Thrift Shop Mania

One of my favorite things to do on a lazy weekend morning/afternoon is to secondhand shop.  Be it garage sales, flea markets, antique shops or thrift shops, there's just something exciting about wandering about aisles of someone else's junk in hopes of turning up a forgotten or otherwise unappreciated treasure.  Now that the wife and I both work jobs where we are guaranteed to have our weekends off and free from the non-sense that is the American workplace, we get to go on these sorts of adventures far more often than ever before in our relationship.  To put it succinctly, it's quite awesome.

This past Saturday was one of those mornings.  Of course, we still had to purchase three mother's day gifts (mom, mom-in-law, step mom-in-law), two graduation gifts (sister and sister-in-law both graduating from high school), find a cute outfit for the wife to wear to the ensuring parties, and take in a hearty breakfast... But, yea, otherwise it was a lazy morning, perfect for strolling up and down the local Goodwill.  Our though process was that maybe we'd find some of those things we needed, except for the breakfast.

Well, we found some stuff...

...and none of it was productive.

What I'm holding here is a trivia game called "Cub Mania," which is basically a Northside baseball-themed Trivial Pursuit expansion pack.  Printed up in 1985, in the afterglow of the surprise NLCS appearance from the previous season, the "trivia game for die-hard Cub fans" can be played as a standalone game or "can also be played with trivia board games!"  I wonder which trivia board games they might be referring to... there are so many, after all...

 As a lover of useless trivia and the proud owner of a brain stuffed with far too much knowledge of the frivolities of Cubs baseball, there was absolutely no way I was going to pass over this test of noggin power, especially with it's two dollar price tag.  No way, whatsoever.

Here's a look at your basic card, with numbers differentiating the categories instead of colors.  The categories are:

1. The Early Years, 1876-1939
2. The years from 1940-1959
3. The 1960s on up to the 1984 Cubs
4. Player personnel - front office, trades, etc.
5. Numbers - from uniforms to records
6. Miscellaneous - organ players to nicknames
7.  

How many of the questions on this random card do you know the answer to?  I'll post the reverse side of the card, which contains those answers, at the end of the post, so that you can ponder (or Google) them for a few minutes.   In the meantime, allow me to tell you about the rest of my thrift shopping experience.

Outside of my "trivial" find, we didn't have much luck at the Goodwill and we still had some time to kill.  Thus, we decided to continue our secondhand shopping adventure and travel just a few more miles down 159th street to the local Savers.  We were on a mission.

This time, my wife was fortunate enough to track down a cute sun dress, validating our time spent at the two thrifty locations.  Meanwhile, as she was flipping through racks, I was completely dumbstruck by what I saw resting on one of the checkout counters:

Then I looked around and saw that there was a similar basket on EVERY checkout counter:

Ooooooo boy - I was simply overwhelmed with cardboard choices.  Clearly, some poor sap had decided to divest himself of his entire baseball card collection and dumped his former treasures on the doorstep of the Orland Park, IL Savers.  Their loss was my gain, as there was no way this "basketcase" was leaving that store without at least a sampling of this repack overstock.

In the end, I decided to go with a collation from the first basket, seeing as I'd also be getting some Ultra Pro, nine-pocket pages to go along with my card findings.

This unknown donator must have collected in the early to mid 2000's, as most of the cards came from that time period.  They were sorted by team, so I grabbed a cello pack that showed all Cubs on the front.  As further evidence that they were accumulated in the mid aughts, names like Aramis Ramirez and Dusty Baker are sorted with the Cubs, despite appearing in different uniforms.

Let's see what gold that the plastic wrap held, shall we?

A nice selection of some stalwarts of any self-respecting card collector's Cub selection, from that particular era.  It made me irrationally happy to find both the 2002 Donruss Fan Club Sammy Sosa and it's chromed up Best of... parallel.

Also among the gems were some forgotten brands and inserts from forgotten brands that hail from that black hole of a time period that is the first half of the first decade of the millennium.  I swear, sometimes it feels like Y2K was real and the bug actually just swallowed up all of the baseball cards printed around that time.

The 1938 World Series program is probably the best of this here bunch - however, a shiny Nomar is always a good way to get into my good graces.  Also, the Spotlights insert of Corey Patterson from Topps Stars has me completely thrown for a loop - I've never heard of the brand or it's corresponding inserts, at all.

My absolute favorite card of the whole thrifty repack was the above "Who Would Have Thought" Sammy Sosa, from the subset found within the puke-bordered 2002 Topps Flagship checklist.  Crosstown crossovers have always fascinated me, as men who have played for both Chicago franchises are few and far between.  Furthermore, like many a young Windy City native who grew up with the home run race on the television, my mind was blown to bits when I first discovered that Sammy Sosa was once a South Side rival.  After all, at the time, Sammy Sosa WAS the Cubs, like Walter Payton was the Bears or Michael Jordan was the Bulls.

Honestly, seeing as I wasn't really collecting at the time, I had no clue that a card existed to commemorate Sammy's transition.  A whole set based around similar crosstown crossovers, in Chicago and other MLB cities, would be an excellent idea, in my humble opinion.

As I mentioned, the collector who jettisoned their collection had their pages sorted by team.  While the cello pack I picked up showed Cubs on the front and back, there were a few stray Angels pages hidden within, as well.  That's okay though, as these bonus Angels provided me with a new card of short-term and forgotten Cub, Ramon Ortiz, courtesy of 2004 Topps.  The former Angels starter found his way into 22 games (mostly from the bullpen) for the pre-rebuild, 2011 Cubs, in the penultimate stop of his MLB career.

Ortiz also appears on the 2004 Fleer Tradition "League Leaders" card on the left, as he led the 2003 Anaheim squad in pitching wins.  Accompanying the surprise ace is a baby-faced John Lackey, who led the staff in strikeouts.  In my mind, Lack has always been a surly, salty veteran, so it's jarring to see him so young.

 via GIPHY

 


That about did it for the Ultra Pro packaged repack - a bunch of early to mid-00's cardboard and a handful of nine-pocket pages.  All in all, not a bad deal for five bucks.  That said, even still, that was not the highlight of my thrift shopping adventure.

Whenever I go into a Savers, Goodwill, or what have you, I always like to check the athletic wear section of the men's department.  As a runner, I know that good running gear can be quite expensive; therefore, I like to keep an eye out for a good deal on dri-fit and technical running shirts.  This day was no exception.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to come across any such tees that fit my figure.  Fortunately, I was able to find something much, much better:

I was stunned to find a game-used, minor league Windy City Thunderbolts jersey sitting on the racks, among the glut of hastily abandoned Jay Cutler jerseys.  Granted, the Crestwood, IL based club is an independent (Frontier League) team that plays, roughly, at the level of Low-A; but, you can't tell me that it isn't cool to find such memorabilia at the local thrift shop.  It was even in my size - how fortuitous!

 As an added bonus, the jersey features the greatest number in Chicago sports, worn by such luminaries as Michael Jordan, Ryne Sandberg, Devin Hester and 2005 World Series MVP Jermaine Dye.  There's some seriously good Chicago mojo in the number 23.  Now I just have to figure out which Bolts player sported that number in the south suburbs.  I've had no luck in figuring that out yet, as neither team records nor Baseball Reference make not of the uniform numbers worn by the indy league's athletes.

Believe it or not, between the local Goodwill and Savers, this is the third time I've found a game-used minor league uniform at a thrift shop.  The most recent time before this, the uni top was even autographed by a former Major Leaguer.

With that, the jersey made for the perfect way to close out to the thrift shopping experience.  On that note, let's revisit that trivia card from the beginning of the post and find out just how much you know about the Chicago Cubs:

When my wife read me the questions on this card, the only one that I got wrong was number two, where I incorrectly guessed Ronald Reagan.  I don't know if she was more impressed with my vast amount of useless knowledge or horrified at how deeply insane that I am.  How did you do in answering these bits of trivia?

To conclude, I had myself one heckuva day in the thrift shops AND we even finished up all of our gift shopping in a timely manner thereafter.  All in all, I'd say my Saturday was well-spent!

You just never know what treasures are going to pop up at the second hand shop.

Last Minute Christmas Shopping

First of all, I hope everyone reading this had a Merry Christmas and that Santa Claus was nice to you. But, never again.

Never again am I waiting until the last minute to do ANY Christmas shopping. Between dealing with the crazy, blood-in-their-eyes shoppers, the demolition derby that was the main roads and the crummy weather, I wasn't feeling particularly cheery on the day before, the day before Christmas.

I'm usually pretty good about getting my seasonal shopping done.  This year, not so much and I have no excuse.

However, it wasn't all terrible.  I made a quick pit stop at the local Goodwill to browse, as I am want to do from time to time.  It was a fruitful endeavor, even though I didn't come across anything for anyone still on my list, as I walked away with a few gifts for myself:  a pair of playable LP's from their "well-loved" record bin - James Taylor's Sweet Baby James and John Denver's Greatest Hits.  Plus, I also scored a jersey from a former, nearby minor league team:

The Schaumburg Flyers were members of the Independent Northern League from 1999 through 2010, playing their games at Alexian Field, just a few miles away from O'Hare Airport (hence their name).  Fun fact - the land upon which this suburban team's home park was originally purchased with the intent of luring the Cubs, in the event that the franchise was unable to bring night baseball to Wrigley.
In the course of their history, the Flyers never won a title and were eventually folded after tax issues with the local government.  Later, they were replaced by a Frontier League club, the Schaumburg Boomers, in 2012.

Anyway, finding what I presume to be a game-used, minor league jersey of a familiar club for chump change at a thrift shop definitely brought a smile to my heretofore frustrated face.  That said, there was even more than what meets the eye:

As you can see, we have a name.  Not only do we have a name, we also have what appears to be an autograph.  Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?:

This made the purchase all the more intriguing.  I assumed that this was just some indy league, non-prospect who maybe got a brief taste of affiliated ball; but, otherwise, was not exceptionally notable.  After all, the Northern League is about even with Low A on the MiLB ladder; in other words, a long, long way away from Major League Baseball.

Researching exactly who this "Marshall" fellow was was made easy by the fact that this uniform top included a nifty patch on the right sleeve:

Presumably, this dude played for Schaumburg during the franchise's first year in the city's northwest suburbs.  Armed with that information, it was easy to look up the team's initial roster on Baseball Reference.  Making things even easier, was the fact that there was only one Marshall on that 1999 active roster... and that's where this purchase got even cooler.

Mike Marshall - as in 1988 World Series Champion Mike Marshall

Not to be confused with the pitcher of the same name (who also spent time with the Dodgers), Mike Marshall was drafted by the Dodgers in the sixth round of the 1978 draft out of close by Buffalo Grove HS in Libertyville, IL.  The local hero rose through the ranks, ascending to the Bigs in 1981 and staying there through the 1991 season.  Along the way, Mike became the (mostly) regular right fielder in LA and, as a key piece for the 1988 World Champs, paced the club with 82 RBI and was second with 20 home runs.

Unfortunately, Marshall also carried a reputation as a softy and missed a lot of time with general injuries throughout his career, leading to confrontation and consternation with his teammates and manager Tommy Lasorda.

Even still, finding the John Hancock of a World Series winner on the back of a game used uniform in Goodwill seemed too good to be true.  Let's examine that autograph, just to be sure:

On the left, we have an IP autograph of the Dodger semi-star (he has no certified autos, to my knowledge) and on the left we have my find.  They look pretty darn close to me and I don't know who has the time to forge signatures of Mike Marshall on the back of obscure, indy team jerseys.  I'm calling this one legit.

Now, you might be wondering, what brought this guy to the Schaumburg Flyers?  You see, his reputation for being unable to play through injuries eventually led to his ouster from affiliated baseball.  After a year spent in Japan (1992), Mike found himself on the outside looking in, estranged from the game he loved.

That is, until seven years later, when the Flyers made it known that they were looking for a player-coach to round out their roster.

Mike's profile in the 1999 Flyers' yearbook, swiped from Ebay

Marshall's status as a local product and a recognizable name likely played a role in his getting the position; gotta put butts in the seats, after all.  That said, as a 39-year old first baseman with a considerable layer of rust, Mike posted a respectable .307/.358/.423 slash line across 33 games in his last year as an active player.  From there, Marshall was able to parlay that success into coaching and management jobs all over the independent league map.

Unfortunately, to this day, Marshall still has not been able to break back into the organized ranks.  A call to the Dodgers lead to a request for his resume and an invitation to throw out the first pitch at a Dodger Stadium contest was rescinded due to a Latin-themed promotion.  Maybe someday.

Overall, I'd say this fascinating piece of baseball memorabilia was worth the six dollar price tag; easily one of my best thrift shop deals ever.  In contrast, I could have layed down ten bucks on a 660-count box full of junk wax.  I think I'm happy with my choice.  It'll look quite nice with my modest jersey collection, which includes a couple more indy league uni's:

My new, signed Schaumburg Flyers jersey will hang proudly with my game-used Cook County Cheetahs and Windy City Thunderbolts tops.  The Cheetahs and Thunderbolts represent both iterations of the hometown minor league team, which plays in the Frontier League.  The club originally went by the Cheetahs moniker, from 1997-03, before "modernizing" with the "edgy" Thunderbolts name, which is still in use today.

The Cheetahs jersey was actually another thrift shop find, while the T-Bolts top was a gift from a family friend.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what player sported either one, as neither has name on the back or a helpful, dated patch.

And so, with that find, I suddenly found myself in a much better mood, ready to plunge into the crazed-crowd at the local Target to get the last of my last minute, "white elephant" party gifts.  I'm happy to report that the person who ended up with the Bluetooth, disco-ball speaker and "A Country Christmas" CD is thrilled with their selection and i am just as giddy about this Mike Marshall jersey that's sticking with me.

Sometimes, you just have to treat yourself.