24-Year Old Stains

About a week ago I posted the first of five packs of 1984 Topps that I got from a card show last month over on A Pack A Day. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to post the rest of the packs, considering how awful that first pack was, but the people spoke and here are the rest of the packs. Okay, fine, just one guy requested it, but that's enough for me. I'm sure there's nowhere to go but up from here.

Pack 2:
73 - Jody Davis (A fixture on WGN broadcasts of the '80s.)
14 - Tom Brookens

306 - Dodgers Batting & Pitching Leaders Pedro Guerrero / Bob Welch (These cards double as team checklists. Bonus.)
758 - Bill Stein

398 - Lou Whitaker (Marital Status is the first "stat" on the backs of these All-Star cards. Seriously.)
554 - Ted Power
581 - Jose DeLeon (He played for the Portland Beavers when I was 6 years old, but I know I attended a few games back then. Maybe I saw him pitch. He later became a strikeout leader for the Cardinals. This is his rookie card, so that's kinda exciting. The photo is really, really odd. I am going to set this card aside as I am thinking it deserves its own post one of these days.)
629 - Rick Langford (Complete with wax stain on the back)
- All-Star Baseball Game Sweepstakes card - 1 run
47 - Rudy Law
725 - Cesar Cedeno (Long time Astro who I had thought had finished up his career as a Cardinal. Baseball-Reference.com says otherwise. But he signed with the Cardinals after he had played his last major league game with the Dodgers? I'm confused.)
682 - Dan Morogiello
747 - Pat Zachry
164 - Scott Sanderson
305 - Roy Smalley (I love '80s Yankees cards.)
533 - Ken Landreaux (Complete with gum stain)

Pack 3:
551 - Scott Ullger
748 - Jeff Leonard (Before he became "One Flap Down" Jeffrey Leonard. He looks badass on the card, but I ain't scared of him.)
62 - Dave Hostetler (Didn't he play backup QB for the Giants?)
697 - Dale Murray
430 - Rusty Staub (Anyone who had stats on the back for the Colt .45's fascinated me as a kid.)
774 - Tom Gorman
319 - Al Bumbry
189 - Tim Conroy (wax stained)
- All-Star Baseball Game Sweepstakes card - 5 runs
729 - Gene Tenace (Is his last name pronounced "tennis" or "ten-ah-chee"? For some reason I don't know.)
315 - Bob Grich

702 - NL Active Career Hits Leaders Rusty Staub / Pete Rose / Tony Perez (Rose's hit total makes the other guys look silly. I'm more of a "Pete Rose should be in the Hall" type of guy, but maybe that's because the year I started collecting, 1986, was the year of Rose Hero Worship by Topps.)
503 - Elias Sosa

81 - Billy Martin (One of my lasting memories of watching baseball on TV in the '80s was some sort of parody song based on "Charlie Brown" that was done about Billy Martin and his "Billy Ball." It was either shown on This Week in Baseball or the NBC Game of the Week or both. Can't seem find it on YouTube, unfortunately.)
431 - Chris Bando

713 - AL Active Career RBI Leaders Ted Simmons / Reggies Jackson / Graig Nettles (Reggie Jackson was my favorite player until a guy named Osborne Earl Smith came along and stole my baseball-loving heart. And my little league glove was a Graig Nettles glove. This card has a little bit of a gum stain, but not enough for me to toss it in the damaged beyond hope pile.)

Pack 4:
667 - Vance Law
687 - Roy Howell
761 - John Montefusco

186 - Cardinals Batting & Pitching Leaders Lonnie Smith / John Stuper (I really should take advantage of the team checklist on the back here to find out what cards of Cards I'm lacking. Topps is trying to give me a freebie here.)
646 - Checklist
303 - Marty Castillo
734 - Odell Jones

637 - Phillies Batting & Pitching Leaders Gary Matthews / John Denny (Wax stained)
- All-Star Baseball Game Sweepstakes card - 1 run
522 - Dave Bergman
161 - Junior Ortiz
342 - Tim Foli
723 - Rich Dauer

92 - Lloyd Moseby (One of the talented Jays players that my best friend was always hyping, even though he was into the Cardinals first.)
746 - Mickey Hatcher
414 - Mitchell Page (Gum stained)

Pack 5:

156 - Athletics Batting & Pitching Leaders Rickey Henderson / Tim Conroy (There's a wax buildup on the front of the card and the entire pack is facing the same direction, instead of half of the pack being upside-down with the back of some unlucky card getting the dreaded stain. I know this is common with '70s cards, but I'm not sure about the '80s.)
675 - Pascual Perez

388 - Mike Schmidt All-Star (Marital status: Married, wife Donna, one daughter, one son. As of 1984, of course...)
687 - Roy Howell
58 - Max Venable (He always sounded like he had the mild-mannered real life name of someone who transforms into a superhero when duty calls.)
222 - Rick Honeycutt
753 - Doug Gowsdz ("**DATELINE** AUG 21, 1983: HIS FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE HOMER WAS A 3-RUN WALLOP FOR GAME-WINNING RBI IN 5-2 CONQUEST." His last name is comprised of letters leftover on someone's Scrabble tray.)
284 - Howard Bailey
- All-Star Baseball Game Sweepstakes card - 1 run

759 - Richard Dotson (Great looking card. Dotson was coming off of a 22-7 season.)
544 - Cesar Geronimo
184 - Mike O'Berry
598 - Rusty Kuntz (You giggled a little bit. I know you did.)
534 - Pete O'Brien
142 - Rich Gale
201 - Bruce Kison (Gum stained)

Update: Free (minor league) Cards!

There's still plenty of time left to get in on my minor league card giveaway. There are still no takers for the following teams: Angels, Astros, Athletics, Blue Jays, Brewers, Expos, Giants, Mariners, Mets, Orioles, Padres, Pirates, Rangers, Reds and Royals.

All you need to do is respond to this post (or the original post) with a comment and I will e-mail you to request your address. If you don't have an e-mail set up in your profile, you'll want to also send me an e-mail to follow up on your comment so I can get your address. And if you're only interested in a particular obscure player from the early 90s or a particular minor league team, let me know and I'll try and fulfill that request. As you can see, though, a number of cards are already spoken for.

TWBP: Road Warriors

Yes, I'm trying to use up all of the cheesy titles I can come up with for these posts. If you've got any suggestions, let me know.

Anyway, the Blazers hit the road for the first four games of yet another five game road trip this past week and came away with three wins. Considering that their only loss was to the defending champs, this was a very successful trip. Greg Oden has continued to be up and down, his minutes usually dictated by how successful he is at managing to stay out of foul trouble. He has at least succeeded in every game at getting the opponent's attention on the inside, which continues to give pass-first players like Steve Blake wide open looks that are just too wide open to pass up.

After an impressive win over the Pistons where Lamarcus Aldridge outplayed Rasheed Wallace in a pivotal matchup, the Blazers pulled out wins over New York and Washington where they didn't really play their best game. As the cliche goes, good teams find ways to beat bad teams even when they aren't playing well, and Portland has certainly found a way to make this work on a number of occasions this year. Brandon Roy has usually been the guy that has taken over late in games to will the team to victory, but at some point the Blazers will need to figure out how to close teams out without Roy putting the whole team on his back.

As far as the Boston loss went, I really don't have a ton to say about it other than that it was disappointing and Kevin Garnett is making a strong push for my Least Favorite Player in the league. It's not a game I expected Portland to win, but I was disappointed that it wasn't a close game, especially after the way the game started.


About the cards:

• This box of cards didn't end up being completely junk, as I ended up with a Jermaine O'Neal rookie card. Not bad. Injuries have probably prevented O'Neal from ever being the superstar player that he looked like he was becoming during his peak years with the Pacers. His departure from Portland was a result of some shortsided thinking by the Blazers brass. Mike Dunleavy, his coach at the time, still contends that he did not want to get rid of O'Neal, but the Blazers GM had a different view as is often the case with these sorts of things.
• Mark Bryant was one of my favorite bench players. He didn't offer much in the way of offensive skills, but he took up a lot of space in the post and was a smart player.
• Mario Elie was another bench favorite of mine. He took over Danny Ainge's role in the '92-'93 season as the 3-point specialist and was a terrific dunker at that point in his career. He was best known for his time with the Rockets, winning two championships in the mid-90s. I liked the bumpy basketball design on these cards, but am generally not a fan of player names being displayed vertically.
  

Bonus: Here's the pocket schedule from the Blazers championship season. I wonder if there are any serious pocket schedule collectors out there.


Check out that eight game road trip in January. Yikes!

Khalil Greene is also a Cardinal

Khalil Greene was reportedly traded yesterday to the Cardinals from the Padres for reliever Mark Worrell (no relation to Todd) and a PTBNL. I have mixed reactions to this. As much as I like to root for ex-Portland Beavers, like Jason Bay (not so much since he joined the Red Sox) and Xavier Nady, I never really latched onto Greene even though he's spent his entire major league career so far with the parent club Padres. And I like the Padres. Greene was always the Golden Boy shortstop, but I felt like he never really made anything of himself. In 2007, he finally had what most would term a breakout season, but it seems like an aberration now after this past season. If he can produce somewhere in between that season and his truly awful 2008, he might be a marginal improvement over Cesar Izturis. His batting averages are always low, however, and he doesn't make up for it by getting on base any other way. Fortunately, the Cards are only stuck with him for a year if things don't go well. From the field, he should be solid but probably not spectacular.

In the exchange, the Cards send over apparently disgruntled reliever Mark Worrell, who is best known for hitting a 3-run home run in his brief stint in the Cardinals' bullpen last year. That feat got him an autographed card in the 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights set, but not a base card. I'm still interested in getting ahold of that card despite the trade, but now I'd probably only be willing to spend $1.50 on eBay for it instead of $2.00.

My Dodger-loving friend keeps reminding me that at least the Cards aren't stuck with Orlando Cabrera and a big contract. I suppose, in that sense, he's right. It sure would've been nice to get Rafael Furcal or Yunel Escobar, however...

Trever Miller is now a Cardinal

The Hot Stove League (tm) is in full effect, and the Cardinals have made their first splash by signing 35-year old lefty reliever Trever Miller, last seen donning a Tampa Bay uniform.

Trever Miller?

Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Miller was always the first reliever I rooted for the Astros to throw in the game whenever I watched them play the Cards. One of the Cards' glaring weaknesses last year was their inability to find a left-handed shutdown reliever, and I don't see Miller filling that role. He probably won't be any worse than Ron Villone was last year, but that really isn't saying much.

Stay tuned, because apparently the Cards are looking at dealing for Khalil Greene soon. Yikes.

(Agh. It looks like they already did.)

Free (minor league) Cards!

I'm officially jumping in with one or two toes in the pool on the holiday baseball card giveaway madness. I have a somewhat overflowing 800-ct. box of baseball cards that is (no longer) meticulously organized by set and card number. Unfortunately (for you), the cards are minor league baseball cards. Last night I spent a bit of time during the Blazers game I recorded to sort the cards by team, and I am now fully prepared to give them away.


All you have to do is tell me what team you're interested in. Leave a comment here, and I will contact you by e-mail. If you don't have an e-mail listed in your profile, leave a comment AND send me an e-mail (my e-mail is listed in my profile.)

There are, of course, restrictions. Certain teams are not available. There are 3 stacks of cards earmarked for bloggers, whether they like it or not. Also, since these cards are primarily from the late 80s and early 90s, certain teams are not available at all. For instance, there is only one Rockies-affiliated card, and nothing for any other franchise established after 1992. If you request the Nationals, you're going to get Expos (whether you like it or not.) Also, I don't have many Cardinals available, but there may be a few- I'd have to check on whether I have doubles or not.

Special consideration may be made for player requests and minor league team-specific requests, as long as you have a good story or reason behind it. For example, if Hilly Hathaway is your long lost cousin or if you went to high school with Joey Wardlow, I can probably make an arrangement for you. If you're just hoping I have a Derek Jeter card for you, well, then you're out of luck. That being said, there are a number of active players and coaches available in the team groupings and even a few future Hall of Famers. I'm not holding back anyone for any reason unless they are in my Cardinals binders or a member of the Portland Beavers.

Once again, let me know if you're interested. I realize that this is geared more towards the nerdy team collector and less towards those of you who may be more interested in cards with actual value and maybe a story behind them. The cards will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, although if there are multiple people requesting a specific team within a limited time span I will consider splitting the lots up.

Twenty Dollar Updates

For a stretch of time, starting with 1986, I used to get a Traded set every year for either my birthday or Christmas, or sometimes both. The 1986 and 1988 Topps Traded sets were instant classics with their player selection (and in the latter set, the Team USA cards.) I didn't always stick to Topps, but no matter what set I got, I always enjoyed getting the first cards of [insert player here] in a [insert team here] uniform. Eventually, they started serializing sets and putting out the year end sets in pack form (previously most of these things were only available in factory set form), but I still have a strange bit of fondness for this kind of thing.

I had set out to spend $20 on a blaster of this year's Topps Updates & Highlights set, even though I'm not much of a fan of the base Topps set this year overall. I had a fairly good bit of luck with a blaster I got from last year's U&H and there are plenty of Cardinals in the set, so I figured I'd get this one box and hopefully be done with it. Here's the thing, though. These $20 boxes promise 80 cards and a guaranteed relic. Unfortunately, the only relic card in this batch I'm even remotely interested is a Mark Mulder relic, which is probably worth only slightly more than a 1989 Donruss Ken Hill card these days. Target also sells packs of 12 cards for $1.99, blister packs of two 12-card packs for $3.99, jumbo packs containing 36 cards for $4.99 and some sort of collossal mega ultrajumbo pack containing 80 cards for $9.99. I was afraid of the $9.99 "packs", but I decided to put my $20 bill towards an assortment of (most likely searched) packs and get more cards for my money. I ended up buying four loose $1.99 packs, two blister packs and one of the more manageable-sized jumbos. In the interest of brevity and the fact that these cards are just not that exciting to begin with, I'm going to ditch the usual comments about each card and just show a few highlights along with the list of what I got, starting with the loose packs.

Pack 1:
UH43 - Jason Bartlett
UH60 - Jim Edmonds (AGH! The eyes... they bleed!)
UH139 - Jon Lieber
UH79 - Willie Harris
UH27 - Reid Brignac (RC)

UH249 - Chris Volstad (RC)
UH303 - Taylor Teagarden (RC) (No relation to Aimee Teegarden)
UH327 - Hernan Iribarren (RC) (As a Cardinals fan, I have been subjected to a lot of Brewers games, and I swear this guy is made up.)
UH311 - Oscar Salazar
UH52 - Derek Jeter All-Star
UH233 - Grady Sizemore All-Star (I find it strange that most of the all-star/combo/highlight cards seem to be found at the end of packs or at least in clusters, even though they are not insert cards nor are they numbered sequentially. Hmm.)
UH124 - Rodriguez & Longoria Combos (What they have in common is that they both play 3rd base for an American League team.)
- David Wright Loss Prevention Card

Pack 2:
UH163 - Miguel Cairo (Adding Cairo to your lineup is a sure sign that your season is over.)
UH205 - Octavio Dotel
UH121 - Jacque Jones
UH37 - Connor Robertson

UH112 - Hamilton & Drew Combos (One is an intense player who fought a long hard battle back from personal adversity and the other plays the game like it's a chore.)
UH292 - Ryan Dempster All-Star
UH161 - Asdrubal Cabrera Highlights
UH23 - Cristian Guzman All-Star
UH210 - Joe Saunders
UH281 - Chris Aguila
YR165 - Carlos Lee Year in Review

MMS74 - Mickey Mantle Story (Will the story ever end?)
- Topps Town Filler

Pack 3:
UH152 - Steve Trachsel
UH330 - Johan Santana
UH110 - Jose Valverde (This card was a pack-searching casualty, no doubt, as one of the corners is totally mashed. Serves him right for being an Astro.)

UH295 - Aaron Miles (Players that were neither traded nor have rookie status probably make up a simple majority of this set.)
UH154 - Grady Sizemore Home Run Derby
UH241 - Chase Utley All-Star
UH185 - Joey Votto Highlights

UH329 - Jeremy Sowers (I don't like the photography in most of the Topps base set this year, but this one is pretty nice.)
UH28 - Miguel Tejada All-Star
UH227 - Carlos Quentin All-Star
UH275 - Rich Harden
UH11 - Matt Holliday (Holliday is sure taking his time becoming a Cardinals, isn't he...)
- Checklist 2 of 3

Pack 4:
UH277 - John Rheinecker
UH31 - Marco Scutaro
UH30 - Brendan Harris

UH271 - Brad Thompson (Thompson has become a staple of these Update sets.)
UH225 - Ryan Tucker (RC)
UH261 - Matt Macri (RC)
UH171 - Brian Bixler (RC) (The rookies seem to all stick together, too.)
UH3 - Freddie Bynum

UH264 - David Ortiz All-Star
UH181 - Runelvys Hernandez
UH258 - Arthur Rhodes
UH35 - Hanley Ramirez All-Star
- Topps Town Filler

Now it's time for the blister packs...
Pack 5:

UH302 - Brandon Moss
UH188 - Ray Durham
UH248 - Doug Mientkiewicz
UH116 - Odalis Perez

UH273 - Chris Perez (RC) (Best card I pulled so far, as far as I'm concerned. Not the best picture of Perez, but it beats a lame spring training photo or posed picture any day.)
UH291 - Jonathan Herrera (RC)
UH93 - Chris Coste
UH183 - Greg Reynolds (RC)
UH197 - Michael Young All-Star
UH107 - Jason Varitek All-Star
UH68 - Jonathan Papelbon All-Star
UH35 - Hanley Ramirez All-Star
- David Wright-less Topps of the Class Filler

Pack 6:
UH200 - Luke Scott (Worst part of my day today? When ESPN's Outside the Lines replayed a clip of Luke Scott's segment on what a gun-toting lunatic he is in the wake of the Plaxico Burress news today.)
UH158 - Chad Durbin
UH109 - Alberto Callaspo
UH32 - Cody Ross

UH243 - Joe Mather (RC)
UH123 - Matt Joyce (RC)
UH39 - Jose Molina
UH189 - Micah Hoffpauir (RC)
UH311 - Oscar Salazar (Heeeeeeerrrrreeee... comes... the doubles!)
UH52 - Derek Jeter All-Star
UH233 - Grady Sizemore All-Star


UH124 - Rodriguez & Longoria Combos
- Topps Town Filler

Pack 7:
UH277 - John Rheinecker
UH31 - Marco Scutaro
UH30 - Brendan Harris
UH271 - Brad Thompson
UH297 - Cory Wade (RC) (Ends the run of 8 consecutive doubles.)

UH100 - Jay Bruce (RC) (Non-stupid version.)
UH105 - Dan Giese (RC)
UH309 - John Bowker (RC)
UH64 - Joe Nathan All-Star
UH95 - Ichiro All-Star (Someday I'll find an Ichiro collector to dump my countless numbers of Ichiro cards off on.)

UH17 - Russ Martin All-Star (Come on, Topps. Is it Russ or Russell? Make up your mind.)
UH41 - Joe Mauer All-Star
- Topps Town Insert

Pack 8:
UH55 - Cesar Izturis
UH13 - Geoff Blum
UH223 - Jeff Ridgway (Isn't he a rookie? I don't see the ubiquitous Rookie Card logo...)
UH289 - Chris Gomez
UH81 - J.C. Romero
UH225 - Ryan Tucker (RC)
UH261 - Matt Macri (RC)
UH171 - Brian Bixler (RC)

UH53 - Justin Duchscherer All-Star (Ladies and Gentlemen... Justin Duchscherer, Two-time All-Star.)
UH47 - Dustin Pedroia All-Star
UH82 - Joe Saunders All-Star
UH101 - Dioner Navarro All-Star (Lots of first-time all-stars this year.)
- David Wright-less Topps of the Class Filler

And finally, the Jumbo Pack:
(section 1)
UH199 - Lance Cormier
UH230 - Jason Jennings
UH194 - Gary Bennett (I have it on good word that next year Topps is naming this set "2009 Updates & Highlights Presents: Backup Catchers, Gimmicks & Guys We Forgot About The Last Two Times")
UH104 - Omar Infante
UH297 - Cory Wade (RC)
UH100 - Jay Bruce (RC) (Proper orientation.)
UH105 - Dan Giese (RC)

WBC5 - Chase Utley WBC (There's no background for his name on the back. Is that normal with these cards? Also, I find this insert set slightly weird. I am assuming the photos are from the last WBC, which was in 2006. Three-year old photos of players who may or may not be participating in the WBC... ooookay. Well, we do know that Chase won't be there.)

YR153 - Pedro Martinez Year in Review
UH208 - Kerry Wood All-Star
UH119 - Ken Griffey Jr. All-Star

UH313 - Tim Lincecum All-Star (The back of the card details the sad circumstances of his skull-crushing hangover and how it caused him to miss his first All-Star Game.)
UH215 - Josh Hamilton All-Star (There are four Josh Hamilton cards in this set. This is another one of them.)
UH317 - Brian Buscher
UH56 - Roy Halladay All-Star
UH64 - Joe Nathan All-Star
UH95 - Ichiro All-Star
UH17 - Russ Martin All-Star
(section 2)
UH295 - Aaron Miles
UH301 - Tony Pena
UH115 - Mike Lamb
UH86 - David Aardsma
UH220 - Geoff Jenkins
UH87 - Ryan Langerhans
UH63 - Eric Bruntlett
UH45 - Eric Hurley (RC)

UH192 - Craig Hansen Gold 0199/2008 (One sure way to make your baseball cards drop about 90% in value: get traded from the Red Sox to the Pirates.)
UH185 - Joey Votto Highlights
UH214 - Carlos Zambrano All-Star
UH22 - Brian Moehler
UH323 - Jorge Velandia
UH293 - Adam Dunn
UH190 - Manny Ramirez All-Star

UH59 - Cliff Lee All-Star
UH263 - Eric Patterson
UH34 - Nate McLouth All-Star
- Topps Town Filler
- David Wright Don't Steal These Cards Filler

All in all, it wasn't terrible. I did alright with getting Cardinals cards, although I'm still lacking a Ryan Ludwick card in a St. Louis uniform and he has two cards in this set. There's also a Pujols card that I need and probably a couple others. They also, inexplicably, inserted Mark Worrell autographs into this set. He only made a few appearances for the Cardinals this season and his major league future is tenuous at best. He doesn't even have a base card, but you can get his autograph. Is that normal? If anyone out there managed to get one of these, let me know and I'll trade you something that isn't worth all that much.