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.

more card show keepers

My haul from this past weekend's card show was pretty much evenly split between cards for my collection (pictured left) and cards picked up with others in mind / trade bait (right).

This post will feature some more of my keepers. Again, they're all numbered parallels I picked out of a 50¢ box.

Lots of shiny here. The non-shiny card is /99.. the only copy of which on COMC right now is $10+, so I'll count that as a nice deal for me.

Red Sox legends Yaz and Dewy.

More HOFers. The Smoltz is the lowest numbered of this bunch at /100.

Slugging 3rd basemen. I'm thrilled my Padres signed Machado, but with such a big, long deal, you can't help but be nervous. But give me just one championship over those 10 years and I'll be over the moon.

More San Diego-centric cards.

New cards for my PCs of Mike Jacobs (though it's technically a Hanley Ramirez card) and Mark Buehrle (though it's technically a Paul Konerko card).

A pair of /99 Tigers.

Here are more cards. Vlad, D-Lee, and Chili.

Some hip young dudes with blue hues. Lewis Brinson has been having an incredible spring training with Miami (5 HR in 26 AB as of this writing).. maybe this'll be his breakout year.

Let's end on some thicc cards. Tribute, Triple Threads, Inception, etc.

Solid card show haul. I think I've got one more post to get out of it: the trade baits. Coming soon.

Sentimental Sundays: The Return

These are always fun posts for me. It's been over a year, but I'm bringing back this series where I take a look at some stuff from my childhood.

I've got a shoebox plus a binder filled mostly with cards from my first go-round with the hobby (1990 through 1993). There are also a few cards from when I dipped my toe back in circa 2012, before I dove back in full-steam in 2013. I think it's about time I assimilated all these "old" cards into my current collection (sorting them into PCs, setbuilds, or in some cases, casting them into the wasteland of my "for trade" boxes). But first I thought I'd feature a good chunk of them here on the blog for posterity. So that's gonna be the meat of these next few installments of Sentimental Sundays.

Here's the earliest Beckett I ever had. (and one of only 2 that I still own.. I'll have to show the 2nd one in a future Sentimental Sunday.) I remember I was very happy that I was able to land it back then. Probably the fastest Beckett to ever sell out. This was the pinnacle of the baseball card craze, at least for me. It's a classic sports photo.

And here it is again, this time in card form. I had a decent little Bo Jackson PC back then, but I think I picked the best 2 cards to hang onto.

Let's check the Beckett..

The "Bo Jackson FB/BB" card had risen to $10 in its commemorative Beckett. I'm pretty sure it climbed even higher on the strength of this issue. An anecdote I like to tell is how during the height of the card's hype, my LCS was selling the Bo alone under glass for $25, and on the shelf, the entire 1990 Score set that included it for $23.99. (Ok, my memory's not good enough to remember the exact numbers for sure.. but it was something ridiculous along those lines.)

While we're at it, let's look up the '87 Topps Bo...

Holding steady at $4. Not bad. Funny that Jamie Moyer and his 15¢ RC would go on to outlive all these guys in the MLB (though Julio Franco, just getting on the board at 10¢, gave him a run for his money).

Here's a solid lot of 1990 cards of John Smoltz. Probably not worth even a buck combined these days, but still nice to have. I remember I was pretty swept up with the 1990 Donruss errors back then, like this MVP subset card with Tom Glavine erroneously pictured, or all the All-Star cards that had the "recent major league stats" on the back rather than the correct "all-star game performance" or whatever. I still wonder if Donruss purposely put out all those errors to build buzz in the wake of '89 Fleer's "F-face" card and sell more packs.. or if their QC department was just really sloppy that year.

Here's a rare instance of my early "prospecting" paying off. Pretty sure I pulled all 3 of these here 1990 Moises Alou cards from packs myself. The '90 Score is the only one listed in the Bo Beckett (25¢.. I think it's more or less held that value.) I like Moises, but don't really full-on collect him.. probably because my main memory of him as a player is throwing his glove down in disgust after Steve Bartman's crowd interference.

Speaking of the Bartman, can't have a Sentimental Sundays post without showing some non-card/non-baseball items too..

Let's check out this folder of stuff I've labeled "Silly". I remember buying this plastic Simpsons thing (what is it.. a placemat? As a kid, I taped it up on my wall) from a toy store (can't recall the name.. not Kaybee, not Toys R Us... I wanna say the name started with a P.) While I was big into the Simpsons ever since the first season, I never had a ton of merch to show for it. I did have a bootleg Bart shirt I bought for like $5 at Kobey's (San Diego's biggest Swap Meet). Also had (still have?) a floppy-frisbee disc I think I've showed on the blog before at some point. And like a single pack of cards. And now I own seasons 1 through 14 on DVD, if that counts for anything.

Some clippings. God, I love the Far Side. And Winnie-the-Pooh and tropical Bugs. And if you click on it to enlarge it, there's some funny stuff to read in that newspaper column. I sure must have gotten a kick out of it as a kid to cut it out and save it.

Santa at the Zoo coloring book cover. Got a lot of mileage out of that coloring book as a kid.. had to hang onto the cover at least. As for the Banquet frozen dinner box? Well, I just thought the picture of Tony Stewart was hilarious. Whenever I see it, I do a funny, high-pitched voice saying, "Yippie! Yippie do, yippie dee. Yippie for me!!" This isn't too old.. circa 2007. I wonder if this is worth anything now. Any Tony Stewart fans want to trade me for it?

"Yippie do, yippie dee. Yippie for me!!"

I ate a lot of these frozen dinners back in my bachelor days. Thanks to my wife, now I get fresh-cooked meals. In a pinch, though, I still happily chow down a Banquet Chicken Fried Beef Steak Meal. A 99¢ frozen pizza with a side of frozen peas was also a staple of my single days.

Sorry this isn't really very legible, but here's my rough draft outline of my "Weezer vs. Mr. T" website from July 2001. I should probably just throw this away, but I guess I've got some hoarder tendencies, and hey, gotta love the old-school style of printer paper with the holes on the sides. Don't see this very often anymore. Hell, even when I used it to sketch out a silly webcomic, it wasn't really used anymore, but I think I had some leftover from my grampa and I kept it around for scratch paper.

That's gonna do it for today. Hope you enjoyed. I'll have more nostalgic stuff next Sunday. Have a great week, guys. Thanks for reading!

Pack Skirmish: Seinfeld Edition

I've finally rented through Seinfeld on DVD and am watching the end now as I start drafting this up. I originally watched the show back in the day when it was on, and then scattered repeats in syndication over the years, but haven't hit it in order since the original run. My wife isn't a big fan, so it's been an activity for the evenings she's out at grad school.

This doesn't have much to do with a pack war, but maybe we'll pull a Keith Hernandez or Roger McDowell or something loosely related. Al Newman, even. Wouldn't that be great and tie this post together?! Fingers crossed!

Today we'll be pairing off junk wax against the last 2 packs of the discounted 2015 Bowman blaster I picked up a month or so ago.

Let's do it!

The first challenger is 1991 Fleer, packing a bright yellow punch.

Oh right, the foil names on these Bowman cards don't show up very well. Probably not the best product for this. Oh well. That Brewer guy vs. Jay Howell. No score.

A Giant vs. Rosario. No score. Oh, and looking at the edge of the photo, we learn that previous Brewer was Matt Garza.

Here we go.. Eric Hosmer vs. Rock Raines. Gotta go with Raines. Hopefully HOF voters get him in on this final chance on the ballot coming up.

Hough is tough enough. 2-0 Fleer.

Smoltz has this one easily. 3-0 Fleer.

No score.

No score.

Yawn. No score.

Eh, let's get Bowman on the board here. Fleer 4, Bowman 1.

Too close to call.

Bonus point for Fleer's surplus of cards and a sticker.

Final score: Fleer 5, Bowman 1. Congrats, Fleer.

Next up...

Bowman asks for another shot. 1987 Topps takes that challenge.

The gum was very crumbly. Gotta admit I ate a tiny piece of it for old times' sake. As the saying goes, "If it's brown, put it down. If it's pink, it's ok, I think." It was fine, though I didn't want to tempt fate eating the whole thing.

Blarf.

Hey, that's Mike Trout! Suck it, Traber. Bowman up 1-0.

The name Chico is always good for a point. 1-1 tie. Also, Chico sounds close to Bosco. Bosco!

Johnny Ray always gets "We Didn't Start The Fire" stuck in my head. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Topps 2, Bowman 1.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

I remember as a kid thinking how did a light-hitting second baseman make it into this song. I mean, sure, he led the league in doubles a couple times and often hit around .300, but he's hardly on the same level as Joe DiMaggio! LOL

Hey, it's the surgery guy, Dr. Thomas Jonathan. Point! 3-1

That's a great Floyd Rayford card, but gotta give it to the A's kid, in the spirit of this Seinfeld edition of Pack Skirmish.

"It was shrinkage, Jerry!"

Topps 3, Bowman 2.

Hmm.. this is tough.. shiny insert vs. Willie Wilson. I guess Appel just barely squeaks by. Tied up at 3.

It's Tiger vs. Tiger. But what's this?...

Oh man, the gum managed to damage through the card to the front. That's crazy. Immediate disqualification for The Bergman. Point to Bowman.

Gotta give it to the former Padre. Wisler's doing ok for the Braves these days, picking up the win yesterday. Bowman taking a good lead, 5-3.

Hey, it's not Keith, but teammate Sid Fernandez is close enough. Were this not Seinfeld Edition, Altuve would certainly take this round. But it is. Topps inches back, down a point, 5-4.

Oh, the good times they shared!

Bowman is tapped out. Topps keeps on swinging. Up off the mat to end in a 5-all tie.


Here are the highlights from the other packs in the Bowman blaster that I opened earlier:

A shimmering mini of Eric Jagielo. He went to the Reds in the Chapman deal and has been struggling in AA this season.
Those grey parallels are among the most boring ever, but hey, I won't say no to a numbered Nick Castellanos card. He's having a great year, hitting .340 so far.
And the best card of the blaster, the diecut Francisco Lindor #'d /99. Last year's AL ROY runner-up is having himself a very nice 2016 season, too.

That's it. I'll admit this was a clunker of a post. Sorry. I'm just gonna dump this out midday Saturday where not many people will see it.
But thanks for making it thru! Hope you're having a nice weekend.