The final Pole custom

When I first started this blog, I decided to make all of Dick Pole's cards. I knew little about the guy, just that he had a funny name and I wanted to attract traffic to my blog and figured that Pole would do the trick. It didn't really work, but I did learn a lot about Mr. Pole and how he became a sucessful coach with the Chicago Cubs and how he turned Greg Maddux into an elite pitcher with his coaching.
Well, I had thought I finished all of Dick's cards, but when I came to the 2004 Topps checklist, I realized that he was a coach in the 2003 All-Star game, and he never got a card. I corrected that and placed his name in the checklist, and I took about an hour and made the card.

I used about 5 different All-Star cards to get the magazine in the background right. I mainly used Carlos Delgado's card, and then others to get all of the letters in Sporting News and the players in the background. A classy card to cap off Dick's career Topps run.

I was supposed to be getting a package of cards from COMC today, but I don't know where the heck it is. The USPS website said it is in Atlanta after 3-4 days of being in Texas, then later today it won't connect to the site because it can't connect to a server. COMC's site said it left a shipping center in Orlando at like 12 AM today. Last time I checked, it said the delivery date was unknown. Before that, it was today. I'll give the post office a break since it is busy this time of year.
I stopped at the post office today to mail out some card packages. John from Johnny's Trading Spot, Lee from Dodger Cardboard, and Chris from FanofReds should be getting cards from me soon. Also, Mr. Haverkamp, I have a stack of cards set aside for you and I need your address. Collecting Cutch had also commented on wanting to trade, and I have looked for some Pirates/PC guys, and have a stack ready to ship out, so if you want to e-mail me where to send it, I will get those ones out soon. It may be another batch of 3 packages, becuase I need to look for some Black Gold cards for Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown, and I will probably have a chance to do that in the next 24-36 hours.

The 2018 Topps Missing Player checklist is up (including the Traded set too), and the last main set, 2019, is sitting on the Phillies, with the Pirates on deck and the Cardinals in the hole. I should knock that out in the next 2 days as well. Might do a post on that one.

A quick thing before I go, I think this music thing may get it's first shot tomorrow night. Joe, our band leader at church is going to come over tomorrow night and look over some songs I wrote. I have 5 or 10 songs that might have potential to be recorded, and I want to get them perfect before I show them to him. They are all typed out with the chords and lyrics. I may reprint 1 or 2 in different keys and 1 had an alternate chord structure in the verse, so I might reprint that one as well. I have them organized in (I hope) the order of the best ones first. I really hope this works and I can make decent recordings of the songs. I might record what we do tomorrow. I just really hope this gets the ball rolling and that Joe gets as passionate about these songs as I am. He is a great guitarist and can sing pretty well, and if I can get him to play some lead guitar parts, sing, and perhaps drums on recordings, that is a good start to play in the DeLand original music festival next April. All you need is a CD, and I'm assuming an entry fee. By then, I think I will have found a drummer, and Bill, the electric guitarist at church, would be happy to come along and play either bass or electric if we played live. I might sing one or two songs, but my main thing will be doing my thing on the piano/keyboards. I play so much better when I don't sing, and I have specific piano parts I have written in each song that I want to be heard, so if I can just get a vocalist, I think we might just be able to make a CD at least.
I need to be to work in 6 hours, so I am signing off. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

All-Star Managers and Coaches

I haven't really been making post with regular themes lately, other than cards I have added to my collection, and although I did get a few hanging boxes lately ('19 Topps and '19 Heritage), they didn't contain anything special, and I didn't really want to waste a post on a random hanging box just for the sake of posting.
With that being said, the idea popped into my head last night to post all of the All-Star Manager and Coach cards I have made. I am coming up on the All-Star Manager and Coach cards in the 1993 Topps set, so that's where I got the idea from.

Let's start in 1983. This is the first set I really started making them in, although I had definitely added them to the checklists of earlier sets.  There isn't really that many places to search for All-Star coaches. Wikipedia and BB Reference do tell us the managers, though. For the '82 game, it was Billy Martin and Bob Lemon for the AL, and Tony LaRussa for the NL. Bob Lemon was fired after the '81 season, so in a normal year, the managers from the previous seasons' World Series game would be the All-Star managers. For the '82 game, Billy Martin was chosen to be the replacement in the AL. Here are their '83 Topps All-Star cards.

 I just finished making these cards a few weeks ago, and I really wish Topps would've given us All-Star manager and coach cards in all of their sets, but especially the '84 set.

 I haven't done '85, but here are the '86 Topps AS MGR cards, as well as one for Bobby Cox, the only coach I could find in the '85 game.

 In 1987, they didn't have the positions on the front, but the Managers were Howser and Herzog, and the coaches McNamara, Johnson, and Lasorda, each of whom would be All-Star managers in following years (McNamara and Johnson in the '87 game, and Lasorda in the '89 game.

 I haven't toyed with the '88 set, so here are the '89 cards, again with coaches.

 1990 didn't have positions listed again. Tommy Lasorda and Tony LaRussa managed the '89 game for leading their clubs to the '88 World Series.

 1991 didn't have positions listed again, but it was LaRussa and Roger Craig as the managers. I haven't got around to making the Craig, so the one you see down below Tony is a Joe Morgan coach card.

 I pulled out all of the stops in 1992, making backs to the entire set, something I will probably never do again. The Managers were Lou Piniella and LaRussa (again), and you can tell with the first few cards that I was just starting out, and that the last ones I was definitely getting better. I chose random stats and standings to put on the back of each one.

 There were a number of coaches in the '93 All-Star game, as you can see here. The managers were Bobby Cox and Cito Gaston.

After the '94 set, Topps put All-Stars in the 1995 set, and they were left out of the set until 2003, when they put in (guess what??) Managers!!!  I still will add coaches to the 2003-present sets.

As soon as I finish the coach cards in the 1993 Topps set, I will work on the All-Star manager and coach cards, with Bobby Cox and Tom Kelly being the managers for the '92 game.

I have finished the '84 set recently, have been making headway in the '93 set, and am 3 teams done from finishing the '81 Topps checklist. With all that being done, I am thinking about adding another thing to my plate by creating a Twitter account, mainly to post alot of the customs I make. I just don't want to mess up if I do create the account and I want to do everything professionally and not appear like a noob. So, a few questions...

First, what should I post? A random card? Groups of cards? A card of the day? What would attract people to follow my account?

Second, I notice there are a number of baseball players who I have made customs of that own Twitter accounts. Should I try to add them as followers first, and them post customs of them and tag them? Should I just post, and see if I can get the players as followers if these customs spread by word of mouth?

Third, should I add all of the MLB team accounts? Would Topps kill me if I added them and they saw that I was making customs using their designs?

I'm probably forgetting a few other questions, but these were the main ones. I don't even know if anyone would want to follow a Topps Cards that Never Were Twitter page, but if there is enough interest, I could create one. #ToppsCardsthatNeverWere.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

1990 Topps Bo Jackson Highlights

Topps gave Bo a base card in 1990, but left him off of the All-Star subset even though he was the Game's MVP. Donruss gave him an All-Star card, and Score and Upper Deck had cards that highlighted the 448-foot Home Run he hit in the 1st Inning. Topps didn't have a Highlight subset in the 1990 set, only Record Breakers and All-Stars. I decided to give Bo a card highlighting his Home Run. Maybe in one of the future series, I'll make the former Auburn Tiger a 1990 Topps All-Star card too. I have some really good ideas for cards for Series 5 (the next checklist I'm working on) and am excited for many of the cards in Series 2, 3, and 4. Here is card #2 in Series 2, and #27 in the set.

1990 Topps Mike Schmidt All-Star

Mike Schmidt retired before the 1989 All-Star game, but fans still voted him in as a starter. Here's his 1990 Topps All-Star card (apologies to Howard Johnson).