More small things at the card show

I was digging through some '6 for $5' boxes from a random seller table and these were my keepers - added another 18 cards from the seller's '5 for $1' box and maybe it was kind of odd thing I couldn't push the total to 20 outright.

Maybe my favorite card is the 1986 Donruss Rookies Jose Canseco #22 - it was a card I remember a childhood friend possessing and seeing regularly [along with an autographed 1989 Upper Deck Dante Bichette rookie] whenever I would visit his house.

I really wanted to take a better picture of this 2000 Topps Finest Moments 3000 Hits Tony Gwynn #FM3, where it's hard to see on the first image - but it's usually hard to take photo ops of shinier, chromium cards, so what you see is what you get.

Some discombobulated card show digging

What I've noticed is that I don't have an idea what is going to catch my eye at one table - where there is a certain lack of focus when it comes going through rows and rows of cards.

This doesn't mean there isn't satisfaction in my keepers - but perhaps I wonder if my purchases mean anything after the fact or any of number of cards jumbled together end of being misfit toys in my collection?

I kind of feel like I'm in my own little world when it comes to standing at a table and seeing what cards may have enough eye appeal - so I feel like there is plan and I'm just seeing what may compel me to flag cards I entertain taking home.

If nothing else, I like a more old school vibe, so I try to salvage loose cards that may not be the latest and greatest - but binder material that may add some diversity to the types of cards I may have in plastic pages.

Harold Baines gets unfairly panned as an undeserving Hall of Famer, but I wanted his 1981 Topps rookie card as a centerpiece to the loose cards I plan to display in a binder - it maybe a case where I actually still have to give him his proper due and make page for him.

I found a 1992 Donruss The Rookies Phenoms Tim Salmon insert card I'm sort of familiar with, but never really had in-hand - go figure it's been at least 30 years, but it's still fun finding the occasional prospect / rookie era cards for the Angels franchise Hall of Famer.

A rookie year parallel of Roy Halladay and another minor league card of Orel Hershiser are keepers as a little more different than the typical cards I'd end up with - while neither might be top tier guys in my book, they are decade stars, so I do collect them to a certain extent.

I'm indifferent to slabbed cards because it's $$$ impractical to send in cards myself, but generally prefer graded singles compared to raw cards when available - I already had a graded 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco rookie card in my collection, so I was only picking up a 1992 Fleer Update Jeff Kent rookie card, along with the loose cards.

I presented my cards to the seller without the Canseco and after getting a half off discount [for at least the loose cards] and $5 off the sticker price on the graded Kent rookie - I figured why not add the Canseco as well, where it was a totally junk wax era thing to covet that card at one point.

Even if the era is ancient history, there maybe something about coming back from a card show - knowing I brought back the rookie card of one of the brightest, controversial superstars of the times.

I don't know if a Jeff Kent rookie is particular unique, but I may have seen an ungraded copy in a random box and passed over it during a card show trip last year - it sort of became a scratch the itch card and I wanted to pick up one just because it's from a seemingly mythical junk wax era release.

Even if it's not really the case after the fact, I associate the Fleer Update set as being harder to find - a set I never got to see ever, though I was able to pick up a copy of the key rookie [Mike Piazza] years ago after Piazza retired but before the Hall of Fame called.

Kent has a Hall of Fame case but he wasn't the friendliest guy and is probably seen as strictly an accumulator who hit all these home runs as a second baseman - rather than be seen as generally this all-around talent who was a star from day one.

1986 Donruss Jose Canseco RC #39

If nothing else, this pickup allows me to have a copy of one the best rookies in the hobby, circa 1991 - I think about building up a collection of the hottest cards whose values have come and gone, but I'd be once proud to show off as young collector.

In real life, my youth is ancient history and I don’t know if can find others anywhere who might care - when I dig around and look for occasional baseball card 'war' stories on social media, forums or blogs mentioning this card in particular, I’ll pat myself on the back for having a nostalgic status symbol from way back when.’

As it stands, Canseco is a buffoon, a shyster and a Twitter troll - maybe long declared irrelevant, I did enjoy parts from his two books where [regardless of where one stands as far as Canseco 'ratting out' his old teammates, friends and frenemies] he exposed how the raw the Steroid Era was.

He said he wouldn’t have made the big leagues without PEDs but he had some staying power - maybe for three or four years, he might have been Mike Trout with ‘bite,’ a 5-tool player with power and speed as his prominent attributes.

Canseco was always the bad boy jock, but had he cultivated a little more of a clean cut image and a bit more discreet about his indiscretions - he might be a borderline HOFer with his numbers.

Because they were valuable commodities, I don’t know if I seriously chased after any one particular Canseco rookie era card - I still remember the friend whose house I used to go to having the 1986 Donruss Rookies as a likely centerpiece card of his collection.

Maybe in one of the first times, I splurged on a handful of singles at a card shop, I picked up Canseco's 1987 Topps - in the mid 1990s, I might have had a couple of Canseco's cards from the 1986 Donruss Highlights boxed set.

It maybe a little weird looking back, but a 1991 Score Dream Team Canseco was a card I wanted badly - I don’t think it ever was as popular as the Bo Jackson Dream Team subset card from 1990, but for a while, it was a notable card on its own.

Canseco was the ‘it’ player in MLB and he was posed swinging a bat topless by a notable fashion photographer - probably through means I’m not proud of, I might remember pulling the card off loose packs from the local supermarket.

Years later, I remember getting autographs at the ballpark in 1999 and Canseco came out of the front after a game - I must have been going batty when I spotted him and rushed to have him sign a couple of the Beckett magazines I must have bought at a card show.

He scribbled on them dismissively, but here I was seeing one the biggest stars of my childhood in the flesh - I tried asking him for a photo and he said, 'no' but I may still have it somewhere where I got the worst picture of me and him 'together' as he's walking.

2016 Topps Series I 36-card rack pack

Top section
#216 Logan Forsythe
#8 Michael Brantley
#336 Mark Melancon
#72 Chris Young
#187 AL Wins Leaders - feat. Keuchel, McHugh and Price
#80 Carson Smith
#BB-32 Tony Gwynn - Berger’s Best insert
#119 Sean Doolittle - Rainbow Foil parallel
#PIS-3 Jose Canseco - Pressed Into Service insert
#MLBD-26 Buster Posey - MLB Debut insert
#GS-06 Chris Sale - The Greatest Streaks insert
#106 Jordan Walden
#67 Matt Harvey
#196 Hunter Strickland
#244 Matt Carpenter
#241 Freddie Freeman
#121 Roberto Osuna
#44 David Freese

Bottom section
#85 Corey Seager
#310 David Wright
#284 Jon Gray
#268 Robinson Cano
#305 Colby Lewis
#338 NL Batting Average Leaders - feat. Gordon, Harper and Goldschmidt
#199 Jay Bruce
#24 Hollywood Production - feat. Grandal and Kershaw
#120 Alcides Escobar - World Series Highlight subset
Topps.com info card / $0.50 off coupon
#39 Mark Trumbo
#19 Delino DeShields
#293 Hyun-Jin Ryu
#92 Darren O’Day
#272 Denard Span
#257 Jake Marisnick
#240 Nick Markakis
#101 Justin Turner
#165 Adam Eaton

Topps Diamond Giveaway trade

I didn't exactly wait to jump on an 'interesting offer,' but I did dump my 1989 Topps George Brett for a 1995 Topps Jose Canseco - even 20 years later, I think the 1989 Topps set makes my skin crawl because it was such an uninspired, boring set devoid of innovation.

Probably from about 1994 through the present, Topps has come out with consistently decent looking sets - while not every set is a 'winner,' there are no '1989 Topps' among the last 16 or 17 years.

This was almost a done deal - if there were only more cards offered instead of one lone Cal Ripken Jr. card...maybe a combination of some vintage 1988, 1989, 1990 Topps to sweeten the pot for my 1960 Topps Frank Malzone.

Featured autograph - Jose Canseco

It probably isn't the sleaziest thing he has done but it is pretty funny that Jose Canseco sent his twin brother to do his fighting for him - it never ends but stuff like this is what Jose likes to keep his name in the papers and make sure his name is relevant, even if it is for dubious reasons.

I'm pretty sure I got my Cansecos straight when I got this card signed by Jose five or six years ago at a charity home run derby - I also got Ozzie too, which was pretty cool, though I'll have to go find the card somewhere if I wanted to show it off.

Another Major League headache - Manny, PEDs and the legacy of the game

Manny Ramirez was suspended 50 games for using a fertility drug - supposedly used to stimulate testosterone production.

I think if you are considered a superstar through your mid to late 30s - you should get the jock deity treatment and take all the stuff you need to perform one, two or three more years.

It maybe a radical opinion - but I don't care about the performance enhancing drug use of guys like A-Fraud, Manny, Roger, Barry, Mark or any of the main 'other' guys implicated through this decade.

I know the established superstars are good for it and they are who I pay to watch the game - if I'm seemingly ambivalent over PED use or oversimplifying, then so be it.

It becomes a witch hunt anyway and I wonder if we'll ever get to some understanding it was an implicit part of the game - the terrain is murky however and the moral dilemmas shift from one way to the other.

Baseball fans wanted to crucify Barry Bonds at one point, but now we want the problem to just go away when other names came out through the Mitchell Report - we are so eager to forgive and forget but as long as it was 'our guy.'

I believe some guys dabbled here, dabbled there and maybe some guys have used them for a prolonged period of time - during the last 25 years PED use has exploded to fuel bigger, faster and better players.

It doesn't make it OK, but how can we get angry and pass judgment when PED use was so prevalent - admittedly however, it is harder to watch the game as a spectator and judge numbers from the Steroid Era.

I can choose to enjoy the Major League game and be a staunch defender - as someone who is a little ignorant, naive or blind.

You watch one guy, nicknamed 'The Machine' in St. Louis and he's the next guy at the top of the hill, the shining beacon of hope in our downtrodden times - Albert Pujols is truly the best player in the game today, but is he clean? Has he always been clean? How did he get to where he is? Playing in the Steroid Era, will he be the next one exposed?

I can be totally disgusted, knowing the players you may love to watch are damaged goods and no one is above suspicion - from the slap hitting dynamo to the bruising slugger who either hits a home run, walks or strikes out.

Part of me says 'get a grip' because this is the real deal in professional sports and whether I like it or not - players are looking for an edge, even to cheat to justify their livelihoods. You either pay to watch them play, tune in somewhere to watch them, chase them for autographs or you do something else entirely.

Part of me says, what about the legacy, what about the history of the game that presents itself as a noble game, with noble heroes - while the history of Major League Baseball is flawed, there is a fine line painted between what certain players in bygone eras represented and what players of today do.

By using PEDs, it seems like the players are content to give the finger to the past. Where is the professionalism - don't cheat your way to the top, don't try and get an edge by using PEDs. Let your talent take you as far as you can go and if you aren't good enough or can't play long enough, go somewhere and play golf.

Maybe I've been influenced by a Goose Gossage interview during a 6-1 Angels win on Thursday night - the Goose said if a player is caught using PEDs, the teams should void their contracts. Gossage doesn't like Manny, doesn't like 'my man' Francisco K-Rod Rodriguez showboating [after his saves], doesn't like Joba Chamberlain's fist pumps [Gossage said he was contacted by the general manager of the Yankees after Gossage was interviewed about Chamberlain].

Gossage thinks the 'me first' baseball players have ruined the game because they don't carry themselves with the same respect some of the past greats had when they were playing - as sort of a link between the past, present and the future. Gossage firmly states that no one player is bigger than the game.

It is kind of sad, Jose Canseco was right again - not that I have anything against Canseco, just that what he has said has been the truth. Once he said Manny might be using, you couldn't just brush it off and was waiting for 'El Maniaco' to be exposed one way or the other.

If he throws the name out of your favorite player as a potential PED user/abuser - you'd better be listening.

The games go on, but I don't know how to feel about guys who maybe real good at playing this game and their lasting legacy - because they might have artificially inflated their numbers.