Joy of a Completed Player Collection: Dan Walters

Back in November 1991, a Padres catching prospect named Dan Walters was a special guest at a nearby card show. I was able to talk my mom into driving me so I could get him to autograph a minor league card of his I had recently pulled from a pack. I definitely wasn't much of an autograph hound-- I think the only autograph I possessed at the time was of '50s Olympic diver Pat McCormick, who had done a motivational talk at my middle school-- but it seemed like something fun to do. Turns out Dan lived in East County San Diego, and was even an alum of a rival high school, so it wasn't out of his way.

It was pretty cool when he got called up the following June and did a fine job filling in behind the dish the rest of that season. Dan stuck on the roster of his hometown team a couple months into the 1993 season, but as a major leaguer he tapped out a career Padre with 84 total games in the bigs. His last season in pro ball was '96, then he became a police officer. Sadly, he was paralyzed in the line of duty in 2003, eventually passing away in 2020 at age 53.

When I returned to the hobby as an adult, Dan Walters became a PC guy for me, thanks to my brush with him as a kid adding a personal connection (I only got maybe 4 or 5 ballplayer autographs as a kid, and the rest were all old-timers). For a while there I was riding high as his #1 ranked collector at TCDB. Then last year, a collector going by RollingThunder88 entered his impressive collection to the site and overtook me by a few cards. My competitive nature kicked in, and I set out to complete my Dan Walters player collection, hunting down the dozen or so cards I was lacking. Took me a few months utilizing the usual card sources-- eBay, Sportlots, COMC, and a TCDB transaction-- but I was able to land all 43 cards TCDB has listed for him, cementing the title of #1 ranked Dan Walters collector. Woo!

So now let's take a look at a full run of Dan Walters baseball cards.

He's got one card each for the years 1986 through 1989, seen here. Love the bastardized 1986 Topps design of the '88 card. The Astros drafted Dan out of high school, later trading him to San Diego after the 1988 season for pitcher Ed Vosberg.

Here's the early 90s "pre-rookie" stuff. The bottom pair aren't dupes; the one with a bit more shadow visible is from the locally distributed team set version, while the other is retail. Dan spent all 1991 in AAA and played well but was blocked on the depth chart by Benito Santiago and backups Tom Lampkin and Dann Bilardello. Then in '92, he was further tearing it up in Las Vegas-- hitting .394, a special number to Padres fans-- and finally got called up when Benito suffered an injury. 

His first MLB cards are late-season releases from 1992, Traded/Update sets for the most part. The Rated Rookie is from the Update series, only available to pull via special factory sets, so it's tougher than you'd expect a 1992 Donruss card to be. The card at the end here has some meta mojo to it, seeing as it's a San Diego police card issued of a future San Diego police officer.

Now we're into 1993, where the majority of Dan Walters' cards are from.

He was included in most of the major sets that year, getting his share of junk-era rookie cards printed in the millions.

Some oddball stuff, too.

Parallels start becoming more prevalent in '93, with Stadium Club stamping a few "First Day Production" and "Members Only". Upper Deck has the gold hologram variation with it. Looks like that quiet moment taking a knee on-deck was also the image source of his 1993 Topps card, which I've got several iterations of...

Base, gold, blank back, micro, Inaugural Marlins, Inaugural Rockies, and Rediscover Topps buyback (2017).

A closer look at the stamping reveals I've got the silver foil "Rediscover Topps", meaning I could potentially add to this PC assuming there exist blue, bronze, and gold foil versions out there for me to track down (perhaps also for his 1992 Topps Traded card?), though at this point I don't anticipate putting much effort into hunting buybacks. (Welp, ok, I just set a saved search in case something I don't have pops up cheap. At least he never got a Bowman card, so I don't have to worry about buybacks there.)

Dan's production at the plate slipped in 1993, and he spent much of the season back in Las Vegas. When the 1994 baseball card sets came out, he didn't crack a single checklist. 

...But...

..he did get a prominent cameo on Jay Bell's Topps card. Close enough for a dedicated player collector without many options for expanding a PC! I've got the rainbow of base, gold, and bilingual. These (as well as the '93 blank back and Rediscover Topps) are not factored in the TCDB ranking, just some bonus overkill.

This trio out of the mainstream wraps up the cards of Dan Walters:

1994 Osceola Astros 10th Anniversary - This might be the only card in the PC I had to break double digits buying. Not a great looking card, just a black & white sketch of a headshot, but it's scarce (guessing the set was only briefly available at a minor league stadium), so what are you gonna do?

1995 Colorado Springs Sky Sox - A friendly TCDB user sent me this tough card for free after I asked about it. Hobby warm fuzzies, right? I did my part to pay-it-forward a bit by scanning it for the site, as it was Dan's only card without images uploaded. Seems to be a Rolling Rock he's celebrating the PCL championship with in the photo. It's nice that he had that high point to remember at the twilight of his playing days.

1996 Edmonton Trappers - A stoic shot from his final stop as a ballplayer. Kind of a downer to go out on, contrasted by the happy faces on the other 2 cards here. But maybe that's fitting with how his story ended. (Rest in peace, Mr. Walters.)

So there's my Dan Walters supercollection, I guess I can call it. Thanks for checking it out with me.

A lotta Alous

Catching up on some incoming cards. 

I stumbled upon a lot of 2005 Topps Chrome refractors (seller was breaking up a partial set in chunks of 20-25 cards) and I ended up winning the auction for just a few bucks. I'm a sucker for a shiny card, what can I say. Larry Walker was my main interest here.. glad to add another card from his St. Louis days, underrepresented in my collection. Gavin Floyd was another PC need. The cards of Rondell White, Moises Alou, and Tim Salmon are ticketed for my 9-pocket PC binder.. dudes I don't really collect, but maybe collect just a little.

The rest of the lot is available for trade. Just let me know if you could use any of these '05 refractors.

-  - ---o

Back to the Alou...

Check out this trifecta I've achieved of 2005 Alou refractors! All with the Giants, coincidentally. Sadly, Felipe Alou was not included in 2005 Topps Retired so a brotherly trifecta isn't possible, but his son Moises slots right in with uncles Jesús and Matty. Of course Moises isn't an auto and the one-touch is just for show, as he's now in a page near the front of in the 9-pocket binder.

I've now completed Moises Alou' page since starting this draft. Looks pretty good. The three 1990 cards are from my childhood collection-- one of the few prospects I was "big on" as a kid who actually went on to a solid career. If not for missing two prime years to injury, may've had a strong HOF case. (b-r stats) His 39.9 career WAR tops Harold Baines' 38.7, for what that's worth.

Bottom left is a card made of metal-- I figure bottom left is the most structurally sound pocket for a heavy card like that. Center square is my only Moises auto, picked up in 2017 while smitten with colored-bordered parallels of the 1986 Topps design (big improvement matching team name color to lower border, though the player name in white would be more readable). A couple fun Pacific cards on the right. If I had to give one card here the boot, it'd be the top Stadium Club card. Wouldn't mind swapping that out for a Marlins card (1997, his lone championship) or a Cubs card (the Bartman incident is probably what first comes to mind when I think of Moises. That and peeing on his hands for toughness. Well, I don't actually think of the act of him peeing on his hands, rather just the fact that it was something he apparently did.)

But back to the trio of '05 Alou refractors...

Topps slighted Matty on the back, withholding any red ink stats despite a batting crown in '66 and leading the league in a few other categories in '69.

-  - --o

Ok, that's all the Alou for today. Now a quick trade recap.

Finally did my first TCDB trade of 2021 thanks to user "hershey" proposing a swap. He sent me a few cards I needed for my Ghostbusters II setbuild, plus a needed Dan Walters card.

Looks like user "bronnerea" set his collection to private on TCDB, meaning I just moved up the leaderboard for several of my PCs. With 25 of 42 Dan Walters cards, I'm now his #1 collector on the site. So that's kinda cool.

I still need eight base cards to finish off 1989 Topps Ghostbusters 2, but at least now I've completed the sticker inserts.

Here are the backs of the 11 stickers. 10 form the puzzle, and one to show you what it looks like. This is a very familiar promotional image for me because I had a real, large puzzle of it when I was a kid. In fact, I still own the box...

I remember putting it together at least once as a kid. All the dark background pieces made for a boring puzzle, honestly, but still a decent way to pass time back in the pre-internet days. I seem to recall the last time I attempted to put it together, one of the dark background pieces had gone missing. I ended up throwing away the rest of the pieces, but hung onto the box for miscellaneous storage since it's cool (used to keep cassette tapes in it until getting rid of them a while back).

Looks like it ran me (or more likely my mom) $5.99 at the corner Longs drugstore.

Hey, speaking of the Ghostbusters, I had been thinking I didn't hang onto any of my childhood Ghostbusters guys, but then stumbled across Peter Venkman in a box of my old stuff the other day. I was inspired to take him into the backyard for a little photoshoot.

Look out, Dr. Venkman! There's ectoplasmic activity afoot.

That's it for today. Happy Friday, everybody.

Checking where I rank with some lesser-collected PC guys

Got a few more cards from my big shipment to document on the blog today. These here are non-HOF "fan favorite" type guys from the past.. Generally players that aren't chased by many collectors out there. It's fun to go after oddballs and whatnot from them, and maybe even take a run at completing their full run of cards, or at least trying to build the #1 PC for a guy on TCDB.

Starting alphabetically with Dick Allen-- not exactly an obscure name, but still-- here are a couple smaller-than-standard cards. That side-eyein' 2009 Goodwin Champions is one of my all-time favorites.. I've got at least a couple other versions of it, including the auto which had been a white whale of mine for a few years, and am happy to snag the black bordered mini of it now. 1990 Target All-Time Dodgers is a familiar set to me after seeing gcrl cover the whole thing on his blog a few years back, plus occasional appearances on Night Owl Cards. Sucks they couldn't have found a picture of Dick from this Dodger days to use on the card. That out of place White Sox uniform is worthy of young Richie's side-eye.

At the time of this post, Crash's #1 collector on TCDB is user "theFalcon" with 84, with the 2nd most being 61 cards. I haven't added up all my DA's or entered them into the site, but I'm probably somewhere between those two. TCDB lists 325 total cards for him... many of which are just from this year, with Dick being included in '21 Heritage and getting multiple Project 70 cards, too (none of which I've pulled the trigger on, though nice to see him getting some hobby love).

UPDATE: I clawed my way into 2nd place with 62 cards, though I had to resort to counting a couple Kellogg's cards that are currently stored in setbuilds not the player collection, if you wanna get technical about it-- but whatever, I own the cards. I'd probably be around 70 cards if I counted more set stuff like that. 

BTW, I already owned the above two cards, dang it! Good thing I'm trying to keep better track of my collection now. Oh well, I'll add the dupes to the "for trade/sale" inventory I've been meaning to build up on TCDB to hopefully see more trade action.

Rod Beck has 414 total cards listed. These are 3 cheap parallels I probably needed.

1995 Upper Deck - Electric Diamond Silver

1995 Score - Hall of Gold

1997 Donruss Limited - Limited Exposure (with John Wetteland on the other side)

Shooter's top collector on TCDB is user "bronnerea" with 164 cards. I can't top that, but think I'd have a shot at being in the top 10 were I to check in mine to the site.

Ken Caminiti is a guy I have a lot of cards of, but still probably wouldn't crack the top 10 on TCDB ("Expos1990" rules comfortably with 597 cards.. probably over 3 times as many as me). Ken's represented in this order by a thick, leathery insert (1997 Topps Stadium Club Patent Leather --pretty sure I saw one of these get a thumbs-up on Fuji's blog and had to grab one for myself) plus a couple $1 buybacks. And if it's buybacks of notable Padres sluggers you're into, well have I got a group of cards to show you...

A half dozen boughten-back Nate Colbert cards. Not too far from a full career Topps run of buybacks, but his high-numbered '67 rookie stars card and high-numbered '72 (and corresponding In Action) make that an unlikely project to ever complete.

And some more Colberts for my semi-supercollection. Looks like I went on a little shopping spree with Nate in mind on 4/11/2020, as all 12 of these cards were bought on the same day. Some of these weren't good deals ($5+ each for the Ty Cobb back mini and the TCMA? Geez), but just wanted to basically snag anything on the site that I didn't already have.

I think I'd have a good chance of being #1 for Nate Colbert on TCDB. Oh yeah, I just looked it up and the top spot is only 31 cards. I think I could beat that, though then again a lot of my cards of him are proof cards that wouldn't be on the TCDB checklist. But yeah, I should enter in my PC one of these days.

UPDATE: Ok, I did. 

Woo! #1 by a wide margin. Most of the above buybacks plus the APBA "card" aren't listed, so my actual number would be even greater if those were added in.

Dave Henderson is a PC I really enjoy adding to, but he's a relatively recent addition to my crew, so doubt I'd rank too highly on TCDB ("DaClyde" is first with 248 cards, followed by "bronnerea" with 175).. I still need most of his junky base cards (attn: trader buds). A pair of tiffany cards are among the parallels I grabbed this time around. I don't regard 1989 Bowman very highly.. but 1989 Bowman Tiffany? For whatever reason, I love it! Being glossy and printed on high quality cardstock somehow excuses it for the audacity of being oversized and not printing the player's name on the front. The weird by-team stats breakdown thing is still on the back, but at least it's easier to read on bright stock. lol

COMC damaged the Bill Madlock foldy, so I went ahead and folded it as intended by the design. I got it specifically because it was the only card of Mad Dog pictured on the Texas Rangers I didn't have. I might have a shot at the top 10 on TCDB for Madlock, but doubt I'd be too near the top ("bronnerea" repeats as king here with 154).

The Maas and Scioscia cards are imported from the north.

Just wanted to find a couple PC guys cheap as an excuse to add Canadian 1990 Fleer cards to my collection. ("Ptd. in Canada" on the bottom.) Feels like that's some mythic set that I hear about a lot but had never actually seen in-hand before.

Also in the photo, a look at the damage on the Madlock. It was in a long top loader, but it had been cranked pretty hard somehow in packaging and managed to damage the card within it. At least it only cost me $1 so I didn't make a stink about it. But yeah, not cool, COMC.

Mike Sharperson might be a really random player for me to collect, but I decided to build up a collection of his cards after remembering liking him back in my early days as a baseball fan and card collector circa '90-92 which really happened to be his only good seasons. Besides those 3 years, he was mostly on the roster for depth, spending the majority of his time in AAA with occasional promotions to the big league club. He was on the verge of making his Padre debut in 1996 spelling a hurt Ken Caminiti, but was fatally injured in a car wreck on the way to the airport.

TCDB lists 104 total cards with the top collector being "bronnerea" again with 70. It'll be a while till I'm anywhere near that, but enjoy picking up some oddities like these. (The '89 Bowman and middle '91 Topps are tiffany.) Still need most of his junky cards, but I'd rather get those in trade then have to buy them.

I also scored a few needs for my Dan Walters PC, mostly minor league issues. The most expensive of these was the 1989/red one ($3.20), which sadly is another victim of COMC's employee damaging the card during packaging. You can see the top left corner got jacked up. And by context of the package contents, it was clearly damaged during packaging, not already damaged before the fact nor damaged in transit. Boo. I know those guys are rushing to catch up on their backlog, but wish they'd be more careful with the cards.

Dan Walters is yet another player featured in this post whose life was cut short. I don't consciously decide to collect guys who die before reaching old age, but perhaps on some level my heart goes out to them. Collecting their cards might be like my way of paying tribute.. and/or a reminder that life is precious and I should take the time to appreciate every day I wake up in good health.

Walters has just 42 cards listed on TCDB, with ol' "bronnerea" ranked the #1 collector with 26 of them. That guy must either have a huge collection, or we just happen to share a few favorite retired players. I might be able to challenge him on this one, as I think I've got around 20-30 Dan Walters cards.

UPDATE: I've got 24 cards. So close! Good for 2nd; in striking distance of 1st.

One thing that bugs me about TCDB is the arbitrary way cards are assigned to players.

Per TCDB's checklist, the card on the left is considered a Dick Allen card, yet the card on the right isn't considered a Dan Walters card. I suppose "My collection, my rules" doesn't apply when you're using somebody else's website (and the site's many users have plenty of room to edit as they see fit).

Last guy for today is Marcus Giles...

That's an impressive page-worth of refractor goodness, eh!

As I've mentioned plenty of times on the blog, I grew up with Marcus, in the same grade as him at the same school from elementary through community college. So it's cool to collect a former classmate of mine. Like, check it out, a guy in my high school P.E. class is sharing a card with Ken Griffey Jr!-- How cool is that? Plus it's a good excuse for me to add some fun parallels from years that I wasn't actively collecting. And despite three strong seasons in his career, he was never a huge star, so his cards usually don't run me too much cash.

TCDB user "bravefan1" has a commanding lead for the top spot with 143 Marcus Giles cards, but I could probably challenge that total if I added my PC to the site. Too lazy to do that right now-- beautiful Memorial Day weekend over here-- but remind me another day. lol

The story of my first in-person autograph

Summer 1992. I was still deep in my obsession with baseball cards that originally spanned the summer of 1990 until that of 1993. I had stumbled upon a print ad for a baseball card show scheduled to take place in La Mesa, a neighboring city in East County San Diego. I remember it was at a Jewish hall or something like that (I was a little confused at first, like "Is this a religious event?" But no). It wasn't too far from the Aquarius Roll-A-Rink I used to rollerskate at occasionally in my younger days (which at the time was really only a couple years prior).

But yeah, it was a boring weekend and I was able to talk my mom into driving me to the show. I think I had only been to one other baseball card shows before this. And that was a big one at the San Diego Convention Center, if I remember correctly, so it was a bit of a shock when I entered the building and saw just a 3 or 4 sparsely attended tables. But that disappointment didn't linger long as I was really only there for the special guest. Dan Walters had recently been called up by the Padres and had been playing well. He was there signing autographs and I was excited to get one.

In AAA, Walters had hit .317 in 1991 and then .394 to start 1992. Add to that solid defense behind the plate, and you had me and other Padres fans excited to have him as our catcher of the future. I suppose I was expecting a long, boisterous line to get his autograph, but it was surprisingly quiet with no line.

I walked up and timidly presented my 1991 Line Drive card for him to sign (personally pulled from a pack myself just a few months earlier). I think it was the only card of his I owed at the time-- he didn't get any mainstream cards until the Traded/Update sets started coming out later that year.

As for the moment meeting him.. We didn't really "connect", as he dutifully signed my card whilst chatting with the guy standing next to him (not sure if it was like his agent or just a "handler" type person or what). I'm sure I muttered a shy "thank you" and he might've given me a quick eye-contact smile, but again, it wasn't much of an interaction. From what I hear, he was generally known to be a good dude.. probably just distracted in conversation when I happened to walk up to the table.

But hey, that was my first in-person autograph experience! (At least I think so.. full disclosure, my timeline is foggy regarding the total of three main IP autos I got as a kid: Dan Walters, Bill Madlock, and Dick Allen.. I think the latter pair were both at the 1992 All-Star Fanfest, so it would have been right around this same time. Oh, and I got an unknown Indians coach to sign a piece of paper for me at a spring training game that would have probably been before this [can't remember if that was spring of '92 or '93], so ok maybe Dan wasn't my first IP auto ever, but the mystery old guy at spring training isn't much of a story.) Didn't even bother with the card show going on, if I recall.. just got my autograph and headed back to the car. (I don't use Card Saver/Guard protectors anymore, but sometimes I keep my old cards in them for sentimental reasons. Like this one has most likely been in that protector since mere moments after Dan signed it.)

Oh, and did I mention he was a local boy? I remember once getting excited when I thought I saw his name among the names of kids who held Track & Field records in the gym at my middle school. But the PE coach pointed out to me that it was Dan Watters on the wall, not Walters. Oh well.. still pretty close!

Dan Walters was born in Maine, but attended high school in the same district as I was about to enter into. Santana High School in Santee was considered (at least by my circle of friends) sort of a hick school, with lots of rodeo and country music fans among its student body. Though really, who knows.. I was there a couple times for high school track meets, but that's about it. And then I had an almost-thing with a girl named Lindsey who went there (She was a friend of my first serious girlfriend, and they had a falling out because they both liked me. I have to mention this because I'm a dork and the fact that two girls ever fought over me is just incredible and needs to be mentioned for posterity, lol). Then there was a school shooting there years later.. but that's about the extent of my memories of Santana HS. (Found Lindsey on MySpace years later and she had kinda gone off the rails.. I think she was doing dirty webcam stuff.. made me sad.)

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Dan Walters. Well, the Padres front office apparently though enough of him as their catcher (or at least platooning with the likes of Bob Geren and Kevin Higgins) to let Benito Santiago walk as a free agent after the '92 season. But Dan struggled to bat above the Mendoza Line in 1993, suffered a spinal injury on the field that cut his season short, and was released after the season. After missing all of 1994 rehabbing, incredibly he made it back onto the field, playing AAA ball in Colorado Springs (Rockies) in 1995 and Edmonton (A's) in 1996 before hanging up his cleats.

Shortly after his playing days were over, Dan joined the San Diego Police Department (as sorta prophesied on the back of his '93 Studio card). After a few years on the beat, he was tragically paralyzed from the neck down after a 2003 shooting while in the line of duty. He eventually did some motivational speaking and made slight progress regaining some movement in the ensuing years before passing away at age 53 on April 23, 2020.

Rest in peace, Daniel Gene Walters. A courageous, tragic hero.

Let's take a look at the cards of his I've got.

Fleer stuff.

Some Donruss, Leaf, and an OPC.

Topps. Dan didn't have any cards made in 1994, though he did make a cameo on Jay Bell's '94 Topps card.

More cards. I might have to include that year of Pinnacle into my "early 90s black gold" collecting project.

A pair of round-corner oddballs.

Per TCDB, he only has a total of 42 cards out there (and nothing low-numbered, refreshingly), so completing a "master set" of his cards seems doable. I'd be down to trade for any I'm missing.

As for pending pieces of the PC... Below are my latest purchases at COMC:

That's all his pre-91 minor league cards plus a Topps Gold parallel. Looking forward to eventually getting these in-hand.

Duplicates:

I also have several dupes I don't need. If anyone was inspired by Dan's story enough to start their own PC of the man, I'd be happy to send you a PWE to get you started. Just let me know.

Thanks for reading and have a nice weekend.