Grass". If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it as it chronicles the craziness of 70s baseball in a fun and easy to follow way. It doesn't get too much into the weeds of stats and behind the scenes antics either, which I appreciate.

Finally, a rather unique piece. A while back Matt over at Parts of My Past (formerly Sport Card Collectors) talked about how he had obtained an autographed 8x10 of Pat Sajak and Vanna White of "Wheel of Fortune" fame. Being a long time fan of the show, I figured I would try my luck. I filled out the request form, got an email back the next day asking for my address, and then a few weeks later, there it was! My first ever TTM autograph request. This is a really cool piece that I'm going to find a frame for and put up on my desk at work.

That gets me caught up on some mail then. I picked up some cards from both Target and Walmart recently so expect to see those coming up shortly.

Small But Mighty

It's not everyday that I get cards via UPS but that's exactly what happened when I received some cards from Julie of A Cracked Bat. I'd gotten a email for a UPS delivery notification. "That's odd," I thought. "I don't remember ordering anything." Then I thought maybe it was something to do with my 401K until I received an email from Julie in the wee hours of the morning stating there was a package on the way via UPS. "Yay cards!"

I had called off work the day it arrived as my son's school was cancelled due to the freezer-like temperatures. I stepped out to get a quick drive-thru lunch for the family and when I got back, there was the UPS driver just leaving. I had lunch then I ... well ... cracked it open and found all kinds of super cool stuff!

I'll start with these super cool and super shiny Topps Archives Reserve cards. Topps seems to love reprints these days but if they're going to do reprints and re-issues, why not go all out like these? They took two cards from the 1954 set, chromed them up, and issued them as part of the Archives line. I'd totally be down if they did cards like this as inserts in either Chrome or Archives. Anyway, I really dig these cards.

The box had loads of Reds and Indians cards so I'll tackle them team by team. As usual, first the Reds. There were there nice Barry Larkin cards. I particularly like the Topps Tribute one as it shows Larkin in the forgotten red and black jersey and has the old school Reds logo instead of the current one.

Some cool and shiny Joey Votto cards. With the additions to the Reds lineup in the form of Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig this offseason, I'm hoping Votto can return to the form that he had in 2017 when he finished one vote shy of NL MVP.

Two Eugenio Suarez cards that look very similar but they're not. The one on the left is the base version while the one on the right is the "negative refractor". I had to look that up because I can't keep track of variation names. 

Some Topps Fire cards. The Reds dropped Billy Hamilton like a bad habit this offseason when they non-tendered him a contract. The Royals promptly scooped him up. Tucker Barnhart has been mentioned in trade rumors in exchange for J.T. Realmuto. I'm not sure why the Reds would trade Barnhart for a guy (Realmuto) who would be a free agent after the 2019 season when he (Barnhart) is under club control through 2021.

New cards weren't the only thing Julie included, there were these cards from the 90s.

And this random Ken Griffey Jr. card. Has it really been 10 years since Griffey was last a member of the Reds? Wow.

There were also cards from the early 2000s, which I really enjoy. I remember these Fleer Futures cards when they came out and I think I had a handful of them in my original collection. I remember having the Sean Casey card for sure. The weird thing about these cards is the white part feels kind of gritty but every else on the card is smooth.

Here's another Fleer product from the early 2000s, Authentix. I remember really liking these when they came out as they have the look and feel of a ticket stub, especially with the section, row, and seat numbers (which is the players uniform number). These are definitely cards I need to find more of.

I'll open the Indians section with these "slim" cards. I think the Lindor might be a duplicate, I'm not sure. I'd have to check my Indians binder.

Two cards I know that are not duplicates are these super cool mid-80s Joe Carter cards. 

Oh ... my ... gosh! These are awesome! I love cards with players wearing throwback jerseys but these just are above and beyond any of the other throwback jersey cards I have. The Tribe went all out with these, all red and the old school Indians script. These jerseys are just perfect.

Hey look ... an oddball! This is part of a 12-card set issued by Sunoco and Coca-Cola in 2001 that featured legendary greats from each team. I'm not sure how one would've gotten the cards from this set though. If anyone knows, leave a comment below.

More cool 90s cards.

Some more super shiny cards as well. The "Bowman Birthdays" Francisco Lindor is really cool!

Seeing retired players on modern cards is always a treat. The top two card of Lou Boudreau and Satchel Paige are from Topps Fire. The Paige looks to be a refractor or parallel of some kind. The bottom three are from last years Archives. I know they're not dupes either because I would've remembered pulling them from packs.

Here we have two Corey Kluber cards and much like the Eugenio Suarez cards earlier, there is a base and a parallel. 

I'd ordered some Museum Collection singles in my last COMC order. While they were mostly of retired players, it's nice to add some active players in with those now. 

In addition to Reds and Indians cards, Julie knows I have a soft spot for horror-related items so she threw in these cards as a bonus. There was a nice batch (probably about 15 or so) of the Tales From the Crypt cards so I picked out a few of my favorites. I had no knowledge about the "Uninvited Guests" minis from A&G but they're great! I'm definitely going to work on getting some more of those in advance of Halloween (yes, I'm already planning for that).

Thanks to Julie for sending me this small but mighty box of cards. I've got some cards stashed away for you somewhere that I need to get out to you soon.

Around the Horn: Toronto Blue Jays

O, Canada! My "Around the Horn" series makes the trek north of the border, to look at the only current MLB team not in the United States, the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays were founded in 1977 along with the Seattle Mariners as part of the last round of American League expansion (that is, until 1998 when the Rays (nee Devil Rays) were added).

Photo: Wikipedia.org

From their inception until June of 1989, the Jays played at Exhibition Stadium, a strange creature of a stadium positioned on the shores of Lake Ontario. According to Wikipedia, there was a small snowstorm before the inaugural game in April of 1977 and the team had to borrow the Zamboni from the Maple Leafs to clear the field.

During the first few years of the Blue Jays existence, they were nothing to write home about. However, when Bobby Cox took over as manager in the early 1980s, things began to improve and the Blue Jays began to rise in the standings. The 1982 Topps "Future Stars" card shows a glimpse into the future. Let's see how each player on this card panned out:

Jesse Barfield - Played 12 MLB seasons total, the first nine of which were with the Jays. He finished in the top 10 of Rookie of the Year voting in 1982, twice in the top ten of MVP voting (1985, 1986), and won Gold Gloves in 1986 and 1987. His best season was 1986, the only season in which he made the All-Star team, in which he slugged 40 homers, hit .289 with a .559 slugging percentage, and drove in 108 RBIs.

Brian Milner - Only appeared in two major league games in 1978 and accumulated 9 official at bats in those two games. He tooled around the lower minors for a few years and was out of organized baseball after 1982.

Boomer Wells - Also known as Greg Wells, he lasted all of two seasons in the majors (1981 with TOR and 1982 with MIN) and only appeared in a paltry 47 games during that span. In 1983, he went over to Japan and had a very prolific career over there playing until 1992 with the Hankyu Braves, Orix Braves, and the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.

Throughout the 1980s, the Blue Jays were perennial contenders for the AL East Division crown and actually won the Division in 1985 before being bested by Kansas City in the ALCS that year. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they had veterans like Jim Clancy along with youngsters such as Cecil Fielder and Mark Whiten who would eventually lead them to the promise land. More on that later.

I picked these cards out because I always enjoyed the pure white of the Blue Jays uniforms during this period. Also, I think Cecil Fielder's four year run with the Jays gets forgotten quite a bit as most remember him for the home run clubbing first baseman for the Tigers during the early part of the 1990s.

From the "short term stops" file, here's some 80s cards of Jeff Burroughs and Juan Berenguer. 

Burroughs only season with the Jays was his sunset year of 1985 where he only made 86 games. He's shown here in the 1986 Fleer issue. It's one of only a handful of cards I have from that particular set. Berenguer, also known as "El Gasolino" in addition to his "Señor Smoke" moniker, had a brief 12-game sojourn north of the border in 1981 as he was purchased by the Jays from the Royals just before the second half of the season started. 

Photo: wikipedia.org

In the middle of the 1989 season, the Blue Jays moved from Exhibition Stadium into the brand new Skydome (since renamed Rogers Centre), a giant multi-purpose stadium built on the former Railway Lands in downtown Toronto.

Fred McGriff and Joe Carter were part of arguably the biggest and most famous trade in Blue Jays history. In December of 1990, the Blue Jays traded McGriff and Tony Fernandez to San Diego for Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar. The rest is history. 

McGriff had a few good seasons with the Padres before being acquired by the Braves in 1993 for the stretch run to the playoffs. Fernandez spent two seasons in San Diego before being traded to the Mets in the 1992-93 offseason. He found his way back to Toronto after being acquired via trade in June of 1993. All totaled, Fernandez had four different stints with the Jays (1983-1990, 1993, 1998-99, and 2001) before retiring.

Would I call myself a Fred McGriff collector? Yes, possibly as he's a player I'm familiar with from seeing him with the Braves on TV. Seeing cards of him though in a Blue Jays uniform is just fascinating. These are my four favorites that I have.

Carter and Alomar helped the Jays win back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993, with Carter hitting one of the most famous home runs in World Series history in 1993 off Mitch Williams of the Phillies. Alomar anchored the defense up the middle and earned both an All-Star nod and a gold glove in every season he spent up in Toronto. We won't mention the little umpire spitting incident though.

Joe Carter is definitely someone cool I enjoy collecting, mainly because of that home run in the 1993 World 

The Jays also had some great pitching during this time from players such as Jack Morris, Dave Stewart, and Pat Hentgen. Morris joined the team in 1992 and won 21 games for the Jays after having just won the World Series with Minnesota the year prior

Some more stars from early 90s Blue Jays teams, including "Hard Hittin'" Mark Whiten, and Dave Winfield, who's one of my favorite players to collect. Looking back now on it, those 92 and 93 teams were just absolutely loaded.

I mostly remember Paul Molitor for his time with the Brewers and him signing a three-year deal with the Blue Jays after spending 15 years in Milwaukee was a bit of a shock to me as a kid as I imagined him as a Brewer for life.

The Jays sort of fell off after the 1994-95 strike but did have some younger players coming up like Carlos Delgado. They even changed their long time logo and uniforms. 

They also managed to snag Roger Clemens for two brief seasons in 1997 and 1998. I'm not sure too many people remember his time in blue up north so I guess this could be filed as a "short term stop" even though it was two seasons. It's still bizarre to me to see him in anything but a Red Sox uniform.

One player I didn't care much for when he was with the Reds was Edwin Encarnacion. In a rare trade where it worked well for both teams, the Reds traded him and a couple minor leaguers in exchange for Scott Rolen. Encarnacion had a heck of a run with the Blue Jays, and coupled with Jose Bautista, made for a crazy power threat in the lineup. 

So there we are, a look at some of my favorite Blue Jays cards in my collection. Hope you enjoyed this entry in the "Around the Horn" series.

Next up ... the Cleveland Indians!