Another quickie card show pit stop #1

I stumbled upon a real high brow monster box of caards and went to work for about the 10 minutes I had left at a card show - I was kind of on the clock where I had to wrap things up sooner than never, so I was trying to make the most out of my rummage.

I found a pair of Will Clark boxed set oddball and vowed to be committed to this dig - I've rubber stamped Clark as one of the guys from the junk wax era onward as a collecting fan favorite, even though I've found 'The Thrill' to be a little too grating these days when he does his podcasts with Eric Byrnes.

Random current guys - I think I've made Brandon Marsh's Angels rookies keepers, even though he is obviously no longer an Angel.

Through his rookie year, maybe his development as a young big leaguer had stalled with the Angels - he gets traded to the Philadelphia Phillies finish out the 2022 season, but after a solid year in 2023, there might be some potential left for Marsh to be an even better player that he could have ever have been with the Angels.

He has become a fan favorite, where he is fun to watch with all his fair flying around - in the highlights I've seen of him with the Phillies, he's always fired up, gesturing to his dugout after hits and seems like a real 'rah-rah' guy.

I pass on most Gerrit Cole cards just because he seems too 'corporate,' even for MLB players who get millions to play a game - however I want to make it where most Panini Donruss Pink Fireworks parallels are keepers.

More Pink Fireworks parallels teasing a pair of questionable guys - I hesitated to make these keepers because of the players shown, but it's like a reward finding the parallels themselves, so into my pile they went.

I didn't know if there was space in my pile for a 1987 Topps Domingo Ramos #641 or a 1991 Fleer Brady Anderson #466 - but I added them on with others I assume are stadium project cards.

I would term these guys as 'fan favorite' types - Gooden and Murphy had runs of superstar greatness, while the ageless Franco was always an all-star talent, even though may have been considered a notch below a true superstar.

I could never get into the junk wax era Conlon card sets because the images were black and white and pictured old timers before my time - but made a keeper out of a card of Johnny Vander Meer, who threw two consecutive no-hitters as a big league pitcher.

I made this Mark Gubicza card a keeper after not claiming a copy I'd seen in a sale online recently - I classify his cards as mostly junk wax commons, but he's had ties with the Angels as a broadcaster for at least the past 15 years, so maybe his oddballs are worth a second look.

Another Brady Anderson card makes the pile and it is a 1988 Topps Traded 'XRC,' so it is more unique card - I remember him as a junk wax guy who barely had any pop and was a fringe big leaguer through his mid 20s.

At the age of 28 however, he broke out as a late bloomer for the Baltimore Orioles - where he became a solid top of the lineup presence for the bulk of his career through the 1990s, with a peculiar 1996 season where hit 50 home runs.

Some mini-collection odds and ends

Maybe I was feeling idle, so I wanted to see if I can knock out some scratch the itch cards - nothing high brow, but maybe a mix of cards that hit some of my mini-collection needs.

Trying to go through my memory banks, a flagged cards folder on my phone, my eBay watchlist, my blog Top 10 and saved TTM fuel images to round up random cards to hunt for - having my possible wants material in scattered formats ends up leaving me feeling a little messy.

I found a seller online I was willing to buy around 20 cards from, but then past $1.99, shipping was going to be around $7 - maybe there was no budget option despite saying so otherwise on the seller's postage chart, so after spending about an hour crafting up a probable 'buy list,' I ended up throwing my hands up in the air.

I ended up cutting the number to the bare minimum that would ship for $1.99 - where I wanted the following cards in-hand and committed to picking them up for a little over $0.50 each.

1988 Colorado Springs Sky Sox CMC Jeff Kaiser #4 - Awesome action; Oddities - I love how a pitcher is all dressed up in catchers' gear, mugging it up for the photographer.

2007 Upper Deck Gary Matthews Jr. #225 - Awesome outfield action - I've wanted this card because it captures his greatest play in his pro baseball career and probably helped put him on a lot of people's minds, where he had kind of just moved from team-to-team.

1994 Fleer Update Rico Brogna #U156 - Broken bat shots - I found this while trying to scan through someone selling cards on Twitter; at times, I find mini-collection cards by just digging through card images others have posted.

1993 Milk-Bone Super Stars Dog Food Issue Will Clark #7 - Facial hair - I fall under being a 'junk wax guy,' but for all the Clark cards I've seen, there might only be a couple that features a stache on The Thrill.

1991 Topps Woolworth Baseball Highlights Bert Blyleven #7 - Inking it up - I had to have this card featuring a player in the twilight of his big league career, taking the time to sign autographs; the copy I received looks like it might hava burn mark, so it might be a filler copy for now.

1990 ProCards A and AA Darrin Chapin #19 - Pitchers hitting - I guess he's not actually hitting, as much as he's posing with a bat in his hand, but it's kind of an odd image I end up counting.

Purchase fails made correct by a seller

When I pick up some cheap-o cards from an online card outlet, I usually let the incoming PWE sit loose after I open it up and briefly scan through the contents - I think it's pretty neat that I can pick up certain cards impulsively, though maybe it gets tricky getting exactly the odd cards I want, in a presentable condition.

On a whim, I took a closer look at the cards shipped to me from an order and go figure two of the cards I threw in to maximize the shipping rate were damaged - the 1991 Classic card of Will Clark I picked up for about a quarter has some residue and staining along the right side while the 1991 Classic card of Tim Salmon for a quarter was creased.

The seller even put a 1991 Classic Wes Chamberlain card as a dummy protector card on top - but both cards may have been in garbage condition even before they were shipped out.

The 2010 Topps Update Tales of the Game Joel Youngblood and 2017 Topps Update Johnny Damon that might have been the centerpiece purchases [yeah at another quarter or so each] were jammed in another semi-rigid holder [which is often the case more than not] - maybe they were subject to some of the conditions as well, but being ‘newer’ cards, they otherwise still look okay.

Assuming there were no problems with the cards in the first place, I already left feedback - I figured I basically ended up paying more for the two cards I really wanted, but ended up contacting the seller, where credit for the two damaged cards was added to my account.

Now I wonder if I'm going to use the credit to try and pick up similar copies of the Clark and Salmon cards - or will my $0.50 credit go into something else entirely.

Catching up with Topps image variations

Besides what I might pull, I don't think I've actively collected the various Topps image variations released over the years - I can't keep up with the flood of gimmicky cards that might be harder to find [not always the case] and may cost a premium [not always the case].

As it goes, unless super short printed and/or featuring hot players like Mike Trout or Ronald Acuña Jr. - the cards have gotten fairly common, so there might be an opportunity to grab a run of the unique image cards featuring Hall of Famers or retired stars to add to my own mini-collection subsets or my decade stars binders.

2019 Topps SP Greats variation Will Clark #428 - maybe this was peak 1980s Clark, getting fired up after recording an out with the base runner [Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith] out of luck.

2019 Topps SSP Greats variation Vladimir Guerrero #675 - this feels like such a pure image of presumably an early-career Guerrero inking it up.

A monster box rummage - yields a pair of 1990s inserts

1995 Select Gold Team Will Clark #9 of 12 - to juice up my notable player binders by decade, it should be a no brainer to pick up loose inserts, particularly if they were the UV coated inserts from the mid through late 1990s.

1997 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle John Smoltz / Andy Pettitte #9 of 10 - I tend to think dual sided cards are a little odd, a little irregular, but it's a shiny insert with a Dufex finish [at least the 'front' with Smoltz pictured].

TTM autograph received: Will Clark

Clark signed my card in about a month c/o the San Francisco Giants - he might have been actually one of my first TTM attempts, though it was probably in the off-season after the Giants got to the World Series in 1989.

Since I just had no clue, I may have sent a superstar at the height of his popularity a request consisting of a couple of random cards with no self-addressed stamped envelope - needless to say, I don't really know what happened to that ancient attempt at a TTM.

Up through last year, I don't think I've actually ever gotten an autograph from Clark either in-person or TTM - but he's been pretty consistent about answering requests sent to him in recent years, so I finally got in the action.

Some TTM autograph requests sent out

I was heavily into TTM 15-20 years ago, but now the hobby is a ‘once in awhile’ thing for me where I don’t want to sink so much $$$ over resources like stamps - while slaving away to put together requests [it's not that hard, but it's kind of tedious], feeling like my only option to get stuff signed is to send things out as opposed to getting things inked up regularly in-person.

I think I'd like to be a machine where I consistently send out requests - but I usually hold off until I get an impulsive tick that needs to be scratched.

Will Clark c/o San Francisco Giants - everyone seems to get at least one from him TTM but the only time I got him was in-person last year.
Christian Arroyo c/o Sacramento River Cats - I hope to get at least one cards signed from the third base prospect since I've never had an opportunity to get him otherwise.
Paulo Orlando c/o Kansas City Royals - scrappy outfielder who has established himself as a viable big leaguer after only getting to the major leagues at 29.
Chuck Seelbach - he was the Detroit Tigers relief ace back in 1972; I pulled a 1974 Topps buyback card from a pack at least a couple of years ago and want to see if I can get it signed.
Mickey Stanley - he was a 4-time Gold Glove winner and spent 15-years with Detroit Tigers from the 1960s through nearly the end of the 1970s; I pulled a 1976 Topps buyback card from a pack at least a couple of years ago and want to see if I can get it signed.
Koji Uehara c/o Chicago Cubs - everyone seems to get at least one from him TTM.

COMC - 1987 Donruss Will Clark #66

Decades after the fact, prominent rookie cards from the 1980s have been exposed as worthless - featuring more than a few players who just didn't make the leap from superstars to Hall of Famers.

Under inauspicious circumstances, I owned this rookie card for about two weeks, when Clark was among the hot players of his era - things caught up with me soon enough and ever since, the closest I ever got to a Clark rookie was his 1987 Topps.

To square things away, I finally picked up a copy this card - since it represents one of the cards from my early years of collecting, even if that first copy of the card I had in-hand wasn't actually mine.

Hunting for some star on star cameos

1987 Classic Bret Saberhagen #116 - a quick glance at this card shows Cal Ripken Jr. playing behind the one-time Kansas City Royals' ace of the 1980s and I figure the image used was from the 1987 All-Star game in Oakland.

I was going to put this card in my 'bonus babies,' though Saberhagen was a star in his own right - so this is an add to my star on star cameos collection.

1994 Donruss Will Clark #33 - looks like 'Will the Thrill' scurries past second base with Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg right by the bag.

1994 Donruss Ozzie Smith #35 - I like this card because it features two eventual Hall of Famers, though in the early 1990s, I probably thought of Biggio as just another player who was moved from catcher to second base to prolong his athleticism and longevity.

Featured autograph - Will Clark

The former MLB superstar made an appearance during a minor league game in Lancaster California and I was able to get my 2001 Fleer Tradition set card signed - it was great for me to get his autograph for the first time and knock out a 15-year old set card.

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.

1987 Fleer Will Clark #269

I wanted to get Clark's best mainstream rookie card for ownage sake because Clark emerged as a ‘national superstar’ back when I was getting into baseball and collecting cards - perhaps I didn't really know what it was like to have Clark star for my MLB team but he was a pretty big deal for a little while in San Francisco.

Clark fit the stereotype of an intense, driven ‘money player’ with the ability to clutch up in key situations - though he retired back in 2000 I can go to YouTube and dial up highlights to marvel at his sweet swing.

After his glory days with the Giants, Clark moved on to the Texas Rangers and while still recognized as a star through the mid 1990s - his yearly numbers seemed to take more conventional, ‘mortal’ dips for a player in his 30s as compared to others who were hitting home runs left and right.

Not the finds of a lifetime

When my parents and I were at my sister's newish house for dinner, her husband brought out his younger brother's cards for me to look at - there was several boxes of cards, maybe a binder filled with hockey cards and some 'good' baseball cards like a 1987 Topps Mark McGwire, 1987 Topps Will Clark RC, a Lance Parrish autographed card, a couple of 1988 Topps 'white triangle' McGwire record breaker cards, some Jose Canseco cards and others.

There was a b/w 8x10 glossy of Chad Curtis and some odd-sized b/w promotional photos autographed by some California Angels of the early 1990s - the best one was probably a Dave Winfield that had some damage of some sort on the photo/autograph.

It was sort of fun trying to go through them, though it took me about five minutes to realize it was the typical 1986-1992 junk wax collection - I said I expected as much and perhaps the only real interesting cards that may have stood out [because they were older than 1988-1992 range] was a 1968 Topps Stan Bahnsen rookie card and a 1976 Topps Babe Ruth.