The Blue Jays Reorg #800: 2012 Bowman Chrome Eric Arce

Sometimes it's a bit depressing finding an older Bowman Chrome card of an unheralded player such as Eric Arce.  Eric was a 27th rd. pick of the Jays in 2010, and a 25th rd pick a year later.  He wound up playing parts of 3 seasons in the Jays system, not advancing above rookie ball.

After leaving the Jays system in 2013, he played in the Frontier League with the Normal CornBelters, getting into 10 games and hitting just .176 before leaving organized baseball. 

Now while I'm glad that Eric got to live a dream and play organized baseball for a couple of seasons, but on the other hand card companies could be a little more selective with their player choices for sets such as Bowman Chrome.  I'm sure that there are dozens more cards such as this one that fill  commons boxes all over the country though, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Blue Jays Reorg #700: 2016 Opening Day Devon Travis

If he ever can stay healthy for an extended period of time, he'll definitely show that the Jays won the trade that saw Devon come from Detroit for Anthony Gose.  Gose has been converted to a pitcher and is in Rookie ball in Florida for the Tigers.

Devon's latest injury?  Knee cartilage surgery.  He's been out just over 2 months, and his timetable to return is by the end of August.  He's a better player all around than any of the substitutes the Jays have marched out to 2nd base during his absence (Goins, Barney, Refsnyder) and if they've gained any ground in the Wild Card race by the time he gets back, he might help them make a push for another post season birth.

The card really is true, Devon could be a future star for the Jays.  He grew up about a 30 minute drive north of where I live, in West Palm Beach, FL.  Devon then played college ball at Florida State before being drafted in the 13th rd by the Tigers in 2012. 

His first two seasons in Toronto were also injury plagued, but hitting over .300 in his limited time gave Jays fans some hope that Devon will be the answer at 2nd base for years to come.

Thanks for reading, Robert

The Blue Jays Reorg #600: 1980 Topps Dave Stieb

This might be the only card of Dave Stieb that features him without his mustache.   I love it though, if there was one card in my Jays collection that I wouldn't complain about having a lot of, it would be this one, Stieb's 1980 Topps RC.  It actually took quite a long time for me to obtain this card, and I'd like to add at least a couple of more to my collection, which will include one for the '80 Topps set that I plan on putting together some day.

As you may or may not have noticed, I've taken a bit of break from posting on the blog.  Between being short on money due to medical expenses and stressed out from work being so crazy, sitting down to write posts of any length the past two weeks has been out of the question.  Also, buying cards has been few and far between; I actually picked up some packs and a couple of auctions last week for the first time a few weeks.  For those of you who look in on my player PC blog, you can see that my interest has really lied with those collections recently.  I'll be writing (for lack of a better word) my 600th post over there in the next few days.

Now that I have a couple of weeks vacation (for the first time in nearly 19 years btw), I'm going to try and get some work done on cleaning up the collection.  Especially putting a dent in the Blue Jays boxes.   I do have 3 more posts in the draft folder featuring the 700th, 800th and 900th Blue Jay cards that I added to the spreadsheet, and I'm hoping to add a few more in the next couple of weeks.

Time to get back into the swing of things....

Thanks for reading, Robert

The Great Reorg #400: 1993 Upper Deck Jimmy Key

I loved watching this guy pitch.  His delivery was so smooth, there seemed to be no wasted effort at all.  His '94 Upper Deck card kind of gives you the gist of it.  Medium high leg kick and slight twist.  Nothing overpowering in his arsenal, but the ball always moved around. 

Things I didn't remember when looking at his career stats:

• He was exclusively a reliever his first full season in Toronto ('84) and saved 10 games.  
• Led the AL in ERA in '87 (2.76).  He also had 8 complete games that year and finished 2nd in Cy Young voting (Clemens)
• In the strike shortened season of '94, he was 17-4 (!) when play was halted in August.  He also finished 2nd in Cy Young voting that year as well (Cone)

This would be the last year for cards depicting Jimmy as a Blue Jay, as he moved on to New York in 1993 as a free agent.  The Jays would end up replacing him in the rotation with Dave Stewart and would win their 2nd straight World Series.  Jimmy would end up getting a 2nd ring 3 years later as part of the '96 Yankees World Series championship team. 

It's been fun so far going through the cards and getting them into a spreadsheet, seeing how many have doubles up to now (there's 19 players with 2 of the same card), and seeing the stack grow.  For those of you that have the Xfinity cable remote, a stack of 400 cards is as tall as the remote standing on its end. 

Maybe another couple hundred cards and I'll put them into a box and start dividing them up by year.  I still don't have a card from all 40 years of the team's existence recorded yet, but that should come soon.

Stay tuned...there's more

thanks for reading, Robert

The Great Reorg #300: 1979 Topps Mike Willis

Dig the classic road powder blues on lefty reliever Mike Willis on this '79 Topps card.  The Jays picked him with the 55th pickup of the '76 expansion draft from the Orioles.  His entire MLB career consisted of 5 seasons with the Jays between 1977-1981.

After a couple of decent seasons in the Jays first two years of existence, 1979 was a nightmare for Mike.  He appeared in just 17 games, with an ERA over 8 and a WHIP nearing 2. 

Mike would finish his career in 1982 with a full season in the minors in the Phillies system before retiring at age 32.

Surprisingly I was able to get through another 100 cards in about 1 hour, largely helped by finding groups of cards from the same set together in a box. 

I've found 9 doubles so far, and maybe a dozen or so parallels from more recent years.  Still quite a ways to go, but it's nice to have a stack the height of an iPhone 6 of Jays cards that are in order.

I'll be much happier when that stack turns into a monster box or 2...

Thanks for reading, Robert

The Great Reorg #200: Celebrating #100

Normally, I would (and will) put the name of the player and the year/set in the post title for these reorganization posts.  But this post is taking care of two things tonight.  First, it's letting everyone out there know (if you don't know yet, which you probably do) that Julie over at the A Cracked Bat blog is celebrating her 100th post with a giveaway. 

If you haven't entered yet, head on over there before midnight tonight and put your entry in.

Congratulations Julie!!

Now, on to the 200th card in the big Jays project I've got going on.  Hitting 200 cards has shown me that this is going to take a while to finish.  I'm sure that if I give myself a goal for this project, I'll wait as long as possible before getting it done.  That being said, I'm going to try and have this done by the end of 2017.  With approx. 7000 more cards to go, this might be a lofty goal. 

In the meantime, let's take a look at card #200:

A very baby faced Duane Ward, featured on his 1987 Donruss card, #45.  The Jays picked up Ward from the Atlanta Braves in 1986, trading Doyle Alexander down south.  Duane only pitched 11.2 innings for Toronto in '87, posting a 6+ ERA.  In 1988, he would become the #2 man out of the pen, still behind closer Tom Henke.  By the time 1990 rolled around, Duane would become a rubber armed reliever for the Jays, appearing in 70+ games for the next 4 seasons, including a career high 81 games in '92.  His final full season in Toronto was in '93, saving 45 games and helping the Jays to their 2nd straight World Series title.  That would be pretty much the end for Ward, as he missed the entire '94 season with biceps tendinitis, and after 4 appearances in '95 that would be all for Duane.

See you at 300....

thanks for reading, Robert

The Great Reorg #100: Goose Gozzo

I'm sure that there even a few Jays fans out there who would have to think long and hard to remember Mauro "Goose" Gozzo, who only pitched in 9 games for the Blue Jays in 1989 before being traded to Cleveland in 1990 as part of the Bud Black rental (Black only pitched 3 times for the Jays in 1990). 

Those 9 games were enough to get Gozzo a card in each of the Donruss, Score, Fleer and Topps sets in 1990.  Mauro would only have one more card in a MLB set, 1991 Score as a member of the Indians.  His 23 games in his final season with the Mets in 1994 wasn't enough to get him a card in the '95 sets. 

Mauro now runs Goose's Gamers, a team of high school age baseball players who receive advanced coaching and development for Mauro and other coaches.  You may recognize former students Matt Cain and Drew Pomeranz as a couple of names that progressed through his academy.

The stack of sorted cards is starting to progress a little.  The cards in the first box I'm entering into the spreadsheet are from various years and in no particular order, so it will good to see these get sorted after the first few days. 

It'll be even better to watch the numbers grow and show off more cards on the blog as well...

Thanks for reading, Robert

The Great Reorg: #50---Anthony Gose

99 Mile per hour fastball in his first pitching appearance in the minors?  Boy the Jays could have used that a few years ago when their closer problems were keeping them in the lower half of the AL standings.

Best of luck to Anthony, here's hoping that his career change is a good one.

Every so often as I mentioned yesterday, when I hit these milestones I'll throw a quick post on the blog to show off a Jays card.  Maybe this will motivate me to A) keep sorting and adding cards to the spreadsheet and B) post more often on the blog.

This is only card #50 that I've put on the spreadsheet, so there's a long way to go.   At least I've got it started and we're only 5 months into 2017!


Thanks for reading, Robert