Vagabond Binder: Kenny Lofton

Man, my previous post-- re: the "We Didn't Start the Fire" binder-- was very well received. Felt great getting congratulatory comments from lots of folks including many I haven't heard from in a while. Ended up dragging my feet, but figured I'd follow up that post with another curated binder page.

My Vagabond Binder is a fun little project wherein I fill each page with cards of one player, but the catch is he's with a different team on every card. So for a guy to be considered, he needs to have been associated with at least 9 teams. (It also has to be a dude I enjoy collecting-- I don't force myself to include everyone who's eligible.) Previous featured players are Rickey (2019), Benito (2020), Canseco (2020), Goose (2021), and Kevin Mitchell (2025).

I'm excited for this sixth guy, as we get to OVERMAXXX the boundaries of the project, squishing an astonishing 10 teams into a single binder page (and still couldn't fit all his teams in). Behold, Kenny Lofton:

Now we take a closer look at each card while recapping the player's career.

 

Kenny kicked off his MLB career in 1991 when he was a September call-up with Houston and got into 20 games. Sorry, Astros fans, but the team didn't make the cut for the page; I couldn't justify swapping out any card here in favor of an overproduction era rookie card. He established himself the next year after being traded to Cleveland, leading the AL in steals and narrowly missing out on ROY thanks to Pat Listach's one good year. An impressive run followed with 4 straight Gold Glove awards and 5 straight stolen base titles. Just before the 1997 season, Lofton was traded by the Indians with Alan Embree to the Braves for Marquis Grissom and David Justice. After an uneven year in Atlanta (--must've been weird playing for the team that recently beat you in the World Series [1995]), Kenny returned to Cleveland as a free agent and remained with the team through 2001.

Kenny signed to patrol center field for the White Sox in 2002 and ended up swapped to San Francisco at the trade deadline, helping the Giants win the pennant that year. Of course that was the "David vs. Goliath" World Series where Eckstein slayed Bonds.

2003 saw him sign with the Pirates, then another trade deadline swap sent him back to the Windy City to finish out the season at Wrigley. The Cubs looked tough to beat that year until one ill-fated play in the NLCS knocked the wheels off.

 

In 2004, Lofton signed with the Yankees and spent the whole year in pinstripes, though by this point he was more of a role player, only getting into 83 games. Glad to find a use for this dupe 2004 Chrome black refractor that I've already got in my setbuild. (BTW, that long-running project has finally hit the "down to single digits" milestone, with just 9 needs remaining.)

Refraction overload! Compare this to the muted image in the scan up top-- looks like a totally different card.

We close out with this pairing. The Yankees traded Kenny to the Phillies for pitching help before the 2005 season, and he finished out the year in Philly. He signed with the Dodgers for 2006 and Topps found it significant enough to commemorate on a Trading Places insert, squeezing an extra team on the page. Then he signed with the Rangers for 2007, and played well enough for them to be swapped back to Cleveland at the deadline. The Indians went on to make a strong postseason run before getting knocked out by eventual-champs Boston in the ALCS. No teams came calling for 2008, so that wrapped up Kenny Lofton's playing career at age 40.

He was one-and-done on the Hall of Fame ballot, and sure, he was no Willie Mays, but in the years since, nerds have used statistics to determine that he was actually pretty good and kept it going longer than most, maybe enough to consider him among the most valuable center fielders of his era. So it wouldn't be a shock if a committee sends him to Cooperstown one of these years.

That wraps up another page in the Vagabond Binder. If you dig this project, welp, sorry to say there isn't another page anywhere near completion on the horizon.. but then again I suppose all it takes is a focused Sportlots order or two to help turn that around. 

Coincidentally, the next guy I've got in mind for a page was also a speedster who suited up for the Indians, Braves, Yankees, Dodgers, and Rangers among his several teams. I've got the tough one out of the way-- he only has one true Yankees card and it's an oddball-- but still need to round up more of the common ones.

Vagabond Binder: Kevin Mitchell

Some of you readers might remember my Vagabond Binder collecting project, yeah? Been a few years since I've done one of these, but to refresh your memory: I like to fill a 9-pocket page with cards of a guy featured on 9 different teams. It's really just players that mean something to me that I go out of my way to complete a page for. So like, I don't go adding Octavio Dotel cards to my Sportlots orders, but I'll set them aside if they fall in my lap. My blog's Vagabond Binder label includes past posts for Rickey, Benito, Canseco, and Goose.

Today's man of the hour is Kevin Mitchell. I drafted most of this post a week or two ago but held off  posting to sync up with his birthday today, January 13th. Happy Birthday, big guy!

Unlike past Vagabond Binder inductees up to this point, I never fully PCed him, at least not too heavily, but I remember him terrorizing my Padres while in his prime with the Giants. In recent years I've gotten a kick out of seeing non-Giants cards of Kevin Mitchell, with random pickups here and there. And I just recently acquired my ninth different team, so hey, time to dust off the Vagabond Binder and get a post out of it.

There's the full page. Now we take a closer look at the cards..

Like myself, Kevin Mitchell was born in raised in San Diego, though he's from the rougher side of town. He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Mets and made his Major League debut with a cup of coffee in 1984, though got left out of the national baseball card sets of 1985 and spent that next year in Triple A. But he was a versatile part of New York's championship season of 1986, playing six positions for the Mets that year. They rewarded him by shipping him out to San Diego in a big "Kevin M" swap that saw Kevin McReynolds heading to Shea. The Padres flipped him to San Francisco after just a few months and at least got a Cy Young season from Mark Davis to show for it.

As for the cards, the Mets are represented by what I refer to as a "Birchwood Edition" modified 1987 Topps.. call it "cardart" or "a custom" or "altered junk" or whatever. I gotta admit I thought these things would make more of a splash, but the lack of social media response and my eBay sales tell me that nobody else really gives much of a shit about bleached borders on 1987 Topps. Hey, more for me; I love 'em! This one got a little sloppy on the left side of the name box, but still a pleasing "color match" DIY parallel of what was already a fun card with the huge dust cloud.

The Padres card is 1987 Bohemian Hearth Bread Padres. I've completed that set-- still looking to upgrade my Gwynn and Kruk-- and had a dupe Mitchell to go towards this. If these weren't so tough, I'd be tempted to bleach the borders, too, a la my '91 Fleer tweaks. Not many other options for Mitchell Padres cards, though he does have a 1987 Donruss Opening Day card where he's suited up for San Diego. And there's the nutty '87 Fleer Update that features two photos splitting the card: one as a Padre and one as a Giant.

Kevin had a monster 1989, leading the Giants to the pennant and winning NL MVP. I had an extra 2002 Archives Reserve paying tribute to that season available for the page.

San Francisco traded Mitchell to Seattle for the 1992 season after he put on some pounds. The Mariners then shipped him to Cincinnati before the 1993 season. I've got both stops represented here by Bowman cards. The guy was known for being kind of an asshole, with multiple allegations of violence on his rap sheet, so that might help explain why ballclubs often treated him like a hot potato.

He played for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 1995. Like his other mid 90s seasons, he performed well at the plate when healthy, but was out hurt a lot. This is a Japanese card from a 2022 retro set that apparently features several retired players, all with autographs in the product too.

 

Kevin returned stateside in 1996, signing with the Red Sox. Boston traded him midseason back to Cincinnati, giving him a second stint with the Reds. That was his last year with much success at the plate, but he stuck around a bit longer.

Kevin made it into 20 games with Cleveland in 1997 and 51 games with Oakland in 1998. He has a few Indians cards to choose from, but his only other A's card other than parallels of this Pacific Online eyesore is a Mother's Cookie card from a stadium giveaway. That'd make for a nice upgrade, but this project has already gotten costly enough, what with the imported Japanese card that wasn't cheap, plus that Tidewater Tides minor league card from a few posts back that I ended up not having to use in this page thanks to the Japanese card.

But anyways, then Kevin played a few games in Mexico in '99 before kicking around Independent ball to wrap up his playing days in 2001. No cards seem to exist from those post-MLB stints. Theoretically, it might be fun to slot in one of those and then use the '87 Fleer Update card for both his Padres and Giants stops, thereby squeezing 10 teams onto one page. I suppose I could to that with the Tides card, but that's kind of a cheat since it's still the Mets organization, so I'd prefer sticking with my current configuration.

And there you have a page of Kevin Mitchell cards, each featuring him with a different team.

This has been another installment of the Vagabond Binder. Safe travels till we meet again.

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.

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.

Vagabond Binder: Benito Santiago

A few months ago, I debuted this new sub-binder project of mine called The Vagabond Binder. One player per page, ideally pictured with a different team for all 9 slots. The honor of representing Page 1 went to Rickey Henderson, and now my second completed page goes to fan favorite Benito Santiago.

While I'm setting the minimum number of different teams to be considered for this project to be 7, it's best when I can hit a full 9, as we've done again here.

Let's run down the list...

Might have been nice for this Padres fan had San Diego held onto him and made him a Padre for life.. but with one very notable exception, they've historically not been good about committing to their homegrown stars. Benny's run in brown lasted from his 1986 call-up until walking after the '92 season. He won the NL Rookie of the Year unanimously in 1987-- with a 34-game hit streak among the highlights of his campaign.

After leaving the west coast, Santiago signed a 2-year deal with the Marlins and hit the first home run in franchise history. He would constantly remind fans and teammates of that fact, as pictured on his '93 Upper Deck card here. (I'm joking; he's probably just indicating there's one out in the inning.)

Apparently he then decided he wanted to play for teams that wore red pinstripe uniforms. He spent 1995 in Cincinnati on a one-year deal, and then followed that up with 1996 on the Phillies.

His .286 average with the Reds was his best since his ROY year. Then he set a career high in Philadelphia with 30 home runs, including the first grand slam ever given up by Greg Maddux.

Needing a break from red, Benito was curious to experience playing for blue teams. He was with Toronto for 1997 and 1998, though injuries limited him to 112 games combined over those 2 years.

Then he played for the Cubs in 1999 before returning to the Reds for the 2000 season.

These two are the only cards I've got of him with these teams, but I kinda want to "upgrade" to different cards featuring prominent logos someday. I worry the catching gear obscures which team is being represented. You need to really look to closely to figure it out.

I was tempted to use a certified auto I've got as representation for his Giants spot, but ultimately I decided that the spirit of The Binder of Enchantment and Wonder and the sub-binders contained therein such as the Vagabond Binder are to celebrate the game/hobby without concern to "hits" and value. Nice auto, though! But yeah, for the page, I went with the Fleer Tradition base card.

Santiago was in SF from 2001 through 2003. That middle year was the best of his stay, as he got an All-Star nod (his first since leaving San Diego [and turns out only]), plus he was the NLCS MVP, leading the '02 Giants over the Cardinals to the World Series where the Angels somehow managed to escape Barry Bonds for 7 games and bring a championship to Anaheim.

Now we're running out the clock on the veteran backstop's solid career. He signed with Kansas City for 2004, but a broken hand caused by a HBP in June cut his season short.

Then he was traded for the only time in his life-- Yes, all the other team-hopping was via free-agency!-- when the Royals sent him to Pittsburgh for reliever Juan Carlos Oviedo. It'd prove to be Benito's shortest MLB stint, only appearing in 6 games for the Buccos before being released a month into the 2005 season at age 40. He played a handful of games in the Mets minor league system later that year, but was done for good after that.

I'd like to upgrade these 2 cards someday but they are the only examples I have of him with these teams. The Royals card has dinged top corners and the Pirates card has some surface issues. But then again, these sub-binders are all about enjoying cards "for the fun of it" and so I don't stress stuff like condition much here.

And so that wraps up this page of the Vagabond Binder. Nice, varied selection of cards.

Next up on-deck in this series.. Canseco maybe? Does anyone have any available cards of Jose on the Yankees or Expos (2002 Topps #435)? Those are the missing two I need to complete another page. And I've got a list of other candidates I need to take a look for in my collection and see if I can keep adding more guys to the binder.

Vagabond Binder: Rickey Henderson

Fun new project I'm kicking off. I've typically been a penny sleeves & boxes type of collector, but in an effort to engage with my collection a bit more, I've been working up a "fun binder" (or as I call mine, "The Binder of Enchantment and Wonder"), which will feature a bunch of themed pages. And here's the first section.

The Vagabond Binder!

It focuses on players who changed teams a lot in their careers. One page per player. To be eligible, a player must have been with at least 7 MLB teams. Of course 9 is ideal, so you can have a card for each team. But guys with 7 or 8 teams can find filler cards with minor league or foreign leagues, senior league, coaching/manager cards, etc. Zero Year cards definitely count (such as Jose Canseco on the Expos and Angels). Custom cards are allowed if there's no readily available card of the guy in a particular uniform.

So with the parameters understood, let's kick off with a guy who played for exactly 9 MLB clubs (plus some double-dipping), the great Rickey Henderson.

Nine cards, nine teams! This is an ideal page for the Vagabond Binder.

Let's take a closer look at them.

Some collectors might frown on the same design popping up twice on the same page, but not me! Honestly I don't have many Yankees cards in my Rickey PC, so I didn't have much choice. And the '89 Topps Traded is one of my favorite A's cards of his (plus I had a dupe of it, which is a good since I'm pulling these cards out of the PC for the binder). But yeah, I think this is an appealing pairing of cards. Yes, Rickey's original stint in Oakland isn't represented, but I'm ok with how it turned out. If I someday end up with a 3rd rookie card (one for the set, one for the PC, and one left over), I could see it bumping out the '89TT. (Currently I only have one RC, residing in my 1980 Topps complete set.)

The Blue Jays card has me conflicted. On one hand, it's the only card on the page featuring Rickey doing his thing on the basepaths, but on the other hand, it's horizontal so it kinda upsets the feng shui of the page. But this was the only Blue Jays card in my Rickey PC, believe it or not, so it gets the call.. at least for now; I reserve the right to make adjustments to the Vagabond Binder as I see fit. Rickey got his 2nd WS ring with Toronto in '93, with his leadoff walk setting up Joe Carter's walk-off in the 9th inning of the deciding Game 6.

As a native San Diegan, my personal favorite Rickey is Padres Rickey. This card doesn't look great in the scan, but it's a good looking card in person. Then you got the Angels and Mets. I believe there were some brief returns to Oakland mixed in there, but for our purposes, the A's have already been accounted for.

Easy for fans to forget about his stints with the Mariners and Red Sox. But the binder's got 'em!

And finally, Rickey wrapped up his MLB career in Dodger blue. Looks good on 2003 Topps.

He still hung around the game after that, playing with the Newark Bears and San Diego Surf Dawgs. Had I needed to fill another pocket or two, I could have been open to cards from those stints. But the page is filled, so we're good.

And that'll do it for this entry. I plan to make this a recurring blog series and induct another player into the Vagabond Binder soon in a forthcoming post.

Thanks for reading!