Angus of Dawg Day Cards dropped a heck of a card package on me.
The heft of the package was a box of about 400 cards from 1979 Topps-- some good names, too-- taking me from around 30% complete all the way up to over 87% complete! Ninety-two cards left to go.
These '79s were a complete surprise. What I had expected from Angus were some of his spare Cleveland Browns cards...
I've been wanting to start a PC of hometown boy Brian Sipe for a while but had zero of his cards before this lot. I just learned that El Cajon won the Little League World Series in 1961 with a team featuring Brian. That's pretty cool. He then attended Grossmont High School, a district rival of mine, before attending my alma mater, San Diego State University. He went onto a solid NFL career with the Browns highlighted by being named MVP in 1980.
And Sipe isn't the only former Brown with ties to my hometown...
Touchdown Tommy Vardell is among the greatest athletes to have attended Granite Hills High School. He went onto become the star running back for Stanford before entering the NFL with Cleveland in 1992. Lots of great cards here... and here:
Seeing as I tend to focus on baseball Guys From Granite, I only had 9 or 10 Tommy Vardell cards before this generous lot from Angus more than tripled the PC!
He also sent along a bunch of Canadian Padres cards.
Some more baseball stuff, including a Reggie Jackson "SportsClix" miniature figure.
Here's a closer look at Reggie. He arrived broken off the base, but a little glue fixed him right up.
And for my Greatest Gavins minicollection, an OPC hockey card.
And we close out with a few more football cards highlighted by a sweet LaDainian Tomlinson red refractor. Also a Michael Sam auto and Marshall Faulk rookie.
Thanks a lot, Angus! I've got a couple Browns hits set aside for you and will keep an eye out for more at the next card show.
I woke up with a tiny bit of a sniffle, and didn't have much on my plate at work today, so called in sick.
I successfully made it through another Dry January (no booze all month), and celebrated with a beer at lunch today.
I was a day late in celebrating Jackie Robinson's 100th birthday, but whipped up a nifty gif card today. I think this is one of my best, if I say so myself!
This helped me hit 1400 followers on Twitter today, which is pretty crazy.
Padres fans such as myself are still basking in the afterglow from the recent announcement that Trevor Hoffman will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. I don't need to tell you that it's a nice feeling to have one of your city's sports stars make the Hall of Fame.
It'll probably be a long time till the Padres have another one. Maybe if Adrian Gonzalez recaptures his form with the Mets and has a few more good seasons, he might have a shot, but I wouldn't bet on it. And while not thought of as a Padre, there's Anthony Rizzo who briefly played for San Diego before being traded to the Cubs. If he keeps it up for another decade, he'll have built a good case for himself. And I'm still holding out hope that Garvey and McGriff claw their way in someday. Gary Sheffield might eventually get in if/when voters lighten up about PED-tainted numbers.
I was thinking about my Kevin Baconesque degrees of separation from the Hall of Fame thanks to going to school with Marcus Giles. (I'm sure longtime readers of my blog are sick of me bringing this up, so please forgive me. Hey, my spellcheck is telling me Baconesque is a real word.. wow.)
I'm the kid whose pumpkin is wearing a cowboy hat and big, bushy mustache. Marcus is the kid in vertical stripes. You probably can't tell, but I'm wearing a Padres shirt. Surprisingly, I still remember most of these kids' names. My best bud in the photo was Dave Paxton, the kid with the double-decker pumpkin. I've got great memories of slumber parties at his house.. playing NES, watching cheesy action movies, and getting into mischeif outside at night.
But yeah, Marcus played on the 2007 San Diego team that not only included Trevor Hoffman, but also Greg Maddux.
I recently won an eBay auction from the Topps Vault for this baseball card contract. I get a kick out of Marcus including a jersey number inscription ("22") even on a legal document like this. I guess it probably becomes a reflex after signing so many autographs.
Marcus also got to play with many great players during his years with the Braves. Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine in the rotation. Chipper Jones at 3rd. Andruw Jones in center. Gary Sheffield in right. Julio Franco on the bench. Fun to think I'm just "one degree of separation" from those guys, whatever that really means.
I picked up some new John Barnes cards in my recent Burbank Sportscards order. Gotta figure I'm not too far from completing this PC, as he doesn't have a ton of cardboard out there, but can't believe I didn't own any of his 1998 Topps rookie card. Here I've not only grabbed the flagship base, but also the Chrome and the inaugural season variations for the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks.
John Barnes played on the 2000/2001 Twins alongside presumptive future HOFer David Ortiz. Barnes was a senior at Granite Hills when I was a freshman, so that means (by meaningless guidelines) I've got one degree of separation from Big Papi.. cool!
Found a couple Shane Spencer needs from Burbank as well. Shane played for the turn-of-the-millennium dynasty Yankees, so there are a lot of great players to link him to. I think Tim Raines is the only current Hall of Famer, but you've also got Jeter, Mussina, Mariano, Clemens, plus guys like Strawberry, Canseco, Giambi, Posada, Pettitte, Bernie, Tino, etc. Lots of household names there. Spencer, who graduated a couple years before I started high school, finished his MLB career on the 2004 Mets alongside Mike Piazza and Tom Glavine.
Casey Craig, who attended Granite a few years after me, never made the majors, but in the minors he was on the same teams as Adam Jones and Jeff Cirillo, each multiple-time MLB All-Stars. I was surprised I didn't already own this Bowman Chrome base card, as I've got some parallels of it.
Tom Fordham graduated from Granite Hills a year or two before I started going there, so there's an added degree of separation there, but he played on the 1997/1998 White Sox teams that featured HOFer Frank Thomas, not to mention other notable names such as Ozzie Guillen, Albert Belle, and Harold Baines.
Added some Tommy Vardell cards to the PC recently, too. Touchdown Tommy played on the 49ers with HOFers Jerry Rice and Steve Young, as well as on the Lions alongside Barry Sanders. Some big names there! He was a few years before my time at Granite, but not too many degrees of separation from me.
I was just about to say Vardell is the only Guy From Granite to ever play in the NFL, but then I just now discovered a guy named Joe Cardona currently with the Patriots and has been since 2015. Oh man, my mind is blown. Does this mean I have to root for New England now?! As a long snapper, he doesn't have many cards out there, but looks like he has a "Salute to Service" insert in 2017 Donruss (he played for Navy after high school). Anybody happen to have that card for trade? I'll need to track one down. Cardona went to Granite long after me, so I'm sure it's a long list of degrees of separation, but pretty cool that a guy from my high school played on the Brady/Belichick dynasty Patriots.
While I don't have any more new cardboard additions to feature, to continue in the theme of this post regarding legendary players that guys from my high school shared a locker room with:
Chris Jones (white guy from the 80s) played on the '85 Astros with Nolan Ryan. He was also briefly with the '86 Giants, but I'm not sure he was on the roster at the same time Steve Carlton was making a short-term stop there near the end of his career (I think they just missed crossing paths by a couple weeks).
Brian Giles played with Jim Thome, Eddie Murray, and Dave Winfield on the Indians in the mid 90s. With the Padres, he suited up with Piazza, Maddux, and Hoffman.
And Mike Reinbach played on the 1974 Orioles with Jim Palmer.
I think that wraps it up.
