football is in the air (and the mail)

right after i posted about the cards that fuji sent me from his summer sort, he let me know that another envelope was on the way with some cards that failed to make it into the initial mailing. he noted that these included cards from my "nefarious 9" list of my most wanted cards. one of them that showed up a few days later was this 2021 score mark brunell card

it was one of my most wanted non-dodger cards, a "bonus" 9 cards in addition to the top 9 that are all dodger centric. not to be outdone, i also got an email from jon at a pennysleeve for your thoughts asking (as he does from time to time) if i need a certain card or two. most of the time (all of the time?) the answer is yes! this time, the ask involved a couple of brunell cards - a 1997 pacific crown royale

and a 1998 skybox premium d'stroyers insert

i don't mention it often, and i don't have it loaded into tcdb or have a want list, but i have a pretty solid mark brunell collection. 

now, through the interaction with jon, i took a look at jon's "yours for the taking" page and asked for a few others to accompany the brunells through the mail

here's a double play card i didn't have - 2003 bowman bret boone

and four topps archives reserve cards - two from 2001

and two from 2002

the 1952 topps jackie robinson looks especially nice all refractored up! thanks jon!

as for the remainder of fuji's envelope, he was able to hit the top three cards from my "nefarious 9" list, including a 1987 drake's fernando valenzuela card

that isn't cut too badly. the other two cards were kevin brown's 2002 upper deck sweet spot

and marquis grissom's 2001 topps stars

cards. all three of those completed team sets for me (in brown's case, the non-sp team set) and i was quite happy to take them off the list. thanks fuji!

if you are interested in helping a blogger out, i have since refreshed my "nefarious 9" linked above with some new most wanted cards. in the meantime, i think a decent goal for the football season is to get my brunell collection cataloged. more fun than watching the vikings, that's for sure. stay tuned!

it's still 1978 somewhere

i've been paying some attention to my "1978 master set" lately (as a refresher, i featured the non-1978 flagship cards that i've included in my 1978 master set in this post). as a result, i've tracked down some more cards to add to the effort.

i had previously dismissed the reprints of nolan ryan's 1978 topps card that topps issued back in 1999 because they were reprints. however, i decided to pick up the "finest"

and "finest" refractor

versions because they offer the first glimpse of 1978 topps chrome-ified. 

similarly, i had ignored willie hernandez's 2001 topps archives reserve

and ron guidry's 2002 topps archives reserve

cards for the same reason, but relented because they, too, show chromed and refractored versions of their respective 1978 topps cards.

i then decided to pick up chrome refractor examples of at least one of the 1978 topps design cards from the 2003-2005 topps all-time fan favorites sets. from 2003 i picked up jim rice

and from 2004 it was eric gregg

joining my collection.

i was able to track down a second copy of dusty baker's 2005 topps atff refractor

to complete the three year run. these sets used different photos which was fun to see.  i also picked up a rick monday refractor

for the dodger collection, along with the gold refractor parallel

these are numbered to 25 so i probably won't be able to find one to add to the '78 master set.  also, 1978 topps looks strange with a gold border.

back to reprints, here's a 2014 topps chrome eddie murray all-time rookies insert

and i believe it is the first time that the topps chrome logo has shown up on a 1978 topps card.

in 2021, there were three new 1978 design cards to find thanks to the 70 years of topps insert sets across series 1, 2 and update. i decided to pick up at least one of the chrome versions of the cards and wound up with cal ripken's

this is the second one of these in my overall collection, as this card was also my favorite non-dodger card of the year back then.

with 2022 topps archives using the 1978 design, there were plenty of parallels to chase. i held off for quite some time, but decided to go out and pick up examples of the ones that i didn't already have (where were all but the rainbow foil). so, here's the green border

numbered to 125

the silver border

numbered to 99

the red border

numbered to 75

the blue foil

numbered to 25

the red hot foil

numbered to 50

the orange hot foil

numbered to 15

for some reason, trevor rogers and alex kiriloff were easily available in the parallels when i went looking. rogers is the player whose rainbow foil i pulled from the box i opened as well. i have a spencer torkelson design variation/color swap as well, and so i'm not too concerned about chasing down any of those. maybe someday i will find a 1/1 foil fractor though.

i also decided to add this 1988 topps card to my master '78 set

and then i went out and bought an autographed version of it from 2023 topps archives signature series

i put that card in my "meaningful and just because" collection. here's the back:

it gives a nice little recap of the 1978 regular season, which was the first one i followed wire to wire.

collecting baseball cards that year was a lot of fun, even though there was only topps. i amassed a bunch of doubles on my way to completing a set, and i suppose if other options had existed i would have bought those cards, too. so, i may eventually try to chase down the rest of the 2002 donruss originals what if? 1978 inserts - i already have pops

and i know that chasing these down will help me keep the feeling of being a new baseball fan alive.

34ever

the dodgers dropped some big news yesterday as part of their fanfest celebrations - the franchise will officially retire fernando valenzuela's number in a ceremony during the 2023 season! this is great news for fans like me that felt the dodgers should relax their tradition of only retiring numbers of hall of famers (with the lone exception of jim gilliam) for iconic franchise players like fernando. the truth is, fernando's number 34 has been unofficially retired since he was released by the club just prior to the 1991 season - no player or coach has worn the number since. this will make it official and we will see number 34 up on the facade of the stadium along with the other numbers and microphones.

his number 34 is one of the few numbers that was in use by a player on the 1977 and/or 1978 dodger team (lee lacy) that i do not associate with that player. for example, i still think of jerry grote as #9 rather than mickey hatcher (in his second dodger stint) and rick monday as #16 instead of andre ethier or will smith, but 34 is fernando.

here is the newest fernando card to enter my collection:

it's a 1987 hostess card/sticker that i had no idea existed until i stumbled on an ebay listing. it brought me to 247 (245 unique) fernando dodger cards, according to tcdb. that puts fernando at number 21 on my "top names" list and number 5 among all collectors, although i have a few more of his cards (non-dodger variety) in a couple of mini-collections that i haven't entered in to tcdb.

here's a card that shows his number a bit better, from 2002 topps archives reserve

a few years ago, i culled my player collections to just consist of steve garvey, vladimir guerrero, jimmie hall, and the post-dodger cards of the other starting 8 from the 1977 dodgers. shawn green, steve sax and fernando were the last to be cut, but i've since thought about reinstating fernando. in fact, i mentioned it in a post a while back, and even talked about it with fuji when he and i met up in san jose recently.  well, this number retirement news has helped me make the decision to add fernando to my list of player collections.

unfortunately, i traded away many of his cards to oriole, phillie, padre, and cardinal collectors over the past few years so i don't have many in hand. i do have a few, including this 1995 upper deck electric diamond parallel

and this 1996 pacific crown collection card

plus a few more.

my want list is up, but i haven't finished going through all of my monster boxes of cards that may yield a few more from my past pc. still, i am looking for help! you will be rewarded!

fernando was inducted in to the "legends of dodger baseball" a few years ago, which seemed to me to be the franchise's way of recognizing a tier of player that wasn't going to get to cooperstown and therefore have their number retired. this announcement has me thinking that some other members of that group, such as maury wills

don newcombe

and steve garvey

might join the likes of roy campanella

with their numbers retired, too.

and then there was manny mota, who seemed like someone who could follow the gilliam rule as a longtime dodger player and coach, but they were quick to redistribute his number 11 after he finally retired. i figured if they didn't do it for mota, they probably weren't going to do it for anyone else. i am glad i was wrong.

viva fernandomania!

minnie minoso is in my hall of famer collection

aside from dick allen, i figured that minnie minoso would have the best chance of being elected to the hall of fame from the golden era ballot this past sunday. regardless of his election, i decided a few months ago that i would add minoso to my hall of famer collection and so picked up this card for his entry:

that is a 2001 topps archives reserve rookie reprint autograph card.  here's the back:

as we know now, minoso was elected by the committee (along with gil hodges, jim kaat, and tony oliva) and will be posthumously inducted in july of next year.

i first learned about minoso through baseball cards. it was probably 1979 before i saw his 1977 topps record breaker that celebrated him as the oldest player in major league history to hit safely in a game (although his birthdate has been updated since then such that he is no longer considered to be the oldest player to get a hit). the card didn't mention that minoso was brought back by owner bill veeck largely as a publicity stunt after rosters expanded in september of 1976, so i thought he was a regular on their roster and was amazed. i think i finally figured out what was happening in 1980 when he was again added to the white sox roster late in the season and received a couple of at bats. those plate appearances gave him at bats in five different decades which was the idea as i understood it. 

while minoso wasn't in the 1978 topps set, and i really didn't take an interest in learning about his career like i did with some other players who played before my fandom began, there is no denying his importance and legacy as cuban ballplayer. there is also no denying his skill and talent in playing the game as his stats will attest.

i did have a connection to him that made it easy for me to include him in my collection even had he not received the call. back in 2003, i made my first trip to see the st. paul saints play at their old home, midway stadium. i had lived in the twin cities since 1997 but had never gone to see mike veeck's (bill's son) team. we happened to choose the july 17 game to attend, and i was surprised to discover that the saints' leadoff hitter was none other than minnie minoso.  

he had appeared in a game with the saints in 1993, marking his sixth decade in professional baseball, and appearing in this game would give him a professional at bat in seven decades. he drew a walk and was replaced by a pinch runner. i remember watching and feeling a bit sorry for the pitcher who was probably worried about hitting minoso accidentally - i know i would have been. unfortunately, even though my dad had brought his camera, we failed to take any pictures of minoso - at least i can't find any among the photos that we did take that evening. it was only later that i thought about the history - as fabricated as it was - that i had seen, as well as the fact that i had been able to see a player who first played in the 1940's and had appeared on a pretty interesting baseball card at the plate.

i was patient in buying a minoso autograph, and stumbled upon this card that was listed for sale using only his full name - no "minnie" anywhere in the title or description. i am glad that i not only didn't have to pay the hall of fame premium, i was able to pay less than the same card was going for because the seller didn't know who was depicted on the card.

congratulations to minoso, although it is sad that he is not alive to enjoy his enshrinement. as bert blyleven said (i am paraphrasing) a few years back, the stats are the same as they were when minoso and others retired, and a hall of famer is a hall of famer. better late than never, i suppose. by the way, i've updated my hall of famer collection on my want site - i decided not to show it in its entirety as part of these posts anymore.