Imagine if you will, a 9 year old boy, sitting in school, on a snowy Toronto afternoon, when his 4th grade teacher walks into the room with a TV set on a cart. Through the snow and foggy picture on the TV screen, I see a baseball game come into the picture. Not just any game though, it was the first game in Toronto Blue Jays history, against the Chicago White Sox. The Jays won that day 9-5 and I became hooked on this team (which I still am to this day).
I was going through my cards this weekend, and realized that I don't have any Jays cards from that year, or any for that matter until the 90's came along (have no idea where they went). Thus begins one of my Long Term Projects (LTPs). Trying to acquire Jays cards from 1977 till now. This is going to be quite the task for sure, considering I likely only have a small percentage of the total cards issued over the 34 year history of the ball club. I will be doing this for the Maple Leafs as well (although that will not start until this winter).
I do have some cards though, as you can see here to the left. I will consider cards like the '11 Heritage Then and Now insert of Jose Bautista and the late, great Harmon Killebrew to be part of my Jays collection. There are guys who made stops along the way to HOF careers like Roger Clemens, pictured on his 99 UD Choice Star Quest Red card here. A current Jay, Travis Snider is featured beside him on his '10 Topps gold parallel. Finally, at the bottom is the '81 Topps card of Alfredo Griffin, who won co-rookie of the year in 1979 (does anyone out there know who he shared it with?)
Over the next little while, I'll be adding a new tab, which will be called LTP Blue Jays, and it will catalog the cards that I do have (which shamefully is a small collection right now). I'll be hoping that some of my friends from out there in the blogosphere will be able to help me add to my collection.
Thanks for reading folks, hope you're having a great Sunday and hopefully I'll hear from you soon.
Griffin shared ROY with John Castino of the Twins.
ReplyDeleteYep, seems like only yesterday to me that they made that announcement, and yet it's been 32 years.
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