January 2018. A lifetime ago! I sent JediJeff a few decent cards in exchange for a Carlos Correa 2017 Panini Diamond Kings dual relic he had recently pulled. And then I waited. And waited. Real world stuff can be a bitch, and I know Jeff is a solid dude, so I tried to have patience and not bug him too much about it.
Woo! 32 months later, the card in question has arrived in my collection. LOL, it probably would have been more appreciated before the cheating scandal made this current Astros team universally hated outside of Houston diehards.
Ha, it's like a time capsule back to a previous wantlist.
Wow, ok now Jeff is getting my attention here in 2020. Awesome assortment of Trout! Those 2016 Topps Heritage 1967 Stand-Ups were tough pulls, I remember thanks to Night Owl collecting them, I think. Oh snap, I just looked up that 2013 Panini Prizm Fearless green parallel.. it's a $100+ card these days! Ok, I'm going to need to put together a strong package for Jeff to say thanks for this, trade "interest" or not!
That Bryce Harper Beckett card is the same as the similar Trout above, but the other side of it. Jeff gave me 2 of them so I can have one for each PC.. very courteous of him!
More cool stuff like a shiny Mookie, numbered Didi, Soto rookie.
Some '64 Topps spicing up the bunch of cards with a little vintage. Tom Haller is a semi high number I needed. Sweet!
Nice looking Star Wars cards here.
I did a little "pack searching" to see who's in these unopened packs of 2018 Archives coins. Would you look at that.. I've got player collections going for all six of these guys! It's times like these that I feel a bit like a player-collecting slut.
Hall of Famers. Much respect.
I need to move my Larry Walker PC from the "retired guys" section into the "hall of famers" section. I probably need a few of these.
And a pretty legit smattering of random Padres.
Thank you, Jeff! This is a trade I'll never forget (partially because it lasted a fair chunk of my life, lol, but also that sweet Trout surprise). Dare I say it was worth the wait!
Now let's start work on another trade that takes nearly 3 years for that orange Tatis. ;)
Remembering that time you bought in a 2016 Bowman case break for $5 and going back to your team sets cuz you recall getting a few Tatis Jr cards...... pic.twitter.com/9uasc35T5G
Aw man, just read that Alex Gordon announced he's retiring. I was out of the hobby back when he was a big deal as the 2nd overall pick in 2005 so I wasn't tainted by all the hype and following bust, but then when I was paying attention around 2014, 2015 when the Royals were really good, Alex Gordon found his way onto my wantlist and I put together a modest player collection of the guy. In recent years, his stats declined (offensively, at least-- he remained an excellent defensive outfielder) and he found his way off my wantlist.. but I haven't disbanded the PC, and still don't mind adding to it when his cards fall into my lap.
I saw a cool Andrew McCutchen 2015 Panini Prizm Diamond Marshals "Flash Prizms" parallel on Collecting Cutch a month or two back that caught my eye and wanted one of the things in my personal collection, and so I took a look for a cheap one of a guy I collect and ended up scoring this one above for a couple bucks. It's kinda silly in the grand scheme of things, but the diecut badge is cool and the streaky rainbow shine blasting on the parallel is pretty sweet if you're into that sort of thing as I am. They are numbered out of 100, so not super plentiful.
And as long as I'm showing that off, let's check out my Alex Gordon PC as it stands on this, the day he announced his retirement. While it's kinda sad that he's "turning in his badge", it's cool that he's riding off into the sunset as a career Royal, like George Brett and Frank White before him.
Here are the other Panini cards I've got of him.
These days, you know a baseball player has been around a long time when he has Upper Deck cards. A few rookies here.
Bowman on display here. Not too shabby.
Here is Alex Gordon on some old Topps designs. Looks like a Chrome parallel in there.
Some cool Topps cards and a Bowman that I missed in the previous picture. That RC is a Sy's Best reprint. I was thinking about now that I didn't have an actual Topps flagship rookie of his, but stay tuned.
More various cards from The Topps Company.
My only real "hit" of his is this unlicensed stickergraph [sad trombone], but someday I wouldn't mind upgrading to a nicer card as the "best" in the PC.
Oh hey, I went looking in my stack of cards of "Active guys I collect that need to be sorted into the PCs" and found these two, and hey, that RC is a real one. Turns out this is the relatively scarce "No Facsimile Signature" variation. Cool! Must've got it in a recent trade that I'm already spacing on. I'm usually not great at remembering which trader sent me what unless it's something really special like the time Daniel sent me a Paul Goldschmidt Christmas Card auto.
Here are the dupes I was able to sort out of the PC while putting this post together. Available for trade if anyone needs any of them. A couple rookies plus--- get excited basketball fans!!!-- his first Prizm card! $$$$
Thank you for coming to my blog today, kind readers. And wishing all the best to Alex Gordon in his life after marshalling the diamond.
I'm excited to present a guest post by friend o' the blog Alex T. today. Alex is a good guy I've become familiar with over the past few years, working on a few different custom card projects with him. He's full of terrific cardboard stories and insights. I've suggested he start his own blog, but failing that, he's got a standing invitation to guest-blog here at Baseball Card Breakdown any time he's got a neat story he feels like sharing with the cardsphere. And this is an epic one that's been in the works for a while.
A Wale of a Tale
The Cassette
(Just bear with me please…I promise that this story is actually about baseball cards!)
To the best of my recollection, it wasn’t until 2003 that I gave into the reality that cassettes (those weird things that you used to pop into ultra-cool boomboxes and Walkmans) were about to fully go the way of the dinosaurs.
I held out as long as I could, but I knew that if I intended to continue building my music collection, I had no choice but to join the ranks of music lovers who could magically pop in a disc and skip past tracks with a single, painless click of the fast-forward button.
It didn’t take long for me to be completely won over (and buying my first ipod absolutely factored into making the transition much easier) and I soon was on a mission to try and replace every single one of my thousands of cassettes.
As each cassette was replaced by a new and (much, much, much) improved twin, I still struggled with the idea of parting with any of them. But living in a small 1BR apartment, it quickly became a harsh reality that I had no room to house two duplicate music collections – one of which was doing nothing but gathering dust.
Nearly all of my cassettes ended up being donated, but there were a scant few that I decided to keep for sentimental reasons. And, much to my surprise, one title that I couldn’t convince myself to let go of was Big Lizard In My Backyard by The Dead Milkmen.
I was far from being a diehard fan, but, whether they liked it or not, the Milkmen were forever endeared to me because of a light-hitting former major leaguer who probably gained more notoriety for his Milkmen fandom than for anything he accomplished during his time on the diamond.
Jim Walewander.
More times than I can count, I removed the cassette from the small “keeper” box with the intention of tossing it…but it always ended back from whence it came. And each time it went back, I was struck by how bizarre it was that I was holding onto it because it truly had no actual tie to Walewander.
I can’t recall the exact year (thinking 2005 or 2006), I happened to come across Jim's address on a site dedicated to TTM autograph requests and that made me decide once and for all that the only way I was keeping this cassette would be if it was directly associated with Jim.
A few weeks later, I opened my mailbox and found an SASE that had this stashed inside:
Now that the Big Lizard toss-it-or-keep-it dilemma was finally put to rest, I couldn’t imagine that I would ever bug Jim with another autograph request.
Oh how wrong I was.
Junk Wax Treasure
In late 2018, I was going through a couple monster boxes from my prime collecting years that had been stashed away since 1992.
As expected, the boxes were packed with about 99% very-late-80s/very-early-90s singles and it was few and far between when I would come across something that caught my attention.
But about midway through the second box, I hit a run of close to 100 cards of a one-career-home-run-Dead-Milkmen-loving Detroit Tigers infielder.
Much like my reaction to keeping the Big Lizard cassette, I found myself asking “Why would I need to keep all of these?”
And, just like before, I failed at coming up with a valid reason…but still found myself placing each and every one of these 1988 Topps, 1988 Score, 1989 Topps, 1989 Donruss, 1989 Fleer, 1989 Score and 1989 Upper Deck cards into a Keeper stack on my desk.
And for months that stack sat basically untouched.
My odd little treasure trove of Jim Walewander goodness.
Minor Customizations
It was somewhat interesting timing in stumbling across this bounty of singles because I had been working out a trade with Gavin for a few custom cards – three of which happened to be of Walewander.
I had seen recent posts stating that Jim had included copies of his own custom cards when returning TTM requests and that planted a seed in my brain.
Jim began playing professionally in 1983, but didn’t appear on his first card until 1986 (Glens Falls). I’m a huge minor league collector, so I asked Gavin if he could create cards for 1983, 1984 and 1985…but I wanted the fronts to only have the design, no photos. My thought was to ask Jim if he would add his artwork to each.
So I was already planning to send the customs when I found the massive stack of his MLB cards. But I had absolutely no thought whatsoever of including even a single one of them.
So kinda odd/funny/ridiculous that roughly half of them ended up going in the envelope.
Blame The Frame
December 24th: Gavin’s cards arrived
December 25th: My brother gave me a frame that displays 50 cards.
It was a cool gift, but my initial thought was that it might not be very practical.
I don’t really have a desire to display much of my collection and since I also focus primarily on minor league team sets, I just couldn’t picture putting any of my cards into the frame.
So the frame was placed into the storage area of the basement and my hope was that I might eventually figure out how to put it to use.
But I wasn’t overly optimistic that was going to happen anytime soon.
A few weeks later I sat down to prepare the TTM to Jim. As I was writing the letter, I kept looking up at the stack of his cards in the corner of my desk.
And then for some odd reason I also started thinking about the frame.
And then this insane idea hit me.
I tossed the letter and started a new one.
I told Jim about sending the Big Lizard cassette cover years ago and gave him the rundown about the three custom minor league cards, all the singles that I just found as well as telling him about the frame. (And, yes, the letter was much shorter than this blog entry.)
My first ask was if he would be willing to do the images on each of the custom cards - and I wasn't thinking that would be too intrusive.
But then came the doozie.
I told him that my favorite Dead Milkmen song was Dean's Dream (the track is short - just 1:48 total) and asked "If I send you 50 singles along with a sheet that has the lyrics for Dean's Dream broken down to 50 lines, any chance you would write one line on the front of each card and also sign the backs?"
Crazy. Stupid. Ridiculous.
No way he’s going to agree to that. And I was honestly thinking it would be a miracle if I even heard back from him.
Within a week, I had a response telling me to send everything.
The Waiting Game
So on January 29th (2019 mind you) I packaged up the cards and mailed them off - and I included a prepaid return envelope that had a tracking number. My package made it to Jim a few days later and I conservatively estimated that it would take him a few weeks to complete this request.
7 days passed and I figured I'd check the return tracking number just to see - and, as expected, no activity.
14 days...no activity.
A month...no activity.
2 months...no activity.
3 months...no activity.
3 months + 1 day…I gave up.
I mentioned to Jim in my original letter that I had zero expectation that he would agree to do this and even told him that I'd be more than willing to pay. But his reply simply said he was willing to do it.
I figured that there must have been some confusion with my ask and that it did end up being a bit too much. While I was disappointed, I realized that it had always been a shot in dark that Jim would accommodate this crazy request, but I was at least glad that I tried.
I mean, come on, would he really spend time writing lyrics and signing 50 cards?
Would he???
Yes. He. Would.
With many of my ebay purchases being team sets, it’s not uncommon to open the mailbox and see a padded envelope. And with the evening schedule at home typically being pretty hectic, I usually put the mail on the desk and go through it after my kids are asleep.
So when I finally had a chance to sit down and look at the stack of mail on the night of November 6th, I was shocked to see an envelope that had my handwriting on it.
As soon as my brain processed what I was holding, the first words going through my head were, "HOLY SHIT!"
I ripped the envelope open and can’t even begin to describe how awesome it was to see these cards.
As I looked at the scattered mess of cards, something immediately jumped out at me. I only sent Jim MLB cards but I was seeing lots of minor league singles along with quite a few custom cards.
I quickly got all the cards in order and as I slowly went through the stack, I realized that Jim sent me as many unique individual cards as he could!
As much as I thought that Jim ended up not being on board with my autograph request, seeing that he went out of his way to try and provide me with so many different singles...man...I was standing there realizing that he apparently was all in.
Jim also took the time to complete each of the three custom minor league cards - he glued pics of himself with Lakeland (1984) and Birmingham (1985) while the Bristol card (1983) was turned into a one of kind piece of abstract cardboard art.
While I hadn't intended for these to be part of the project, each of them featured a lyric on the customized front and I found that they were a perfect addition.
Please Sir, Can I Have Another NINE Autographs?
When this idea first hit me, my thought was that if it came to fruition, I’d end up with a frame that displayed multiple copies of each of Jim’s MLB cards.
And I thought that would pretty freaking cool.
But then Jim was kind enough to take matters into his own hands and the Dean’s Dream frame actually featured 28 different cards.
And I thought that was beyond freaking cool.
But then at some point the completist collector inside my head came up with this annoying idea that the project was ever so close to going from “freaking cool” to “freaking epic.”
And I thought…Jim Walewander is going to freaking hate me.
But having Jim curse my name didn’t keep me from researching to find that if I tracked down a mere nine singles, the Dean’s Dream frame could end up including a copy of every card that he appeared on.
Thanks to ebay, Gavin and Sportlots, I had those cards in hand a few weeks ago.
(One of the cards is from Jim’s stint with the Columbus Clippers and it’s part of a foldout sheet that was most likely handed out during the 1990 season. While I do have the sheet in my collection, it’s pretty rare and I couldn’t bring myself to perforate the cards. So Gavin was kind enough to whip up a “reprint” copy.)
I sent a long overdue letter to Jim thanking him for his kindness in not just obliging my off-the-wall request but for including all those different cards.
I told him that his generosity took this crazy request to a level I hadn’t expected – and his including so many unique singles made me wonder if it might somehow be possible to have all of his cards showcased.
So, as sheepishly as I could in writing, I asked if he would mind me sending him the final nine.
I included an already autographed copy of his 1988 Topps card – Jim added this when he signed the Big Lizard cover and he customized it by adorning himself with an arrow through the head and a pair of hipster sunglasses.
Since every card in this project is signed on the back, I thought it might be nice to have a single card where you can actually see his autograph. It just so happened that Jim wrote the final lyric (to see a girl) on a 1988 Topps card, so I asked if he would mind rewriting the lyric on this one.
It didn’t take long before I found this waiting in the mailbox:
The Dream is Over
As I mentioned earlier, my original Dean’s Dream request to Jim was sent January 29, 2019.
And, after 590 days, the project officially came to end on September 10, 2020 when these arrived:
The only “bad” thing was that Jim didn’t sign the back of each. But…umm…yeah…I think I’m gonna let him slide!
(And for those of you paying close attention, yes, those are 1988 Score & Topps and 1989 Fleer & Topps cards. However, they are the glossy versions.
Interesting note: I used an eraser on the fronts of those four cards because I recalled how the glossy surface didn’t always do well with Sharpies. If you look closely, Jim actually used a thick Sharpie on those, compared to the thinner point ink on the others. Just made me wonder if he noticed that those were the glossy cards – I would think most players wouldn’t know/care – and he realized that it might be better to go with a wider pen.)
And because Jim is a freaking awesome human being who is ridiculously generous with his fans, I shouldn’t have been shocked to find something extra stashed in the envelope.
Jim has created five different customs of himself – which he had included one of each in the original stack
The top three have blank backs, but the backs of the bottom two had some odd drawings.
Desk Dude is the back of the 89 Fleer and Shadow People is the back of the 88 Score.
Those obviously stood out, but I really didn’t think much about it - figured he had been using whatever paper was available when he printed these up and some of the sheets happened to have images on them.
Yeah, not so much.
After getting the nine singles out, I realized that there was still something in the envelope.
I reached in and felt what I thought was an oversized card…and pulled it out to find
An “uncut sheet” of Jim Walewander custom Score rookie cards.
And, to borrow a line from earlier, I thought that was beyond freaking cool.
But then I flipped it over
Never would I have imagined that deciding to hold onto a worthless, random cassette back in 2003 would eventually lead to me having a frame with, what I think, are 50 pretty damn unique autographed cards of one of my favorite baseball players.
Never did I think that my collection would include a copy (and, yes it’s a copy, not an original) of a Jim Walewander piece of art on the back of a sheet of Jim Walewander baseball card art.
And never did I realize just how right that stubborn, completist collector in my head was about how this entire project would turn out if I just took a chance and sent those final nine cards…
It was a rough, smoke-filled week, but rain has fallen and the sun has once again shone upon the city of Portland. The air quality is back in the green after being off the charts bad for a while. That was a crappy week.
But hey, a couple of my days were brightened by maildays of Topps Retired refractor autographs I had snagged on eBay days prior. The players are both known for being glove-first speedsters without much pop in their bats.
Man, this is a beautiful Harold Reynolds card! Gotta love those old Mariners uniforms. Action photo of a Reynolds rap attempt. While it's not the most elegant signature, Harold's autograph is still satisfying with its intricacies. And the whole thing looks great bathed in its rainbow shine.
Oh, he's from Eugene? I hope if he's still got loved ones in Oregon that they're all ok from the crazy wildfires. Man, scary times up here!
Anyways, there are his offensive stats. I think there's enough room that Topps could have fit into the blurb that Harold was an All-Star in '87 and '88, and was a three-peat Rawlings Gold Glove Award Winner, 1988 through 1990.
Nowadays he's most known for talking about baseball on TV. He says dumb stuff sometimes, but I guess he's endearing or something because he's still at it. I believe he even got into hot water a while back for being inappropriate to a lady coworker, but seems to have avoided being canceled.
I'm just happy to add another of these gorgeous cards to my 2003 Topps Retired collection!
And here's one from 2005....
Bob Dernier here won a Gold Glove while a part of the NL East winning Cubs squad of 1984. Not really a guy I was familiar with, but hey, always like scoring a new Retired refractor on the cheap. And this one is an "ebay 1/1" that makes me like it even more...
I'm still living in a giant smoke cloud, stuck inside with record-breaking bad air quality. It's supposed to ease up around Thursday or Friday. At least the wildfires haven't been moving closer to me, but they're still uncontained.
While I wait for the sky to clear and that metaphorical rainbow to stretch over the city, I've acquired a baseball card rainbow. 🌈
Base, Purple (/150), Silver (/99), and Blue (/25). All that's left is the Gold 1/1, but I haven't seen that surface yet. No printing plates are included in the auto set this year, which on one hand is kind of a bummer, but at least there's less for me to worry about. I think my favorite of these is the grey one, with the border matching the Yankees uniform.
According to the back, he still lives in El Cajon, so that's cool. I just did a Shane Spencer PC post last month when I first learned about this 2020 Topps Archives autograph, so I won't rehash too much, but he's a guy who graduated from Granite Hills High School a couple years before I started going there. Neat to think I walked down the same halls and pissed in the same locker room urinals as a future World Series champ. lol. Probably had some of the same teachers, too.
Shane Spencer is the second Topps Archives autograph rainbow I've gone after. The first was back in 2014 when Bip Roberts unexpectedly got a card. What the heck, let's revisit that one real quick.....
Base, Gold (/50), Silver (/25), Purple (/10), Blue (/5), and a couple printing plates. Apparently there's also a 1/1 Red parallel out there, plus the remaining two plates, of course. I still have a saved search for them, so maybe someday I'll add to this group. These parallels are pretty underwhelming thanks to Topps' baffling refusal to modify the 1990 Topps border at all, instead just putting a tint on the background of the photo. The silver looks the same as the base, and the purple looks pretty similar to the "sapphire" (blue). So that's lame. But still a lot of fun piecing together a Bip rainbow.
