A new collection is afoot

I share a birthday (July 17th) with a Lou Boudreau, because of this minor connection, I have been meaning to start a collection of his for what seems like forever now -- best intentions and so forth...

A few months ago though, this wannabe collection finally got a jump start courtesy of the great Mark Hoyle.

It's not very often that I'm able to join in on a Twitter baseball discussion, mostly because I don't really follow the current happenings anymore, and I don't really care who the hot rookie of the moment is, or who it'll be next week. But some months back when Mark was showing off a recently acquired lot of signed index cards, I decided to butt in - Mark's got himself a clique on Twitter, so trying to enter one of those conversations isn't always easy either) - and compliment him on the purchase, the Boudreau in particular.

After a brief back and forth, Mark mentioned that he might already have another Lou Boudreau autograph, and if he did, I could have the index card from the lot. Turns out that he did indeed have another auto, so within a week, I had a signed Lou Boudreau index card show up in my mailbox (insert smiling emoji here).

I'm thinking that this auto would look good framed with a few of Lou's cards (from his playing days) surrounding it. I have some experience with matting and framing, so it shouldn't be too difficult to put together, I just need to stop procrastinating and start trying to get some of his cards. I see his '55 Bowman on a fairly regular basis, but the prices never seem to match the condition, so I have yet to pull the trigger on one. I guess there's no real hurry, but I don't like getting something like this, and then just putting in a drawer to never be seen again, so even if there is no to need to rush, it feels like I should try to push it along as quick as possible (hopefully that makes sense to at least one person out there).


Image pilfered from Google

Even though everyone reading this has access to the internet, I should probably still add a few Lou Boudreau facts to the post, so here goes: Lou was best known for his thirteen season with the Cleveland Indians, eight of which were spent as a player/manager, a position he took on in 1942 at the age of 25 (can anyone imagine a 25 year-old player managing a team these days?). As a player/manager, he led the Indians to a championship in 1948 (won the AL MVP that year as well). Lou was an 8-time all star, who also led the AL in doubles on three separate occasions, and his .327 won him the AL batting title in 1944. He is also credited with inventing the infield shift (to try and stymy Ted Williams). Later he would play a couple of seasons with the Red Sox (acting as a player/manger during the 1952 season), before going on to manage the Athletics and the Cubs. And finally, Lou was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1970 (what took them so long?).

It may have taken me a while to publicly say so, but I do very much appreciate the autograph, Mark. Thank you!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Icee Love

While sorting through some cards recently, I came across a few that I thought might be of interest to the patron saint of bloggers, aka Mark Hoyle. Since three of the four cards featured Ted Williams, I figured it would a good idea to check and see if Mark already had them or not, because as I'm sure everyone already knows by now, Mark has a pretty healthy Ted Williams collection.

After firing off a quick missive via the direct messaging on Twitter (@Markhoyle4), I found out that Mark did want them, and even though I wasn't looking for anything in return, Mark asked if I would be interested in a spare 1972-73 Icee Bear Bob Love that he had. Since I only have a couple of Icee Bear's, and with Bob not being among those couple, I was definitely interested.

This is a set that I fully intend to collect all of at some point, probably after I complete a few more of the 70's Topps basketball sets. I hadn't paid much attention to the photo selection of the three or four that I already have, but for some reason, this card made me wonder about that very thing.

After doing a small (like ten minutes worth) amount of research, I have found that four out of the twenty photos used for the set are the same ones used in the 1971-72 Topps set. At least six, although different, look like they may have been taken at the same time as the images for the 1972-73 Topps set were shot (Bob being one of those). And the last ten, well... those are going to require a bit more research, preferably being done by someone else :)

Mark, thank you for the card, I very much appreciate you helping me knock a card off of a non-existent checklist for what will be a future set build.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.