A close battle

The commish gets his way!!   Just barely though.  Commishbob was kind enough to give this blogger a very nice push by declaring his wont for the '59 Topps set to go forward in the What's next? tournament. 

It didn't look good early, as the '65 set jumped out to a very quick 5-1 lead, but in the end, by the slimmest of margins....

1959 Topps advances by a 11-10 vote.  The #1 seed has fallen by the way side, and there may only be 1 or 2 sets that stand in the way of '59 advancing all the way through the tournament.

The match tomorrow puts two more great sets to the test, as 1960 will take on 1963.

Thanks for reading, and voting, Robert

The Plan

Tomorrow is the big day.  Off to Cleveland to get into trouble buy some cards.  When I went to the show in May at Robert Morris college in the Pittsburgh suburbs, I stuck to the plan that I made before hand, and wound up spending a lot less than I budgeted.

The plan this time is pretty simple as well.   Five things I'd like to concentrate on during the first day, so I can use the 2nd day to wander the halls...

1.  1964 Topps 

Remember these?  It's been a couple of months since I posted a card from this set on the blog.  I only need 13 cards to pass the 80% goal that I set for myself at the beginning of the year.

The bigger goal here is to try and pick up either the Clemente, the Niekro RC, or both if I can find decent copies on the cheap. 

2.  2014 Series 2

If I can find a box of this on the cheap, I'll grab it.  Time to put this years set to bed.

3.   SNI

I am just 1 card away from finishing off two more teams (Angels, Mets).  I'd also like to try and find a few Rockies and Orioles cards for this set as well.  I'm 42 cards away from 1200 for the set; that would be a nice number to hit, but it's not a necessity.

4.  Other people's want lists

There are a few people out there that I owe, so I've built some mini want lists for those people.  Hopefully I can find some other cards on the cheap to sprinkle around the blogosphere. 

5.  Vintage 

I had some good luck at the Baltimore National finding some good vintage for cheap, and I'm hoping to do the same here.  I'll probably pick up a few more cards from some of the sets that are remaining in the tournament. 

There's also the long overdue completion of the '73T set as well, but finding a reasonably priced Schmidt rookie is pretty tough to do...

Looking forward to tomorrow is probably an understatement. 

thanks for reading, Robert

By the page: Shawn Green

Another player who didn't spend long enough in a Blue Jays uniform in my opinion.  This guy was a great talent who unfortunately wanted out of Toronto to be closer to his family.

I guess I can understand that.

I have enough cards for at least two pages of Shawn Green cards; welcome to the world of the mid 90's!!  Plenty of choices and inserts to satisfy everyone's pallet.


Top line:  Trying to be fancy

The Crown Royale card in the center is fabulous.  It looks a lot better in hand than it does on a scan.  I hadn't seen a green Record Breakers insert card until I received this one a while back from a fellow collector.  The Skybox Metal card just didn't scan very well, and looks kind of bland here.


Middle row: Chrome & shiny 

These three cards just seemed to fit together.  Ultimate Victory you could probably classify as an oxymoron; I'm not sure why UD took a base product like Victory and tried to jazz it up with foil.  I guess when you end up with a license to print money like companies had back then, you'll do anything to make a buck.

Bottom row:  Nothing but base

I'm going to have to take a look at the Shawn Green cards I have, because it seems that the common thread for each of them is Green hitting.  Yes, he was a solid hitter during his time in the bigs, but he also was a pretty good fielder as well, ranking in the top 5 in outfield assists 5 different times, as well as having a 1.000% fielding percentage in 2005.

Maybe I just need to look harder for cards featuring him fielding...

Here's the final result.

 

Not too bad, a little bit dark on the top and middle right but overall a pretty decent looking page.  This page brings the total # of cards out of the box to 85.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to speed this process up a little....

thanks for reading, Robert

Getting ready for Friday

Part of the task of getting ready for Friday is this post.  One of the goals I have for the National this week is to knock down the SNI want list as much as possible.  In order to do that, I have to update my current list.  Which means you're getting a post of the remaining 14 serial numbered cards that were part of the envelope that Max sent me last week.

Mike Leake is serial #'d 1283 and is card 41 for the Reds out of 50.
Charlie Morton is serial #'d 789 and is the 36th card out of 50 for the Pirates.
Nate Eovaldi is serial #'d 929, and now the Marlins have 35 out of their 50 cards for the set.

Vicente Padilla is serial #'d 1020, and Scott Podsednik is serial #'d 1110.  These two bring the Dodgers total up to 35.
James Loney, the former Dodger, is serial #'d 1404 and gives the Rays their 45th card toward the set.

A pair of Astros brings the team total to 31, leaving the Orioles and the Rockies as the only teams below the 30 mark.  J.D. Martinez is serial #'d 1043, while Erik Bedard is stamped with the # 1227.

The Diamondbacks now have 35 out of their 50 cards thanks to Brandon McCarthy (823) and J.J. Putz (777).  Brian McCann's card gives the Braves 41 cards towards the set.  His card is #'d 1085.

Does anyone out there realize how hard it is to type Alburquerque?  Because of that I'll only do it this once.  Al's card is serial #'d 904.  The other Tiger is Torii Hunter, serial #'d 847, and the two of them bring the Tigers total up to 33.
Kevin Correia is the final card of the post, 1015 are his digits, and the Twins are now at 33 as well.

With only 342 (lol only) cards to go, the set stands at 77.2% complete.   If I can get out of the National at 80% complete (42 more cards to hit that goal), I'll be happy. 

I also believe that this run of cards I've posted recently is going to get another page or 2 completed.  Stay tuned for that as well....

thanks for reading, Robert

By the page: 1990 Bowman

I have never really paid the 1990 Bowman set much attention over the years.  The 9 cards that I have for this particular page have decent photos, but the one thing about the cards I could never figure out is the back.

No write ups at all.  Nothing but stats broken down by team. 

With inter-league play the norm in today's MLB, these card backs would be impossible to create (or the printing would be so small that nobody could read it without a magnifying glass).

Today's 9 cards were easy to break up into three rows of three.  Posed shots, posed shots with a bat, and game action shots.

Top row, posed shots:

The most interesting character on this line is Bell, who was the main cog in the Jays offense in the late 80's.  George's power numbers were down a bit in 1989 but a .297/18/104 line isn't too shabby.

Middle row, posed with bat shots:

Glenallen Hill never really got a chance in Toronto to play full time.  He wound up being part of a trade package in 1991 with Mark Whiten and Denis Boucher (a very big price that turned out to be) for the rental of Tom Candiotti and Turner Ward.  The Jays did end up winning the division in '91, but were knocked out in 5 games by the Twins in the ALCS.

Bottom row, game action shots:

I decided to take a look at the Junior Felix statistics, and was surprised to find out that he was out of MLB at age 26.  It makes me wonder what happened, because his final season in 1994 he hit .306 with 13 HR and 49 RBI in only 86 games.  He was only 26 at the time, so I wonder why he wound up out of baseball so soon.

With the rows out of the way, here's the final product:

 

I might be getting the hang of this page creating business.  I've now pulled 76 cards from the box and put them into pages.  A long way to go, but page by page I'll get there.

thanks for reading, Robert

$10,950

One of the great things about writing this blog is the enjoyment I've received out of poking fun at myself.   If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at, right?

About a month ago, I caught the Night Owl in a typo (yes, it even happens to the great ones) when he stated that my blog was named $30 a day habit.  Greg even had some fun laughing at his typo not too long afterward in his viewer mail post.   The dream sequence portion of that post really gave me a good laugh, but it also made me think about what I really could do with that kind of money dedicated to the hobby. 

I didn't think about it for too long, and moved on.

Once again today, this little slice of insanity that I write was the "victim" of another typo.   The same typo occurred again, only this time on Commishbob's blog, '59 Topps:  one f/g card at a time.  (Note to Bob, thank you very much for the plug!!).  Right in the first paragraph no less.  Here's the quote if you don't want to link over...

Come on people, I know there are some of you that still look at this blog from time to time! The Topps '59 cards are asking you to go vote for us in the "What set should I finish?" tournament on Robert's $30 A Day Habit blog!!!

(by the way, if you haven't voted on this week's match yet, go here to cast your vote)

The same typo twice in a month?  Two different bloggers?  I'm beginning to wonder if my previous spending habits have made the blogosphere brand me as an extravagant spender.  Maybe the chase of the '64 Topps set, along with other various projects going on in my collecting world have made me look like Donald Trump (I wish my hair was as good as his!).

Think about it.....$10,950 a year to spend on cards.    I would have had the '64 set done by now, and a good head start on another vintage set.  Over the time I've been blogging, that would be a little over $33K total. 

That would have bought a whole lot of color TV's...

Guys, I swear, I truly do my best to limit my spending to $30 a week.  I do go overboard on occasion, but $30 a day?  That would involve another word, something that I've already gone through once and would rather not do again...

divorce...

thanks for reading, Robert

The wise one whittled away at my want lists

I was fortunate enough to catch a tweet earlier in the week from Greg at the Night Owl Cards blog, offering up some of his massive stack of Dodgers doubles.  I inquired about the availability of the 78-80 Topps portion of the doubles box, and during our twitter dialogue he informed me that an envelope was headed my way.

That envelope arrived last Thursday, and all the cards hit the Blue Jays want list, except for one solitary Dodger which knocked another number off the SNI list.

Let's take a look, shall we?

One of the earliest sets that I completed while writing this blog is the 2006 Topps set.  This was in large part due to a large donation from Greg.  Now, he finishes off the Blue Jays 2006 team set with these two cards:

On the back of Burnett's card, Topps mentioned that A.J. had the highest average fastball in MLB during 2005.  The 95.6 average is quite impressive, although I'm not too sure that I can remember the 104mph pitch that the back of the card claims he threw during that season.   I'm sure we would have heard more about it over the years with all the flame throwers that dominate the closer position now...

Greg sent a small sample of Panini needs my way.  It's kind of disappointing that Panini isn't able to secure a MLB license, because cards like the Hometown Heroes Shawn Green on the right would have been so much better with the Jays logo. 

Staying with the modern issues, this quintet of recent releases were all knocked off the want list.   The A&G Melky Cabrera is one of the 2 Blue Jay SPs.  The 2 opening day cards cut that list in half.  Drew Hutchison has become a part of the Jays rotation this year, and has pitched OK so far with a 7-9 record and a 4.44 ERA.   The Jays need to let him hit more, he's 2 for 3 so far this season!

Knock one more card of the serial insanity set.   Jon Garland is serial #'d 715, and is the 33rd Dodger card out of 50 for the set.  Just 355 more serial #'s to go.

Greg's note inside the envelope said there was a reminder of the good ol' days.  Sure enough these three 1992 Donruss cards did just that.   Greg Myers was actually traded during the 1992 season, right before the July 31st trade deadline in a deal that saw Mark Eichhorn return to the Jays.  Both Duane Ward and Mike Timlin were integral parts of the teams that won the '92 and '93 World Series.

Speaking of the 1992 season, included in the package was something I hadn't seen in a very long time.

A pocket schedule from the '92 season, in perfect condition! 

The one thing I got a kick out of when I read it was the note on the middle panel.   All games on CJCL Radio 1430.  With the Blue Jays having success in the previous seasons leading up to 1992, CJCL in Toronto realized there was a big opportunity to increase its listener base, and thus became Canada's first all sports radio channel.   The station eventually migrated to AM 590, where it sits today as "The Fan 590", which I still listen to for Leafs broadcasts, and anytime I'm able to head home for visits with family and friends.

All in all, a great package, and very much appreciated.  Thank you Greg!!

thanks for reading, Robert

What's next? Quarterfinals: (1) 1965 Topps vs (8) 1959 Topps

A match up featuring two sets that easily could have made it to the final if I were doing all the voting.  A great pair of cards on the scan, featuring a pair of NL Central clubs battling it out for the title again this year.

This round instead of the "tale of the tape", I'm going to answer a trio of questions:

How they got here:

1965 defeated 1978  17-2
1959 defeated 1966  11-9

How big a head start do I have on these sets?

1965 Topps:  Minimal  17 out of 598
1959 Topps:  Minimal  10 out of 572

Favorite card that I own from each set so far:

1965:  # 303 Rico Carty (Rico played for the Blue Jays)
1959:  # 134 Jim McDaniel (I like the Sporting News rookie card design)

I really like how the backs look on both of these sets, so that's a wash for me.

So, which set do you want me to build?  Let me know in the comments.

thanks for reading, and voting, Robert