Joe2019

Did the title throw you? This is NOT about politics, it's about cards from Joe Shlabotnik. Nice ones, too.

But there is a president involved. JFK led off the thick manila envelope that arrived from Virginia this week. He appeared on a Topps and an Upper Deck card, both new to me. My presidential binder is going to have to be upgraded to a 4-inch model soon.

In this Topps Opening Day card, JFK is tossing out the first ball, not at an Opening Day but at the '62 All-Star game as LBJ watches.

Here is the UD from their 2012 Goodwin Champions set. These are really, really well-done cards.

Also in the package from the same set was this addition to my actress/actor stash, the beautiful Carole Lombard.

She was the queen of the 'screwball' comedy craze of the 1930s and was reportedly the highest-paid star in Hollywood. She was killed in a plane crash outside Las Vegas in 1942 while returning from an appearance to promote war bonds. She was 33 years old.

Of course, Joe included some Orioles cards, new to me, of players known and obscure. I like the design of this '94 UD Miggy Tejada more than anything being produced these days. But, then again, I'm an old fart and prefer the less flashy designs.

I grouped these Bowman/Topps/Paninis together but the scan came out smaller than I thought it would. If you can't tell there are a couple of Trey Mancini cards in there. I'm accumulating a lot of his cardboard. Odds are he gets dealt to a contender this week.

This GQ Palmer looks very familiar but I didn't see it in my quick look thru the binder where it should be so maybe it's new to me.

But the stars of the bunch were these terrific '57s! Joe knocked close to a dozen off my needs list.

Don Kaiser is the first of what is a Chicago-heavy group of cards from Joe. He was 6-15 over parts of three seasons with the Cubs and '57 was his last in the majors.

When I was a kid I often heard the 'Moooose' call at Yankee Stadium. I just love this card. Nice to get it as a gift so I can avoid paying the 'Yankee tax'.

He has a Chicago connection as he was a native of there. If you think 'deep dive' stats are a new thing, check out the blurb on the back of Moose's card.

Harry 'I'm NOT the guy from Night Court' Anderson in Connie Mack Stadium. '57 was his rookie year and he got some scattered MVP votes after hitting at a .268 clip.

Dick Donovan had a fine season in 1957 and finished second in the Cy Young voting to Warren Spahn. OK, Spahn got 15 of 16 votes and Donovan got the other one, but still.

Love this Felix Mantilla card shot in Ebbets Field.

Willard Nixon practicing his look to first. He was in his eighth of nine seasons in the bigs, all with the Red Sox. 

Ron Negray had fought his way up the steep Dodgers minor league system and then got dealt to the Phils. After a couple of years there ('55-'56) he was traded back to the Bums and was again in their system when this card was being pulled from packs.

Ray Jablonski looks and sounds like a tough Chicago dude. He also looks like a guy painted into a Cubs uni after being pictured as a Redleg with whom he'd spent the previous two seasons The thing is, he never played for the Cubs as they traded him to the Giants a day or two prior to Opening Day in '57.

Interestingly, his Baseball Reference thumbnail photo shows him in a Cubs cap.

Showing the back of his card here because I love the backs in this set.

Speaking of the Cubs...doesn't Jim King look like dozens of other players from the 50s? He also was on another team for the '57 season. The Cubs had dealt him to the Cardinals during the first week of the season. They had taken him from St. Louis in the Rule 5 draft two years prior.

And then there's Dixie Howell. He had begun his pro career in 1938 in the Cleveland organization and here we are, 19 years later,  and he's in his fifth big league season. He had done a LOT of pitching in the minors. He returned to the Sox in 1958 but saw action in only one game and spent that year and the next back in the minors. At the age of 40, in the Sox spring camp in March of 1960, he suffered a heart attack and passed at 40 years old.

There was another card in the bunch from Joe, a common, but one with an interesting quirk that I thought would make a good stand-alone post. That's coming soon.

Again, thanks Joe for a great envelope full of Orioles and '57 set chase cards. It's a much appreciated boost at a time I was shoving the hobby towards the back burner.

Catching Up

I've fallen way behind on posting. Lots of reasons...from lack of inspiration to a complete revamp/remodeling of my hobby room/office. I've also been doing some work on the home network and switching over from Chrome to Firefox. FF, btw, while cleaner and quicker than Chrome, doesn't play well with Blogger. I smell a conspiracy. Off-topic...I haven't used a Mozilla product since their first attempt at a browser (Phoenix) but I was a hardcore Netscape Navigator user back in the day. My school district was an early adopter.

But that up above doesn't mean I haven't been busy when it comes to picking up cards and memorabilia. Most of my new acquisitions are additions to my Billy Pierce and Charles Bender collections.My posts of those guys never get much in the way of readership so I'm in no rush to scan and post them.

One group of cards I do have scanned is my card show haul from April. I followed myusual MO....sifting through the cheap vintage boxes and snatching whatever caught my fancy. Some of these I already owned but who wouldn't want a second copy of the '67 Ed Charles?

So here they are. Starting off with some '82 Kelloggs. I have to admit I'm coming around to seeing past Rickey Henderson's quirks and I'm beginning to appreciate what he did on the field.

Schmidt...best NL third baseman I've ever seen.  ;-)

The Wizard of Oz. I always thought the two-tone cap detracted from this uni. Now I'm not so sure.

Here's the back of Ozzie's card blown up so you can read the teeny font used to describe the drama surrounding his trade to the Cardinals during the winter of '81-'82.

Mike Cuellar, at Shea. I think I've written about the time I sat next to him and Fred Gladdingin at a game in the Astrodome. Both were DL'd and sitting right behind home plate. Cuellar was charting pitches. My Dad and I were in the seats he sometimes got from Shell Oil. They were pretty sweet.

Here's The Glider! I hear Bob Murphy's voice in my head whenever I think of this guy. Love that A's uni.

I have this Elston Howard on my PC but I keep thinking that one day I may chase the  '64 set.

Richie Allen. Why isn't he in the Hall of Fame? I think he belongs.

'67 Boog. Because why not?

'64 Juan Pizzaro. See my remarks on the Elston Howard card. Exactly the same here.

This Palmer wasn't a need but I kind of hate leaving his cards in a bargain box.

Love the '61 Post Cereal cards and I love Wally Moon cards so this was a no-brainer.

And I'll finish up with a pair of 1969 Topps Deckle Edge inserts. I really need to dig thru my cards (and that's the plan for the summer) and pull out what I have of these. I'd bet I'm fairly close to the whole thing.

Richie Allen in his 'Rich Allen' mode.

And a sorta stoned-looking Jerry Koosman.

That's it for now. I'll try to do better next time.

Hawkins RC from Jon of APSFYT.

The blogging community is just awesome, is it not?  But I didn't need to remind anyone this, did I? If you need any more evidence this post and a couple more in the next week or so will provide it. Jon, who authors the always entertaining A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts, read my post about the passing of Connie Hawkins and immediately reached out to see if I wanted his extra copy of Hawk's rookie card. I sprained my wrist diving for the keyboard to accept his offer. Here is Hawk and some friends Jon included to keep him company on the trip. BTW... Jon is running a contest on his blog. Go check it out and enter why don't you.

I love this Topps 69/70 hoops set. I'm not up on all the ins and outs of the licencing rights of that period but Topps obviously couldn't use team nicknames or logos on its products. Does that take away from the set of this card? Nope. It's a beaut. I love the little player drawings that surround the main photo and cartoons are always fun.

There are some players that are worth the price of the ticket no matter what team or sport. Hawk is one of them, James Hardin, Barry Sanders and Gale Sayers were others. I was lucky. Back when Hawkins was playing for Phoenix in the early 70s the Rockets were playing home games in Hofheinz Pavilion on the University of Houston campus. Students got in for a buck but as an employee working in the building I could just stroll down the ramp and watch games. I saw a lot of NBA action back then.

This card is a rookie card in the sense that Hawkins wasn't in the NBA previously and no mainstream sets were issued for the ABA. Hawk was the ABA's MVP in 1968 with the Pittsburgh Pipers and averaged 30 ppg for the largely forgotten Minnesota Pipers in 1968/69.

To keep the Hawk rookie from getting lonely Jon sent along some Orioles. Here are some of them.

 This Jim Palmer GQ is different from any of the (admittedly few) GQ cards I own. I've never seen the off white borders on these. Very nice addition to my JP PC.

This next one is a Ryan Minor mini card from 1999's Private Stock set. Again, I have never seen anything from this set.  BaseballCardPedia.com filled me in.

Below on the left is a 2005 Sammy Sosa Turkey Red with no name on the front. I'll let you provide your own punchline. He's paired with a Javy Lopez Donruss Portraits, also from 2005.

Upper Deck Ripken that didn't scan very well.

Buyback Joe Kerrigan from 1979. Does seem possible that he was a player nearly 40 years ago.

JJ Hardy won't be back with the Orioles next season. Here he is on a Power Players version of his Topps card from 2014. That Weaver Patch...RIP Earl.

Miggy! 2004 Fleer Ultra. This may or may not be a gold label thingy. Google calls it a Gold Medallion card so I'm going with that.

Thanks, Jon! Much appreciated addition to my Hawk, Palmer and a couple other PCs.

Batman #26 and other things

Several months ago, in the midst of my Batman sketch card frenzy, I received an email from an artist who offered to do one for me. After a bit of back and forth and a few stops and starts I received the sketch card. It's a nice addition I think. Along with two done for me by one of my school's art teachers I've now filled three binder pages with sketch cards. I think it's time to call it a day and put the Batman binder away for a bit.

When the artist (he called himself CCM) sent me the sketch card he was kind enough to fill the envelope with some other things from his collection.

First and foremost was this Leaf sketch card of the late Lee MacPhail, the long time baseball executive.  According to Wikipedia MacPhail had an extensive baseball resume. He spent 45 years in the game serving as the director of player personnel for the New York Yankees, the president and general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, chief aide to Commissioner of Baseball William Eckert, executive vice president and general manager of the Yankees, and president of the American League.

I honestly had never seen a baseball sketch card that was issued by a major card manufacturer. A trip to eBay showed me that Leaf has done a bunch of sketch cards with subjects ranging from Stan Musial to Sting.

Of the ones I saw the many of best were from Rich Molinelli who did this MacPhail. Here's a shot of MacPhail outside Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

The Orioles card CCM sent included some pretty cool ones. Like this manufactured patch of Jim Palmer's rookie card. Topps put this out in 2013.

Among the standard cards I got were these two 1960 gems. Both of these were upgrades to the ones I had in my 1960 Topps binder.

A week or so ago someone on FB or Twitter asked about the first baseball card you remembered owning. I know I had some '59s and I saw a friend's 1958s but the first card I specifically remember pulling from a pack was the 1960 Albie Pearson. I got a few packs of cards in my Easter basket as a kid and I remember getting Pearson. That was just about the time I was developing my own ideas about favorite teams and players instead of following along with my Dad's Yankees/NY football Giants preferences. I had decided that since I had been born in Charm City the Orioles and Colts were 'my' teams so I bet I was thrilled with this card. that's probably why I remember it rather than the rest of the packs. Maybe.

The two Jim Palmers

When my son, James Palmer Andrews, was a toddler in the early 1990s he underwent a series of operations on his arm and wrist. He had a huge cast on his arm for several of his recoveries and was never too happy about that. My wife customized his sling with this Jim Palmer patch. The sling was a big hit with James' doctors and nurses. We'd forgotten about it until we were doing some closet cleaning and came across a box with his old arm braces that also contained this sling.

These patches were floating around the hobby back then. I'd usually find see them on the same dealers tables where you'd find Broder cards, Beanie Babies and 'phone' cards. I seem to recall sending off for this, maybe as a cereal premium but I could very well be wrong on that. I'm putting a bit more about these at the bottom of this post.

I'm pretty sure I've posted this picture before but here it is again. This is from a promotional appearance the 'real' JP did in Houston for Jockey in 1989 when my guys were just a few months old. I'm holding Brooks and my wife has James. One day soon I need to have the two 'Jim Palmers' back together again for a followup photo. 

As I continue to struggle to get my scanner to cooperate with my new desktop setup I thought I'd pull up a few of my Jim Palmer scans/photos and lay them out here. The vintage cards and oddballs are from my Palmer binder, the newer ones came mostly from other generous bloggers. Enjoy a Jim Palmer gallery as we head into the 4th of July holiday.

Starting with his rookie card, the 1966 Topps, and continuing on in no particular order.

Players wore the patches on wristbands as seen in these shots. 

Barry Bonds 'Say No To Drugs' wristband posted without comment.