Prospecting from my childhood

I recently stumbled upon some draft pick / minor league sets from my childhood collection that were boxed away. Let's check 'em out.

It's draft day, so let's go back 27 years to the 1992 draft. Looks like I've kept this box sealed the whole time, but I wouldn't put it past younger me to slyly try keeping the sticker seal intact while peeling it back.. just trying to sneak a peek at the cards before resealing.

But now I think I'll just look up 1992 Front Row Draft Picks on TCDB.

The big name here is Derek Jeter. That's pretty much it. There's also Jason Giambi. Jason Kendall is another familiar name. Eric Owens is a fan favorite of mine, though I think I've already got that card in the PC.

Bonus Card (#39) is a send-in offer for another card of a '92 top ten draft pick, though it doesn't specify who, and TCDB doesn't seem to have the possible redemptions listed. Perhaps you just got one of the silver or gold parallels.. I'm not sure. There are apparently also autographs, though I'm not sure how they were distributed. Sure would be nice if there was a randomly inserted Jeter auto hiding in my box, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I just looked at the completed listings on eBay, and was a little surprised these sealed sets seem to sell for around $25-30 these days-- more than I was expecting. Not sure how much of my allowance I spent on this set back in 1992, but it was most likely less than $25-- or at least in that ballpark-- so I'll consider this a wash as an investment, but that's alright as far as overproduction era cards go.

And a PSA 10 specimen of the Jeter sold for $200 back in April. So I suppose if you can buy a sealed box for $25 and turn around and get the Jeter graded, you could make a tidy profit assuming it grades out to a 10.

But I don't mess with getting cards graded. There's apparently a big stink going on in that part of the hobby the past week or two with it being revealed that big eBay seller PWCC allegedly worked with a dude who would trim/alter cards so they would grade higher, with PSA also possibly being in on it in the allegations. So that could get ugly. I've never been one to hunt down PSA 10s, so it's not as big of a deal to me than it is to guys out there spending thousands on big cards.

Anyways, on with the sets.

I loved minor league team sets as a kid. I guess I was kinda prospecting-- trying to get in on the ground floor of a future star. But it wasn't about the money, as I never had any intentions to sell my cards.

I had a handful of mid 80s TCMA minor league sets, including one I remember with Danny Jackson and another with Kal Daniels. These instances definitely weren't prospecting, as they were already established major leaguers at that point. Their careers petered off after I ponied up for their minor league sets at the LCS, and I lost interest in those guys, so the sets were among the cards I purged when I moved out of San Diego over a decade ago.

But among the very few minor league team sets I kept was this 1990 St. Catharines Blue Jays team set. Looks like this set can be bought for around $10 today, so didn't exactly appreciate much. At the time, Steve Karsay got the coveted "front card of the case" billing, and while he went onto a respectable MLB career, getting into 357 games over 11 seasons, he never became the top-of-the-order starter the Blue Jays were hoping when they drafted him 22nd overall in 1990. He's a bullpen coach with the Brewers now.

So yeah, Carlos Delgado eventually broke out as the big name on this low-A squad. Funny to see him as a baby catcher, as he played the vast majority of his career at first base. Delgado and his 473 career home runs were overshadowed by heavy hitters of the day such as Barry Bonds, and unfairly got overlooked for HOF consideration. Maybe if he could have stayed healthy for a couple more seasons and reached 500 dingers, but he was battling a bad hip at the end.

Looking through the set now as an adult, one name I know now (that I didn't know as a kid) is manager Doug Ault. He's got that cool '78 Topps card with Thurman Munson making a cameo. He's best known for playing in the first Blue Jays game on April 7, 1977 and hitting the first two home runs in franchise history that day. After his playing days, he went into coaching, and later ran into life trouble and is no longer with us.

The other familiar name I was pleasantly surprised to see on this coaching staff is Darren Balsley-- a happier story-- current long-time Padres pitching coach. This here is his very first coaching card, having just retired as a player the previous season, so that's kinda cool.

Here's another neat one. I remember having several different team sets from 1988 CMC back in the day, though the Richmond Braves were the only ones I kept. It hasn't turned out to be much of an investment, as a similar set recently sold for $1.25 (+$4.50 shipping) on eBay. But I still always think it's cool to have a minor league card of a Hall of Famer, like young John Smoltz here.

Ron Gant is another guy I collect, and so that card helped me make the choice circa 2008 to hang onto this set and not throw it into the big lot I ended up selling on Craigslist for a very fair price because I didn't want to worry about trying to move it all or bothering trying to break it up into many smaller sales. A few other guys had MLB success in this bunch, too.


Last set for today...

Now this 1991 Classic Best Minors factory set was among my prized possessions during my initial time in the hobby. Loved it! So chock full of promise! I expected a lot of big stars to rise from this set over the mid 90s. And hey, there were Cooperstown-bound Pedro Martinez and Ivan Rodriguez, and future All-Stars such as Reggie Sanders and Brian Giles (my boy Carlos Delgado is in this one, too, and probably other good players I'm leaving out), but the vast majority of the guys in the set never made the big leagues, much less became a star.

I guess Classic Best made of ton of these because now you can find the factory set for under $20 shipped (and much of that price is covering postage). Maybe I should break up this set, keeping my PC guys and getting rid of the rest. But then I'd probably get sentimental over it a few years down the line and have to re-complete the set.

I didn't thumb through the whole set when picking out highlights, but here are a few of the better-known young dudes in there.

And card #1, the retro Mike Schmidt minor league card sans mustache is pretty cool.


So there are a few sets I bought as a kid with an eye toward the future. And while they were failures as far as investments, I sure had fun with them and still like 'em today, so no regrets.

How the Grich Stole Black Friday

Just received my big COMC order placed over Black Friday weekend to get the free shipping. The majority of the cards were either vintage set needs (lots of '57s and '64s) or additions for a certain history-themed binder project of mine, but those will wait for another day.

I've mentioned before that I'm always keeping an eye out for Topps Retired autos. The 2004 Retired Bobby Grich auto is super common, with several affordable copies kicking around eBay and COMC at any given moment. But the 2003 Retired version (pictured).. Well, that one comes around much less often.  I snatched this one up quickly when it popped up on eBay via COMC consignment, jumping over to COMC for it, as the prices are often a little cheaper there plus you can save on shipping as opposed to buying the card on eBay.

You don't hear a lot about Bobby Grich these days, but he was an elite second baseman in the 70s and early 80s. According to Hall of Stats, he's a slam dunk Hall of Famer, though has thus far been kept out by Cooperstown voters. Happy for this addition to my very long-term goal of eventually maybe completing the 2003 Retired autos. I've got over a third of them now. I've also got about a third of the 2005 Retired autos, and I've completed the 2004 Retired autos (my major collecting accomplishment of 2018.. or really probably my entire time in the hobby).

Another project along these lines is my Archives Reserve Master Set (ARMS). I've got the base sets (the two baseball sets and the one football one), and like to pick up an auto or relic from time to time. Here's a name that's familiar to most on the cardsphere, thanks to Matt at Sport Card Collectors supercollecting Rodney Hampton. I keep an eye out for scarce Hampton cards as trade fodder for Matt, and that's probably how I stumbled upon this auto for a good price, but this one's for me.

And another card for the ol' ARMS. I'm almost finished with 2001 Topps Archives Reserve Future Rookie Reprints (the only non-hit cards I've got left to chase in my quest). After checking off Jim Edmonds here, I'm down to just needing Bernie Williams and Sammy Sosa, both of which being 1990 Topps reprints.

Another long-term goal of mine... I seem to grab at least one or two 2004 Topps Chrome black refractors with each COMC order. I just sort by cheapest-first and try to find any I need for under a buck or so. It's slow going, but I'm nearly to a third complete here, currently at 32%.

I just love how these cards look, spilling over from my obsession with the similar looking 2004 Topps Retired refractor autos (as seen in my header). The biggest names in this lot were should-be-HOFers Larry Walker and Carlos Delgado.

I found myself itching to finalize my order but with 99 cards in my COMC inventory, needing one more to hit the $5 credit that comes with shipping out 100 cards in a month, and so I checked for cheap 2011 Topps parallels-- yet another of my long-term projects (2011 Topps+Chrome parallel frankenset.. still not even to the halfway point with it)-- and landed on Charlie Morton here. He's built himself a solid career, recently signing with the Rays after a very successful stint in Houston.

Ok, that's all for today.

Ready, Set, Bo!

Bo (Baseball Cards Come To Life) recently had a tradeathon/Little Fun Game and I ended up with a big batch of cards graciously sent my way from his abode in the Big Apple.

Vlad! One more lot like this and I'll reach the 100-card mark with this future HOFer, whom, I should mention, was a beast in his prime.

Carlos Delgado! The greatest player to ever fall off the HOF ballot on his first try. I'm probably close to 100 cards of him, too.

Brian Giles! I'm pretty sure I've already passed 100 different cards of his, but still happy to add more of the all-time greatest baseball player from my high school. I really need to sort my B. Giles PC one of these days. But who has the time for that?

And Bo didn't forget Brian's lil bro Marcus, either.

Ron Gant! A fav of mine from back in the day. Gotta love those 30/30 guys. Forgot he was ever an Angel.

Another power/speed guy from the 90s, Reggie Sanders is represented on a nice mix of cards here.

Great lot of Adam Jones.

Marquis!

I've been pranked! Too Many Gavins!

Fan favorites Rod Beck, Pat Neshek, and Eric Owens.

Just one each of these guys, but good stuff. Vide Blue from the blurry '82 Fleer set. Great Dave Henderson card. Early Francisco Lindor card. A Brent Gretzky for my Black Sheep minicollection. And a Molitor. Very cool.

And the prize I came away with in Bo's contest game was a 100-card set of 2007 UD Future Stars. Lots of big names in here. I'll probably break up this set for my PCs.

Big thanks, Bo! I'll try to round up a respectable return for you soon!

1992 Classic Minor League set break (and lamenting the lack of ladies on the blogs)

I won a sealed factory set of 1992 Classic Best Minor League Baseball Cards from Julie way back in January. I exercised some patience, but finally ripped into it last night, deciding to raid it for my PCs and dump the remainder in the spirit of tightening up my collection a bit.

These are the big 3 of the set, no doubt. Jeter, Piazza, and Chipper.

A few of the other guys who went on to solid careers.

These 4 were all PC needs for me.

Giving you a look at the backs and a few of the more quirky names in the set.

Classic snuck in 3 MLB stars. I often see that Griffey at the card show whilst digging through bins and for a second I'm like, "minor league Griffey card!" then I notice the "1992" and I'm like, "hey, Junior was already an established star by that point. 👎"
The Nolan Ryan is a nice card.. and one I don't recall seeing before.
The Mike Schmidt card is a bit of a head-scratcher. It has nothing to do with minor leagues. He had "a minor league card" in the previous Classic Minors set (the only such throwback in 1991 Classic Minors), so I guess I understand them not wanting to repeat themselves, but still wanted to milk their association with him. So we get a card commemorating his 500th home run from a few years earlier. The back features the full box score of the game, yet neglects giving the date. (Google tells me it was Apr 18, 1987.)

And an artist's rendering of one of the Schmidt photos (see 500th HR card) is used on every checklist. As a player collector, I feel like I should include these in my Schmidt PC and count them towards my goal of 100 unique cards of the guy.. but I don't necessarily feel good about that. Kind of like breaking up a no-hitter in the 9th with a bunt. Or losing the popular vote but still getting elected.

Anyways, there are some highlights from the set. But yeah, the gist of the cards are guys I've never heard of. Any team collectors out there (who also collect minor league affiliate cards), feel free to get in touch regarding trades. But do it ASAP, because I'm currently loading up a big box of cards to dump on Billy, and the majority of this set will likely end up in there.
Red Sox trader buddies... do you need/want the Sox from this set?
Same question to Cubs collectors. And Braves? Brewers? Pirates? Let me know.

Big thanks again to Julie for surprising me with this set as the prize for losing a contest of hers. Very nice of her to do.

On a side note...
It's a bummer that Julie hasn't been seen around the cardsphere for quite a while now (7 months since a new post on A Cracked Bat, and I don't recall her commenting anywhere since then either). I hope things are going well with her and she makes a comeback soon. And thinking about women cardbloggers... it's kind of depressing. The lady from Portugal (Hobby Cards Europe) hasn't posted much in the past several months. Caitlin, the young collector from Canada, seems to have gotten run off the blogs for reasons I'm not privy to. Funner Here, the cardblog run by a female Phillies fan, is completely dead and gone now. A Cardboard Problem isn't updated very often anymore (though Sooz is active on Twitter, with #CardChat being a cool weekly social event she runs). But yeah, it sucks that the cardsphere is such a sausage party these days. Even Fashion Shoes hasn't been around lately! (ok, that one was a joke.) I'd love to see more diversity around these parts.. gender, race, age, etc. But what can you do? I don't really have any suggestions other than to say collecting cards is fun, and it's made even better by being part of a community who shares your interest. So start a blog if you haven't already! Even if you're a middle-aged white guy.. but especially if you aren't!
 👯👱👳👵👶👸😎
(Have you noticed Blogger now has an "insert special characters" button on the blog compose page? LOL. These are fun. I hope the faces are actually showing up for everybody, not displaying as plain squares or whatever.)

Ok, enough rambling.
Thanks for stopping by!

Like Benchwarmers but much more so

This post is somewhat not safe for work, just to warn you right off the bat. If you're the kind of virtuous person who shields your eyes from nudity, or if you're reading this in a setting with co-workers or family around who might be offended by that kind of stuff, please accept my invitation to navigate away to another website. Howbout some silly Bad Lip Reading?

And like with any "girlie card" post, I feel obligated to say that I have nothing but the highest respect for women. I was raised by an amazing single mother, who worked full-time and was still everything a son could hope for. Most of my best bosses have been women. My wife is an awesome lady who got her MBA this year and I'm in constant awe of all that she does.

I'm also a sucker for pretty girls and make no apologies of my healthy, respectful appreciation for attractive women, especially those with large breasts. That's just how God made me and I can't deny who I am. Thank you.

With all that out of the way... A few weeks ago Johnny's Trading Spot had a post with a bunch of non-sports cards and mentioned something about also picking up some good "adult" cards which he wasn't at liberty to post on his blog due to their graphic nature. I (after a couple drinks) commented that he should email me those forbidden scans, as I was interested in seeing what he got.

John kindly obliged and emailed me scans of some impressive cards signed by the featured subjects. I was particularly impressed by the Christy Canyon and Victoria Paris autos, a couple of my favorite classic VHS vixens. John also offered to hook me up if I wanted to become the unofficial #supertrader for adult cards. I thanked him for his efforts and stated he could feel free to throw in a couple such cards whenever he sends me baseball cards, but I did NOT want to be a naked lady supertrader. Well, that Johnny, he is not afraid to bomb his trader-buddies with a big lot of cards. When I got his Priority Mail Medium Flat-Rate Box a couple weeks later I was worried it might be a bunch of junk Padres, as that's usually what I get when someone gives me a bulk lot of cards. But nope! Several hundred naked lady cards, plus a smattering of baseball cards to round things out.

Let's take a look at some highlights.

Let's start with an auto. This one is only PG rated (though be warned they get raunchier from here, though I've censored them somewhat). Never heard of Monica Buck. According to her very brief wikipedia entry, she appeared in Weekend at Bernie's II and was a spokesmodel on the show Star Search.

I really like Stacy Moran. I think I was first introduced to her when she was a guest on Howard Stern's show, which I used to watch on E! back in the day (mid 90s). She was just super cute and seemed like a sweetie. So yeah, I'll go ahead and be a Stacy Moran card collector and am happy to score these cards. Also here are a couple additions to my Brian Giles PC that John sent along.

Time to get retro. Apparently Penthouse was around way back in 1975, here's a card with a photo from back then. Raul Mondesi, also throwing it back, gives a thumbsup to this enchanting young lady.

I've got a solid little Carlos Delgado PC-- probably not too far away from getting him into my Hundred Card Club-- and here are a couple fine looking additions to it. And speaking of fine looking... er, here are a few pretty girls that caught my eye.

Benito Santiago and Tony Frenandez.. a couple guys I fondly remember as Padres, pictured here as Blue Jays. For some reason, John sent me a bunch of Blue Jays cards.. Whoo-KAAAY! That's cool. Also here are a few more pretty girls showing off what their mamas gave 'em.

On the other side of the above Tony Fernandez sticker (by the way, Topps should really revisit this set for an Archives insert!) was another former Padre, Wally Joyner. As a Mormon, Brother Joyner probably wouldn't be thrilled about being used to cover up dirty parts of adult film stars. Sorry, Wally. I've admired the work of these particular 80s ladies since I was a kid stealing dirty mags and VHS tapes from my best friend's dad (sorry, Doug, Sr!). I guess it's nice to get them represented on cardboard in my collection.

So those few cards I've shown are the keepers for me. But there are hundreds more that I would like to re-home.

Check it out.. an unopened box! It teases me with the potential of pulling an autograph of my aforementioned sweetheart, Stacy Moran, but I'll bet it's at needle-in-the-haystack odds, so I'm hardly motivated to bust this box. Anybody want it? (If you pull a Stacy auto, you gotta give it to me!)

Here are some cool arty cards, I believe from a Heavy Metal branded set. Anybody into this stuff? Let me know about a trade.

And I want to wrap up this post, but yeah, there are probably a couple thousand more cards I haven't shown here. Many complete and near-complete sets. (I almost feel bad about breaking up some of these sets picking out cards I like.. but only almost.)

Hmm, well.. Thanks for the cards, John! He sent along a list of customs he'd like me to whip up for him in exchange for these cards of pretty ladies. Yeah, I could probably help you out there, John.. Give me a few weeks. Though, dang, man! This package was crazy. Definitely a trade I'll never forget!

While I've picked out several keepers featured in this post, and no offense to John, I would really love to get rid of the bulk of these cards (after all, I'm mainly a player collector, not a set collector, and that applies to girlie cards as well!) And unfortunately, these aren't the kind of thing you can just throw in as bonus cards here and there, as I wouldn't want to offend anyone or put somebody in an awkward situation at home.

So can anybody help me out? Do you want some girlie cards? Mostly Penthouse and Hustler and that type of stuff. I'd be happy to part with cards for the price of postage (or the equivalent of baseball cards fitting in my wantlist). If you're interested in adult cards-- either a big lot or just a couple for kicks thrown in with a PWE-- please let me know. You can comment on this post, or if you'd like to be discreet about it, drop me an email and it'll be just between you and me.

But yeah, please! Help me out here. Lots of naked lady cards to get rid of. I don't want to be the naked lady #supertrader and don't want to just throw them away, so hopefully a few of you readers will valiantly take some of these cards of pretty girls off my hands!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend.

Buried Under a Mailday of Epic Proportions

My mailbox got inundated by cards this past Thursday, with three fat packages plus a postage-due orange slip for a fourth. While "a good problem to have," it's times like these that I dread whipping up the trade post(s), as it's pretty much impossible to properly recap everything without taking a few days off work to devote to it. And so I'll give myself the ol' "here are the highlights" out and keep the commentary to a minimum.

First up is CC aka Twitch, who has established himself as a guy you definitely want in your trade circle.

Giancarlo! That A&G is now the largest card in my Stanton PC (which will be getting several more additions by the end of this post).

Gwynn!

Wil Myers is probably best player currently on the Padres, and as such, I sure like getting his cards these days. This is a nice trio, highlighted by the mini diecut numbered /99. He seems to wear a lot of blue in his career, though I prefer him in the ol' brown and gold.

More nifty Padres cards from recent years.

Some Bowman Non-Pads.. well, Manuel Margot is now a Padre, likely to get the call to the bigs by the end of the season.

CC dropped some football cards on me, highlighted by a Christmas Card and a Michael Sam auto.

And that was just about half of what CC sent. Huge thanks, man! I dropped a package off to you the other day, so hopefully it arrives safely and can sufficiently pays you back for the awesome cards to sent my way.

-   -  -- ---o

Next up is Jason Carter. He's been a big force in the cardsphere for years, with his blog The Writer's Journey being among the oldest still-active card blogs, I think. But this was our first trade. He had some cards up for grabs on Twitter and I called dibs on 3 hits. I was able to convince him that I'd deliver with a quality return package of Reds, and I think he was happy with it.

Some excellent cards for my Pirate PCs, including some Stargells, an Al Oliver bat chip, and some McCutchen cards.

Stan the Man!

Yaz, McCovey, and a sweet Willie Horton auto. But that Vlad base relic might be my favorite here. I'd been wanting a game-used base card for a while (not a base card, a base card!), and Vlad is a great guy to get it of. He was a beast in his prime!

Goldschmidts and a blue Opening Day parallel of Mookie Betts.. love it!

Thanks for the trade, Jason! Hope to do it again sometime once I replenish my Reds tradeables a bit.

-   -  -- ----o

Now it's onto another old-school blogger whom I just traded with for the first time. It's Mark Kaz from This Way To The Clubhouse. He expressed interest in the Mets from my 2016 Stadium Club hobby box, and I was happy oblige with them plus some more Mets that had been loitering in my tradebox for too long. He returned a great bunch of cards for me.

Lots of needs of guys I collect!

More Giancarlo!

I believe Mark PCs Carlos Delgado and Pedro Martinez, and so he had some dupes to share with me. Very nice!

And another big name from Mets history, Tom Seaver.

While those other cards were all appreciated, it was this sweet Andrew McCutchen selection that really stole the show. The black bordered Heritage card is #'d /64, which made it my lowest-numbered McCutchen (for a few hours...)

Awesome cards.. Thanks, Mark! Let's do it again sometime!

- - --- -----o

Ok, that wraps up the cards I received on Thursday, but there was that postage due slip. Friday morning before work, I biked over to the post office to pay them $1.49 for them to release the package to me. Then later that day, another package from the same guy showed up.. this one successfully delivered.

Matt Scott is an amazing guy to trade with, though I guess my post office doesn't like him much! This is like the 3rd or 4th time they deemed a package from him to have insufficient postage. I think I heard that bubble mailers now all have to be considered "packages".. no more getting by with envelope rates.. and that might be where the problem comes from.

Boom! Here's the big one that needed the extra postage. That's a heck of a card right there! Giancarlo and Cutch dual patch #'d 9/10. And to be sent this by a Pirates supercollector can't be understated! Plus he's mentioned that Stanton is probably his favorite non-Bucco these days.
Thanks so much, Matt! Now I have the dilemma of which PC to store this card in, as I collect these two guys with equal enthusiasm. I guess I'll just display it out for a while rather than make the call just yet.

And here's the card from the second package, a kickass acetate parallel of the Padres team card, #'d 5/10. Awesome!


Thanks again to Matt, Mark, Jason, and CC for the great cards!

And for today's bonus 800th Post contest entry chance: be the first in the comments below to correctly identify the player Matt Kemp is excitedly nestling to his bosom on the above 2016 Topps Padres team card.