Randy Jones PC

 

Bummed this morning to hear Randy Jones passed away. His glory days were before my time, but growing up in San Diego, I'd heard his name often brought up as a Padres legend of yore. I discovered after first tracking down one of his cards, sure enough, San Diego actually had a two-time 20-game winner at one point! I saw him hanging out at a spring training game in the early 90s and he seemed like a friendly dude. I didn't interact with him then, but years later had a nice TTM success. I figured I'd pay my humble tribute to the man by checking out my Randy Jones PC in a post.

I've got 3 San Diego rookies, plus one Washington variation. Honestly I'm not sure how I acquired so many. And this is just the PC, not even pulling the pair from my '74 Topps set.

Top pic of the post shows his '75 Topps along with a similar trio of his 2004 All-Time Fan Favorites redo. Then continuing into the late 70s... 

Turns out I'm missing his '83 Topps sunset card in the PC, though I've got it in the complete set. Plenty of oddballs and other OPC I'm missing too.

But hey, above is a complete run of his Fleer and Donruss cards, as he was left out of '82 and '83 Donruss.

Some post-career releases. 

Topps 2016 Archives included Randy as an SP and autograph subject. Randy was generous with his signature over the years, so no collector should have to stoop to a butchered cut like that slabbed red thing, but hey, gives some unique flavor to the PC.

Finally, here's that TTM request I alluded to. One of my favorite customs to get back with fresh ink. As I say, Randy was happy to sign for fans, but not many Pirates autos of his out there. He had tried to make the club in spring training '83, but got cut prior to opening day. I found a couple Topps Vault photos, threw together a custom, and was fortunate enough to have him sign and return it for me. Thanks again, Randy. Rest in peace.

Turning a good pull into a great haul

Back on Christmas Day 2016, I opened a gift box of 2015 Tier One and pulled a 1/1 auto of Alex Cobb. It was bittersweet because it's a thrill to pull a true 1/1, but an oft-injured pitcher on the Rays? Yeah, a bit of a disappointment compared to other possible names I could have pulled.

But then Cobb came back for a solid 2017 season, and just recently signed a big free agent contract with the Orioles. I figured while his name was in the news was a good time to throw my 1/1 on eBay and see if I got any interest, admittedly at a "reaching" price.

Turns out there's an Alex Cobb supercollector out there, and while he didn't jump at my big asking price, he sent me a message about the possibility of working out a deal. I let him know I'd be open to trading, as I'm definitely a collector first and foremost, not really much of a seller.

And it worked out great for all involved, as he got a nice 1/1 auto to add to his impressive Alex Cobb collection, and I got a sweet bunch of cards from him (even more than I was expecting) which I will now show off to you.

My first graded Mantle.. with Boog Powell and Harmon Killebrew along as well. Pretty cool! I already had this card in my '65 set, but this one will likely "upgrade" the old one, which will in turn get bumped to the Mickey PC. (I definitely love Killer, but it's hard to trump top The Mick).

Minnesota had a lot of sluggers that year.

This is pretty incredible. Before this, I think my highest-graded vintage card was a PSA 6, but now I've got this pristine specimen slabbed a 9. I'm not even a big graded-cards guy, but that's pretty neat.. A "pack-fresh" card that's nearly 50 years old. I collect both HOFers on the card, but will likely give the nod to Bob Gibson for PC placement.

Perhaps the only thing stopping the card from being graded a perfect 10 is that the back is slightly off center. Several greats listed there.

Getting into modern cards, here's a George Springer #'d /99. Looks like he's off to a hot start this season, continuing where he left off after his big World Series. ("According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first leadoff home run for a defending World Series champion. Springer also is the only player ever to hit a leadoff home run on Opening Day in consecutive years." [source])

Love this Randy Jones blue parallel auto #'d /199. (Sorry most of these are still in the top loaders and team bags, but I was rushing to take these photos this morning before work.)

And he surprised me with a Gavin! White Sox prospect Gavin Sheets #'d 025/100. Very nice.

Sweet Reggie Bush jersey relic, #'d /299. A hometown hero of mine, I hadn't heard much about him lately so I did a wiki search; turns out he announced his retirement in December 2017. Never quite lived up to his hype out of college, but still put together a solid career and got himself a Super Bowl ring.

And last card of the post, a beautiful Adam Jones auto, #'d 11/15. The gold ink on a textured black surface looks awesome. While I'm not sure this counts as a true "on-card" signature, I can't complain about this card at all. Just need to throw a bird logo on the helmet and it'd be damn near perfect. He's a fun guy to collect. The San Diego native has put together a Hall of Very Good worthy career in Baltimore. (Update: Looks like he hit a walk-off tatter in their opener today. Nice.)

So there you go! Excellent haul for an Alex Cobb autograph I didn't have much use for!
Thanks again for the trade, Reid. (Anybody else sitting on an Alex Cobb 1/1? He's your guy.)

Thanks for reading and enjoy the start of the baseball season, everybody! I get tomorrow off (Good Friday), so I'm looking forward to a long weekend of baseball.

2016 Archives.. my best box ever!

I like Topps Archives a lot. In 2012, I had been out of the hobby for nearly two decades. I took a curious look on eBay to see what has happening in the world of baseball cards. I was immediately drawn to Archives with the familiar old designs featuring stars of yesteryear and today. I ended up buying 2 or 3 blasters over the next few months. Didn't pull anything too exciting besides a Pettitte relic and a Clemente reprint RC. I discovered the seminal 1988 Topps blog, and from there Night Owl Cards.

By 2013, I was fully back into the hobby, picking up where I left off building my collection in the early 90s and starting up his here blog. Again, I bought 2 or 3 Archives blasters that year, with the only hit I recall pulling being a boring Hanley Ramirez relic.

When 2014 rolled around, I was entrenched in the hobby and had made a name for myself in our little corner of the internet. I got serious about Archives that year and ponied up for a hobby box. My 2 promised autos were David Eckstein and Terry Pendleton.. fine players, but both definitely on the common/cheap side of the product's autograph checklist.

In 2015, I doubled down and pre-ordered two hobby boxes of Archives. I figured that would ensure I'd finally score a sweet hit from the product. Right? Nope. I mean, I did alright, pulling a Brett Gardner printing plate and a /199 auto of Jason Kendall, plus base autos of Brady Anderson, Dontrelle Willis, and somebody else who isn't coming to mind. (Had to look it up in my blog's archives: Dalton Pompey).

So it had become an annual money dump for me, but was still fun enough for me to keep it going. I would enviously watch guys like the Snorting Bull blog have excellent boxes every year and think when am I going to get a sweet box like that? This year, I again went the dual-box route... hoping maybe this time I'd finally reach that pot o' gold.

I think I'll be using one of the boxes for an 80s toy "narrative" post like I did a couple years ago, so stay tuned for that one (still haven't finished busting that box). But the other box I tore through Friday evening. It was very, very good to me.

Here's a representative selection of some highlights that caught my eye in the base card department.

I never bother trying to complete the set, just go after guys I collect, any key rookies, and hope for a decent hit or two. I was happy to come up with a nice fat stack of keepers for my collection. The old-timers are pretty much all pictured with the respective teams you'd expect, with Boggs as a Yankee being the only minor "surprise" I came across. Personally I'd love to see a few more interesting choices such as Lou Brock as a Cub and the like, but oh well. I really like how the 1991 and 1979 designs look. Gotta say 1953 is easily my least favorite of the three, featuring boring, often low quality headshots with none of the charm of the original cards' painted portraits.

When I rip a pack and see the back of a 1991 Topps card, the first thing I think is, "Hey, where's the gum?" Haha. I was very pleased that Topps brought back complete career stats on the back this year (not applicable to 1953) after tragically truncating them in the previous couple years of Archives. I love the tiny text on cards of guys like Mays and Ryan who played forever!

Ok, now we're getting into the inserts. I really like these two 1985 insert sets, with Harper clearly being my best pull here.

These inserts almost feel "wrong" being in a modern set, what with the rounded corners. While a tribute to the oversized 1969 Topps Super set, these things are probably closer to overproduction-era Mother's cards in reality. They are pretty cool, though, and I was very happy to pull the Goldy.

I gotta admit the Bull Durham cards don't do anything for me. I watched the movie once or twice long ago. It was fine and all but I wouldn't list it among my favorite baseball flicks or anything. I'll need to Netflix it one of these days to reacquaint myself with it and remember who "Tony" and "Jimmy" are.

A pair of Koufax cards. The 1953 one is an SP, I believe the only one I got in this box. Archives SPs are dumb this year, as they usually are. At least there are only 10 of them. Same ol' designs as the base (I miss when the SPs were in different designs), and why repeat players? I think SPs should be reserved for lesser-known oldies who aren't in the base set (if there's gotta be SPs at all). If you really gotta repeat players, at least switch up which team they're pictured with.

Some parallels. Red (/50) for the Cardinals and blue (/199) for the Cubs.. nice and color coded. Damn Oakland ruining that coordination! Too bad there aren't green parallels. I'm just glad they got rid of the "silver" (gray) and "gold" (rust) parallels from last year.. those were ugly. But I miss the shiny parallels from earlier years of Archives.

And now for the grand finale of the box.. the autos! As a Padres fan, I was happy to pull a Randy Jones autograph. Not a "sick mojo" hit, but he's a PC guy for me, so it's a nice hit for my collection. But that was just the tip of the iceberg for my luck with this box. I already made a quick post about the Griffey redemption the other day after I pulled it.

My thought process was like..
"Aw dang, a redemption" :/
"WAIT WUT? Ken Griffey Jr? NICE!" :)
"Hang on.. Black Border Parallel.. aren't those 1/1?!" =D
Then I proceeded to "Woooooooo!!!" aloud to myself for a few minutes with a huge smile.

And yeah, according to eBay, the black parallels all seem to be 1/1. There don't seem to be many Griffey autos available from 2016 Archives, with only like 4 redemptions popping up on eBay by the time I'm writing this post. And none of those are the Father/Son card. The #1 Draft Pick design seems to be more common. The prices are pretty crazy. I'm sure I could get some ridiculous $$$$ if I sold mine. It's tempting to cash in and put it on eBay right now, but I think I gotta hang onto it. It's just too good of a story.. Archives is the product that brought me back into the hobby. Then I struggled with it for a few years with lackluster boxes (and honestly I generally have bad luck with all unopened product I rip). Until BAM! Finally got my sick mega mojo hit of a lifetime. There's no way I could ever top that. Hell, I even pulled it on the same day the great Muhammad Ali died, to throw a little extra weight into the situation. While it might be nice to sell it and use the funds to land an unattainable dream card for me like a high-grade Clemente rookie or something, I still think I gotta hang onto the Griffey. Like most collectors my age, I'm a big Griffey fan and he's always been a guy I collected.

Here are some images via eBay so you can use your imagination to extrapolate what the card I pulled a redemption for will look like, though with a black border.

not my card

The base version of the Griffey Father/Son card. (Why did they go with the 1980 Topps card for Sr? That's like his worst looking card!)

not my card 

An example of what the Father/Son autos look like. (It'd be cool if they also got the dads to sign, making them dual autos, but hey, minor complaint.) Hmm.. apparently the "base auto" versions of these are /10. So yeah, definitely scare, and even if I didn't pull the black parallel, it'd still easily be my best hit ever.

So now I have to go through the redemption process. Fingers crossed for a prompt redemption with no snags! Redemption horror stories prod at my brain and make me think I should just sell the redemption and let someone else worry about it.. though that thinking already came back to haunt me once when I let a nice Michael Conforto auto slip away. So might as well live a little and risk it.

It's a little stressful, what with it being such a high-dollar card. This is one delivery where I don't mind a signature being required! When it arrives, I'll take a bunch of pictures of it and then get it into a family safe deposit box or something. I might even keep it at work; Sounds funny to say but I work in a very secure room with 24/7 cameras and not even the cleaning crew has access. At least there I could admire it every workday and bask in the glory that is the pull of my lifetime. But yeah, first things first; need to get it in-hand.

Anyways.. I'll keep ya'll updated. Thanks for reading!

Custom TTM Success: Randy Jones!

Granted this one isn't as epic as my previous TTM return, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

Randy Jones was a bright spot on some crappy Padres teams of the mid 70s. His 1976 season in particular was pretty incredible, leading the NL in several pitching categories on his way to the Cy Young Award. The 300+ innings he threw that year took their toll on his arm, though, and he was never that dominant again. The Padres traded him to the Mets after the 1980 season, and he pitched a couple years for them, but his best days were behind him and he was released by New York after the 1982 season.

He has a 1983 Topps card as a Met that turned out to be a "final tribute" with complete career stats on the back. But a few months ago, I did a double take when I stumbled upon a couple old Topps photos featuring Randy as a Pirate. Looking into it, I discovered he signed with Pittsburg before the 1983 season, but ended up getting released in spring training and called it a career.

I figured the Pirates photos could be used to make a neat "card that never was" and then forgot about it for a while until last month when I was on a TTM requesting bender. Randy is known as a decent signer, so I whipped up a theoretical 1983 Topps Traded card for him to sign and mailed it off. I already have a couple certified autos of his on Padres cards, so I figured I'd go quirky with a "zero year" card. Exactly a month later, it arrived back at my place.

Pretty cool! Between this, the Goose TTM success from a couple weeks back, and the 1977 Dave Parker "Padres" card I made a while ago, I've got a nice little assortment of off-the-wall Pirates customs going.

(UPDATE: I've just noticed that his 1983 OPC card does in fact say "Now with Pirates" though the pictures are the same as the Topps version.)

Big thanks to Mr. Jones for taking the time to sign for me! I remember seeing him at a spring training game in the early 90s when I was a kid, but I wasn't quick enough to get his autograph that day. So I guess there's some nice closure here to have him finally give me an autograph all these years later.

I think with this return, I've gotten back all the "safe bet" requests I sent out last month. There are still a couple "maybes" and a couple "shot in the dark" requests outstanding that will hopefully return eventually, but I won't be holding my breath. I'm also gearing up to send out a few requests to spring training in the next few days.

Anyhoo, thanks for stopping by.
Let's do a quick contest bonus entry question: In the comments below, be the first to name the other 4 Padres besides Randy Jones to have their number retired by the team. (Tim B. not eligible since he got the last one.)

This is a post about a superhero named Tony L.

Seems like I traded a few times with Off-Hiatus Tony about a year ago. But in recent months, he's been busy with important career stuff, and I've been, well, pretty much tapped on Brewers to send him.

But he dropped a damn fine package of cards on me the other day.

If you'd be so kind as to let me, I'd like to show you some cards he sent.

A whopping four TTM autos of guys I collect, including my first Bird signature. Incredible! To date, I've never done a TTM. I thought about it this year, but didn't get around to it and now it's probably too late to hit the sweet spot of early spring training. Maybe next year. I would love for one of you bloggers out there to post a "how to" sometime just to help me get a good grasp on how it's done. I know the basics aren't hard to understand, but there are some nuances I'm unclear about.

Also included is a ticket from the 1984 National featuring Mickey Mantle (my "ticket to randomland" as Tony's friendly note called it). That's a neat item!

Too Many McCoveys!

Some great Rollie and Gaylord cards.

More Cy-winning Padres.

The mortal enemy of the 9-pocket page: non-standard sized oddballs! Love the Ozzie 79 reprint mini encased in it's own little stand (Ozzie's 90 Topps is featured on the reverse).

A couple more cards I needed of dudes I collect.

Tony likes when people post Clash songs, so here's one for him..

Tommy Gun would've been a cool nickname, but I guess Tom Terrific is fine too. Love this lot of Seavers. Looks like 3½ of these cards share the same picture.

Some pairs of Padre greats.

Closing out with a few more Padres. That Andrew Cashner emerald parallel has clearly been enchanted by a leprechaun. Nothing wrong with that.

Thanks a ton, Tony! I've had a few cards set aside for you for a while, and will keep an eye out for more Brewers at the card show tomorrow.(!!)

Have a great weekend, everybody.