Black Sheep minicollection 3: The Darkest Edition!

It's time for more less-famous players from baseball families. Today's installment is a special edition of guys who are related to, well, tainted players, so maybe they aren't exactly the black sheep of the family after all! They might not have had as notable careers, but at least they can walk down the street with their heads held high without any lingering scandal hanging over them. Or maybe they still have to deal with a stigma of a besmirched family name even though they had nothing to do with it.

Koby Clemens

Koby Clemens is the son of Roger Clemens, probably the greatest pitcher of his generation, but an ugly trial surrounding whether a clubhouse worker helped facilitate his PEDs ruined his reputation and has thus far kept him out of Cooperstown. His son Koby played pro ball for a decade (interestingly with organizations his father played for: Houston and Toronto), but never made the majors. His best year was 2009, when he hit .341 with 22 home runs and 123 RBI. Overall, he was a career .255 hitter, though. The final stop of his career was with the independent Sugar Land Skeeters, with whom his father briefly came out of retirement to play alongside Koby. I was kinda hoping Roger would parlay that into a major league comeback, but it wasn't to be.

Bobby Bonds, Jr.

Here's another Black Sheep double-whammy along the lines of Craig Griffey. Bobby Bonds (Sr) was one of the most exciting players of the 70s, a legitimate home run threat who could also swipe 40+ bases in a season. His son Barry broke out for his first MVP season in 1990 and went on to win 7 such awards in his career while breaking Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, though his career was ended prematurely under a shroud of steroid accusations. Barry's younger brother Bobby Bonds, Jr was drafted by the Padres in the 18th round of the 1992 draft. After a few unspectacular seasons, he followed Barry to the Giants organization.

All told, Junior played for 11 seasons, but the closest he ever got to the big leagues was 23 games in AAA. Barry obviously wasn't sharing his enhancers with his little brother, as Bobby Jr only hit 38 home runs over his professional career, many of which were likely of the inside-the-park variety.

Barry recently signed on to be hitting coach for the Marlins, so it'll be interesting to see him back in the game come 2016.

Family bonus points: The Bonds brothers are apparently distant cousins of Mr. October, Reggie Jackson.

Pete Rose, Jr.

Pete Rose, Jr. first appeared on cardboard in 1982 as a bat boy on the classic "Pete & Re-Pete" Fleer card. While his all-time hit king father, Pete Sr. was banned from baseball for betting on the game, his son strove to follow in his footsteps on the field. Junior made the majors with the Reds in 1997, but only mustered a couple hits in 14 at-bats. But dang it, he was determined, and his pro career stretched from 1989 till 2009: 21 seasons! That amounted to 1879 pro hits. Add that to his dad's 4683 professional hits, and you've got quite the family legacy.

As a kid getting into card collecting in 1990, I remember being blown away by the concept of "ANOTHER PETE ROSE! PETE ROSE 2: THE SEQUEL!" But as the years went by, I suppose that was my first lesson that the children of great players aren't necessarily great players themselves. Still though, I'm strangely ecstatic about finally getting my first real Pete Rose, Jr. card here in a recent COMC order.

As for Rose Sr, Commissioner Manfred has promised to rule on his reinstatement request by the end of the year, so we should hear something soon. The fact that Shoeless Joe's (estate's) request was denied earlier this year (bullshit!) is not good foreshadowing for Pete. Personally, I'd love to see him reinstated with the caveat that he not be allowed to manage at any level (not that any club would hire him at this point). But whatever.

That's it for this installment of the black sheep minicollection. Tune in next time for more less-famous relatives of star ballplayers!

Closing out the recent card show haul

Let's bust out the remaining highlights from my haul at the latest local card show, which was a couple weeks ago. December's show is the Saturday before Christmas.. and as usual, it's at the mall.. Yikes! It's not the cool mall in town (that's Lloyd Center), but still, it's a mall (The Orwellian named Mall 205). I might actually voluntarily skip a show for the first time since I started going to this show a couple years ago. I think the only show I've missed was the one right after I got married and I just didn't have the time with everything going on. If things go right, I'll be getting a few boxes for Christmas (one of which is here already, just tempting me to open it.. tantalizing me with what wonders it might possess. Nice high-end box. Mmmm) and, really, I've been buying plenty of cards lately.. so I think I'll be able to sit out this month's card show without too much regrets. See you in January, Mall 205!

This photo represents a fine nickelbox dig (deal was 25 cards for $1). I could easily get a week's worth of posts on these cards, but ain't nobody got time for that, and cheap cards aren't exactly sexy to most blog readers, so just soak in this one picture. Many of these are stacks of one player, but not all of them. Let's see, what do we got here? Some nice Reggie Sanders cards, Rickey, Murray, Molitor, Canseco battery oddball, #'d Cliff Floyd, refractor Ruben Rivera, Gant, McGriff, Boomer Wells, Benito, Caminiti, BJ Upton, Derrek Lee, Sean Astin (I need to get my Goonies PC off the ground), Vlad, Paul O'Neill, Marquis, Sir Julio Franco, Klesko, Bonds, Larry Walker, Teke, Chili, Bagwell, Delgado.

The rest of the cards in this post were in a couple different purchases that either ran me 33¢ or 72¢ per card.

Some cool Red Sox cards. Xander and Mookie have been all over my blog lately. Ortiz Xprismfractor (yeah, that's what I'm deciding to call these). Pedro diecut badge thing. That Heroes of Fenway card is forever trapped in the screwdown, as I've had no luck unscrewing it. I need one of those tools that drills a hole through a stripped screw.. what are those called? And there's a #'d Ted Williams at the end.

This is the San Diego portion of the post. I've pretty much disavowed my Chargers fandom this year, but one guy I still love is LaDainian Tomlinson, and throw a #/149 serial number on the back and I'm sold. Then we've got a gold framed Gwynn, a Cashner refractor, a Cory Spangenberg Xprismfractor, and a couple NASCAR cards of Guy From Granite Jimmie Johnson.

White Sox and Nationals up next. A couple Sales for the PC, that one Frank Thomas from this year's Bowman. On the bottom is a Bryce Harper Xprismfractor and a Max Scherzer gold refractor #'d 17/50.

More numbered cards. That's Eric Young, Sr. and as the sticker implies, it's #'d 73/100. The Ichiro is kinda cool, #'d 208/750. Maikel Franco #/99. And Cueto #/150.

More shiny. Adam Jones, Willie Mays, Alex Gordon, Giancarlo. All fine players. Fine players, indeed.

Not shiny or numbered, but a solid trio of active players to go out on.

And that wraps up the November card show haul. Thanks for checking it out with me!

A Cracked Zap

Here's a couple trade posts in one, covering a two surprise card packages that showed up over the past week or two.

First up is Julie from A Cracked Bat, dropping some Padre love on me..

The Big 3 acquisitions last off-season. I like these guys. It's hard to be a loyal collector when pretty much everyone is available if the right deal comes along, but hopefully these guys are with the team next year. (Glad I didn't decide to PC Craig Kimbrel to heavily!) There've been rumblings about moving Shields lately, which I kinda hope doesn't happen as I've just finally gotten a respectable PC going for the guy, with this pink refractor being a sweet addition. That Kemp is my first card from that 1951 Heritage set-type-thing. Pretty cool. And then there's a #'d Wil Myers. I still think that Triple Threads logo looks like a medieval robot wang, especially when it lines up with a player's crotch, but otherwise those are some nice looking cards.

A fine lot of Gwynns this is! The '94 is a CYMTO reprint.

In this scan, Brian Giles and Greg Maddux enjoy some horseplay. A couple very neat cards!

And the rest! Julie has a pretty good sense of humor, with her blog posts often eliciting a giggle or two, and she must've thought she was being really flipping funny slipping in a Giants card. I was fuming, let me tell ya!

Nah, I'm just playing; it's cool. Big thanks, Julie! These cards were a wonderful treat. I'll be sure to send you out a return package soon.


Next up is a package from Mr. Zippy Zappy. I don't think this was an official Zapping, as there was no hallmark "You've Been Zippy Zapped! ϟ ϟ" note along with the cards. So I guess it's just a standard card package, perhaps in return for the bunch of Robbie Alomar dupes I sent him by request a while back. But any card package is a very good thing coming from the generous Mr. Zappy.

Parallels of active dudes I like!

Vintage Padres. LOL at that Don Mason. I know I say I accept any condition in my 71 setbuild, but that's pretty rough! Lucky for me I already got that one.

Nice Tony Perez lot. I don't recall ever seeing that '84 Fleer before; Nice dugout-steps shot.

This lovely '57 Hoyt Wilhelm was probably the star of the whole package. While I've already got one in my Hoyt PC (the first "good card" I ever bought at a card show), the good news is I have dreams of working on the 1957 Topps set one day, so now I've got an extra to dedicate to that.

Always love to get autos in a card package, even a non-prospect such as Ross Kivett. Brian Bannister has a great double-B signature that's pleasing to behold.

A twin billing of Maybin Sega CardGen cards! Imported from Japan! You bet I'm leaving that yen price tag on the sleeve for added authenticity.

Here's a Bo and a Sportflics with Nolan Ryan, Fernando, and.. um, I wanna say Mike Scott? Can't remember.

Cool, my first Powerpuff Girls card! I've showed off some neat stuff Craig McCracken (the show's creator) gave me a while back, but never had any cards. I hear the show is getting a reboot in 2016.. hoping it's a hit.

Some more various Padres and the like.

Zippy bipped me, perhaps because I once commented this isn't a flattering picture of the guy. Zippy has a wise-ass sense of humor like that! lol

Are these the same guy? The Mondesi family is confusing.

Exciting Reds. I almost want to start PCs for these guys.

I've passively accumulated a decent collection of Yordano Ventura cards.

Refractors! (Sorry for this subpar photo, but I was trying to display their splendor in a way that my scanner can't accomplish). Also pocket schedules of the Staten Island Yankees and their hated rival, Coney Island Cyclones. ..which always make me think of a song from one of my favorite bands...

And these were just the highlights from the big stack of cards he sent.
Great stuff.. thank you deeply, Zippy! I'll be flinging some cards across the country to you soon, really.

Haul from the Nachos Grande final group break of the year

I was originally gonna sit this one out, but after time went by and the Red Sox remained unclaimed, I went ahead and signed up for them in Nachos Grande's recent big mixed group break. There are several Sox guys I PC, plus I can always use more Boston representation in my trade box for my old trade buddy Mark Hoyle and now my new trade buddy at Shoebox Legends. As the deadline to sign up approached, Chris and I worked out a deal for me to pick up all the unclaimed teams at a discount. So I ended up with quite a haul.

Let's check out a bunch of highlights.

It's just a base card, but I was happy to get an Ortiz out of the Tek box; neat cards. Bryce Brentz refractor auto #/499 is perhaps the best card I got out of the break. Brentz isn't a huge prospect or anything, but he cracked the majors this past season and hit a sweet .308 in 9 games. And the Stadium Club (rainbow foil?) parallel is kinda cool. I know it says Shane Victorino on it, but it'll likely end up in my Big Papi PC as a cameo card.

Here's a scanner bed full of Diamondback highlights. A nice trio of Goldschmidts. A nice trio of Yasmanys. Great Randy Johnson insert. That Jake Lamb RC is one of those crazy refractors.. those ones that are like "this is what xfractors look like this year" but for some reason Topps got cute and called them "Prisms" even though in the card world, Panini has a firm hold on the term.

A scanner bed full of of Marlins highlights. The Jose Fernandez top middle is a refractor, though you can't tell in the scan. Nice lot of Giancarlos, though I think I already had them all. The action variation Ichiro is the best card here.

A scanner bed full of A's highlights. Love the Rickeys. And the Reggie. And the Venditte.. that was the base card I was hoping to pull from the box of 2015 Heritage High Numbers.. glad that worked out. The Chip is a Josh Reddick metal parallel or something. It and the gold parallel of the creepy big-head Eck are available for trade if anyone wants them. Oh, and that Zobrist Chrome parallel.. I believe that's #/999.

The Brewers slot didn't net me much, but the Yount and Molitor may be PC additions.. I need to check if I need them. The Khris Davis Chrome RC is nice. And here we see a better representation of a "don't call me an xfractor, call me a prism even though that's not what I am" parallel of Carlos Gomez.. this'll likely end up with Tony L. before long.

A scanner bed full of Royals highlights. A few new Brett cards for the PC. A couple Bo cards. Cool Yordano parallel. And that James Shields chip is a glow-in-the-dark one (though these things barely glow at all.. pretty disappointing, really. They should make the actual Chip material out of glowing plastic, not just a tiny little area behind the player photo). But still, this is cool, as I have been working on building up a little Shields PC lately, seeing how he's the best pitcher the Padres got right now.

Lots of Red Sox highlights, starting with the retired guys. Love the Ted Williams. And there's another card for my non-Yankees Babe Ruth PC. Gotta love UD Masterpieces. These are the glossy versions, not the fancy canvas ones, but still nice.

Final scan. More Papi. A Xander. A couple refractors. A new Adrian for the PC. I love Mookie Betts and was happy to get these two new additions (I was really crossing my fingers for Chris to pull a Betts auto for me, but I'll settle for these two base cards.) Oh, and at the end there.. that's gum. Part of my deal with Chris is that I got all the gum from the break! I'm happy to report that it's all pink. You know the old saying, "If it's brown, put it down. If it's pink, it's ok, I think." I haven't chewed any of it yet, but I probably will soon. I'm a gastric daredevil like that.

Thanks for another fun break, Chris!

Relics from the card show

Looking to document my haul from the recent card show split up into digestible posts, here're the relics I got for myself. Nothing "ridic" this time, just a bunch of jerseys and a bat. These were all in my 71¢/card purchase, I believe.

Vlad still has a lot of fans out there, and I'm among them. Slick looking card featuring a jersey swatch from his Expos days. As I always like to say when I mention Vlad, he was a beast in his prime. I hope he makes the Hall in spite of being pushed into retirement prematurely.

Here's one of Randy Johnson from his 2-year stint on the Yankees. I've quietly put together a decent little Big Unit PC. I hope to kick it up with an auto someday. But honestly, for under a buck, you can't really go wrong with a relic card of any HOFer.

Xander Bogaerts is a young guy I like collecting, though don't think I've officially added him to my "guys I collect" list on my wantlist. I probably should, if I haven't yet. He had a strong 2015 season and is rising to the top among the elite shortstops of today. Plus he has a cool name. I'd be tempted to collect pretty much anyone named Xander.


(Fans of Archer should check out Frisky Dingo. And Sealab 2021 while you're at it. All three are from the same creative team.. or thereabouts.)

Wade Boggs bat relic for under a buck? Yes, please. I seem to love forgotten high-end Topps products from the early 2000s... Retired Signature Edition? Love it! Archives Reserve? Love it! Pristine? Love it! I haven't collected Pristine as much as the other two sets I just mentioned, but maybe someday I'll ratchet up on it.

Another 2015 Gypsy Queen relic, this time a full-size Starling Marte. I'm always on the lookout for Pirates hits since they're in demand in my tradebox. I'm sure Matt Scott already has a few of this, though. I'll probably hang onto it for myself. Marte has been putting together the early makings of a fine career.

Awwww.. :) Here's a cwute widdle-biddy welic cawd. It's numbered 9/99 on the back. I'm a bad Padres fan, because the name RJ Alvarez didn't ring a bell with me. [looks him up.] Oh, ok. He pitched a total of 8 innings for SD in 2014, then went to Oakland in the Derek Norris deal. In 20 innings he put up an ERA of 9.90 this past season. He was originally property of the Angels, and came to the Padres mid 2014 in the Huston Street deal, which explains why the picture in the card doesn't seem to match the San Diego Baseball Club designation.

Yonder Alonso quietly put up a decent 2015 (.282), but SD would like to get a lot more pop out of their first baseman (only 5 homers). Sounds like he's likely being shipped off to the A's in a trade soon. Manufactured patches are kind of non-hits (and not technically a relic, but oh well, I'm including it in this post anyway.. close enough). I waffled for a moment or two whether to add this card to my stack, but as the scan shows, I ultimately couldn't say no to that embroidered Petco.

I want to like Wil Myers. Seems like a cool guy with a sweet swing. Staying healthy is the hard part. Us Padres fans hope his latest wrist surgery is the one that sticks and he returns to his ROY form of 2013. That could help us feel less depressed about everything we gave up in the trade to get him.

BTW, have you heard the Padres are bringing back brown for their home Friday jerseys in 2016? I'm excited about that! I've been waiting for them to take me down to the brown town. (Yes, slipped in another shameless plug for my band. That's one of the nuttiest songs I've ever recorded and I love it.) Hopefully it's a first step to a full return to the true Padre colors of brown & gold.

That's it for today. Not a bad bunch of cards for comfortably under a buck each.
Thanks for stopping by.

Gavin month deLUX edition

December is Gavin Month here at Baseball Card Breakdown. I collect cards of guys named Gavin, but being the niche interest it is, posts featuring this Greatest Gavins minicollection of mine don't get a lot of reader interest and so I don't always bother to "announce" when I get new additions. But hey, blog traffic is typically down in December anyways, plus my birthday is in this month, so that gives me a good enough excuse to bust these out now. Expect a post or two per week on the subject as we close out 2015.

Oh wow, cool fact I just learned: there are 3 active Gavins in the minor leagues right now, and all 3 of them also have December birthdays. What are the odds?! So I'll just take that as further justification for making this Gavin Month, and I'll try to line up future posts with their birthdays if I can.

The first Gavin to be featured this month is the newest to pop up in a national card product. Gavin Lux is still in high school, but Leaf has included him in their 2015 Perfect Game set(s). While I'm excited to add some of these cards to my collection, I'm not diving in nearly as hard as I did with the last young baseball-playing Gavin to come around the cardboard scene, Gavin LaValley, whom I rainbowed pretty aggressively after he showed up "Draft" products late last year. Perhaps if/when Lux gets drafted, I'll be more into picking up his cards, but I don't want to go nuts over a guy still in high school. But with Topps hogging the MLB license, Leaf and Panini have turned to the amateur ranks for options with baseball products.

But yeah, I'll still keep an eye out for good deals on cool-looking cards of his. Here's what I've picked up so far.

This pretty blue refractor parallel is #'d 3/25 on the back.

FYI, Gavin is a senior in high school in Kenosha, WI, and is committed to Arizona State next year.

Here's the unnumbered version of the previous card. It's a refractor, but that doesn't come across on the scan. (I'm getting low on batteries for my camera, so I've been sticking with the scanner more lately.)

Lux's uncle is Augie Schmidt, the 2nd overall pick in the 1982 draft. He was a bust and never made the majors, but I'm sure he's a valuable mentor to his nephew Gavin.

Here's my last (and best) Gavin Lux card for the time being. It's one of those slabs of acetate, acrylic glass, lucite or whatever (hard clear plastic) masquerading as a "card." These are kinda neat. It's #'d 2/4.

He has a lot more Leaf cards on eBay (pointless parallels, a few stickergraphs, some stickergraph/relics), but for now I'm happy with these 3 on-card autos. Really the only other cards I'm on the lookout for are maybe a Christmas Card (12/25), and the variation of his auto that includes an inscription of his Twitter handle. I don't know why, but that seems cool. The last one I saw sold at like $20, which is a bit steep I think, but I'm hoping to find one for around half that someday.

Anyways...
Best of luck to you, Gavin! I'll be rooting for you.