An LCS Survivor: Bill's Sports Collectibles (Part 1)

Playoff baseball affords such a great opportunity to get a bunch of posts hammered out. In past years I've gotten some big organization projects done, but this year is a writing year. On tap for today, this two-game LCS day (that's League Championship Series, not Local Card Shop as in the title), I'm diving into my dollar box finds from what might be the oldest card shop in the Denver area, Bill's Sports Collectibles on South Broadway.

This trip was actually quite some time ago, and I found a great variety in both the dollar box and on their shelves, so be sure to come back for Part 2!

1992 Triple Play Gallery #GS-3 Jack Morris

Last time I saw a card from 1992 Triple Play Gallery was when Wes was still regularly blogging. He sent me the Cal Ripken, Jr. card from the lone insert set found in packs of '92 Triple Play. Jack Morris, who had just joined the Blue Jays following his MVP performance with the Twins in the 1991 World Series, also appeared in the 12-card set. Gallery obviously featured the artwork of Dick Perez and a healthy amount of silver foil.

Morris reached three World Series with three different teams, and won them all. At the time this card was printed, he had a 4-0 record in his World Series starts. He'd drop a couple games in the 1992 Series with the Jays, spoiling that perfect record, but still came out on top. Some years later, he found himself in Cooperstown, but not everyone in the set was so lucky. Sharing this small checklist with Ripken and Morris were some lesser stars, guys like Ryan Klesko, Frank Viola, and Bobby Bonilla. They're still in the conversation after their retirements, but are more likely to be found in the proverbial Hall of the Very Good.

2011 Topps Update Diamond Anniversary #US80 José Bautista

2011 really doesn't seem that long ago, but most of the participants in the 2011 Home Run Derby have since retired. That seems to include José Bautista, who did not play during the 2019 season. He is unlikely to make it to Cooperstown, but he made quite a name for himself as a power hitter in the early 2010s, punctuated with the Greatest Bat Flip of All Time™. Any time the subject of either bat flips or Division Series Game 5s come up, he's sure to be mentioned.

He didn't advance past the first round in the 2011 Derby held in Phoenix, but his participation earned him a Topps Update card and all the sparkly, shiny variants that go with it. Not quite a Liquorfractor, but still cool. Regardless, the hunt for Mike Trout's Rookie Card makes this a tough set to unearth, at least cheaply. Although, Charlie Blackmon's Rookie Card finds its way to me surprisingly often.

2017 Topps '87 Topps #87-52 Jose Canseco

One thing that's decidedly easier to unearth is 1987 Topps and its various reprint offshoots. I have a giant stack of it sitting near my duplicates box that was basically collateral damage in a recent thrift store find. I was more interested in the 1984 and older Topps, plus (gasp) 1988 Donruss.

Anyway, back in 2017, Topps took advantage of the 30th anniversary of the iconic set, and this reprint set grew to a cavernous 200 cards across the two flagship series that year. I've seen it at least three times, and I clearly can't stop myself.

The A's logo was a bit different on the originals, and Jose Canseco actually had a Topps Rookie Cup on his real 1987 card. The Jackie Robinson patch on his right sleeve dates this photograph to 1997 during his second brief stint with the A's. The Red Sox traded him back to Oakland that year for a real pitcher, John Wasdin.

John Wasdin, of all people, joined the Rockies as part of a trade-deadline deal in 2000 for Mike Lansing, the headliner from a couple posts ago. There are a few guys in that trade who I never knew were Rockies.

1991 Upper Deck #HH1 Hank Aaron Hologram

Upper Deck was still sort of feeling things out in 1991, which led to things like a single-card insert set. It seems a little bit like cheating to put this Heroes of Baseball card on my "Completed Sets" list, but it really is the only one with this type of card number. Beckett lists it as part of the 1991 UD main set, but I am choosing to ignore that.

I'm glad it scanned reasonably well, because it's a full hologram of a later-career Hank Aaron, complete with a Heroes of Baseball logo in the lower right. It's quite stunning, as full hologram cards tend to be. The card was created as a promo for the Heroes of Baseball series, basically an Old-Timer's game that Upper Deck sponsored. They made quite a big deal about it on the card back, which feels almost like a sticker. Supposedly, these Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball games were played in Major League stadiums prior to actual games, but I can find very little information about them. If they did happen, they may have been lost to history.

There are a small handful of similar non-hologram cards out there, but it seems that the Heroes of Baseball series was much less of a big deal than Upper Deck wanted it to be. Does anyone know more about these games, or better yet, did you see one in person?

1993 Bowman #27 Shawn Green

While you're very unlikely to find a Mike Trout rookie card in a dollar box (or 12-for-$10, whatever this was), finding early cards of players who went on to become big stars isn't too difficult. Most of us remember Shawn Green as a Dodger or maybe a Met, but he began his career with the Blue Jays. He wore the number 15 for most of his career, but he appeared in three games with Toronto in 1993 wearing #56, which we can see on the card back. It looks like he has that number written on the knob of his bat, but a closer look reveals that it's actually his initials, the similar-looking "SG".

When Bowman told us "he owns plenty of power potential", I doubt even they knew he would one day put himself on the very short list of players who hit four home runs in a game. That feat is roughly the hitter's equivalent of pitching a perfect game, and the list of perfect games is actually slightly longer. On the 4-HR list, you'll find a wide variety of players who had lightning strike four times. Hall of Famers like Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays, bigger stars of their day like Bob Horner and Carlos Delgado, and complete surprises like Scooter Gennett and Mark Whiten. Whiten, for example, hit around 4% of his career home runs just in that one game.

The Perfect Game list reads pretty much the same way. There aren't too many lists you'll find that contain both Randy Johnson and Philip Humber.

2003 Topps Traded #T181 Hanley Ramírez FY (RC)

I noticed Topps' 1st Year Card logo the other day on a Clint Barmes card, and here it is again on Hanley Ramírez's Rookie Card. Most of us remember the splash he made with the Florida Marlins (pun not intended), winning the 2006 NL Rookie of the Year. He made headlines more recently after signing a massive and ill-fated contract with the Boston Red Sox. But few realize that was technically his second stint with the Red Sox, as he debuted as a substitute in a pair of blowout wins for Boston late in the 2005 season. He struck out twice.

His performance fell off a cliff, and while he did get some playing time with Cleveland this year, his future as a big-leaguer remains uncertain.

1990 Fleer #644 Tom Drees (RC) (AU) / Dann Howitt (RC)

With all these players so far being at least in the Hall of the Very Good, you might wonder why I picked a random prospects card from 1990 Fleer. I usually do go for on-card autographs when I find them in a discount box, but this one is special.

I've talked a lot over the years about my first pack being from 1987 Topps (there it is again), and that I can recall the couple dozen cards in it from memory. Well, my second-ever pack was 1990 Fleer, and this prospect card was in it. I don't have quite the same recollection of that 1990 pack, but I just thumbed through that factory set and recognized around a dozen with 100% certainty, including former Rockies Joe Girardi and Gary Wayne.

On the left, and whose signature graces this card, is Tom Drees. Drees appeared in a grand total of four games with the White Sox at the age of 28. He retired with a career ERA of 12.27, and that was that. His cardmate, Dann Howitt, spent a few years as a utility player in the American League, but didn't play past 1994. Both players had a career WAR of -0.3, but unfortunately Drees got there much more quickly.

I knew nothing about either player all this time until looking them up, but I love the sense of nostalgia I get from seeing this card enter my collection a second time.

2017 Topps Allen & Ginter Sport Fish and Fishing Lures #SFL-4 Bass

Departing the world of baseball entirely, we find ourselves in the land of Allen & Ginter insert sets. They've done some real oddballs over the years, and you might think that a set about fishing lures would take the cake. But this has a real connection to the early A&G tobacco cards from the 19th Century. They released a set in 1889 entitled "Fish from American Waters", so this pays homage to what an A&G set really looked like long ago.

I don't know much about fishing, but I do have a few good friends who tie their own flies and fish the high waters of the Rocky Mountains. I haven't done much beyond casting off a dock with live bait and a red and white bobber when I was about ten. I totally get the appeal of being outside and potentially catching your dinner, though. I've never been bass fishing, but this card is quite educational.

All fishermen have tales, and here's the closest one I can relate. At my previous job, I took a call from a prospective customer in New York. Interestingly, he was calling from Altenkirch, a sport fishing rod company that once counted none other than Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as customers. I'm unsure if they're still in business, but that was certainly one of the most memorable calls I took in over seven years at that job.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter #92 Dan Jansen

2008 was fairly early in the life of the resurrected Allen & Ginter brand, and many of the non-sport cards were still fairly well-known figures. Think more Harriet Tubman and Albert Einstein than Guy Fieri. 2008 was the year of the Beijing Olympics, and Topps included a few former Olympians in the set that year. I found the card of Dan Jansen, the speed skater who finally won his gold medal in Norway in 1994.

Jansen was always a favorite, but despite competing in Olympic Games since 1984, he didn't have a single Olympic medal to his name. As the card back states, he competed in the 1988 Calgary games shortly after learning that his sister had died of leukemia. His string of bad luck in competition carried through 1992 and right into 1994, where he finally won a medal in his last race, and it was gold.

It would make an excellent 30 for 30 episode.

1971 Topps #210 Rod Carew

The final few cards are going to slot in nicely with my rather limited vintage collection. First up is Rod Carew's 1971 Topps card. Condition-wise, it's seen better days, and the black borders of 1971 are such that most cards don't hold up so well over the years. But still, a Rod Carew card for a buck? Yes, please.

Carew was an All-Star in every year of his career except the last. He won the AL MVP award in 1977, and held the Stolen Base record before Rickey Henderson demolished it in 1991. I haven't found great stats yet for how many times these players stole a base other than second, but this card says that Carew stole home a whopping seven times in 1969. You'd surely have to count back quite a few seasons to find seven recent steals of home.

The patch Carew is wearing isn't a memorial patch, rather it's the standard patch worn by the Twins for much of their early existence. It depicts the two twins, Minnie and Paul, shaking hands across the river with a large baseball in the background.

I had always assumed that Topps didn't include any player photos on the card back until 1993, but buying a little vintage corrected my thinking on that, as that design element was first used way back in 1971.

1961 Topps #63 Jim Kaat

Backing things up a full decade, here's the oldest one I found that day, from 1961. This is the first 1961 card in my whole collection, but actually my second Jim Kaat card. I don't know why the sudden influx of vintage Twins cards, but that's what came out of the discount box.

Kaat pitched well into his forties, and finally got his ring with the 1982 Cardinals, but his career began in 1959 with the original Washington Senators. 1961 was actually the first year of the Twins, so this card is a lot like like a 1993 Rockies or Marlins card. There's no team logo to be found, but this card may have been the first-ever look a 1961 collector got at the Twins. They weren't an expansion team, so maybe it would be better to compare it to a 2005 Nationals card.

Other than a little paper loss on the back (thankfully not over the cartoons), this is in surprisingly good condition for being almost sixty years old.

1967 Topps #355 Carl Yastrzemski

In conclusion, here is Carl Yastrzemski's 1967 Topps card.

The end.

No seriously, I can say a few words. Mainly that this is a Carl Yastrzemski card! And it's from his Triple Crown year, no less! Who cares that it's creased and looks like someone took a bite out of it? It's a Carl Yastrzemski card!

Before Miguel Cabrera in 2012, no one had won the Triple Crown since Yaz in 1967. It's not officially recognized, but some say he won the Quadruple Crown that year, because he also led the league in hits, on top of the usual Home Runs, RBI, and batting average statistics. He's the only Triple Crown winner in MLB history to do so.

We're even getting extra practice in how to spell his last name, because his grandson, Mike, currently plays for the San Francisco Giants.

The card back is a wealth of vertically-oriented mid-century goodness. There are a couple cartoons, a mention of his two batting titles, and even a bit about what Yastrzemski was up to in the offseason—a job with a Boston printing firm. Which blows my mind. We're in the $400 million contract era now, and one of not that many players who are still ahead of Mike Trout in career WAR worked for a printing firm in the offseason. In the Sixties!

You never know what you'll find in the dollar box.

And you also never know what you'll find on the shelves of a card store that's been in business since 1981. That'll be Part 2.