I collected baseball cards from the late '80s through 2002. Then I went to college and when I came out, I was lost. There were too many brands, sets, choices, relics, autos, parallels, variations. It was a turn off. However, I slowly made my way back.
So here is my attempt to venture back into the hobby. I'll buy a few packs of cards here and there, comment on some cards I have, send out some TTMs, and follow the progress of my Topps Yankees Project.
Leaf was hard to keep track of in the late ‘90s. They had a
bunch of different parallels, die-cuts, and axis cards. I don't know either. Many of these fell
under the name Fractal Matrix, which I still don’t know the meaning of. Then
there were Fractal Foundations…what the frac, Leaf?
Although confusing, many were, and still are, very nice looking. They certainly
must’ve been one of the first brands to go all-in on parallels upon parallels.
Sure, there was Topps Gold and Ultra Gold Medallions and whatnot, but this really started to show a trend in the
industry when you had Gold, Silver, Bronze versions, as well as axis and
die-cut versions. We then saw a lot of variations, with Topps Finest using
Common/Uncommon, Flair using Row 1/2/3, Bowman producing every color of the rainbow, and so on.
According to baseballcardpedia, this gold z-axis die-cut is
one of 100 made, although I can’t find any serially numbering on the card. I’ll
just have to trust that’s the print run. It’s a nice looking card for sure.
It popped up on eBay and I pounced quickly. I know I hadn’t
seen it, and it had a cheap BIN, so I was all over it. Nice to add this to
growing (ever so slowly) Tino collection.
Oops. I missed my blog’s five year anniversary last week.
That’s a bummer. Or it’s not. It’s not that big of a deal.
Regardless, I’ve been at this little old blog Yankees card
blog for five years, since February 10th, 2011. I’m glad I’m still
going. I took one prolonged pause, but that’s really it. Otherwise, I’ve been
posting fairly regularly, which is a nice accomplishment given two little ones
running around. Mind you, I had this blog before we were pregnant with my son,
and now he’s got a 22-month old sister. It’s weird to think that my blog is
older than my kids.
As you may have noticed, I don’t post earth-shattering stuff
or overly thoughtful content. Maybe once in a while. Otherwise, it’s my form of
cardboard show-and-tell. That’s ok. It’s how I do it. My wife doesn’t want to
see my cards, so I show them to you. Your call if you click the link or not.
I don’t have any set plans or big blog goals for the next
year or two or five. I don’t have any plans to shut it down or introduce
anything brand new. I’m just going to stick to what I do, because it’s been working
out for me just fine. I’ve made a lot of collecting friends, and my collection
has grown to the point where it’s probably too big now.
Anyhow, thanks for regularly or periodically checking in. I
do appreciate it. Equally, thanks for keeping me top of mind when you pull
your unwanted Yankees cards. It means the most to me when someone sets something
aside knowing I’ll like it. That’s something that I find to be really
meaningful, and just plain cool.
So from everyone over here at The Lost Collector (aka just me): THANK YOU!
I recently added a third Ty Hensley 1/1 to my collection, this time a 2012 Leaf Memories black printing plate. It's my second overall printing plate of Hensley. It's getting harder and harder to find Hensley's I don't have, so I try and pounce when new ones come up, as long as they are reasonably priced.
However, this one had a long trip to get to me. I purchased it on Jan 20. The seller promptly shipped it, and then it stalled for over 2 weeks at a sorting facility. No tracking updated. Nothing. Just sat there, day by day.
The seller and I both found this unusual, and he was nice enough to issue a refund.
Guess what happened the next day? Yep. The card shows up in my mailbox. I reached out to the seller and gave him a refund of his refund...er, just paid him again since it did arrive, and he deserved the money fair and square. It's not his fault it sat in a sorting facility in Michigan.
So it took a while, but Ty Hensley #68 has arrived. I wonder when he'll be included in another set? Hopefully he is healthy this year and is able to pitch all season. He'd at least make a minor league team set, I would hope.
I still have a bunch of these to go through, and since I’m
all caught up on trade packages and bubble mailers, I need some filler. Here we
go! Previous editions:
Mike Tyson! Sadly it’s not the tattooed-faced former boxing
champion. But still, pretty cool to share the same name. Or maybe not? I bet he
gets a lot of awful jokes. The other Mike Tyson…or maybe the original Mike Tyson…had
a 10-year career in the NL, with eight of those seasons coming with the Cardinals
and the last two with the Cubs. Statistically, his best year was probably 1976,
despite only playing in 76 games. He accounted for a 2.3 WAR that year, highest
of his career (which ended at -0.3 WAR, FYI). He managed to hit .286 with 9
triples that year, the latter stat good for 5th in the NL. All-in-all, he ended his
career a lifetime .241 hitter with 714 career hits. Also, his mustache is sweet.
As a child of the ‘80s, I constantly remember seeing Kevin
Bass on cardboard. I don’t have any memories of him as a player, but I do
remember him seemingly showing up in every other pack (along with Alvin Davis).
Bass was a pretty good hitter for the Astros. He was an NL All-Star in 1986,
hitting .311 with 184 hits, 20 HRS, and a very good OPS+ of 134. That’s a solid
year, especially when there wasn’t a ton of power in the game at that time. That was also
the year the Astros battled the Mets in the NLCS. He did hit .292 in that
series, although had no homers or RBIs and struck out with men on base to end
the series. His career spanned 14 years overall, as he bounced around a bit the
last few years – to the Giants, Mets, back to Houston, and wrapped it up in
Baltimore.
I first learned of Jeff Burroughs as I a kid following the
1992 and 1993 Little League World Series, where his porky son Sean was the star
of the team he coached. However, Jeff has a very nice big-league career. He was
selected first overall in the 1969 draft, and won the AL MVP just 5 years later
in 1974. For the season, he hit .301 with 25 HRs and a league-leading 118 RBIs.
He passed the 20-HR mark five times in his career, including a career-high 41 for
the Braves in 1977. In 1978, he made his second All-Star team, and led the NL
with a gaudy .432 OBP that year. Pretty damn good. All-in-all, he hit .261 with
240 HRs in 16 seasons. While he wasn’t the greatest #1 overall pick, he
certainly is among the best. His aforementioned son, Sean, never quite had
the career many expected, especially being a Top 5-rated prospect and tearing
up the minors.
I will forever be a Chan Ho Park fan because of this:
In all fairness, he had a fairly nice career. It started off
with the Dodgers, where he really came into his own in 2000 and 2001, his only
All-Star appearance. He struck out 217 and 218 batters, respectively, and won
18 games in 2000. He turned that into a 5-year, $55-million dollar deal with the
Rangers, and never lived up to that deal. Not even close. He bounced around a bit, but on his
second stop in LA, he became a full-time reliever. He then had a couple good
seasons as a set-up man. He signed with the Yanks in 2010, got diarrhea, was
released, went to Pittsburgh, and was out of the majors in 2011. Still, he
pitched for 17 big league seasons, finishing with a 128-98 record, 4.36 ERA,
and 1715 Ks. Oh, and he made over $85-million in his career, so yeah, he did
alright for himself. This Collector's Choice Arizona Fall League card is one I've always been fascinated by. He's throwing lefty! I assume it's just the reverse-negative. Anyone know for sure?
This is a sweet card. Mike Cameron is best known to me as
being traded to the Mariners in the Ken Griffey Jr deal. However, that’s not
quite fair. He had a very good career. Notably, he was a fantastic defensive
outfielder. I feel like he was on Baseball Tonight’s Web Gems every other
night. He was an important piece of those Ichiro-led Mariners teams that won a
lot of games, although were twice defeated in the ALCS by the Yanks. He was
decent with the bat as well, routinely clubbing 20+ homers, with a career-high
30 for the Mets in 2004. Later in his career, he was often rumored as heading
to the Yanks, but never did. Instead he went to Boston and stunk.
Bart! Man, this guy. The Yanks got laughed at when they
brought Bartolo Colon back to the big leagues after being out of baseball in
2010, but look at him now! He’s still a quality starting pitcher. He obviously
came up as a big-time pitcher with Cleveland, as he and Jaret Wright were going
to team up to finally get the Indians over the hump. That never quite worked
out. He was later trader to Montreal and again to the White Sox before signing
with the Angels and enjoying a Cy-Young winning season in 2005, beating out
Mariano Rivera and Johan Santana (who probably should have won). Bart
definitely was rewarded for his career-high 21 wins, but Santana had a much
lower ERA, 80 more Ks, a lower WHIP, higher ERA+, and was about 3-wins better
than him in terms of WAR. Today, I don’t think the vote would have gone the
same way. Regardless, in 18 years, Colon has racked up 218 wins, a 3.97 ERA,
and 2200+ Ks. Considering he only won 11 games total from 2006-2010, it’s
pretty impressive. Even with average years then, it’s not a stretch to say he
might be closer to the 250-260 range. Still, he’s had a great career and he’s
still going.
Tonight is the NBA All-Star game. Growing up, I collected basketball cards more than baseball cards. My birthday is right around the time new releases came out, plus Christmas is in the heart of hoops season, so I always got basketball cards as gifts.
More of my friends were NBA fans than baseball fans. My co-worker has 10 and 12-year-old boys, and it's the same for them. The NBA fan base has always skewed significantly younger than baseball (and all major sports, really), and that trend is certainly continuing today.
Anyhow, whether you like the NBA or not is not the purpose of the post. Instead, I just wanted to give a quick tribute to Kobe Bryant, playing in his last All-Star Game tonight. Kobe is one of the best players to have ever played the game, and while I can't say I was always his biggest fan, I certainly respected him as an incredible player. I saw in person twice - once at MSG, and once at the 2013 NBA All-Star Game in Houston. Both times, he owned the stage. Have you ever been to a baseball game and refused to go get a beer when a certain player was due to come up to bat? Bonds or ARod or Pujols in their primes? Mike Trout or Bryce Harper now. That kind of thing. Kobe was like that. When he was on the floor, you don't step away or go to the bathroom. You watch and hope to catch a glimpse of greatness.
I don't have a ton of Kobe cards. He was getting big as as I was transitioning to really focusing on baseball cards. I am lucky enough to have his rookie card, pictured above, from Collector's Choice. While it's low-end, it's still a RC. Man, I loved Collector's Choice.
The NBA won't be the same without Kobe. Sure, there's still LeBron and Durant and Harden and Curry. But Kobe was a breed of his own, and he'll certainly be missed.
It’s been awhile. How about another installment of autos
sent to me by a very generous Listia user? I purchased a few cards with credits, and he threw these in just for fun. If you’d like to take a look back at
previous posts, knock yourself out:
I always had a fascination with Juan Pierre, and always
wanted the Yankees to acquire him. I was fascinated by his speed and lack of
power. Keep in mind, this was a time when middle infielders were routinely hitting 40 HRs.
Suspicious, eh? So seeing an outfielder hit 0 HRs, but still manage 200 hits? Very different. Pierre was a classic speed/contact guy. He led the NL in steals
twice, and the AL once with the White Sox. I don’t remember him on the White
Sox. In 14 years, he accounted for a 16.9 WAR. I was surprised to see this,
given the bags he stole and the fact that he was a .295 lifetime hitter with
over 2200 hits. That’s pretty damn good. I was also surprised to see he was never an
All-Star. Regardless, he had a nice career, and won a ring with the 2004
Marlins (grrrr).
Cripes, this guy. Joe Girardi absolutely loved Sergio Mitre. I
don’t know why. He never did anything to warrant the chances he was given in
NY. Over an 8-year career, he had a record of 13-30 with a 5.21 ERA. For the
Yanks, he went 2-6 with a 5.35 ERA in 111 innings over 3 year. I have no idea.
He appeared in 43 games for NY, although it felt like at least 500 games to me. I also feel like he pitched every time I went to a game. I am notorious
for going to games and seeing my team’s worst starting pitcher. For a
Ok, this is a pretty good one. An auto of a guy who hit 462
career HRs. That’s pretty awesome. Although, he did finish his career with a
16.9 WAR – same as Juan Pierre above! I can’t think of two more opposite
players. Dunn was a masher who also walked and struck out a lot. I wish he
found his way to NY at some point in his career to play some DH and tee off on
the short porch. He was a 2-time All-Star, but sadly never appeared in a
post-season game. Still, he is one of the best power hitters of the last 20
years, and was a given to hit 40 HRs per year. Crazy enough, he hit 40 on the
dot for four straight years from 2005-08. Pretty cool.
Lee Smith was the first mega closer I remember. I know Goose
and Rags and Eck were big in the 80s and early 90s, but I didn’t quite
understand the closer role until the Yanks acquired Smith and I learned about
it then. I’m not sure if he’s a HOFer…I know he has hovered around 45% in most
votes. He’s got one year left on the ballot, so it looks very unlikely at this
point. I don’t really have an opinion since I didn’t see him pitch a ton. I
know he wasn’t on the level of Rivera or Hoffman, but he was certainly
impressive for a long time. Still, he ended his career with 478 career saves,
while leading the league in saves four times.
True story – I had to check and see if Darren Oliver was
still pitching. He’s not, in case you were wondering. He did manage to pitch
until he was 42. He was a starter for most of his early career, pitching
for the offensive-heavy Texas Rangers in the mid-90s. He won some games, but
his ERA was usually pretty high. It looked like he was done in baseball after
not pitching in 2005, but he was born again as a lefty reliever for the Mets in
2006. He then pitched for eight more seasons. I’m impressed with guys can find
a way to stick for a long time, and Oliver certainly did that.
Zim! What can I say about Don Zimmer? The man was a baseball
junkie, involved in the game for over 60 years. I really only knew him as the
Yankees bench coach, but he was far more than that for many different teams. He
was a decent player for the Dodgers early in his career, which was an
accomplishment in his own right after almost losing his life to a brain injury
as the result of being hit in the head by a pitch in the minors. The dude was in a coma for 2 weeks and had brain surgery. That he then
went on to play for 12 seasons and coach or manage for another 40+ is pretty
freakin’ awesome. He was a very lovable character for the Yanks, from his army
helmet after a foul ball to his famous run-in with Pedro Martinez.
My pal Kerry over at Cards on Cards is always looking out
for me. Not only does he send great Yanks, but usually a stack of Knicks
accompany his packages as well. I always appreciate that since the Knicks are
my favorite basketball team. Plus, I don’t usually buy basketball cards, so I use Kerry’s
packages as a way to get a glimpse of products over the last couple of years.
I’m not sure why I don’t buy basketball cards anymore.
Growing up, I probably collected NBA more than MLB. I was much more into sports
seasons then. Baseball cards during the summer, basketball during the winter.
It’s just how it went. Maybe with baseball products pretty much year round now, that
curbed my basketball buying? I’m still a big NBA fan, so it’s odd that when I
got back into collecting, I just focused on baseball. I just don’t have a great
reason.
Here’s an example of an NBA Hoops card from this year’s
product. The design is ok. It probably would annoy most baseball collectors.
Hoops was a low-end, affordable product when I was growing up. Packs were usually a buck or
less, but I’m not sure if that’s still the case. I did get a box of them one
year for my birthday, I believe it was for the 1995-96 release. Those ones came
with a Block Party or Number Crunchers insert in every pack. Either way, I like
this Melo card with LeBron guarding him.
Here’s a Panini from 13-14. Look how big PANINI is with
relation to the player name and team. This would cause blogger outrage if Topps
did this for a baseball release.
There were also a few older Patrick Ewing cards, including
this 1993-94 Upper Deck Skylights card. The Jordan from this set is still one
of my favorite cards of all time. I like this Ewing since you can see part of the Twin Towers. I
was 10 or 11 years old at this time, so to a kid, these looked super cool.
Moving on to baseball, my favorite card of the bunch that
Kerry sent was Don Mattingly rookie patch manu-relic. It is the first of its kind
for me. I had thought that the whole card within the card was this cloth-fabric, but it’s
actually just the player image. The rest of the card is part of the cardboard
design.
Speaking of cloth, here’s a pretty cool A-Rod from 2011
Lineage.
Here are some minis from 1986 Fleer. I admit that I didn’t
know this set came in miniature form.
A couple sweet parallels. The Andrew Miller is low-numbered,
and CC pink is very striking. Side note – I could not be more impressed with
Andrew Miller’s tenure as a Yankee so far. He’s handled everything with complete class.
Last year, he didn’t get into a back-and-forth about being the closer, a job he
ultimately won and excelled in. This year, he battled not only constant trade
rumors, but lost his closer role to Aroldis Chapman. I’m sure he didn’t love
that, but he still said he just wants to win and will pitch wherever he is needed.
He’s been great. He's an easy guy to root for, despite his Red Sox ties.
Lastly, some nice Topps Archives. I wish Archives wasn’t a
yearly product. I am very confused as to which designs have been featured which
years now.
Kerry, I owe you some cards. Or Cards. Or both. Thanks
again!
