Derek Jeter - The full Project 2020 rundown

After over a year of waiting, Derek Jeter will finally be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

Sadly, I am traveling during this time and will probably miss most of the ceremony. I'm sure I'll catch the replay of his speech.

Jeter was a special player for me as a kid. I feel like we are up together. I was in the 6th grade when Jeter took over as the everyday shortstop on Opening Day of 1996.  I was in seventh grade when the Yankees won the World Series later that season. I was in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade when they three-peated from 1998-2000. I was an annoying Luis Gonzalez single away from seeing the Yanks win the World Series every year I was in high school.

He wouldn't win another until 2009. By that time, I was a young professional living and working in NYC. College had come and gone, with Jeter still entrenched on the left side of the Yankees infield. I was at Game 6 of the 2009 World Series when the Yankees clinched the title. My date for the game was the woman who would soon become my wife.

Derek Jeter was the Yankees shortstop from the time I was in junior high through the time I was married with two kids. That's pretty insane, any way you look at it. So while it'll be trendy over these few days to knock him as being a overrated slap hitter or that he couldn't play defense, that's going to fall on deaf ears on this blog. It's rare to grow up with a player and have them being linked to nearly every baseball memory you have.

I have that with Jeter.

While he has always been a more secondary part of my collection compared to Tino Martinez, I have about 1,000 different Jeters, give or take. But in 2020, Jeter was the focus for me during Covid-fueled trading card boom.

Why?

Because I completed the Topps Project 2020 full run of Jeters.

It was expensive, but I don't regret it one bit. The funds were there. The retail cards weren't on the shelves. So this took the place of what I might have normally spent on cards. 

All together, they create quite the masterpiece:

Just look at those! Maybe by themselves they don't equate to much, but when viewed as a collection, it's an incredibly unique piece.

Over the last couple days, I went back and looked at these for the first time in months. They had been stored away, but it was fun to go back and enjoy them with Project 2020 a distant memory. And while Project 70 is doing it's best to beat artist renderings of cards into the ground, these will always hold a special place.

And do you know what? My tastes changed over time. Some I loved at the time, I found myself perhaps not feeling the same now. Some I barely remembered now really popped for some reason. So with that, here a few categories of the Project 2020 cards after I revisiting my collection:

Favorite card: Tyson Beck

This one was always one of my favorites, but I feel it holds up. There's a lot going on, but I like how the full piece comes together. The iconic Draft Pick text from the back of the card is there. Jeter's RC image is there on the right, although he's holding Lady Liberty's torch. The colors are vibrant, the card is busy, yet captures Jeter well with his smile and his swing.

Card that I like more now than before: Jacob Rochester

I don't know why, but I kept coming back to this one. I think the sea foam green is what has attracted me to the card. I don't know if it'll ever be my favorite, but when I saw it I definitely felt more attracted to the simplicity of the design than I had remembered.

Least Favorite: Keith Shore

Oof. Moving on.

Missed the mark the most: Oldmanalan

I shouldn't be THAT surprised by this, as this artist was often out to lunch on most of his cards. And while this was definitely not his worst card, I found it odd that he didn't use the image from Jeter's RC at all.

Most surprising: Don C

This was another polarizing card, but I liked it immediately and still do. It's obviously a homage to Seinfeld, where Jeter made an appearance on the show after the 1996 season. What was most surprising about it to me was how different it felt from Don C's other cards, which were a bit more artistic.

I could take a look at these again next year and feel completely different. Regardless, the full run is now a cornerstone of my entire card collection, and something I'm grateful I decided to follow through on.

Congratulations to Derek Jeter!

Daily mailbox trips

Over the past couple of weeks, I feel like my mailbox has been extra busy. Between a few TCDB trades, blogger packages, and small eBay purchases, it's infrequent that a day goes by without something for me in the mailbox.

While fun, it does force me to do one thing I don't like! Sort cards!

But that's ok. The alternative is no cards.

Here's what a typical day at the mailbox looked like just the other day.

The first was a PWE from Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life. He gave me a heads up this was on its way, and it was six cards for my son's HOF binder that I keep for him. While I am a slacker at actually updating that page on my blog, I do take everything that is sent for him and put it into his binder. I'll provide an update one of these days.

Thanks, Bo! Some good stuff here and a nice range of cardboard from some of the more recent HOF inductees. Baines even looks like he's in disbelief that he was voted into the HOF.

The next envelope was an eBay purchase from One Million Cubs. He always has free PWE shipping, and one day tweeted he had a few new cards listed. So I checked out his page and found a card I liked at a good price.

I like the camo parallels from 2020 Bowman. This was kind of a make or break year for Florial as a prospect, but I still hold out a touch of hope he can put it together.

Speaking of prospects, I snagged this autograph for under 2 bucks including shipping from a different seller. The Yankees got Josh Stowers from the Mariners via the Reds in the Sonny Gray trade. I was confused as to why the Yanks just didn't keep Shed Long (who was sent to the M's in the trade), but they don't have many decent OF prospects, so I guess it was more important for them to try and fill that gap than with another middle infielder. I don't know, I wasn't really feeling that.

Stowers spent the year at low A and hit .273 with a good .386 OBP and 35 steals. We'll see if he can become a useful piece at some point. He was a second rounder in 2018 and last year was his first full year in pro ball, so he's got some time.

Three envelopes, all with a little something different. While it's still weird working from home, I do like being the one to grab the mail every day.  

NOW a Hall of Famer

Once he was elected to the Hall of Fame, I was excited to pick up Derek Jeter's Topps Now Card. Instead of the $9.99 directly from Topps, I spent $5 on eBay.

The card finally arrived.

I think I like the salute shot. I might have preferred something from one of Jeter's signature moments, but I think the wave to the crowd works well from the end of of his career.

I thought the back was well done. I like the accolades beyond traditional stats, and how they are represented with objects, like stars and trophies. The subtle shot of Jeter int he background at his HOF press conference was a nice touch.

I can't remember if Topps does NOW cards from HOF induction speeches, but if so I'll likely grab that one as well.

Congrats to two new HOFers

My son's HOF binder grew by two yesterday, as two terrific choices were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Derek Jeter was a slam dunk choice as one of the greatest shortstops to ever play. 3,465 hits and another 200 in the post-season? Yep. And certainly a generational player while I was growing up. He was a rookie when I was 12 years old, so he's really all I knew at SS for most of of conscious life. I grew up with him as my shortstop.

It's cool Larry Walker got in. Aided by Colorado or not, he seemed to be a good dude who played the game hard. I always enjoyed checking box scores to see which of the Colorado guys homered the previous night between Walker, Galarraga, Bichette, and Castilla. Fun crew. He always rocked a pretty sweet mullet too.

I'm looking forward to seeing both of these guys take the stage this summer.

Call to the Hall

This weekend, three former Yankees will enter the Hall of Fame. While I don't anticipate sitting and watching the ceremony, I do look forward to seeing video recaps of the speeches and all the pageantry. I've enjoyed seeing photos of each player's Hall display as well.

After he was unanimously selected as a HOFer, I did pick up these two Topps NOW issues, with the latter celebrating the feat. I need more Rivera cards like I need a hole in the head, but these were two I was very happy to add.

I never owned many Mike Mussina cards during his playing days, as his Yankees years coincided with mostly my non-collecting years. Still, I've amassed quite a collection of his through trade packages, and his TTM autos are some of the best I own.

I actually do remember the Yankees getting Lee Smith via trade, even though I was nine at the time. I remember watching a game on WPIX where they zoomed to him sitting in the bullpen. I can't say I remember any of his Yankees pitching appearances, but it's always fun when a guy like this wears pinstripes for a short time.

Congrats to these three guys, as well as the other elected players.

Put me in, Coach Tom

Our resident hobby high school baseball coach, P-Town Tom, hit me up with a nice care package the other day. Tom is a very thoughtful guy, and tends to always check off multiple boxes when sending a package. This one was no different, as he hit three areas of my collection in one swoop:

• Tino Martinez
• Phil Rizzuto
• HOFers for my son

Let's start with the Tinos. I needed this Flair! It's a pretty awesome card, even though this set was confusing with the Class/Row/Seat designation. Just a fancy way to say "parallel."

I also enjoyed this SPx Power Explosion card, even if it is a dupe for me.

Next up, the Rizzutos! This TCMA is awesome, and I love the classic top-step-of-the-dugout shot.

I also thought this Topps Gallery was very classy looking, and even thought the scripted font design element looked a bit like this:

While I've been bad about showcasing and keeping up with my son's HOF binder, I do still actively add to it, and will make sure these cards are added:

While certainly not known for his time with the Mets, the Ashburn is a great addition to the binder!

Tom threw in a few other Yanks for me, highlighted by this UC3 Mattingly. Great shot of Donnie hustling and playing the game hard, as he always did.

Thanks for thinking of me, Coach!

Thrifting again

I finally did find some Series 1 yesterday afternoon, so I'll share my thoughts shortly on those. It's really nothing earth-shattering. I think the design is cool, I think the inserts are pretty boring and the sets too large. But I'll show off a few of the cards in an upcoming post.

Prior to venturing out to Target, I did my usual Saturday morning walk to the church thrift shop. It's a two-three minute walk, so I'm not exaggerating when I say how close it is.

As custom, I made a bee-line to the area where the cards would be, and immediately saw a binder sitting there mark $6.

Their pricing seems to be a little inconsistent, but I suppose it just depends on the volunteer working there. Last time I found binders there for $1 a piece, although this one was a little larger. Still, $6 for this wasn't a horrible deal, as the binder and pagers were in good shape, which isn't always the case.

I quickly flipped through it to make sure it wasn't utter junk. Some junk = expected. Full of junk = leave it there for someone else. I saw plenty in there to make me grab it.

The binder was about 60% baseball and 40% basketball. Nothing newer than maybe 1993 or 1994. The real reason I wanted it was because there were quite a few Michael Jordan cards in there, mostly from the Playoffs, but a nice base Upper Deck as well. You can't go wrong with a handful of Jordans.

There were also a lot of Phoenix Suns cards, which makes sense because the Bulls and Suns matched up in the Finals in 1993, right around when most of these cards were from.

The baseball cards had quite a few HOFers, mostly from early editions of Stadium Club. While I think the 1990 Griffey is awesome, unfortunately it was in pretty bad condition.

Overall, very solid purchase for $6. Good entertainment value, good Jordans, good binder, and good Ultra Pro pages. Can't ask for much more than that. I'm impressed with how frequently this little church thrift store is delivering cards for me.

Mo + Moose

I was quite happy with the results of yesterday's HOF ballot reveal.

It was obvious Rivera was going to get in. I think it's great he got 100% of the vote, and I agree with many others that it's sad it was even a thing. Many HOFers before him deserved to be voted in unanimously. I think social media and the fear of being attacked on Twitter helped sway some voters who might have been the fence to "not be that guy." Regardless, we can put to bed the "will he get 100% of the vote" storyline each year. I won't miss it.

One guy who had a long climb and finally made it was Mike Mussina. I hoped that his quiet excellence would one day land him a spot, and I'm glad that day finally arrived. While he may not have had many of the individual accolades that most HOFers do, he was a terrific pitcher for a very long time. I saw him in person many times, and always enjoyed going to a game when he was on the mound.

And it's cool that Mo and Moose are heading in together, as Mo saved 49 of Mussina's wins. Very fitting.

Both guys were extremely generous TTM signers. I have been lucky enough to get Rivera on a few occasions. He was a great signer early in his career, and then again toward the tail end. My favorite is easy this UD Masterpieces, as it came out great.

Mussina was always a great signer in the off-season. For many years, he signed for free. Now I think there is a $5 or $10 fee.

While I rarely have anything but cards signed, I did send him this ticket stub from 2008. That was the season he won 20 games for the first time (in his final season!), and this ticket was from a game I attended. He won his first game of the season that day, and he was kind enough to sign my ticket #1 of 20 to signify the win number.

Two great Yankees. Two Hall of Famers. Congrats, Mo and Moose.

If you could donate a card to the Baseball HOF, what would you choose?

I stumbled upon this cool article on Sports Card Daily about the National Baseball Hall of Fame building a baseball card exhibit. My first thought was, “This doesn’t already exist?!” I know cards are featured throughout the exhibit, but I suppose they don’t have a place to call their own. I definitely plan on donating to this exhibit (click here), and please scroll to the end of this post to see how I’m going to do that with your help.

Sadly, I haven’t visited the HOF since 1996. I do intend to get back there at some point, as it’s not terribly far from where I grew up. I do want to take my kids there though, although I’m waiting until they are just a little bit older for that. They'd be a disaster there now.

Regardless, it got me thinking. If you could donate one item to the Baseball Hall of Fame for their card exhibit, what would it be? I've seen so many amazing cards/collections featured on these blogs, I know we could open up an exhibit on our our!

Mine would easily be my Topps Yankees Project, as I think it would be awesome to feature that within a glass case…although sort of sad I wouldn’t have it in my own possession. However, it’s what I’m most proud of as a collector. As a reminder, it’s a signed Yankees card from each Topps flagship set, 1951-2018, done entirely by me via through the mail (TTM) autograph collecting.

 

 

 

 

(I know 2018 is missing but I have it...just didn't have an updated image!)

 

So how about you? Which personal card(s) would you donate if you had the chance? If it’s something you’ve featured on your blog in the past, feel free to link it within your comment.

And since I feel strongly about this exhibit being part of the HOF, I’ll donate $1 to the exhibit for each response I get by Friday at 11:59pm ET (capped at $100).

TTM Success: Larry Walker

Yesterday I got home from work and found a PWE waiting for me. I thought it might have been my second spring training success. Although it wasn't from spring training, it was from Florida:

Former NL MVP Larry Walker signed two cards - one for me, and one for my son, Joey. I love that he wrote "swing hard" on Joey's. He'll be starting tee-ball next month and while I don't know if it's the soundest advice, it's hard to argue with Larry Walker.

I hope Walker ends up in the Hall of Fame, although he'll need to make up a ton of ground in the next two years. Still, he was one of the game's premier sluggers while I was growing up, so it was hard to turn down the chance at his autograph.

Thanks, Mr. Walker!

Thrift shop card finds!

Something happened to me for the first time on Saturday. I found cards at a local thrift shop!

I’ve always been envious of collectors who show off their thrift store finds. Admittedly, I’m not one to hop around from shop to shop and make a day of it, so no wonder I never find any. However, I do have a thrift shop in the basement of a church just three blocks from my house, and I’ve stopped in from time to time without finding much of anything. Everything seems pretty run down and there is a lot of junk. I guess it’s like any other thrift shop, isn’t it?

I live on a street just off of the main road in town, and still have a “walker’s mentality” from my time living in NYC and Hoboken. I have no problem taking a short walk to run an errand. In this case, I had two errands. I first went to the barbershop for a haircut, and once that was done, walked another block to the post office to mail a package to Brian atCollecting Cutch.

I didn’t have any more cash. I brought exactly enough for my haircut (including tip), and then used my credit card at the post office. I still decided to swing by the thrift shop on the way home. After all, it’s only open on Saturdays and Tuesdays. I went in. Cashless.

I made my way over to the books and DVDs, and then I saw them. Two binders and a box of cards! Whhhhat?!

I grabbed the first binder, which was of all basketball cards and marked for $5. I took a quick scan to see if I saw any late ‘90s inserts that go for quite a penny these days, but didn’t see anything too interesting. It’s entirely possible I missed something good, but haven’t collected basketball cards in years and don’t have a keen eye in that area.

Then I grabbed the baseball binder. It was a big ass binder too. H-e-a-v-y. This was marked $5 as well. I started flipping through, and while some of the cards looked ok, I didn’t think this would be for me. Everything was basically from 1997-2002 or so (admittedly an era of cards I like a lot), and there were a lot of cards; cards I’m currently trying to get rid of in a big box…so why would I buy more? I flipped through for a minute and then put the binder back.

I then quickly looked at the longer box, which was mostly football cards that weren’t of interest to me. And I left the store. Yep, I left. Empty-handed. I didn’t want to spend the $5.

In the literally three minute walk home, I had a change of heart. It would be fun to go through, I thought. And you never know what might be tucked away. Plus, the very day was my 7^th blog anniversary. I had do something card-related, right?

But the $5 price tag felt a little steep. This is a thrift shop, I said. Shouldn’t it be like 2 bucks? But then I realized something. I routinely spend $4.99 on Walgreen’s repacks, or buy a handful of Dollar Tree repacks. Why am I ok with paying 5 bucks at Walgreen’s for 100 cards that are mostly junk, when I could pay $5 for this and got a lot more cards, easily over 1,000. Plus I saw a few Hall of Famers and interesting cards in my quick scan in the store. And it would last a lot longer than a repack.

I changed my mind.

I got home and ran in the house and grabbed five one dollar bills and told my wife I was headed back to grab something. I walked very fast back to the store, worried some thrift shop vulture may have seen me thumbing through them and then scooped up the binder himself, Vegas slot machine style.

Luckily, I got back and it was there! $5 later and a binder in hand, I headed home.

As noted, it was a pretty big binder. He’s are two photos, one for scale. 

It consisted of 70 pages, mostly filled with card on the front and back of each page. That alone would be 18 cards per page, or 1260 cards. Some had three or four cards in each slot as well.

All-in-all, there were exactly 1,291 cards in the binder. Of those, 133 were of Hall of Famers (stack pictured below), mostly newish ones at that. That doesn’t include the Wade Boggs cards which went into my Yankees pule. There were 54 Yankee cards.

Ok, enough rambling. Here are some cards. This is really just a random sampling to show what I found.

By far, my two favorite cards were these 1995 Topps Cybserstats Season in Review cards. Honestly, they are strikingly gorgeous cards. I’m not sure how a card like this were to be viewed if it were new in 2018, but a lot of cards from the mid to late 90s have far superior graphics and designs to current insert sets. That is a fact.

Another interesting card was this double-sided 1994 Donruss Bomb Squad card. One bomb = one home run. There would probably be outrage if this card showed up in 2018.

There were a lot of 1998 Metal in the binder. Probably close to 50 or 60. No issues with that on my end, as I loved these sets.

This person really liked this Score Goin Yard subset.

I think I would have gotten along well with this collector. There were a ton of Collector’s Choice, Opening Day, Circa, Sports Illustrated, and other brands I really enjoyed as a kid.

There were also severalUpper Deck Folz Vending machine mini cards. I had never seen these. They are a little bit smaller than the size of a normal card, but don’t jump out as a mini. They also look like like Collector's Choice cards, but are not branded as such.

There weren’t too many oddballs.

As for the Hall of Famers, I mentioned there were 133. Here’s who appeared the most:

Greg Maddux – 16 cards

Roberto Alomar – 15 cards

John Smoltz/Barry Larking/Tony Gwynn – 12 cards each

Ivan Rodriguez – 9 cards

 

And the Yankees! Tino made an appearance.

Boggs was in there a lot, as was Big Daddy.

There was a lot more too!

Am I glad I spent the $5? Easily. I didn’t find anything super valuable, but I really enjoyed going through the cards, and know I’ll be including some in upcoming trade packages. It was definitely money well spent when I think about the alternative of a 100-card repack. I mean, nearly 1300 cards from the late 90s? Hard to beat for this collector.

The binder and pages aren’t particularly in great shape, so what I think I might do is steal a few to cut up for PWEs, and then stuff the binder back full of other cards and bring it back to the thrift shop for someone else to buy.

Either way, I’ll definitely be stopping by regularly to look for cards. It’s a three minute walk from house. I’d be crazy not to.