The Great Home Run Chase of '98

Similar to The Last Dance, I'm excited to watch ESPN's 30 for 30 tonight titled Long Gone Summer, which will chronicle the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

Unlike the 10-part series on MJ's Bulls, this is a solo episode focused solely on that epic summer barrage of homers. Not a big time commitment!

I remember that summer fairly well. It was between the summer of finishing 8th grade and heading into 9th grade. The Yankees were on an epic tear, but that story was secondary to McGwire and Sosa's pursuit of 62.

The groundwork was really set in 1997, when McGwire hit 58 between Oakland and St. Louis. It was almost assumed he was going to make a big run at it in 1998.

Sosa was the one who caught everyone by surprise. While still an elite power hitter, he was coming off 36 homers in '97. In '96 he hit 40 in just 122 games, so it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise. Still, to hit 36 and then hit 30 more on top of that in the next year? Yeesh. No one was predicting that.

We obviously know how this story ends and that the summer is tainted, but I look forward to once again traveling down memory lane and experiencing the chase. Similar to MJ's '98 Bulls, which coincidentally happened in the same year, there was a lot I forgot about the story, and I'm sure that will be the case here as well.

As for cards, McGwire and Sosa cards were on fire. Pulling a McGwire became the new "pulling a Griffey." I've held on to a few cards of each over the years, but nothing tops this:

I pulled this in a pack of Score from CVS. I think at the time Beckett had it in the $60 range. I'm sure it' can be had for a few bucks now, but I can honestly say it might be the best card I ever pulled from a pack...at least from a $.99 pack.

Back in 2011, I also was fortunate to get a McGwire TTM success. I maybe wish I sent a different card, but I was just coming back into the hobby and didn't have much of an inventory to send.

I don't have a particular amount of memorable Sosa cards. My favorite is probably this Leading Indicators from Finest, which changes color when you apply body heat to it from your finger.

I also like this one quite a bit - a 1999 Gallery Heritage Proof, although I have no memorable story behind it. It simply was thrown into a box of cards I acquired last summer on a social media marketplace. It's still in a screw holder as well, as at the time I'm sure it was a solid pull.

I guess what's cool about Sosa and McGwire cards are that during that summer, it was a big deal to pull cards of these two established stars. Now, that's not cool. It's only cool to pull cards of guys who maybe stars in six years if everything works out perfectly. It's the cool thing to pull cards of guys who have potential, and at their peak, we can only hope they have a sliver of the success that these guys had.

Nowadays, it's almost like once they are stars, their appeal fades, and the hobby focuses on the guys who may eventually become them if all works out perfectly.

What a weird hobby world we live in.

An Epix pickup

I've always been a big fan of 1998 Pinnacle Epix.

It was a really cool set. Several Pinnacle products featured cards from the set. For example, you could find these cards in Pinnacle, Score, Zenith, etc. Although the cards looked the same, they could only be fund in that particular set. Collectors would lose their shit right now if Topps tried something like this. Topps also isn't organized to do something like this. Or they'd ruin it and make SP and SSPs only available in certain products. Don't try it, Topps.

I first came across this set because I pulled a Mark McGwire from Score int he summer of 1998.

I remember exactly where I was. My mom dropped me at CVS to look at cards while she ran another errand, and then was going to pick me up on the way home. Imagine that? Dropping her kid at CVS to look at cards for a few minutes.

Anyways, I opened a few packs while waiting for her outside, the McGwire was in a pack of $.99 Score. Nothing fancy ever came from Score, so I was shocked. These fell at 1:61, and mind you it was in the middle of the 1998 HR chase, so this card was booking in the $60 range by the almighty source of card values, Beckett.

That's the only one I ever saw, and still keep it in my collection.

Last week, while feeling nostalgic, I started looking at a few of these, and thought I should own a Yankee. So I bought this for a few bucks, as Jeter is the only Yankee in the set. This particular one would have come from Zenith, I believe.

It's a great looking set, and the memory the comes with it makes it even more special.

Domo Arigato: San Jose Fuji

Sorry, Fuji, I ripped off you trade post title. I was lucky enough to win San Jose Fuji's September contest. I don't win contests often, so it usually comes as a surprise to me. My birthday was in September, so maybe it was my lucky month.

Anyhow, Fuji sent a great assortment of 1980's wax. It felt like one of those cellophane grab bags fully of packs and odds and ends that were at K-Mart in the 1980's. Do you know the ones I'm talking about?

I set aside a few packs for my son to open one day. I've been doing this with a lot of the older packs that bloggers send me from time to time, like 1989 Topps and whatnot. Napkin Doon does this from time to time. I know that he won't score any hits or valuable RCs or anything, but I want him to see what it was like to open wax packs from the '80s (complete with old moldy gum), and hopefully learn about the players in the pack.

With that being said, I'm selfish and did open a few of the packs for myself. I left the stamps in the package though.

The first pack I opened was the Heads Up Baseball Stars. Each pack has one player head with a suction cup. I really wanted the Mattingly or Griffey Jr. As luck would have it, I got an Oakland A - Fuji's team! It was Mark McGwire. I may end up sending this back to Fuji at some point.

I then opened the 1986 Donruss pop-up, which unfortunately was a Red Sox. Of the three accompanying oversized cards, this Ryan Sandberg was the best. Any Cubbies collectors interested?

Next, I opened a pack of 1994 Panini stickers. I was lucky enough to pull two Yanks - Boggs and Pat Kelly. I also got a Doc Gooden.

Lastly, I opened two of the League Leaders mini packs. Nolan Ryan graced bother packs. I was the designs of these varied a little more from year to year, but the backs of the cards do.

Fuji, this sure was a blast from the past. Thanks!

Spring Training TTM results

Now that the season has started, I wanted to take a look at how I did sending TTM requests to players/coaches at spring training. While one or two more may trickle in, I don't expect any more returns. In total, I sent out 22 requests, and received four back successfully. Not a great success rate. I did receive some notable players though, and a few that I sent out were long shots to begin with.

Successes:
Mariano Rivera - signed my 2011 Topps
Michael Dunn - signed my 2010 Topps
Mark McGwire - signed card
Mark Prior - two signed cards

Failures:
Phil Hughes
AJ Burnett
Johnny Damon
Jesus Montero
Graig Nettles
Tino Martinez
Javier Vazquez
David Wells
Jose Contreras
Glenallen Hill
Matt Latos
Kevin Russo
Joba Chamberlain
Ron Guidry
Curtis Granderson
Shelley Duncan
Vladimir Guerrero
Mariano Rivera (sent a second request when I thought my first was long gone)

I knew guys like Tino, Wells, and Nettles were long shots. I would have liked to see a few more successes, but overall, I am happy with the autos I did receive. TTM is a humbling hobby, and there truly are no guarantees.

TTM Success: A pair of Mark's - McGwire & Prior

I had a solid two successes yesterday - none of which were on a Yankees card. I was thrilled to get this first one back in what was a very quick turnaround. Former A's and Cards slugger Mark McGwire signed my card in about a week. As you can see in the pic, the black signature doesn't pop very well against the background. However, I am very happy to add this to my collection. I also received two signed Mark Prior cards c/o Yankees spring training. Both look great! Prior is a longshot to break camp with the team unless Joba's oblique injury lingers. However, he'll pitch for the club at some point this year, I'm certain. I'm really pulling for him.

When a card is all the rage

It's funny to look back and see when certain cards were all the rage. A few days ago, I was looking through some older cards I had in top loaders, and came across this:

Back in the summer of 1997, this card graced Beckett's pages over and and over. I was in seventh grade, of course I read Beckett, so stop judging me. Mind you, the D-Backs hadn't even played a game yet, but this guy was going to be a star. I remember a trip to the big mall in Syracuse. My mom was shopping with my sisters, and I wandered into one of those over-priced memorabilia stores that most big malls have and bought my first ever pack of Bowman. Sure enough, I pulled the Lee. The owner of the shop immediately offered me money for it...probably like $10, but hell no, this card wasn't going anywhere. He did give me a top loader for it, and I was a happy guy. Bowman Chrome and Bowman's Best came out and brought higher end versions of this card, but the original was pretty cool.

Then Travis Lee's career started a bit slow in 1998, and Mark McGwire started hitting a really lot of home runs. Suddenly Lee's rookie card was forgotten and this card, 13 years later, became the most sought after card of the day:

For graduating first in my eighth grade class in 1998, I asked for this card. Instead, I got a box of 1998 Stadium Club, which was still pretty sweet even though I didn't pull one of the Tino co-signers I desperately wanted (and still do). I did get an Andruw Jones Matrix though, which at the time was a solid pull and probably was going for around $20.

I think it's interesting to look back and think about how certain cards defined a year or a period of time. Strasburg this past year, and not too far off in the future, I'm sure Bryce Harper will have this same effect. What cards can you think of that really defined a particular time? What cards were the rage and now can be had for pennies or a few a bucks?