Another White Whale Harpooned

I joined eBay in 2000 and the first thing I did was start tracking down the Orioles and Baltimore Colts publications I needed. And there were plenty of holes in my collection. I'd chase things in fits and spurts but in the last year I got really serious about the last dozen or so guides/yearbooks I lacked.

I finished off my Orioles checklist earlier this year and knocked off nearly all of my Colts needs. But this '77 Media Guide had eluded me. For a long time. I'd generally been targeting guides from cheapest to most expensive which is why I pulled in some 1950s Colts  guides a few months ago after years of looking for reasonably priced ones.

But for some reason the 1977 Colts guide was super elusive. My eBay saved search email alert has sent me dozens of false positives through the years. The infrequent copies that showed up went for more than I thought they were worth and I never won a bid. So last week when I got another alert I was expecting that it was pointing me to the same tired 'TV Guide preview' of a Colts-Broncos game.'

But it turned out to be the real McCoy and for $15 I jumped on it. It showed up yesterday and took its place on my shelves. I would scan the insides but I don't want to fold the spine that much.

And there is a postmortem to this little episode. I received another email alert last night. I checked it and remembered that I needed to delete the alert. Lo and behold there is ANOTHER 1977 Colts media guide on eBay BIN. For $9. Free shipping. Grrrrrrrr. Years of losing bids and two of these come up within a week. And I buy the more expensive one. What can I say?

Further Proof That I Bought Anything (pt1)

My wife and I bought this house when we were first married. The two extra bedrooms were turned into offices and I was determined to fill mine up with all things Orioles.

I went to shows at least once a month, hung out at card shops and combed through the publications like The Trader Speaks and SCD. I was making yearly trips to Baltimore and had some long-distance friendships I developed with Baltimore area fans/collectors.

And without the foresight to realize that one day I'd have three kids to put through college, I spent every spare dime on 'stuff'. Like these two 3x5 inch 'sketch cards'. I can't remember how (or why) I picked these up but I'd guess it was out of a box of paper junk at a Baltimore card shop. Dealers and card shop owners used to dump odds and ends into boxes. I think some still do. And I loved picking through them. I added lots of ticket stubs, pocket schedules and bumper stickers that way.

Since Lee May last played for the O's in 1980 these things have to be about 35 years old, at least. The Paul Blair card's artwork is better but the May card more closely resembles the subject. In both cases the stick-on letters are about mint. LOL

The next two items are probably even harder to explain. They are just snapshots of Gary Roenicke and Lenn Sakata, both of whom played for the Orioles up until 1985. I sure hope I didn't pay much. I think I bought these as part of a larger lot of Oriole photos. I'll have more of those posted tomorrow. Try and contain your enthusiasm. 

Monday Morning Quarterback #20 Vince Ferragamo 1983 Topps

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard as we will see. 

NFL Info: After beginning his college career at the University of California Ferragamo transferred to Nebraska (Go Big Red!) and became one of the most prolific quarterbacks in the schools history. He reportedly was the first college player to be named as an Academic All-American in two different conferences.

Selected by the Rams in the fourth round of the 1977 draft he played sparingly but he took over as starter in mid-season of 1979 and took the Rams to the Super Bowl. He had a couple of very succesful seasons with the Rams sandwiched around a season in the CFL and he finished his career with a rocky season in Buffalo in 1985 and a year on the bench with the Packers in 1986.

Following his playing days Ferragamo has owned finance and real estate companies and is in the wine business in California with his own vineyards and label.

Fantasy Impact: I had Ferragamo on my roster during three different seasons. He rode the bench in 1981 and 1982 while a member of the Rams. In 1985 he was with Buffalo and I started him twice in place of Neil Lomax. He got me a TD in both starts and won one of them so 'Thanks, Vince'. I went 8-4-1 but got a quick boot from the playoffs.

The Card: This is at least the second 1983 Topps cards I've posted in this series. I hadn't really noticed the helmet silhouette on the reverse before. Sideline(?) shot with Ferragamo wearing his helmet is pretty routine among this era of Topps football. I've seen worse.

Random Cards, Posted Randomly

OK, I know every blogger has done this. I had nothing new to scan and post. I was just staring at the keyboard. So I figured I'd just pull out a stack of cards from one of the boxes in the card closet and see what I got. The box I grabbed was a Stadium Club box and I thought it would be loaded with just Stadium Club cards but there was some other stuff in there.

First up... Hank Aaron 'Starliner' sticker. Basically an unauthorized (I assume) item that used Dexter Press photos printed on adhesive paper. I have a bunch of these and posted about them here in another Random Crap post. Starliner stickers are about as random as crap can get I suppose. I don't know why the Hammer's sticker was in a box by itself.

I really liked the Stadium Card sets when they first started appearing. Nice pictures on shiny borderless cards with a touch of gold.

Cecil Fielder and Jose Canseco were really hot stuff in 1991.

The box Bipped me!! Of the stack I pulled out of it the only dupes were Bip Roberts. As Mel Allen would say..'How about that!"

Padres Fleer Sticker. I thought the Swinging Friar was a neat team logo. I used to keep all my cards in a big file cabinet in the garage. I decorated it with Fleer stickers. Somehow this one escaped that fate.

1993 Tom Glavine SC Members Choice. Speaking of choices... why did baseball players choose to wear their caps like that? You could land a small helicopter on that baby.

Sam Militello '93 SC. Why post Sam Militello and not one of the other three or four Hall of Famers in my stack? Because his cousin taught 4th grade at my school for about five years. She was infinitely more attractive than her cousin. Infinitely, if you catch my drift.

Stadium Club always seemed to be overloaded with Rickey Henderson cards so I'm not surprised that there were two in the 25ish card stack of stuff I pulled from the box. 

I thought my scanner only hated the current Topps issues. I see that it chopped off some of this 1982 Ken Singleton card just like it does with the shiny white bordered new ones. 

Back in the 80s I'd buy 500 count boxes of Orioles team set cards of all three cards makers. I'd get 18 or twenty of every card and I'd put the 'stars' in sheets in binders. Which means that I'd have five or six or eight sheets of guys like Singleton, Scott McGregor and Al Bumbry (along with the 'real' stars like Jim Palmer and Eddie Murray) for every year of the junk wax era.

Plus I'd buy up the Orioles in the Traded sets when my LCS owner friends would break down cases. I was able to accumulate about 40 or 50 Cal Ripken rookies and Traded set first year cards at a cost of about a dime a piece. I sold most of them them off at a card show about ten years later when I had gone back to college and they paid for about a years worth of my two year stint at getting my teaching degree.

I still have the other 'stars' though. So if you are in the market for 35 or 40 1983 assorted Mike Boddicker cards, hit me up.

COMC Throw Ins

Im sure nearly everyone does this sometimes... find a card you need or want from an online site and then pick up a bunch of other cards just to make the delivery cost worthwhile.

I had picked out some football singles on COMC and the cost wasn't much more than the $3 shipping they charge so I figured I'd grad a few others just so that I wasn't paying more for shipping than the cards cost.

In that situation I have a game plan: search for newer Oriole cards since I hardly ever buy these things by the pack.

I grabbed these from (I guess) the Topps Heritage card set. I might not have grabbed to Frank Robinson card at the top but I'm a sucker for those Cincy duds he's wearing. The name under the uni number is so unique and cool.

Another thing I always love is a card design that reflects team colors. Add to that the fact it's a Manny Machado card and I'm grabbing it.

And finally I'll take a cheap Palmer card anytime.

How I Spent My Sunday

Last Sunday on the way to a teachers convention I took a quick side-trip to see the Rangers play the Angels in Arlington. I had driven past the place a time or two but I had never been in it for a ball game. I'd been to dozens of games in the old but very fun Arlington Stadium years ago. It was 'Oklahoma State University Day' at Globe Life Ballpark. They gave the USU folks in attendance orange/black/white Rangers caps. They was weird because those are obviously the Orioles' colors. You can see a couple of OSU people in the top picture. I talked to a few who were sitting by me. I think you had to buy tickets through a special promotion to get a cap. We also talked about Stillwater. I was last there when I took one of my sons on a recruiting visit. I like the place a lot. My son didn't.

A couple of impressions of the ballpark:

1) It has been a few years since I sat in an outdoor ballpark on a Sunday afternoon to watch a game. Minute Maid Park has it's charms but even when the roof is open I never get that 'I'm sitting outside for baseball' feeling. I miss that and it was fun to do it again.

2) The 'back of the house' (concourses, concession areas) seemed narrow. They posted the crowd at 34,000+ but I think they were counting everyone twice. I think 20K would be a generous guess but even so the walkways were kind of crowded. It might have been because many of the concession stands were not open and everyone had to use those closer to the home plate stands. I visited two different Ranger merchandise shops and both here packed. I would have guessed it was because they were air-conditioned but people seemed to be buying stuff. Speaking of 'stuff', I kind of felt like I was the only person in the place not wearing Rangers gear. They sell a lot of caps and t-shirts. I guess it helps when you've been in a couple of World Series'.

3) It was hot. Very few places I've been are as hot as north Texas in July. I had a much better ticket than the above picture indicates but I went up to the top row of the upper deck which has the open area behind it and I was able to catch a nice breeze. That shot was taken about 30 minutes before the game. There were a lot of people inside but most were hanging out on the concourses to avoid the sun as long as possible.

Later on, about the third inning I moved out to right field, again going up to the top row. If you look at the rest of the stands you can see that about 75% of the crowd has taken to sitting in a shaded area.

4) And finally, the Angels are good. Really good. Mike Trout is really really good. But you knew that. I saw him play in Houston last year, from a seat right behind the dugout. He's good even when you watch him from 400 yards away! The Rangers hung in there but fell, 10-7. By the time it was over I was sitting in a cool Dallas bar watching the World Cup overtime periods having a cold beverage.

A couple more pics:

Is that a hotel out behind left-center? Offices? If that area was open there might be a better breeze through to place.

Since I was too far away for any good (or even crappy) action pics of the game I'll post a Texas Ranger related card group. OK, maybe just a Ted Williams card group, after all, Teddy Ballgame was their first manager.

1958 Topps All Star card. After '58 there were no more Ted Williams Topps cards for a long time. My copy is pretty worn obviously but sometimes you have to just buy what you can for the money you've got, right?

This is a Baseball Card News promo card from 1983. I loved that publication. 

And finally this is the StarCal Ted Williams Large decal. I don't own this. I only wish I did.

How I Spent My All Star Game Evening

Thanks to my friend actor Robert Wuhl my wife and I attended the Roger Clemens Celebrity Charity Softball Game last night which was weirdly held during the same time as the All Star Game. The event was held at Minute Maid Park. The softball was pretty much what you'd expect it to be, sloppy silliness occasionally interrupted by some pretty impressive displays of athleticism.

I'm going to steer a wide berth around the big 'elephant in the room' issue of Clemens 'legacy' but there is no doubt that the event was a lot of fun and everything raised was going to a good cause.

As guests of one of the 'players' we had access to the receptions and hospitality that was put on by the Astros' organization. They sure went all out. The food and service was terrific in every way. I'm not much for taking pictures or I didn't want to ask many of the celebs to pose, except for one special guest.

These pics are a combo of my lousy cell phone shots, pics taken by others and some I found today on a couple of local news sites. Many of the pics show Robert Wuhl.

Most of those out on the field had some sort of Houston connection, many had a University of Texas connection. Some of the participants were softball USA star Cat Osterman, the Rockets' Patrick Beverly, former football players Ray Childress and Vince Young, the Dynamo's Briang Ching. Texans' punter Shane Lechler who hit a monstrous homer into the Crawford Boxes at Minute Maid, former major leaguers Jeff Bagwell, Roy Oswalt and Greg Swindell and many others.

There were a bunch of music people as well, mostly country stars I didn't recognize. The real ASG was being streamed on the big video screen and the game was stopped when Jose Altuve was at bat so everyone could pay attention to him. All in all a fun night. The best part, as I said, was the social that kicked off after the softball. Here is a shot of the MMP Diamond Club where it was held. They had the ASG on big screens and the projection screen seen below showed the on-field concert which followed the softball.

The highlights of the evening for me was talking to Vince Young (who turned out to be a terrific guy) and spending time with Houston based rapper Paul Wall who has been friends of my daughter for many years. She worked for his company for a long time and she is still close to the family. That's he and I in the picture below.