Pick A Pair

Getting cards in the mail in nice.

It's also nice when said cards are from longtime trade pal and blog reader Julie when she does her famous "pick pockets" grab bag on her blog.

Her most recent one was over the holidays (that feels like forever ago) and I got in on the tail end of the action as I just came back into the card and card blogging universe at the time. I was lucky enough to nab the pair of Francisco Lindor cards above to add to my Indians collection (side note: it's gonna be weird to see him in a Mets uniform in 2021) but those weren't the only cool pair of cards I picked out.

I also got a pair of these shiny cards of some Hall of Famers. Not only do these fit into the Hall of Famers category that I collect, they also fit into the defunct teams category as well. Both of these cards have interesting attributes and not just because they're shiny. The Gary Carter card proudly displays itself as an Expos card, complete with the old-school blue uniform and red and white batting helmet. The Satchel Paige card mentions him with three different teams on the front. The background picture is him with a St. Louis Browns hat, the foreground photos is him in an Indians uniform, and at the bottom it lists him as a member of the Kansas City Monarchs.

Neither of these two look exactly thrilled but I couldn't pass up this pair of 1974 Traded cards that were offered up. Let's look at each trade here...

Lindy McDaniel was traded from the Yankees to the Royals on December 7, 1973 for Lou Piniella and Ken Wright. Lindy's last two years in the bigs were 1974 and 1975. In those two seasons for the Royals, he appeared in 78 games, primarily as a reliever, and went 6-5 with a 3.75 ERA. Meanwhile, Piniella would spend the next ten seasons in pinstripes (and several more after that as a manager) and Ken Wright pitched in all of three games for the Yankees in 1974.

As far as Jimmy Wynn goes, he was shipped off from the Astros to the Dodgers the day before the Lindy McDaniel trade for Claude Osteen and minor leaguer David Culpepper.Wynn only played two seasons for the Dodgers (1974 and 1975) becoming an All-Star in both seasons and finishing in the top five of NL MVP votes in '74. In Houston, Osteen didn't even make it the full season before being flipped to the Cardinals in August of 1974 for the dreaded "player to be named later" Fun fact, did you know that both principles in the deal, Wynn and Osteen, were both signed by the Reds as amateur free agents?

Pairs weren't the only things I picked out from the pick pockets. I also grabbed this trio of interesting cards. Is there anything that these three cards have in common? Not really aside from the fact I thought they were neat. The Ned Yost card I grabbed just because it's an early 80s Topps card, Bobby Bonds because it's an oddball, and Eugenio Suarez because ... well, it's just a neat card!

I was pretty happy to add all of these to my collection and thanks to Julie for doing the pick pockets thing! I look forward to participating in the next round.

Nick's Knick Knacks

I'm not sure what this 1970 Topps Mike Hershberger card did to warrant getting written on. Nor, am I sure who "Rick" is or what that phone number is for. What I am sure about is that this came in an envelope from Nick at Dime Boxes, who loaded me up with a bunch of cards. 

This all came about when he was looking for a home for the Aristides Aquino card below he'd pulled from Stadium Club.

He mentioned there was a little peeling at the bottom, which didn't really bother me at all. I just think this is a really cool card of one of the Reds young stars. Despite a really down season in 2020, he raked in 2019 when he was called up and hit 19 homers over the last 56 games of the season.

Did I mention it was also numbered 16/25? That's pretty cool! Hopefully Aquino can find his form again this upcoming season but we'll see.

Aquino wasn't the only autographed card that Nick included. Here's another one from Stadium Club of utility player Josh VanMeter, who was shipped to Arizona in a deadline deal last year for reliever extraordinare Archie Bradley, who only appeared in six games for the Reds and was then non-tendered this offseason.

Nick also threw in a pair of Expos cards. I love getting Expos cards from pretty much any era. 

Now for the meat of the envelope, lots of cards to fill out my Indians and Reds team binders. These were some 2020 issues I didn't know I needed until I saw them, although by the time the Clevinger card came out he was with the Padres.

A couple horizontal goodies. Bowman was never my thing as I'm not a prospector but I just love this shiny Bowman Chrome Tyler Freeman card (you'll see another card from this shortly.)

A few more cool cards. I'm writing this just days after the blockbuster deal that sent Francisco Lindor to the Mets. I'm sad to see Lindor leave Cleveland and I know the trade was purely for economic reasons but he was by far my favorite Indians player.

This may look like a 1975 Topps card but it's not!! It's actually a 1975 Topps mini (I think that's the right terminology)? It looks like a 75, smells like a 75 (no I didn't actually smell it), but is a touch smaller.

Anyway, Jim Perry was at the tail end of his career here and was only with the Indians for about a month or so before he was traded to the A's where he finished out his sunset season. The previous season, 1974, he paired up with his brother Gaylord to form a decent 1-2 punch in the Cleveland rotation for a club that finished 77-85. Fun fact, did you know that the Perry brothers accounted for 38 of the 77 wins for Cleveland that season? 

This was probably my favorite card of the package that Nick sent. I'm definitely gaining an appreciation for 1959 Topps and might consider picking up more players like Herb Score here. Upon looking up his info for this piece, I had no idea he was the 1955 Rookie of the Year and was a two-time All-Star. I think the coolest thing about this card though is the photo. It just has that 1950s "feel" to it and I can totally dig it.

Reds were also included starting with this trifecta of Nick Senzel cards. 

There were also a few vintage Reds with this 1961 Jim Brosnan, who pitched will enough in 1961 for the NL Champion "Ragamuffin Reds" to earn some MVP votes.

This is probably my second favorite card in the batch, a 1976 Hostess Tony Perez.

Can't go wrong with cards from Johnny Bench either. I think the Starting Lineup card might be a duplicate but I'll have to check my binder.

These 2020 cards filled in a bunch of holes as well and highlights the Reds significant additions from last offseason in Shogo Akiyama, Nicholas Castellanos, and Mike Moustakas. If you look at the Moustakas Archives card, I find it curious that Topps squeezed "Second Base/Third Base" as the position when they could've just as easily put "Infield". Also, there were come cool Bowman Chrome cards (see I told you those would come back).

This was another great package from Nick and I appreciate him sending all this my way. 

Oscar Winning Cards

(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!

Nick’s Super Stuffed PWE of Super Stuff

It seems like Thursday is becoming my regular posting day. I hadn’t really intended it to be that way but with work being incredibly busy right now, it’s the one night of the week where I don’t have much going on.

So, might as well use my time to write about baseball cards, right?

Anyway, I received a bunch of cards in a PWE from Dimebox Nick after I claimed a card or two on one of his last “Free Card Fridays”.

I don’t remember which ones I chose but I think the Christian Yelich card shown above was one of them. With Nick being the kind card sharing soul that he is, he also stuffed the PWE with as much as stuff as humanly possible.

A couple of Jose Ramirez cards. The Big League card was my first in-person look at that product this year as this arrived before my massive Card Barrel order I wrote about last week. 

No, you’re not seeing double. Yes, it’s kinda the same card but different. The left one is the holiday variation and the other one is Topps Chrome. I’m not too big on those Holiday variants but I have a really good idea for that card for when the Christmas tree goes up later this year.

Now, here’s where things get really interesting. First, we’ve got this 1978 TCMA of Reds shortstop Leo Cardenas. Funny story is that I only know Leo Cardenas from getting his autograph on an index card at the local mall when I was a kid. I had no clue who he was at the time but he was sitting at a table in the middle of the mall signing autographs for free. I don’t remember if it was part of a card show or what, but I just remember him sitting at a table by the fountain signing autographs.

I love me some vintage cards, it’s even better if it’s vintage Expos. I don’t know much about Ron Hunt honestly but after looking him up on Baseball Reference, it turns out he led all of Major League Baseball in HBP (that’s hit by pitch) for six straight seasons! Between 1968 and 1973, he was hit by 176 pitches with 50 of those coming in 1971. Oh, he was also a two-time All Star and finished second in ROY balloting in 1963 behind some guy you may have heard of named Pete Rose.

Sticking with the Expos theme, here’s some interesting oddball cards. I’m not familiar with the “Stuart” brand but a quick glance on TCDB tells me that Stuart is some kind of bakery. I’m guessing these are team issue or issued by the Stuart Company itself. I’m not sure but these are really, really neat. The Doug Flynn card really stands out to me because of the white Expos uniforms.

Here’s the backs if you’re curious. Pretty plain and simple, nothing exciting really. Just the basic vital stats and a quick blurb about each persons career.

Here’s another oddball from a company named Provigo of Floyd Youmans who only spent five years in the majors, all with the Expos. Fun fact ... Floyd Youmans led the National League in walks in 1986 with 118. Yes, 118 walks in 219 innings.

Finally, we come to this batch of 1970 cards. While these may look like any other mild-mannered 1970 cards, they’re not. They’re actually 1970 O-Pee-Chee cards ... and Expos nonetheless (well, except for Tommy Helms). It’s really such a treat when I can add really cool cards like this to my collection. 

And the backs, both English and French. But I’m showing these mainly for the cartoons because, honestly, who doesn’t love cartoons.

That wraps up a super stuffed PWE from Nick. Big thanks to him for sending these cards my way. I really appreciate it.

More From the Mailbag

I mentioned a post or two ago nice that I’d received a few cards in the mail from various fellow blogger. After the PWE I received from Fuji, the item to arrive was a bubble mailer from Brian of HSCA. I claimed a few cards on his last “Free Card Friday” and along with those, he sent me some other goodies both baseball and football (yes, I collect football ... mostly Bengals cards).

I’ve already filed the football cards in my non-baseball binder but I’ll show off the baseball cards for sure.

These were the two cards I claimed from Free Card Friday, two anchors of the Expos in the 80s. I can’t believe the Raines Expos card had escaped me for this long but now I’m happy to add it to my collection. Andre Dawson had so many stops late in his career and I don’t remember half of them but the Marlins stint I remember for sure. Do you know what Andre Dawson does now? If you guessed funeral home director, then you’d be right.

Some cool random Reds cards. Gant was the 1995 NL Comeback Player of the Year then left the Reds after one season to join the Cardinals. Buddy Bell is the dad of current Reds manager David Bell and went to college just down the road from me at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Double the pleasure for these Joe Morgan cards from Donruss a few years ago. The regular "Cincinnati" version is on the left and the variant "Big Red Machine" is on the right. Probably one of the better cards Panini has done with Donruss.

These cards have flair! 

Along with everything else, Brian also included two packs of 1993 Donruss Series 2. I'm not currently working on the se (but might in the future) because it's one of my favorite Donruss sets ever.

I'm just going to show these cards as I scanned them because honestly, I don't know which cards came from which pack anymore. I've always liked this set for a few reasons ... the photography was interesting and the lower third had a TV graphics feel to it with the team logo in a diamond and a clean looking name bar for the player and position.

Another reason I like it is that is has great backs. As was the standard with Donruss for most of the 80s and the early 90s, only the previous five seasons of stats are shown. But, more than that, the back features another giant photo of the player that is different from the one on the front, and the "how acquired" field (which I always enjoyed) includes details of trades. For example, this card details the date of the trade with the Pirates and all the players involved. That's really a super cool detail.

I had no clue that Ted Power and Dennis Rasmussen were still playing in 1993, let alone for those particular teams they're shown with.

Since these particular packs were series 2 cards, the real prize is getting Rockies and Marlins cards. I ended up with six of them out of the two packs, only one of which was a Marlins card. I always though these cards were cool because it showed the players in the teams that they were drafted from. If anything else, and I don't end up building the overall set, then I might just settle for the Rockies and Marlins cards.