The Trading Post #84: Jaybarkerfan's Junk

Anytime you see a package on its way to you from Hazel Green, Ala., you know that some goodies are on their way from Jaybarkerfan's Junk. The creator of the #Supertraders group made sure that all his readers were able to get in on some holiday trading action. He ran what he called a Trade-a-Thon in November, offering each reader the chance to claim up to five cards throughout the two-week process. I claimed four, and even with the bonus pack he threw in, this will be a rare post without any Rockies.

2008 UD Masterpieces #5 Max Scherzer (RC)

Upper Deck Masterpieces is an absolutely beautiful set. 2008 was the second of only two years that UD printed this product. Even with short prints, it's only a 120-card checklist, but they did an absolutely terrific job selecting players for the set. Max Scherzer, who had no Major League experience when this card was printed, has gone on to win two Cy Young Awards, and he threw two no-hitters in 2015. The first of those was only a pitch away from being a perfect game, but one pitch got a little bit away from him, Jose Tabata leaned into it, and Scherzer had to settle for a no-hitter.

It's a heck of a card to get your Rookie Card logo on. Upper Deck couldn't know how dominant he would become, and we've all seen our share of busted prospects, but things worked out really well for this card, and more importantly, for Max Scherzer.

2010 Bowman Prospects Black #BP1 Stephen Strasburg

Scherzer spent the majority of his career so far in Detroit, but now shares the rotation with Stephen Strasburg on the Washington Nationals. Strasburg was the most hyped pitching prospect in recent memory, drawing comparisons to Mark Fidrych. Watching his debut back in 2010 was quite impressive, as he struck out fourteen Pirates in his first-ever start. Unfortunately, he needed Tommy John surgery shortly after that, but he's settled into a groove in the Nats' pitching staff. The Nationals have had a pretty terrifying rotation ever since his debut, fielding guys like Gio Gonzalez, Doug Fister, Jordan Zimmerman, etc....

Of course, this card itself has quite the story behind it. Strasburg mania was in full force in late spring 2010, and there was finally a Bowman gold mine out there. They print cards of virtually every young prospect out there, many of whom never make it to the Majors. But Strasburg's First Bowman Card was the rare item that briefly brought baseball cards back into the national spotlight. His /1 Superfractor parallel of this Bowman card was found in 2010, and promptly spiraled to a five-figure sale price on eBay. Just months later, it changed hands again for $25k. The national media didn't miss that story, and I'm sure that millions of Americans that hadn't paid attention to the hobby for years or even decades got a crash course in the existence of parallels, printing plates, and /1 products.

The above is a parallel itself, the black-bordered variety. Bowman's base Prospect set that year actually used a white border, saving the black borders for a parallel set.

So while I don't have the Superfractor that's worth as much as a new car, I am able to add a parallel to my collection that reminds me of the Strasburg Fever that gripped the nation in 2010.

2004 Fleer InScribed #80 Tom Seaver RET /1000

Fleer made a lot of sets in their final few years of existence. I thought I had seen most of them, but this Inscribed set is new to my eyes. 2004 was the only year of this set, but it's pretty striking. The thick black border has a matte finish with some silver foil (including that serial number). The background of the photo is also matte, but the player's image itself is glossy. It's a minimalist design, and all the right elements catch the light, while others fade into the background. The "Inscribed" logo at the top isn't my favorite, but I'd be interested in finding more of these.

Only the ten retired players in this set got the /1000 serial number, and all ten of those are Hall of Famers. There were also fifteen rookies rounding out the main set at a print run of /750, containing a few recognizable names like Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, and Kevin Youkilis.

Seaver had a long, Hall-of-Fame worthy career, but this card only had room for five seasons. Fleer featured his early time on the Mets for this card, giving us stats from 1969 through 1973. During that time, he led the league in strikeouts and ERA three times, somehow managing to miss out on the Cy Young Award for two of those seasons. During that same span, he appeared in two World Series, winning one, was an All-Star in each of those five seasons, and might have gotten into the Hall on those five seasons alone, not even counting the other fifteen seasons he pitched.

Not sure if Strasburg will join Seaver in the Hall of Fame, but I like Scherzer's chances.

1992 Triple Play Gallery #GS-11 Cal Ripken, Jr.

It wasn't all pitchers in this package. I have a soft spot for these early-1990s Donruss insert cards after they finally decided to evolve their design a bit. Cal Ripken, Jr. was definitely one of my favorite players when he was still active. I didn't get to see much of him at all, since it was pretty tough to see American League games back then, especially before Interleague Play. The All Star Game was usually the only time he'd make a TV appearance in my household. Cable, not to mention MLB.TV, has really changed things.

Of course, this card mentions his streak of consecutive games played, a record he'd break about three seasons later, toward the end of 1995. I remember being in sixth grade when that happened, and that many of my classmates chose the occasion to feature in their "Current Events" presentations to the class.

Ripken wasn't just known for his longevity, like Omar Vizquel or Jamie Moyer. He was darn talented out there, winning two MVP awards in his career, and making the All-Star team every year from 1983 until his retirement in 2001. He even hit a first-pitch homer in that 2001 All-Star Game in Seattle.

Not a bad way for one of my favorite all-time players to wrap up a legendary career.

1986 Sportflics #8 Cal Ripken, Jr.

My fellow Supertrader didn't stop there though. He even threw in an unopened pack of cards for his Trade-a-Thon participants, and I ended up with a pack of 1986 Sportflics. I bought some of the 1994 product, but I didn't really know this brand went back further than that. I might have a card or two from the 1990 set, but definitely none this old.

Of course, these never scan well, but the lenticular printing process on this card allows for one of three images to be visible, depending on how the card is tilted. A much younger Ripken, only several hundred games into his streak, gets one headshot and two action shots at the plate. I'm sure he sat a few late innings later in the streak, but at the time of printing, he hadn't sat a single inning in 603 games. That's nearly 5,500 straight innings!

There were a couple of miniature trivia cards in here, a little smaller than those World Series History lenticular insert cards from 1991 Score. On these, we learn that Ernie Banks holds the NL Record for most Grand Slams in a single season, with 5. Albert Pujols has since tied that NL mark, and a couple AL'ers even surpassed it with 6. Travis Hafner did it about a decade ago, as did Don Mattingly just a year after this was printed. The other Trivia card is about Mike Schmidt, then the active player with the most Gold Glove awards.

1986 Sportflics #179 1985 Gold Glove

I found this final card to be quite interesting, and I assumed that these Sportflics cards just displayed two images like they did in 1994, until I looked more closely. This is something like a League Leader card, but riffing off of the second trivia card, they picked six 1985 Gold Glovers to feature. The three photos on the top (Don Mattingly, George Brett, and Keith Hernandez) are posed shots, while the three on the bottom (Willie McGee, Ron Guidry, and Dale Murphy) are action photos. My scanner preferred to show Brett and Guidry, plus a ghostly inclusion of McGee's bat.

By the way, the presence of Dale Murphy makes this ever-so-slightly a Rockies post, as the two-time MVP signed as a free agent with the Rockies in 1993 and played 26 games for them before retiring.

Anyway, these six players all led a statistic in 1985, as well as an award for defensive excellence. Every position has a Gold Glove winner (sometimes co-winners), so there's no mention of thirteen other players, unlike what we might see on a more traditional League Leaders card.

Keith Hernandez led the NL in Game-Winning RBIs in 1985, a statistic that isn't tracked anymore. There was quite a bit of debate about whom to actually credit with a GW-RBI (the back of 1987 Topps went wild over this stat). A walkoff hit is easy enough to figure out, but when your team takes the lead by three in the 7th, for example, but ends up only winning by one, the GW-RBI went to the player that took the lead, not the player that padded the cushion enough.

To my mind, that sounds pretty much the same as how a winning pitcher is determined. All a team has to do is keep a lead to ensure a pitcher gets the win. It can be a cat-and-mouse game all night, but as long as the lower-scoring team doesn't at least tie it, the pitcher of record remains the same. I'm sure better statisticians than I can explain the nuances of why tracking Wins that way is fine, but GW-RBIs isn't. But I digress.

When the statistic existed, no one had more than Keith Hernandez, thanks in large part to his 1985 performance. And we definitely just went down a statistical rabbit hole there, but they're an integral part of baseball, now more than ever.

Just like trading is an integral part of card collecting.

Not Mickey Mantle (Part 1: Not Topps)

Even when I make a special trip to my local card shop to pick up the new centerpiece of my collection, I'm always up for some low-priced goodies. The beauty of a well-stocked LCS or card show is that there's something for everyone, so in addition to a half-century old Mickey Mantle card, I was sure to pick out some $1 foil packs from the mid 1990s.

1994 Leaf #395 Paul Molitor

I know most people probably think of Paul Molitor as a Brewer, but he was a member of the 1993 champion Toronto Blue Jays, which was the first World Series I watched (or at least remember watching). I saw so many cards of him that year in a Toronto uniform, so it doesn't seem that unusual to me. The same goes for Bob Welch as an Oakland A.

If I've learned anything about this hobby from all my fellow bloggers, it's that the first cards you were exposed to seem to set a pretty strong benchmark by which other eras are judged. Night Owl is a huge fan of the mid-1970s, but some strike-era glossy, full bleed cards with more than a little gold foil is right up my alley.

Especially for a buck a pack.

1994 Leaf #269 Kent Hrbek

I only knew Kent Hrbek and many of the not-quite-superstar AL players only from their baseball cards. 1994 was long before the days of MLB.TV, and even a few years before my family ponied up for cable television. I saw Matt F. mention Hrbek's Twitter account not long ago, when the slugging first baseman followed him, so why not throw him in here?

By the way, if you're a fan of podcasts, Matt from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius and Dave from Card Junk get together once a month or so and discuss the latest in the card collecting hobby. I'd say it's worth a listen if you want to branch out from the blogs or Twitter for some card discussion. And Dave's movie reviews always leave me chuckling.

1996 Rockies Fleer #3 Ellis Burks

Of course, podcasts lack the benefit of the visuals we can include on our blogs and in our tweets, so I'll stick to writing for now. How else would you get a look at one of the Rockies' three 30/30 club members, and his 1995 commemorative Coors Field patch?

This card of Ellis Burks came from a 1996 Fleer Rockies team pack, an item I see quite frequently in the Denver area. It's a 20-card team set, and the cards come 10 to a pack. What's unusual about them is that they have a glossy finish, unlike Fleer's 1996 and 1997 base sets, which had a delicate but distinctive matte finish. These have a plain silver foil, unlike the parallel Tiffany cards, which had a rainbow foil. I had these misfiled for quite some time until I took a closer look.

1994 Score Rookie/Traded #RT32 Brian Harper

The giant rack of dollar packs was pretty full of football, so I had to dig pretty deep to find a dozen packs to my liking. Three were from Score's 1994 Rookie/Traded set, one that I think reminds us all of 1990 Donruss. And few of us want to be reminded of 1990 Donruss. To be honest, I thought these were of the 1994 base set until I opened them. I chose one of the traded veterans to scan, because the names on the rookies are almost completely unreadable. That's quite a trick without using any foil.

1994 Score Rookie/Traded #RT131 Norberto Martin

See what I mean?

1997 Score #7 Ryan Klesko

By contrast, 1997 Score doesn't really struggle with readability problems. Other than a widely spaced, all lower-case, sans-serif font that really stretches itself out on horizontal cards, it's fine. What isn't so fine is that in just ten cards, I got two duplicates and two checklists. So if you want a card of Ryan Klesko at the bat rack, let me know. I can spare it.

Overall, these non-Topps packs were about 50/50. I'll open mid-1990s Leaf all day long, but the Score products were scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit.

Let's move on to a more interesting section of Mike's Stadium Sportscards, the unnamed center table bargain area with 4/$30 pricing. Which happens to decrease to 4/$25 when you're in the store for 1962 vintage.

This LCS is absolutely packed to the gills with cards and memorabilia. Mike, myself, and three other customers were practically climbing over each other for 45 minutes trying to move to different sections of the store. The bargain area has quite an assortment, ranging from stacks of junk wax to plaques to hardcover books. I found a copy of Harry Caray's Holy Cow! for a Cubs fan coworker. But what I really went for in this area were the complete sets.

1994 Sportflics #146 Will Clark

It's no secret that lenticular cards don't scan well, but Sportflics did an interesting take on a traded player here, depicting Will Clark with a Giants cap, then a Rangers cap following an off-season trade. They don't line up perfectly, but it's a clever idea, and Clark has the same half-grin in each photo.

Mr. Clark came along with 192 other Sportflics cards, a complete 1994 set that I found in the large plastic bins underneath the bargain table.

2004 Upper Deck #549 Paul Lo Duca

I also found a few sub-100 card small sets, and I had to consult my Completed Sets page in-store to check whether I already had various Fleer Update and Topps Traded sets.

This Paul Lo Duca, in another unfamiliar uniform, is from the 2004 Upper Deck Update set. Unlike most other brands, UD numbered these 50 cards consecutively with the 270-card series 1 and 2, something I wish Topps would do. But then that would mess with their card #661 gimmick.

1992 Pinnacle Rookies #14 Monty Fariss

Even smaller, coming in at just 30 cards, was 1992 Pinnacle Rookies. Though they don't have the same cult-classic design as the 1992 base set, I believe they mark Pinnacle's first foray into gold foil. It's unusual that they left the logo alone in the upper right. Usually that was the first thing to get the gold treatment. There's also a bit of gold foil on the back, which may have been an industry first.

I really couldn't tell you much about Monty Fariss, but I do appreciate a good broken bat card on a set that's new to me. It was even packaged in its original box with that same card-sized styrofoam padding Pinnacle liked to include.

1992 Donruss #153 Kevin Maas

For a mere $6.25, part of my haul was a complete 1992 Donruss set. Especially on the card backs, Donruss had been giving us pretty much the same card ever since their inception in the early 1980s. By 1992 at least they saw fit to shift the elements around a bit to make room for a headshot.

1994 Donruss #436 Reggie Sanders

Gold foil made its inevitable appearance by 1994, and they finally did away with the practice of including the player's full name on the back. After a dozen years of "Ronald Maurice Darling, Jr.", it was long overdue. I found the complete series 2 in the bargain area, a perfect complement to the series 1 already in my collection. We're going to need a bigger box.

1992 Upper Deck Gold Hologram #183 Chris Hoiles

Last of all for the non-Topps portion of this two-post series is another factory set, 1992 Upper Deck. Kevin Maas makes another appearance just a couple cards down (I swear that was an accident), but this time he's sporting Yankee pinstripes in a cameo on Chris Hoiles' card in a great play at the plate shot.

Preceding Upper Deck SP by one year, the 1992 UD factory set cards are slightly differentiated from their pack-based cousins. Flip these over, and you'll find a gold hologram on each one of the 800 cards. I've run across these a few times before, but they do take a bit of an eagle eye to spot on their own.

It's definitely not counterfeit.