west coast meet up and east coast mets down

i went to a mets game a week or so ago. taking advantage of some travel plans that had me needing to be in boston, i scheduled a stopover in new york and flew to laguardia. from there (or from my airport adjacent hotel) i headed over to citi field. this all means that i've added this 2024 topps city to city pete alonso card

to my "meaningful and just because" mini-collection as this was the first time i've ever flown into laguardia. not sure why - it is a fantastic airport (at least the terminal i flew in and out of) but it could be due to a recent renovation. i'd always used jfk in the past, but with this visit strictly intended to facilitate a stadium visit, laguardia was the correct choice.

before i get into the game and stadium, let me flashback to the day before the game. that day, i was in california at the tail end of a long weekend visit for fun. being in the bay area, i met up with fuji (again) and talked about cards and life over some in-n-out burgers - fuji's treat! we commemorated our visit with a photo of our wallet cards:

as part of our visit, which saw the conversation cover topics from early bloggers like mario and gellman to insurance for collections to the price of toploaders and to collectibles inspired by posts by others, i was able to hand over a stack of cards that i had been accumulating for mark, including this one - a 1997 bowman hideo nomo bowman's best international preview refractor

it was one of his most wanted, and one that i didn't have in my collection, either. however, i found a couple on comc for better than ebay prices and bought them both - one for me and one for fuji. it's a pretty nice card in hand, and i can see why he had targeted it.

the day after meeting with fuji, i continued on my trip and landed in new york in time to get to citi field. it was my first visit, and i took some time to walk around before going inside. the first gate i passed was the bullpen gate

which had emblems marking the club's two world series titles, three other pennants, and other various divisional achievements above it. i wonder how many teams celebrate wild card berths.

moving on, i turned the corner to head towards the jackie robinson rotunda that stands at the home plate part of the stadium. walking along what would be the right field line, the mets had light pole banners showing players from teams past and present. the past players were all ones who have had their numbers retired, such as gil hodges and jerry koosman

here's mike piazza and willie mays

and now jackie robinson and koosman again

the last one i saw had tom seaver paired with david wright

technically, wright's number 5 isn't officially retired at the moment, but it is scheduled to be later this season.

hanging off the stadium, they had other banners showing exciting moments from throughout mets' history. 

in the foreground there is twins legend johan santana who threw the first no-hitter in mets history, and you can see the endy chavez catch a few banners later.

hodges also has a gate named after him

and seaver has a statue 

between the stadium and the number 7 train platform. the home run apple

is next to the statue. this is the original one from shea, and there is a newer, larger one inside citi field as we will see shortly.

the rotunda

is a callback to ebbett's field, and it is full of jackie robinson references. you can see the images of robinson on either side of the interior

teamwork

makes the dream work, as they say. the los angeles coliseum makes an appearance along with jackie from his ucla days

which was nice to see. the famous photo of robinson and branch rickey is used for persistence, and courage shows jackie standing in front of ebbett's field, and you can definitely see the design influence that stadium had on this part of citi field.

i should have walked over to the other side to take a closer look at those photos, but i didn't. once i got up the escalators, the stadium concourse closed in pretty quickly, and i was greeted by the unmistakable scent of body odor. it seemed right.  i checked out the view from my seat

and took a closer look at the retired numbers hanging high above left field

there are numbers for darryl strawberry, dwight gooden, mays, keith hernandez, koosman, piazza, seaver, hodges, and casey stengel. the microphones are for broadcasters bob murphy and ralph kiner. the "shea" is for bill shea, who spearheaded the effort to bring an expansion team to new york after the dodgers and giants left for the west coast. and, of course, 42 is for jackie robinson. i sure hope the mets tend to these older numbers and spruce them up a bit before david wright's ceremony in august. or maybe it was just the way the light was hitting them?

there was still a fair amount of time before the game was to begin, so i decided to walk around a bit more before settling in.  my ticket

provided me access to a couple of lounges, so i made my way to one that was behind home plate (metro) in one of the upper sections. from there i could look out and see the billie jean king (partial dodger owner!) national tennis center complex, 

complete with arthur ashe stadium and louis armstrong stadium. in the foreground you can also see the seaver statue and the apple.

a few minutes after i arrived in this particular lounge, john franco showed up for a meet and greet.

i watched him interact with fans - signing, talking, and taking photos - but didn't pony up the fifty bucks to participate. i did talk to his "handler" a bit and told him that i did not think that rafael landestoy was worth the dodgers trading franco to cincinnati back in the early 1980s.

i made it back down to my seat a little bit before the game started. for some reason, john mayer threw out the first pitch.

i guess he and francisco lindor are friends. in other celebrity news, tom hanks was at the game, too. 

as i usually do, i took a photo of the first pitch

that didn't work, so here's the second pitch

what the heck. finally, i was able to get a photo of the fourth pitch of the game

david petersen faced off against eduardo rodriguez for the diamondbacks, with geraldo perdomo leading off for arizona. here's juan soto about to strike out in the bottom of the first.

francisco lindor took rodriguez deep in the bottom of the second, and i was late to capture video of the apple in action. here's the first part of what i got

pete alonso and starling marte also homered in the early innings, so the apple got some use! after a bit, i walked to a different part of the stadium, passing an area where the team recognized its hall of famers, including this foursome of rusty staub, jerry koosman, tom seaver, and ed kranepool who passed away late in the 2024 season. 

the team is wearing a memorial patch for kranepool this year (you could see it on lindor's left sleeve in the video above). the next lounge i went to was the hudson market which was in the left field corner. this reminded me of the stadium club at dodger stadium, but it was bigger and had more food options. it also had tiered seating areas. 

there were a lot of people in here watching the knicks game on tv.

in the end, the mets won 8-3. nothing too spectacular happened, so there were no topps now cards to be chased down - at least on the following day. i did see this card

added to the site two days later, so i ordered one for the games i've seen mini-collection. it's too bad that there were no topps now cards for other first pitches or pre-game appearances i've witnessed including ronald reagan, kenny rogers (the singer, not the pitcher), barry manilow, and debbie gibson.

i did like the stadium, although it felt really crowded when i was in my seat. i suppose that comes down to who you are sitting near. it was fun to hear the crowd continue to sing "my girl" (lindor's walk up song) after his at bats began and the recorded music had stopped, and the early (and often) scoring had the fans in to the game almost from the get go. overall, it would most likely rank in the top half of stadium visits i've made.

and, if all that weren't enough, after a couple of days in boston for work, i made it to fenway to see the twins take on the red sox. it wasn't my first visit to fenway, so i won't show a bunch of photos. i did take a picture of the retired numbers

as there have been some additions since my last visit 21 years ago. i believe the numbers are in order of their retirement (other than jackie robinson's number), with david ortiz (34) being the most recent. the others are ted williams, joe cronin, bobby doerr, carl yastrzemski, carlton fisk, johnny pesky, jim rice, pedro martinez, and wade boggs. dwight evans isn't up there, but he was at the game and was given a nice video tribute. i have a dewey post in the hopper a couple of months from now. one more note about numbers - i appreciate the guy wearing the josh beckett jersey, but why add the name to the back? same with yankee fans wearing jeter jerseys that have his name on the back. beckett is a deeper pull than jeter, but adding the name when the teams don't wear names has a lack of authenticity and makes me think that you might be actually less of a fan. i've seen some dodger 42 jerseys with "robinson" on the back which makes me cringe. let me get down off of my high horse now.

the red sox are not wearing patches for the late luis tiant, but they do have a memorial placard for "el tiante" up below one of the light standards on the green monster

in the same design as the patch they wore for tim wakefield last year.

finally, here's the first pitch from brayan bello to trevor larnach.

the twins lost 6-1 when their bullpen faltered in the late innings. unfortunately, the most notable thing that happened in the game was a (likely) season ending knee injury to triston casas.

here's a 2019 topps citi field card (gold parallel)

that i've added to my "stadiums i've seen games in" mini-collection to represent my visit to flushing. i am now down to just five teams that i have yet to see at their home stadium - the tigers, yankees, pirates, phillies, and marlins. there are more than five stadiums to get to however, as the cardinals, a's, padres, and rangers all (permanently) play in a different facility than the ones that i saw them in previously.

i also bought a box of 2025 topps heritage at one of san jose's local card shops during my trip, but that will have to wait for a separate post.

thanks for the time and the burgers mark!

h-town card show, part 2

i'm here to wrap up my visit last month to planet houston and the hotel card show i attended. yesterday's post covered my pick-ups from the first few dealers i worked with, and now here is the rest!

the next dealer i found had a quarter box filled with topps inserts and topps on demand releases. i took 37 cards from him, and he charged me 8 bucks.

here's a lot of 2022 topps 582 montgomery cards from 2020-21 set 1 and 2022 set 2

plus six more from 2022 set 3

and here is a pair of red sox from 2021 topps brooklyn collection

i knew that i already had the ichiro card because of the duke snider mural in the background - i had added the card to my dodger stadium mini-collection as soon as i first saw the card online. i didn't realize, however, that i also already had the trea turner card.

i did find some other dodgers that i did need here, too, including this 2022 topps a&g x freddie freeman mini

i had more luck with dodgers at the next stop. this was a guy in a braves hat who said his boxes were 50% off the marked prices. i made away with 48 cards for a total of 20 bucks. highlights included a 2021 topps update dj peters vintage stock parallel

a 2020 topps heritage 50th anniversary buyback of wes parker's 1971 topps card

a pair of color parallels of clayton kershaw from 2021 topps big league

and 2022 panini donruss optic

a pair of jackie robinson short prints

from 2021 topps gypsy queen and 2010 topps national chicle, respectively, and a pair of autographs from a couple of 2019 topps products

of dennis santana. santana most recently pitched for the yankees, and i will admit that i was a bit sad to see the dodgers get to him during the first two games of their series in new york. after the second game, in which santana was pulled and replaced by a position player, it seemed pretty clear his time was up and the next day the yankees dfa'd him. fortunately, like mitch white in yesterday's post, santana was picked up by a nl central team - in his case, the brewers.

i added five more dodger cards from another seller for 10 bucks, and i was happy with that price. i figured that he would be asking for that much for this card alone - 2024 topps shohei ohtani/mookie betts checklist

i think topps is playing fast and loose with what a hug is. maybe their copy editor has some issues.

the other four cards were inserts and parallels from stadium club chrome and topps chrome releases

at least half of which are unnecessary, but i remain the fool that buys them (on the secondary market).

next up i stopped at a dealer who had pretty much only texas team items and dug through a short stack (is there any other kind?) of jose altuve cards for a trading partner who collects the astro 2nd baseman. i found four cards for 2 bucks, and i am keeping one from 2022 panini donruss optic

since it's a double play turn!

then i stopped at another table and dug through a couple of rows of a monster box that was ambiguously priced. i was on my way out so i didn't look too seriously but, did pick out two autographed cards which totaled 10 bucks, one of which was this 1997 bowman karim garcia auto

he gave them both to me for five which was nice. i guess there is also a "blue ink" version of the garcia card, but i will count my collection complete with this one.

i made one more stop, figuring that i should see if i could pick up some 1955 bowman. there was an older couple with some vintage stacks, including cards from the tv set. i picked out a few and offered ten bucks. the toploaders that the cards were in had prices on them, and ten bucks was a pretty good discount. the guy looked at the cards and countered with the full marked price.  i then reduced my ask to two cards which had a total marked price of six bucks and asked if he would take five. he looked at them and told me "six dollars". it was then that i realized he was hard of hearing. i held up five fingers and he said ok and so i was able to cross off st. paul native fred baczewsi and gil coan

from the want list as i work towards completing the set. i'm making some decent strides in that regard but still have a ways to go.

big thanks to houston for hosting a show that coincided with one of my visits. i have plans to be there again, but don't see any shows scheduled during that time which is too bad for me because i really did have a good time.

my favorite cards of the year - 1997 edition

i recently introduced my mini collection focusing on my favorite cards from each year that i've been a collector. the basic gist is that i wanted to create a space for the cards that i most appreciated having in my collection in the year that they were released. these were cards that i acquired in the year that they were issued, and that i considered to be my favorites at the time. i have disallowed (most) cards that are already in other mini collections in order to avoid having a mini collection consisting of more steve garvey, double plays, and dodger stadium cards.

i moved to minnesota in the summer of 1997 and hauled most of my baseball card collection with me. i left most of my complete sets back at my parents' house, but brought my dodger and garvey collections, along with everything else with me. i was intrigued about the idea of moving to an american league town and the prospect of watching baseball indoors. i was still buying cards, although '97 was the first year that i bought the factory topps set rather than hand collating it myself.

favorite non-dodger card: upper deck charlie hayes

what if i told you that i was happy that the yankees won the 1996 world series? it's true, i was. i was a bit disappointed for buck showalter and don mattingly that they weren't around for it (i was not sad that their yankees lost to the mariners in the alds the previous year), but i was happy for charlie hayes (who definitely got happy) and john wetteland and jimmy key and darryl strawberry and tim raines and wade boggs and mike aldrete and mariano duncan and cecil fielder and bob watson, the yankee gm. this yankee team was sort of a rag-tag bunch featuring players i had followed throughout their careers or who had not had previous success, combined with some legitimate home grown talent in the likes of derek jeter, bernie williams, andy pettitte, and mariano rivera, and it was ok to like them as they were somewhat of an underdog.

they beat the favored braves, 4 games to 2, for their first title since 1978 when they also came from being down 2 games to none to defeat the dodgers and dash my early fandom hopes. it seemed to me that baseball was getting back to normal following the strike, with the yankees winning again. of course, i quickly stopped being ok with yankee championships once the brian cashman era began and they took full advantage of free agency and their ability to absorb bad contracts. disclaimer - while i root for the dodgers, i recognize that they took a turn in philosophy in 2012 with the trade with boston, and i am on record as saying they were no longer the dodgers i had followed all of my life after that. they rebounded a bit with developing home grown players and making smart acquisitions like justin turner and kiké hernandez, and max muncy, but have been back at it with the mookie betts trade that included david price and his big contract, and even the signing of trevor bauer has kind of a bad taste to it, in my opinion.

anyway, i loved the fact that 1997 upper deck dated the photos that were used for the cards, and i was excited to see hayes' excitement at catching the final out of the series memorialized on cardboard. kenny landreaux should have been so lucky.

favorite dodger card: bowman hideo nomo

man those black borders with the red inset border looked sharp compared to the burlap-y 1996 bowman release. i found a couple of card shops after moving to minnesota that summer, and added this card to my collection as soon as i saw it. there is a chance that the photo comes from the dodgers' home opener in 1996 when nomo faced the braves and tom glavine in the sunshine at dodger stadium which would be awesome since that's a game i attended in person. unfortuately, there is no way for me to know for sure. regardless, i liked this card so much that i made sure it was in my header over at garveyceyrusselllopes eleven years after first acquiring it.

up next, 2010. stay tuned!