Shining cards

Earlier in the week I snuck out a little challenge for readers to identify a certain baseball card visible in the film The Shining. Congrats to Fuji for deftly solving the mystery! We'll recap that in a minute, but first some cards... three shiny refractor autos from 2003 Topps Retired.

Juan Marichal! Very happy to score this recently. I love these things, and this one is particularly pleasing to look at.

It was less than a year ago that I landed the '05 Retired Marichal refractor auto, and he didn't get an auto in the '04 set, so that means it's a Retired wrap on the Dominican Dandy for me.

Same with Moose Skowron here-- I already owned his '05 Retired refractor, and he didn't get an auto in '04, so this sweet '03 refractor takes his name off my Retired needs.

Five-time World Series champ.

Last one for today is George Foster taking a big cut at the plate. This is also the last Retired card I needed of his-- I've already got his '04 refractor and he doesn't have an auto in the '05 set.

The base version of this card is one of the more-plentiful autos in the set, but the refractor pops up much less frequently. This one had been loitering on eBay for a while a little overpriced, but I finally pulled the trigger during the same celebratory shopping spree as the similar Tom Seaver I showed off a few posts back.

Dig this photo of a redder look at the shining George Foster.

Now about The Shining...

Ok, here's the hidden card.. can you spot it?

......

....

..

Fuji was the first to correctly identify the card in question as 1978 Kellogg's 3-D Super Stars #10 George Foster.

In his own words: 

Haven't watched The Shining in awhile. I put it on right before class and between periods (on HBO Max) and saw the Frosted Flakes box in the pantry. It was hard to see from my laptop, so I played in on my television and knew it was a Kellogg's card. From there... I went over to COMC and looked at anything similar and the 78K Foster was the only card that resembled the card on the cereal box. I had a lot of fun solving that mystery.

Good work, Fuji!

For his effort, he's getting a Warren Spahn auto as his selected prize from what other product than of course 2003 Topps Retired, LOL, tying the post together nicely.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody.

finally got a George Brett rookie!

After an arduous, dragged out, stressful Twitter trade (that I'll likely rant about it a future post), it felt like the cardboard gods were offering me some gracious karmic payback when I got an email from a guy basically offering to send me a George Brett rookie card in exchange for future custom-making consideration.. and not even like a huge custom project, but just like a few cards. YES!

I had worked with Alex T. before on a pair of MC Hammer custom cards he wanted whipped up a couple years back. He was going through some of his old cards, found the Brett, and recalled seeing it atop my "Wishful Thinking" desperate double dozen wantlist.

Nice! I've never owned a George Brett rookie before. He's a PC guy for me, plus I'm in the early stages of working on building 1975 Topps (I'm rounding up cards, but haven't sorted them out and made a needslist yet). With this big one out of the way, it should be all downhill for me completing the set. (Still wouldn't mind picking up a dupe for the PC if another fell in my lap someday.)

And that's not all..

Alex then asked if I had any interest in a '75 Robin Yount too. YES! I already had a rough-condition copy that Mark Hoyle kindly sent me back in 2015, but this is a big upgrade. Now I can keep the other one in the PC and put this nicer copy toward the setbuild.

And while that pair of vintage HOF rookies was plenty, Alex was nice enough to throw in some more cards he thought I might be able to use.

Great trio of Dave Dravecky rookie cards, and a signed Tim Flannery.

Very happy with this run of Graig Nettles' Topps cards from the 70s. The closer-cropt '77 card is the Burger King version. Much of these I needed for the PC (Graig's an SDSU guy), and any dupes can go toward sets.

Garry Templeton and Jerry Royster.. more 70s set fodder.

And a great batch of badass m.f. George Foster.

Thanks again so much, Alex! Terrific package of cards. And I really needed that friendly, super easy transaction after the frustration of the other recent deal I made. Just let me know whenever you've got custom ideas you'd like to throw at me and I'll be at your service.

Happy Card! George Foster "Slugger" 1981 Fleer

Happy Card!® is an old feature here that went dormant after its debut back in July, but let's try to shake it out of its slumber every once in a while. The subject of that first post was Carl Yastrzemski's 1966 Topps card.. a card I'm so smitten with that I've essentially co-opted it as my mascot here, even though Baseball Card Breakdown definitely couldn't be described as a Red Sox blog or anything. But you can see Yaz's award-winning smile in the "email me" picture here, as well as the blog's favicon (the little logo that shows up to the left of the site title in your browser). That card-- as is the hallmark of any true Happy Card!™- just never fails to cheer me up when I look at it.

Our next honoree is a card that gets its share of attention on card blogs, but mainly due to the charming oddity that it might be the only card ever to list "slugger" as the player's position. Yeah, that's pretty cool, no doubt, but what really appeals to me about this card is the ecstatic open-mouth mega-grin that just radiates with warm fuzzies.

Looks like George is on the dugout steps watching something amusing transpire out on the field.

I was just waxing about 1981 Fleer a few days ago in my One Last Card post of Willie McCovey. I hadn't really planned to highlight the set twice in such a short time, but screw it. A couple quirks I pointed out about the set were multiple cards of certain stars, and the general low quality photography of early 80s Fleer. This picture isn't so bad for its day, though it still has somewhat of an amateur look to it. George here was among the players bestowed with 2 base cards in the set. One identifies his position as "outfield" and the other (our happiness-themed card) amusingly as "slugger".
Here's his other card in the set:

This card is reasonably happy too, but not quite at Happy Card! levels. Reggie Jackson got a similar 2-card treatment.. One card lists his position as "outfield" and the other as "Mr. Baseball" (one would assume they meant "Mr. October"). There are other secondary cards that list a stat or something (e.g., George Brett has a "390 Average" card, and Rickey Henderson has a "Most Stolen Bases AL" card), but sometimes they're just weird like "Slugger" or "Mr. Baseball". Fleer sometimes screwed up the numbering, mixing up the 2 cards of a player. So for instance, there's a variation of the "Slugger" card having #216 on the back, though it's usually #202 (Vice versa with his "Outfield" card).

Backing up from cards for a moment, let's give an overview of the player. Recapping George Foster's career, there are 2 big bullet points to hit. First, he was the only player for a long time (between 1966 through 1989) to hit over 50 home runs in a season, cranking out 52 in 1977. Nowadays, any high school kid with a Bowflex and a tub of back alley protein powder can smack 50 MLB homers, but back then it was a big deal! Second, he was a key part of the Big Red Machine teams of Cincinnati's back-to-back championships of 1975 and 1976. He finished with solid career numbers, but fell short of the hall.

Foster also had a Fleer sticker insert that year. I picked up all 3 of these '81 Fleer Fosters from Just Commons for a combined 52 cents (the majority of that being "Slugger" #202 at 30 cents.. I was a little bummed it has some surface issues, but at least the centering is decent by '81 Fleer standards). They all have similar backs, though the sticker doesn't have the yellow, and the name seems to be a slightly different font.

Oh, and you might notice that the picture from his sticker is pretty similar to that of his "outfield" card, likely taken moments apart.

It looks like George was trying to concentrate on getting his photo taken, but something disturbing behind the photographer was distracting him. A streaker on the field, perhaps?

Similar to Yaz, Foster was known to collectors for the no-nonsense facial expressions on most of his cards, which makes a Happy Card all the more special. (If a guy is always smiling on his cards, it's not that big a deal when one of them seems a bit happier than the others.) But while Yaz usually just looked stoic on his cards, Foster often looked downright mean!
Just take a look at some of his cards:

Even as a rookie. I wouldn't want to mess with that guy! Yikes!

I fear for my safety just looking at these cards!

But once in a while he'd let his guard down and show that he's really just a big softy at heart.

Even looks like he's grinning as he swings on his '83 Card.

To wrap it up, let's admire his joyous 1981 Fleer card one more time...

Now, that's a Happy Card!