While on the other side of the world, I'd read that Herzog had passed and for that matter, another TTM signing great in Carl Erskine - for a moment I was wondering what I would get back, but it looks like I was able to get my request within the window where my card was inked up.
Holliday might be most relevant in the 'here and now' as the father of 2022 No. 1 overall pick Jackson Holliday - where picking up pop's cards triggers me to watch for the younger, looking to play his first full season in pro baseball.
The elder Holliday had very good big league career mostly between the Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals - he also had some odd stints with the Oakland Athletics, New York Yankees and a late-career return with the Rockies.
Zeile was a hot prospect for a moment in the middle of the junk wax era, but never really ascended to that perennial all-star performer level - he ended up a being a perfectly competent player who bounced around different teams in the middle of his career, where you can plug and play him on a short term basis.
Go figure Cepeda also signed the penny sleeve the card was placed in - when they were alive and signed TTM 20 years ago, I think the same thing happened with Tommy Heinrich and Hoyt Wilhelm.
Austin Hayes - the outfielder had a breakout minor league year in 2017, fell back a bit in 2018 and has spent the past couple of years trying to stick in the big leagues for good.
Dakota Hudson - the righthander gave the St. Louis Cardinals another good, young starter to build on besides Jack Flaherty until he needed Tommy John surgery towards the end of the shortened 2020 season.
Sean Reid-Foley - Foley might have been the No. 1 pitching prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays system before the emergence of Nate Pearson as that No. 1 guy in recent seasons.
Parker Markel - I wouldn't have noticed he already made his big league debut in 2019, but the Angels signed him last off-season and I jumped the gun, hoping he would make a big league appearance with the Angels in 2020.
Maybe I was inspired to put this post up when I saw Markel had moved on and was just signed by the San Diego Padres - to show I buy my share of random things for reasons that don't actually play out in reality.
I think I may have gotten McCarver's autograph once [or not] when he sort of made me follow him after a national TV broadcast [day game] at Angel Stadium about 20 years ago - he said he was running late [to catch his ride out of the ballpark to get to the airport] and then just didn't sign for me [I don't think I would have anything on me like a blank baseball or his actual cards].
Over the years, I have ended up with a couple of straggler cards of his, though it maybe harder to run into him in-persona dn I'm not really sure if he even responded to through the mail requests - the cards may have been pulled from my St. Louis Cardinals IP box to stay loose as I wondered about sending to him.
I have seen some sporadic successes posted on a forum or two, though I'm not sure if they are new or can always be trusted - as it goes, I took my chance and wrote him a letter with my cards [along with $20].
I think the correct distinction is while McCarver is not a Hall of Famer, he is honored by the National Baseball HOF in their broadcaster wing - I thought I had to sweat things out where I might not see my cards for a while and/or my money back at all, but my cards were signed and returned in about 10 days.
I spent $5 on 20 assorted MLB team repacks at the end of 2019 and while I've put the cards away the best as I could and/or count certain ones for my collecting topics subsets - I figure to share the results one team at a time, whenever I'm up for an evergreen post.
Pham seems to have a little bit of a ‘bite’ to him and maybe because of injuries, it took a while before he reached and established himself as a big leaguer - the window for him to be an outright star has never quite opened, but when healthy, he has put up numbers.
While Pujols rookie card and rookie year issues were pumped out in mid through late season products, but I never had a chance to own but maybe two or three - including a factory set rookie year card from the 2001 Fleer Tradition, maybe an ugly Team Leaders subset card [#435] from 2001 Fleer Platinum RC Edition, a 2001 Topps Traded Pujols / Ichiro subset card [T99] and a 2001 Topps rookie card I bought at a card shop for a quarter maybe in 2002.
I remember finding the Topps Pujols in the particular card shop, when the quarter boxes were color coded with tabs - because the store owner was selling certain rows of cards on consignment.
The Topps rookie had a soft corner and I'd foolishly sent it to Pujols as a TTM autograph request - of course after 17 years, it never came back, even as a failure.
In recent years, the 38-year old Pujols hasn't been as relevant and still has at least 3 years left to go to play out his Angels contract [on the field] - however, Pujols' baseball accomplishments [short of a PED scandal] can't be taken away by what he has done away from St. Louis.
I've probably settled into looking for very good-excellent vintage rookie cards - so this copy isn't one of those high-end examples serious collectors or auction houses may showcase.
Still I'd like to think there is more value in any particular purchase involving sometimes notable old cards - regardless of apparent quality.
Carlton was one of the greatest MLB pitchers of all time - yet it's more interesting to me to discover he may be some sort of kook with some unique, if radical views about the world.
Unfortunately, despite his success, he was on the wrong end of a couple of big league home runs - hit in the 1985 National League Championship Series by Ozzie Smith and Jack Clark.
I learned about Martinez while listening to a Baseball America podcast and found this story on their Web site - he was sold to the St. Louis Cardinals in May and while his batting average plummeted back to a more reasonable .278 for the year, he earned a cup of coffee in the big leagues, where he collected 7 hits in 16 at-bats.
However, the New York Yankees must have seen something in Bleier and gave him an opportunity to pitch some innings for the big league team - small sample size coming from a 29-year old journeyman noted, but Bleier only walked four hitters in 23 innings, while allowing five earned runs in 20 appearances.
Team staff from the host Lancaster Jethawks were adamant that Clark would signing for a 6:30-8:00 p.m. and with the volume of people who lined up for an autograph - there were no photo ops taken with him and it was strictly one autograph per person.
After the fact, I saw Clark was fairly accommodating, typically putting 'Thrill' inscriptions on non-card items like balls, flats and jerseys - while the team staff was watching over Clark, he would sign multiples if you plopped them down in front of him.
If you attended the signing with a family of people - then you racked up at least one time through the line, if not a second time through.
I balked at the single pack prices [maybe $4-$6] for stuff like 2016 Panini Diamond Kings and 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen - though 'old news,' I knew I hadn't picked up my lone jumbo pack of 2016 Topps Series I for my breaking ritual, so I settled for that.
#18 Francisco Rodriguez
#99 Taijuan Walker
#194 Chase Headley
#17 Billy Butler
#300 Buster Posey
#113 Aaron Sanchez
#9 Eric Hosmer
#267 Chris Heston
#298 Ryan Braun
#230 Ryan Vogelsong
#56 Salvador Perez - World Series Highlights
#172 Carter Capps
#142 C.C. Sabathia
#273 New York Mets team card
#166 2015 NL RBI Leaders - feat. Arenado, Goldschmidt and Rizzo
#65 Pittsburgh Pirates team card
#BB-33 Don Mattingly - Berger’s Best insert
#P-11 Kris Bryant - Perspectives insert
#265 Luis Severino - Rainbow Foil parallel
#WRIG-5 Jake Arrieta - 100 Years at Wrigley Field insert
#PIS-4 Michael Cuddyer - Pressed Into Service insert
