Pristine Legends #1 - Vida Blue

Yep, here's the start of a new recurring blog series where I'll take you readers on a tour through my beloved 2005 Topps Pristine Legends refractor frankenset. It's 140 cards deep (well, currently 139... I've still got an eye out for that final card), so it's a bit of a commitment. But part of the point is to prompt some easy-lifting posts for me to turn around my faltering goal of getting the annual post count up here.

Sometimes this series might cover multiple cards in one post, but a decent "PC guy" of mine like Vida Blue will likely warrant a full post to himself, seeing as I plan to take the opportunity to show off other favorite cards of that player in my collection. See, I had been thinking for a while now about doing something along the lines of the Diamond King's "Pick me a player" series, but instead of turning to readers, I'll just let the 2005 Topps Pristine Legends checklist pick the players for me, since around half are PC guys of mine anyways. (Though if any readers happen to be especially curious about seeing highlights of any certain PC of mine, and it's not a guy in 2005 Topps Pristine Legends, then by all means suggest away in the comments and I'll be happy to work up a post for you.)

I should mention I'll often refer to this project in shorthand as simply my "Pristine Legends" set instead of the full "2005 Topps Pristine Legends refractor" frankenset. The fact is it's the only Legends set that Pristine put out, with all the other releases under the product line featuring active players or a mix of active and retired. And it's my understanding that a current MLB or MLBPA licensing agreement stipulates no new set/product can be released featuring only retired players anymore, so that would seem to stand in the way of another Pristine Legends release ever coming out, even with (non-Legends) Topps Pristine seeing a return here in the Fanatics era. Hence if you just refer to a set as "Pristine Legends", there's not really another set to confuse it with. There's only 2005!

With that intro out of the way, here's Vida Blue... 

As this series continues, we'll see that Topps selected many photos for the set that are familiar thanks to being featured on other cards already (e.g. Rod Carew reprises an old Hostess photo), though this shot of Vida doesn't ring a bell. This was later on during his Oakland tenure, as opposed to his early 70s days as a young phenom. Mustached Vida doesn't appear on cardboard until 1976 oddballs, helping narrow this photo down to probably '76 or '77. It's a nice picture-- Vida was always game to fake a set/wind-up for a Topps photographer-- and one that could still look fine were it lightly edited due to a lack of licensing, thanks to only a couple visible "A's" bits poking out.

Here's a look at the card with softer refraction. The first 100 cards in the set are a subset of "The Legendary Years" featuring dudes in their MLB uniforms with a layout riffing on the classic 1965 Topps design. Later subsets to come are The College Years, The Negro Leagues, and The Early Years.

The backs are solid, with Vida's vitals, a sizzle-reel write-up, and a career stat line.  

He's still the most recent switch-hitter to win MVP, right?

There hasn't been another "Vida" in MLB, though there have been a few guys named Vidal.

He's not in the Hall of Fame, thanks to drug-addled off years knocking his career arch out of shape, but he has a higher career WAR than Harold Baines, so that makes him an honorary HOFer to many big-hall dreamers such as myself.

One of the first vintage cards I ever bought back in my childhood collecting days of the early 90s was a 1970 Topps Vida Blue / Gene Tenace rookie. I remember my local card shop had it priced at a few bucks, one of the less expensive offerings behind glass in the vintage section, and Vida Blue was a fun and slightly familiar name, which must have helped draw me to the card.

That '70 Topps card remains a personal favorite of mine and was among the holdovers after I jettisoned the bulk of my childhood collection before moving up to Portland. After returning to the hobby as an adult, I gradually built up a decent Vida Blue PC and still enjoy adding to it. 

 
Looks like I've nearly finished his flagship Topps run, and for what it's worth, I didn't raid any sets for this group pic, meaning I've got dupes of most of these in sets/builds, happy to say. Among other PC highlights I didn't get around to showing off in this post are some of his Kellogg's cards, a few OPC, and the 1983 Fleer "2-card puzzle" with Royals teammate Bud Black on the other card ("Black & Blue"). 

From 2015 into 2020, I did a bit of through-the-mail autograph requesting, usually using my own customs, and Vida was among my best returns. He charged $5 per card back then, totally reasonable. He signed the custom card I made using a slightly tweaked version of his old Time magazine cover, and he included a nice little note asking if I could send him a few extra copies of the custom, which I happily did.

My most-wanted Vida Blue card is his 2003 Topps Retired refractor autograph. Scoring that would complete the "Retired Refractor tRifecta" for me, already having '04 and '05. I have the drab base '03 auto, but dang it, really hope to upgrade to a colorful refractor version someday. 

I'll have a Blue Christmas... 
In fact, make it two. 

(Sorry for the bad photo, but above are [the backs of] my pair of 12/25 Vida autos. If you want a clearer look at his full stats, here's a handy link to his baseball-reference page.)

The rock band The Cult have a song called "Soldier Blue" on their 1989 album Sonic Temple. I owned the cassette, rocked it a lot in my youth, and loved to sing along to the chorus of "Soldier Blue" changing the titular lyrics to "Vida Blue!". LOL, not exactly Al Yankovic caliber stuff, but amusing to a kid (..well, a kid who happens to be a fan of both The Cult and Vida Blue). But no, really, if you make that subtle change to the lyrics ("Soldier"→"Vida"), it basically becomes a song about Vida's tumultuous relationship with Charlie Finley.

Speaking of music, there was later a jam band called Vida Blue featuring the keyboard player from Phish. Vida himself made an appearance at their 2004 gig at The Fillmore in San Francisco, apparently happy folks were still out there celebrating him. Sadly, he passed away from cancer in 2023 at age 73. 

Some oddballs to close out this salute to Mr. Blue, with another "Legends" card making a nice bookend for this initial post in my Pristine Legends blog series. Ready for #2? Bert Blyleven's on deck.

2003 Topps Retired check-in (surprise Part 2)

Yep, more of these shiny cards from a simpler time! 

Reggie Jackson is pretty cool. He was my first "top guy I collect" back in the day and he's still one of my better PCs. This photo in direct sunlight brings out the scratches on the case, but still a nice looking card. And...

It's the Christmas Card! Holly jolly Jackson.

Reggie's former A's teammate Vida Blue is up next. It's a base auto that popped up on COMC cheap enough for me to snag, but I'm still hoping to find a refractor parallel one day.

It's crazy that Vida's 24 wins in 1971 didn't lead the league (thanks to Mickey Lolich's 25).

The last 2003 Topps Retired auto to feature today is a Kent Tekulve refractor I was happy to score a while back.

He pitched in a lot of games, including leading the league for the eventual champs in '79. 

Like Reggie and Vida, Teke also happens to be a solid "PC guy" in my collection. In fact, I've now completed the full Tekulve rainbow for this set:

They didn't include printing plates in '03 Retired (though '04 and '05 had plates included for both base and auto cards), so that's a true finished rainbow, not to brag! :)

The foundation work I mentioned in the previous post went just fine-- thanks for the well-wishes in the comments-- and it's nice to have the cardroom level. It was an expensive job, but in somewhat of a cosmic rebate, just this morning I noticed a thick roll of blue tape in the bushes near where the guys were working. Must have fallen back there and gotten overlooked. But yeah, it was kind of like finding hidden treasure for me because I use plenty of this stuff packing up cards and in various other household situations. Usually I reuse tape I receive from others, rationing it out carefully as needed, but now I can be a high-rolling blue-taper, snapping off endless blue without a care in the world! lol

Thanks for reading. Hope you're all keeping cool this hot weekend. Supposed to top out at 103° for us in Portland.

The card show comes to me

Saturday was a first for me, having not one but two fellow cardbloggers hand-deliver boxes of cards to my door. How great is that?! First was Kevin from The Diamond King who was down in my neck of the woods Saturday morning for the local card show. Then in the afternoon, Rod from Padrographs dropped off another box while I was out walking Ruby. Plus I received one eBay pick up in Saturday's mail, one that happens to be a triple-bullseye for my collection: Christmas Card of a PC guy in my #1 set, 2004 Topps Retired refractors (and it was cheap). Oh, happy day!

Starting off the recap with a royal visit from The Diamond King. This came about because I had been working up a few neat Mark McGwire cardart things with the intention of putting them on eBay for my continuing side-hustle trying to generate enough income to where my wife won't hound me to find another real job quite yet, and generate enough walks to the post office to keep my crazy dog tired. Since Kevin is a big McGwire collector, I figured I'd check if he was interested in trading me for any of them. I know cardart ain't for everybody, so I try not to force it on folks if they don't want it, but I feel guilty if I don't at least offer my buddies dibs on anything they might like of their top PC guys.

Anyways, he was agreeable to trade and a few days later brought me over some great stuff. I think the only other time Kevin and I met in person was when he dropped off cards back at my old house, and we moved in 2020, so it's been a few years. Nice to see him again and have a little chat over cards.

The bulk of what he had for me was a nice lot of Kellogg's for my long-term collecting goal of putting together a run of those classic cereal cards. Excited to check these off my wants.

He also had a bunch of supervintage he offered me since he knows I'm into old stuff like that, with the caveat that who knows if this stuff is legit or perhaps reprints or even counterfeits. Sometimes you just find random stuff digging through cards at a card show and you roll the dice on card that might be something or might not. But yeah, regardless, these are neat additions to the pre-war randomness in my collection, hopefully working a few of them into my Vintage Frankenset project.

I've never been hunting and only went fishing a couple times in my youth, but I can still appreciate the interesting artwork on this series. The last card is "Ratting" and features a young lady swinging a stick at a rat.

Nice minicollection hits for me here.. The top cards are both 12/25 and the bottom lucky lady is 1/3. Love the green ink! Ryan Shamrock is a ring name for Alicia Webb, a.k.a. Symphony, who had a brief pro wrestling career around the turn of the millennium.

Some modern cards of my Padres.

I hope Trout has a good comeback season. The first card seems to be an oddball from 2021.

Some favorites of the past. The '75 Thurman was a need for my setbuild Kevin had just picked up for me at the card show. What a guy! I also needed the Reggie image variation for my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset.

Kevin had a big stack of serial numbered cards for a future giveaway and was kind enough to let me go through and cherry-pick out some PC guys of mine, heavy on the Kris Bryant.

Thanks again, Kevin! Great to swing the in-person exchange with you. Hope we can do it again before too long.

-  - --o

While Ruby and I were out on a nice little hike around the local golf course, Rod was popping by with a box of cards to leave at my doorstep. Sorry I missed him, but excited to thumb through the stack of cards he had available for me.

Love to score cards of the various hot young players that don't make it into my collection much these days since I don't rip new stuff or hit the card show anymore.

There were a few hundred cards in the box, mostly from Rod's recent box busting extravaganza probably, with a big chunk of them fitting into my collection like the PC additions above.

Oh buddy.. glow-in-the-dark dinosaur sticker. Rod is a champ always looking out for glowing stuff for me!

Big thanks, Rod! Always a blast getting cards from you. I hope I catch you next time.

-   - - --o

And then here's that sweet eBay win that came in to really round out the day...

Vida Blue! It's a weird photo choice, but still!

This is an "upgrade" to the 22/25 refractor I already had. Lucky for me the seller botched the listing a bit and I ended up getting this one cheaper than I expected.

There are a total of 76 cards in the 2004 Topps Retired autographs. Of those 12/25 "Christmas Cards" in existence, I've now got 11 of them. That's over 14% of the Christmas Cards in 2004 Retired (which is "the set" my collection is built around, basically). So that's kinda cool!

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Mr. Jones and Me. Custom TTM success with an awesome note!

Oh man, this was a sweeeet TTM return for me.

I can't really explain it, but I was nervous about this one. It was way back in January when Padrographs Rod hooked me up with the elusive mailing address.. and it took me until the middle of August to finally get around to making the request, though it was high on my to-do list that whole time.

Chris Jones has been an enigmatic figure in my collection for a while now, sort of my personal Moonlight Graham. He was only the second person from my high school to play in the major leagues. And the first (Mike Reinbach) passed away many years ago, so Mr. Jones is by default the reigning patriarch of the Guys From Granite fraternity. The fact that "Chris Jones" is a very common name only further clouds the enigmatic nature of the situation, as searching for his cards is not easy, and googling him is pretty much a waste of time as 99% of the results will be for the other baseball player named Chris Jones (who debuted with the Reds in 1991), or maybe the other few guys with that name who've played in the minors over the past few years (or the football or soccer players who also have that name).

I just wanted it to be perfect. You never know how a TTM request will be received.. especially when customs are involved. I've heard about some old-timers who are like, "This is a FAKE CARD! I wasn't paid for the use of my likeness with this! Grumble grumble!" Worst case scenario is upsetting the guy.

Another concern of mine was the weather. Yeah, seems funny, but my customs are susceptible to the ink running when they get a little damp. I figured mid August would be safe, but lol, the day before this return came in, it rained. Thankfully it was dry the day the mailman dropped the return envelope off for me.

But enough lead-in, let's get to it!

Boom, if I may say so myself. Chris never got a real MLB card, so I made my own using the only photo I've ever seen of him not in a minor league uniform. I colorized the b&w pic and put it in a 1987 Donruss design (which might look familiar if you read my post from last month about 87D customs).

I sent 4 copies of this custom, and in my note I asked for one signed in return and said he could keep the extras, which he did. (I also sent a fine-tip red Sharpie for him to sign with [and keep].. an advanced TTM move I've only done once before.. for when you really want it to turn out well and not risk a crappy ballpoint pen or dried-out Sharpie ruining your request). I also mentioned how we both went to Granite Hills High School, and then Grossmont CC and SDSU (I nearly asked him which elementary school he went to, curious if our scholastic paths mirror back that far, though I resisted, thinking it might be creepy to do so).. and mentioned how collecting cards of players who went to my high school is a way I connect with my hometown after moving away a decade ago.

I think the back turned out pretty good, too! I take pride in my custom backs, gotta admit. Helps me stand out from other custom card makers who don't bother with the backs. But really it's just my OCD on the matter, as a blank-backed card feels incomplete to me. This is not only a rated rookie (that never was) but also a sunset card with full career stats. Turns out Chris read it and gave me props in a great note he included in his return...

Transcribing for posterity, he says:

Hey Gavin
Thanks so much for the cards. You did your homework on the career highlights. I didn't even remember that Nolan R. was pitching the game of my debut. I do remember that being on the same team as he was my greatest memory in the ML. Such a great guy as well as HOF no brainer. Take care and thanks again.
Chris  --->
That picture was in spring training during an intersquad game on deck to face Vida Blue. Nice game face! I ended up punching out looking on a 3-2 slider. Nice!

Wow! I've received nice little notes with my custom TTM requests before (including from Vida Blue himself!) but this takes the cake. I couldn't have dreamt of a better reply. This epitomises the greatness of the hobby for me and what it's all about.

Chris even wrote "Go Eagles!" on the back on the return envelope, a reference to our shared Granite Hills heritage.

Oh man, I'm so very happy with this return! While I wouldn't expect it to have big value on the secondary market, this signed card is now easily in the inner circle of best cards in my collection, right up there with my Trout autos and vintage Mantles.

Again, huge thanks to Mr. Jones for making my day by taking the time to sign and return my card and write that wonderful return note. And big thanks also to Rod as well as Brian at ABC Unlimited, the autograph dealer who kindly supplied the address. Much appreciated!

A trade roundup to let the sunshine in

Three recent incoming trades to feature.

First up is Mark Hoyle, who surprised me with a package of oversized cards.

Great looking Winfield. This is my first 1980 Topps Super card.

These Topps Baseball Foldouts panels from 1983 are postcard sized. They're separated, but apparently they come connected, hence the name, and are double sized. For example, Steve Garvey is on the other side of Bill Madlock... both guys I collect, but lucky for me I keep my oversized cards in a separate box, so I don't have to decide which PC to store it with.

Big thanks, Mark!

-   - - -- o

Next is a PWE from Sport Card Collectors.

Nice Conforto mini, though the star of the show is the Vogelmoster autograph. It's my first of his in a Seattle uniform. Seems he's been getting a lot of love from Topps this year, though he still hasn't done much in his limited MLB action. While my enthusiasm for collecting him has waned lately (unlike P-town Tom), still nice to add another auto of his.

And a few Padres cards, including a #'d diecut Kemp, and a couple Templeton buybacks.

Thanks, SCC!

- - - ---o

Finally, here's a surprise PWE from Dimebox Nick.

Here's a Gavin and a few big names of today. The Cecchini is a fancy parallel #'d 18/25. I think the Trout is my first card from the 2017 National Baseball Card Day promotion. Dig the early Donaldson card.

Some late, great Padres of the past. Always love getting new cards from these guys. Especially exciting to see the minor league Caminiti.

Some more quality Padres.

And very cool to land needed cards from Bake McBride and Vida Blue. The glow-in-the-dark Ginter mini is also appreciated, though I already have it. In fact, I think this is the 3rd copy I've gotten of Aquarius, which is kinda crazy seeing as I only have 3 of the 10 Constellations cards so far. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, indeed.

Thanks, Nick!

And thanks again to Mark and SCC. I was proactive putting returns to you 3 guys in the mail quickly, and they should be arriving any day now.

Card Show Cacophony

Ya'll ready for a bunch more card show pickups? The cost of each of these ranged from a dime to a quarter.

Pujols refractor. Beltre framed #/99. Big Hurt #/699.

These crazy Metal Universe cards are a trip. Where is Wade going with that bee hive? Gonna put some honey on his chicken? And is Rickey running underwater? Bizarre!

1993 Topps Gold. Carter (+ McGriff), Thome, Pedro.

Michael Jordan & Friends oddballs.

The backs. I think these are basically semi-professional customs from the early 90s. Anybody have more info on their origin?

More 90s craziness. Pacific loved to get as shiny as possible. And love the wooden-textured Piazza.

Cards of big guys back before they... um, expanded. That's Bartolo on the end, if you have trouble reading it.

A couple O's. It's a rare day that I pay money for a Rafael Palmeiro card, but it's #'d 090/100 and was only 10¢ (or maybe it was a quarter.. can't remember) so I reluctantly threw it on my stack as future trade fodder.

I don't collect Alex Gordon very passionately these days now that he sucks, but couldn't say no to these 2 refractors.

Here are some young dudes. Strasburg had a solid outing in his first start off the DL the other day.

Here are more cards. Among the cards I passed up at the show after much deliberating was a Stargell bat relic #/99 for $4. It was very tempting, but it was a tiny piece of bat and an unlicensed Panini card. Still though, I've got some minor regret letting that one slip away. When I think about it, I make an expression like Willie has in this Heritage flashback insert.

I showed off most of my vintage pickups yesterday, but here are a couple I picked up from a different dealer. Pretty sure I already have that '74 Vida, but this might be an upgrade. Such a classic "happy card" from the 70s. And I don't collect Elston Howard, but couldn't pass up that '67 for a quarter, even with it being miscut.

I know all that glitters isn't Goldschmidt, but I like these shiny refractors.

Boggs doing his thing.

Parallels. The rainbow foil Bryant for 20¢ was a pretty good score. Cheapest on COMC right now is $5.50.

2016 Archives "Super" inserts for a dime each.

Let's stick a fork in today's post with Vlad & Son. The Fleer card is a gold parallel, #/150.

Thanks for reading. Still more from this weekend's haul to show another day.