when topps didn't, gio does

it's been a while since i made a custom card - a couple of years, i think - but i remember enough from my time churning them out that i can say the motivation for making them (customs of the non-art variety) stems from missed opportunities by those who made the real cards. someone was left off of a checklist? make a custom. didn't care for the photo the "real one" used? make a custom. significant event not covered by a highlight or record breaker card? make a custom. rookie not given a card? make a custom. player switched teams and the "wrong" team was represented in a set? make a custom. veteran fan favorite not given a proper send off? make a custom.

those were the reasons i and many others made and make custom cards, and there is none better in the game than gio from when topps had (base)balls. gio takes his creations a step further than most and produces physical, professionally printed sets that are fun to collect.

back in october of 2024, he dropped his "series 18" set that covered all six of the reasons for making customs that i gave above, with fantastic results. let's have a look.

1970 topps bert blyleven

bert made his big league debut in 1970, so could have been included in a later series. he was 19!

1971 topps larry doby and jon matlack

topps hadn't produced stand alone coach cards since the 1950's, but they've had at least one recently in the topps now universe. a doby expos card would have been sweet. as for matlack, he debuted in 1971 and, unlike blyleven, was included as part of a late series release. that card, however, was a three-player rookie card (with old friend ted martinez), so gio gave him his own solo rookie card.

1972 topps rusty staub traded

le grand orange was traded from the expos to the mets on april 5, 1972. that was later than the transactions involving steve carlton, joe morgan, and frank robinson, but still plenty of time for topps to include a traded card in the late series. they chose not to. 

1973 topps sadaharu oh

this is just a straight up "fantasy" card of the japanese legend. oh and the yomiuri giants won their 9th straight title in 1973.

1974 topps graig nettles

gio makes an improvement upon nettles' actual 1974 topps card

1975 topps steve blass and felipe alou

both blass and alou finished their major league careers in april of 1974 and so didn't make the 1975 topps checklist. gio gives them both a proper final tribute send off. i believe the blass is the second 1975 card he's made for blass. as for alou, his brother matty also played his last game in 1974 and was also denied a card. gio corrected that omission as well.

1976 topps red sox combo card

combo cards didn't really make it into the 1970's at topps. they were big in the 60's and have rebounded in the 2000's. having a card of the three red sox stud outfielders is great, similar to the card gio made for the dodgers' 30 home run quartet. i don't think he's tackled the legendary dodger infield yet though!

1977 topps frank robinson and gene tenace

both robinson and tenace were included in the 1977 topps set, but robinson was just a small part of the indians' team card and really deserved a final tribute to salute the end of his playing days in 1976. as for tenace, he received an airbrushed card from topps (and o-pee-chee) in 1977 following his signing with the padres in the offseason. one last look at tenace as an oakland athletic is welcomed!

1978 topps paul molitor and bob horner

a solo rookie card for molitor, who appeared in the set on a 4-in-1 card, and a "missing" rookie card for bob horner. in horner's case, there were no late series or traded or update sets issued in 1978, so it's more of a fantasy card. horner was drafted by the braves on june 6, 1978 and debuted in the big leagues less than two weeks later, going on to be named the national league's rookie of the year. 

gio was kind enough to include two copies of the molitor and horner cards for my 1978 topps master set.

1979 topps tom lasorda and billy martin

freddie patek wasn't the only all-star left without a banner in the 1979 topps set, as the managers of the 1978 midsummer classic were pretty much ignored. lasorda was present on the dodger team card, but martin was no longer the skipper of the yankees when the 1978 season ended so he wasn't in the set at all. i would welcome a return of solo manager cards to topps flagship, along with stadium cards.

here's the bonus card in the set - a 1973 kellogg's willie mays card

complete with stats on the back!

what a fantastic set!

then, last july, gio issued his 1980s career cappers set featuring retired greats who should have been better treated by topps at the end of their careers.

1980 topps jim hunter and lou brock

hunter was shut out in 1980, and brock only got half of a highlight card.

1981 topps willie horton and willie mccovey

horton's big league career ended in 1980, but he played in the pirates' organization for the next two seasons. in fact, his only real 1981 card is a tcma minor league card with the portland beavers, as for mccovey, he at least got a card from fleer in 1981 but nothing from topps or donruss.

1983 topps willie stargell

it's a willie parade! stargell was included in the donruss and fleer sets in '83, but not topps. topps didn't include wilver in their 2018 1983 anniversary insert sets, either.

1984 topps jim kaat, carl yastrzemski, gaylord perry, and johnny bench

three of these four were included on the iconic (yet disappointing) 1984 topps highlight card as retiring legends, but kitty kaat was nowhere to be found in '84 - not even in fleer or donruss. bench and yaz got 1984 all-star design cards from topps in 2019, but not regular cards that would have had their career stats on the back. kaat and perry were omitted altogether.

1985 topps amos otis and jim palmer

there were no cards of either otis or palmer in 1985. seeing otis in topps' 2020 1985 anniversary set would have been a miracle, but i was hoping to see palmer. no dice.

1987 topps george foster, cesar cedeno, and tony perez

the only 1987 card of any of these three stars was perez's 1987 fleer card. none of them were featured by topps in 2017 or 2022, either. it would be nice to see some foster and cedeno cards these days.

1988 topps phil niekro, reggie jackson, and steve garvey

all three of these players were given cards by score in 1988, and reggie also had a fleer card. niekro actually appeared in 1988 topps, but on a highlight card with his brother, joe, and as an indian. he finished his career as a brave, so gio's card is appreciated. 

like me, gio is a proponent of steve garvey as a hall of famer, and per my request, gio added an extra garvey card to my order for my collection. here's the back of garvey's 1988 topps career capper:

i've created a stat back for my version of garvey's card that should have been, with a front that was created by punk rock paint.

1989 topps don sutton, graig nettles, and steve carlton

once again, score to the rescue in 1989, at least by way of cards for sutton and nettles. there were no cards of carlton to be had aside from his baseball talk card (that shows him as a cardinal). sutton at least had a box bottom card, but that's not the same as a final tribute. of the three, a missing nettles card is the biggest head scratcher since he was on the expos roster the entire season. by the way, gio and i used the same photo of old man sutton for our 1989 cards. 

the bonus card in this set was a 1981 topps saduharo oh card

most recntly, gio announced the sale of his 1976 topps "power roll" dice game set. this is a masterpiece. the set includes 25 cards in the 1976 topps style, a pair of six sided dice, two mini pencils, a "wthballs" pinback button, and two pieces of bazooka gum. he went all out, for sure, and the cherry on top is that most of the cards feature verifiable 1976 season action shots, thanks to the presence of the various bicentennial patches on the players' sleeves.

my set took an adventure across the united states before arriving, but it's here and it is glorious. of course, gio added an extra steve garvey card

for my collection which is always appreciated. here's the back of garvey's card:

snake eyes for a garvey home run!

if you like custom cards or just miss the players of the 1970s, i strongly encourage you to check out gio's work. 

bobby grich is in my hall of famer collection

with dave parker and dick allen being elected to the hall of fame by the classic era committee, there should be some room on the ballot when that committee reconvenes in three years. i would expect to see tommy john, luis tiant, ken boyer, and steve garvey on the ballot again, and i am hopeful that bobby grich is added to that list. i've added him to my hall of famer collection with this card as his entry:

that's a 2004 topps retired signature autograph. here's the back:

adding grich to this collection is not something that i considered until a year or so ago when looking at second baseman stats at baseball reference. i had been a fan of grich from my days of growing up in southern california, and i followed his career pretty closely until he called it quits after the 1986 postseason. i have a grich model rawlings glove, and have an affinity towards second basemen and those who wore number 4.

grich was a four-time gold glove winner and a six-time all-star whose lack of counting stats (only 1,800 hits and fewer than 3,000 times on base) is counteracted by his defensive prowess. and, defensive prowess as a deciding factor can't be overlooked when bill mazeroski is a hall of famer. if you trust war, grich has a higher overall war (bwar) than ryne sandberg, roberto alomar, or craig biggio, and his peak war is higher than alomar or biggio as well. among his peers, only joe morgan and rod carew (who moved to first base halfway through his career) are in the hall of fame, and they are no-doubters. by "traditional" means, grich seems like a stretch for the hall, but we are in a new world now.

i saw grich play in person a couple of times, including august 19, 1979 when he went 3 for 4 with a homer and three rbi against the blue jays. i also saw him at the big a once after his retirement. i assume he was working with the team in some capacity, but i didn't ask. we walked out of the stadium at the same time and i could tell he was in a hurry so i didn't say anything to him.

i recently added some of his final tribute cards to my collection - 1987 topps

and 1987 donruss

i'll keep my eye out for an extra 1987 fleer card as well.

i also bought an oddball single to add to my "master" 1978 topps set

that card comes from a sga on bobby grich night at the big a in 1987. cards from his career were printed on a sheet, hence the perforations. the back is a different color than regular '78s

otherwise, it's the same. as the card mentions, grich played shortstop for the halos in 1977 but moved back to second base in 1978 after they traded jerry remy to the red sox.

a hall of fame claim for grich is definitely a "big hall" opinion, and it would add a few more names to the "if he's in then so and so should be in" discussion, but i think he has a solid case. we will see if the era committee agrees in three years time.

a moment for pete rose

i did a double take about 24 hours ago when i saw a headline on the espn app that pete rose had passed away. it took awhile for the mlb app to catch up, but by that time i had seen the news on a few different platforms.

i am not a pete rose apologist, but i am a fan of pete rose as a baseball player. can we separate the player and the on field accomplishments from the person? i would like to think so.

during the formative years of my baseball fandom, pete rose was a force. he became my favorite non-dodger player as my knowledge of the game expanded beyond the southern california market and i recognized rose's skill as a hitter and passion as a competitor. it took me a long time, but i finally picked up a (verified authentic) 1963 topps card that i often refer to as ken mcmullen's rookie card

but there is no doubt that the card belongs to the hit king. 

two of my favorite players from my youth collided on september 11, 1985 when rose collected hit number 4,192 against the padres. the iconic photo of rose after reaching first base included steve garvey in the background and has made its way onto cardboard a few times, including this 1994 upper deck the american epic card

in fact, this was the photo espn used for the "above the fold" story on rose's passing.

i boxed up my player collections after i chose to primarily focus on team collecting in 2003, but i still have most of the cards from my rose collection. he is represented in my hall of famer collection (with an asterisk) and i have several of his modern day cards in one collection or another, including a few auto and relic cards which he shared with garvey.

his 1978 topps card remains a favorite of mine, and i was happy to have him sign it for a fee

even as he had previously signed a 1987 topps card 

for my collection for free.

rose's passing had me thinking back to seeing him up close and in person at my hometown's annual hot stove dinner in the late 1970's. my dad took some photos at the 1980 version of the event which was renamed the "don sutton celebrity golf tournament". rose got all dressed up for the dinner following the golf

which was a different look than the other attendees i remember. a year or two earlier, i had followed rose into the bar area of the local elks lodge and i realized in retrospect that he was probably looking for a respite from the crowds. still, he signed my autograph book

and i never forgot that he did so.

rest in peace charlie hustle.

it's good to know a guy

i had been occasionally checking the local card collector club's website to see when the next church show was going to be held. they are typically held once in the spring and once in the fall. however, there was just a glaring "tbd" on the site for months. running into brian at the monthly club show in august had me thinking about the church show again, and thankfully i got an email from him letting me know that the church show was happening on september 21. better yet, brian and a couple friends were setting up as a vendor.

it turns out that the reason the club website wasn't being updated is that the church show was scheduled for the same day as the monthly club show and they didn't want to publicize the competition. for me, with brian selling, it was a nobrainer to eschew the club show and head to church!

brian had told me that he was going to have two 5000 count monster dime boxes, and when i approached the table, he put the first one down. there in the second row was this card in front

i told brian that having a 1982 donruss steve garvey diamond king in front was a smart move. he said it was all about knowing his customer. of course, i couldn't leave the garv behind.

the first block of cards that i looked at included a bunch of 2024 topps aqua parallels, and i told brian that i was a sucker for those sorts of parallels, too. here's a "color match" fernando tatis jr card

to represent the stack of these that i added to my pile. there were a host of other parallel types that i took, including a 2017 topps fire brooks robinson flame parallel

there were a boatload of straight up inserts, too. here's a 2022 panini prizm vladimir guerrero jr illumination insert

i suspect that the holo version is more "illuminated" than this base insert version.

here are a couple of topps heritage inserts that caught my eye - a nolan ryan card from 2015

and an ernie banks card from 2020

there were some attractive base cards, too. this 1994 upper deck ken griffey jr card

is one of my favorite base cards of all-time so i had to grab one of the two that brian had for sale. and i am not sure that i had seen this 2014 topps stadium club roberto clemente card before

so i took it, too.

i felt that it was worth a dime to acquire this 1974 topps hank aaron card

even though it is in rough shape. as brian noted, "it's 96% intact!"

as for dodgers, there were plenty even though brian has provided me with a steady stream of cards featuring the boys in blue over the years. here's a 2017 topps gypsy queen jackie robinson short print

that i needed, and here's a 2021 topps chrome max muncy all-star game refractor insert

that was also a need. these seem to be less prevalent than the 2022 counterparts, but that may not actually be the case.

back to some cards that i didn't really need but bought nonetheless, here's a 1970 topps dodger team card

and a 1987 topps bill russell card

that i chose to take with me.

one player specific card that was new to me was this 2022 panini donruss vladimir guerrero orange holo

parallel.

i found a lot of cards for my various mini-collections, too.

double play cards like a 2002 donruss originals jeff kent 

and a couple of 2022 panini donruss ryne sandberg cards

the base version is a dupe of one i already had, so it goes into my lurker collection thanks to tony gwynn showing up.

here's another one for the lurker collection - a 2016 topps stadium club manny machado card

featuring cal ripken jr.

brian was wise to have this 2012 topps gypsy queen willie mays glove stories insert in one of the boxes

because i will purchase pretty much any card showing "the catch" for my name/number on the back collection. that's where this 1992 leaf jon olerud card is headed

as is this 1998 donruss collections leaf eric davis card

and this 2019 topps stadium club mookie betts card

i have kind of shied away from adding too many tatooine cards lately, but i did choose this electric blue parallel of jazz chisholm's 2021 topps big league card

as well as this 2021 topps stadium club jose ramirez card

that photo really should have been saved for 2022 topps heritage, as it has 1973 topps written all over it. i see the first base coach's head, the first baseman's arm, the second baseman's leg, and the umpire's arm all disembodied. it's chaos!

at some point while i was digging through the boxes, brian laid out a couple of cards he had set aside for me specifically. this is a 2001 pacific private stock shawn green game gear card

and this is a 1998 topps interleague matchups mystery finest card

that hasn't been peeled. here's the back:

so, does the card front feature mike piazza, eric karros, jim edmonds, or tim salmon? i didn't peel it, but based on the comparison of the impression underneath and images online, i believe this to be jim edmonds' card.

brian also had somehow acquired duplicates of a baseball card breakdown 1975 hostess clayton kershaw custom

so he handed one over to me.

after all was said and done, i had pulled around 460 cards from the two dime boxes. after settling up, brian handed over this 2015 topps stadium club yasiel puig gold foil parallel

it is a beaut of a card.

finally, i had added an unopened pack of 2003 topps opening day to my pile

of course, i opened it when i got home. the mini insert was mike piazza

and the cards were your standard early 2000's variety of guys -todd helton, carlos lee, cliff floyd, and mike sweeney. the floyd card offered a nice view of the ted williams memorial that the red sox wore. i thought it appropriate that the last card in the pack was this one

a sweet minky card from a fellow twin cities card collector. thanks brian!

and, if anyone out there is looking for a pair of john candy's pants, i know a guy who knows a guy.