Vagabond Binder: Goose Gossage

I've been meaning to crank out this post for a while, and I'll use his 70th birthday today recently as motivation. Rich "Goose" Gossage was among the most dominant relief pitchers of his era. He stuck around a long time and played for several teams, so he was a good candidate for my Vagabond Binder, which is basically a page per player, with that page featuring 9 cards of the player suited up for (ideally) 9 different teams. This is the 4th post in the series, following Rickey, Benito, and Canseco.

Solid page featuring 9 different teams and 4 big smiles.

Rich came up with the White Sox in 1972, eventually having a breakout season in '75 when he lead the league in saves (26) to go with a 1.84 ERA. Chicago figured they'd try him as a starter for the '76 season, his lone year in the rotation. They traded him to Pittsburgh after the season and it was back to the bullpen in '77. I happened to have a spare '73 Topps RC to use for this project. Getting him pictured as a Pirate is tough, as your options are basically limited to his '77 Hostess card (where he's airbrushed into a Pittsburgh cap) and his '78 Kellogg's card, which I had to go out of my way to score another one of (already had one in my Kellogg's setbuild, but they're tougher to find than you might think). Technically, the card identifies him as a Yankee on the back, having signed as a free agent with New York prior to the 1978 season.

His 1978 Topps card is a silly one, putting the airbrush artist to the test changing a Pirates uniform into Yankee pinstripes. But it's what I went with based on the limited dupes from my Gossage PC (I try to use dupes for the Vagabond Binder when possible as opposed to picking up new cards for it). His successes in '78 included closing out the "Bucky Dent game" and 3 of New York's World Series victories over the Dodgers. It was the only ring he'd win in his career, though he did help San Diego win the pennant in 1984 after singing as a free agent once his Yankees contract was up. I had lots of options to choose from for his Padres card in the page, ultimately going with the big smile of his '87 Topps.

More smiles here. In a return to the Windy City, Goose was traded to the Cubs for the '88 season and eventually released in spring training of '89 before being picked up by the Giants. Tough finding him in a San Francisco uniform, with this Mother's Cookies card being your best bet. Neither of these are doubles for me, sacrificing them from the PC. But hell, I suppose the page in the Vagabond Binder is really just an extension of the PC, with some of the cards "on loan" for display, if you wanna look at it that way. (Taking cards out of sets/setbuilds is typically where I draw the line, though, hence buying that second '78 Kellogg's card.)

Goose returned to New York for the last couple months of the 1989 season, and so his 1990 baseball cards feature him as a Yankee. But he played in Japan that year-- there don't seem to be any cards documenting this overseas stint-- before finishing out the early 90s in the American League.

I try to stick to vertical cards for this project, but sometimes you gotta go horizontal. Now more of a set-up man than a closer, Rich pitched for the Rangers in 1991, Oakland in '92 and '93, before finishing his career with the Mariners in 1994. He was still a solid option out of the pen in his final year even at age 43, and were it not for the strike grinding things to a halt, he may have kept going a while longer.

Here's the back of the page. The rookie card on the Stadium Club back really ties the lot together.

I don't currently have any more pages in the Vagabond Binder, though I've been meaning to see if I can rustle up a page using my Hoyt Wilhelm PC, so chances are that'll be the next post in this series.

Thanks for reading.

Yankin' Around

I've been working on a post that's taking a while to finish (involves entering some of my PCs into TCDB), and it's been a while since I posted anything, so in the meantime here's a quick one with some recent additions to my Topps Retired collection.

Super happy to snag this '05 Tim Raines at an underpriced buy-it-now.

I'd probably prefer Rock pictured during his younger days as an All-Star in Montreal rather than his time as a role player on the dynasty Yankees, but it's still cool. I suppose part of the appeal of these Retired autos is they often go with an unexpected team, especially by 2005, the product's third and final iteration. He's pictured as an Expo in 2004 Retired, but didn't get an autograph that year.. and he wasn't in 2003 Retired at all (probably hadn't actually retired at the time that checklist was being built), so that's a wrap on Rock for me. This is my second auto of his; I've also got a Christmas Card (in a White Sox uniform).

Ron Blomberg is a fun one, not really for the stats he put up in a relatively short career, but for being a notable figure in the game's history.

Next up, a card so nice, I bought it twice.

I already had Goose in my 2004 Retired refractor auto collection, but when this one popped up with a low opening bid, I went ahead and ended up winning it. Well hey, by virtue of being a Pad in the Hall, he's an upper tier PC guy for me, so figured I'd score a "dupe" for the player collection since the price was right.

I recently completed a page of Gossage for my "Vagabond Binder" (one card per team), and that's another post on my to-do list.

untitled post for November 1st, 2019

I wanted an on-card Padres auto from Dave Winfield and ended up scoring this one. It's pretty cool.

Goose Gossage has a lot of similarities with Dave Winfield:

- Spent the lion's share of their careers with the Yankees.
- Put in some time quality in San Diego.
- Won a World Championship once.
- Bounced around with a few different teams near the end of their careers.
- Formidable facial hair.
- Hall of Famer

Goose here is my 50th 2003 Topps Retired auto. There are 70 left in the set for me to track down. Snatched this one up recently for a fair price. It's not a refractor, but still.

Tough times at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ as our official mascot and licensed card-sniffer Annie Lou is currently at the emergency vet and in rough shape. Please send her some good vibes.

Incoming cards from Wes and Bru

I've had a couple semi-surprise trade packages show up recently.

First up is a stack from the Pancake King, the former JBF. Good to see Wes still out there spreading the cardboard love even after stepping away from blogging.

I love seeing Winfield in the brown and gold.

A couple hits here, with an Xavier Nady certified auto and a printing plate of Sean Thompson from 2007 Bowman.

A bunch of Padres parallels here. The Huston Street black refractor is #'d /10. Pretty sweet.

Striking gold here, with a Gavin crashing the Padre party.

And finally a couple football cards and the Pancake King's calling card.

Thanks, Wes! Good stuff. I plan to work on those customs for you soon, plus I have a Willinghammer or two set aside for you.

 - - - ---o

Next up is a package from Bru from the Remember The Astrodome blog that's now become marcbrubaker.com.

Looks like Bru was able to take a chunk out of my '88 Fleer wantlist, including a couple HOFers.

Also a need for my nearly-complete '88 Topps set, plus some early 90s Padres.

And some recent Padres. Pretty sure that Goose is my first 2019 Archives card (well.. and the Urias coin is from '19 Archives, too.)

Thanks, Bru! I'll continue keeping an eye out for interesting Astros to send your way.

Sportlots by Surprise

A made a few small Sportlots purchases late one hazy night a week or two ago. I had totally forgotten about the order until PWEs with unfamiliar return addresses started sprinkling in my mailbox. These aren't the most exciting pickups, but I haven't posted since Monday, so figured I should crank out something before I lose my reputation as a blogger who posts multiple times per week.

I think 1993 Topps Black Gold inserts are my favorite 90s insert. If I have room in my cart to add some cheap without making the postage go up, I'm all about it.

A gratuitous second look. I've said it many times, but I wish Topps would bring these back for an encore, preferably in Archives, but failing that, even an online exclusive would do. Would be neat to see current players on these. But I suspect the crazy gold foil makes them a bit too tricky/pricey for lazy Topps to bother with.

This must be what initiated the Sportlots order. It wasn't long ago that I tracked down Rich Gossage's 1989 Mother's Cookies card-- the lone Giants card to come out from his short-term stint in San Francisco-- but I figured I'd also snag this tiny 1990 Publication International sticker, too.. the only other card-like-thing out there picturing Goose in the unfamiliar duds.

I have no recollection of putting this Reggie in my cart, but I think I was looking for card #1 in this subset (featuring an oh-so-rare shot of him with a KC cap), but either got this one by mistake or settled for this one when the other was unavailable. But whatever, I'm always down for a new Reggie card.

I have a love/hate relationship with Topps Chipz. I hate them... but I love glow-in-the-dark collectables, so sometimes I'll look for cheap glowly parallels, such as these. I didn't take a pic in the dark, so you'll have to trust me that they glow (just a little, behind the player). Beltre is from 2013, while I've got Cespedes in both '13 and '14 varieties.

I'm working on a big post of glow-in-the-dark stuff, but it's still a ways off since it'll have to wait till my next COMC shipment. But know that I've been hitting my glow-in-the-dark "type collection" hard lately, trying to get at least one example from every glowing trading card set out there.. which I hope to chronicle in that forthcoming post.

Anyways, that's all the baseball stuff for today.

Here are some bonus pictures from my commute home yesterday...

I ended up walking over the bridge since the Max I was on kicked us all off the stop before for maintenance or something. There are some ships in town for the big Rose Festival this weekend.

Pretty cool.

Those funky towers in the middle are part of the Convention Center. I haven't been in there. Sure would be cool in the National Baseball Card Convention came to Portland, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Here's a Max train passing me by.

You can kinda see the roof of the Moda Center here (where the Blazers play).

After I crossed the bridge, I made it to the next stop to get on a Max the rest of the way.

As I got close to home, I saw a bunny! Always a highlight of my day when that happens.

Then my cute pooch welcomed me home and wanted to play, wrapping up this little tour through my Portland commute.

Hey, it's a Card Show Weekend for me! As is my tradition, I wore a Topps shirt today, the Friday before. I originally put on my red one, but this morning I saw on Twitter that you're supposed to #WearOrange today to stand up against gun violence, so I played along and changed into the orange one.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Cookie Cardboard

Seems 1989 Mother's Cookies Rich Gossage had been on my sidebar wantlist for about a year. I've got a solid Goose PC-- he's a main dude I collect thanks to him being a former Padre in the HOF-- and so I really wanted to add the only true card he ever got from his 31-game stint with the Giants. He had signed as a free agent on April 14, 1989 and was with San Francisco until the Yankees picked him up on waivers four months later. Technically, he also appears as a Giant on a 1990 Publications International Trivia sticker (which seems to be a good source for short-term stops, since that set also includes Kent Tekulve on the Reds, which I showed off the other day). And if you really want to split hairs, 2012 Playoff Prime Cuts includes some Gossage hits that list "San Francisco" as the team, but they are logoless cards and the striped pillbox hat in the photo is obviously a Pirates cap, so unless perhaps the jersey swatches are from a game-used SF uniform, doesn't make much sense considering them Giants cards.

So anyways, I really wanted to pick up this oddity but it eluded me for months, and apart from a Nick-to-Nick trade, no one on the cardsphere seemed to have one available. At the last card show I attended, there was a dealer who had a bunch of Mother's team sets displayed on his table and I was excited thinking I might have finally located it-- but no, it was one of the few sets he didn't have. But then recently a complete 1989 Mother's Cookies Giants team set popped up on eBay. It was a little more than I wanted to pay for just the Gossage, but not too bad and at least it included a few more cards for my consideration.

I kinda/sorta collect Kevin Mitchell and Brett Butler, so this pair are also keepers for me, but the below cards are up for trade.

This Will Clark was probably a hot card back in the day. Matt Williams was still shuffling between SF and AAA at the time, not breaking out until the following season. Coaches cards are a fun quirk of Mother's sets, with this one being highlighted by Dusty Baker.

And the rest of the squad that would go on to win the NL pennant that year before falling to the A's in the earthquake-rattled bay area World Series.

I was lucky enough to have Mother's Cookies around when I was a kid. The cookies themselves weren't amazing, but just-ok cookies are better than no cookies. And it was cool when they occasionally put out cards, usually of West Coast teams, with those glossy fronts, rounded corners, and complete lack of design apart from a little text. I believe most of their team sets were stadium giveaways, but sometimes cards were included in cookie packages, like when they made Griffey and Nolan Ryan cards.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading.

Over the hump with 1957 Topps

After sorting out my incoming COMC order, the tallest stack was '57s. I've been hitting the set hard this year and was hoping this haul could help me hit the halfway-complete milestone.

The biggest name in the lot was should-be HOFer Minnie Minoso. It's in nice enough shape to where I won't likely worry about trying to upgrade it (but you never know; I wouldn't mind a dupe for the PC). Got it during the recent sales event for just $1.90, which I thought was a pretty solid deal.

Sweet back, too.

Some other familiar names included baseball family patriarchs Tito Francona and Ray Boone.

Happy to say I'm now at 51.32% complete with the set. Above are some more new additions via COMC worthy of taking a closer look at, including a blurry Foster Castleman (I picked up many cheap off-condition commons that I may try to upgrade down the line). Nice flag shot in the middle there.

Speaking of the flag, I had a nice 4th of July. Caught my first ballgame of 2018, attending the early game of a Portland Pickles twinbill. There're a wooden bat collegiate summer league team. I think we've seen them 3 times before, and they were undefeated in those 3 games, but sadly our perfect winning streak was stopped this time, with the home team losing 3-2. Still a good game with some exciting plays and a couple dingers (both Pickle runs were via solo shots).

We met up with some friends and had a good time, but it was hot and even though there was some cloud cover (making a ring around the sun), I got a little sunburned. Still upset with myself about that. Should have been better about sunscreen.

Anyways, July 5th is Rich Gossage's birthday. I planned ahead and made an animated card of him the night before.

I've picked up like 60+ new Twitter followers in the past week thanks to the attention my Mark Fidrych gif got, so now I kinda feel pressure to keep delivering quality content. I'm hoping to hit 1k followers one of these days. (Honestly, I just want to get to the point to where I'll get at least one like on any tweet, no matter how dumb and pointless it may be. lol)

Thanks for reading!