Two Years of Change

Two years and two days ago, I spent $28 at a Local Card Shop in Aurora, Colo. It was my first visit to All C's Collectibles, one of the few LCS survivors that had somehow flown under my radar all these years. They also specialize in comics, but as a lifelong baseball fan, I stayed on the periphery of the store where most of the MLB-related goodies were to be found.

I spent most of my time and money going through a discount box, picking out anything shiny or Stadium Club that I could find, including a pair of cards of a player who has stolen the spotlight the past couple days.

2016 Stadium Club Contact Sheet #CS-8 Buster Posey

As you have likely heard by now, Buster Posey announced his retirement. Spending his entire career as a catcher for San Francisco, he won three World Series with the Giants, as well as a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP award, and seven All-Star selections. Twelve seasons might seem like a relatively short career, but catcher is a grueling position, and the broken leg he suffered in 2011 led to the current rules we have around blocking the plate and the sliding lane.

Still, at just 34, he's not the only one to step away from his sport when he probably had some good years left. Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts comes to mind, and there's speculation that Posey just made a tremendous amount of money as an early investor in BodyArmor, a sports drink brand that Coca-Cola just acquired for $5.6 billion.

Back in 2016, Posey found himself in numerous Stadium Club insert sets. I picked up this one from the 10-card photography-themed Contact Sheet set, which I've seen before (I'm at 50% completion!). One of the filmstrip photos of Posey shows the "LON" memorial patch the Giants wore in 2015 for Lon Simmons, the team's longtime broadcaster. The card back mentions his two grand slams in late June 2015, and if you're curious whether he hit either of those against the Rockies, he did not. They were divisional, though, as they came against the Dodgers and then the Padres.

Now is probably a good time to share the highlight of his final MLB hit, a two-out double in Game 5 of the NLDS against the Dodgers.

2016 Stadium Club ISOmetrics #I-24 Buster Posey

Elsewhere in the 2016 Stadium Club master set, Posey was included in the 25-card ISOmetrics insert set, heavily color coded for a Giants player. I've seen this set a couple times too, although I'm far from completing it. 

The season-specific stats Topps highlighted on the card front here are pretty representative of his overall career. His batting average dipped a bit since 2015, as is true for the entire league. 74 runs scored isn't even a career high for him, but is quite excellent for a catcher. And 6.1 WAR in a season is also excellent, although neither Fangraphs nor Baseball-Reference list 6.1 for his 2015 WAR. That complex calculation has evolved over time, and varies depending on whom you ask, so I won't say it's an error. For all I know, Topps has their own WAR calculation.

Posey's fWAR for 2021 was 4.9, ranking among the highest WARs any player has ever put up in the final season of their career, and many players near the top of that list were involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

2019 Stadium Club #178 Bo Jackson

Moving forward a few years in the history of Stadium Club, I found a couple base cards from 2019. First was a relaxed Bo Jackson at the height of his baseball career with the Royals, casually blowing a bubble in the dugout.

Bo Jackson's career will always be one of the great what-ifs in baseball lore. Without getting into the gory details, a freak injury he suffered in an NFL game led to the need for a hip replacement, ending his football career and impacting his MLB career. He attempted a comeback, but it was not to be. It's a real shame, because he could have been one of the all-time greats.

Buck O'Neil used to tell a story about a particular sound he heard once in a great while, a crack of the bat unlike any other. "Like a stick of dynamite going off," he said. In a lifetime around the game of baseball, he said he heard it three times. First from Babe Ruth. Second from Josh Gibson. And finally from Bo Jackson.

Joe Posnanski tells it better than I could ever dream to.

2019 Stadium Club #54 Hank Aaron

The last Stadium Club card I picked was of Braves legend Hank Aaron, who sadly passed away earlier this year. The Atlanta Braves were able to win the 2021 World Series in six games over the Astros, a fitting tribute to one of the greatest players of all time. The Braves won 88 regular season games this year, 44 before the All-Star Break, and 44 after. We also find ourselves in the 44th week of the year, which Vin Scully pointed out on Twitter.

And of course, Hammerin' Hank's uniform number was 44, which we saw mowed into the outfield grass at Truist Park.

This particular photo was from when the Braves were playing in Milwaukee, as you can tell by the letter M on Aaron's cap. That narrows this down to some point between 1954 and 1965, before the Braves departed for Atlanta in 1966. It would be another 20 years past that before they finally got rid of that logo on Aaron's left sleeve.

1990 Bowman #121 Dave Martinez

We'll come back to the discount box in a bit, but first I wanted to cover a few other affordable collectibles I found scattered throughout the store. First was a factory set of 1990 Bowman, priced at around $5 or $6. I'll never turn down a complete set for those prices. 

1990 was the year Bowman mercifully decided to get with the times and go with standard card dimensions, abandoning the 1950s-era size that won't fit in 9-pocket pages. It's a simple design, not deviating much from the 1989 design other than adding the player's name and team at the bottom in lieu of a facsimile signature.

It wasn't a particularly remarkable purchase otherwise except for one thing. This shopping trip was less than a week after the Nationals won Game 7 of the 2019 World Series. Then, as now, the team was managed by Dave Martinez, who once played for the Montreal Expos. The Nationals franchise, of course, was once known as the Expos, but that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that there was one particular card facing the other direction inside the box. As best I could tell the set was still factory sealed, but somehow, after all those years, I found one card in the middle facing the wrong way, against the slight curl of the rest of the cards.

Dave Martinez.

2019 Topps Opening Day #31 Nolan Arenado

I found some current packs toward the front of the store, and I selected one from 2019 Opening Day. I always enjoy the set no matter how far we are from the actual occasion. And I've enjoyed several variations of this well-cropped horizontal photo of Nolan Arenado the past couple years, even though it is significantly less festive than last time I saw it.

Little did I know at the time Nolan wasn't going to be playing for the Rockies by the time I got this post up. It's basically a foregone conclusion that Trevor Story won't be coming back, and the latest news is that Jon Gray isn't likely to reach a deal either, even though he's the only one of the three who actually wants to remain with the team.

At least Charlie Blackmon will be around for another year.

1998 Pinnacle Inside #109 Tony Clark

Although none of that may end up mattering much anyway, because MLB is hurtling headlong towards another labor dispute. I only mention it here because former Tiger Tony Clark is now the executive director of the MLB Player's Association, so his name will likely be in the news plenty this offseason.

Shortly before their bankruptcy, Pinnacle released the Inside brand for a second year. This slightly blurry photo of Tony Clark is flanked by a few of his 1997 stats, much in the same style as Buster Posey's ISOmetrics card. I got a whole pack of these, and I still have the can they came in.

Yes, the can. Like a can of tomatoes.

Pinnacle was out there. So was Pacific. The hobby is poorer without them around.

Now, back to the discount box.

2001 Topps Archives #245 Al Kaline 54

By now, we've probably had our fill of Topps reprints, but in 2001, Topps Archives was pretty exciting. This isn't quite as alluring as the refractor-finish Archives Reserve set that year, but it's printed on actual cardboard and is surprisingly thick. In other words, it's a reprint that has the general look and feel of the original card, gold foil seal notwithstanding. Also the '54s were slightly larger than the standard size we know today. Just like '89 Bowman and Topps Big, which were my first exposure to the 3 3/4" x 2 5/8" size.

Sadly, like Henry Aaron, Al Kaline is no longer with us. He passed away on April 6th, 2020, and I wrote a tribute post at the time. But back in 1954, he was a young rookie, destined for great things. He didn't make it into the 1953 set, so this '54 is his Rookie Card. It would definitely cost a few hundred bucks to get a relatively nice original, so I'm happy with a $1 reprint.

For now.

2019 Topps '84 Topps #T84-30 Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas didn't get a ton of Postseason playing time during his Hall of Fame career, but he's a regular fixture on the broadcast team now, right next to David Ortiz and Álex Rodríguez. Topps gave him a card in their 1984-themed 35th Anniversary set in 2019, and this time The Big Hurt is holding an actual baseball bat, not that famed piece of rebar.

2017 Topps Update All Rookie Cup #ARC-21 Anthony Rizzo

But as an example of reprints getting a bit out of hand, here's a 2017 card of Anthony Rizzo, a mere four years after the original came out. The gold foil clearly differentiates it from the actual 2013 base card it replicates, but Topps still saw fit to include the word "REPRINT" on the card back to avoid any confusion.

The card itself is from a 50-card insert set found in 2017 Topps Update, which focused on the history of the Topps Rookie Cup. Rizzo did get one on his card in 2013, and he shares the checklist with players new and old. Buster Posey, Stephen Strasburg, Lou Brock, and many more. The card back has large images of the two Topps Rookie Cup versions found on cards throughout the years, and an explanation of Rizzo's 2012 season that earned him one.

I'm sure this is the 1990s kid in me talking, but I have to say I like the gold foil on the 2013 design more than the silver foil Topps originally used. Not that you could tell either way from the scan.

2010 Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT-11 Mickey Mantle

Reprints do have their place, and for the longest time I relied on them to learn the vintage designs and keep some of my dad's idols in my collection. I eventually remedied that, but I still enjoy the 1962 Mickey Mantle in whatever form it takes. 

This one is from the famous 2010 "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" insert set, something Topps put out with absolute confidence during the first year of their monopoly. It spanned 174 cards across three series, and features some of the most iconic Topps cards of all time, starting with the '52 Mantle at card #CMT-1.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition StarQuest #SQ-9 Derek Jeter

Even as we get further away from a time where Upper Deck had a presence on the baseball side of the Hobby, I still can't get enough of these green Starquest cards. It's such a pleasing shade of emerald and they will practically jump out of any discount box right into my hand.

Derek Jeter was officially inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame just a couple months ago, but the actual vote that put him there was about to get underway a mere two weeks after I visited All C's. No one was surprised that he was a first-ballot member, but the identity of the lone voter who left him off their ballot remains a mystery, and ensured that his longtime teammate Mariano Rivera would be the only unanimous inductee for the foreseeable future.

By the way, Derek Jeter has another connection to this post. He is the star player depicted on my can of 1998 Pinnacle Inside. I opened it on the bottom for display purposes, and a smiling Jeter in a warm-up jacket is pictured on the front.

I mean, it's a cylinder, so there technically isn't a "front" of the can, so to speak, but nearer the seam on the "back", there's a nutrition facts-looking label called "Product Facts". The serving size is 10 cards, and there is 1 serving per container. The pack odds are given, and we are promised that we're getting 100% of our % Daily Value of Collectability (sic), Top Players, Inside Info, and Cool Inserts.

Pinnacle very accurately and loudly proclaims that the Inside '98 set is "THE ONLY BASEBALL CARD IN A CAN!" It really was unique but it takes up so much space to package, ship, and store cards that way. It isn't particularly kid-friendly, either. Pinnacle was sure to stamp on the top of the can to "Open with adult supervision". I managed to do it without leaving a sharp edge, but this product was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

2001 Stadium Club Diamond Pearls #DP6 Vladimir Guerrero

After his son wrapped up his rookie season in 2019, I found a card of Vladimir Guerrero, Sr. He was part of the 20-card Diamond Pearls insert set from 2001 Stadium Club, the set that tends to have stickier cards than perhaps any other. This one doesn't seem too bad, but the surface does look a little bumpy to me. Maybe even slightly blistered.

In any case, this card became accidentally relevant during the 2021 Postseason, thanks to Joc Pederson's unique fashion choice of a string of pearls. He's quite the character, and he now finds himself on a short list of players who won the World Series in two consecutive years with different teams.

2019 Finest Blue Refractors #57 Mitch Haniger /150

I've never opened a box of Topps Finest, but I seem to have no trouble finding the occasional gem from the expensive set, like this beautiful Blue Refractor numbered to /150.

Alas, despite all this talk of the Postseason and the World Series, the Mariners haven't quite been able to sneak in for twenty years, though they got tantalizingly close this year. Outfielder Mitch Haniger has been one of their stars, and even has an All-Star appearance to his name. 

The card back tells us about his highlights on June 12th, 2018 against the Angels. Topps got the details...sort of accurate? Haniger did have a home run and an outfield assist that day, but they got the innings all wrong and they incorrectly imply that Haniger's homer was of the walkoff variety.

Incidentally, if you've ever been curious about how to pronounce my last name, it's pretty similar to Haniger. I have a couple extra consonants in there, but that's the general sound. It rhymes with Gallagher.

1991 Leaf Gold Rookies #BC26 Rickey Henderson DP

Finally, I couldn't pass up any early '90s insert with this much gold foil. Leaf really pulled out all the stops for this bonus card. Believe it or not, it's actually the final card of a 26-card insert set called Gold Rookies. Lots of prospects fill out that checklist, like Ryan Klesko, Mike Mussina, and Mo Vaughn.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that Rickey Henderson, was not, in fact, a rookie in 1991. Nor was Nolan Ryan, who is also in this checklist. But Leaf decided that honoring Rickey Henderson's record-breaking 939th stolen base and Nolan Ryan's 7th no-hitter were worth disrupting the overall theme of a Rookies set. I can't say I disagree.

A well-stocked LCS, especially one that's been in town for so long, always has surprises. Including some fresh, sealed 1998 air.

Hammerin' Hank

When Al Kaline died in April 2020, I wrote these words: "Given the current state of the world, these kinds of posts might sadly become a bit more common in the months ahead." 

Sadly, that prediction has continued to prove all too true, and far too many times since then. The number of baseball greats who have passed on since Don Larsen died on New Year's Day 2020 is truly staggering. Kaline, Seaver, Brock, Gibson, Ford, Morgan, Niekro. And those are just the Hall-of-Famers. Jimmy Wynn, Dick Allen, Larsen, Johnny Antonelli, fan favorites at least, and maybe even borderline Hall-of-Famers.

Hell of a lineup, though.

2021 has given us no reprieve, as we've lost Dodger greats Tommy Lasorda and Don Sutton, and it's only the third full week of January.

And today, I woke up to the news that Henry Aaron died at 86.

1994 Topps #715 Hank Aaron 715 HR

We know him for much more than his most famous moment, when he hit his 715th home run on April 8th, 1974 off of Al Downing, breaking Babe Ruth's home run record. Vin Scully had the call that day. His 4th inning shot was the culmination of a long marathon of chasing Ruth's record, a period in his career when he both guaranteed his place as an all-time baseball great and suffered awful hatred and racism for doing so.

For the occasion of the 20th anniversary of this feat, Topps gave him card #715 in the 1994 set, which is easily one of my favorite cards released that year. As I've mentioned before, it was the first complete set I ever bought, twenty-seven years ago. And what's really interesting to think about is that only twenty-seven years separated Jackie Robinson's debut and Hank Aaron's record-breaking home run. It really isn't that much time.

Aaron went on to wrap up his career with the Brewers a couple years after this, finishing with 2,297 RBI which remains the best in history, 6,856 total bases which remains the best in history, 755 home runs, and 3,771 hits. A Reddit user today pointed out that even if Aaron never hit a single home run, he'd still have over 3,000 hits, practically guaranteeing a spot in the Hall of Fame. 

A stat like that puts him right up there with an all-time hockey great, Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky had so many assists in his career that even if he never scored a single goal, he'd still be the all-time NHL points leader. Sure enough, Aaron finds himself as #5 all-time in position player bWAR, with an incredible 143.1.

He truly was a legend.

And he's a legend in my baseball card collection, too.

Let's go back to 1994, shall we? I was ten years old, and frequently found myself in the card aisle at my local Wal-Mart. I had been collecting for a little over a year, and had kind of had my fill of the 1991 Topps, 1992 Fleer, and 1993 Fleer Ultra that seemed to perpetually be available. I had a year of collecting under my belt, plus that fancy 1994 Topps Factory set. Right around then, Topps released the 1994 Archives '54 set, one of my dad's favorites since it took him back to his own childhood. Wal-Mart had this product for sale, and I had enough money from my weekly allowance to buy a pack or two. 

Pack selection was a very important thing when buying a whole box was entirely out of the question. I must admit that I wasn't above the strategy of pressing the translucent cellophane against the top card to try to see what was inside. To this day, I've never tried bending, weighing, or otherwise manhandling a pack, cardinal sins in the card aisle. But I do realize the cellophane trick does stray somewhere into the neighborhood of pack searching.

Judge ten-year-old me as you will, but I was able to discern a card inside one particular pack of Archives '54.

1994 Topps Archives '54 #62 Eddie Robinson

That was this card. Eddie Robinson, a New York Yankee. I didn't really know him, but I could see he was a Yankee, and being the son of a Yankee fan, this was the pack I picked. 

Eddie Robinson, by the way, has outlived all these guys, as he recently celebrated his 100th birthday. He's the oldest living MLB player. A four-time All-Star, he won a World Series with the 1948 Cleveland Indians. He was on site to watch Cleveland play in the 2016 World Series.

I don't remember which other cards were inside this pack, but I did find something special. Really special.

1994 Topps Archives '54 Gold #128 Hank Aaron (AU)

A gold foil parallel of Hank Aaron's 1994 Archives '54 card, signed on-card in the lower right.

It is the crown jewel of my collection.

I've never shown this card on the blog before, but I did share it many years ago as part of Nachos Grande's Better Know a Blogger series, so longtime followers might have seen it once or twice.

I can unequivocally say that this Hank Aaron autograph is the greatest pull of my life. It will never be topped. Pulling a card like this from a pack you bought at Wal-Mart at the age of ten is an amazing experience. This was a Golden Ticket, and I felt just like Charlie Bucket. I can't imagine anything I could realistically pull out of a pack ever again that would dethrone the Home Run King.

A Hank Aaron autograph!

I still have the pack wrapper. 1:1,263 odds.

RIP, Henry Aaron. You'll always be #1 in my collection.

 

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.