Signature Sundays - Three Lesser Known Hall-of-Famers

This week I've got a trio of hard signed autographs to show from the 2012-13 Panini Classics Signatures set. All three guys are inducted, though their names may not come to mind when the average fan thinks Hall of Fame.

Joe Mullen was undrafted out of college but quietly put together an impressive NHL resume.  After a few solid seasons to begin his career with St. Louis in the early '80s, Mullen really found a home in Calgary in the latter part of the decade.  He was a key member of the '88-89 Stanley Cup winning team there. 

As time has passed everyone seems to remember the stronger personalities from that '88-89 Calgary team, guys like Al MacInnis, Doug Gilmour, Lanny McDonald and Joe Nieuwendyk, but it was Mullen who led the team in regular season scoring with a career-best 110 points!  He was one of only 9 players in the NHL to top the 100-point plateau that season.  In the playoffs Joe stepped up his game and paced the entire league with 16 goals during the Cup run.

Fast forward a couple of seasons and Mullen found himself an integral part of back-to-back championship Pittsburgh Penguin teams.  Joe was the first American-born player to reach both the 500 goal and 1,000 point mark in the NHL, pretty much cementing his status as a USA Hockey legend.

Like the Mullen above, this Billy Smith card's got a pretty great signature.  I love the jersey number incorporated within the S.  Billy is of course most well known for being the man between the posts for four consecutive Islanders Stanley Cup wins to begin the '80s.  He was selected in 1993, the only goalie to be honored with an induction in the '90s.

Last but not least, Rod Langway's large, somewhat sloppy autograph.  Rod's a local guy (sort of), having grown up in Randolph, Massachusetts.  He was born in Taiwan though (his father was a serviceman), and is technically the only player born in the Republic of China to make the NHL.  Won a Stanley Cup with the Canadiens, as well as back-to-back Norris trophies!

There you have it, three more from my favorite hockey set of 2012-13.  This takes me to 105 posted now from this set, and still a few more yet to come.  In fact, I just picked up my latest addition yesterday and am expecting it in the mail this coming week...

My Second Crack at Topps' First Baseball Set

As we approach the halfway point, it's been a good year for me so far in terms of adding significant vintage Red Sox pieces to my collection, and today's post features one of my more recent pick-ups:

I'm really becoming a fan of these '51 Topps cards.  I know '52 is the set according to many, and I agree that these predecessors aren't baseball cards in the traditional sense.  They are Topps' first foray into baseball cards though, and I think they're cool in that sense.  Aside from that, they're insanely cheap compared to the '52 set.  The first one of these I picked up earlier in the year seemed like a bargain at $12.50, but Ray Scarborough here set me back even less than that at $11.10.  Unreal.

Here's Ray's counterpart in my collection, and as luck would have it the very next card on the checklist.  There are another half dozen Red Sox in this set between the red and blue backs.  I'm in no particular hurry to track them down, but snagging these two for under $30 shipped is certainly a great start...

Suckered In - O-Pee-Chee & a Hit from Vanguard!

Continuing on today with the 10-packs-for-$11.99 hockey repack that I picked up at Target a few weeks back.  I grabbed this over a month ago so I guess I'm stretching it out fairly well.  If you want to see what I've pulled so far you can see pack 1 here, packs 2 and 3 here, and packs 4 and 5 here.  After a decent start things took kind of a nosedive with the last two packs, I'm hoping I can rebound today with some nicer stuff in the next two...

First up is a pack of 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee.  A rack pack of this led things off, today's is just a standard 8-card retail pack.

Probably wishes he was still on the Rangers.  Then again, would the Rangers be where they are if that trade had not taken place?

Not a fan of this one, I have no idea why they had to crop Phil so closely.

Snooze...

Now we're getting a bit better.  Anze is pacing the league with 24 points in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, if the Kings win it he's certainly been a huge contributor to say the least.

It's not too often that I pull a card of someone who shares my name.  Shane's still kicking around and split time between the Flames and their minor league affiliate this past season.

Great parallel!  I pulled the base version of this card, which happens to be #1 on the checklist, in my rack pack that started this repack off, and promptly sent it to Douglas of Sports Cards from the Dollar Store for his 2/14 birthday collection.  Douglas, if you need this parallel it's all yours, if not I'm gonna hang onto it...

That does it for O-Pee-Chee.  Nothing earth-shattering but the Kopitar and Gaborik parallel kind of saved an otherwise dull pack.  Let's move on to our second offering of the day, pack #7 from the box, 2001-02 Pacific Vanguard:

I was not collecting sports cards at all from around 1997 through 2007 so this one was new to me (pretty much the case with all Pacific releases).  Looks fancy, although you get a disappointing three cards per pack.  You do have a shot at a double-sided game-used memorabilia card.  Let's tear in...

Alright, not a bad start out of the gate with a Dany Heatley rookie.  These cards are much shinier in person than they come across in the scan, and are very thick too, along the lines of early Flair baseball releases.

Here's a look at the back, decent enough design although I don't generally like it when companies mess with the standard horizontal state line.  Vertical just doesn't work for me.

This was better than I expected from a re-pack!  I threw out the wrapper before checking the odds on these and I'm too lazy to go research it, but I'm satisfied.  I liked Kovalev as a player back in the '90s too, so this one gets some nostalgia points.  Who does he share the card with?

Kip Miller?!?!  Pictured with the Pens but listed with the Ducks?  Oh well, an interesting card nonetheless and one I'd be willing to send off in trade someday.

Finishing things off, goaltender Mike Dunham of the Nashville Predators.

Well, that was an improvement over the last couple of packs for sure.  A handful of really nice cards came out of these two packs.  I'll probably group the remaining three packs into one final post at some point in the next few weeks and then I'll have an idea whether this thing was worth the $12 or not...

'33 Goudey - Another One Bites the Dust!

Just a quick one tonight, featuring another pre-war Red Sox card that I was psyched to be able to land at a decent price a few weeks back:

This 1933 Goudey Roy Johnson is the fourth Red Sox card I've been able to track down from this iconic set.  He's suffered a bit of wear over the years but overall the visual appeal on the card is still very good, and the low grade allowed me to take it home for the bargain price of $19 and change!

Roy's eyes seem creepy looking.  The plain white hat is kinda odd, but I know those were part of the uniform for some time there.  I like that you can clearly see the Red Sox jersey at least, it's rare that the team is that easily identifiable on cardboard this old.

The back mentions Roy's Cherokee heritage, as well as his time spent in the PCL.  I don't know much about him as a player (although it looks like he was a solid doubles hitter), but I do know that this card takes me to 4/8 Red Sox from this set, halfway to completing my team set.  True, there are a couple of Hall of Famers in the remaining four, but I'll get there someday...

Updating My Pack Stash

If you read many of my posts, you might get the impression that all I do is buy vintage singles, and that I'm against purchasing modern product.  The truth is, I love the anticipation of ripping open a pack as much as the next collector, I just feel that often times the value isn't there, and I then suffer from buyer's remorse.  My solution to that is to keep a stash of unopened product (obtained on the cheap) in my card room so that I've got packs at the ready whenever I get the itch.  The top shelf of  my bookshelf is dedicated to this, in fact here's how it's looked for the past 2-3 years now:

If it's a bit tough on the eyes you can click for a larger image.  At the far left, we've got a couple stacks of random packs, everything from an '84 Topps baseball rack pack to 1991 Fleer football to 1995 Topps Embossed baseball, and some hockey thrown in too.  Continuing to the right is a wax box of 1991 Topps Traded baseball plucked from the hobby shop around 3 years ago for $5.  Next in line, a box of 1993 Pinnacle fat packs, which I've been sending out to other bloggers in trade packages.  After that, my current favorite go-to option, a wax box of '92 Upper Deck baseball, a set I'm working on hand collating.  Last but not least, to the far right a box of '88 Topps rack packs.  Paid $10 for this about 5 years ago at a hobby shop and have opened exactly 2 packs so far.

I'm grateful that I have the space and will power to keep something like this, but I have to say I've been a little bored by the selection lately.  At this point I'm really just sending the Pinnacle stuff out to others, don't plan on opening any more of it myself, so I decided to remove that and find a replacement.  Well, it just so happened that last weekend Dave & Adam's Card World had some pretty unreal prices on a lot of their unopened wax as part of their Memorial Day sale.  Here's my replacement for the Pinnacle box: 

This is a retail box of 2012 Topps Series 2 baseball.  24 packs in all, and unlike many sets it has a decent pack size of 12 cards per.  This is basically the display box you'd be buying your single loose pack from in your local big box store back in 2012, here it is opened up:

I chose this for a couple of reasons.  First of all, I'm sort of a classic collector in that I'll always gladly accept nearly any flagship base card that I don't already have.  I have next to nothing from the 2012 base set (6 total Red Sox cards obtained in trades, only 2 from Series 2), so I know that virtually every card from this box will be a keeper for me.  Secondly, the price was $14.95!  For $5 less than a blaster I've got 24 packs to rip through over time.  That's $.62 per pack, so if I get a total dud I can forget about buyer's remorse since you pump more than this into a vending machine for a candy bar nowadays.

I do have a tradition where anytime I plop a new box on my shelf I have to open that first pack, so here's a sample of what awaits me in the future with the top pack from the box...

Can't get off to a much better start to the box than this.  This is Stanton's last flagship card on which he's referred to as Mike, beginning with the 2013 set it's Giancarlo.  Whatever he wants to go by, he's crushing it this year to the tune of .317/16HR/51RBI and an OPS over a thousand.

Don't know much about Ryan, he's now with the Braves.  One gripe about this set is the lack of player position on the front.

Kind of a cool card, since it looks like 2012 was the end for Andruw Jones.  He's 37 now and playing over in Japan.  This is not his proper "sunset card" though, since he did appear in the 2013 flagship set.

Boy has this guy been in a decline the past couple of seasons.  I like that this card is from his career monster season, which it appears as though he may not come close to achieving again.

After all those years in Oakland, and all those Chavez A's cards pulled from packs, it's weird to see him in another uniform, especially the pinstripes.  He's with the D-Backs now...

Had a decent 2013, appearing in about half of the Mets' games, but has struggled mightily in limited time this year.  Just 3 hits in 34 plate appearances, yikes.

I forgot about these Golden Sparkle parallels.  Bryan hasn't played an MLB game since 2012.  He signed a minor league deal with the Rangers this off-season and is currently playing with their AAA affiliate.  This one's now on my Zistle trade list.

Awesome, a new Red Sox card for me, and of the most recent guy to throw a no-hitter no less!  Still glad the Sox made the trade, there would be no 2013 World Series Championship without that deal.

Great shot of an electrifying pitcher.  Wood's career ended after 2012, and this is actually his final Topps base card, he wasn't in 2012 Update and was only on an insert in 2013 Topps, no base.

To me, the most boring card in the pack.  I don't catch as much NL baseball as I should, and couldn't really tell you much about Jason Kubel.  Looks from the stats on the back like he had a couple of monster years in 2009 and 2012.

Great shot of Lance making a catch in front of an ad for broiled turkey burgers that looks oddly like the Cardinals logo.

Don't know much about Kyle, career-long Phillie who's about a .500 pitcher with an ERA over 4.00.

That was a very solid first pack, hopefully a sign of things to come.  If I rip this box at my usual rate I'll be done sometime in 2020.

There we go, much better!

A Look Back at the 2004 Champs - I'm Getting Old

Last night the Red Sox game was sort of on in the background at our house, as it is most nights, and I caught the end of a pre-game ceremony honoring the 2004 World Series Championship team.  I have fond memories of that team, as a 22-year-old living out on my own with an opportunity to attend a few games that year it was a great time in my life as a fan.

What I was amazed at was just how many players from that team were available to attend last night's ceremony in person, which means no longer playing Major League Baseball.  I'm 31 now, and for one of the first times in my life I sat there and thought "crap, I'm getting old!".

I decided to take a look at the members of that famed team and see where they are now 10 years later.  Since this is a card blog I'll be supplementing with some cardboard from my Red Sox collection.  First, the starting 9 as I recall it...

Johnny Damon went on to play for a few different clubs, including the Yankees.  While he hasn't officially retired, he hasn't played since the Indians released him in August of 2012.  Score 1 for retired.

Played for many other teams after leaving Boston, retired after the 2011 season.  Another point for retired.

Here's one of the only exceptions to the trend, Big Papi is still chugging along amassing home runs and RBI a decade later, and has played a huge part in bringing two more World Series Championships to Boston since.

Retired amid questionable circumstances and just 17 at-bats with the Rays in 2011.

Team captain Jason Varitek retired after 2011, that's 4-1 retired if you're keeping score.

Retired, last action seen in 2010 with the Cubs.  Now hosts a show that I've never seen, but automatically hate based on its stupid name.

Retired, last played in 2007 with the Reds.

Retired after 2006.  Starting to see why this ceremony made me feel old?

Finished career in 2008 with the Mets?!?!  I can honestly say I completely forgot about that, if I ever knew it at all.

So, out of the starting 9 every player but David Ortiz is now retired.  How about bench depth?  In fairness, a couple of guys I couldn't find Red Sox cards of...Dave Roberts (how can that be?  I need to remedy that ASAP), Gabe Kapler and Pokey Reese.  All three are retired though, with Reese actually never having played another game after that '04 Series (strange).  I did find cards of a few bench guys though...

Retired.

Retired.

Playing baseball in Japan now.  I consider that retired for the purpose of this exercise.

How about starting pitchers?  Schilling is retired, and facing some serious health challenges.  Although he completely screwed the state I call home via his now-bankrupt, state-funded video game company, I do sincerely wish him good health and good luck in dealing with his illness.  It was good to see him on the field for the ceremony.

Retired.

Retired.

Retired.  Still the best pitcher I've seen in my lifetime as a fan. 

I couldn't find a Sox card of Bronson Arroyo (may have torn them all up when I heard his terrible cover band), but he's still playing, so he joins David Ortiz in that club so far.  How about the bullpen?  Couldn't find cards of Curtis Lescanic (retired) or Alan Embree (retired), but here are the guys I did find in my boxes...

Won another championship with Boston in 2007 (plus was on both of those early-'90s Blue Jays winners), retired in 2009 with last MLB action in 2008.  Mike was an absolute workhorse, with over 1,000 career appearances.  Hope he's resting that arm now!

I only have half a card of Mike Myers, but it's something.  Also retired.

Last but not least, the closer and the man who got the final out, Keith Foulke.

So, out of the entire 25-man World Series roster from 2004, exactly two players are still active in the league.

Man, I'm getting old.