Red Sox versus Phillies, Citizens Bank Park

To my surprise Rick Porcello looked decent yesterday in the game between the Red Sox and the Phillies. It was the second to last game I'll be going to this season. He was up against a largely anemic Phillies team and Jason Vargas, who really reached back to throw his 84 miles per hour fast ball. I wonder if that screws up a batters timing?

I must not have been paying too close attention because I didn't realize Christian Vasquez hit two home runs!

Why does J.D. Martinez have his whole name, "J. D. Martinez" on his jersey?

I was thrilled mostly not to have to see Jackie Bradley Jr. play. I'd've liked to have seen Betts, but he's in a quasi-down year. At least he seems less impactful and noticeable this year.

There is no better place to watch baseball than at the ball park. I've loved my Sunday package of games but have little intention of buying another package again next year. We'll go to a handful of games for sure, but this spring and summer we had less going on than we will next year.

Some photos!

I should have some baseball card blog posts soon as we're more and more settled in our new house. Plus in addition to envelopes from Marc B and Mark M, I did put an order in to Sportlots and those should trickle in over the next week or so.

Thanks for stopping by!

Darryl Strawberry Limited Edition Set

I got this nice Barry Colla Collection box set of 12 cards a long time ago, in September of 2016. And I realized recently that I never showed it on the blog. Maybe your lives were collectively better off? Well, sorry. Not really.

This set was issued 15,000 and mine is 9,702. It came in a nice small box.

The best thing about it is, obviously, that it's Darryl Strawberry. The worst thing is the heinous uniform he's wearing.

After his first season which was decent--he was an All-Star and was voted 9th in the MVP award--Strawberry's tenure with the Dodgers wasn't as good as perhaps anyone wanted it to be. It was marred by injury and substance abuse.

Based on your own collections and team interests, who are some notable big free agency signings that did not quite pan out ? Two big, notable, and recent ones I can think of are Carl Crawford (Red Sox) and Jacoby Ellsbury (Yankees).

Thanks for stopping by!

Baseball Cards

Jon from A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts asked a while back in a comment to a post "I don't know if I've ever seen you mention it before, but I'm curious as to how you store this collection? And I've noticed that you've mentioned getting duplicates, do you keep those as well?" So this post will be about that!

No. I don't think I've ever shown off how I store my collection. I have a small collection probably by comparison to some. The bulk of my cards volume-wise are complete Topps sets and those are housed in 800 count boxes. And those boxes are in big boxes as I've recently moved and don't yet have a place designated to un-box & store them. I have complete sets for 1981-1992. I have the Topps Traded for most of these years as well. This was done intentionally as they encompassed the years I was heavily into collecting and trading. I need to buy or build 1980. But that'll be a project I start once I am settled and organized in my own house!

A smaller subset of my collection, which is also the main focus of my collection are my PCs: Darryl Strawberry, John Kruk, and then a mishmash of vintage cards and cards of Hall of Famers, all of which are linked in the top menu bar.

The below boxes I do have access to.

Strawberry on left; a bunch of stuff on right. See below for close-ups

These house the aforementioned PCs. The box above left is my Strawberry collection. This box is not full, but it's getting there. The box on the right above has several different things going on. First are largely cards left over from the 1980s and very early 1990s that I've kept all this time. Hence the Gregg Jefferies. After that is my modest John Kruk Collection. On the right are vintage and HOF cards.

Not shown: I have a small binder with a 1989 Donruss Rookies set in it; as well as a few over-sized cards just hanging around loose and trying not to get lost. I need to somehow page and binder them.

I think I'd love things to be in binders and thus more easily accessible; but for me right now the problem is storage. The sets, surely, should be in binders for they are complete. I won't add to them. The PCs, though, are more difficult because I'm adding to them and strangely, new cards are occasionally added and there's nothing more annoying to me than having to re-page to make space. This reminds me of those big-ass CD/DVD binders where when a new album or film came out required moving dozens of discs down a slot to maintain alphabetical and chronological order. So, for now I'm happy to keep things in penny sleeves... (see what I did there, Jon?!!!) And in top loaders.

One of the things I did before I moved in January was to rid myself of all my dupes and unwanted cards.  Fortunately there are a lot of people out there who accept dupes and free cards! I found the "exercise", if you will, rather freeing. I don't want dupes. I get them a lot, and I do not keep them. Plain and simple. I hope that doesn't come off as ungrateful for people being thoughtful and kind, but I just don't need or want them. In part because it's clutter and I'm OCD about that and like neatness, order, and control; and in part because I've spent a lot of time cataloging my cards and having them publicly available (Strawberry || Kruk || Vintage) in the hopes that I'll only receive cards I need if people stumble across something. That being said, I don't expect anyone to comb through the lists while they are combing through cards in shows and shops looking to see what's missing. Back to the dupes: I send them to collector's who do want them and to charities. For a while I was getting Nationals cards for my nephews, but they already stopped collecting.

Thanks for the question, Jon! And I really hope I haven't upset anyone.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Topps & Hall of Fame Project 2010-2014

These four guys: Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Trevor Hoffman, and Roy Halladay! All pitchers. All Hall of Famers. 

Here are there final Topps Base cards.  I don't think I knew Johnson played for the Giants! This card is fantastic! And it makes me think of Parkour!

The rest of the cards are kind of boring. But that they have most, if not all, of their career stats it's a handy cardboard reference to their productivity.

I really haven't got much to say about these cards. They were about .18 cents each. Which I think perhaps says a lot. All are welcome additions to my Topps Hall of Fame Project, especially in light of Halladay's recent induction into the Hall. They are representative samples of 2010, 2011, and 2014 issues. I rather like the 2011 card and looking at Halladay's, I kind of see where Topps' 2020 base set design may have been influenced.

Thanks for stopping by!

Darryl Strawberry Re-Buy

In January I sent out a whole bunch of duplicate and triplicate, and more, Strawberry's to a couple of different good people who wanted the cards. And in the process, sent some cars out that weren't, in fact, dupes. Or my original cataloging was wrong. But, at any rate, I went out and got a few cards I thought I had but no longer could track down in my collection!

1987 Classic Yellow (Green back)

1991 Topps Micro All-Star!

1991 Topps Traded. Now this is the gray back version. I don't think I had this one originally but I couldn't really tell the different between the regular Topps Traded and the Tiffany version so just went with the gray back as at least it looks different. 

Just a shame he's wearing that uniform.

Thanks for stopping by!

Darryl Strawberry: 1990 Wonder Bread Stars

Well, the airbrushed hat is lamentable, but is that ever a nice fresh smile on Strawberry's face. While I won't touch it now unless it's the only option, I grew up on Wonder Bread. So I like having this card. I honestly don't know if I knew of this card back in the heyday of collecting as a teenager.

I love the Wonder Bread logo, too. It's fun.

Thanks for stopping by!

Darryl Strawberry: 2018 Topps Baseball All-Stars

Another 2018 Topps issue, this in their classic All-Star design. While I typically like seeing new Strawberry cards in the old, classic designs, this one isn't a particular favorite by any means. It's ok. But it's weird to me that the card is the 1983 design--a year for which he was not an all-star--but talking, on the back, about the 1985 All-Star game.

It's annoying, too, that when you Google image 1983 Topps All-Star baseball cards the top returns are from this issue and not the original.  George Brett looks baffled in both his original 1983 version and the 35th anniversary one.

Thanks for stopping by!