I am not worthy (Pt 2..from Brian) Oh...and Blogger sucks

This is the second of two remarkably similar card packages I received last week. This one came from Brian who pens Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. The blog title alone would be worth 1860 points when hitting a triple word score in Scrabble.

Both Brian and Joe Shlabotnik sent me a substantial stack of very, very nice 1979s, modern Orioles and they both sprinkled in something for a different set I'm working on. Joe sent 1970 Topps Hoops, Brian went with '62 Baseball.

I had sent Brian some 59s for his set build but I gotta tell you that those cards were no match for the beauties he sent my way. Leading off you can check out Lou Clinton. What a sweet card. It's in great shape. In fact, all three of the '62s Brian included are probably two 'grades' better than the majority of what I have in the binder. Let me put it this way...I couldn't afford to collect the set if I was only going after cards as nice as the ones Brian passed on to me.

BTW...Lou Clinton was in right field for Boston on the last day of the 1961 season. He watched Roger Maris' #61 sail over his head and into the rightfield seats at YS.

Phil Regan poses at Yankee Stadium. I always like to imagine I was there the day these photos were taken. Hey, you never know. I was there a lot.

Regan was nicknamed 'The Vulture' by Sandy Koufax during his time as the Dodgers' closer. He managed the Orioles before Dave Johnson and was active as a minor league pitching coach well into his 70s.

Wayne Causey began his career as a light-hitting third baseman with the Orioles in 1955. He struggled to reach the Mendoza line and spent some time in the minors before he re-emerged with the A's in 1961 following a big off-season trade. He had found his hitting stroke and had some respectable years in Kansas City before moving on to the White Sox.

The modern Orioles card Brian sent was an Eddie Murray bat relic. The guy who glued the slice of Eddie's bat onto this card appears to have been hungover. Nonetheless, it fits nicely into my Murray pages in my Orioles star binder.

And finally here is a representative sampling of the '79s I received. Between the stack that came from Joe S. and this one I'm down to just over 100 needs for the set (edit made...never compose a post in the middle of the night).

This is one of my favorite Nolan Ryan cards.

Steve Carlton's BR page is pretty impressive.

Nolan Ryan and James Rodney Richard were on the same Astros staff for half of the 1980 season. Then J.R. was struck down in July.  A quick look at the team's game logs showed that they didn't pitch back-to-back at any point. That would have been unfair to any opposing NL teams.

Mick the Quick. He was with the Rangers by mid-season. Did you realize he had a .295 career average? I sure didn't.

I have no memories of Bud Harrelson as a Phillie. He was a spare part by this time. Nice shades though.

I also have no memories of Steve Yeager wearing a beard. I bet Night Owl does.

I scanned this card of Sixto Lezcano for two reasons. One, he has such a cool name, and two, he looks like someone but I can't put a finger on who it is..

And finally Billie Jean King's brother Randy. It's interesting (I guess) that her Wikipedia page doesn't mention her younger brother. He was a pretty decent reliever for the Giants through the 70s. He pitched for the Astros in 1982. That was a club with a strong staff and lousy hitting. And that was the year before I got married when I lived within walking distance of the Astrodome. I saw quite a bit of boring baseball.

Thanks again, Brian. The cards were all super and very much appreciated.

Oh, I almost forgot...the title. About three months ago I realized I was no longer receiving email notifications of blog comments. I dealt with it for awhile by just checking my past few posts every few days. But then I received an email from someone who had asked a few questions of me on one of my 1959 Topps blog posts and wondered why I hadn't responded. I dug around and flipped a few 'switches' and recently found that I had apparently switched over to Google+ comments...whatever the hell that means. I turned that off and nearly all the recent comments on my blogs disappeared. Add that to the fact that Blogger is unusable on an iPad as far as I can tell and doesn't work well with Firefox and I'm not happy at all.

I'll keep plugging along though but don't be surprised if one day this whole thing gets either blown up or shuffled over to WordPad.

I am not worthy (From Joe S.)

I was on the receiving end of a couple of terrific card packages that arrived within days of each other over the past week. The most remarkable thing about these two gifts is how similar there were. It's as if the two bloggers got together and planned it.

I'll feature both of these in separate posts in the order they arrived.  When I have them both posted you'll see what I mean by 'similar'. First up...the 'fat pack' set by 'Joe Shlabotnik'. I'm gonna run through the cards I scanned rather quickly as we are headed north to Arlington for the Roma-Barcelona match tonight.

Joe kicked in a big stack of 1979s. Over 40 of them and they took a nice slice off my needs list.  It's a fun set with plenty of stars, colorful unis and old favorites of mine.

Enos Cabell...I like those rainbow unis now more in retrospect than I did when they were being worn. Saw lots and lots of the Astros in this era so there is a bit of nostalgia involved in my feelings.

Craig Reynolds was one of the nicest guys to play baseball. I saw him at one of those free mall signings that used to come around pretty frequently in Houston. He was great with the fans. Seeing him in a Mariners uni is pretty weird though. But that trident logo they used was the cat's meow!

Pete Rose...whatever became of him anyway? I mean after he shot JFK and all that.

'Should be' Hall of Famer Lou Whitaker. C'mon...he's overdue for induction.

Rod Carew...never gets the attention he deserves. Loved watching him play..except against the Orioles. He was one of the few players that got me to drive up to Arlington to see play.

Paul Molitor. Looking at his BR page I see he was drafted by the Cards in 1974 in the 24th round but didn't sign. the Cards had drafted Garry Templeton in the first round. Funny how things work out.

Joel Youngblood, the only guy to get a hit for two different teams in the same day. You can look it up.

And the awesome Don Baylor. He always played his ass off. RIP

There were more than thirty other 79s in 'Joe's' bundle. All in great shape and that brought me to under 150 on my list.


He also sent along a card for my ever-so-slowly-being-chased 1970 Toops hoops set. That thing is a bear and I'm just about finished with the 'easy' cards. Down to the 'SPs' now. Paying in blood for a Luke Jackson card is gonna be tough.

But finishing it off will be worthwhile if for no other reason than the wonderful backs on these things. One fun cartoon after another.

Stallworth had an interesting path...born in Dallas, on to Compton and then off to Wichita State and finally the Big Apple.

Joe also tossed in some shiny Orioles and wanna-be Orioles. These two picture Cedric Mullins and  Austin Hayes both popping up to second. They'll fit right in the O's lineup!

Hey look...it's Cal!

I must have 100 Dylan Bundy cards...but I didn't have this one. He was an NFL* member of a couple of my fantasy teams.

*='Not For Long'.

Caleb Joseph got off to a horrible start to the 2018 season and ended up spending some time at AAA. He's back and his average is climbing, even if my Orioles aren't.

To round things off there were Presidents! Sure makes me wish we had one.

William Herny Harrison looks like Dracula.

I'll need to check and see if these Goodwin Champions made up a complete set of Presidents. If so I bet I can nab them pretty easily. My Presidents binder is growing by leaps and bounds.

Joe...this was one fabulous gift package. Many thanks. Now it's off to Jerry Jones World for some futbol. When I get back I'll be posting the other great group of cards that came my way!