quien es mas macho - larry wayne edition

time for another installment of "quien es mas macho" - the posts wherein we pit cards that have something in common against each other rather than ricardo montalban vs. fernando lamas (here and here are links to some other posts that i've done in this vein). today, we have cards of chipper jones to evaluate - his 1998 topps card

and his 2000 topps card

this is certainly not a rare thing, topps producing cards of players using different photos but similar poses, but i think the fact that these are not posed shots is a bit different. i remember opening packs of 1979 topps and wondering if every nolan ryan card showed him with his hands above his head because that was how he was shown on both his 1978 and 1979 base cards. of course, my go-to for this sort of repetition is don sutton and his "suttoning" pose. 

anyway, the name of the game is essentially which card is better than the other, and here i have to go with 1998. the 2000 card features a kind of awkward looking follow through to his swing, and the unbalanced card design does it no favors, either. the '98 card features a more confident looking swing, plus the jackie robinson patch which is a plus in my book.

what do you think? quien es mas macho?

quien es mas macho? the "phillies finest" edition

it's been awhile since i've done one of these, i am pretty sure. every once in a while, we come across cards that are created either by competing manufacturers, or perhaps the same company, that have a similar theme. i find it fun to compare them and see who did it better.

digging through my old mike schmidt pc this past summer, i rediscovered a couple of cards from 1982.  this one is from donruss

and this one is from fleer

sure, donruss left out the possessive apostrophe, but here we have two cards from the same year with the same theme, yet different players featured? let's find out quien es mas macho.

first, here is the back to the donruss card:

after reading the back, this card seems to take a holistic approach to celebrating schmidt and pete rose. lots of cooperstown talk with the last paragraph focusing on their 1981 seasons. sensible.

now here is the back of the fleer card:

this one reads like it was meant to be included in the 1981 fleer set (fleer did have a "triple threat" card in that set featuring schmidt, rose, and larry bowa), although it does recognize that the phillies were the 1st half champions of the nl east in 1981. putting the card in the 1982 set makes sense i guess as the photo would have been taken in 1981 with the players receiving team awards for their accomplishments the previous season.

almost forty years later, i can use baseball reference to see that the phillies' finest players in 1981 (by war) were mike schmidt and steve carlton. the phillie with the third highest war in 1981 was gary matthews (not pictured), and fourth was lonnie smith.  rose was seventh behind those four plus larry bowa and manny trillo.

as much as i enjoy seeing pete rose on cardboard, i have to give the nod here to the fleer card. this is largely due to the inclusion of carlton who was simply the best national league pitcher in the early 1980's, let alone being the finest on the phillies.  so, fleer es mas macho!

finally, congratulations to the dodgers and rays for winning their respective leagues' pennants over the weekend. looking forward to the world series!

quien es mas macho? the muttonchop sideburns edition!

time for another round of "quien es mas macho?" wherein i pit cards with some sort of similarity against each other.  this time, we have a pair of cards from 2021 topps archives. specifically, willie stargell 

and manny machado

can you guess the similarity here?

yes, it's the muttonchop sideburns. who wore it better - pops or machado?

of course, no muttonchop discussion is valid without mentioning carl yastrzemski and his famous baseball card appearance on the simpsons - do you have the carl yastrzemski baseball card from 1973? when he had the big sideburns?

classic stuff. well worth hearing milhous make the request in his own words:

oh, by the way, willie stargell es mas macho!

time for another round of 'quien es mas macho?'

i skipped the road to opening day set from topps now this year, but i did pick up one card on the cheap.

kiké hernandez is a fan favorite, and i enjoy this card the same way i enjoy the 'big glove' mickey hatcher and yasiel puig cards from years past even though this card is more along the lines of the 1986 donruss scott bradley card

so, i ask the question: quien es mas macho?

topps missed the mark on kiké's card by just putting the "of" designation rather than "if - of" (hernandez has played everywhere but pitcher and catcher again this year), but bradley's card is too stiffly posed. plus, one of his many gloves is obscured by the yankee logo.

some may say that my bias is showing, but i don't care - kiké es mas macho!

quien es mas macho? a puzzle edition

did any of you get a jigsaw puzzle for christmas? we used to get one every year when i was a kid, and we'd put them together with our grandma. good times.

a year or so ago, one of my most wanted cards was this 2002 fleer ultra card

it features kevin brown and luke prokopec, and it completed my team set. it might even be a short print for all i know, and i didn't know the card was designed with interlocking puzzle pieces until it arrived in my mailbox. 

for those that may not recall, many baseball card sets in the late 90's and early 2000's were issued late in the year prior to their designation. ultra was one, so the back of this card has a copyright of 2001 even though it is a 2002 card. this has caused me a ton of frustration over the years as i try to date some cards through copyright dates on the back. thank goodness for the internet and the resources available these days!

while brown and prokopec were team mates (and i suppose, "team players") in 2000 and 2001, prokopec was traded to the blue jays in december of '01, right around the time this card was released. about eight years earlier, another trade took place that became the subject of another puzzle-design bearing card:

ah yes. the infamous delino deshields for pedro martinez trade that occurred in november of 1993. this card is from 1994 topps traded. the puzzle part of the design reminds me of how sometimes i would try to force two pieces together even though the images on them weren't a match.

i am on record as being optimistic of this trade when it happened - deshields was 24 with four seasons under his belt and seemed to be a solid, all-star type player. pedro was 21 and had turned in a very promising rookie season in 1993, but the odds of any one pitcher developing in to a generational talent like pedro are low and fred claire rolled the dice. kudos to the expos brain trust who landed pedro in return for deshields. in the end, i still blame jody reed.

ok, quien es mas macho?

harpooning a blackless whale

this is going to turn in to another installment of "quien es mas macho", i can already feel it.  first though, i am pleased to report that i have finally obtained a copy of steve garvey's 1982 topps blackless variation.

there it is, in all it's glory.

when i first learned about these variations maybe 20 years ago, i assumed that they were available in greater numbers. the psa registry notes that "there are reportedly less than 100 of each of the blackless cards" in existence. i would have said "fewer" but that's just me.  at any rate, trying to find a blackless garvey decades after the card was issued was tough. i missed one a year or two ago which was also the first one i had seen offered for sale in a long, long time.  so, when another popped up at the end of the summer, i bought it. first, i waited to see if the price would drop (it did - by a whopping 5%), and then i bought it.

i really like it, and i wish that the original set were like this. i am not a fan of facsimile signatures on cards, plus i think the lack of the black border around the photo works better with the design of the card.  here's the regular card, to refresh your memory:

the facsimile signature on garvey's card is not too obnoxious, but there was so much variation in the overall set related to its location (see willie stargell's card, for example) that its presence annoyed me. the photo selection by topps did not always support a black signature, and, in my opinion, that was something that should have been considered if the autograph was going to be a design element.  this was the second set that i collected that had these signatures (1980 topps was the first time i saw them in bulk), and i thankfully didn't see them again for 25 years.

clearly, the blackless version es mas macho. my acquisition of this blackless card reduces the number of "playing days" cards of garvey that i am missing, but the remainder are doozies. anyone have a 1972 topps venezuelan stamp of the garv to spare?

journey to the bottom of the box and other killer tales of trading

i've made quite a few trades over the last few months, and i dutifully began drafting trade posts for each transaction.  failing to publish these posts has led me to consolidate and use this singular post to get caught up. almost. it began innocently enough, but i have added more and more trades to the post, and so this has been over two months in the making. time to hit 'publish'

jt at the writer's journey sent a few dodgers my way, including a 1989 fleer kirk gibson box bottom card

which was great because i'm trying to kill 1989 from my want lists once and for all.  other cards included in the pwe were a 2016 topps holiday adrian gonzalez

and some 2016 topps bunt dodgers - koufax, joc, and julio urias

i requested a block of 2016 topps stadium club from 2x3 heroes as part of his annual card purge, and jeff obliged.

here's brock holt doing his steve holt (steve holt!) impression

a nice derek norris tattooine card

and one from peter o'brien as well

and finally a freddy galvis double play

jeff also included some dodgers, like this 2016 topps national baseball card day corey seager card

and this 2016 topps museum club yasiel puig parallel

not to be outdone, i received a great pwe from brian of waxaholic, which included three base dodger cards from that set, including puig

with kenley jansen and joc pederson along for the ride.

also included were cards from 2017 topps archives, such as this clayton kershaw card

and the manny mota autographed card!

plus, brian included a relic of triple-crown line king, marcel dionne

i've pared down my hockey collection to largely a luc robitaille collection, but dionne, in the purple forum blue jersey, will have a place.

p-town tom sent me a bunch of dodger cards, many of which featured rookies of the year

1997 topps jackie robinson

2001 fleer focus joe black roy collection

1993 topps gold mike piazza

1993 topps traded mike piazza

now, that 1993 topps traded card was one of the most highly anticipated cards for a dodger collector since, perhaps, the 1988 topps traded kirk gibson card.  topps didn't disappoint, with what looks like a shea stadium home run, but i was also looking forward to piazza's 1994 topps card.  topps took the lazy route for that one

they used a photo from the same play, and one that was not as interesting.  that's the gold parallel version, by the way.

continuing on with roys, here's a 1995 fleer ultra raul mondesi card

and a 1996 fleer ultra hideo nomo card

tom - you can go ahead and send me all of your corey seager and cody bellinger cards, too.

speaking of roys, colbey at cardboard collections has a recurring "free cards" segment, and i was able to snag this 1997 fleer circa todd hollandsworth fast track insert

which features a felt surfaced green background for some reason.  four years later, upper deck gave us the most well known felt set with the 2001 legends of new york release.

more roy action from jon at a penny sleeve for your thoughts.  he loaded up the package with rauuuuuul featuring cards from 1996 leaf steel

this one is a promo

and here's a 1998 leaf anniversary card featuring mondesi's 1992 gold leaf rookie card reimagined as a fractal matrix card

the 90's were strange times

jon also added a few pacific cards - 1996 pacific crown collection gold crown die-cut

1998 pacific revolution

(that's the base card!), and 1998 pacific revolution showstoppers

gavin at baseball card breakdown also brought the pacific, but in the form of a 2000 kevin brown serial numbered parallel

plus he sent another serial numbered card, this one a 2011 topps tier one jackie robinson card

gavin also sent a bunch of customs of mine that he prepped and printed for which i am very grateful.  and then, i received my cards from his big fun game which included a couple of doug fister cards

along with some other items such as the gold surfer parallel of the beach boys' dodger stadium card

and some customs of gavin's own making - cody bellinger

and a diff'rent strokes reggie jackson/gary coleman mini

just because he could, i suppose.

more custom goodness, this time courtesy of gio from when topps had (base)balls.  this was not really a trade in the standard cards-for-cards sense, but i did purchase gio's 1978 topps custom booklet which featured his take on a 1978 topps brooks robinson card that should have been

it is very well done.

peter at baseball every night sent me a sandy koufax card from 2017 topps archives

and i hit him back with a 1995 topps john kruk card.  sounds unfair to me, but i think he was pleased!

night owl continues to send me some of his hand-me-downs, including a 1977 dover reprint of willie davis's 1969 topps card

i had the dover reprint pages that covered the 1909-11 t206, 1933 goudey, playball, and other releases, but i did not know dover was reprinting modern cards at the time.

here's a 2013 panini hometown heroes card of shawn green

it's the gold parallel of his curtain call insert which celebrates his historic day at the plate on may 23, 2002 in milwaukee - a game which i attended, i am happy to say.  i don't recall green giving a curtain call since it was in milwaukee, but i was busy high-fiving my friend and others around us after the fourth home run, so i don't really recall for sure.

some other cards night owl included were of help in my quest to finish the 2016 topps allen & ginter numbers game insert set (i still need a few, by the way).  two of the cards allow us to play another installment of "quien es mas macho?"

both rollie fingers

and felix hernandez

are in the set with their number 34.

the back of the fingers card lists other greats to have worn 34

as does the back of hernandez's card

with the difference being that fingers is named on the back of the hernandez card, while hernandez is not named on the back of the fingers card. for this battle, i will say that rollie fingers es mas macho.

i'm writing this part of the post on may 3 while watching the dodgers play the giants.  vin scully was inducted into the dodgers' ring of honor before the game, julio urias held the giants scoreless through five innings, and pedro baez has done the same through 2/3 of the sixth inning.  so, i'm in a good enough mood to give thanks to one of the blogosphere's best giant fans.

mr. haverkamp sent me some cards as he has done in the past, but this time there were no dodgers.  instead, he took a swing at my 1972 topps set.  he did better than harmon killebrew, who looks to have popped up a pitch on his in action card

i would say that the cards sent my way went for extra bases, as there were two league leader cards. one featured killebrew and two future dodgers

and the other featured tony o, a future giant, and possibly the best known merv not named griffin

next up is a boyhood photo of willie stargell as a baseball player

no trout fishin' or accordion playin' for pops.

tony perez was another card that i needed

and was reminded instantly of the days of the big red machine squaring off against the big blue wrecking crew even though perez was an expo when i started following the game.

the last of the 1972's to show here is dodger nemesis jose cruz

cruz hit .286 against the dodgers over his career, most of which was spent with the astros.  as a kid, i would have thought that he was batting over .400 against them.  he always seemed to be on base. i remember listening to a game in which he hit a game ending home run to beat the dodgers and had already accepted it as fate before he actually hit the ball.

jim also sent a couple of cards for my 2002 topps 206 set build, one of which being the team 206 larry walker card

larry looks like someone just told him that they thought mike piazza should have been the mvp in 1997. i'd like to believe that, but walker had some ridiculous numbers that year - better than piazza's - even though he didn't win the batting title with a .366 average (tony gwynn hit .372)!

thanks to mr. haverkamp and all the others for the great cards! i'm still in a good mood because the dodgers are up 1-0 now, and ross stripling struck out the side in the top of the 7th! go dodgers!

since i failed to hit publish on the 3rd, i can report now that my mood turned as the dodgers went and lost the game in 11 innings.  still, i am happy to have complete all of these trades! thanks for the cards!

ps - i waited so long to post this that mr. haverkamp sent me another envelope with a couple of goodies - this 2016 topps allen & ginter joc pederson mini

and this 1981 topps ron cey collcting box

you've probably seen it already on another blog, but it's a cool enough item of a member of the infield of my youth to show here as well.

thanks again mr. haverkamp and all of my trading partners!