Single Card Post: 1974 Topps #599

Behold! This is a card that to me is a beauty of a card. Not due to the fact that it's from the fantastic 1974 Topps set, but due to the fact that it's the Washington error version of said card. I've covered this in the past about these error cards and it's one of my major collecting goals to get a complete team set. I'm just over halfway there and will chronicle what I have in a blog post upcoming. For now though, as I do in these one card posts, let's take a look at the careers of the players pictured.

Ron Diorio had a very brief major league career, only appearing in 25 total games, with 23 of those coming between August and the end of the season in 1973. By April of 1974, he was out of the majors. Most of his career though, was spent in the minors in the Phillies organization bouncing between A and AA ball. Most of his time was spent with the Reading club, where between parts of six seasons he would appear in 173 games with a 2.28 ERA and a 21-11 record. After baseball, he spent 35 years refereeing high school and collegiate basketball in Connecticut and was the first person inducted into the Sacred Heart High School Hall of Fame.

Dave Friesleben debuted in 1974 for a not very good Padres team that almost wound up in Washington DC. However, Ray Kroc (yes, that Ray Kroc) stepped in at the last minute and saved the Padres from moving. Friesleben accounted for nine of the Padres 60 wins that season (which tied for the team lead with Bill Grief). In five seasons with the club, he never won more than 10 games and never had an ERA lower than 3.50. The Padres shipped him to Cleveland in the middle of the 1978 season, who then traded him to Toronto that offseason. By the end of the 70s, he was out of the majors entirely.

Frank Riccelli played 17 whole games in his major league career, debuting for the Giants on September 11, 1976 against the Reds. In that game, he pitched 5 innings, gave up 4 hits, 4 earned runs, had 4 Ks, and 4 walks. He only pitched 11 more innings for the Giants that season, and spent the 1977 season in the minors with the PCL Phoenix Giants. In 1978, he resurfaced for two games with Houston and in 1979 made it into 11 games with the Astros and was out of the majors by the summer. After missing the 1980 season, 1981 was spent with Single-A Alexandria and Double-A Buffalo in the Pirates organization and then wrapped up his career with Triple-A Syracuse (Toronto) in 1982.

Finally, we have Greg Shanahan who has the shortest career of any of those pictured on this card ... 11 games with the Dodgers between 1973 and 1974. As a matter of fact, when this card was issued, he had only appeared in 7 major league games as was a late season call-up from Triple-A Albuquerque both seasons. After his MLB cup of coffee, he spent the rest of his career at the Triple-A level with both Albuquerque and Omaha (part of the Royals organization).

Of these four, none of them had outstanding careers but just based on longevity, Friesleben I'd say had the best, plus he gave us this image during his playing career ...

Enough said.

Going Through the Archives

This past weekend was Father's Day weekend and, despite the underlying current of a rather expensive car repair and bad customer service at the dealership doing the repair, it was still a fun weekend. The threat of rain kept the family and I indoors for much of Father's Day proper but the day before my mom took us out to eat at Chili's. As a gift to myself, I was on the lookout for Archives. We stopped at Target before lunch but no luck as it looked like their shelf hadn't been updated in over a month. On the way home, we stopped at Walmart and behold ... there were only a few blasters left on the shelf. I nabbed two of them. 

Last year Archives really stepped up their game I thought and it was going to be hard to top it. Wouldn't you know it though, Topps nearly succeeded. I say nearly because the 1982 design was used just a few short years ago in the 2013 set. If they were going to use an early 80s design, how about 1981? Regardless, they are still fun cards. 

The other years that Archives celebrated are 1960 and 1992. The 1992 set I have fond memories of as it was one of the first Topps sets I remember collecting from my youth. Some of the pictures they chose are just great, especially the horizontal ones, such as the Astros cards above. Also, much like the 1960 set, every card in that design in a horizontal one as well.

I got one Bazooka insert in each blaster. They're neat little cards and I was pretty happy to get a Kris Bryant one. The Moncada "rookie star" card and the Verlander are ok. I was sort of hoping for something like last year's Topps Supers in the insert department but these are fine.

One of my favorite things about Archives is that you get cards of players on teams that they aren't normally associated with (the lone exception in this batch being Hank Aaron). The Ozzie Padres card is just absolute gold. Unfortunately, I didn't get a Reggie Jackson Orioles card in either blaster.

The one thing I could've done without is the Jeter reprints. These are the only thing out of the Archives box heading for the trade bin. If they were reprints of older Jeter cards, say from the 90s, then I probably would have kept them. As is, I honestly have no use for reprints of cards from just a few years ago.

Moving on from the negativity, this was the only parallel that came from either blaster, and it's of Juan Marichal. No complaints there. This is the second neat Marichal pull I've had recently as a few years ago, I bought some Heritage packs and pulled out a Juan Marichal jersey card numbered to 49. Maybe the hobby gods are trying to tell me something?

Another great thing about Archives is you get cards of players from way back in the day. I've found that Honus Wagner cards are usually found in the higher end products, at least from Topps, so getting his card from the very first pack was really neat. I also like that they kept them to the old 1960 design instead of trying to put them on a newer design.

Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby? I'm good with that.

And a two more cards that I found to be pretty neat. I can't say I've seen too many cards recently of Blyleven in a Tribe uniform, especially the old late 70s/early 80s design. Also, Eddie Murray has a striking resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. I'll have a royale with cheese, please.

Finally, there are two of these coins in every blaster. In case you can't see by the scan, I got David Dahl, Giancarlo Stanton, Mookie Betts, and Anthony Rizzo. I'm not sure how exactly these will fit in pages so for now I put them in the box that has just miscellaneous stuff in it.

Overall, I definitely dig Archives this year and these definitely made up for the stress and otherwise awfulness I had to deal with from the car repair shop. 

You've Got Mail #72: Summer of '74

I received a package in the mail the other day from someone I like to call "The Man Who Made Milwaukee Famous."

No, I'm not talking about "The Crusher".

I'm talking about Matt from the somewhat new Summer of '74 blog. He's a Brewers collector and is also building some of the Topps base sets. I shipped a few late 70s extras his way along with a few from 2016 recently. In return, I received some cool stuff back last week.

First were these really cool TTM autographs. I haven't really dabbled into the TTM thing yet but I might give it a try at some point. Since Matt is working on an all-time Brewers signature project, I think it's safe to assume that these are extras. I especially like the Joe Oliver card as he was the Reds primary catcher when I first started getting into baseball.

There were also a decent batch of Indians, both old and new. I know there's a ton of 1991 Donruss out there so if anyone wants to dump their cards from Series 1 on me, let me know.

There were also Reds cards both old and new and even old players (Johnny Bench) on new cards. I swear on every Johnny Bench card Topps puts out, that same picture is on there. The Chris Sabo Upper Deck card I strangely didn't have before somehow.

This was the real star of the package though ... card #599 from the 1974 Topps set and it just happens to be the "Washington" variation of the card. One of my collecting goals is to finish the complete set of the Washington error cards and this definitely puts me one step closer. I only need 10 more cards to complete the set and if you have any of the cards on my want list that I still need, feel free to let me know.

Thanks for the great cards Matt. I've got a more Topps base cards I'm piling up to send to you later this summer in the hopes that you can put them to some good use.

Retail Repack Adventures #1

The family and I had to pick up a few things from Walgreens the weekend before Halloween. We went there mainly for the giant sale on trick-or-treat candy ($1.75 a bag!) and few odds and ends. While we were there, I decided to grab one of the $4.99 repacks that have been hanging on the shelf since we moved back to town in the spring of 2014.

The best card in the box, this 2014 Topps Chrome orange parallel of Carlos Beltran. Not really big Beltran or Yankees collector but this is a really nice card and it'll be kept with my stash of "good stuff".

This repack had a little bit of everything. This was some of the cool junk wax, an Electric Diamond Marquis Grissom and a weird Dave Hollins card that resembles a credit card.

More late 80s/early 90s stuff. I don't care much for the term "junk wax" as it makes cards like these sound as if they are just useless. I believe the Gary Carter could be a sunset card but I'm not sure.

There was also some new stuff. That Jeremy Moore card is really neat, especially with the retro uniform. I always get 2013 and 2014 Topps mixed up as they look pretty similar to me.

Can't forget about these old-timers. I'd forgotten how awesome the Colon collection cards are.

A pair of Padres.

And the obligatory Reds to finish it off. I'm thinking the Griffey might be a sunset card as well.

Busting this was pretty fun, if nothing else for the randomness that was contained within. I might pick up more of these on occasion just for the heck of it.

1974 Washington Error Cards and a Missing McCovey

One of my collecting goals is to put together the complete set of all the 1974 Topps error cards that feature "Washington Nat'l League" on them in place of the San Diego Padres team name.

But wait, there was no Washington team in the National League in 1974, right? Right, however the Padres were extremely close to moving there after only five seasons in San Diego, as two Washington D.C. business men nearly bought the Padres and moved them to D.C. only a few years after version two of the Senators moved to Texas, but that's another story. This article does a much better job explaining the situation than I could.

So far I have the three cards below and somewhere I also have the Willie McCovey card but as of right now it has unfortunately disappeared.

If anyone has more of these cards that they have up for trade, let me know by emailing me at the address on the contact page and we can work something out. For now though, the search continues for my missing Willie McCovey card.