Vacation that is. That's why I haven't been posting for the past week or so - I've been on a well-deserved and desperately-needed stay-cation and I've been enjoying every second of it. Sorry, blogging went right out the door with work-related stuff and eating healthy.
Alas, the calendar has come back around to Monday and my week of museums, concerts, pumpkin patches, apple orchards and amusement parks has come to a screeching halt. Time to make the donuts, per se.
In my absence from the internet, I've had a few new additions to my collection that I've been dying to show off; neither my girlfriend nor my cats seem to appreciate cardboard majesty quite like the blogosphere. However, my creative juices aren't quite flowing yet and I'm still feeling a tad lazy.
So, here's something I found in storage the other day:
Yes, anybody who was born before the 90's will understand, here we have a bootleg copy of Steve Goodman's classic tune about the woeful Cubs, as recorded directly off of the radio sometime in the early 80's.
Obviously, something like this holds no collector's value; but, this one-track mixtape holds a special place in my heart and not just because I love the song. This recording was laid down by my Uncle Rick, who helped to watch and raise me everyday when my grandparents were otherwise occupied and both of my parents worked.
My favorite uncle (sorry everyone else), also helped to get me hooked on the Cubs from an early age and nurtured another hobby of mine in model railroading and being a train enthusiast in general. In short, he really shaped my life from a young age. Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly when I was only 6 or so due to a massive heart attack - he was only 40 years old at the time. Like my vacation, his time on earth wasn't nearly long enough.
Thus, you can see why this otherwise insignificant bootleg tape was such a treasure to find,as it brought back all of those fond memories. Good thing I still have a cassette player, both in my house and in my car. I can't imagine why people tell me I'm stuck in the past...
Additionally, with the way this series against the Mets is going so far, this tune may soon be blasting from my speakers as a coping mechanism. Of course, the season has been an unprecedented success no matter what happens; but, that doesn't mean I won't be disappointed if/when it all comes to an end.
Anyway, we'll get back to our regularly scheduled baseball card blog tomorrow. Play me out Steve!
For this week's edition of "Old as Moses Monday," we shine the spotlight on one George Frederick Graham, otherwise known as "Peaches."
Graham, shown here on Topps' ode to the old T205 tobacco cards from 1911, was the ultimate utility player.
Throughout the course of his 7-year career, the guy started at catcher, second baseman, outfielder, third baseman, shortstop and even attempted a career as a pitcher as well. He was a regular Bert Campaneris in his day.
He was a Cubbie double-dipper as well. His first stint in Chicago lasted just one game, during his aforementioned attempt as a moundsman. In his only start, he allowed 3 runs in 5 innings, downright disastrous in the Deadball Era. It would be his only MLB pitching appearance.
After bouncing around the diamond for the Boston NL club for several seasons, Peaches was traded back to the Cubs in the middle of the 1911 campaign, for long-time catcher Johnny Kling, among others. This time, he stayed exclusively at the other side of the battery, catching 36 games.
He wasn't much of a catcher though, he led the league in passed balls in just 75 games in 1908 and then booted 22 errors in 92 games behind the plate during the next season. No wonder he kept bouncing around the playing field.
My only other Peaches card documents his time in Boston.
It comes from Renatta Galasso's reprint set of 1911 Turkey Reds
He was traded again in the off-season, this time to the Phillies, where he closed out his career with 24 more games behind the dish.
More importantly than his statistics though is just where in the world did he get such a cool nickname? Allegedly, while playing in Colorado Springs during his minor league days, George ate an entire bucket of peaches on a dare from teammate Bunk Congalton, himself a future Cub. Well, Bunk did say he triple dog dared him after all...
Graham then went and rapped out 9 hits in a four-game series. As superstitious as ball-players tend be, especially in the early 20th century, from then on "Peaches" ate a peach before every game as he sat on the bench, convinced that they were good luck. Turk Wendell had black licorice, George Graham had nature's candy.
The man who indirectly gave "Peaches" his moniker, on a real tobacco card which I do not yet own.
As for the card, it hails from Topps 205, just as the company was realizing that super-retro based sets were money-makers. Topps 206 was released a year earlier to surprising success; so, to follow up, the first series of Topps 205 was released in July 2003.
Just like the original 1911 T-205's, there are separate designs for the NL, AL and minor league players. The first third of the checklist consists of current Major League players, the second features prospects and first-year players, and the last features various "reprints" of some of the original T-205 cards. Obviously, the Graham cards comes from the latter third.
At least UD gets it with their Goodwin Champions set and so too did TriStar when Obak was sitll a thing... sigh.
This is something that Topps eventually strayed away from when it comes to their old-timey sets. No longer can we find players from the eras being honored in sets like A&G, Gypsy Queen and the like. I'm just saying, we have enough cards of David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez - a little nod to the players of yore would add a little spice to these increasingly repetitive releases.
End rant.
Anyway, that about does it for this week's edition of "Old as Moses Monday." Now, I have to go and watch as Jake Arrieta (hopefully) continues his run of dominance against those damn Redbirds.
Each Saturday, I'll showcase a letter of the alphabet as part of my collection of Cubs in different uniforms. Today, the letter "D" takes the spotlight.
But first, a refresher:
The rules:
The card must depict them in an MLB uniform that is not the Cubs.
MiLB cards do not count; they go into their own, separate collection.
"Zero-year" cards do count, provided they show MLB teams (so Bowman Draft counts).
Have fun (mandatory!)
I chose each card based on availability, which I liked the best and variety in clubs - with extra weight given to teams each player may be most identifiable with. Plus, I may have been biased to other teams I have a rooting interest in (White Sox, Red Sox & Phillies). Sue me.
Here we go:
Page 1:
Rawly Eastwick - 1978 Topps #405 - Cardinals
We lead things off with a Cardinal... that's bad mojo. Here's hoping that the Cubs can even up the series tonight. Unfortunately, Jamie Garcia is a much better pitcher than the crudely airbrushed Eastwick.
Angel Echevarria - 1994 Bowman #610 - Rockies
I impatiently snagged this card off of Ebay when I thought it was at a decent price. Then, a couple weeks later, Stubby included it in a trade package. They always said that patience was a virtue... Regardless, it has a home now.
Dennis Eckersley - 1993 Leaf #72 - Athletics
Eck was on the call for game one of the NLDS last night and did a pretty fair job. He was both a Cub and a Cardinal, so I guess his inclusion does make some sense. That said, he's in the HOF for his time spent with Oakland, so I had to include him in green and gold.
Tom Edens - 1991 Topps #118 - Brewers
It's a long, long road out of Edens... I don;t really have much else to say, Tom was just one in a long line of faceless and skill-less middle relievers that the Cubs rolled through in the mid-90's.
Jim Edmonds - 1996 Score #359 - Angels
This card dates back to my original collection and was likely purchased by my late grandfather. I remember being really excited to add this card to my Cubs binders about a decade later, when the Cubs signed him off the scrapheap. Plus, did you really think I was going to include him as a Cardinal?
Hank Edwards -2003 Ronnie Joyner Browns #16- Browns
This is from a beauty of a set that I covered in detail here. Hand-drawn artwork, bright colors, long-forgotten team... what's not to love? This was an easy decision to include.
Lee Elia - 1987 Topps Traded #32T - Phillies
This f#%^*&@ card was the only god$%*&^# card I had of Elia to spare. The mother f#%^*&@ decision was f#%^*&@ made for me.
Shawn Estes - 1997 Score Premium Stock #270
Back when Estes looked like a potential TOR arm for the Giants; so, he got the Premium Stock treatment from Score, which is really just a silver parallel. Just a few years later, he was the fifth starter who caused everyone in Chicago to cringe during the playoff push in 2003.
Johnny Evers - 1991 TSN Conlon Collection #15
He might be most famous for his time in Chicago; however, this poetic legend also managed and played for the Miracle Braves of 1914, who went form worst to first that summer. It's only appropriate that such an improbable comeback should be honored in this binder.
As it turns out, I don't have very many "E" players:
Page 2:
Scott Eyre - 2004 Topps Total #52 - Giants
Insert obligatory "bring back Topps Total!" comment here. Scott Eyre - otherwise known as the guy were traded for the legendary Brian Schlitter (heavy sarcasm). Anyway, he was a decent late-inning reliever and an all-around nice guy who got a ring with Philly in 2008 thanks to that swap.
Alright. that does it for this week's edition of the Cubs of a Different Color collection. Next week (spoiler alert!), we'll take a look at the letter "F." It will feature "Little Babe Ruth," the guy given up for the cyborg known as Jake Arrieta and a former pitcher who is now making a living playing semi-pro football, among others.
This is a question I've been dealing with for the past couple of days.
As a reward for going to the dentist and having been very brave (does anyone really like going there?), I treated myself to a trip to my former LCS from when I had lived in that neighborhood. Gotta dangle a carrot out in front of my face... of course, if it were carrots I was dangling, maybe I wouldn't have had to go to the dentist in the first place. Anyway...
It was a very productive trip, netting three new, vintage players for my CATRC, a Cubgrade and a few other odds and ends. However, it was one of these new guys that forced me to ponder about the titular question:
As you can see, Mr. Sammy Drake here is sporting a classic Cubs road jersey, as Ernie will model for us here:
Even though we can tell what uniform he's wearing, the photo is purposely cropped tightly and he is lacking a hat so that Topps had the ability to easily alter the team affiliation on their card if need be. As we all know, 1962 Topps is somewhat notorious for the amount of these types of images found in it's checklist.
Of course this came into play. Drake had two auditions at the MLB level in '60 and '61, betting a combined .050 in 28 games, mostly playing 2B and 3B. Well, the Cubs already had a young, budding star in Santo at third and a promising prospect by the name of Ken Hubbs ready to come up at second; needless to say, Sammy and his almost non-existent bat were more than expendable.
So, with the New York Mets coming into existence, the Cubs left Sammy out to dry and unprotected for the expansion draft going into the 1962 season. So, as you probably already noticed, the team that Sammy is listed with on the above card is, in fact, the Metropolitans.
After 25 games, he managed to raise his batting average all the way up to... .192; so, he was quickly shipped out of town, too anemic for even an expansion franchise.
But, back to the question at hand, since his time in Chicago was so brief and unsuccessful, he never had a baseball card produced with his likeness that officially listed him as a Cub. That's a bummer for me, since I want to collect at least one card of every Cub that depicts them as such, at least as far as I can.
Thus, can I count this card as a Cubs card since it so obviously pictures him in a Chicago uniform, even though it commemorates his time in New York? #FirstWorldProblems
Before we close out this post, Drake was actually a part of some interesting trivia during his short MLB tenure. He and his brother Solly, himself a former Cub who played just three seasons, were the first african-american brother combination to both make the big time. They also both played in the Cubs farm system concurrently, but not crossing paths.
Baseball is just chock full of familial ties
Anywho, back to the business at hand, when is a Cub truly a Cub? Is it when he's shown in the right uniform, like my Drake? Does he need to be listed as a Northsider? Or does it have to be both and have all our bases covered?
I leave it to you, the reader to decide for me because I am far too indecisive.
WHEW!!! What a game last night, huh? Jake Arrieta continues to prove he's more machine than man and Sean Rodriguez has anger management issues (or perhaps that water cooler started it). All in all, it was one exciting game and when the Pirates loaded the bases in the sixth, I didn't think my heart could take it.
As it stands, this Cubs team continues to be the most exciting and likable bunch in my lifetime and they claimed another little piece of my heart last night. Bring on the Cardinals!
I feel much more confident when it comes to a 5-game series with St. Louis than 27 outs of doom with the Pirates; but, regardless of the outcome of that set, I'll always think of this season quite fondly (hopefully as the starting point of a Blackhawks like dynasty). If it all ends there, I think I'll be content.
Plus, I'll always have my baseball cards to get me through and it's trade packages like the one that Dimebox Nick sent me that keep me going.
I knew this was going to be a good PWE when I saw that stamp. While I knew it's contents appealed to my baseball sensibilities, it was a nice touch to add a little nod to my love of classic music as well.
But, what about the cards?
In exchange for some Sportsflix singles and some other odds and ends that I knew he would appreciate, Nick lead off with a need from Topps' most recent release:
"Old Graybeard's" first card as a Cub came in the new edition of Heritage High Number, so now I can officially "Cubgrade" him in my CATRC. I posted about my first pack of the product a few nights ago and mentioned how this was really the only card I was searching for from the set.
When anyone asks me why I bother with blogging, it's times like this one that I cite. Not only did Nick immediately chime in and offer up his extra copy, but two other people also made it known they were willing to part with one as well. How's that for generosity?
This was the only card I knew that I was getting; but, it was not the only card that immediately found it's way into my binders either:
While many people might just see a nondescript reliever from days past, I see another "Cubgrade!" This Pacific single (which we all know how hard it can be to track down certain Pacifics) is my first of Heredia as a Cub and thus it bounced this previous entry from my CATRC binder:
While I do like the shiny "Gold Medallion" cards from '97 Fleer, I like the Cubs much, much more. Still, this card will now find a home in my "Cubs of a Different Color Collection."
Nick didn't stop the "Cubgrading" party here though:
There was some well-loved, vintagey goodness to be found as well. As a very much low-end collector, wear and tear doesn't bother me any. In fact, I feel that such "imperfections" add character. So, the fact that a kid back in the 60's decided to hand-write an update to his Collum card to indicate his move to the Twins is all-good with me.
As such, another card got bumped in favor of Nick's generosity:
It's from an iconic set too. This immediately becomes one of the nicer cards in my "Cubs of a Different Color" set. Who doesn't love old-school Bowman?
While not new name or "Cubgrades," there were yet a couple of more cards that feel out of this envelope that presented upgrades to my CATRC binder too:
As you can see, Nick was very giving with the vintage. Don't go rushing to Baseball-Reference, there were no players in baseball history named Mike Drabowsky. On the left, we have Moe mislabeled as Mike by someone at Topps who was too busy/lazy to fact check in 1958. I already had this card; but, Nick's is a significant conditional upgrade.
On the right, we have the "Diamond Anniversary/Factory Set" parallel of Cash's 2011 Topps card. I'm not sorry that we flipped him for Rizzo, just like I'm not sorry that I flipped his plain, boring Opening Day card for this shinier version.
To sum everything up so far, while Nick had already added significant boosts to my CATRC and COADC binders, he STILL managed to hit another, slowly-building collection of mine:
Ever since I was little, I've been fascinated by minor league cards; something about the unfamiliar and goofy team names and the allure of seeing Major Leaguers before they hit the big time. So, a couple of weeks ago, I finally decided to separate out my MiLB cards and create a binder of Cubs players in their days riding buses. I call it my "Baby Bear" collection.
Even though Mr. Dubois here never lived up to his billing as a top prospect, he still made the show and thus winds up in the aforementioned "Baby Bear" set. Even if he made me look stupid when I bet my friend he would successfully fill the void left by Sammy Sosa in right field.
Furthermore, minor league singles can be a pain the rear end to track down at a reasonable deal; so, this was another generous inclusion by Nick,
The rest of the envelope (and at this point, everything else was gravy) went to stocking my various Cubs player collections:
Some real nice stuff in there. I'm particularly fond of the Cracker Jack Kerry Wood and the "Making Their Mark" insert of Anthony Rizzo. I don't think there's any doubt anymore that "The Riz" has made his mark on this team.
Nick - a huge thank you goes out to you for this mailing. While I would have been more than happy with just the Ross, you managed to stoke several different aspects of my collections with just one stamp. I can only hope that you got half as much enjoyment out of my envelope.
A great trade package and an historic win for the Cubs franchise - my heart is happy; here's hoping that my ticker can last through a playoff series with the Redbirds... I have my doubts!
But, before I succumbed to my nerves, I was able to quickly rattle off this custom playing card of the infallible Cubs ace, in honor of tonight's sudden death showdown in Pittsburgh.
However, you can tell the butterflies were starting to flutter in my stomach since I left the text at the bottom backwards - oh well.
Here's hoping that Jake will be dealing tonight and continue his historical season on the mound. There's no reason to think that he won't; but, I'm a Cubs fan, so I'm conditioned to expect the worst.
I do know one thing though - no matter what, the game tonight will be edge of the seat exciting and whichever team wins definitely deserves to move on and face the Cardinals.
The temperatures are dropping, the leaves are changing and all I hear about from my sister and girlfriend is pumpkin spice this and that... yup, fall is in the air and it ain't goin' anywhere anytime soon.
Now, I've always been a summer guy and I work outside, so nature's reminder that a brutal Chicago winter isn't too far away is not a particularly desirable season for me. Although, I do love to put on a goofy costume and free candy - but, that's only one day of the season.
That said, if it being fall means that I can have days like Saturday, I'm all sorts of in favor of that.
You see, in Coal City they have an annual Octoberfest. It's a street fair with a bunch of vendors, some performances by local musicians and dance troupes and it's all capped off with a fairly large parade. All together, it makes for a pretty good time.
Now, I love all of the above described things and I was looking forward to going to the event; but, I didn't expect it to be quite as fulfilling as it was.
I fully expected most of the vendors to be people peddling homemade crafts and/or overpriced "antiques." There was definitely plenty of that and I think there should be a constitutional amendment declaring that anything from the 80's isn't old enough to be an antique yet, just sayin'. But, on top of that, there were not one, but two sports memorabilia dealers! With cards! And semi-reasonable prices! I wish I snapped a picture of these two temporary establishments - c'est la vie.
The first booth was actually pretty useless to my collection, but still amusing to look through. Nestled amongst the needlessly framed 1991 Donruss cards of Ryne Sandberg and the like were some cool NASCAR singles. Plus, he had an impressive stock of of 1:24 scale die-cast cars too - it's clear what this guy's bread and butter is. However, I didn't feel like spending any money on that collection at the time and so I moved on, fully expecting not to add anything and content with getting to look around a little bit.
This relic was almost cool enough to make me open my wallet; but, as you
can see by the COMC watermark, I opted to save my cash for baseball stuff.
Then, I found the second vendor.
He had three 3,200 count boxes filled to the brim with singles from all sorts of product, vintage and new, oddball and mainstream. Most of it featured legendary names like Bench, Berra and Gibson, so they weren't particularly helpful to my roster jenga collecting habits.
But, stacked to the side since they couldn't fit in the boxes, I found a nice stack of these:
I've honest never seen any of these Sportscaster cards in person before and I don't think I realized how big they are. Or how thin they are, for that matter. As for the origin of the set, according to the Sportscaster Cards Database:
These cards were available from 1977-79 by mail-order subscription only. Every few weeks the subscriber would receive a collection of 24 cards in the mail and have the option to continue to receive more decks by remitting payment. No complete sets were ever offered and... they were sadly discontinued in 1979, due to lack of subscribership.
So that's where the came from, eh? Much less earth-shattering than when I learned where babies come from...
Obviously, I already have Mr. Cub covered in my CATRC; however, a Canadian oddball of the greatest Cub of all-time certainly piqued my curiosity and will always fit in my collection. Especially at the price of just $1. Sold!
A vintage, oddball card of a first rate Hall of Famer for the price of a bottle of Coke? I'll take that any day of the week.
With much more added space due to it's size, we get quite the detailed bio on the back:
I think we can all agree that Ernie Banks was one of baseball's nicest people, by far.
At this point, I would have been perfectly content to call it a day. After all, I was full of cotton candy, rib sandwich, had a bag of parade candy missed by the kids and had spent the whole day yucking it up with family. Even so, I wasn't done finding deals yet.
That same vendor also had a box full of $5-10 cards, which I decided to flip through while killing time. Thankfully, the vendor had a nice comic book set up too, which kept the others in my party occupied. Tucked within that box, I saw this staring back at me:
No, despite what it looks like, that is not a plain, newish back issue of Beckett. It is in fact a baseball card version of Beckett featuring Kris Bryant!
For the National, Beckett released a full checklist of these, featuring covers from throughout the publication's history, as a special promotion for the show only. There were 15 cards in the full set and Mr. Bryant here was featured on 5 of them... yea, I think his stock is pretty hot right now.
Now, like the Sportscaster card, this was the first time I had seen one of these in person. Just a few days ago, P-Town Tom was lucky enough to find one of these in a generous trade package from Brad of Brad's Blog fame and I was uber jealous. Now, I no longer have to pine in vain.
Each card is serial numbered; but, in a 90's sports card serial-numbered way:
Yea, 1,000 is a really low print run, but, I'll forever treasure #682.
The backs of these cards feature different brick and mortar card shops; I imagine this has something to do with how these were distributed at the National. Unfortunately, I don't have an iPhone to scan the little barcode thingy, otherwise that might clear that up. Funny enough though, the Baseball Card King was my LCS when I lived in the Joliet area.
I was honestly surprised to see this priced at five bucks. Kris' stock couldn't possibly be higher right now (unless, y'know, he knocks a game-winning homer in the WC game tomorrow) and his regular base cards, not even the short-prints or photo variations, were priced at $10 or more at this same booth. Not to mention, a quick search of Ebay shows that these Beckett cards regularly go for more..
As you can see, my copy is a little off-center, which would hurt it's grading, if I were into such things. I'm guessing that's why it was priced into my cheap-ass range.
Even better, this is actually my very first licensed card of Kris Bryant.
Previously, this logo-less Rize Draft card of Bryant had been representing the Cubs savior in my CATRC. I bought it right when the set originally came out in 2013, shortly after he was drafted and before the market on his cards began an endless climb. He was soon priced well out of my range.
But, that slight has now been rectified.
I definitely didn't expect to be adding baseball cards to my collection at the Octoberfest street fair; it made an already great day to become a pretty much perfect day. Maybe I can get used to this whole fall thing after-all.
