Flea Market Finds #7: Singles to Mingle

So, I finally got the singles I picked up at the flea market edited down into bite-sized chunks recently, and after the power going out at some point while I slept the other day, when I started things back up, my keyboard was working again.  So, I’m back in business.

First though, a quick note.  I spent all day (seriously, from around 8am till after 5pm) pouring over a few wantlists, digging through my endless stacks of cards, and firing off emails.  And heads up to Nomo’s Sushi Platter and Fuji, you’re next on the list, though I don’t need to dig as hard for stuff for you guys.

Now then, the loot!  All but the last card were $1 apiece (two were priced at $1.50, but he gave ’em to me for a buck).

Lou Whitaker Rookie!

Let’s check the stats! (via Baseball-Reference)

Garth Iorg: 1978; 1980-1987- 20/238/.258/.292/.347/.639 OPS+ 72  Just your average below average 2B.

Dave Oliver: 1977- 0/3/.318/.444/.409/.854 OPS+ 140  Only 29 career plate appearances, but that was a good start!  Sad he never got much of a chance, especially with how long and mediocre Iorg’s career was.  He never even struck out in short time in the bigs (4 walks).

Sam Perlozzo: 1977; 1979- 0/0/.269/.345/.423/.768 OPS+ 110  Only 30 career plate appearances, but also a pretty promising glimpse of what maybe could have been.  He hit two triples in his short career, and later went on to manage terrible Orioles teams for parts of three seasons earlier this decade.

Lou Whitaker: 1977-1995- 244/1084/.276/.363/.426/.789 OPS+ 116 Career WAR 69.7  Other stats of note: 420 double, more walks than strikeouts (1197-1099).  Awards: 1978 Rookie of the Year, 5x All-Star, 3x Gold Glove, 3x Silver Slugger

Okay, how the hell is Lou Whitaker not in the Hall of Fame?!  Those are STILL elite offensive numbers for 2nd baseman!  He was still playing well and producing even at the very end of his career.  Bah, total BS.  I’m angry now, next card!

Merrick Mint Ichiro Suzuki Laser Line Gold Card

It’s really hard to see.  I dunno how such an insanely shiny card can scan this badly, but trust me, it looks awesome.

'68 Strikeout Leaders

This was one of the $1.50 ones, obviously perhaps.  It’s in surprisingly not bad shape.  653 combined wins, 7824 career combined strikeouts, and 755 total in ’68 (268 Gibson, 260 Fergie, 227 Singer).  ’68 was also Gibson’s impossible 1.12 ERA season, in which he even more impossibly lost 9 games (22 wins)!

1980-81 Bird RC!

Now, each of the three pieces of the legendary Bird RC/Dr. J/Magic RC appears on at least one other trio with a different combination, which are valuable in their own right.  Still though, I hope this came from one of the other combinations, not that it will stop me from trying to track down the legendary trio in this form.  I’ll put ’em up on a list of specific, hard to track down, cards when I get around to it.

The Back

Here’s the back.  That cartoon doesn’t look like Larry at all.

Finally, since I guess I actually only got just over half of the nine singles edited into bite-sized chunks, here is the big one I picked up!

Ryne Sandberg Rookie!

I’ve wanted to get this card for a very, very long time.  And there it was, for $6.  The most perfect card, from the most perfectly designed set ever made.  I’m so happy to have rookies of two of the biggest Chicago sports icons of all time.  Ryno looks good next to Walter Payton. 🙂

The guy actually had all three of the big rookies from 1983 for a similar price, and I’ll be picking up at least Gwynn next time, if it’s still there.

I guess that’s all for this one.  Needless to say, only Sweet Lou is even remotely up for trade.  Now, I’ll just let y’all bask in the glow of a rookie Ryno & go get some more work done, updating this & that.  Seeya later.

Until our next…

It’s Always Something…

Apologies for starting to drop off the posting pace again, it isn’t for lack of content or anything to say.  To put it briefly, as of early Sunday morning, my keyboard is on the fritz… yes I somehow managed to kill another one.  Anyway, this is being written via crummy on-screen keyboard, which is no good for posts of any real length.  So, no more posts (of much substance anyway) until this can be dealt with.

However, I can still do smaller chunks of work.  As such, I’ve been slowly working on a couple of my pages.  My Wantlist is very nearly up to date, and a bit more colorful now (somewhat inspired by Fuji’s very colorful blog), and I’ve done the same with my trade bait page as well.  I’m also finally slowly adding my available hits to over there, so be sure to stop by and see if there’s anything you like!  The vast majority of my available his should be up by sunrise.

So yeah, that’s what’s up.  I’ll still be around though.  Holla.

Now, where did I put that Price is Right loser horn?

Flea Market Finds #6: Fourth Binder Page

I’m starting to get on a roll, might even get close to finishing before the next show!  Here is the 4th binder page:

Presidential Smackdown!... Err, Campaign Matchups, 2008 topps Alex Romero RC, Scott Rolen, 2004 Bazooka Pudge Rodriguez Red Chunk parallel, 19xx Circa Thunder Alex Rodriguez Boss '98, 2006 Brian Roberts Bazooka Stamps, 1982 Baseball's Greatest Sluggers Frank Robinson, 2002 topps Opening Day Mariano Rivera, 2002 Alex(is) Rios RC

Why Purchased: Because I collect Frank Robinson, and also for the Alex Rios RC & A-Rod Thunder insert.

Keepers: Just the Frank Robinson I guess.

Notes: There’s something unflattering about Willkie’s photo there, but I can’t quite place it.

The Pudge is an extra thick parallel.

The A-Rod should be extra thick.  It is embossed, like Action Packed, topps Embossed, and those sweet Kamen Rider cards I got from Shot Not Taken a few trades ago (hopefully another trade coming in the next couple months, btw), except it’s a thin as a regular card.  It should be special, embossed cards are one of the rarest of technological card treats, after all.  But with the back all raised up where it is on the front, it just feels kinda weird.

Wow, that’s the exact same design as the Heritage Stamps of the last few years.  The back is mostly blank, brownish cardboard with only the brandage at the very top, “STAMP XX OF XX” and the player’s name directly under it in small print in the middle, and legalese at the bottom.  I’ll show it off when I do a massive card back dump post someday (I like to record a lot of various card backs for posteriority, hehe).

The Greatest Sluggers card is just simple and classy looking.

Rios I just thought a White Sox fan might enjoy.

Mind-Blowing Statistics: I could’ve had this post done two hours ago if I were capable of staying on task.  But seriously though, I figure anyone that isn’t coming here for the cards is coming for the old Benchwarmer posts from back in the day (people still get here via searching Brooke Morales and Jaime Hammer every single day), and everyone who is coming for the cards already knows about Frank Robinson’s legendary exploits already (last to pull off the Triple Crown, MVPs and championships in both AL & NL, etc).  Because nobody ever comes for the art.  Seriously, I’m not even that bad, but my art posts barely do any better than days when I don’t post at all.  Wait, what were we talking about?

Heh, actually I just revealed a bunch of interesting stats in that incoherent babbling.  But now I must go.  I’ve gotten over the violent ills, but these allergies are making me cry harder than Field of Dreams, Rudy, and Serendipity combined.  Don’t judge me on that last one.  Best damn romantic comedy since Waiting to Exhale, it is.  I should probably just shut up now.  Seeya. 😛

Wanna have a catch?

Flea Market Finds #5: 25-card $1 Grab Bag Pack

Here be the first of the two 25-card $1 grab bag pack things.  This be the football version.  Here’s the pack in order (accomplishments via Pro-Football-Reference):

1970 topps Ernie Koy (1x Pro Bowl), Roy Jefferson (3x Pro Bowl; 1x First-Team All-Pro), Dan Abramowicz (1x First-Team All-Pro), Don Herrmann, 1968 topps Gino Cappelletti (5x Pro Bowl; 3 double-letters in one name!), Carl Kammerer, Earl Gros, '70 Tim Rossovich (1x Pro Bowl), Chuck Howley (6x Pro Bowl; 5x First-Team All-Pro; 1x Super Bowl MVP)

Vintage, it’s all vintage!

1970 topps David Lee (1x First-Team All-Pro), Dave Osborn (1x Pro Bowl), Jon Morris (7x Pro Bowl; 1x First-Team All-Pro), Jerry Smith (2x Pro Bowl; 1x First-Team All-Pro), 1968 topps Sam Baker (4x Pro Bowl), ’70 Les Josephson (1x Pro Bowl), ’68 EJ Holub (5x Pro Bowl; 2x First-Team All-Pro), 1971 topps Greg Landry (1x Pro Blowl), ’70 Dennis Partee

1970 topps Bill Munson, 1971 topps Floyd Little (5x Pro Bowl; 1x First-Team All-Pro; Hall of Fame class of 2010), 2010 topps Peyton Manning (11x Pro Bowl; 5x First-Team All-Pro; 1x Super Bowl MVP; 4x NFL MVP; 1x Offensive Player of the Year), 1994 Upper Deck Troy Aikman (6x Pro Bowl; 1x Super Bowl MVP; Hall of Fame Class of 2006), 1990 Fleer All-Pro Joe Montana(8x Pro Bowl;3x First-Team All-Pro; 3x Super Bowl MVP; 2x NFL MVP; 1x Offensive Player of the Year; Hall of Fame class of 2000), Jerry Rice (13x Pro Bowl; 10x First-Team All-Pro; 1x Super Bowl MVP; 2x Offensive Player of the Year; all-time leader in rec/rec. yds/rec. TDs/TDs/yds from scrimmage/all-purpose yds; Hall of Fame class of 2010), Barry Sanders (10x Pro Bowl; 6x First-Team All-Pro; 1x NFL MVP; 2x Offensive Player of the Year; 1989 Offensive Rookie of the Year; Hall of Fame Class of 2004)

Vintage Hall of Famer!  Yes, this was basically the best $1 grab bag pack thing ever.  Pretty much puts that McDonald’s dollar menu commercial to shame, eh?

Also, 1994 Upper Deck football is pretty.

Pretty much everything but the Jerry Rice is available for trade.

That’s it for this one.  So long, and thanks for stopping by!

Until our next…

Sketch Card Interlude

So I’m sick.  Unsure if I’m running a temp, but I’m achy, and my throat feels like sandpaper.  My left back/side also feels like I tweaked something in it.  Add to the fact that I wasn’t able to only able sleep 1-2 hours at a time this morning, and wasn’t able to get to sleep at all till 4am thanks to the jackass upstairs neighbor (who has, incidentally, picked up, in the last half hour or so, right where they left off at a little after 3:30am), and I am one SERIOUSLY tweaked card blogger-slash-sketch card artist, that’s running on nothing but fumes and righteous anger.  As such, I have not the energy to put together another binder page post right now.  So, here are my latest sketch cards, presented with as little commentary as possible.

That paragraph was written early Saturday afternoon, but the truth is, it was the truth, so it stays.  I went out shortly after, on a really chilly day it should be noted, in part to escape the noise, and also to find something for my throat.  Ended up being out far too long, and while I got what I went for and then some, I am officially full-blown sick.  I’m glad I went with the cold & flu medicine, because I’m pretty sure that’s where I’m at right now.  As for post-return noise, it went on starting sometime between 8:30 and 9pm until a lil after 11pm.  Wasn’t as bad as Saturday, but persistent enough to drive me up the flippin’ wall in my current brutal state.  But enough about that for now.  I have sketch cards to show you! 🙂 <–(Smiling through a rareified degree of pain for me.)

The Captains of Star Trek. Clockwise from top left: Benjamin Sisko, Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Archer, Kathryn Janeway, James T. Kirk

 The only thing to really say here is Sisko is the best Trek captain, and DS9 is the best Trek series, and one of the best sci-fi shows in general, ever made.  Thank you, that is all.

Random finished sketch cards: DC's Fire & Ice, Static, GI Joe's Scarlett, Marvel's Ms. Marvel, and Silver Surfer

Scarlett was a really old card I finally got around to coloring.

Static was done for my dad, who, as mentioned before, was a die-hard fan of Milestone comics and still has a lot of the early issues.

The card itself is probably one of the better sketch cards I’ve ever done.  Kirby Krackle around the hands, lots of extra detail I’ve never quite gotten as right as it turned out here before.  And, I even bought a special pen specifically for the electricity.  It is quite glittery in person.

I also used glittery gel pens on Ms. Marvel’s background and parts of Silver Surfer’s body and board.  The only problem is (aside from me not being particularly happy with much of anything on the Silver Surfer card), is that the glitter sheds, and got on other cards.  So there are lil sparklies in the background on Fire & Ice and Scarlett that are out of place on their cards.  It works on Silver Surfer’s background though, the tiny sparklies shining in the endless reaches of space behind him when the light hits ’em right is an awesome, albeit accidental, effect.

That was way too much jibba-jabba, but hopefully it was informative to you.  I am signing off because I feel like C-R-A-P crap crap crap.  But thank you as always for stopping by my blog.  I greatly appreciate it.

This post brought to you by my pain and tears… 😥

Flea Market Finds #4: Third Binder Page

Hello all.  Tis I… back once again with the third of a dozen binder pages full of goodies (and other things) I picked up from the card guy at the flea market over the past weekend.

2008 topps U&H Josh Hamilton, 2003 Josh Hamilton/Carl Crawford, 2010 topps Cole Hamels, 2007 topps Roy Halladay and Travis Hafner Own the Game, 1994 Post Tony Gwynn, 1979 topps '78 Bears Team Leaders x2, 2003 Bowman Franklin Gutierrez prospect

Why Purchased: The beat up Bears Team Leaders, Future Stars Hamilton/Crawford.

Keepers: At least one of the Bears Team Leaders.

Notes: The Hamilton/Crawford is the actual card, not the Yo Momma version, which I also have in original back form.

Also, the reprint is somehow apparently worth more?  Lolwut?

I like the design on the Post Tony Gwynn a lot.  Who says a promotional product tie-in cards can’t look nice?

Mind-Blowing Statistics: The reprint is worth more… Oh wait, I can do better than that.

James Scott’s 759 receiving yards in 1978 is the third highest single season total posted by a Bear in the 1970s.  Only his previous season’s 809, and Dick Gordon’s 1026 in 1970 are better.  On a related note, I’d like to nominate Bobby Douglass as the worst QB in the HISTORY of the NFL.  Ho.  Lee.  CRAP!  How can you be THAT bad and get significant playing time off & on for an entire decade?!  Yeesh… Andre Ware and Ryan Leaf, eat your hearts out.

(stats via Pro-Football-Reference)

Until we tweet again…

Flea Market Finds #3: Second Binder Page

Now for the second binder page.  Keep in mind these pages only cost me about 60¢ apiece.

1992 Fleer Nolan Ryan, Barry Bonds, Vinny Castilla RC, 1990 Score Frank Thomas RC, Juan Gonzalez RC, Larry Walker RC, Bernie Williams RC, Curt Shilling RC, Mark McGwire

Why Purchased: The ROOKIES!

Keepers: The ROOKIES!  At least for now anyway.

Notes: Somehow, this all-junk wax page might be my favorite of the entire bunch (maybe).  It’s so cool to see so many rookies of stars that I grew up watching, even if The Big Hurt and The Big Shill are the only likely Hall of Famers (holding out some hope for Walker too!) of the bunch.

It’s so weird to see Shilling in an Orioles uniform.

I miss the Expos… 😦

The color scheme on the Castilla makes me keep having to remind myself that he’s a Brave, not Pirate.

Mind-Blowing Statistics: The only one that’s really coming to mind is that when I punched up ’92 Fleer on Check Out My Cards, that top row were the top three ungraded cards listed, and the only ones with a book value of at least $1.  Sad.

Also sad, is that someone got a ’92 Fleer card graded.

Page two is awesome, but it is done.  More pages to come.

Until our next…

Flea Market Finds #2: First Binder Page

Heya, card blog homies!  Here is the first binder page from my glorious afternoon at the flea market:

1987 Clemens All-Star, 1987 Bo Jackson, ???? Daryle Lamonica, 1983 topps George Brett, 1983 topps Joe Montana (Record Breaker), 1970 topps Bob Brown, Jackie Smith, 1968 topps John Hadl, 1970 topps Ben Davidson

Why purchased: Very early career Montana (close as I’ll likely get to his rookie anytime soon); Hall of Famer (Jackie Smith); Daryle Lamonica card I have no idea about; Vintage!

Keepers: Just Montana for the time being.  The rest are available.

Notes: I actually already own the Bo and George Brett, both pulled from packs myself, but they are cool cards either way.

It appears Bob Brown is also a Hall of Famer as well.  Very cool. 🙂

All the non-Hall of Fame football players on the page (Davidson, Hadl, Lamonica) made First Team All-Pro at least once (Lamonica twice), and have 14 Pro Bowl selections between them.  Oddly, Hadl and his loonytunes stats has the most Pro Bowls with six.

Seriously, I have no idea what the Lamonica card is supposed to be.  The back is very similar looking to the Deckle Edge baseball cards, so I assume it is from the late-’60s as well, but I dunno.  Also, it is beat to hell.  None of the vintage I picked up was in perfect condition, but very few were that bad.

All the binder pics were taken by my ridiculously expensive webcam.  They didn’t come out perfectly, but pretty nice for any webcam at 800×600, methinks.  Also, I haven’t tinkered with any settings, so it may yet be able to be further improved.

Mind-Blowing Statistics: John Hadl had 33503 career passing yards, but only completed 50.4% of his passes and had more interceptions (268) than touchdowns (244).  Looking at his stats year-by-year is even crazier.  It’s hard to fathom how he was allowed to start long enough to put up such impressive yards and touchdown numbers, while being so… so bad, to put it bluntly.  I’d just chalk it up to different eras and less emphasis on statistics in the past, but it’s pretty hard to ignore those numbers.

Jackie Smith’s best year was in 1967, when he caught 56 passes for 1205 yards, good for 21.5(!) yards-per-catch.  He also had receiving 9 touchdowns, more than doubling any other season of his career.  But forget about that.  He went for 21.5 yards-per-catch.  With over 1200 receiving yards.  As a tight end.  The guys that are specifically paid to be deep threats these days are rarely able to put up numbers like that.  He also put up an impressive by any standard 16.5 YPC for his career on nearly 8000 receiving yards.

That’s it for page one.  Thanks for stopping by!  There’s much more vintage to come, but next time we’ll be making a stop in junk wax country.  But it will be a fun (and rookie-laden) trip, I promise.

Until our next…

Flea Market Finds #1: Overview

Heyas.  Been a long time, huh?  Nothing’s really changed since last we chatted, except for getting a few more of the sketch cards from the previous post finished (and a few new ones drawn up), and a seriously loudass person moving in upstairs pushing me to the end of my rope with this lousy place.  Seriously, if anyone knows of a halfway decent place with no noise problems to speak of that falls within my modest price range, I’m so effing outta here.

Ah, but that’s not why you called.  I happen to have some fun stuff I’m getting prepared to blog about.  For the past several months, they’ve been holding a small monthly flea market at the shell of our once thriving mall.  I asked my dad if they had any cards when the parents made it out there at the beginning of the year, and he said they did, but didn’t elaborate.  So I’ve been wanting to go ever since, to see what was there myself.

On Saturday, I finally made it out there.  I wasn’t expecting much, but I had $23 with me just in case.  And am I ever glad I did.  There was a guy there with cards.  He didn’t bring the whole card shop (of which he apparently owns one nearby, according to the business card), but he had a very nice selection of cards to peruse.  He had cards available ranging from the late ’60s to within the past couple years, in baseball, basketball, and football.

He seemed to be an old school Beckett-adhering type, but his cards were priced to move.  He mentioned to another person there that wandered by that his philosophy was that if a kid saw a cool card they liked, they should be able to afford it, which sounds like an awesome philosophy to me.  As such, the vast majority of his singles were $1, and almost everything on up seemed to be reasonably priced (I think I spotted a Felix Pie auto for $50 in the one little bunch hits behind glass, but that is easily forgivable when pretty much everything else was so reasonable).

He was also willing to deal, as you’ll soon see.  So I picked out a few singles I liked (9 in total, I believe), all but one marked $1 or $1.50 (the two of which he gave me for $1), and two random 25 card grab packs for $1 apiece that had interesting cards showing.  Then I came to the side of the table where he had several binders laid out, each with about a dozen pages full of cards in them.  They were marked $1 per page, or $10 for a whole binder.  As it happened, I managed to find a dozen random pages I like from the various binders.  So he stuck them all in one of the binders, and gave it to me for $7!

So yeah, I spent all $23 I came armed with.  In total, I ended up with about 170 cards, the vast majority of which I very much like.  Needless to say, I completely obliterated the number of cards and enjoyment I would’ve gotten out of your average blaster (+ maybe one $1.59 pack), and will be heading out there again next month.  There were many things I had to leave behind this time.

Anyway, the binder pages will make up the vast majority of the posts to follow in this little series.  I’ll go over them card-by-card, one or two pages at a time, because there is just so much random coolness in each page.

I’ll also be getting a few packages sent out over the course of this month, and a few of the cards from the flea market may even find their way into some of them.

1/3 of of one of the most iconic basketball cards of all time, and a small preview of the craziness to come...

Flea Market > Blaster.  It is a fundamental truth.

The fun has only just begun…