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.

About fan favorites and catch all binders

This is a mock up page I made for Ray Lankford, a guy who might have been hobby relevant for just a 'moment,' 30 years ago, but is largely forgotten in the here and now - I want to say he occupied at least a page in my decade stars collection through the late 1990s and even through the early 2000s before I weeded out his cards from my binders.

I’m picky and I always want demarcation points deciding which prominent players I want to highlight and which guys don’t make the cut - the minor star, semi star types who might have been ‘baseball good,’ but perhaps generated little or no buzz hobby wise might not ever be considered as decade stars guys in my book.

Lankford was part of the MLB fabric of a decade or an era, but more solid than superstar, as his career petered out - there wasn't as big of a sentiment left to keep his card displayed in pages.

Now, I might want a ‘place’ for these players, where I have a re-imagined specialty binder to give certain players a second or third look - it might be fun to get re-acquianted with former players I've ceased to care about or didn't really have that faux nostalgic, emotional attachment to, but I'm looking for ideas to change things up and play with my cards that are otherwise archived in my A-Z commons collection.

Maybe in reality, I can do blog posts for some of these former players obscured by history - where for space considerations, boxes are fine to store these types of players’ cards where I can't get too sentimental.

Qualifying Major League Baseball players' careers - the decent and the very good

From my first post on this subject:
When flipping through players' cards, it seemed important to figure out who was destined to go straight to the commons box - without a care for cards of players who may deserve a second look.

Over the last five years, I've been more exposed to the sentiment there is more ways to view players besides saying whether a guy is a star or a scrub - it is interesting to redefine my perceptions of players as part of understanding the game more as a fan.

Decent - are Major League Baseball players who have had up-and-down careers. Maybe I'm focusing on players who have gained some prominence, but this label also applies to players who are everyday players, but hardly perennial all-star performers.

Milton Bradley - injuries and his temper have always seemed to prevent him from getting legs under his Major League career.
Travis Hafner - he was putting up some very good numbers, but he really started his Major League career late and it seemed like age has caught up during the past two seasons.
Bo Jackson - on his ability alone, he was more than a decent player, but the hip injury he suffered in football derailed more than just his professional football career.

Trot Nixon - was a first round, Top 10 overall pick back in 1993, was a productive player and a Boston Red Sox fan favorite. However, it wasn't like he was a 10-time all-star.

Chris Sabo - decent career, was a fan-favorite because he seemed to be a grinder. He also wore those goofy goggles.

The distinction between the decent and the very good players was for the most part - there was some consistency enjoyed by the very good players.

Very good - players who enjoyed long, productive careers, were considered as possible all-star performers and/or players who were longtime franchise stars but may fall sort of being considered national stars.


Bobby Bonilla - he was a budding star in Pittsburgh, was the big free agent scapegoat for the New York Mets in the post-Darryl Strawberry early 1990s, but then had some productive years in Baltimore and Florida among stops before eventual retirement in 2001.
Will Clark - Will the Thrill starred as a budding all-star performer early in his career, left San Francisco, played hard but was never the same in his 30s as he was in his mid 20s.
Kent Hrbek - maybe the criteria for evaluating 'good' players was they were able to star for a prolonged period of time. For 1980s through the early 1990s, Hrbek fit the bill in a regional sense.
Wally Joyner - I don't think he ever lived up to the hype generated by his Wally World rookie campaign of 1986, but he played a long time as a slick-hitting, slick-fielding, once-experimented with roids first baseman.

David Ortiz - like Hafner, age has caught up with him, but Ortiz has been seen as a pivotal figure in helping a prominent franchise exorcise postseason demons. Papi may suck these days, but there is no denying the impact he has had in Boston. Put him on a lagging franchise and he maybe just a 'decent' player.

I started following Major League Baseball as a fan from the early 1990s to today -depending on when one started following the game and/or collecting cards, they can have their own set of players they consider decent [and/or very good players] that may differ from someone else.