Catching Up

I've been 'offline' for a bit. No posting and almost no reading so I have to get up to speed here. I have a couple of way overdue thank yous to send out to bloggers/friends who gifted me with cards over the last month.

First up is a 'foodie' variation, an Utz version of the Topps 2019 Trey Mancini card that came from 'friend of the blog' and Twitter mainstay, Mark Hoyle. Utz Potato Chips is an east coast brand that put packs of these (4 to a pack?) into chip bags or multi-packs. I read that there were 100 Utz-branded cards. It struck me that if someone didn't want to deal with collecting the whole Topps flagship set and the extraneous stuff that comes with it that nabbing the Utz cards would be a neat alternative.  All riff, no raff.

Here's Trey:

Thanks, Mark. In my neverending effort to have as much variety as possible in my fantasy league binder this one will make a great addition.

Another bunch of cards came from Night Owl. As is usually the case with envelopes I get from Greg, it contained a wide assortment of stuff. All of it fits into one of my collections or another.

First up..a '57 Don Newcombe. Now Greg stuck a Post-It to this one noting that Newk had 'issues' and might be a filler. No, Newk has taken his spot in the '57 set binder and there he will stay. One thing I don't remember mentioning since I was doing my '59 blog...'gifted' cards get an automatic 'grade' boost. Getting a card from a friend or fellow blogger, especially one for a set build or special collection, means a lot to me. They go in the binder with a little label over on the inside edge of the nine pocket sheet and the sender's name. I've missed a few here and there but for the most part, I can go through my sets and tell who sent me what.

And then there is this...

...Elizabeth Taylor from the 1953 Topps Who-Z-At movie star set. Yikes. And to think that once upon a time I wondered what the big deal was with Liz Taylor. LOL, Yes, I'm a donkey.

I have about a half dozen of the 80 cards in this set. With some luck and legwork, I could put it together without a lot of expense. I previously posted a few of these. The beautiful duo of Greer Garson and Cyd Charisse are in this post. And Eve Arden is here in this one.

The rest of Night Owl's manila envelope contained Orioles of various types. Here is Tony Batista alongside a swatch of his uni. His career fell completely within my baseball 'black hole' period.

Brooksie from the Heritage set of 2019. Topps did capture that 70s' feel.

When I posted these on Twitter N.O. chimed in with a mention of Kyle Hudson being a product of Mattoon High in Illinois. I have to admit I missed the significance of that fact. Lil help? He's also a former Dodger farmhand, signed this card (sort of) and has his position listed twice on the front.

Now that I've finished my '75 set I've begun to organize the minis I gathered along the way. Ross Grimsley here is a buyback. The pic is from the days before he wore a huge perm. At this point, he still looked like half my high school friends.

1969 Dave May. Yankee Stadium batting cage in the background. I've tried really hard to figure out who that is in the cage taking his hacks but I'm stumped. My first thought was Paul Blair based on the body language but when I blew the scan up it doesn't look like him.

Jeff Conine, dressed as a Marlin, credited as an Oriole. Here is something I probably shouldn't admit: when I looked at Conine's BR page I saw the Fla-NYY World Series line and I thought "how did two AL teams play in the Series?" It was interesting to see that he went back and forth between the O's and Marlins a couple of times.

And what do we have here?

It's Trey Mancini...same card, different version. Greg included the Opening Day Topps Mancini. If you look closely at the cards side-by-side you can see the slightly different cropping.

The OD version has somewhat richer (printing term?) colors. Other than the numbers the backs are the same.

Thanks again to Mark and Greg for the surprise packages. Both were very much appreciated. One last thing... one of the reasons I was out-of-pocket for a few weeks was a trip to St. Louis to help my best friend celebrate a milestone birthday. There was baseball involved.

Here is what we found under the Gateway Arch on the day we arrived...

Vintage baseball is played there regularly. I failed to get a pic of the guy in the period suit and top hat who manned an info table and was happy to talk about it all. He gave us the rundown on the teams including the fact that the 1890s version of the Perfectos went on to become the Cardinals.

We also made it out to Busch Stadium and watched a Cardinals victory over the Pirates. I was impressed by the place. I'll post a few pics in some future posts.

Shablotnik Sent Me Stuff

Well, this is discouraging. I had this post completed on my iPad with the Blogger Pro app and I come over here to post it and boom, it's gone except for most of the images. OK, I'll re-do it here since I don't trust that app anymore.


I was gifted with a package from Joe Shlabotnik last week, the second one he's sent in less than a month. The star this time was this 1971 Lou Brock. Perfect card? Nope. But it fits perfectly into my set build.

I can't think of Lou Brock without thinking of his semi-famous 'invention', the Brockabrella.

I actually wore one of those once thanks to my friend Sam whose Cardinals love runs very, very deep. I'm jealous of that ice cream Sundae that Lou is about to enjoy. I wonder if it came from Ted Drewes.

The Brockabrella appeared in the 1984 Fleer set. I've put that card at the bottom of this post. BTW...Joe also included another '71, Al Fitzmorris, but that image went 'poof' and I don't think I need to go dig it up from my files. Brock can rep the set without any help for sure.

This next card is a Heritage Hi# SP (or so I'm told). So it's as rare as Orioles wins in Minute Maid Park. But unlike watching the O's lose I can get some use out of this baby. It's going in my fantasy player binder.

As is his want, Joe sent along a stack of Orioles from sets gone by, mostly from the 90s and 2000s.

And a new-to-me Cal Jr.

Arthur Rhodes bulked up a bit as his career evolved. He looks almost slim here. Eric Davis had a short (two season) tenue in Birdland as he made his comeback from his cancer fight. Unfortunately for me, it came at a low ebb in my baseball fandom.

Andrew Cashner has had for bright (and not so bright) moment for the O's this year. He was beaten up on Opening Day when I saw him pitch at Yankee Stadium. He was much better Saturday night here in Houston against a depleted Astros team. 

Mancini had a lousy weekend against Astros pitching. But I'm glad to have this card. I don't fully understand what the purpose of  Topps' Opening Day set. Seems pointless.

1981 Fleer Eddie Murray.  I loved collecting this set.

I don't think I had this Drake's Murray. When I delivered the Newark Evening News in Nutley, NJ back in the day a package of Drake's Yankee Doodles and an RC Cola was the usual post-route treat.

Union Craft Brewing in B-more is producing a beer they call Steady Eddie. I'd love to give it a try, or at least grab a can to display.

Mike Mussina..welcome to the Hall of Fame! I hold no grudges.

Joe always tosses in a NY Ranger card or two and this time was no exception. I'm fired up about the return of John Davidson. With JD manning the tiller I think good things are ahead for my Blueshirts.

Here are a few more shots of Lou and his Brockabrella.

And the Fleer card of Jay Johnstone. I'm mildly surprised that the Bud logo made it thru the approval process at Fleer.

There were more cards but these are the ones I scanned. All are much appreciated. Thanks, Joe!!

Best of 2018.....LOL

P-Town Tom (P-Town is Peoria, I was unaware) asked us to blog about what we considered our favourite card of 2018. Me picking a 2018 card is like a goat farmer trying to find a Kentucky Derby entrant in his barn. It doesn't take long to scan the possibilities and none of them are likely winners. But, oh well.

My problem is the fact that I haven't really bought much in the way of current cards in a long time. I snagged a pack of Heritage and a few of the other 'new cards in old designs' sets this year. I didn't get much of interest or anything cool. 90% of my 2018 cards came from other bloggers' generosity or in COMC purchases for my fantasy team collections. And with those, I usually get a cheap common.

There are a few exceptions and my entrant in the 'Favorite Card of 2018' contest is one of them. I'm choosing this 2018 Panini Elite Patrick Mahomes. I'm not sure whether it's the card or the player that inspired this but here we are. I have Mahomes in the one league I actually care about, and I sure thank the football gods for that. It's a dynasty league and I took Mahomes with my second round pick last year.

With injuries killing my runningbacks Mahomes has not only kept me afloat but he lifted me to a pretty good year, all by himself.

Anyway, it's a pretty sweet card. I bought it to replace the one I had in my binder that showed him in his college uni. Panini does a pretty nice job with football cards. (I think it's a shame that Topps has exclusive MLB rights). The red and gold of the card nicely coordinate with the spiffy Chiefs uniform. The 'action' is nothing to write home about but as I said, I have a small pool of contenders to choose from.

I actually considered a few others for the prestigious 'CommishBob's Best 2018 Card' award/contest entry. Here are the runners-up, in no particular order:

Topps base card of Altuve and Correra. It's easy to like both these guys even if you are not an Astros fan. I like that you can see the post-Hurricane Harvey 'Houston Strong' patch on Altuve's jersey.

This next one slid in from Night Owl a few weeks ago. I snatched a nice '71 Hoyt Wilhelm from his giveaway and he padded the card sleeve with a pink (PINK!!) chromafied Trey Mancini card. I had the regular chrome Mancini in my fantasy binder but this pink (PINK!!) one bumps that one to my regular Orioles collection. I like variety in my fantasy player binders and there isn't much more 'varied' than a pink chrome card. It certainly stands out on that page.

Pink cards are just plain fun.
 

And then there is the card I was going to choose until I was going thru my football binder and spotted the Mahomes. It's this Paul Pogba World Cup Panini Prizm card. I followed the WC this year like never before and it was a ton of fun. There are other countries I would have prefered to see win (I'm looking at you, Portugal) but France was undoubtedly the best in the tournament and earned the title.

Pogba, of course, plays his professional footie for my seriously underperforming Manchester United club. I love the sport but the drama of players vs coaches, in-season transfer window madness and the general crapload of foolishness that swirls around soccer is pretty stupid. I try to ignore it but some of it is unavoidable. I enjoy watching Man U matches at the Houston bar where their supporters gather but hearing the cussing and griping gets old after awhile.

Oh, I almost forgot...that's a really sweet card, right? Again Panini shows what they can do when they don't have to concentrate on removing logos and airbrushing pants stripes.

OK, I've managed to post a card for the contest and get some stuff off my chest. I feel better.