Even when he's gone, he's here

Two weeks ago, I received an email totally out of the blue.   Greetings! was the subject line, the sender was a familiar one.  Basically the subject matter consisted of "hey Robert, is this still your address?", and I have some cards to send you.

This seems to be the norm lately, as you saw the night before last in my post about the '75 Topps cards that Ryan sent me. 

Well, there were no Crinkly Wrappers in this box, but "retired" blogger Ted sent me an amazing box of Blue Jays.  This was no small box kids...it was a 500 count box.

I am never going to catch up with all these Jays cards....

I could easily have pulled 50 cards from this box and inundated you with Jays cards until your ears bled. 

I'm not that desperate....yet

I did find 10 for you to peruse, some different, some amusing, some partially French.

How about some old style Blue Jays uniforms from the 80's, as featured on a Mark Eichhorn '89 Score.

It's amazing that he never fell sideways off of the mound the way he threw.

This next card sent me scurrying to baseball reference .com

I did not remember that big Cecil Fielder had returned back to the Jays in 1999.  After some research, it turns out that this doesn't appear to be the case, as Cecil's last game was in September of 1998. 

Next up, a card of Roy Halladay that falls under the category of ugly but good.

Since it's a rookie card, we'll forgive the hideousness.  At least for a moment.

Big Bill Caudill was supposed to be the answer for the Jays bullpen in '85.  The Jays gave up Dave Collins and Alfredo Griffin to acquire Caudill after a 36 save season for Oakland in '84.  Bill wound up with a strained neck after allowing the most HRs of any Jays reliever (9), and within 2 years he was out of baseball altogether at the age of 30. 

Sticking with the '85 OPC them, here's Willie Upshaw...

Willie's cousins Gene & Marv Upshaw played in the NFL.  That's all his bio on the back says.   Less is more I guess.

This next guy reminded me of a book I had just finished reading about George Steinbrenner...

I remember vaguely about the Boss blowing up at his GM over acquiring Cerone from the Blue Jays, and it turned out in 1980 that Cerone had a career year, finishing 7th in MVP voting while catching 147 games in the pinstripes. 

The next card is a design that I had never seen before, a '94 OPC of Roberto Alomar

Not a bad card, but I think that it would have helped to have the "Blue Jays" lettering on the left hand side to be filled in.  Even still the photo is a good action shot of an impending play at the plate.

Next up, we have a sticker for idiots...

Peel Here.   Really?  Were kids in the mid 80's that ignorant?   Still pretty cool to get another sticker that I'd never seen before.

The next two cards are of Dave Stewart, or "Smoke" as he was nicknamed.  The first is a '94 Pinnacle Museum Collection parallel...

Wanna know the look that the photographer received when he started making fun of Dave's hat?

Nobody....makes fun of Dave's hat! 

These 10 cards just scratch the surface of what Ted sent me.  I may have to pull off a marathon soon to get caught up. 

Thank you for the Jays Ted!  This post is only the beginning.

thanks for reading, Robert