A mini-collections boost thanks to Bob

A fellow collector named Bob from The Best Bubble left a comment he wanted to trade cards and had around 50 off my collecting topics wantlist to send - he mailed the cards off relatively quickly and I actually something to look at sooner than later.

I went through the cards and it looks like a nice mix of mostly late 1990s UV-coated stuff and stragglers from other years - not exactly from the junk wax era but maybe as the years go by, cards that I might not get to pick up outright.

I'd just updated the yearly totals on my 2019 collecting topics count - but this late-year trade gives me more cards to list up and tally up before the year is over.

Go figure, the trade allowed me to knock out a chunk of cards off my wantlist - which has been neglected for the longest time i.e. I don't even look at it as and maybe I've never thought about posting a most wanted, so people's attention can focus on a smaller group of cards.

Maybe just as a 'reference guide,' I'll look to add that 'Top 10' or 'Top 15' most wanted - but also look to add cards that I can end up looking for myself, instead of letting things go stale.

I counted out about 65 cards and a sample of the cards I received are posted - thanks again Bob!

2018 Topps Stadium Club Anthony Rendon #61 - majestic / panoramic.

1991 Topps Stadium Club Shane Mack #259 - I'm not sure if this is a staged photo shoot or if Mack is standing in as a batter during a pitcher's bullpen session.

1995 Topps Stadium Club Larry Walker #148 - I've added 'posed' images to showcase artsy-fartsy looking cards.

1997 Fleer Ultra Sammy Sosa #169 - dirt fetish; I love this card.

1997 Topps Stadium Club Mark Grudzielanek #44 - dirt fetish

1999 Fleer Ultra Jim Thome #95 - dirt fetish

1996 Topps Lenny Dykstra #261 - dirt fetish; after the fact, there was nothing admirable about the man, but he always knew how to get his uniform dirty.

1991 Topps Stadium Club Walt Weiss #49 - in the air

1997 Topps Stadium Club Rey Ordonez #48 - dirt fetish

1997 Topps Stadium Club Harold Baines #70 - he gives some high fives back to his teammates as a little tribute as opposed to an outright celebration for whatever he just did before someone snapped his picture.

1997 Topps Stadium Club Moises Alou #80 - dirt fetish

1996 Topps Stadium Club Tony Gwynn #301 - Ozzie Smith's appearance makes this a 'star on star' cameo of then active players who were destined to be Hall of Fame legends.

1997 Topps Stadium Club Jody Reed #285 - in the air

1997 Topps Stadium Club Joey Cora #149 - in the air

1994 Upper Deck Rickey Henderson #60 - on a random note, maybe 1994 Upper Deck was a bit of a bore, but UD never really wavered in photo selection.

1996 Topps Stadium Club Edgar Martinez #300 - posed

1994 Topps Ryan Thompson #98 - I collect 'batting' cards which may not be hard since every other image on baseball cards maybe of someone hitting; a distinction I make for my 'mini-collections' is I got to feel the image is showing a little extra dimension like this tight, up close shot of Thompson taking.

1997 Topps Stadium Club Mark Lemke #322 - baserunning

I wish I didn't care as much or at all

The boxes to the center and to the right are where I store a part of my mini-collections - I've mostly been working on listing out [and physically putting away] collecting topic subset cards for the past couple of weeks.

I maintain a loose box of cards to stash 'adds' to count towards my year end achievements and a stash of 'haves' that may have been loose cards otherwise already in my collection - it's kind of 'grunt' work to empty the box but I get the satisfaction of playing around with my actual cards and making sure they are 'officially' part of my collection as opposed to just not giving a hoot.

I’ve started to put away some cards for the following but I think I’ve got to stop somewhere - there has to be a time where I can say I’m done with something at the moment, where I can catch my breath and pat myself on the back.- I’ve got to stop somewhere and there has to be a time where I can say I’m done with something at the moment, where I can catch my breath and pat myself on the back.

I can take myself through a ‘trip’ as a collector flipping through cards that belong to particular themes perhaps - but it feels irrelevant, where I’ve objectified strangers’ [regardless of their status as professional athletes] cards [like having a snapshot of someone else’s personal achievement] that mean bupkis to my life.

It’s because I’m a collector and one-time in-person autograph hound that thinks chasing ink got me closer to the game than it actually did - going through the cards or scrutinizing them because a bit more important because I was looking to get them inked up.

Not to get too dramatic, but maybe through collecting, I’ve kind of marginalized my own life where I wonder if trying to do something with miscellaneous cards are a waste - once in a while, maybe it’s peculiar to see ‘dead cardboard’ I flipped through and passed over at one time ‘archived to oblivion’ like commons from 10-15 years of once ‘current’ players that have moved on [when I haven’t].

Awesome action collection subsets

Probably influenced by other uber specific theme collectors, I want to see if I can classify certain cards within a main collecting topic subset - in the Google Sheets file where I list my ‘AA’ collection, I added a new ‘classification’ column, where I’ll tag each card listed with one of the following ‘labels.’

Actual on field game action
Dirt fetish
Fun cards and personality shots
Game face and unique perspectives
Other sports

At times, I don't want to spend time playing with my cards so maybe it is a bit tedious to go through my cards one-by-one to see which subset they belong - does this new classification 'deal' complicate things or help 'stretch things out' as far as my interests in any one particular mini-collection, forcing me to do what I might not feel like doing.

I have to worry about some overlap, but I feel like I can still play around to determine where my pulls or my finds go - I've started with my latest 'AA' adds and look to tag the cards featured on my sampler pages.

Bloodlines collection - a visual guide

The logistics in displaying sampler pages for my bloodlines collection was still up in the air - the main collection consists of miscellaneous cards of professional athletes [primarily baseball] who maybe have brothers, fathers, grandfathers, cousins, nephews play professionally as well.

There are some ‘completed’ bloodlines connections within this sampler lot - but I feel like I'm lagging when I don’t have a card of an applicable card of a family member handy.

A subject not represented among these sampler pages just means I have to go out and get the card - in my main collection, it isn’t a big deal to be missing a card that makes up part of a family chain, though for the more notable bloodlines, I need to get those missing cards in-hand.

I wanted to make it where in most cases the cards for applicable bloodlines ties were shown side-by-side [for the most part] and used up 7 pages to display the cards I had in-hand - I tried to grab cards from various pro athlete families, though these sampler pages are not comprehensive.

Acunas x2 - father Ronald Sr. and son Ronald Jr.
Alomars x2 - brothers Roberto and Sandy Alomar Jr.; missing a card for father Sandy Sr.
Bichettes x3 - father Dante and son Bo; missing a card for Dante Jr., who was once a prospect for the New York Yankees.
Bonds x2 - father Bobby and son Barry; missing a card for Bobby Jr., who was a career minor leaguer.
Canos x2 - father Jose and son Robinson [on the back of his father's card].

Alou / Rojas x2 - Moises Alou and Mel Rojas [on the back of his cousin Moises' card]; if I understand it correctly, Rojas is the paternal name, but Alou ended up the most commonly used surname for the distinguished baseball family; missing cards of Moises’ father Felipe along with uncles Jesus and Matty.
Boones x4 - grandfather Gus, father Bob, Bob’s sons Bret, Aaron and Matt [who didn't make it to the major leagues, but has a mainstream Bowman card from 2000].
Brantleys x2 - father Mickey and son Michael [on the back of his father's card]
Bretts x1 - George Brett; missing a card for brother Ken.
Cansecos x2 - brothers Jose and Ozzie [on the back of his brother's card].

Cruz x3 - father Jose Sr., son Jose Jr. and Jose Sr.’s brother Hector; missing a Tommy Cruz card.
DiMaggios x2 - brothers Dom and Joe, missing a card for their other brother Vince
Fielders x2 - father Cecil and son Prince
Gonzalez x2 - brothers Adrian and Edgar

Gooden / Sheffield x2 - uncle Dwight and nephew Gary
Gordons x3 - father Tom and half brothers Dee and Nick
Griffey x3 - father Ken Sr. and sons Ken Jr. and one-time minor leaguer Craig.
Hoffman x2 - brothers Trevor and Glenn [on the back of his brother's card].

Guerreros x4 - father Vladimir., son Vlad Jr,. Vladimir's brother Wilton, Vladimir's cousin Cristian [longtime minor leaguer] and Vlad Jr.'s cousin Gabby [who made his MLB debut in 2018].
Mahomes x2 - father Pat [MLB] and son Patrick [NFL]
Martinez x2 - father Carlos and son Jose

Martinez x1 - brothers Ramon and Pedro
McCaffreys x2 - father Ed and son Christian
Millers x2 - brothers Darrell [MLB] and Reggie [NBA], missing a card for sister Cheryl [basketball] and Darrell Jr. [Topps put him on a 2018 Topps Heritage Minors leaders subset card].
Molinas x3 - brothers Bengie, Jose and Yadier.
Rodriguez x1 - father Ivan and son Dereck [shown on dual sided insert card he shares with father].

Ripkens x4 - grandfather Cal Sr., sons Cal Jr. and Billy; Cal Jr’s son Ryan.
Uptons x2 - brothers B.J. and Justin
Smiths x2 [not pictured - 10/29 add] - father Dwight and son Dwight Jr.
Van Slykes x2 - father Andy and son Scott

Inking it up collection - a visual guide

Collecting autographs in-person or the idea of getting something signed is one of my last links to what I was doing when I was in my late teens - I would never, ever consider myself too old to get something signed by any person I could get an autograph from, though reality tells me otherwise.

Maybe the opportunities are not there and/or are too commercialized to be as pure as getting a card or a ball signed at a spot like a ball game - but maybe as a nod to years I've spent literally chasing after signatures, I collect the cards picturing players 'inking it up' for fans.

It maybe a random factoid, but I was able to get in-person autographs from 22 of the 27 players pictured on these group of cards, spanning about 30 years - I may have stories from the 22 guys I got autographs from, though I missed out on five guys as far as getting their autograph in-person.

1. Babe Ruth - obviously, though I was going for Lou Gehrig and neither one signed when the New York Yankees came into town one year.

2. Roberto Alomar - I've always seen him as a prima donna of sorts and the only time I'd ever remember him signing was when he was playing for the Cleveland Indians and on a night when I wasn't around.

As the story retold to me goes, someone was heckling him after a game for perhaps ignoring fans on his way out of the ballpark - to shut the heckler up, Alomar proceeds to sign for everyone, but the individual who gave him a hard time.

3. Kirby Puckett - maybe forced to retire the year before I was graphing at my local big league park and my only apparent successes with are TTM.

4. John Smiley - mostly pitched in the National League, before Interleague play was a thing and I was really only getting my autographs at an American League ballpark when I first started.

5. Kim Batiste - I was more into cards when this junk wax era utility man was playing.

Multi-sport athletes collection - a visual guide

I wanted continue seeing if I could display certain collecting subset cards in nine-pocket pages - as featured in previous posts on this blog over the summer, I started to make sampler pages of my favorite mini collections to see if I could put together a binder to flip through.

With a new box of Ultra Pro pages, I wanted to add cards of my bloodlines, inking it up and multi-sport athletes collections as priorities - I put together 17 cards using one page as a snapshot of prominent pro athletes in one sport, yet might have been good enough to dabble in at least one other sport [high school / college / pros] at one point in their playing careers.

These cards were originally referred to as 'two-sport stars' collection, though in my collection, there are cards of players who simply forgettable - guys who may not have developed professionally in a sport they tried to play, like a baseball player who spends four or five years in the minors, but ends up going back to college to play football in anonymity.

First row: John Elway [NFL / MiLB], Bill Spiers [MLB / NCAA football], Todd Helton [MLB / NCAA football]
Second row: Bo Jackson [MLB / NFL], Jim Thorpe, Dave Winfield
Third row: Brian Jordan [NFL / MLB], Dick Ricketts [NBA/MLB], Ron Reed x2 [NBA/MLB]

First row: Nyjer Morgan [MLB / hockey], Zack Von Rosenberg [MiLB / NCAA football], Tony Gonzalez [NFL / NCAA basketball]
Second row: Frank Thomas [MLB / NCAA football], Deion Sanders [MLB / NFL], Tony Gwynn
Third row: Ron Reed [second card] and Michael Jordan [NBA / MiLB]

In my collecting life, it was Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders who made the idea of two-sport players a real attraction during the junk wax era - Jackson had all-world potential as a baseball player and maybe I saw Sanders as an ersatz version of Bo, maybe more flash than substance on a big league field.

Looking at his stats, Sanders was actually decent MLB player, though the NFL was always the priority - as it goes, Neon Deion was the one who didn't get hurt [insert of some of tired tackling joke here] and ended up in the Pro Football HOF while Jackson's NFL career was cut short by injury.

My 2018 Topps Stadium Club finds - my Top 10

A subjective exercise of picking out my favorite cards after grabbing 26 of them at a card shop stop for National Baseball Card Day - in particular these stood in among others considered [for full disclosure, a follow up post will be made to highlight those other cards].

#163 Ryan Zimmerman - it's a butt shot without Zimmerman's face on his own card, but his and the fans' reactions tell me all I need to know about the 'awesomeness' of this one.

#9 Zack Godley - pool shot

#190 Ian Happ

#263 Willie Calhoun - full extension

#56 Jon Lester - a veteran star pitcher hitting

#79 Mike Clevinger - retro uniform, retro hair; a 'fun' factoid about Clevinger's professional baseball career was he was originally an Angels minor leaguer.

#107 Keon Broxton - the angle makes things seem a bit more majestic.

#209 Dillon Peters - The Dime Box mention makes this a keeper.

#167 Dexter Fowler - the player is obscured but the horizontal card allows to get more of the ballpark in the picture.

#53 Jake Lamb - a play at the play card that belongs to a third baseman and not the catcher.

Sorting things out - a couple of random cards

I tried filing away some loose inserts squirreled away in loose blaster / mega boxes into a 3,200 count box I have for my archive of insert cards - I pulled a couple of cards to go into a couple of mini-collections and if I can use a card in another collection, I should be proactive in grabbing pulling it because it would get lost.

My A-Z inserts collection maybe designed - as a final destination for miscellaneous finds or pulls.

I saw I had doubles of a Erik Goeddel certified autograph - I pulled one and went out and bought another, not realizing I had a copy already.

I added one to my bloodlines collection since his brother Tyler plays professionally - Erik has bounced around a little bit and ended up with the Los Angeles Dodgers this year.

The relief pitcher looks like he has posted decent numbers, though he is more of a long relief / mop-up guy - as opposed to having a more prominent role out of the bullpen.

Tyler was also picked up by the Dodgers this year and is currently playing in the minors - Tyler was a rule a Rule 5 pick by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2015 and spent the 2016 season in the major leagues.

I also set aside a Team USA jersey card of one time minor leaguer Hayden Hurst - professional baseball didn’t work out for him and now he is a rookie tight end in the NFL.

Tools of ignorance collection - a visual guide

For the final sampler page I put together for my mini-collections, I grabbed 18 tools of ignorance cards - catching maybe the least glamorous position on a baseball field, but unlike other position players, catchers are the most unique type of baseball player.

Because catchers take a beating during a game, catchers stand out as the only guys to wear the tools of ignorance - including shin guards, chest protector a face mask, etc.

My collection features any card that has a catcher in it, including play at the plate cards - I think I've counted cards of non-catchers featuring play at the plate images, though if it isn't the catcher's, I'll lean towards classifying the card to go into my awesome action collection.

Pitchers hitting collection - a visual guide

I grabbed 18 'pitchers hitting' cards for my mini-collection sampler and the collecting topic subset is kind of a catch-all - for pitchers who have bats in their hands but aren't exactly hitting in a game, wearing batting helmets, bunting, practicing and finally, pitchers whose cards show them on the basepaths.

Seeing pitchers act the role of hitters or baserunners can be such a peculiar thing - so it is another neat, easter egg deal to find cards with 'action shots' of pitchers not doing the usual pitching.

Looking at the cards on the page, I realized the Nolan Ryan cards in the center are from the pre-DH days of the American League - in his lone season batting in the AL without a DH, Ryan was 13-for-96 with five doubles and one triple.

The Hall of Fame pitcher's slash line as a batter in 1972 was .135 / .153 / .208 - which is probably comparable to the career numbers opposing batters have put up against Ryan on the mound.

Bonus babies collection - a visual guide

I grabbed 18 'bonus babies' cards for my mini-collection sampler - bonus babies which are probably referred to as 'cameo' cards, pictures a star player on a common player's card.

I like stumbling upon them because it's like an easter egg most collectors wouldn't pay attention to while flipping through loose cardboard - for a player to count as a 'star' cameo, an all-star appearance is considered as well as whether a player has had some name recognition through points of his MLB career.

Probably the most difficult aspect collecting these cards besides finding them in the first place are the inconclusive images - who is exactly pictured on the background of certain players' cards when the focus is on the player who is listed on the card?

Most of the time the obscured player in the background is who I assume it is - but when the image is blurred, there is some doubt at times.