(Author's note:This is my first official post back. I'm out of practice with writing blog posts so apologies in advance if these aren't as descriptive or well-written as before. I'll get back to form soon. Also, thank you for all the great "welcome back" comments. I really appreciate it!)
During my hiatus, I received a few packages in the mail, some of which I documented from the "Epic Baseball Card Adventure" blog I attempted (and have since uploaded to this blog).
One package I received after that blog kind of dropped off the face of the earth was from Oscar at the "All Trade Bait..." blog. Apparently I'd send him cards a while back and he said these returned the favor. So let's take a look and see what he sent over.
Lots of Expos were included in the package, including this Ron Hassey card which I had no knowledge of. This is also a sunset card as Hassey retired after the 1991 season. Several of the late season 1991 cards showed him with the Expos but this is the only 1992 card he had in a major set.
More Expos including longtime Brewers pitcher Bob McClure, who is another guy I never realized suited up for the Expos.
One last batch of Expos. Is just me or are the blue uniforms of the late 80s/early 90s completely wild?
The majority of the package was made up of Hall of Famers I enjoy collecting like Robin Yount, Nolan Ryan, and the like.
There was also this nice batch of Cal Ripken cards. I think the 93 Donruss one may be a duplicate. My collection is so disorganized right now, I'm not even sure.
There were also some nice George Brett cards as well. My favorite of these has to be the 1988 Score card with the baseball coming into the picture. I wonder if he got a hit on that at-bat or not?
Some random horizontal cards here with a pair of All-Star cards from 1993 Topps and two Barry Larkin cards.
But this is probably my favorite card of the pile, a 2008 Topps Joey Votto rookie card. I'd been considering adding a Votto rookie to my collection for a while but when card shows were still a thing, the cards were so overpriced, I always took a pass. But to have one come in a trade envelope is really super cool.
Many thanks to Oscar for sending over these cards back in the summer. I really appreciate it!
The players and the crowd in the picture above are celebrating. Why? Because it's time for another edition of "Around the Horn", this time featuring the Texas Rangers.
The Rangers were actually born all the way back in 1961 as the expansion version of the Washington Senators. Despite being a new team with new promise (as the original Senators moved to Minnesota to open the 1961 season), they were just as bad. During their time, they only had one winning season (1969).
For the first few years, Cincinnati native Claude Osteen (bottom middle) was one of the standout pitchers compiling a 33-41 record with a 3.46 ERA in 108 games (90 of those starts) over four seasons before being swapped to the Dodgers for the man shown next to him, Ken McMullen and a trade that also netted the Senators slugger Frank Howard.
I love these 1971 Senators cards for a number of reasons. First, being they're 1971 Topps and who doesn't love that set. Second, 1971 was the final Senators season before they moved to Texas the next year and set up shop in Arlington as the Texas Rangers. The Ted Williams card is the only vintage Ted Williams card I own.
This Rangers team card is glorious. Check out the old school uniforms but the thing I love most is that you can see the bottom of the Texas shaped scoreboard in the background.
Here's a couple more Rangers cards from the 70s. Bert Blyleven could be considered a short term stop I think as he only spent a season and a half with the Rangers.
Al Oliver and Bert Blyleven were involved in a crazy four team trade in December of 1977. As part of the deal, Blyleven was sent to Pittsburgh and Al Oliver arrived in Texas. During his stint in Texas, he was a two-time all star and played all 163 games of the 1980 season.
There's a lot to like about this card in general. First, the old Rangers uniform. Then there the cameo of an unnamed Brewers player scampering back to first on a pickoff attempt. Last, looking at the background, it has the feel of a spring training game. It's just a glorious card.
Billy Sample spent the majority of his career with the Rangers and was a decent outfielder and DH. Between the picture of him and the Larry Biittner card above, how can you really not like 1984 Fleer. The design is just so simple.
By the time this card was released, Fergie Jenkins was playing for the Cubs. He'd only hang around the majors for two more years after this, retiring after the 1983 season. Fergie had two different stints with Texas (1974-1975, 1978-81). In 1974, he won 25 games for a Rangers club that won 84 and finished 2nd in the west. For the 1981 club, he was 5-8 over 19 games.
Here's an interesting card, the man for who the "Mendoza Line" was named, Mario Mendoza. This would be his sunset card for Donruss (he also had cards in the 1982 Fleer and Topps issues) but none of them actually capture him in action like this card. He only played in 12 games for the 1982 Rangers, hitting a paltry .118 in 18 plate appearances.
I'd forgotten how many interesting players donned Ranger uniforms in the 80s. Most of the players from the 1982 Donruss batch above I'd forgotten played down south, except for Hough and Darwin. The 1987 Topps Toby Harrah card is a sunset card. He was the last link to the original days in Washington as he played for the team before the move to Texas.
Throughout the 80s, the Rangers were a middle-to-bottom of the standings team in the AL West. Only three times finishing the season with an above .500 record. One of those years was 1986, which was Bobby Valentine's first season managing the team. Don Slaught was in his second season in Texas and split catching duties with Gino Petralli. That team also had a young Ruben Sierra and Pete Incaviglia and also featured grizzled vets like Charlie Hough, Toby Harrah, and Darrell Porter.
The Rangers signed Nolan Ryan as a free agent after he left Houston over a contract dispute. His first season in Texas was his best, going 16-10 with a 3.20 ERA and making the All-Star team. When I first got back into collecting, the card shop I went to had some packs of 1989 Upper Deck for sale. I took a chance, while I didn't get the vaunted Griffey rookie card, I did get this Nolan Ryan card from said pack.
The 90s are when I really starting noticing the Rangers, especially when Ivan Rodriguez started becoming a household name and when they made the deal for Jose Canseco. Of course, everyone remembers the infamous moment with a ball bouncing off Canseco's head for a home run.
Yep, that.
Here's a random assortment of 90s cards. I wonder if the scoreboard in the background of the 1991 Topps Juan Gonzalez card is the same scoreboard that's in the background of the Rangers team card from earlier?
Goose Gossage is probably the only true "short term stop" I could find in my Rangers collection. Goose made a comeback to the majors in 1991 after spending the 1990 season in Japan and pitched one season for Texas. There was a weird coincidence on July 23 of that season where Gossage recorded his 308th career save to preserve Nolan Ryan's 308th career win.
I think everyone is well award of A-Rod's 3-year stint in Texas. I remember when he signed with them and I found it a little bizarre that he signed with Texas from out of nowhere. The three seasons he had were might successful, especially with him winning an MVP his last season there. The giant contract turned out to be an albatross on the Rangers who shipped him to the Yankees during the 2003-04 offseason after Aaron Boone suffered a knee injury playing basketball
As far as player collections go for the Rangers, I'd say probably Nolan Ryan would be one even though I don't really look for his cards. If I find a cool card of his in a bargain bin, I'll probably snatch it up.
Adrian Beltre seems to be an unintentional player collection, although I think I might add him officially to my list. I never got to see him play much put I always heard that he had a good time playing the game. He was also an anchor for the 2011 team that made a run to the World Series.
After this past season, Beltre retired after a 21 season career with the Dodgers, Mariners, Red Sox, and Rangers. I would be he'll be a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer once he's eligible. I'm not sure if he has a card in the 2019 Topps issue but if he doesn't, then I think this 2018 card is a pretty fitting sunset card.
Speaking of sunsets, this edition of "Around the Horn" is riding off into the sunset.
I honestly don't know where to begin with this giant stack of madness. What you see above is most of the cards that Ryan from the Sumo Cards blog sent me a while back. It's a regular treasure trove, mostly baseball, but other stuff as well, including my first ever sumo cards.
I'll be quite honest, I'm not familiar with the sport of Sumo at all. As a kid I remember seeing it here and there in the early days of ESPN2 back when they would run tapes of pretty much anything from strongman spectacles to caber tossing competitions and every manner of off the radar sport in between. Somewhere in between all of that, there would be the occasional kickboxing or sumo wrestling tournament. I was pretty fascinated with the sumo wrestling but never really followed it or anything. I watched it out of mere curiosity than anything else.
These cards are just so cool but not knowing the first thing about old sumo cards, I had to ask Ryan about them. Luckily, he gave me a nice rundown of the wrestlers on the cards and what they are called. The black and white cards are called bromides and are from the 1940s and 1950s and are basically cards printed on photo paper. The round disc is a menko piece and dates to about 1930. Apparently the menko piece is extremely rare but Ryan had an extra from a set and included it for me.
As far as the wrestlers on the cards go, the two on top are Meagashira Fujigatake on the bromide photo and Maegashira Fujinosato on the menko disc. The other three, from left to right are: Yokozuna Chiyonoyama, Yokozuna Kagamisato, and Yokozuna Tochinishiki, three of only 72 wrestlers in history to attain the top ranking in sumo.
Here are some more modern sumo cards put out by BBM. The green card is actually part of a sumo fantasy card game (similar to MLB Showdown from the early 2000s I'm guessing). The BBM cards feature Ishihura Masakatsu, Takayasu Akira, and Daieisho Hayato. The explosion of color on these is fantastic and kind of makes me want to pick up a few more here and there just because of the cool looking cards.
Moving on to other cards, these two racing cards from the Maxx '91 set were included. I don't watch a lot of NASCAR but I have a general idea of some of the drivers. Both of these guys are legends in the sport. These are cool additions to my otherwise small racing collection.
Moving on now to the giant stack of baseball cards. First, there are these Expos cards. I always like it when Topps includes the Expos on modern cards. I keep telling myself I'm going to get more of those Highlight of the Year cards in general but I never do.
Some nice cards for my player collections of these four. The Robinson is a reprint so don't get excited thinking it's an original 1971. The Griffey card though is very nice with the Chrome style and the retro Bowman design.
Some modern Reds cards including a really cool Billy Hamilton card from not so cool 2016 Topps Opening Day. Mascot cards are always super fun. Strangely enough, one of the people in the office I work in is a mascot for the Reds and I think that he might actually be Mr. Redlegs.
Some old school Reds. Pete Rose may be a duplicate I think and the Tom Browning might be as well but I think the Eric Davis card is new to me. I really should catalog my cards.
This Johnny Bench card claims it's from 2002 Topps on it but I can't find a record of it anywhere. I'm guessing it's part of a legends insert or variation set? Did they do such things in 2002?
There was also a nice lot of Nolan Ryan cards, some of which I strangely didn't have yet.
What I've shown so far is only about half of the cards from the header photo. The other half, the BBM cards from Japan, I'll cover in the upcoming days.
I had planned on doing an end of year post about my favorite "first card" I pulled from various 2018 packs. Then, P-Town Tom announced his annual "favorite card" post. I figure why not wrap them together into one post?
I opened packs from seven different baseball products in 2018 ... Flagship (including Series 1 and 2), Heritage, Opening Day, Donruss, Gypsy Queen, Big League, and Archives. As I mentioned earlier, each card you see here is the first card I pulled out of the first pack of each product and I'll have a brief summary of my thoughts of each product as well.
2018 Topps Flagship (Series 1 and 2)
I went crazy back in February when Series 1 was released and bought a ton of packs and hanger boxes. I have a feeling I'll probably do the same thing this coming February when 2019 Topps hits the shelves. I really liked this years design with the "waterslide" design. The photos on some of the cards were definitely inspired too and a few even had a Stadium Club feel to them with the photography. It's definitely a lot better than when they started the borderless base cards in 2016.
2018 Heritage
Heritage this year played host to one of my favorite vintage designs, the 1969 Topps set. While it was hard to find at first, once I did find it, I really enjoyed it. Plus the initial two hanger boxes I bought produced a Giancarlo Stanton relic card. I ended up going back for more ... well, lots more ... when Target ran a big Easter sale.
2018 Opening Day
Sure, this is pretty much the same thing as Flagship but it being Opening Day, it had a number of fun inserts and was decidedly cheaper. I imagine I was looking for something cheap to rip into so that's why I bought a blaster of it. Of course, Aaron Judge had to be the first card I pulled from the first pack but the main thing I like about this particular card is the return of the Topps Rookie Cup!
2018 Panini Donruss
I've been a big supporter of Donruss since Panini revived the line about four years ago. I really, really liked the base card throwback design of 2017 but this year, I felt the base cards left a lot to be desired. The design was very busy, the photography was not good, and the airbrushed out logos and team nicknames were patently obvious. However, when I opened my first pack of Donruss this Nolan Ryan card was the card on top. I like it because Donruss did a really good job of throwing back to the 1984 design, the airbrushing is barely noticeable (except for the cap), and I can tell it's from a game at old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati because of the blue seats in the background. I'm hoping Donruss can step up their game next year.
2018 Gypsy Queen
I've been a Gypsy Queen fan since the 2015 design. I've yet to see a GQ design that can top that one, I really did like this years effort. I was only able to get my hands on some retail packs as part of the aforementioned Target Easter sale but from what I was able to sample, I really enjoyed it. The only thing I wasn't a big fan of were the variations and parallels (because who really needs a parallel of a card where the back plate is missing) but other than that I really liked it.
2018 Big League
My aunt treated me to a box of this back in the summer when she came to visit from Tulsa. I'll admit, I wasn't sure what to expect with these cards. I'd heard they were more of the set builders variety and were low on inserts and hits but were more on the "fun" side of collecting. I really liked the design on them and honestly, that design could've probably worked as a flagship design too. A few complaints I had about it though is that there was one gold parallel card per pack, which I felt was a bit too much, and there weren't all that many "inserts" as well, the main one I even remember are those obtuse and goofy looking caricature cards.
2018 Archives
I was so excited for Archives to come out that when I finally found a Target that had some, I stopped in at 10:45 at night to stock up. What I found was a bit of a let down. The cards themselves I felt were a bit thin and the designs weren't all that great this year. It was nice to see 1977 and 1981 in the set but I think maybe the 1961 or 1962 designs could've been used or maybe even 1993 to continue the theme of 1991 and 1992 in the previous two Archives releases. The inserts weren't even that great. Sure there were the Sandlot cards (which I promptly mailed to Dimebox Nick) but there were also the Rookie Reprints cards which I personally didn't care much for.
So that's the seven baseball products I opened in 2018. As for my favorite "first" card?
The winner is ....
Nolan Ryan from 2018 Donruss!
As I mentioned, I thought the 1984 throwback design cards were the best part of Donruss this year. That coupled with it being Nolan Ryan throwing in Riverfront Stadium, just makes it stand out for me.
I appreciate Tom running the contest for another year in a row and if all else fails and I don't win a prize, at least I got a blog post out of the deal. That should count for something I hope.
More Expos including longtime Brewers pitcher Bob McClure, who is another guy I never realized suited up for the Expos.
The majority of the package was made up of Hall of Famers I enjoy collecting like Robin Yount, Nolan Ryan, and the like.
