Random things I’ve found on cards Part 2

 Since I got a lot of good feedback on the first post, I thought I would do a continuation. This post will feature mainly stuff I’ve found on the backs of cards, as well as a number of selections from 1995 Topps, but I hope it will still be fun. 

CIGAR- 2005 Topps #278 Jack McKeon

Jack was notoriously famous for having a victory cigar after a big win, and after winning the 2004 World Series, Topps decided to use a photo of him with a cigar for his 2005 issue. I also want to note that while Jeff Torborg got fired in the beginning of the 2004 season, he might have been able to turn the Marlins around like McKeon did, so I think he still deserves a little credit (and a ring, if he didn’t get one). Makes you wonder how many teams have fired a coach or manager and won a title in the same season. 

PIECE OF A HUMAN BONE- 1996 Stadium Club #406 John Hudek

I have been a Hudek fan since his rookie season in 1994. He made big news for becoming an All-Star even though he was winless. It was even bigger news as he started the season in the minors. He kind of fizzled out after that, but I’ll always remember him being a flash in the pan closer and his cards being hot in 1994 for a few months. 

As big of a Hudek fan that I am, I had never seen his ‘96 Stadium Club card or heard the story that it mentions. Apparently he had rib surgery and decided to have part of the rib that they took out made into a necklace, which you can really see on the front. I believe a few of his cards in 1996 have the necklace shown on it as well. 

This card is one of just 2 that I know of (1991 Score #65 Jim Leyritz) that mention the photo on the front of the card. 

Now I will show you some interesting stuff I’ve found on backs of cards. Prepare to start digging your 1995 Topps cards out of boxes. 

STABBING- 1990 Donruss #538 Joey Cora

Let’s just get this one out of the way…Joey was stabbed by a fan after a game in 1986 and it is mentioned on his 1990 Donruss card in one of the final sentences.

SOAP OPERAS- 1995 Topps #81 Charlie Hayes

This card just mentions soap operas and not a specific one. I’m sure there was little time for soap operas in 3 years as the Hayes family would have their hands full with little Ke’Bryan. 

SPECIFIC SOAP OPERA (THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS)- 2001 Topps #16 Brian Jordan

My wife got me hooked on this show about 12 years ago, and I wish I would’ve caught Brian’s episode. At least he has good (or bad) tastes in shows. 

RATTLE- 1998 Topps #462 Quinton McCracken

The card mentions how McCracken was given a large rattle as an infant and accidentally knocked himself out with it. ‘90’s Topps card backs are really fun as you will soon learn. 

SHAVING CREAM- 1995 Topps #181 Jeff Reed

The back of this one mentions that Jeff would oil his gloves with shaving cream. I knew a guy who met Jeff and got season passes to Elizabethton Twins games from Jeff when he was coaching them. I should’ve tried to tag along to a game with him so I could ask Mr. Reed about his shaving cream theory. 

SNAKE OIL- 1995 Topps #529 Jose Rijo

I’ve already posted about Rijo’s amazing card photos, but if you think the fun stops there, look at the backs. His ‘95 Topps gem mentions that he puts 5 drops of snake oil on anything that hurts. 

DONKEYS- 1994 Topps #85 Tony Pena

There could be an earlier mention, but Tony Peña’s 1994 Topps issue mentions Tony being taken to childhood games by 4 donkeys. 

SLEEPING- 2020 Topps Heritage #112 Nick Ahmed

The newest of these fun cards, Nick’s 2020 Heritage card mentions how he often gets 11 hours of sleep each night. If I were truthful, that’s about how much I need to be running at 100%.  Now I usually get 5-6 per night, but on days off, I get more, and a few times a year I get the magical 11 like Nick does. 

SQUASH (THE SPORT)- 1995 Topps #130 Jeff Conine

Jeff played raquetball (his ‘96 Stadium club shows him holding a raquet), and the back of his ‘95 Topps issue mentions he played squash as well. I assume he still plays, but when I came across a page of current squash players, he wasn’t listed, so I assume he is sticking with his baseball front office/coaching job rather than joining the pro squash circuit. 

FOOSBALL- 1995 Topps #140 Dante Bichette

This one just casually mentions Dante winning the Tucson Arizona Foosball championship in 1994. I wonder if the event is still going on?  I actually got to meet Dante in 1999, and he signed this card for me, and I’m kicking myself for not asking him about the event. 

CONTACT LENSES/HOT CHILI PEPPERS- 1995 Topps #44 Bret Barberie

So many questions about this story. Bret eats some chili peppers. They cause his eyes to water. He rubs them. The chili juice gets in his contacts and he can’t wear them and misses a game.  While I stay away from hot foods and don’t know what pepper juice can do to a contact lens, this just seems fishy. Couldn’t he just spray them with solution to get the juice out?  Didn’t he have another pair?  Was his vision really that bad that he couldn’t have just played without them?  I think the peppers really just messed with his tummy and he was on the porcelain throne all night and the contacts were fine. 

ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE- 1994 Topps #343 Mo Sanford

While it is rare that you will hear me talk about a former Aleebammer Criminal Tide athlete on this Auburn Tiger-supporting blog, I had to mention this one just because it reminds me how most of their athletes are over-hyped, appear on national magazines, and then fizzle out. I mean, really.  If you weren’t a Rockies fan who is older than 40 or hadn’t went through your 1994 Topps binder card-by-card yesterday, would you even know who Mo Sanford is? And if you somehow did, would you even know he was a former Bammer?  Exactly. Just like how no current Yankee fan can tell you who Shane Spencer or Kevin Maas is. 

CEMETERY-1996 Topps #197 Roger Clemens

I kind of wonder the story behind this one. Was it at Arlington National Cemetery and Topps just forgot the ‘National’ part, or was it a random one in Arlington, TX?  Was Clemens just sightseeing on an off day, or visiting the burial site of a loved one?  What was Slick Willie doing there?  Was Lewinsky with him? Who were the other 2 presidents Roger has met?  Why does Topps put these stories on the back of cards without giving us all of the information?!!

ANSWERING MACHINE- 1995 Topps #200 Tim Salmon

For all of you millennials, an answering machine is the same as voicemail. When people had phones with a cord in their house, they didn’t have voicemail. Eventually someone invented a box that had a tape recorder that could be attached to the phone, and you could leave a voicemail on the answering machine. Google it sometime. I don’t really see the thrill of being related to Holly Hunter. I’ve heard of her maybe once or twice in the ‘90’s, and that had to have been during the prime of her career. I’m sure she came out on the better end of the deal being able to tell people she was related to Tim Salmon. I still think it’s a crime that he was never elected to an All-Star team. Who from the Angels was getting picked to represent the team instead of Tim?  Chili Davis? Jim Edmonds? Chad Curtis? Troy Percival? 

And the final random thing I’ve found on a card:

AMBULANCE/TOLL/PARALYSIS- 1995 Topps #183 Jim Edmonds

Speaking of Edmonds, another gem of a story uncovered by the guys that make the backs for the 1995 Topps set. Jim was hit by a pitch, paralyzed, taken to a hospital by ambulance, the driver didn’t have 3 bucks for a toll, got to the hospital late, Jim recovers, makes one of the best catches ever in 1998, and wins a World Series title in 2006. Does that mean the ambulance took a highway with a toll road?  Do they really bother making ambulance drivers pay tolls?  Why wouldn’t you let a vehicle with flashing lights and sirens go through?  All for 3 bucks that the toll collector won’t be seeing anyways. If people were payed by volume sold or number of customers served, you would see productivity go up.  Or just hire guys like the toll collector who wouldn’t let an ambulance go through a toll lane because they didn’t have 3 bucks and almost paralyzed borderline Hall of Famer Jimmy Edmonds. 

I’m sure there are some I’ve missed. I know there’s one of Robert Fick that mentions a stray cat, a 2016 Topps First Pitch insert that mentions a pageant Queen throwing a pitch in heels and a tiara, and a Daryl Boston one that mentions him doing a Stevie Wonder impression (another 1995 Topps, I believe). Check those backs, people. You’ll find some interesting stories. Especially on those ‘95 Topps cards. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Catching up the past 2 months

 It’s been probably close to 2 months since my last post if I were to guess. It seems like one thing after another has just come upon my plate. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing card things.

A few months ago, I finished uploading all of my cards to TCDB.  I was hoping to make some trades after that, but the process of putting cards on my trade list was a little daunting.  After all, how do I input my whole collection on it, but take away any Topps card, any Rays card, and Tigers card, as well as 50+ guys that I collect? Shortly before all of the uploading was finished, I made a post about Heritage SPs that I had and was willing to trade, and it had been widely ignored for a month or two.  About a month ago, someone messaged me about trading for some of the SPs, I figured out how to put my Heritage cards only on my trade list, and that has opened the floodgates.  I’ve made about 12 trades and have 3 or 4 pending approval, and another 5 or so in the in between stages. Every other day or so I get an offer for something. It is kind of overwhelming, but I have been able to pull it off, and have been able to add missing Topps cards to my lists. The 1981 (13), 1982 (29), 1983 (32), 1984 (79), and 1985 (28) Topps sets are all within striking distance of completing soon, with 1980 (201) lagging a tad behind but totally doable. 1982 (23) and 1984 Traded (Gooden RC) are also close to getting finished. One set I did complete was 1996 Topps, and that gives me a complete run of Topps sets (including Traded) from 1986-1999.  The ‘85 set would give me a run from ‘85 since I have that Traded set complete. Traded sets like 2000, 2001, and 2002 will give me some problems, as I don’t have many from ‘00 including the Cabrera, the ‘01 cards have some rookies I am missing (I do have the 2 Pujols cards though), and 2002 has the veterans all are SPs. 

Besides the trading, I have been doing a ton of creating. The biggest thing has been a HUGE custom project that I have been trying to find the right time to work on. It is over halfway done now, almost 75% of the way done, actually. Just a few more batches of cards to make, and it should be finished, I’m hoping 2-3 weeks, but you know how life gets. Once it is finished, I’m going to let the recipient give me word, but I’ll have a cool announcement to make regarding the set, as well as something to go with it that you might want to pick up. It is definitely very cool and something I will be proud to add to my resume. 

I’ve been writing music with my Brother-in-Law JT since 2005, and while we haven’t recorded too much, we’ve formed a comedy band called ‘The Younger Griffin’, and a serious more Christian-themed band called ‘Resiliency from Obscurity.  I am more of the music writer, and JT does more of the lyric writing and singing. With the recent AI craze, JT has taken some lyrics that the both of us have written for the Younger Griffin and put it to AI music, and cobbled an album together. While I am a little disappointed to not have recorded my own chord progressions or melodies and riffs to the lyrics, the AI music is definitely more polished than anything I could ever record by myself. We should have some Younger Griffin social media pages up soon, as well as an 11 song first album that is 20 years in the making. Songs that I’ve written majority of the lyrics for include ones called ‘Liberate the Penguins’, ‘Soccer is Death’, and ‘Credit Misery’. They are different than what I have envisioned musically, but again, AI got us a legit album that probably wouldn’t have came together organically for another 5-15 years. Stay tuned to get some links to our pages and bring money. 

I’m just treading water right now at the house. Living with Karens mom is an enduring struggle, and Karen is just cold or colder health wise with more of the barely going a few feet and getting out of breath. In 8 days she finally gets to go to Mayo for an appointment with pulmonary, and hopefully they will decide to do a broncoscophy and clear her out, as well as try a new type of stent to try to keep her lungs from collapsing so much. Those things could help her just kind of get back to normal, maybe even better like living like a normal person who can just breathe. Then maybe we can fry bigger fish like the shunt stuff. 

I had totally forgot requesting some cards from David of Tribe Cards when he did his 12 Days of Christmas giveaway.  I got an email from him a few weeks ago and yesterday got a huge box full of cards. Probably 500-700 cards worth. 

Just a ton of cards. The usual Tigers and Rays from all kinds of different eras and sets. 

The favorites out of the batch included a ‘24 Bowman Curtis Mead rookie. I had totally forgot about the 2022 Topps 3D set, and I scored almost the whole Rays team set. 2 rookies of (I’m sad to say) former Ray Randy Arozarena and current Ray Junior Caminiero were nice additions to the package that David could have easily kept for himself and hoped for the values to go up, but he sent them to DeLand. There were some cool 2020 Donruss Hilo Red parallels, including a Hunter Renfroe, and a 2024 Topps series 2 card of Jose Siri.  I spent 3 or 4 seasons getting autographs at Lakeland Tigers games in the early 2000’s, and Joe Coleman was the teams pitching coach. I don’t believe that card is his photo, but I never had it back then, so I couldn’t show it to him and ask. He was a generally quiet guy, but I asked him about golf one time and if he hit a hole in one. He said he did, and I asked him what it felt like, and he replied ‘exhilarating’. Maybe I can pick up golf when I retire and go to enough par 3 courses that I’ll get that exhilarating feeling. The Torkelson is a ‘24 Big League SP, and the Verlander is a blue refractor from ‘12 Topps Chrome. While most people wouldn’t consider a mascot autograph a ‘hit’, I’m thrilled to add this Paws autograph to my collection. Kyler and I are trying to get mascot autographs at different stadiums, and sometimes it’s even more difficult than getting actual players. We struck out on Paws at Comerica, and Raymond is the only one we’ve gotten in fact, out of the 6 parks we’ve see in person. The ‘19 Verlander relic made me do a double take as I was seeing Verlander Astro cards in 2018, so I’m glad they still made Tiger cards of him even after he left them. The 1960 Topps Ray Semproch was easily the oldest card of the batch, and I cut off a 1976 Topps record breaker of Mickey Lolich. In the last week I found out Lolich had almost 3,000 Ks from an article online as well as this card. With guys like Kaat, Jack Morris, and others getting in the Hall, Mickey Lolich needs to get a good, hard look. The ‘68 postseason and career numbers are worth double checking. 

I got this ‘23 Jason Adam card from the Rays team set in 2023, and got it signed in June when I went and saw the Rays play the Cubs. A few weeks ago, I got an email on TCDB from a Rays employee who wanted to know where I got the card.  I told them the team set and that there might be one at the team store. Apparently the set is nowhere to be found online and is sold out at the Trop. I offered to just send them the card since they seemed like they would enjoy it more than me, and I sent it out a few weeks ago. It turns out they work in the scouting department analyzing video and sorting it by pitch type and then sending a report with tendencies directly to manager Kevin Cash. As much as I don’t care for Cash’s overanalyzing and the love of spin rate, it is definitely interesting. In return for the Adam card, they offered me tickets to a Rays game next year, which I plan to pick out when they release the 2025 schedule. 

One last note and I’ll put you out of your misery. My pineapple plant started turning yellow 2 days ago, and I decided to try and twist it off the plant today. 

It came off, but didn’t come off too easy, and I was expecting it to be sweet like the one I had 3 or 4 years ago. Unfortunately, I should’ve probably let it go a few more days, because it had very little sweet flavor to it. On the bright side, there are 6 or 7 more pineapple plants around the house, and one of them is bound to bloom next spring. 

That was the one I picked 4 or 5 years ago, and you can see it was probably a few days more ripe. 

I think that was about all of the important things worth noting since my last post. I picked up a blaster of ‘24 Donruss, was impressed with the foil and thought it was funny how each pack had cards in order numerically (like 20-30 or 42-52). Haven’t found Topps Chrome in the wild, but the complete set will be out in about 2 weeks, so that will have to do. 

Stay tuned for custom project news as well as shameless Younger Griffin plugs and more trading. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Collection storage update

 About 2 months ago, Karen got 2 bookshelves for me to put my binders on. I put up 1 in our garage and 1 in our pantry/laundry room. For me, these were a much needed purchase as my Favorite Player, Tigers, and Rays binders have been just sitting on a desk stacked up for the past few years and was making getting a card out of them a nightmare. 

I have spent the past few weeks putting cards from monster boxes in those said binders, as well as a few other ones, and now the binders are proudly sitting in my pantry bookshelf. 

As of now, I have 8 Rays binders and 7 Tigers ones. I’m pretty proud of that, as well as being in the on TCDB. My favorite players binders have been boosted to 7, I have 5 cards of rookies (stars and guys like Shawn Abner and Kevin Maas). The funny thing with the rookie binders is that I just pull any rookie card I get from a pack now since you never know who will break out, and the last binder was almost all 2023 and 2024 cards. There is 1 binder of Topps sunset (or final) cards, a binder with relics and parallels, 1 binder with just parallels, and then my team binders start with the National League. 

Right now, I’ve finished Arizona, Atlanta, Cubs, Cincinnati, Colorado, and the Marlins, and I’m averaging about 4 binders per team. With the binders and pages I have in the garage, I am positive I will be out of binders, and I may run out of pages. I also think I will probably need 1 more bookshelf when all of the cards are transferred from monster boxes into binders. 

There is some space between the shelves and binders, and I’ve used that to put supplies like penny sleeves, and put a few monster boxes with new cards I’ve acquired. After all, if I finish the Astros binder this week, I’m not reorganizing the whole thing if I get one new Astros card from wherever (unless it is a 2024 card maybe). I also keep my folder with my Ultimate Topps Project wantlist in this space. 

As you can see, I’ve made some labels for each of the binders, and I think those will help with organization, and I plan to have each of my binders labeled. 

In the garage, I have a desk, and there is a monster box for trades. I have tabs with names of bloggers I have traded with in the past. Their current address is on the tab, and it makes it easy for me to put cards for trading, as well as when I’m ready to send out a package. 

I feel like the organization will help me with trading. Speaking of trading, apparently I pulled an SSP of Eric Hosmer from 2016 Topps Update, and I’m currently in the process of trying to make a trade with a TCDB member who wants it. Maybe that will help me cross some more cards off of my wantlists. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Card additions and update

 It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’m still going strong. Lots of good has happened lately, so let’s get this post going. 

Let’s do the card stuff first. I’ve been slowly adding new Topps cards to the ‘80’s portion of my collection, and thanks to 2 big additions, I’m pretty close to completing some sets. 

A few weeks ago, I went to my friend Jim’s house. He lives about 5 minutes away from me, and collects St. Louis Cardinals, autographs, and is currently working on the 1963 Topps sets. I didn’t have any ‘63’s for him, but did have some cards of Nick Fortes for him. Nick lives in DeLand in the off-season, and Jim’s wife Paula taught at the elementary school Nick went to. Jim had a box of doubles from the ‘80’s that he let me dig through, and it helped me get get pretty close to finishing some sets. He darn near had complete 1983 and 1984 Topps Traded sets in the doubles box. I came away just missing 2 cards from the ‘84 Traded set (Randy Ready and Dwight Gooden), and 5 from the ‘83 Traded set (Floyd Bannister, Dann Bilardello, Leon Roberts, Darryl Strawbery, and Chris Welsh). The 2 biggies (Strawberry and Gooden) should be easy pickups for me, and I can technically knock 4 cards off of my list and get them cheap if I get the reprints of the cards from the subset in the 2001 Topps Traded set. The others will probably be easy sportlots pickups. 

On Friday, I got to go to Johnny’s Trading Spot headquarters in Ocala and dig through John’s trade boxes. I need to figure out how to get some cards he doesn’t have, because I’m out of Braves he needs, and it’s getting harder to find Chronicles cards he is missing. I had a stack of ‘23 Chronicles for him, and hopefully he found a few he could use. I need to take a trip to my LCS and hit the Braves boxes. 

I dug through some ‘80’s boxes and also had some fun opening a package of Topps cards that he had boxed up for a trade that ended up getting completed without the package being needed. There were about 20 packs of cards wrapped up in newspaper, and it was like unwrapping Christmas presents, and I got some needed cards from the packs. 

I found a number of guys I collect in the boxes. 

There were also a lot of Rays and Tigers. 

But the majority of them were Topps needs. 

1980, 1981. 

‘82, ‘83, ‘84. 

1985, the 1996 needs, 2001. 

A ton of 2003 needs. 

2005, 2006, 2007. 

And some 2012’s to finish it off. 

Many of my Topps sets are very close to being complete thanks to John’s help.  1982 Topps is missing 35 cards. 1985 Topps is 40 cards short. 1981 Topps is missing 20 cards. 2007 Topps is 54 cards short. 

The biggest one he helped on was 1996 Topps. I was maybe 10 cards short before I visited him, and I left missing just one card, #73 John Mabry. Once I get the Mabry card, I will have a complete run of ‘90’s Topps cards and a run of complete Topps and Topps Traded sets from 1986-1999. I have a good chance at extending that run to 1984 if I can get the 189 cards to finish the ‘84 and ‘85 sets. Might not finish it by the end of the year, but the ‘81 and ‘82 sets are darn close, and I can easily pick them up by then. Thanks so much, John, for the additions to my collection. 

I’m looking forward to the coming weeks. Topps Chrome comes out soon, the 2024 Topps complete set is soon after that, and sometime in August 2024 Donruss will be released. 

That’s not the best news either. Karen had an appointment at the Mayo Clinic on Thursday, and they gave me the best news I have had in a few years. She has been in the hospital 3 times this year with breathing problems. Just running out of energy and breath after walking short distances. The hospital would give her antibiotics and release her after a week, but after about a month, she would be ready to go back with the same symptoms. She is about at that point now, but she’s trying to hold out for the next few days. 

The lady she saw at Mayo thinks that she has some kind of infection in her lungs. They want to schedule a broncoscophy to see where the infection is and then treat it with antibiotics. They said to treat the infection, they would put her on antibiotics for close to a month. When we were at the hospital, they wouldn’t do the broncoscophy, and only gave her the antibiotics for a week. I’m hoping we get a call tomorrow and maybe we will get an appointment this week to do all that. 

They also want to do a sleep study on her. Karen gets maybe a hour of sleep a night. Just constantly wakes up and can’t fall asleep or get decent rest. She was on a CPAP before we were married, but with the pressure stuff with her head the CPAP would get her pressure very high so she stopped using it. Mayo wants to measure her pressure when she is sleeping with a CPAP and see if they can get a setting to where she can sleep with it and not have her pressure go high. 

They also want to get her on Dupixent to try to help her asthma. They haven’t even started with her shunt stuff, but getting the asthma and breathing and sleep stuff fixed would be amazing. I have confidence with these doctors and their resources, so I can’t wait to see what happens with this and see what they think about her shunt situation as well. 

Hopefully by the time I post again, I’ll have some sets completed and more health stuff will have answers. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

The ‘Topps Rules’

 Around 1994 I had it made. I had a decent sized card collection for a kid my age (11). I kept some of it in a fishing tackle box, and the rest in a shoebox. At some point that year , I got a St. Louis Cardinals book that pictured all of the Topps Cardinals cards from 1952-1988. It was around that time when I decided to put my cards into binders. 

That Topps Cardinals book would shape the way I organized my binders. While it would probably take a few years for my organization habits to be fully formed, the book helped me organize my cards from the first time I put a card in a 9 pocket sleeve. 

As you can see, my book has seen better days. I still have it, as well as a Red Sox one from the same year. I need to get my hands on the Tigers one. 

I will point out some things from the book that shaped my habits and show pictures from the book. 

The book would start out with the year, and then have a write up of how the team did that year. It would then have the team set from that year. It is a little confusing since it isn’t done in yearbook style. You sometimes see cards of guys who didn’t play in the year described in the write up, as they played the year after. Sometimes, players would be described in the write up, but didn’t have a card, as they got traded and were put in their new teams’ book. 

Topps organized the cards alphabetically by last name. This can be rule #1. That is how I organized my cards. I figured if that’s the way Topps would organize them in their book, it was good enough for me, so I have never broken rule #1. 

Rule #2, for team photo cards, they were put at the end of the year. Rule #2 that I follow. 

Rule #3, rookie combo cards were put at the end as well. This is the first rule I break since I put the card with the most prominent players’ last name. 

Rule 4, if a player has a subset card as well as a base card, they are put in numerical order (with the Gibson World Series and base card). It can be confusing sometimes if you get 2 guys with All-Star cards and one has the base card first and the other has the All-Star one first, but I’m ok with it and I follow it. 

Rule #5, horizontal cards are positioned so the left side of the card will be at the bottom of the sleeve it goes into. I follow this rule so closely that I position horizontal cards from other companies that way even if it means that the back will be angled different than the vertical cards in the set. 

Rule #7, Topps puts the Traded set along with the regular set (Dayley is a Traded card). While I follow this rule, Topps appears to break this rule in 1986. 

I guess I need to reorganize my 1985 and 1986 cards. For some reason, Topps put the ‘85 Topps Traded cards in with the ‘86 set.

Todd Worrell got a card in the ‘86 Topps Traded set, and as you can see, the ‘86 Topps Traded cards are strangely missing. 

As we can see, the ‘87 Topps Traded cards are strangely back in the ‘87 Topps set with Lindeman, Magrane, and Pena coming in that set. I would have to say that somebody who currently works for Fanatics probably did the quality control with the book and just dropped the ‘86 Traded cards and stuck the ‘85 ones in the wrong set. Explains everything. 

One final rule, it appears as if Topps doesn’t want any multi-team league leader or rookie cards or checklists put in with your team set. You had better believe that I am going to put them in the team set. I want my team sets representing everything, so if I can put a 4-player Keith Hernandez card in the 1975 Cardinals section of my St. Louis binder, I sure as heck am. 

That’s all of the ‘Topps Rules’. I follow most of them, and the ones I break are for good reason. There are some Donruss team books that are similar that were released in 1988 with extra cards of guys that didn’t get ones in the regular issue, but I didn’t pay too much attention the one time I saw them at a show. I think I only saw Oakland and Red Sox ones, and there just weren’t enough guys I collected on those teams to justify spending the 15 bucks the guy wanted for each book. Donruss didn’t have any subsets besides for Diamond Kings in 1988, so it was really a moot point. 

Has anyone else seen these Topps books or patterned their binders to copy the books?  Do you follow the ‘Topps Rules’ or even care?  I feel like Topps had their eye on the ball with the way they portrayed each set with the way they alphabetized the players, did numerical order for multiple cards of the same player, and how they put team cards in the back. It would be cool if they issued copies of the books now. Only 1 or 2 problems. They would be the size of an old phone book because of inserts. And where in the heck would they place all of the parallels?!

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Birthday trip

I’ve probably been mentioning the Rays/Cubs game that Karen got me tickets to in every post since April. Well, the game came and went, and it was a great time in spite of some hiccups. 

Originally, Karen was supposed to go with us. That works out great since she drives, plans everything, and all I have to do is show up, sit in the car, and go to the game. About a week before the game, she started getting to where she couldn’t breathe after walking a few feet, and went to the hospital. Basically the same thing she was in for the last 2 times. Fortunately for us, this time instead of pumping her with nebulizers, they did some more extensive blood work in addition. They are some serious things they are testing for, but right now, it appears she may have something that isn’t allowing proteins to metabolize, and they are getting absorbed in wrong places, causing swelling and the trouble breathing. There are some infusions she can be on that help, but I believe we still have some more tests that need to come back and some specialists we need to see. But, she got discharged today, so it’s fingers crossed that she stays healthy for a while. 

With Karen out, I took her van to the game. The biggest problem with her car is that it has one of those keyless remotes and it is an automatic transmission. I enjoy having a key and just clipping it to a belt loop so I know where it is 24/7, and I love shifting gears, especially when I can coast up to a traffic light, have it turn from red to green, kick the car into a lower gear, and take off. 

Kyler and I got to the stadium just fine, and met up with my youngest sister Michelle, brother in law JT, and Niece Natalia. The 3 of them went to the game, but since Karen got me batting practice tickets, I needed someone to watch Kyler while I was on the field, and they were nice enough to come to the game early to do that. 

I got my pass for BP, waited in line, and when they let us in the gate, all they did was pass everyone through a metal detector. I don’t believe they ever scanned the BP pass, or my ticket. We could’ve probably walked around most of the stadium, but we went down to the home plate area and could just walk through a gate onto the field. There was another entrance that came from under the stadium, and that’s where the media people came from. 

I made a sign for the game to help me get some autographs and maybe get on TV. 

I’m sure everyone knows who Randy is. Doug pitched for Tampa from 2003-2006 and now is a broadcaster for them. So I just got on the field and not much was going on, just a few guys doing fielding drills, and a few media guys walk in, and I swore one of them was Doug, but I wasn’t positive enough to go and ask him. That’s on me for not watching many Rays games. It had to have been him because they had the Rays Live pre and postgame show booth right by our seats, and sure enough, Doug was there, and I wasn’t about to bug him while he was up there working. I also believe I saw Jim Deshaies, the Cubs broadcaster down on the field as well. Next time, I’m just going to ask people when I’m pretty sure it was them, because I had a card of Jim as well. 

There was a Little League team with BP passes, and I stood behind them, and it turned out to be a good idea. One of the coaches either had to be a former player or known players pretty well, because he was talking to a number of guys from both teams like he knew them. He talked with Cubs coach Ryan Flaherty for a good 20 minutes, and I believe he said Ryan was his brother in law because Ryan was married to his sister. I was pretty proud at how good I was at matching faces to cards, because I heard the coach call him Ryan, and I matched his card to his face and was able to get Flaherty to sign 2 cards for me. I also matched Jose Caballero’s face to his card, but I did so after he signed and when he came back after hitting, he talked but didn’t sign. Mike Tauchman was another guy I did that to, but he didn’t come over.  

The first guy I got was Jose Siri. After him, some of the Cubs guys started hitting, and the kids on the Little League team kept bugging Christopher Morel, and he came over and signed, and I got a sweet Topps Chrome Sepia-fractor signed. After that, Jason Adam of the Rays signed. He only has a 2023 Rays team issue card that I know of, and I had it and got is signed. He was a really nice guy, btw. 

As you can see from the poster I made, I had probably the greatest thing I could wish for at the game, and got to meet Randy Arozarena and get an autograph. He came over to the team and started signing, and I waited until the end and he signed my 2020 Topps Update Gold rookie card. To get to meet the playoff hero from 2020 who almost got the Rays a World Series trophy was a Rays highlight for me that is pretty close to the top for me. Before the end of BP, I got Josh Lowe for the Rays, and a few more Cubbies like Miguel Amaya, Patrick Wisdom, and Javier Assad. The guy who got Assad before me was kind of an ass. He had got Assad before on the other side of the field, and had come over to the right side when Assad came to talk to someone. I finally figured out who he was and pulled out a card, and the guy in front of me asked Javier if he could sign another card for him because he had smudged it. Javier just gave him a dirty look and reluctantly signed it. It’s guys like that who give adult collectors like me a bad name. I really hope the place wherever that dealer works gets shut down. 

That was the end of autographs at BP for me. Pete Crow-Armstrong signed a good number for the team, but was really just getting kids and skipped me over a few times. I get it. Especially now that I’m a little older. 

Not a bad haul of autographs, especially for being a Major League game and me looking a lot older now. 

The game started off bad. Rays only had 1 hit after like 5 innings. Multiple guys hitting less than .220, with our starting catcher batting .068, going 1 for 2, and still only hitting .080 after the game. Not even Ozzie Smith and all his defensive prowess could make up for hitting that low. 

Me, Kyler, JT, Michelle, and Natalia from l-r. 

JT, Michelle, and Natalia left during the 7th Inning stretch, and once they left, the Rays, who were down 2-0 finally started hitting Justin Steele, and scored 3 runs. Kyler and I went to 2 gift shops in the 8th, and came back to watch the 9th. The Cubs had 1 out and a runner on 1st, and Nico Hoerner hit a screaming liner to SS Taylor Walls, who caught it on a hop, used his glove to throw the ball to second, where they got the out, and then they got the kit at first to end the game. The Cubs fans probably outnumbered the Rays fans 20-1, but that shut them up, and I started pointing to the exits and told them to get on out. 

During the 8th, we stopped at the Rays Authentics store. I had really been wanting to get a piece of game-used turf ever since I saw one at a game a few years ago. The price had went up 5 dollars, but I got one. They also had Series 2 packs, so I got one. 

I had never head of Tristan Gray, but apparently he was a Ray, and is now a Marlin. The Covering the Field inserts must actually have the location of the players hits, since they all look different, but looking at Yelich’s hits, there are a few that look to be outside the foul lines before 1st and 3rd base. How can that be?  Maybe if I would’ve had that PCA card during BP he would’ve signed it since it was new. 

The pieces of turf are pretty big. If I ever get my dream to design a house that has a basement that goes up into a dugout and to a baseball field, maybe I can work this piece of turf into it. If we can ever escape the current living situation, I’ll work it into the man cave at some point. 

The other thing I wanted to get was something with the city connect logo. At first, the theme was a turnoff to me, as I thought players weekend was very lame, and felt city connect was similar. The Padres uniforms didn’t do much to help the feeling. At any rate, the Rays did a great job with the city connect logo and design, and I love the logo with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge incorporated into it, as well as a Ray incorporated as well. The least expensive thing I could find was a Christmas ornament, and it wasn’t a bad price for an ornament. 

After the game, we went to the hotel, then saw my mom the next day, and came back to DeLand. I had a ton of birthday texts and stuff that I finally got to check when we got in, and all in all, it was one of the better birthdays in recent memory. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy