Bo, Joe, and more Bo

I've been rethinking my player collections in recent months, namely whether or not I really need so many different ones? And also, if a few choice cards for certain players might work better than just trying to accumulate as many of said players as possible?

I've come to the conclusion the answer to the first question is, no, I don't think I need to be collecting so many different guys at this point. I'm slowly finding that I've lost complete interest in collecting some of the people that I have been, and have started removing their cards from binders. It's been nice in that, not only is freeing up binder space, but also is helping reduce my overall collection; which I had started to think was getting near unmanageable (for me).

As for the latter question, I believe that for certain people, going forward, a few choice cards will be sufficient enough to represent my fandom and/or appreciation of what they've accomplished. The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. To some degree, I already started doing this last year, namely for Ichiro and Mike Alstott; though, that was primarily because I realized that I really don't like the look of most of their cards. I don't know what it is about those two, but they both seem to have an awful lot of cards from sets whose designs I find to be atrocious. After whittling out all of the ugly cards, I was left with like three for Mike, and maybe 15 or so for Ichiro. A more recent example would be, Bill Walton. I can't remember why I was doing so exactly, but less than a week before his passing I found myself going through my collection of his. My favorite cards of his are from his playing days, and those are all in either, completed sets, or set-builds. Not counting those, my collection of his, such as it was, consisted of just a couple of autographs, and some, to be frank, rather ugly modern Panini cards. It took just a few seconds for me to decided that I just wanted to keep the autographs, and ditch all of the other shiny shit. It's funny too, because I got to thinking how neat it would be to have a whole page of autographs from him, and then what happens, he goes and leaves us just a few days later. I don't know if that page idea will still be doable, if it is, I'll probably have to wait awhile before the prices come back down.

With a lot of my player collections now in flux, I decided to take down that page from the blog until I get everything sorted out (it wasn't getting much traction anyway). As it stands, I can think of about a dozen players that will be safe from the coming purge, two of whom just so happen to be featured in today's post.

I was fortunate enough to get a few cards from, Jim, he from the now daily, cards as i see them, earlier this year. The envelope consisted of four cards, two of which were the post playing days Bo's that have been seen thus far. As I told Jim before he sent these, I rarely by modern Bo's (as there's still more than enough from his playing days that I don't have), but I'll gladly accept them if they're being sent to me. Both of these were new to me.

The Bo's were nice enough, but they can't compete with this pair of Joe Rudi's. It looks so strange to see him as a Red Sock. It was probably even weirder for fans at the time. I've mentioned before how neat I think it was that all three of the card companies gave him a final card in 1983, but Topps did him pretty good the year before as well, giving him a card in the base set as a Sock, and another in the Traded set as an Athletic. I already had the base card, so it was to get the Traded one to go with it.

Many thanks to Jim for the cards!

There was a seller on eBay earlier this year that did a "set break" of MSA Holiday Inn discs. The bidding on all of them started at 99¢ with free shipping, and from what I saw, most of them ended at that same price; including Joe.

I probably should've gotten a few other players, but my heart wasn't really in it at the time.

My last COMC shipment had a few Rudi's in there as well. Both of these were got during the Black Friday sale. My interest in autographs has been waning pretty hard, but for five bucks I couldn't pass on this particular one. I think this was either my fourth or fifth autograph of Joe. The buyback was a cheap last minute purchase. It wasn't needed, but obviously I got it anyway. This was my second buyback of his.

This card represents the first Fleer Sticker that I've ever owned. I really like this look of this set and could see myself collecting it someday. I think it's safe to say that this is one set that will never be affected by the boom, so I will not be looking to add anymore stickers to my collection until I'm ready to start working on it. 

I noticed a few months ago that a seller on Sportlots had three copies of Bo's Cyberstats for 20¢ each. As you can tell, I bought all three. The Joe Rudi Sticker came from this seller as well. Knowing how poorly these scan, I tried to get the effect to pop more via a photograph; which didn't really turn out all that well either. I had zero copies of this card prior to the purchase, and now that I have three, I'd kind of like go for a full page's worth.

Artist and custom card maker extraordinaire, Gavin, who of course, also helms Baseball Card Breakdown, sent out some of his creations to a few folks earlier this year, ostensibly in thanks for supporting his MusiCards blog. I was fortunate enough to have been included. I don't really like the idea of getting things just for commenting on a blog, as I'm of the opinion that folks should be doing that whenever they can anyway (if you can spend your whole day commenting on every single thing that comes across your Twitter feed, I see no reason why you can't do the same for a few blogs here and there), so instead, I prefer to think that these two cards were sent to me for no other reason other than that Gavin thought I would enjoy them. And he was right, I did.

It took me longer than it should've to realize that the Bowman Bo had been arted up. The background looked so natural that I didn't even notice it right away. I initially thought that I had been sent just a regular Bowman to keep the other custom company. Obviously that wasn't the case. It's artiness is more subdued than a lot of Gavin's other cards, but I think it works really well on this card.

The Score (blue superfractor?) appeared in one of Gavin's posts quite awhile ago, and was much coveted by me. At the time, I thought about inquiring as to it's price, but figured he'd be able to get more for it on the eBay than he would from me, so I held off on sending the inquiry. Fast forward a bunch of months and look what showed up in the mail, my much coveted Bo! I really appreciate Gavin sending this one, not only because of how cool it looks, but also because I know that he could've easily sold this one for a decent sum.

Being a pretend artist myself, I can really appreciate how much effort that Gavin puts into his customs, and am always grateful for the opportunity to add a few more to my collection.

Christmas cards from The Collector

[Alternate title: Chris-mas cards from The Collector]

After having not done so for the last few years, it feels a bit weird to be posting on Christmas again. I don't normally have much cause to do so anymore, so I don't. This year however, I do, so I am.

A number of bloggers go out of their way to send cards out for Christmas each year, and while I have been a recipient of some of those mailings in the past, I wasn't expecting to be included in any this year. With that in mind, I was a bit surprised a few weeks ago when an envelope showed up from the former collector of pedestrians, Chris, who most people now know as just The Collector. Inside of said envelope was an actual Christmas card, which is always appreciated, and four cards for four different player collections.

Joe Rudi's don't ever show up in the mail (unless I buy them), so this might be the most appreciated card of the four that were sent. Even though it hasn't been by design, I think I have more post-playing days of Joe than not, and here's another one! I do really like though that, despite his last game taking place the year before, all three of the card companies still gave Joe a card in their '83 sets. I never collected '83 Donruss as a kid, and have only ever owned 3-4 cards from it, at best. Because of that, the design always feels a bit foreign to me. I kind of like it, and don't like it, at the same time; if that's possible.

I can't say it with absolute certainty, but this feels like it might be the only new Stan Humphries that I got this year. With most of my attention being focused on sets for at least the last half of the year, a lot of my player collections have started collecting dust; Stan being one of the dustier. I've gotta figure out a way to balance the two a little better. As for the card, I don't remember Collector's Edge ever making any chunky cards, but this ones definitely got some chunk to it.

If I had bought this one myself, you would've never seen this scan. But, since someone sent it to me, you are. Despite the atrocious scan, I do like these old Skybox Thunder and Lightning cards. After seeing how the front turned out, I didn't even bother with the back; but the Lightning is Stevie Atwater. I'm a bit biased, but to me, this card features the sets best pairing. Since I collect both of these guys I had two copies on my want list. The Dennis Smith collection is much further along, so that's where this one will be headed.

I just mentioned a few posts back that I didn't get nearly as many new (to me) Bo's this year as I would've liked, and then as fate would have it, a new one shows up. This one is definitely new too. I'm sure I've seen a few cards from this particular set on the blogs, but my brain is telling me that I've never seen it before. It looks like there's some design element missing on the bottom part of the card. Panini doesn't usually leave so much empty white on their cards. It's another modern card with a bonkers amount of gloss as well. I'd really like to know how they do that. Nice photo though. The lack of logos aren't as noticeable here as I've seen on a lot of Panini's other products in recent years. I appreciate that.

Many thanks to Chris for thinking of me this holiday season. To everyone else that didn't, screw off Merry Christmas!😄

Hey Joe

The Oakland A's were in Cleveland for a three-game set from April 23-25, 1976. The first game saw Dennis Eckersley get the win over Vida Blue as the Indians managed a 3-0 victory. 

For the second game, on Saturday the 24th, Cleveland went with the veteran, Fritz Peterson, while Oakland trotted out their young right-hander, Mike Norris. The Indian batters overwhelmed the future one-year phenom from the get-go, scoring two runs in the 1st, and two more in the second, which were enough to end the youngster's day after just 1.1 innings pitched. Oakland responded in kind by scoring five runs in the 3rd inning, which included a 3-run HR by Don Baylor. Four of those came off of old Fritz, which were enough to chase him out of the game. The A's padded their lead by adding another run in the 4th to make it 6-4, but Cleveland wasn't ready to call it a day yet, as they would score a run in the 7th, and two more in the 8th to take a 7-6 lead into the 9th. Oakland wasn't done though. With two outs in the top of the 9th, Tom Buskey walked Claudell Washington, and then Joe Rudi made him pay for that mistake by conjuring up some of his old postseason magic and hitting a two-run homer that wound up ending this slugfest in the A's favor, 8-7. The win ended a four-game skid for Oakland as well. Five pitchers were used by each team, with Rollie Fingers gave up two runs but was still able to pick up his second win of the early season (he'd go on to win 11 more). Tom Buskey was given the loss for Cleveland.

The A's cruised to a 9-1 victory on Sunday to close out the series. Mike Torrez got the win over Pat Dobson. Joe Rudi hit another 2-run homer as well, this time in the first inning.

Despite the game's overall insignificance, I bought this ticket stub earlier this year thinking that it would be a fun addition to my Joe Rudi collection. He did after all have a bit of a moment. Once shipping and taxes were factored in, I paid roughly the same price that the ticket originally cost. Initially, it felt like a bad (but cheap) purchase, but after reading the play-by-play (twice now), looking at in with Joe's cards a few times since, and now writing about it; I find myself being rather pleased with this get, and could easily see trying to add a few more tickets to his collection.

In addition to the ticket, I added two more cards to the collection earlier this year as well...

I paid seven bucks for this 2001 Archives autograph back in March(?). It seemed like a good price, and I was looking forward to getting it. Once in hand though, I was a little less enthused. Topps must've used an industrial buffer for the surface on these. It is so shiny. Too shiny for my liking. When I look at it, all I see is gloss; which isn't very 1969-ish. I think I would've been much more content with just getting the original version of the card signed.

Now, here's a fun one! I probably overpaid for this 1977 Hostess error, but it's pretty unique, so this was one instance where I didn't mind doing so. The lettering is all misplaced, but the double-negative effect is the real star of the piece. It almost looks like Joe's soul is beginning to ascend (knock on wood that Joe still has many more years left on this plain), which seems even more appropriate given the team. I would've loved to have seen/gotten this panel before it was cut, but this card was the only one available. And for those curious, the back is completely normal. I can't say enough good things about this purchase. Despite the food (Twinkie?) stains, and one small wrinkle (in an unimportant place), I was more than happy to pay a little over $5 for this particular copy. I can't imagine that there are too many more out there like this.

My Joe Rudi collection, though not being overly impressive in terms of numbers, has become one of my favorite player collections in recent years. I don't add items to it nearly as often as I would like, but that just makes it all the more better when I do.

These two were not created equal

I think it was last year, or was it the year before, I don't know, I can't remember and I don't want to go look it up -- but at some point in the last two years, there was about a month-long stretch where this Topps Chrome set was all the rage on the blogs. Being a modern set, and a shiny one at that, I tried to follow along with everyone's excitement, but after a couple of posts, I kind of had my fill of it. Before checking out completely, I did however see somewhere along the way that Gene Tenace had an autograph in it. And even though I wasn't too sure how I felt about the looks of it, I figured I'd try to get one if I could, i.e. only if one showed up for dirt cheap would I buy it. Well, maybe six months or so ago, one did, so I did!

For around five bucks shipped I got myself this shiny auto, and I have to admit, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, at least not initially. Fast forward six months, and now I kind of hate it. I'll keep it, but I don't like it. I was never all that keen on chromed cards, and these days, I really dislike them. Aside from a few sets, shiny cards have completely fallen out of favor with me. And I don't know why, they just have. Not surprisingly, there's like 47 parallels of this card, none of which I will be chasing... though... if I ever come across any for just a couple of bucks or less, I'll probably get them... begrudgingly! Gene has become one of my favorite people to collect, so even if I don't like them, it would be pretty hard to pass up a cheap autograph of his; even if it is ugly.

About a month after the Gene's arrival, I won another autograph for around the same price...

Now that's a much better looking card. Up until about a month ago, I only had maybe 4-5 cards of Joe Rudi, half of which were autographs, but thanks to a few recent small purchases on the Sportlots, I'm probably up to around 10 or so. Some of my guys have jumped in price, again, just since the New Year started (why?), which kind of sucks, but it just gives me an excuse to shift over to the likes of Gene and Joe, who's prices I don't see ever escalating all that much know; no matter how Boomy the Boom crowd gets.

In unrelated "news", I had an unexpected, and rather pricey (at least for someone of my means) household expense pop up a couple of weeks ago. As a result, I had to scramble to get some things sold in order to cover said hefty bill. I was able to do so, but only after many days of using all of my free time to scan/photograph, edit scans/photographs, and list items on eBay. It is nice to have that option to fall back on, but geez is it a lot of work. And so much computering!!! I was having to spend so much time doing all of that, that by the time I was done each day, I just couldn't do anymore things on the computer; which isn't the end of the world for me, but I did get terribly behind with the blogs. It was only about two weeks, so I don't imagine that anyone would've noticed my sporadic appearances, but in case you did, now you know why. I've been trying to go back and comment where I can, but it sure isn't easy trying to catch-up on two weeks worth of posts (everyone seems to have chosen those two weeks to go on a posting spree). 

In slightly cheerier news, I got myself a Level 4 clearance on the TCDB, and have been using to add some links to cards that previously had none. I've also created a few new pages for actors and actresses that hadn't been previously recognized by the site. As I recently told Dennis (who unintentionally inspired me to do these things), I'm sure that no one using the site will even care about these additions, but I had fun doing it nonetheless.

Also, I closed my Twitter account a few weeks ago. And no, it's not because of who now owns the site, or any other social/political reasons, there just isn't any reason for me to have an account anymore. I only opened the account originally to try and help my blog (now blogs), and I think it did initially, but in recent years people stopped clicking on the links, and so I stopped promoting posts. For about the last year all I've been using the site for is the DM feature, but all of those people have my email address, so there's really no need for me to stay on there just for that. Plus too, I had thought that joining the site would be a good way to keep up with all of the former bloggers that moved over to there, but it's really hurting my soul to see how uninteresting so many of them have become since scuttling their blogs. It's like I said in a comment to someone recently on here, Twitter seems to be the place where old bloggers go to die. I don't know what it is, but folks sure change, a lot (and not for the better), once they start spending all of their time on that site. It's quite sad to see, and I'd just prefer not to see it anymore.

As a possible alternative, I finally joined the Net54 site, but have yet to do anything there. And looking at some of the open discussions currently going, I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to add too much to the site. A lot of those folks seem to be more moneyed collectors, and so far I'm finding it a little difficult to relate to their sort. But, we'll see. Right now, I'd just like to get a few posts done (for all three blogs), and try to keep catching up on all of the posts that I've been missing.