cardpocalypse 7 day trading card challenge, day 5: hockey is king(s)

well, i've made it to day 5 of the cardpocalypse 7 day trading card challenge, so it's time to show my favorite "other" sport card in my collection.  hockey, to me, is not an "other" sport card in the way soccer, olympics, ufc, boxing or wrestling might be.  in fact, i used to have a pretty extensive hockey collection. i sold most of it off a few years ago and sent a good amount of it to captain canuck. i still have the remnants of a number of player collections, plus two pc's that i've kept in binders. those feature luc robitaille (my favorite player), and wayne gretzky. my favorite player was actually going to be jimmy carson up until he was included in the trade for gretzky, so i switched my allegiance to the other young king star of the time, luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc.

anyway, i have a robitaille rookie and a few other decent cards of the hall of fame left winger, but my favorite hockey card in my collection is this 1988 topps wayne gretzky card.

 

i specifically wanted this card over its o-pee-chee counterpart because it features the great one holding up his kings sweater at his introductory press conference.  what a crazy day that was!

i was born in to a hockey family (my dad and uncle were fans back when it was just the original six), and i was wearing kings attire before i was wearing that of the dodgers! we used to go to kings games at the fabulous forum in those pre-gretzky years, and i took notice of the triple crown line of charlie simmer, marcel dionne, and dave taylor.  i don't remember the kings acquiring dionne in 1975, but i do remember that it was a bummer when they traded him to the rangers in accordance with his request for a chance to win. speaking of the forum, the first time i ever saw gretzky play in person was in 1980 when the kings hosted the nhl all-star game. i remember walking down during the warmup skate to take pictures of him, and thinking that he looked like one of the older kids from my neighborhood - which made sense as he was only 19.

when the news broke about the gretzky trade, i called my dad at work to share the news. i also called some friends, most of whom weren't hockey fans, but it was insane. i had to talk about it! later that fall, i was in college in southern california, and a friend and i drove to inglewood and bought two tickets to opening night from a nice man on a street corner.  a little while later, we were sitting behind the cast of 'growing pains', but were unfortunately too late to see and hear roy orbison sing the national anthem. a short while later, the place exploded when it was announced who had scored the first goal of the season (spoiler alert - it was gretzky).

my gretzky collection starts with that 1988 card. i've never gone back to pick up cards from his oilers days prior to the trade, although when my dad gave me his collection, it came with a bunch of late 1970s and early to mid-1980s hockey. mostly sets, including the set that features this card

(photo grabbed from ebay). i have the topps version, and not o-pee-chee, unfortunately, but i should still probably take it out and get it graded.

on another note, here's the most recently acquired hockey card in my collection.

it's a 2014-15 upper deck game jersey card of robitaille, and i added it to an ebay order a few weeks ago for a buck or so.  i haven't completely forgotten about hockey.

rod has some dodgergraphs, too

i had the pleasure of meeting rod from padrographs in person as part of the great nw bloggers summit when i was in portland for business a couple of years ago.  i enjoyed talking with him (and the other bloggers present) as he had some great collecting stories, including hanging out with tony gwynn during signing appearances and other interaction with former players.  he's also an avid reader (as am i) and has offered up some recommendations for me to check out.

finally, he's a generous guy. rod held daily giveways a couple of months ago that i sometimes participated in. he even sent some cards that i didn't request which was nice.  the first card received through the giveaways was this 2020 topps opening day alex verdugo red foil parallel

i suppose the red will look better once verdugo starts getting cards showing him with red socks, too. still, a sharp looking card!

here's a 1997 donruss elite mike piazza card

piazza was a popular guy on the recent giveaways, and i am consistently surprised at the number of his cards that i still need.

i didn't need this next card, but i did comment that i am/was a fan of the pinnacle 'the idols' subsets.

rod sent the card to my anyway. it was cool to see the variety of players featured as 'idols' - jim abbott idolizing nolan ryan made for a good pairing.

here's a card for my double play collection - a 1998 topps opening day derek jeter issue

turning a double play as a shortstop always felt more stylish to me than when i was playing second base. the turn is a lot more natural coming from the shortstop side of the bag, and the lean that jeter shows on this card reminds me of a 3-6-3 turn. i probably participated in only a couple of those during my baseball playing days.

after receiving those cards from his giveaways, i was able to find a couple of signed cards for rod's autograph frankenset as a way of repaying his generosity. rod recently returned fire with a great item for a fan of the dodger teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  check out this letter of transmittal responding to a fan's request for an autograph from peter o'malley (walter's son, and the owner of the dodgers following o'malley's passing in 1979)

that came with this signed index card

these items pair nicely with the signed business card that rod sent to night owl earlier this summer, and it is great that he was able to share the bounty of this collector's request!  the letter and signed index card also go great with the 1978 topps dodger team card that o'malley signed for me through the mail for me a few years ago.

and let's not forget this great vinyl sticker(?) of his logo

would that be the "swinging signing friar" then? very happy to add this to my blogger custom card collection!

thanks rod - there's a pwe in the mail for you that should arrive soon!

introducing my favorite cards of the year mini collection, starting with my first year as a collector

one of the things i've been doing with my collection during the work from home months has been to attempt to fully separate keeper cards from non-keepers. i had things pretty well organized in that regard, but there were a few monster boxes that were in purgatory. i've been going through them and identifying cards to trade, sell, or keep.

as a result, i've been working to formalize my mini collections to fully encompass the cards that i want to keep. i already have a "just because" mini collection, but i decided to formalize what was a subset of that collection in to a "favorite cards of the year" mini collection.  p-town tom used to host a favorite card of the year contest each year, and so i already had a few cards identified and included in this collection. however, i've expanded on this concept and have gone back to add my favorite* cards from each year since i began collecting.

the asterisk is there because, in order to avoid this collection just being a repeat of cards that are already in my player collections (mainly steve garvey) or other mini collections (dodger stadium, double plays, etc), i've disqualified some cards from being eligible. i will have two cards for each year - one non-dodger and one dodger.  i want to stress that this is not a revisionist history collection - these were the cards that i truly appreciated the year that they were released. as a result, they are mostly base cards and not inserts or other cards that were chased down later.

i will start things off with 1978, which was the first year that i collected cards.

favorite non-dodger card: topps doug ault

i, along with many others, have extolled the beauty of ault's card in the past. when i was 7 and first saw this card, i recognized that it was different from the other cards in the set. it was a rare in-game photo that was used, but there was no active action, unlike the nlcs and alcs cards, felix millan's card, roy white's card, and others.  the rookie cup and the green grass and the brown dirt really spoke to me. the angle of the photo was also different, as if it were taken from the stands - a photo that i (or more realistically at the time, my dad) would have taken.

it is likely that, had there not been an american league team in southern california at the time, doug ault would have been my first favorite non-dodger player largely due to this card. of course, the angels did exist, and we were in their broadcast area, so i followed the exploits of don baylor much more closely.

now when i look at this card, i also feel a sense of time. the card showcases a moment in between action that is a big part of baseball. ault with one foot out of the batter's box, and thurman munson adjusting his mask gives a portrait of activity that occurs in every game but is not often memorialized.  i love the entire 1978 topps set, and there are lots of great cards in there that i was happy to have, but the ault card stands out, and it is a perfect card to kick off this collection.

favorite dodger card: tcma the 1960's jim lefebvre

clearly, my favorite dodger card of 1978 was and is steve garvey's topps (or o-pee-chee) card. i already have a large number of those cards in various collections, and so, as mentioned up top, it was disqualified from consideration here. another card considered was ron cey's 1978 o-pee-chee card - a card which i used to have pinned up on my wall and later sent to him to be signed. that card means a lot to me, but it was already in my permanent collection.  the dodger team card and nlcs card were also front runners, but i decided to go with a different card that i was happy to have back then.  as a result, jim lefebvre gets the nod.

i purchased this card at my local lcs in 1978, and it was the first non-topps card that i owned. i was so happy to have this card, as i had learned that lefebvre was my dad's favorite player. he had a rawlings lefebvre model glove that he would use when we played catch (mine was a mike schmidt model). i also chose number 5 that year for my first little league jersey because of lefebvre (johnny oates was wearing that number for the dodgers at that time, but that was inconsequential). later on that season, lefebvre was back in a dodger uniform, as he replaced the late jim gilliam as the dodgers' first base coach for the world series that year. these days, my dad has more recollections of sandy koufax or don drysdale as his favorites, but that doesn't change my love of this card. in fact, i've still got my dad's old mitt, and i still have this card.

so there you have the first two cards inducted in to my "favorite* cards of the year" mini collection. i'll keep a running entry over at my want list site where i link to my other mini collections. i don't plan to go in chronological order with this series; in fact, the next year up will be the year 2000. 

stay tuned.

is this really happening, bill?

you might recognize the title from jack buck's radio call of kirk gibson's pinch-hit home run in game 1 of the 1988 world series. it came after buck exclaimed that he didn't believe what he just saw, and asked his broadcast partner bill white to verify the scene for him.

i have the same question here on the eve of what is to be opening day of the 2020 baseball season. will games actually be played tomorrow? i guess i will have to wait until then for someone to verify it for me.

in the meantime, here are some uer parallel cards from 2020 topps opening day that have the wrong date on them.

clayton kershaw (purple)

joc pederson (blue foil)

dansby swanson (purple)

i say they are uer, but i wouldn't put it past topps to issue an online only limited re-release of these parallels with july 23, 2020 on them.

just for fun, here is another joc pederson card from this year's opening day release - it's a "walk this way" insert.

this features the jocpop from april 15, 2019 that walked off the reds at dodger stadium. when opening day was first released, these inserts were thought to be super short prints, but the prices came down on them pretty quickly, allowing me to pick up two copies - one for my dodger collection and one for my 42 collection.

it will be weird to see the first walk-off hit and the lack of team celebration that was the norm. that is, if baseball really happens.

hal newhouser is in my hall of famer collection

hal newhouser is a recent addition to my hall of famer collection. this card serves as his entry:

that's a 1993 front row premium all-time greats autograph card. it was part of a five-card set that comes in two versions - one with the first card of the set autographed, and the other without an autographed card. here's the back:

and here's the coa for good measure:

newhouser was not a player i knew much about aside from his back-to-back mvp awards in the 1940's. i've added him to my collection not because i was a fan, or learned about him as a young fan, or because of a connection to him or his career, but rather because p-town tom sent me this card as part of a recent trade package.  that type of connection is enough for me to add 'prince hal' to the list!

by my count, there are 30 players in the history of baseball who have won multiple mvp (or the equivalent) awards. newhouser is one of the only pitchers to do so, joining walter johnson and carl hubbell on a very exclusive list.  newhouser won these awards on the strength of dominant performances in the mid-1940's. he was 29-9 with a 2.22 era and 187 strikeouts in 1944, missing the pitching triple crown by finishing behind teammate dizzy trout's era of 2.12.  in 1945, newhouser won the triple crown with 25 wins, a 1.81 era, and 212 strikeouts.  the following year, newhouser again led the league in wins (26), era (1.94), but his career high 275 strikeouts that year put him a distant second in that category behind bob feller's then-record 348 k's. newhouser failed to win a third consecutive mvp award that year, finishing in second place behind ted williams, who was back from his three years of military service during world war ii.

newhouser was the losing pitcher in game 1 of the 1945 world series that pitted the tigers against the cubs, but he bounced back to win both games 5 and 7, pitching complete games in both contests.  he was voted in to the hall of fame by the veteran's committee in 1992, and now thanks to p-town tom, he's in my hall of famer collection as well!

here's my hall of famer collection as its been documented so far:

babe ruth - 2003 topps tribute world series edition world series tribute relic 351/425

honus wagner - 2001 topps tribute relic

tris speaker - 2011 topps tribute dual relic green parallel 53/75

eddie collins - 2002 topps tribute milestone materials relic

george sisler - 2004 topps tribute hall of fame tribute relic

dizzy dean - 2001 topps tribute relic

bob feller - 2001 topps archives certified autograph

jackie robinson - 2004 topps clubhouse collection clubhouse relic

ted williams - 1992 upper deck baseball heroes autograph 1067/2000

stan musial - 2002 topps team topps legends autograph

yogi berra - 1998 donruss signatures significant signatures 1640/2000

sandy koufax - 1998 donruss signatures significant signatures 1707/2000

roberto clemente - 2005 donruss greats hall of fame souvenirs relic

warren spahn - 1999 upper deck century legends epic signatures

mickey mantle - 2000 upper deck legends legendary game jerseys relic

willie mays - 1997 topps willie mays reprints certified autograph

al kaline - 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph

duke snider - 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography hall of famers 144/250

bob gibson - 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph

hank aaron - 2004 topps originals 1979 topps all-time record holders rbi 03/32

frank robinson - 1995 upper deck autograph

don drysdale - 1993 nabisco all-star autographs

harmon killebrew - 2000 upper deck legends legendary signatures

pee wee reese - 2001 topps tribute relic

jim hunter - 1998 donruss signature series significant signatures 0736/2000

willie stargell - 2000 upper deck legends legendary signatures 

jim palmer - 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph

fergie jenkins - 2013 topps five star baseball autograph 154/333

gaylord perry - 2003 topps finest finest moments autograph

rollie fingers - 2018 topps archives signature series 1978 topps buyback 1/3

hal newhouser - 1993 front row premium all-time greats autograph

reggie jackson - 2018 topps tier one tier one talent autograph 19/60

steve carlton - 2018 topps five star career year autograph 43/45

mike schmidt - 2002 topps archives autoproof 1980 topps buyback 048/147

phil niekro - 2017 panini donruss recollection collection 1983 donruss buyback autograph 13/33

don sutton - 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph

carlton fisk - 1999 upper deck century legends epic signatures

tony perez - 2004 fleer national pastime 2002 fleer greats authentic autograph buyback 30/59

dave winfield - 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography hall of famers 121/350

ozzie smith - 2019 topps finest finest origins autograph

gary carter - 1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game autograph collection

eddie murray - 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary sigs 45/50 

dennis eckersley - 2017 topps archives signature series 1984 topps buyback 47/99

paul molitor - 2016 topps museum collection archival autographs 021/125

bruce sutter - 2003 topps all-time fan favorites certified autograph

cal ripken jr - 2018 topps high tek portraitek autograph 32/75

jim rice - 2005 upper deck past time pennants past time signatures

andre dawson - 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph

bert blyleven - 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams autograph

greg maddux - 2018 topps luminaries masters of the mound autograph 13/15

pedro martinez - 2018 topps high tek portraitek autograph 09/60

ken griffey jr - 2003 upper deck game face autograph

tim raines - 2018 topps tribute tribute autograph green parallel 26/95

alan trammell - 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph

roy halladay - 2017 topps archives signature series 2004 topps buyback 15/23

pete rose* - 2018 panini flawless legendary signatures 15/25

barry bonds* - 2001 bowman heritage autographs

roger clemens* - 1995 upper deck autograph

 

you can find the full list of hall of famers (and some not - yet) that i aim to include in this collection at my want list site.