Of Heroes and Legends

It was my pleasure to cheer for you; to see your smile; and to hear your laugh.  You will always be my favorite player.  You were the best I ever saw.

Godspeed, my hero.

Trade Bait - 2013 Topps Eddie Murray Rookie Reprint Cloth Patch Card

This is what I have (courtesy of the Carl Crawford Cards blaster pack mega-trade!)

This is what I want...

Leave a comment or send me an email if you want to trade.

Cameo Cards - 1984 Fleer Al Holland

While it is not the greatest picture/card in the world, I will never turn down a chance to showcase Tony Gwynn in a cameo card.  What is there not to love about this card if you're a Gwynn or Padres fan?

Sure Gwynn is blurrier than a person viewed through a pair of six-pack beer goggles, but just look at that background.  All that yellow is gloriously mind numbing.  Yellow stirrups.  Yellow wristbands.  Yellow helmet.  Yellow lettering.  Yellow fence line.  Yellow outline to the Padres team logo in center field.  Ah, the old Padres logo.  I sure wish they'd bring this beauty back.  

What I also love about this card is how the outfield grass looks like it's deader than a Jim Bouton knuckleball.  There is no separation between grass, clay and grass.  Awesome card. 

So, if you're a self proclaimed Gwynn Player Collection Completest, run out and buy yourself a 1984 Fleer Al Holland!

Pwn3d - Tony Gwynn

It’s Saturday, and I no longer have a backlog of posts ready, so I’m going to try out something new today.  If you look at my top menu, you’ll notice that I have eight running serials.  Seven of those serials have a specific day to be posted, while the Spot the Ǝrror serial fills in the blanks when I need a break from writing, researching, etc. 

When I came back to the blogging world after my hiatus, I decided that I needed structure in order to keep this blog viable.  Otherwise, I’d post sporadically about a current whimsy and then the next thing I know, I’m posting once a week and losing interest quickly, which causes readers to lose interest compounding the spiral effect.  That’s why I’ve created a programming schedule of seven serials and one floater.

While this may sound strange, I like it because it keeps me active.  I even keep track of page views for each serial to determine what’s working and what isn’t.  In essence, I’ve become the writer, director, producer , PR man and CEO of my own blog “channel.”  I’ve even decided to let each serial run at least 13 “episodes” with a full season run being 26.  Yeah, I know, nerdy, but it’s my blog.

Knowing that some of these serials will not stand the test of time, or will just run their course, I keep a list of potential serials to fill in the time slots.  So today, I’m going to run a pilot named Pwn3d, and your feedback is appreciated…

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Pwn3d is a series that highlights players who either dominated or were dominated by an opposing pitcher/batter.   A minimum 20 Plate Appearance limit is required.

During Tony Gwynn’s career, he amassed 3,141 hits and hung his cleats with an amazing .338 lifetime batting average.  What is even more impressive is when you dig into his numbers you find that Gwynn had the number of a lot of pitchers, while only a handful had Gwynn swinging in stitches.

Using a 20 Plate Appearance limit, Gwynn batted above .400 against 45 pitchers.  We will call this the Williams Line, since Teddy Ballgame was the last player to break this magical barrier.  At the other end of the spectrum, Gwynn battled below .200 (Mendoza Line) against a mere six pitchers.  This gives us a W/M (Williams to Mendoza) ratio of 7.5.  I just created a new SABRmetric!!!  

Of Gwynn’s over .400 victims, the list includes Hideo Nomo (.560), John Smoltz (.444), Kevin Brown (.423), Jamie Moyer (.417) and Greg Maddux (.415!!!).  Some impressive pitchers were destroyed by Gwynn, but as one would expect, most of the pitchers he brutalized were not well known.

As for those who Gwynn apparently forgot to video tape and scrutinize, it is a veritable list of Who and Huh?  The likes of Shane Rawley (.182), Mike Remlinger (.182), Mel Rojas (.167), Omar Olivares (.120) and Dan Schatzeder (.111).  Not exactly a five-ace rotation.

While these insights are amazing, I have left off the #1 most abused and #1 least hit pitchers on the list.  Envelope please…The winners are:

Gwynn Pwn3d You!	You Pwn3d Gwynn!
11 for 19 (.579)	1 for 20 (.050)

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So what do you think?

Cameo Cards - 1989 Topps Pirates Leaders

Some of you may be wondering, why is this card not under the Background Noise series or the Name the Game series?  Good question.  The best answer I can come up with is that I really like cards that feature more than one player, which is why I came up with the Background Noise and Name the Game serials.  Problem is, not every multiple player card has something going on in the background, and as I've found out, it is dang hard determining which game is portrayed on the card front.  

So, to solve this dilemma of potentially eliminating lots of cards that I love, I created a new series called Cameo Cards.  Now, if you're a big movie or video game fan, you're probably familiar with the term "cameo" or in some parlance "Easter Eggs."  What I hope to accomplish with this serial is to predominantly share "no-name" common player cards that feature All-Star or Hall of Fame players.  

As shown in the example above, this 1989 Pirates Team Leaders card #699 depicts Al Pedrique tagging out Tony Gwynn at second base.  Sweet.  Hence, a cameo card of a Hall of Famer on a common.

The Joy of Sets - 1990 Topps Ames All Stars

What: 1990 Topps Ames All Stars
Size: 33 cards
HOFer %:  33.3%
Subsets: None
Errors/Variations: None
Completed: November 2012

What better way to kick off a new series than to discuss the most recent set I’ve completed?  Back in November, I purchased a mixed lot of cards from my LCS and, to my surprise, found this complete set neatly tucked away in the 3,200 count box.  In my experience, it’s pretty rare to just have a complete set (regardless of size) just materialize out of a unholy mess of a unorganized hodgepodge of baseball cards.  I find this especially rare because this is an All Star set.  Granted, it is from the prime Junk Wax year of 1990, but where I grew up there were no Ames Department Stores, and it’s chock full of Hall of Famers!

This set was produced by Topps and distributed in complete set form through Ames Department Stores only.  From what I can tell, this is the second of two sets issued through Ames, the first being the 20/20 Club set from 1989.  Ames Department Stores went out of business in 2002. 

The 1990 set focused on great “active hitters”, which unfortunately means no pitchers.  Which I guess is alright, but further inspection of the set left this particular Padre fan a bit miffed.  This set includes, not one, not two, but three Padres in a 33 card set.  That’s almost 10% Padres!  Yet, WHERE’S THE TONY GWYNN?!?  There’s a Joe Carter (eh, ok…), a Fred Lynn (really?) and Jack *gasp* Clark.  And of course, there is a Wade Boggs, my anti-Gwynn nemesis…

Anyways, the card fronts are decent for the era and have a glossy finish.  The fronts seem more apt for a mid-90s Houston Astros team set with that huge star dominating the frame, but all-in-all, I like the licensed cards. 

As for the backs, the color scheme is more reminiscent of a mid to late 80s Fleer special edition set issue than a Topps issue.  Plus, I’m not a huge fan of the vertical back.  Excluding the unforgiveable Gwynn omission, all the players seem to fit into the set except for JUAN SAMUEL?

They printed a Juan Samuel card over Tony Gwynn?  That will go on their permanent record.  Oh well, here are the remaining HOFer cards for your viewing pleasure…
 

Final Score 5/10 (2 points for the plethora of HOFers, 1 point for Keith Hernandez in a Tribe uniform, 100 points for not having to collate the set, -98 points for no Tony Gwynn!)

Everything is Frosting Now

Pure dumb luck landed me the only card in the Giveaway that I had to have.  

Somehow, this guy...

Magically became this guy...

AND this guy...

And then both of those guys became the greatest hitter to ever play the game........... CAPTAIN VIDEO!

MINE

MINE

MINE

MINE

 MINE   

Everything at the Diamond Giveaway is Frosting Now

Cards on Cards - 1992 Upper Deck Tony Gwynn

Time to unveil a new and probably short lived serial.  It's time for Cards on Cards.  No, not that Cards on Cards...

Every blue moon, we spy a baseball card that has a baseball card on it.  In my experience, it has always been some type of photo trickery of a player holding a card of themselves that is the actual card and going on for infinity.  It's kind of a mind bender, but trickery none the less.

Dan from "The Other World" sent me a stack of Tony Gwynn's completing our Phillies and Stickers trade.  This was an amazing package.  When I opened it and saw the 50 count case, I said to myself that it couldn't all contain Tony Gwynns.  I was wrong.  Besides a few Topps dupes, it was mostly gold that I had never seen before.  I guess it does pay to not collect anything but Topps and then start seeing all that Fleer, Donruss, Leaf and UD had to offer.  

Speaking of Upper Deck, I noticed something rather peculiar on the 1992 UD Gwynn card.  Let's dole this out bit by bit.

First, is the 1991 UD Gwynn All Star Game Card. 

It's a rather bland card of Gwynn signing autos at the Toronto All Star Game.  He looks less than thrilled.  I wonder why?

Now lets move on to the card at hand.

Nothing special here, but let's look at the obverse.

Gwynn is still signing autos, but wait!  He's still unenthusiastic, and if you look at the programs he's signing, they are from the 1991 Toronto All Star Game.  So, same photo shoot as the 1991 UD AS Game card, but from a different angle.

And here is where it get's interesting.  Let's zoom in on the lower left hand corner.

Why, that's a baseball card!  Coming from San Diego, I know that baseball card like the back of my hand.

Time to flip and zoom a little more.

Hmmm.  Blue checkerboard borders.  Red name box.  Blank stare from a should of been first time HOFer.

Why, that's Roberto Alomar! No wonder TG was not so thrilled having to sign an Alomar card!

Way to go Upper Deck.  You successfully incorporated a 1988 Donruss card into your 1992 set.  Now that is some awesome QA/QC.

Doc T