Some random old cards for Wednesday: '79 Stadium Club

A few more cards I picked up in a lot the other day.

Johnny Bench! As far as top tier HOFers from the 70s go, he's got lots of affordable cards. One day I'll see about completing his standard cards.

Check out that miscut Molitor! Now imagine that you're a kid in early 1979 ripping your first waxpack of just-released 1979 Topps and that card is on the top. You'd be like, "Wow! Topps has started experimenting with full-bleed photography! Only half the card has a border! COOOOOOL!!!" But you'd soon realize that it's just a wonkily cut card, and you have to wait over a decade till Stadium Club comes out to finally free cards from the shackles of borders. (I suppose some oddballs beat them to it, such as Mothers Cookies.) This might be a rare case of a miscut card actually being an improvement. If all '79 Topps cards looked like that, it'd probably get a lot more love from collectors for being so fresh and innovative for the time.

I love crafty old pitchers who stuck around forever.. Phil Niekro, Jim Kaat, Gaylord Perry, etc.

Luis Tiant was a fun character. Nice to score another card of him.

Tony Perez and Gary Carter.. HOFers representing the great white north.

I actually just picked up that funky star-cap Stargell in my recent Just Commons order, so consider this one trade bait or possibly prize pool material.

Steve Carlton has a lot of great cards and a lot of crappy cards. This 81 Topps might be the worst.. Boring headshot.. Lefty's face hidden in the shadow of his cap, and his unfortunate white-guy fro bursting out on the sides.

Eddie Murray is a badass. Excited to add an early card of his to my collection.

Ok, that's it for today. Back tomorrow to continue this week of random cards from the late 70s and early 80s.

Some random old cards for Tuesday: Brock vs. Lonnie

Here are a few more highlights from the big vintage-y lot I got a few days ago.

Love Lou Brock. Even if advanced metrics in recent years suggest he may be overrated (according to Hall of Stats, he falls well short of Hall-worthy.. wha?!), he was an exciting player and has some great cards (..though this Record Breaker might not be one of them.. a photo of Brock swiping that record-breaking base would've been infinitely better). And as a former high school sprinter, I have an affinity for speedsters.

J.R. Richard and Ron Cey are a couple guys that I didn't give time of day to when I was a younger collector, but since getting into reading baseball card blogs in recent years, my eyes have been opened to their greatness.

Keith Hernandez is a cool character I don't really have any older cards of. Till now, I guess!

Growing up watching plenty of Braves games on TBS in the early 90s, it's neat to finally have a Lonnie Smith rookie card. Hopping back to Hall of Stats, Lonnie Smith has an identical "Hall Score" to Lou Brock. Really?!? I like that site, but don't always agree with how the numbers shake out. No offense to Lonnie Smith, who was a fine ballplayer, but compared to Lou Brock? No contest!

As a casual Doors fan, it's cool to me that Jim Morrison shares Lonnie's rookie card. And please don't point out that this isn't the Lizard King himself.. just let me keep on pretending that Jim Morrison faked his death because he was sick of being a rockstar, and became a professional baseball player instead.

Remember when Barry Bonds eclipsed his father Bobby Bonds? Who would have guessed that Barry would later sink so far that Bobby would posthumously eclipse Barry back again.. at least in the hearts of baseball fans, not the recordbooks. Bobby has some great cards. This 81 Topps card catches him just waking up from a good dream, by the looks of it. "Ah man, you guys wouldn't believe it! I was riding a polkadotted unicorn through a syrup waterfall!"

George Foster, a recent Happy Card honoree, is always a welcome addition to my collection.

Goose looks funny here without his trademark mustache. Pretty sure I needed this for my PC.. he fits into my top tier collecting goal of "former Padres who are in the Hall".

Speaking of which, Garvey is hoping the Veteran's Committee adds him to that list one of these years, too. (Interesting read: Why Isn't Steve Garvey In The Hall Of Fame?)
Don't take this the wrong way, but Steve Garvey's 81 Donruss card here might be the "sexiest" baseball card until Score started putting out subsets of guys with their shirts off. Garvey's womanizing charm is hard to deny, even on baseball cards such as this one. You can just picture him seductively holding a glass of red wine out of frame. "Well, hello ladies."

Ok, that's it for today. Check back tomorrow and we'll take a look at 8 or 9 more cards.

BTW, notice I replenished the prize pool and gave it its own page in the sidebar. I'll get another contest going soon with another chance to win ya some cards.

Some random old cards for Monday: Templeton n' friends

This week I'm taking the familiar "hey, check out these cards I got recently" route for blogging. As I mentioned the other day, these are from a big lot I got on Listia of 350+ cards from 1970-1982. Here's another flatbed-full of favorites:

30-Year Old Cardboard was dissing that 81 Donruss Fisk a couple weeks ago, but I think it's a nice, simple card. The photo has a vintage, washed-out feel to it, and it's one of Pudge's few happy cards.

That '82 Fleer Palmer on the other hand.. wow, that's a blurry photo!

I love Bill Madlock.. glad to see him pop up 2 or 3 times in this lot with additions to my ever-growing Mad Dog PC.

I used to collect Garry Templeton back when I was young and foolish.. perhaps because his name reminded me of the rat in Charlotte's Web, which was a book I liked as a kid (though yeah, it's sad for a children's book), plus he was the captain of my hometown Padres back when I first got into baseball. While I'm not much into him anymore, I still appreciate old cards of him from back when he was putting up impressive numbers with the Cardinals.. before he followed that with a decade of mediocrity in San Diego. sigh.

In my Greatest Gavins of All Time post a few weeks ago, I expressed gratitude that there hadn't been any Garvins to ever play baseball. Sadly, I stand corrected. Jerry Garvin here seems to know he's committed a grave offense. There was also a guy named Garvin Alston who pitched in 6 games for the Rockies in '96. Not sure why the name Garvin bothers me so. I wonder if guys named Kevin can't stand the name Kelvin?

That's a pretty strong HOF bottom row, though not the best condition. I'm pretty sure I've already got that Yaz, so it's probably available as trade bait. The Tom Seaver has some paper loss at the bottom, but otherwise a fine card. Jim Rice's warm smile must've inspired a former owner of the card to give it many hugs, as the corners/edges are definitely well-loved.

That's it for today. Back with 8 or 9 more cards to admire tomorrow.

Some random old cards for Sunday: trade baiting

I had some Listia credits burning a hole in my digital pocket, so obviously I'm going to spend that on cards. I splurged a few days ago and spent a big chunk of that on a lot of 350+ vintage-ish cards (1970-1982) for the rough equivalent of $15-25, though it's hard to really nail down a Listia credits-to-dollars ratio.

Some great stuff in there. I picked out a good portion of guys I like/collect to keep, some highlights of which I'll show off below. But there are probably about 250 cards that are essentially available for trades, etc. If any of you guys are trying to complete a Topps set or team set from 1970-1981 and still have some commons to check off your list, feel free to get in touch with a needs-list and I'll take a look and maybe we can work out a little trade (my wantlist). Elsewise, I'll likely throw some of them into my prize pool for future contests, and/or offer some PWE lots on Listia to make back some credits.

trade bait!

Most of the cards are from 78, 79, 80 and 81 Topps, and lots of 81 Fleer too. And then a small handful of cards each from 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, and 77.

The only year I think I'll take off the table is 1973, as I'm still coyly considering the idea of deciding to try to complete that set someday. But that's a topic for a future post, I suppose.

Anyways, I think everyday this week I'll post a flatbed scanner-full of baseball cards from this lot I won. Seems like "low hanging fruit" for getting some posts out. (Work has been super busy lately, with somebody leaving and me picking up the slack, so I've had much less downtime for drafting up posts during the day.) These below cards are mostly ones I want to keep, though, not the trade bait unless noted.

First up..

Some Schmidts, Roses, and Nolans. Some of these I think I already have, but will need to check/organize. Pretty sure I have the 2 "1981 Highlight" cards and the '80 Schmidy.. so I suppose those 3 are probably trade bait if anybody wants 'em.

I love the Ryan Express, but Phil Niekro on that LL card takes it from a very good card to a great card. The '82 Donruss Ryan was the only card in the lot to come in a top loader, so I'll take that as a tip that it might be the most valuable card in the lot.

Mike Schmidt is notorious for being a great player who got screwed with crappy cards. Not sure why Topps apparently hated him and always seemed to use boring photos for his cards. Even his "In Action" card isn't really action, but rather anticipation of action.

That's it for today. I'll be back with 8 or 9 more cards tomorrow.

Reluctantly announcing the contest winner

The results are in. Big thanks to everyone who entered! I'm gonna shoot for a contest per week for the rest of 2013 (nothing huge, but just spread around a few PWE-sized prize packages), so if you didn't win this time, keep your chin up and your eye on this blog for more chances in the near future.

Ok, here we go. There were 30 entrants this time (24 + 6 holdovers grandfathered in from my 1st contest). Randomizing twice since this is my 2nd contest.

What?! night owl?! Man, that guy is on a winning streak lately. If I hadn't randomized it myself, I'd suspect the fix was in. Looking at it cynically, of course I would want him to win because he has an awesome, popular blog and if he won, he might mention my blog in a post there, which would surely give me "the night owl bump". So Greg, please let me know which 2 selections you'd like from the prize pool, and if you do mention your victory here on your blog, please keep the source anonymous because I don't want anyone to think there were any shenanigans going on.

Hey, let's pick a surprise second winner, too! I'll randomize the list again..

Oh, for &^%# sake!!! Play at the Plate? Everything I just said about night owl could also be applied to this guy! He wins a lot of contests and he has a great, popular blog. I can already hear the whispered rumors that I fix my contests so that the guy with the popular blog wins.. a cheap ploy to get exposure. I give you guys my word that there was no shady activity involved!
Ha, life's funny sometimes. I also love how night owl was 2nd place in the 2nd drawing. He just doesn't let up, that guy.
So after night owl makes his 2 picks, Play at the Plate (Brian, is it? Sorry I don't know your real name) please make 2 picks from what's left. Then you guys shoot me your addresses and I'll get your cards sent out shortly. Congrats, you two!

Well, everybody else, at least the big guns there are now ineligible for the next rounds of contests. Next time hopefully the winner isn't someone from the Mount Rushmore of the baseball card blogosphere so I can get some credibility back. LOL. While I'd be skeptical if I weren't the one sitting here doing it, again, this was a fair contest, I assure you. Maybe I'm overreacting? There are many great card bloggers out there, after all. But if someone were to randomly ask me to name a couple great baseball card blogs, Night Owl Cards and Play at the Plate would probably be the first 2 to pop in my head.. so it's funny they won.

More contests and a replenished prize pool coming very soon!

Happy Card! George Foster "Slugger" 1981 Fleer

Happy Card!® is an old feature here that went dormant after its debut back in July, but let's try to shake it out of its slumber every once in a while. The subject of that first post was Carl Yastrzemski's 1966 Topps card.. a card I'm so smitten with that I've essentially co-opted it as my mascot here, even though Baseball Card Breakdown definitely couldn't be described as a Red Sox blog or anything. But you can see Yaz's award-winning smile in the "email me" picture here, as well as the blog's favicon (the little logo that shows up to the left of the site title in your browser). That card-- as is the hallmark of any true Happy Card!™- just never fails to cheer me up when I look at it.

Our next honoree is a card that gets its share of attention on card blogs, but mainly due to the charming oddity that it might be the only card ever to list "slugger" as the player's position. Yeah, that's pretty cool, no doubt, but what really appeals to me about this card is the ecstatic open-mouth mega-grin that just radiates with warm fuzzies.

Looks like George is on the dugout steps watching something amusing transpire out on the field.

I was just waxing about 1981 Fleer a few days ago in my One Last Card post of Willie McCovey. I hadn't really planned to highlight the set twice in such a short time, but screw it. A couple quirks I pointed out about the set were multiple cards of certain stars, and the general low quality photography of early 80s Fleer. This picture isn't so bad for its day, though it still has somewhat of an amateur look to it. George here was among the players bestowed with 2 base cards in the set. One identifies his position as "outfield" and the other (our happiness-themed card) amusingly as "slugger".
Here's his other card in the set:

This card is reasonably happy too, but not quite at Happy Card! levels. Reggie Jackson got a similar 2-card treatment.. One card lists his position as "outfield" and the other as "Mr. Baseball" (one would assume they meant "Mr. October"). There are other secondary cards that list a stat or something (e.g., George Brett has a "390 Average" card, and Rickey Henderson has a "Most Stolen Bases AL" card), but sometimes they're just weird like "Slugger" or "Mr. Baseball". Fleer sometimes screwed up the numbering, mixing up the 2 cards of a player. So for instance, there's a variation of the "Slugger" card having #216 on the back, though it's usually #202 (Vice versa with his "Outfield" card).

Backing up from cards for a moment, let's give an overview of the player. Recapping George Foster's career, there are 2 big bullet points to hit. First, he was the only player for a long time (between 1966 through 1989) to hit over 50 home runs in a season, cranking out 52 in 1977. Nowadays, any high school kid with a Bowflex and a tub of back alley protein powder can smack 50 MLB homers, but back then it was a big deal! Second, he was a key part of the Big Red Machine teams of Cincinnati's back-to-back championships of 1975 and 1976. He finished with solid career numbers, but fell short of the hall.

Foster also had a Fleer sticker insert that year. I picked up all 3 of these '81 Fleer Fosters from Just Commons for a combined 52 cents (the majority of that being "Slugger" #202 at 30 cents.. I was a little bummed it has some surface issues, but at least the centering is decent by '81 Fleer standards). They all have similar backs, though the sticker doesn't have the yellow, and the name seems to be a slightly different font.

Oh, and you might notice that the picture from his sticker is pretty similar to that of his "outfield" card, likely taken moments apart.

It looks like George was trying to concentrate on getting his photo taken, but something disturbing behind the photographer was distracting him. A streaker on the field, perhaps?

Similar to Yaz, Foster was known to collectors for the no-nonsense facial expressions on most of his cards, which makes a Happy Card all the more special. (If a guy is always smiling on his cards, it's not that big a deal when one of them seems a bit happier than the others.) But while Yaz usually just looked stoic on his cards, Foster often looked downright mean!
Just take a look at some of his cards:

Even as a rookie. I wouldn't want to mess with that guy! Yikes!

I fear for my safety just looking at these cards!

But once in a while he'd let his guard down and show that he's really just a big softy at heart.

Even looks like he's grinning as he swings on his '83 Card.

To wrap it up, let's admire his joyous 1981 Fleer card one more time...

Now, that's a Happy Card!

Refraction Action: Derrek Lee water card!

When Brad's Blog randomly posted a picture of one of these "water cards" a couple weeks back, I was so smitten I had to jump on eBay and cheat on my card-buying shutdown.

This might be the most bizarre Refraction Action yet...

Yes, you're seeing that right.

This is a baseball card manufactured with sparkly  water  in the finished product. You know I love me some gimmicky 90s baseball cards (see my post on glow-in-the-dark cards), but these cards are so wonderfully over the top I can barely stand it! A baseball card you can take with you into the bath! Love it. Hang out with it poolside or perhaps bring it to the beach. It'll be fine! Rain? Flooding? Spill your drink on it? No problem! It's a water card!

To get technical, this is a 1998 Flair Showcase Wave of the Future insert, a standard-sized clear rubbery 12-card insert set. I wonder how long till the water in there eventually evaporates. These cards are 15 years old, and seem to have held up pretty well. I'd guesstimate another 15-20 years till they dry up, but we'll see. (The internet is telling me that's actually vegetable oil in there, not water, so it should stay moist for a long, long time. But "oil card" just doesn't sound as fun, so let's still pretend it's water.)

It'd be funny to send in one of these for grading. PSA would need to add a "liquidity" score or something.

It'd also be neat to get one of these autographed in person so you could see the "WTF" look on the guy's face.

Derrek Lee up there fits into my collection as notable former Padre. Derrek got traded away as a prospect after only a handful of games as a Friar (part of the deal to get Kevin Brown from the Marlins), but went on to a very fine career. He was a big part of Florida's World Championship team of 2003. His best year was 2005 with the Cubs when he won the batting title (.335), plus hit 46 HR with 107 RBI, and led the league in hits (199) and doubles (50). While his numbers were still decent in 2011, for whatever reason, nobody offered him a contract for 2012 and he found himself forced out of the game at age 36. Bummer; With a few more solid years, he may have compiled Hall-worthy stats. He finished with 331 homers and a .281 lifetime average, a solid ballplayer reminiscent of another popular Cub first baseman, Fred McGriff.

Here's the back:

Finally your pet goldfish can start collecting baseball cards! Here's the watery checklist, thanks to baseballcardpedia.com:

1 Travis Lee
2 Todd Helton
3 Ben Grieve
4 Juan Encarnacion
5 Brad Fullmer
6 Ruben Rivera
7 Paul Konerko
8 Derrek Lee
9 Mike Lowell
10 Magglio Ordonez
11 Rich Butler
12 Eli Marrero

Hey, if you'd like to add one of these damp cards to your collection for free, you're in luck because there's currently one (Rich Butler, a former Rays prospect who wiped out after 86 games in the bigs) in the prize pool of my current contest (ending 11/14/13), so go enter if you haven't already!