Vagabond Binder: Jose Canseco

My Vagabond Binder is a project I've slowly been building featuring players who bounced around a lot during their careers. A player is "inducted" when I fill a page featuring 9 different cards from 9 different teams. Following Rickey Henderson and Benito Santiago, here's the third completed page so far: Jose Canseco.

If you look at his stats, Canseco only played for 7 MLB teams. But thanks to a pair of zero-year cards, I was able to fill 9 slots. Let's take a closer look at these cards and trace his journey.

Jose is one of those guys that baseball fans love to hate and hate to love, though these days it seems even Canseco supercollectors have given up trying to defend him. But he's a legend in the hobby thanks to being among the most exciting players in the game during the cardboard boom of the late 80s and early 90s. His "40/40" season was a big deal in 1988, and he followed that up the next year by leading Oakland to a championship. No special significance for this '92 Upper Deck subset card, I just happened to have a duplicate of it, so it got the call to the binder to represent his glory days on the A's.

August 31, 1992: The Bash Brothers era officially came to a close when Jose was traded by Oakland to the Texas Rangers for Jeff Russell, Ruben Sierra, Bobby Witt and cash. His stint in Arlington quickly took the shine off his budding legacy thanks to bouncing a home run off his head in the outfield and getting injured while pitching mop-up.

The Rangers traded Jose to the Red Sox for Otis Nixon and Luis Ortiz before the '95 season. While his two years in Boston aren't all that well remembered today, it was arguably his most productive bang-for-your-buck stop, with both his .298 batting average and 141 OPS+ being the best marks he put up for any org during his career.

I figured I'd show the backs of this pair, too.. giving you a chance to see Jose taking a couple big cuts, with a quote from fellow slugger and former teammate Reggie Jackson.

Canseco reunited with Oakland for 1997 (not pictured since I've already got an A's card of him in the mix) before signing as a free agent with Toronto for a season. His 46 taters with the Blue Jays in '98 would stand as his career high.

The turn of the millennium saw Jose playing close to home with Tampa Bay. 1999 was his final trip to the All-Star game. Man, those old chrome Gold Label cards sure look great.. not like the crappy foilboard reboot Topps recycles every year these days.

After the Devil Rays put Jose on waivers in August of 2000, the Yankees took a chance on him and he finished out the year in the Bronx. He went to spring training with the Angels in '01, but they cut him loose before the season started. 

Instead, Canseco began 2001 suiting up with the independent Newark Bears for a couple months. After showing he could still play, the White Sox purchased his contract and he'd go on to hit the last few of his 462 career home runs while with Chicago.

The Expos had him in camp prior to the 2002 season, but he didn't make the squad. The White Sox gave him another shot on a minor league deal, but ended up releasing him after batting .172 in AAA. In the ensuing years, he'd play for several more independent clubs, sometimes with sincerity, sometimes as a gimmick to bring in fans. Then there was a tell-all book, and a wrestling thing, I think, and reality show appearances, a firearms mishap, and unhinged social media rantings. You didn't hear it from me, but there are rumors that he even used steroids during his career. But yeah, he sure could punish the ball in his prime!

So there you go.. 9 cards for 9 teams for Jose Canseco.

Next up for the Vagabond Binder will likely be a journeyman pitcher.. top candidates being Goose or Hoyt, if I can swing it without pilfering from the respective PCs too hard.
Thanks for reading.

Definitely the last Incoming Cardboard Post before the move

Ok, I'm in the middle of moving. It's exhausting. It's times like these that I really wish I didn't have the "collecting gene"! I'm excited to get settled in at the new place, but it's gonna be a lot of work.

Here's the last cards triaged in from my old house. It's a very generous "thanks again for your help" gift from Alex T., whom you may remember for the fantastic guest post he did for Baseball Card Breakdown a few weeks ago about his mission to create a TTM masterpiece featuring Jim Walewander and the Dead Milkmen.

These are a coupe low-key iconic cards that maybe not everybody knows about, but those who know.. know. This pair has been in my Desperate Double Dozen wantlist for several months, so it's great to cross those off the list. Canseco's zero year card with the Expos means I now only need a card with him on the Yankees (a much higher population of card) to complete another 9-card page in the Vagabond Binder. And that box-bottom Doc Gooden is such a perfect shot. Got recycled in Stadium Club not long ago, but hard to beat it on a vintage (excuse the term) 1985 card. Panini needs to go their own version of Project 2021 going and should be sure to include this card among the selections.

But really what Alex wanted to share with me were a couple extras from his big project. I picked these 2 from the few available options because I like how the lyric seems to match with the photo. I forgot to grab a picture of the backs (and now they're all packed up and I may not see them again for weeks... lol!), but the backs are both autographed by Mr. Walewander. Awesome off-the-wall addition to my collection. I need to find strength in the real joy-sparking parts of my collection like this during times I'm overwhelmed at the mountain of cardboard I'm stacking all the way up into the heavens.

Muchos Maas! Alex also kicked up my Kevin Maas PC with this little complete set of Star cards dedicated to the rookie phenom of 1990. I've mentioned it before, but I first started collecting cards in 1990 (Celebrating 30 Years theme), and even though his comet burned as briefly as it did brightly, I still get a thrill of adding new cards of his.

Some other long-time loves of mine, glow-in-the-dark and black gold.

A pair of Padre fan favorites from the time. Silver Signature Bip and a blue signature Dave Staton.

And Bip is back, here snug in the womb of the packs that birthed him so many times. Forever Bipping. Cool to add a couple unopened packs to the Bip Roberts PC.

Big thanks, Alex! Always a pleasure. (If you guys know Alex, ask him to share the story about returning a signed ballcap to the family of a deceased former player. It's something special.)

And thanks to everyone reading. I'll see you on the other side of this move.

ignorable filler post: 1991 Cardboard Dreams #5: Madonna and Jose Canseco

This is a real card that was on the market in 1991. Crazy! Not a mainstream release, but still!

Those sketches are pretty terrible/awesome!

I already kinda talked about this card last year. But..

Speaking of sketches, I found out there's a FB group specifically for MST3K trading cards and I'm pretty excited about it. Maybe I'll be able to trade for the remaining glow-in-the-dark inserts I need.

Check out this dual auto I got! This is the MST3K equivalent of a dual auto of Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig.

And this is the Babe Ruth!

  (Mike Nelson is Hank Aaron in this scenario, but he didn't sign for this product because he's kinda uncool when it comes to stuff like that, sadly.)

I made an attempt at improving on the 2020 Topps design (right). Not perfect (hint of '94 Topps?) but I prefer it my way.

Check out under Trout in the original (left) version.. is that..? could it be..?

 Amy Poehler!

Ha, maybe?

I got that (not trimmed) Mike Schmidt auto back thanks to the seller being cool!

Wii Sports Resort - Island Flyover is one of my favorite video games. Especially when you're eating frozen grapes, if you know what I mean! Anybody else like it?

I only have one spot left to find after stumbling upon one the other day, but honestly I kinda hope I never find the last one because then the mystery will be gone and playing the game might lose some of the magic.

Some of my toys.

I hear ya, bud! #thankstopps

Bunny alert! Also, we've had a squirrel trying to get into our attic. I tried dousing the area in a jalapeno-vinegar soup which will hopefully get him to scram.

I got a Tom(my) Lasorda autograph! Not a refractor, but still cool.

Madonna and Jose? No! It's us from the big work party last month. It was a masquerade theme. I got a lot of different fake mustaches and swapped them out thru the night.

I'm "going thru some shit" and probably won't be posting much for the next few weeks. But don't worry, it's not relationship shit or health shit or money shit (a.k.a. the heavy shit), but shit none the less.

Have a great holiday weekend, everybody!

Did someone say "contest"?

Psych, this isn't a contest post. Sorry. But here's a vintage contest card I picked up.

I kinda hate that I bought this card. If I was a kid back in 1957 and pulled it, I likely would have just thrown it away. And why did I need to spring for a PSA 3 copy? Nobody is bothering to counterfeit this. Oh well, whatever. I put in a bid and won it for an ok price. It's a card I need for my '57 set because I'm a completist and I guess it counts as an insert. There are 4 of these contest cards, with 4 different dates (this one being the "Saturday, May 25th" card).

If anyone is curious what the winning scores ended up being:

Detroit Tigers 3
Kansas City Athletics 5

Pittsburgh Pirates 6
Philadelphia Phillies 8

I probably would have chosen the glove.

Speaking of '57 Topps, gcrl surprised me with a couple cards for my setbuild the other day, one an upgrade and one a need. Thanks, Jim!

I've got 120 needs left to go. I think I'm gonna abandon my goal of completing 1957 Topps by the end of 2019, and instead push it to 2020. I just don't think I'll be able to give the focus it would take to hammer it out in the next 9+ months.


Now to celebrate the arrival of the weekend, here are some customs/gifs I whipped up over the past couple weeks or so.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure turned 30 recently. Classic.

I hope the rumored third film in the saga eventually becomes a reality.

If you go looking for Jose Canseco gifs, you'll mostly just find that clip of a ball bouncing off his head for a home run. But here's another one for @TheWaxHeaven and the other Canseco bros out there.

Yeah, I already posted this Jackie Robinson a few weeks back, but I scoured the Blogger terms of service agreement, and nowhere did it say that one is forbidden from repeating their own content. So here it is again!

Gotta love Alex Trebek. Very sad to hear about his failing health. Wishing him the best.

And another mellencholy one to end on. Tom Seaver is retiring from public life due to dementia. That news was a punch to the gut for all baseball fans. An all-time great, no doubt about it.

If they were full bleed: 1985 Topps edition

Here's an old blog series I haven't done in a while: If They Were Full-Bleed. It's where I mess around in Photoshop and whip up an approximation of what classic card designs would have looked like had full-bleed (no border) designs been all the rage back then like they are these days.

Be warned, it might hurt your brain to see very familiar cards turned inside-out like this!

Here's a Kirby Puckett rookie in what 1985 Topps may have looked like without borders.

And howabout Steve Carlton? Lefty's '85 Topps card isn't among his best, but getting a little more of the photo not eaten by the border doesn't hurt.

What do you think? Is it blasphemous to see '85 Topps without borders, or could you see yourself hypothetically collecting a set like this? I think it could have pulled off the full-bleed look just fine.


And here's a bonus "what if?" card for you. What would Jose Canseco's iconic 1986 Donruss Rated Rookie card look like if he had a full mustache instead of the peach fuzz?

Probably not anything like that, but I still think it's pretty funny! LOL

Thanks for reading. Have a great October.

The Simpsons custom set for Homer at the Bat

A couple years ago, I did a blog series called The Simpsons Fortnight where each day I posted about a player who guested on the classic "Homer at the Bat" episode of The Simpsons (it ended up not lasting the full fortnight I had originally planned, but I did cover all 9 players from the episode). Each post featured a couple junk-era custom jpg's using images from the show. This was back before I was making hardcopy customs, though a while later with the help from a guy I knew, I did make a limited run of magnet cards featuring some (not all) of the virtual Simpsons cards I had whipped up.

Anyways, now that I've gotten the hang of printing out customs, I had been meaning to make hardcopy customs out of these designs. And so that's what I did!

The autographed Simpsons cards from my recent Wade Boggs-centered contest were easily the most popular of the 3 designs I made, based on the response in the comments. It was no surprise when both contest winners chose that one. (That means I still have a couple each of the Cheers card and the Always Sunny card available for trade, BTW.)

The other catalyst for this project came from negotiating a trade with a reader named Josh, who had a couple nice cards I was interested in, and to seal the deal, he inquired about a set of my Simpsons customs. So I've spent a few hours over the past fortnight cleaning up those original digital customs from 2014, as well as creating backs for them, and making them a physical reality.

So without further ado, I present to you The 2016 Baseball Card Breakdown Simpsons "Homer at the Bat" Custom Card Set!

Wade Boggs cards from The Simpsons

Jose Canseco cards from The Simpsons

Roger Clemens cards from The Simpsons

Ken Griffey, Jr cards from The Simpsons

Don Mattingly cards from The Simpsons

Steve Sax cards from The Simpsons

Mike Scioscia cards from The Simpsons

Ozzie Smith cards from The Simpsons

Darryl Strawberry cards from The Simpsons

Cool stuff, huh?

As with most of my customs, these are up for trade. Drop me an email if interested.
(Sorry, but these are not for sale. It's just too much of a headache from a legal standpoint.)

And if you missed out on the original blog series (it didn't get much traffic at the time), here are links to all 9 posts:

Wade Boggs

Jose Canseco

Roger Clemens

Ken Griffey, Jr.

Don Mattingly

Steve Sax

Mike Scioscia

Ozzie Smith 

Darryl Strawberry