Red Whale Harpooned - Diamond Stars Max Bishop

For years I've had a small running list of some of the harder-to-track-down Red Sox cards that I one day hope to own, my "red whales".  If you read this blog often, you won't be surprised to learn that the good majority of these cards were released prior to 1960 (one of the benefits of being a fan of a team that's been around well over 100 years).  I don't really bother posting them in my want list, because I think it's fair to say that not many people have T206's and American Caramel cards up for trade.  So I just keep a list of them in my head, set up some saved eBay searches, and go on the hunt.  Recently I was able to track down a nice one...

Max Bishop here represents my very first Diamond Stars card.  These were released over a three-year period between 1934 and 1936, with some different backs, ink colors, etc used to identify the print year.  All told, there were 108 subjects, but dozens more cards in a master set if you were to pursue all the variations.  The cards were printed by National Chicle chewing gum company of Cambridge, MA.

I just love the brightly colored, almost surreal, art deco ballpark backgrounds on these cards.  The infield dirt, vibrant blue and red of the grandstands, and even the small yellow flag flying below Bishop's name still pop almost eight decades after printing.  I really like the small touch of the players' shadows as well.

Here's a better look at the front.  I never thought that when I finally tracked this card down I'd be able to land one in anywhere near this condition, but for the price I couldn't pass this one up.  If I were to buy a hobby box of 2014 Topps today ($54.99 at Dave and Adam's Card World), it would cost me more than I spent on this card.  A lot more.  I will certainly never need to upgrade this copy, crease-free with awesome visual appeal.

The back does a great job of highlighting the one characteristic that Bishop was really known for in his playing days, a keen eye in the batter's box.  He nearly always collected 100 walks in a season, and had a career on base percentage well north of .400.  Max was a damn good second baseman as well, but was really known for his approach at the plate.

I couldn't be happier that after 79 years this little piece of cardboard has found its way to my Red Sox collection...

Signature Sundays - Nomar Garciaparra!

Recently I was fortunate enough to land a very nice on-card autograph of one of my favorite Red Sox from the days of my childhood fandom, none other than Nomar Garciaparra:

I was 13 years old when Garciaparra made his big-league debut for the Sox in the summer of '96.  At that impressionable age it was almost impossible not to become a fan.  Nomar, with his goofy batter's box antics and flip-up shades (so glad they are pictured here), could flat out rake the ball.  Not only that, but he was an exciting shortstop to watch in the field, quickly establishing himself as one of the premier players at his position.

Over the years Nomar became a fan favorite in Boston, racking up batting titles, 30 HR and 100 RBI seasons, and plenty of MVP votes along the way.  I still remember watching many of his amazing performances at the plate, most notably his two grand slam, 10-RBI game against the Mariners in 1999.

Even if injuries and other issues led to his less-than-admirable departure from Boston, I've always had a soft spot for him given that he was my absolute favorite player for a good four or five year stretch there.  It's a shame that it took me this long to add his autograph to my collection, but I'm glad I waited because this is one beautiful card.

My First '51

Just a quick one tonight, featuring an eBay win that arrived in my mailbox a week or two ago:

Aside from being a very long overdue first '51 Topps card in my collection, it's one of my older Red Sox cards period.  To me, it's personally significant as well, since a 1950 Bowman Maurice McDermott was the vintage card that first sparked my interest in collecting many years ago.  I've sort of had a soft spot for the guy ever since.

This card, which is in pretty remarkable shape for being well over 60 years old now, set me back just $12 and change, around $15 shipped.  Why did I buy that blaster of 2014 Topps again?

Signature Sundays - Six More From Panini Classics Signatures

With the Winter Olympics in full swing, it's back to hockey for this week's Signature Sundays post.  Believe it or not I still have more to show from my favorite hockey set of last year, 2012-13 Panini Classics Signatures.  Today we'll look at half a dozen more on-card autos...

I thought Ken Morrow was an appropriate player to lead off this week's post with, given that he was a member of the 1980 'Miracle on Ice' US Men's Olympic hockey team!  He was a rugged, stay-at-home defenseman who played his entire NHL career for the Islanders.  He first joined the team immediately after those famed 1980 Olympics and won a Stanley Cup just a few months later.  What a year for a young kid!

Morrow would go on to be a contributing member of all four of the team's Stanley Cup wins in the early '80s.  Ken was plagued by constant knee issues during his playing days, which ultimately forced his early retirement during the 1988-89 season.  He's currently serving as Director of Pro Scouting for the Islanders.

Here's a guy who probably enjoyed watching Ken Morrow and his Olympic teammates pull off the 'Miracle on Ice' win, given that he was 13 years old at the time (and would attend boarding school in Lake Placid).  Mike Richter would wear the red, white and blue and represent team USA just a few years later at the '88 Winter Games in Calgary.

Mike is most famous for leading the Rangers to Stanley Cup victory in '94, one of the most exciting Finals series I've ever witnessed as a fan.  During that time period he was easily one of the top goaltenders in the game, period.  Later in his career, Mike would go on to represent team USA in two more winter Olympics, 1998 and 2002, and won a silver medal in the latter!  Richter is the Rangers all-time leader in wins, has his number retired by the team, and was elected to the US Hockey Hall of Fame.  If you have some time to read up about what he's done in his business life after hockey, it's equally impressive.  An interesting man for sure and an autograph I'm really excited to add to my hockey card collection!

Next up is Keith Primeau.  I was always a fan of Keith's just because he was a very high draft pick (3rd overall) right as I started to get heavily into the game.  He ended up playing for my beloved Hartford Whalers at one point, and stuck with the franchise when they moved to Carolina before winding down his career with the Flyers.

Primeau was a very solid player for sure, named an All-Star more than once and serving as Captain for two different franchises.  He came close on a couple of occasions but was never able to capture that elusive Stanley Cup.

Ken Linseman actually began his playing career with the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA.  When he transitioned to the NHL he saw action with the Flyers, Oilers, Bruins and Maple Leafs (just two games) before his playing days came to an end.  Little known fact, he was actually briefly a Hartford Whaler, having been traded there by the Flyers in August of 1982, but then was turned right around to Edmonton same day.

He was a crucial part of the 1984 Stanley Cup Champion Oilers, especially in the playoffs, but despite that was traded away after the season to the Bruins, missing out on the next three Edmonton championships.  Linseman was known as a scrappy player, but sometimes went overboard.  Check out this article from the Ottawa Citizen, August 1977, about an incident where he bit another player then stomped on his forehead with his skate blade.  No, I'm not kidding.

This card of Ron Hextall's uncle, Dennis, is one of the nicer looking photos in the set, and what a great signature to boot.  Dennis really got around the NHL, playing for the Rangers, Kings, Golden Seals, North Stars, Red Wings and Capitals.  It makes sense that he's depicted as a North Star in this set, as the best three-season stretch of his career came with the team in the mid-'70s.  Hextall was serving as the team captain at the time and averaged over a point per game during that stretch.

Finally, one of the autographs from this set that I wanted more than most when I first saw it, Mr. Terry O'Reilly.  Terry is thought of by most Bruins fans as one of the all-time greats.  He played his entire NHL career with Boston, and could certainly mix it up and throw down the gloves (200+ PIM from '77-78 through '81-82 for example!).

Happy Gilmore's favorite hockey player had some skill too, scoring 20+ goals quite a few times and regularly recording 50+ point seasons (even had a 90-point campaign in the late '70s).  O'Reilly even coached the team briefly after his retirement, and led them to the Stanley Cup Finals.  His number was retired by the team back in 2002.

Six more great autographs from Panini, these take me to 90 in total from this set.  I've still got more to come in future Signature Sundays posts...

Zistle Trade - halos17

Recently I participated in my first Zistle exchange with user halos17.  It was a quick and easy swap, as most Zistle trades are...a few cards from my doubles box out the door and a few cards knocked off my want list in return.  If you still don't have your collection (or at the very least your want and trade lists) on Zistle, what are you waiting for?  Seems like people are flocking there by the hundreds lately and there is a ton of good trade bait to be had out there.  In this case the cards were all Red Sox that filled long-overdue team set needs.

This '89 Donruss Mike Greenwell was probably my favorite card in the package.  It screams '80s and is from the "junk wax" overproduction era, but this is anything but junk as far as I'm concerned.  It's actually the very first card on the 1989 Donruss checklist. 

There were a trio of '89 Donruss accompanying the Greenwell DK in the envelope, all three decent or better players.  Wade Boggs...

...Marty Barrett...

...and Ellis Burks.  If I'm not mistaken these bring me within two measly cards of finally knocking off my team set.

Another team set I'm getting closer with is '90 Bowman, and this package got me two cards closer in the form of Mike Rochford...

and Dewey Evans!

It wasn't all '80s and '90s, however, as two cards dropped off my 2007 Upper Deck want list.  This is an early card of Pedroia, with his rookie coming the year prior in '06 UD flagship.

Fan favorite Trot Nixon didn't actually play with the Red Sox in 2007, having signed with the Indians in the off-season, but Upper Deck couldn't adjust quickly enough given that this card was in Series 1.

Closing things out is a nice 2009 Goudey card of Big Papi.  Some of the '09 Goudey cards looked very strange to say the least, but this is actually a decent enough representation of Ortiz.

I'm not sure if you follow blogs or will read this, but if so thanks for a fantastic trade Rob!!!

An Amazing PWE from Douglas

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I received a really great PWE last week from Douglas of Sportscards from the Dollar Store.  There were five cards in the envelope accompanying the awesome Score Shawn Thornton that I showed yesterday, here are the rest...

Kicking things off is this shiny Ron Francis from the 2012-13 Certified set, specifically the Immortals subset.  This card is numbered to 999, and unlike a lot of shiny cards actually scanned fairly well.  I swear Douglas has contributed more modern Whalers cards to my collection than I have myself.

Here's a unique Bobby Orr from the 2010-11 National Hockey Card Day giveaway by Upper Deck.  This is my first card from this small set, although just before Bobby on the checklist is a Gordie Howe where he's pictured with the Whalers that I'd love to track down sometime.

There was one baseball card in the package, this 2013 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects insert.  Both of these guys were recently drafted at just 18 years old, and were signed by the Sox only this past summer.  This represents my 2,659th unique Red Sox card.

I got my very first look at this year's O-Pee-Chee set courtesy of this PWE.  I like the design enough I guess.  Cool to get a new Chara card in the mail just days before he participated in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

There was one card in the package that blew me away.  It's a card I've literally, no exaggeration, been searching out for years now!

This beauty is one of the last two cards I needed to complete the 600-card retro parallel set from 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee.  This project has been close to six years in the making and I'm so close to the finish line now I can taste it.  Over time these cards have really dried up and become difficult for me to find.  I've literally had a saved eBay search for this exact card for probably 2+ years now with nothing, and Douglas managed to track down a copy.  Unbelievable, I probably appreciate this common card of Milan Jurcina more than anyone else on planet Earth.  If anyone out there finds a copy of card #368 (Gilbert Brule) please shout!  I would love to knock this set out finally in 2014.

Douglas, thank you once again for an awesome batch of cardboard.  I've got a stack built for you that includes a couple of 2014 Topps Blue Jays along with some other random cards, hope to have it in the mail early this coming week!

Cardboard Classics - 2013-14 Score Shawn Thornton

Last week I received an awesome 6-card PWE from Douglas of Sportscards from the Dollar Store.  I haven't been able to find the time to scan the cards yet (hopefully will have a proper thank you post coming this weekend), but in the meantime I thought this particular card deserved to be highlighted on its own:

This awesome card is from Panini's 2013-14 Score set.  Shawn doesn't get a whole lot of cardboard love (this is only my second card of his), so I think it's great that he was included on the checklist for this set.  Aside from that, what a great photo!  Thornton emerging from the tunnel with Johnny Boychuk and Patrice Bergeron in tow, fans reaching out to make contact with the players.  The icing on the cake is the young fan to the right, in Thornton sweater with a Bruins logo painted on the back of his head!  I'm sure this must have been one of the best moments in this kid's life, and now it's immortalized on cardboard.  I wonder if he's aware of this and has a copy of the card?

The back is dull, and that's putting it nicely, but even this black and white mess isn't enough to detract from the awesomeness of this card.  Thank you Douglas!

Super Bowl XLVIII - Pro Set Called It!

I have very few football cards, I'd say less than 150 total (and 100 came from a single repack!). While thumbing through them this morning in the process of cleaning up my card room, I came across a very interesting card that came from said repack:

What are the odds of that?  I'm too lazy to actually calculate them but stumbling across this card, which features the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks, on Superbowl Sunday was just such a coincidence that I had to post it.  This is a perfectly strange photo, two very odd looking mascots (the Seahawk is a little creepy looking I'd even say) flanked by scantily clad cheerleaders, with an awkward looking Japanese boy front and center.

The back references NFL Properties opening an office in London, guess we should have seen the overseas games coming even all the way back then!  A great card that I did not appreciate the first time around...this one has been salvaged from my trade box and is now a keeper.

Enjoy the game tonight!

Signature Sundays - Jonathan Papelbon

Since it's been hockey for at least the past couple months straight, we're switching back to baseball for this week's Signature Sundays post.

This week's card is a bright and colorful 2009 Allen & Ginter auto of former Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon.  Jonathan certainly enjoyed some ups and downs while in Boston.  He came out blazing as a rookie (we're talking Mariano Rivera type numbers) in 2006, and in 2007 was again lights out.  In fact, he was the guy on the mound when the team won their second championship of this era in '07.

By the end of his time in Boston just a few years later he'd lost his dependability, blown some crucial late-season and post-season games, and irritated the hell out of a good majority of the team's fan base.  He signed with Philadelphia in the 2011 off-season, and has continued racking up saves with them over the past two years.  Given what the Phillies are paying him ($13M/yr), and what Boston got out of Koji Uehara last season for one third that price, I'd say this worked out for the team in the end.

Even though his autograph is not much more than a scribble, I like the overall look of this card.  You can't go wrong with an A & G framed auto for the most part.  This card is a great addition to my Red Sox collection in particular, just because he was an integral part of the '07 team, and because he's still the leader in career saves for the franchise.  The best part is this one set me back just $8 and change.

Cardboard Classics - 2014 Topps Kendrys Morales

I often find that so much of my hobby time is spent shopping, or looking forward to acquiring more, and not enough is spent reflecting on and enjoying the awesome cardboard that I do own.  I also find that my own OCD often prevents me from posting a card without a good bit of research and a corresponding lengthy write-up.  This can make for very few posts in the months when life outside my hobby has me busy.

In an effort to kill both these birds with one stone, I'm going to be posting individual cards from time to time under the heading "Cardboard Classics".   These will be cards that maybe didn't catch my eye enough to warrant a post the first time around, but that I got a greater appreciation for in digging back through my boxes...cards that I think are worthy of a brief post in their own rite.  I know this isn't exactly original (thinking Night Owl's Cardboard Appreciation series, in fact thinking this is why most of us have blogs to begin with!) but as they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Kicking things off is a brand new card from 2014 Topps.  Yes, despite all my railing against buying wax I did pick up a solitary blaster this past week.  I can honestly say that I bought it with the intention of trading away nearly all of it, as I owe a few bloggers cards and have precious little trade bait laying around.  Anyway, the blaster wasn't anything special, I got two lousy Red Sox base cards and the rest goes into the trade box.  The cards aren't as bad as I've heard many people say, but I don't like them as much as some do either.  I can confidently say that will be my one and only blaster.  There was one card I pulled that I didn't think much of at first, other than "hey, cool photo", but after reading an article yesterday I have now moved it over to my small keeper pile:

Back in 2010 while playing for the Angels, Kendrys Morales suffered one of the dumbest injuries in the history of sports when he broke his lower leg and ankle jumping on home plate to celebrate a game-winning home run.  He missed a year and a half of playing time before he was able to return to the game.

The photo above comes from a game on June 23rd last season.  Morales hit another walk-off home run, this time with the Seattle Mariners, and as he approached the plate got a good ribbing from his teammates.  What a great shot, a blurry Morales with arms raised in the foreground while the rest of the Mariners, most notably Felix Hernandez, encourage him to slow down and take it easy to avoid a repeat injury.

Here's the back of the card, which ties nicely to the photo on the front given that you can see just 51 games played in 2010 and the entire 2011 season missed due to injury.

A very comical photo resulted in this card being salvaged from the trade box and appreciated as it should be.  Great job with this one Topps!