Philosophical Fridays

"When we played softball, I'd steal second base, feel guilty and go back."

Woody Allen

Last Two '64s!!!

The last two '64 coins from my bay binge came the other day! I've pretty much spit out all the info there is on this set, so I'll get right down to the goodness of it all...


First up is Mr. Juan Marichal. One thing I always forget but then re-remember about Marichal, is that the last 2 games of his career were as a Dodger! That's kindda like Jackie Robinson being a Giant!!! Oh, wait...


Speaking of players being on teams that they should never be on, Willie Mays!!! I of course knew that Say Hey was a Mets, but I only thought it was for one year. Turns out it was for two, '72 and '73. The Mets still honor him whenever they do major events where they bring back past players and I think that's great.

So that's the last of what I got this round. I put a good dent in this set now and the binders starting to fill out and gain some respectability. I've still got a long ways to go, but I'll get there!

(...Joe)

Mail Time!!!

There's nothing better than a good trade. After an offer was extended to me for a few cards on my trade bait page, I looked at theirs and didn't see anything I readily liked. I did however, see something I knew Brian over at Play at the Plate would enjoy, so I made the deal.

I emailed him the offer of what I received and made a deal with him, bringing me another 18 Piazza cards. I've traded with PATP before and he's delivered both times. I got another good lot of great inserts from great looking sets. Let's check a few out...


These are both inserts from the 1999 Upper Deck MVP set. The base cards are very bland and nothing fancy, but the inserts from the '99 offering are amazing. All kinds of crazy designs, shiny as all hell and a refractorishness to them. The game used Piazza card from this set is one of the few GUs I've actually seeked out and bought. Normally game used cards don't impress me due to lack of design and originality, but these actually look pretty good.


Update: I still suck at taking pictures. There was something creating a shadow, but I could not for the life of me figure out what it was. I adjusted the sheet, moved the box, moved stuff around on the shelf... drank a beer. Nothing.

Anyways, this is a subset from '98 Leaf and is actually Short Print. This was one of the earlier tries for a card company to (intentionally) short print the subsets.


This one would make the Brooklyn Met happy. It's all clear like and plasticy. Supper cool.


Lastly we have possibly the most interesting card I've gotten in awhile. It's a 1999 Metal Universe "Boyz with the Wood" insert. When I first picked up the card, it was kindda flimsy and pretty creased in some spots. I flipped it over and saw this...


...what I thought to be a horribly mis-cut card. After further inspection, I noticed that card opens up and folds out. In oredr to do it, you have to really crease everything, so I haven't done it yet, but most likely will soon. What I'll do is pick up a 2nd copy if I find one, so I can have an opened one like it was intended for and a nice clean unopened copy.

So that's that for that on my latest trade. Thanks again to Play at the Plate for another awesome mail day!!!



(...Joe)

More '64 Goodness!

I got my 2nd delivery of the '64 Topps Coins I picked up off the bay last week. After looking at all the listings ending soonest, I started getting frustrated with the shipping costs that the sellers were throwing up. I was staring at a consistent $3+ to ship one coin, with 9/10 sellers not combining shipping. I was stoked to be able to pick up a ton of coins for under $1 each, but then to have to triple the cost for each was a bit extreme for me.

I did one of those smart ass moves, where you go to the extreme of a situation to kind of say "fuck you", but then it actually turns out to be the perfect solution. Fed up with the shipping costs, I did a search for "free shipping only". I found exactly what I was looking for. I saw one coin I wanted, looked at his other listings and found he had hundreds of them! All free shipping!! All at great prices!!!

I picked up 10 from this guy alone including a giant piece that I now don't need to worry about!


These aren't that piece. I just wanted to show you guys a better look at what I was talking about in the first '64 post. The NL reps have a silver paint job with the AL getting a gold treatment.


3 HOFs from the back leg of the set, the All Stars. The Spahn is in near perfect condition and while I'm not so concerned about condition for this set, it's still cool to see that nice clean shiny one looking back at ya through the binder! Anyways, all 3 HOFs, all 3 combined cost less than $15. Nice.


And lastly for today, the big piece. Hank Aaron!!! I picked this up for only $10 and it gets a bigger part of this set out of the way. There's still one more Aaron in the set, in the All Star series, but I'm hoping to find it for around the same price. I definitely got a deal on this one and the AS coins usually go for less than the regulars do, so I'm thinking it should even out? Hopefully.

I've still got 2 more coming to me and then that'll wrap up my ebay excursion. Should be fun.

(...Joe)

'97 & '98 Donruss Preferred Review!!!

I saw these while I was looking around for the '64 coins and was instantly intrigued. I got 4 tins from 2 different sellers for about $5 each including shipping. Considering what you can pull, not bad at all.

Donruss Preferred was put out for 2 years, '97 and '98, and they are some great looking cards. In '97 the base cards were colored with bronze, silver, gold and platinum foil with each being respectively scarcer , while in '98 the base had a more uniform design. The main attraction for both sets however, was that you could pull cards made from solid silver, gold or platinum instead of card stock!

I was not lucky enough to pull one of those, but these cards are absolutely beautiful, so that was good enough. Let's check it out...


This is from the '97 set, Garett Anderson on the left and David Justice (back) on the right. Great looking cards, super shiny and they're textured, kindda. I'm not sure what to call it or how to explain it, but they're grooved/engraved almost. Very cool and it's evident that more than 2 seconds of fucking thought went behind the set.


This is the "National Treasures" subset featuring Hall of Fame caliber players. I have a knack for pulling Griffey cards. If there's a Griff to be pulled, I will get it. I'm not complaining, never will, but if you're a Griffey collector pass your unopened packs and boxes to me. You won't be let down...


Unfortunately, I seem to have that same knack for A-Roid. One difference: Ken Griffey Jr was a great personality and ambassador for the game. Alex Rodriguez is a piece of shit. I'll end there. This is from the "Staremasters" insert set #/1500. I created a "rule of thumb" for myself that any #d cards from the mid-late '90s, divide by 10 to estimate what the numbering may be today. So a 1,500 turns into 150. A 250 turns into a 25. You guys think this sounds about right?


Now we're looking at the '98 set from Preferred. I like the design better than the previous years, with the borders matching the teams colors. That same "etched" feeling is on these cards too and instead of the bronze silver, gold and platinum theme from the previous year, they switched to grandstand, mezzanine, club level, field box and executive suite.


The insert odds for both years are 1:4 tins, combined. So when I opened the first tin for '98, I pulled a "Preferred Power" of Dick-Wad. Then I opened the 2nd '98 and pulled 2 more PP and thought I really beat the odds for my 4 tins... untill I came to senses and realized they're simply just the subset for the year. Oh well, again great design, catches the eye and is super shiny.

At only 5 cards per tin and costing about $5 per tin (from what I've seen with what I bought and completed listings) it's a quick, cheap fix that has very little risk but a huge Huge HUGE reward potential. Can't really say that for any modern day "High End" shit that consistently costs close to $200 for the same about of cards with a 90% chance you're "hit" being of someone who will be out of baseball by the end of the year. I will definitely be picking more of these up when I get the chance!

(...Joe)

1964 Topps Coins

1964 Topps Coins. That's just about all my computer has seen the past few days. Along with the stash my Uncle gave me years ago, were '64 Topps Coins- a Brooks Robinson AS and a Harmon Killebrew. I thought they were really cool and still do. So ever since then I've wanted to complete the set, a tall order considering there's 3 different Mantles and 2 each of Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Koufax, Rose, etc. Plus don't forget, vintage anything costs a bit, so on paper this looked really tough. I picked up a few coins of ebay about a year ago, including a Clemente, but then the set took an unintentional back seat when I started to focus more on my Mets and Piazza collections. Well with this last paycheck, I gave myself a little bit of money to go hit up the bay. I ended up getting 4 "boxes" of some late '90s goodness which I'll post about when they come. What I had left over, went solely to picking up some coins.

Incase you've never heard of or seen these coins before, they may not be what you're thinking. They're not coins, like quarters and whatnot, with a baseball theme. They are metal, but they look more like those old milk caps with a player picture on the front and a sentence or two on the back.

The set is comprised of 167 total coins, with variations on the Mickey Mantle AS (left and right handed), Wayne Causey (AL and NL) and Chuck Hinton (AL and NL) recognized as part of the total 167. #1-120 consists of the "regular" coins, with player photo and info while the last leg of the set, #121-164 are "All-Stars" which carry a different photo and info then that players regular coin. Both the regular and the all star coins are colored by the players respective league. NL coins are Silver for the Regular and Red for the All Stars, while the AL coins are Gold and Blue. Common wear includes loss of paint on the front rims, and scratches on the back.

Now to the goods. These are only the first wave of what I picked up on the bay with the rest (hopefully) coming soon!


I know full well that for me to try and find only "Mint" condition coins for my set is quite far-fetched and costly. Obviously if I have a choice between shiny and new or old and dented with only a dollars different, shiny and new will win. But I have to be a realist. However, looking at the pictures, can be misleading. Knowing that all AL coins are gold painted and all NLs are silver, these look pretty good. That isn't really the case though. Just about all the paint is worn off the rims from both the Maz and Mr.Willey and the Tresh coin has alot of chipping. Just a heads up if you ever look to pick some up offline, that the pics can be deceiving.


Some more from the "Regular" series. Including Vida Pinson. These 7 coins I picked up for well under a dollar each, except for the Maz which broke the bank at 95 cents.

Now we're gonna start to get to the real goods from this pickup!

A Frank Robinson All-Star. I was able to pick this up for a little over $6 including shipping (which accounted for 1/2 the price). Very little wear on the rim and just a nice looking coin. The red really screams "Hey! Look at me motherfucker!!!! while the look on Robinsons face says "If you look at me, I'll fucking kill you..." Decisions, decisions.


Lastly we have the All Star version of Sandy Koufax! I put a real low bid on this coin, hoping it wouldn't go anywhere. I was really looking for quantity to bolster what I have, as opposed to adding big pieces, so I wasn't going to be too aggressive with this. I figured what the hell though and placed my bid. 1 day later, it ended with no other bids at $5 including shipping. Fuck yeah! The condition is great, so there wasn't anything like that to scare people away from it. As an interesting side note, when I looked at were it was shipping from- Red Hook, NY same town I live in. What are the odds.

So that's that for that. As I said, there's more coming including some "big pieces" I got for almost nothing. Check these out, I'm finding that vintage insert sets (especially from the '60s) are a great way to pick up some cards of legend players for a fraction of the cost of a regular Topps base card.

(...Joe)

Mail Time!

Hi, sup... 'scion on?

I've felt like balls for the past couple of days so my posting has been lacking. My fail proof remedy of beer and ice cream is beginning to take effect so hopefully I'll be good again in a day or two. I've been doing my thing on ebay so I'll be getting some really cool stuff soon. I'm still waiting for a couple auctions to end tonight, but it should bring me some awesome "boxes" and I just put a small dent in one of my sets. I can't wait to show that off when they come!

In the meantime however, I'll be more than happy to show off what I got today. It came thanks to Cam over at the-card-blog. He sent me an email with a list of some cards off my trade bait page that caught his eye. I'll showcase the 3 he sent my way we talked about.


2003 Donruss Diamond Kings "Stat Line" #/251
This is what the trade talk started over. It took me awhile to warm up to the Diamond Kings line. When I first saw them, wasn't a fan. Now though, I've been checking out prices for boxes of '05 DK. Anyway, Cam does a great job abiding by the "The Sandlot Code" with the inclusion of some shine. It's #d to 251 for his career 2B total through 'o2. Also, if you look closely I pay homage to Shellie at the middle child with the Self Portrait shot via card shine.


2006 Topps Turkey Red SP
Next up is an SP from one of my favorite sets, the Turki

...

sorry

A bird just flew into my window. I looked up and saw him fly away and needed to laugh for a few minutes.

Anyway, yeah the Turkey Red line (ironic). Love that shit. This is the SP version where Mike's dawning his Hall of Fame Mets uniform. This is actually gonna go into the Team Set binder over the PC binder right now. I only have 2 more to go to finish off the '06 team set so I figure I'm closer to finishing that off than I am to getting all of Piazza's cards from '06.


2006 Topps Turkey Red "White"
3rd we've got a White Parallel from the same set of Jose Reyes. Great pic and I think what I like so much about the Turkey Reds are that they're dark, low contrast photos. I like black, bright colors just hurt my eyes. That's why I loved the 2007 Topps set when alot of other people slammed it.

Since I've started this, you guys have at least doubled my Piazza and Mets collections in only a few months time. Thanks!!!



(...Joe)

Trade Bait

I picked this up in hopes of being able to trade it to you guys. I'm looking for the typical stuff so check it out and leave a comment or email me if you wanna strike a deal!


2005 Reflection Dave Kingman/Frank Howard Auto #/35

(...Joe)

Midnight Special

100th Post!!!

(...Joe)

Well, That Was Interesting...

So I finally made it to the lone card shop within a 1,000 mile radius of me (slight exaggeration) on Tuesday. I mentioned a few posts ago, that he is only open on Tuesday and Friday evenings from 4:30pm-?, so if for some reason he wasn't there, I may not have another chance to get there for months (less of an exaggeration). Well, luckily he was open, so I went down the stairs, opened the door and found a shell of a store. You could tell this was a huge outfit at some point, but what I was looking at was empty glass cases, old concrete floors with old dried up glue from where carpet used to be. Numerous empty book shelves, falling apart and seemingly thrown into the back room until it was full to the point that it took up space in the store front. There were a few half filled vending machines and a cooler with store brand sodas and a bucket with an assortment of air-heads (.25 cents each, fucking sweet!). There was a folding table in the back corner where some guys, about my age, were doing something, playing that card game Magic I think? I carry a small knife with me at all times. It's bigger than a pocket knife but smaller than a hunting knife and it clips to the inside of your pocket. Well at this point, my hand was firmly, yet discreetly, around my knife because I really don't know what the fuck I just walked into.

I finally saw something that resembled something, so I took a look. It was a huge glass case, about 20-30ft I'd say, but only one section contained any cards and they had to be spread out to "fill" up the section. They were singles, a few Greg Maddux and Pujlos, but mostly commons and from sets I had never even heard of before. Above that, was a spinny thing with some GU cards in it and there was some interesting stuff, but nothing I was looking for. Finally there were shelves behind the counter that were just, empty. There were a few boxes of whatever for that Magic game and then I saw the lone box of baseball cards. A brand new box, of 2010 Topps Opening Day.

"Fuck it, I'm out..."

As I started to leave, I saw an older guy walk into the back "office" lookin' room. I thought this might be the owner, so I figured I'd ask if there was anything else around. I hate being "that guy", but I'll be damned if I came all the way out there and didn't at least try everything. I asked him if he had any packs, or boxes of baseball cards and he immediately started rambling on about how there's no business and the sports card industry is shit and blah fucking blah. So now I'm starting to get annoyed and I say to him "So, is that a no then? Cuz that would have worked just fine." He then tells me that he's not interested in buying and blah blah blah.

"Oh, no. I'm not looking to sell anything. I'm looking to buy, I'm a collector and I'm looking for a shop around here."

His entire demeanor changes and he sat back down in a chair behind the counter. He then starts telling me how he's been collecting for years upon years and that he still loves it and that he'll be collecting until the day he dies. He reiterates that there's really no business anymore, but he has cards from what he's collected and from people dropping boxes of cards off and leaving them at the shop.

He walks into that office lookin' room and tells me to come in. I take a quick look and there's no door to the room and this guy is easily in his 80's so if he tries to get a little fresh, there won't be much of a struggle. I walk in and the entire room is filled wall to wall with cards. He hands me a business card and asks me to write down what I collect. I write down (obviously) Mets and Piazza along with my name and number and tell him that I have people I trade with, so I may be interested in alot more than just that. He smiles and says "Ahh, I have alot of Mike."

He walks over to a large file cabinet and opens one of the drawers and the entire thing is filled with cards, laid horizontally in snap cases. I couldn't even begin to guess how many were there and he tells me "These are all Pedros. And this drawer here, all Perdo as well." He said that he has over 1,000 Pedro Martinez cards and that there are over 250,000 cards in that one cabinet alone. One bookshelf in the back of the rooms had a bunch of random factory sets and there was what looked like a shallow sandbox with dividers filled with cards. If someone told me there were less than 1 million cards in that room, I'd be shocked and that is absolutely NOT an exaggeration!

He starts telling me some more stories about past employees and some players he's met and the hobby in general. I take a seat and he pulls out a Beckett Almanac, only it's a different company (not Tuff Stuff either) and asked me if I've ever used one of these. I told him I have a 2008 Almanac that I use for reference and to learn about new sets and what not. I mentioned that it's well used, both covers are long gone and some pages are starting to fall out, but it's fine for what I do with it. He walks over to another bookshelf and pulls out a 2004 Beckett Almanac, still in the plastic and tells me I can have it. No charge, he's just looking to get rid of it. Obviously, I have no use for this at all, but these things cost $40, so I didn't wanna say thanks but no thanks. I took it, pretended I was excited and said thanks. He then continuned to tell me employee stories, hobby stories and war stories.

Before I knew it I looked at the clock and saw it was just after 7:00pm. I got there at about 4:30pm. I waited for a good stopping point and told him that I needed to get back home to take care of the dog. I asked him again to give me a call if he finds anything as I'm most interested in buying.

While that was without a doubt NOT what I was hopping to find, it actually turned out to be pretty interesting. I got to hear some cool stories and sit down face to face with another collector who was actually more insane than I am! I consider that a victory.

Also, if anyone is still with me thank you. High five!!!!


awesome.
(...Joe)

SAY UNCLE!!!!!!!!!

Sup!

This will be another multi card "Say Uncle" post, due in large part because none of these cards are really anything spectacular on their own (unless you collect those teams) but together make something kindda cool.

Starting in 1961, Topps created a sub-set of cards that highlighted each game of the years post season series. They continued this tradition for a while, but '75 saw the last year that Topps would have the amount of cards dedicated as they did.

Today we're looking at the 8 card world series subset from 1968 Topps pinning the Cards up against the Red Sox.*

*spoiler alert, Cardinals win.


Each card has a "headline" type deal on the top, like you'd see in a new paper. The black and white photos are awesome, I love B&W pics so these work well for me. Also, not sure if the picture design was meant to look almost like a TV, but it sortta does. 1 point.


In games 3 and 4, the Cards lead the series 3-1. There's no way Boston can come back and make this interesting...


Well fuck me, they do! It's all tied up now. With a come back like that, the Red Sox have the momentum going for them. I'll bet everyone here a cheeseburger that the Red Sox come back and win this series...


Well spank my ass with a pop-tart and call me Julie, the Cardinals win it! My favorite part in all of this, is that if you look up the last card (#158) in Beckett, they list under the card "Tim McCarver and Joe Schultz very visible in photo." Fucking where? There's like, one guy looking at the camera and the rest is all champagne and mayhem. Oh well, just another episode of Beckett being Beckett.

I'd like to see Topps bring this back. Just a nice small subset highlighting the world series, LIKE THIS DOES. No 50 card subset that they call a "World Series" set consisting of nothing but Alex Rodriguez. Just an easy 5-8 cards that depict each game and the eventual winner. I think that would be nice.

(...Joe)

Call Me Lame But...

I'm having alot of fun watching Piazza play in the "Lengends/Celebrites" game right now. Oh yeah, it's no punishment to watch Jennie Finch either.

(...Joe)

An Omen?

For the past week or so, there's been an owl hootin' away outside each night and sometimes into the morning. It's actually really cool. I like listening to critter noises and I rarely hear any owls.

Well the other day, I found a package from the Night Owl with 20+ Piazza cards, all of which I needed. Since then, the Owl has been silent. Has anyone else experienced any of Gregs' minions forewarning them of the days to come?


1994 Flair

Next up, I completed my first Piazza "Rainbow"!

1994 Collectors Choice #310
1994 Collectors Choice #310 "Silver Signature"
1994 Collectors Choice #310 "Gold Signature"

An easy '94 Collectors Choice rainbow. It's impossible to tell from the photo, but the two parallels are the Silver Signature and the Gold Signature. I picked up the Gold off ebay a couple days ago for about $2.50 including shipping. Why am I suddenly typing fragment sentences?

So that's that, my latest acquisitions over the past few days. I'm hoping to get a few more, I found a card shop in the town over from me, but unfortunately the owner (from what I was told) is a "very elderly man in ailing health." The shop is only open 2 days a week for a few hours each day, one of which is Tuesday. This works since I took off from work this Tuesday for the All-Star game, so hopefully I can get over there and see what he has to offer. I also just happened to stumble into a store that was quite interesting. It looked like a corner convenience store from outside, so I went in to grab something to drink and it was covered from wall to wall with train stuff, like the model trains? The guy asked me if I needed help with anything and I told him I was looking for card shops in the area and if he happened to know of any. He told me that up until '95 he had more baseball cards in the store then he has train supplies now. He said that he believes he still has alot of cards left in the bowels of the store somewhere, so I left him my number and told him I'd be interested in looking through and potentially buying some if he finds them. We'll see what happens and hopefully I'll pick some trade bait for you guys!

(...Joe)

Philosophical Fridays

"A baseball park is the one place where a man's wife doesn't mind his getting excited over somebody else's curves."

~Brendan Francis

Breaking News: The NY Mets Win the World Series!!!!

I have no idea where I got this stuff from. I don't know how long I've had it, nor did I even know I had it until I moved into the new house and packed everything up.

Inside an unmarked white box I found some Junior Mets Club stuff for a handful of years, along with a bunch of random programs and some newspapers from 1986 with the champs plastered everywhere there was picture space available!


This is a section from the "Daily News", the paper that ran the iconic "Yes"picture of Jessie Orosco. Unfortunately I don't have the original of that, but I did find an 8x10 glossy, this is still pretty cool though.



These two came inside the Daily News as well as kindda like, inserts, I guess. The top one is of the final roster with simile signatures under everyone's floating Futurama style head. This would be perfect for some autos...
The second page is of Gil Hodges and Casey Stangel floating above Shea Stadium.


I'm thinking this is a local paper from where my grandparents used to live. This is definitely the best paper from the bunch. It recaps all the games from the series, and even includes a deal for the new 1987 Hyundai Excel at 1986 prices! Hot damn, I'm sold!


Lastly, we have the "Official 1986 World Series Program." Basically, it does a quick summary of every World Series played but overall it's drowned with advertisements. Still, it's pretty cool to have an '86 program and be able to check it out.

I just wanted to show off some of the '86 stuff, there's more programs and papers form other years, but nothing of gross interest. I don't have much "oddball" stuff for my collections, nor am I really interested in most, but these are nice to have. I finished the latest book I was reading, so tonight might be a good time to look through some of these and get into the details. It's either that or "The Origin of Species" which isn't exactly bed side reading. Good book though...

(...Joe)

I Swear to God I Thought You Were Your Sister

Been there done that.

Good times though. Gooood times...

Anyways, while I was listening to the Mets game on the radio I started looking through the binder that holds all the cards that my Uncle gave me. The earliest being a '61 and the oldest being a bunch of '71s every time I look through them, I find a card of a player I never knew I had. This time was no different. In one of the first pages I found this...


1971 Topps Billy Conigliaro
Nothing overly exciting, but I like having cards of players that own little slices of history. The oddball stuff, ya know? As I'm reading the cards' back, I start thinking to myself "I could have sworn this guys name was Tony..." I didn't think too much further into it, until a couple page later, I found this...


1971 Topps Tony Conigliaro
OK, now Joe's confused. The fact that a baseball playing Tony Conigliaro does exist confirms my thought that this is the guy I was thinking of, but this other Conigliaro is on the Red Sox, which is the team that the original Conigliaro I was thinking of played on.

The back of Conigliaro #2's card mentioned "the beaning" that I was thinking of. So who's who and where the hell is the third Olson twin? I've been looking for years now and nothing...

Tony Conigliaro is (unfortunately) most famous for being hit in the face with a pitch. This was back in 1967, before batting helmets were required at the plate. The Dodgers had made batting helmets mandatory back in the '40s with the Pirates following suite in the '50s. However, it was not mandated by the league until 1971 that all teams and players must wear helmets at the dish (with a grandfather clause) which was due in large part to Tonys HBP.

He burst onto the scene with the Red Sox in '64 with 21 doubles, 24 Home Runs, 52 RBI and a .290 on route to a 2nd place finish in the ROY award. Next year saw even greater success with him becoming the youngest player to ever lead the league in home runs, with 32. In 1967, he made the All-Star team and then later in August, suffered the HBP which broke his cheekbone, separated his jaw and detached his retina among other injuries. Missing the entire '68 season he did return in '69 winning the Comeback Player of the Year Award, which of course I like, with his prototypical 21 doubles, 20 home runs and 82 RBI. In '71, Tony was traded to the Angles, (which is the team the Red Sox were playing against when he was hit) after a monster year in 1970 where he hit 36 home runs and drove in 116 RBI. After only 74 games with the Angels, it wouldn't be until 1975 that he Would have another plate appearance in the Majors. After only 21 games as (primarily) the Red Sox DH he was forced to retire due to his damaged eyesight.

Billy Conigliaro on the other hand, was Tonys brother and the two were teammates for 2 seasons with Boston. Providing some pop of his own, Billy had 40 career home runs in only 347 games. On July 4th, 1970 both brother hit home runs in the same game against the Indians. After the '71 season Billy was traded to the Brewers after being openly upset about the Red Sox trading Tony to the Angels after his brothers huge season the previous year. During the '72 season, Billy announced his retirement, but found his way back to baseball serving as a bench player for the Champion A's in 1973 in which he would play his last year.

So that's what I sorted out of the cluster fuck my mind created at 7pm this evening. Finally, we can go to bed.


*by "we" I mean the voices and I. Good night.
(...Joe)

The Other Guy on the Card

1965 Topps Cleon Jones/Tom Parsons

Cleon Jones is best known for his 2 super crazy catches in the '69, but we're not here to talk about him. We're here to talk about Tom Parsons. Usually, it's not too bad finding info about the "other guys" so let's get started.

This is his Wikipedia page, in its entirety...

"Thomas Anthony Parsons (born September 13, 1939 in Lakeville, Connecticut) is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1963) and New York Mets (1964–65)."


Shit. This might be harder than I thought.

He was signed by the Pirates in '57 as an amateur free agent and made his Major League debut in '63. Appearing in only 1 game with the Bucs he gave up 6 runs (4 earned) 2 walks, 2 K's and posted a 8.31 ERA. An auspicious start, but who cares.

He spent the next 2 years with the Mets, but this is where I get confused. In June of 1964, Parsons was traded from the Pirates to the Astros. But then, in September of 1964, he was sold to the Mets from... the Pirates. Huh? It was a simple 1 for 1 trade, but both players returned to their original teams. The only thing I could think of was that someone didn't pass the physical and the trade was voided.

Well, however that may have gone down he found his way to the Mets and in '64 found his way to his first big league win. Hurling in 4 games, starting 2, he went 1-2 with 10 K's and cut his previous ERA in half with a 4.19 mark.

'65 saw Parsons more opportunities, unfortunately not improved success. Posting 1-10 win/loss mark, he really had no chance. I mentioned on one of my very early posts that not a single Mets pitcher had a winning record in 1964. Well, '65 wasn't too much better. Three pitchers for the Mets had a winning record (we're talking like, 2-1 here) so there was improvement, but not much. Anyway, he appeared in 35 games, starting 11, complete with a shutout and a save. He reached his career high in K's (58) and ended the year with a 4.67 ERA.

After the '65 season, Parson was traded to the Astros, for real this time. He was dealt as the "player to be named later" after the Mets RECEIVED Jerry Grote. (get it? Received? He was a catcher?) 1965 also proved to be the last season for Parsons in the Major Leagues.

Final Verdict:
Obviously, Parsons career didn't pan out the way most people would envision theirs to. There's this one guy though, Willie McCovey, he struck him out a couple times. And another Willie Stargell, 0-3 against Parsons. There was this one time (this afternoon) when I was playing with Shea (the dog) throwing smoke (a tennis ball against a wall outside). It was a high pressure situation (around 100 degrees) and I reached back and painted the corner (missed by about 7 ft). So based on that, I'll give it to Parsons.

The "Other Guy"- 5
Joe- 0

(...Joe)

Mail Time!!!

Shortly after the trade that brought me my lowest #d Piazza card to date, reader and former Mets prospect Teddy sent me another trade proposal. In the first trade, I saw a 2010 Bowman Dillon Gee that I was interested in (turns out is was a Purple Refrac, didn't know then, now I do!). Teddy said that he was hoping to hold on to it since he played with Gee for a bit in the Minors.

Well it turns out he pulled another Gee Purple, so the trade was on! He grabbed a couple cards off my trade bait page in exchange for said Gee and a 2004 Topps Pristine Lastings Milledge. I shall choose to showcase the Gee...


2010 Bowman Dillon Gee "Purple Refractor"

Gee was the 663rd player picked in the 2007 Amateur draft. 663rd. Honestly, if I were in charge of drafting players, I'd lose interest after like, number 32. Nothing was really expected of him coming out of the draft, as he really only has 2 "above average" pitches, but he has since moved briskly through the ranks. Currently he's in AAA Buffalo for the Mets and has developed 4 dominate pitches. He's also recently earned some respect in the clubhouse which you can read about here. I've always agreed with the idea "You hit our David Wright, we'll hit your Joe Mauer" or hitting a dirty slide culprit. Let them know you're not fucking around. Also, if your face looks like Alex Rodriguez. That deserves a sinker to the nuts as well.

Hopefully Gee can make it to the Mets soon, I'm not saying necessarily this year, but whenever he's ready hopefully he'll make an impact and complete another win for the Underdog!

(...Joe)

Philosophical Fridays

"Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?"

~Jim Bouton, 1988

Things More Common Than a Rockies Collector...

Unicorns
Leprechauns
Elves
The Cubs in the World Series*

*burn

Many of us have recently stumbled Upon the fabled Rockies collector, Shellie of "The Middle Child". If you haven't traded with her yet, do. She's got a ton of cards and did I mention she's a Rockies collector?

A little while ago, we hammered out a deal that brought a slathering of Mets to myself in exchange for a plethora of Rockies her way. This afternoon, I also recieved a (semi)surprise package from her again with a few more Mets and about 20 Piazzas, all but 1 I needed!

Let's take a gander at a select few...

No, 'gander, like to look. To see or inspect or... fuck it, where are the cards?


1991 Fleer Pro-Visions

These are really cool cards. My first with Mets, but I had a few of other teams (since traded away) and considering they're from the early 90's, they are very impressive. Kindda like a Metal Universe before Metal Universe was Metal Universe. Typical of the "Junk Wax" era, the first 8 cards of the set are all UER. There are also an additional 4 cards, not part of the normal insert set, that was issued only in factory sets only with White Boarders.


1998 Donruss Preferred

Next up is a 98 Donruss Preferred John Oledrud. This is an extremly cool set. The base cards (above) are all this super awesome shiny. But wait, there's more! As an insert set, cards are actually printed on stock made of Silver, Gold or Platinum. A Jose Guillen Silver recently sold on the bay for $96! Damn.


1995 Upper Deck

$20 says you didn't remember Jason Isringhausen was a Met.


1995 Pinnacle "Museum Collection"

Love Pinnacle. Love their inserts. Love their parallels. If I had the power to bring back one extinct card company, it would be Pinnacle. Aw yeah.


1997 Topps Gallery

And lastly we've got 2 Gallery cards. I know next to nothing about Topps Gallery sets, but the '97s here are really nice. We'll break it down real quick...

Shiny- 2 points
Embossed design- 1 point
Rey Ordonez- 3 points
Todd Hundley- 1 point

Why does Hundley get a point you ask. For whatever reason, the first home run I can remember seeing and getting excited about, was hit by Todd Hundley. Don't know why, never will.

I got way way more, but for the sake of sanity, I'm not posting 300+ cards, so we'll cut it here. If you haven't checked Shellie's blog, do so. If you haven't traded with her, do so.

Peace out cub scouts.

(...Joe)