From the Dollar Box - 1958 Topps Don Buddin

Here's another vintage card pulled from the dollar box at JC Sports World in North Providence, RI, a 1958 Topps Don Buddin:

Don represents my 15th 1958 Topps card and my 6th Red Sox card from the set. Don was a high school All-American in football but signed as an amateur free agent with the Red Sox. He had a less than stellar career in Major League baseball, playing just six seasons from 1956 to 1962. He missed the 1957 season serving in Korea with the US military.

The cartoon on the back references his success in the minor leagues as well as his time spent with the army. As you can see, there is a small crease along the front bottom/back right side and the corners are slightly rounded but for a Red Sox card I needed from the 50's I'll take it!

Football's Here!

Yes I know there was a game Thursday night, but I had to work so in my mind the NFL season starts today. Just like in baseball and hockey, I'm a home town team guy so I root for the Pats (yes, I know, not a very popular choice for those outside the New England area). The already suspect defense suffered a couple of bad injuries in pre-season and as a result they're fielding a very young, inexperienced team on that side of the ball. They're not going to get a lot of time to get things together either, as they face Carson Palmer, Chad Ochocinco and T.O. today in New England. If I was a gambler I'd take the over on this one...

I don't collect football cards, baseball and hockey keep me more than busy enough. I did rip a couple of wax packs recently on A Pack to Be Named Later though, so if you're looking to occupy some time between now and the 1 o'clock kick-offs you can check them out here and here. In the meantime, here are the only 3 other football cards I own:

1961 Fleer - Ron Burton - Ron makes my collection because he was the man responsible for a lot of Patriot firsts. He was the first Patriot to run for 100+ yards, first Patriot to run for a first down on a 4th down play, first to run for a touchdown on a 4th down play, and also has the first ever Patriot reception in a playoff game. Sadly he passed away from bone cancer in 2003. His son Steve is a sportscaster in the Boston area who does both TV and radio.

1955 Bowman - Dave Leggett - I picked this card up a couple years ago only because I had won another auction from the seller and was seeing what else I could grab to combine shipping. I think I won it for a buck, and I thought it was pretty cool because I've always been a fan of the 50's Bowman baseball releases. Ohio State fans are probably familiar with Leggett, he led them to a Rose Bowl berth after a 10-0 1954 season. They won the Rose Bowl that year and Leggett was named MVP.

1973 Topps - Len St. Jean - Quite frankly I have no idea where this one came from. I think I may have accidentally added it to a SportsBuy lot thinking it was a '73 Topps baseball card. In any event, I think the photo is funny, and if you can believe YouTube St. Jean played in 140 consecutive games at one point, which is impressive.

Well there you have it, the extent of my massive football collection. Enjoy your Sunday everyone!

A Reason for B's Fans to Tame Their Excitement Over Tyler Seguin

NHL hockey is right around the corner, and as a fan this is a great time of year. As a Bruins fan I'm even more excited for the upcoming season than I normally would be since the team (who only missed the Eastern Conference finals last year due to a monumental collapse) appears to have gotten significantly better. Team scapegoat Dennis Wideman (who in all fairness played pretty well in the playoffs last year) was dealt, bringing Nathan Horton into the fold, and more importantly the B's used the number 2 overall pick, acquired from Toronto in the Kessel trade to draft highly-touted prospect Tyler Seguin.

Like most Bruins fans, I'm really excited to see what Seguin can bring to the table as a scorer, something the Bruins have been desperately lacking of late. Well, last night, while scanning in some cards I ran across one that reminded me to temper my expectations for Tyler:

1993-94 Fleer Ultra - Wave of the Future - Alexandre Daigle

For those of you who aren't NHL fans or don't recognize the name, here's a little background info. This guy was the number 1 overall pick in the 1993 NHL entry draft. In the season before that draft everyone was predicting that he would be an absolute stud, sure to be a prolific goal scorer at the NHL level. In fact, he was so coveted that some accused the Senators of tanking games towards the end of the prior season to ensure they got the number 1 overall pick. The Nordiques were so high on him that apparently they offered players like Peter Forsberg (and draft picks!) for a chance to draft him. Even I, as an 11 year old, had heard enough that if I were to pull this card from a pack back in '93 it probably would've gone into a screw-down holder!

Well as it turns out Daigle never really amounted to much as an NHL player (and I got this card from the quarter bin). In fact, that's an understatement. You could make an argument that he was the single biggest bust of any #1 overall draft pick in the history of the league. The Senators owners stuck by him, in fact they did so for far too long, pissing off Alexei Yashin (who was far more effective yet was paid less and eventually became so frustrated he left the team) in the process. Eventually even they realized he was a bust and he bounced around to a few more teams. He was out of hockey altogether after the 1999-2000 season, at age 25!

He did attempt a (fairly successful) comeback a couple of years later, and actually had his best NHL season in 2003-04 with the Minnesota Wild (51 points in 78 games). Nonetheless, he is living proof that you don't always get what you expect in the draft. Let's hope Seguin has a much better career with the Bruins than Daigle did. By the way, do you know who was taken 2nd right after Daigle? Chris Pronger. Ouch!

From the Dollar Box - 1967 Topps Jim Bouton

Not a lot of time this week, here's another card from the dollar box at the local hobby shop:

I've really been focusing on vintage baseball lately, so I couldn't pass up adding a Jim Bouton to my collection. I'm ashamed to admit that this is my very first Bouton card. I'm also ashamed to admit that I've never read Ball Four. I'm about to rectify that as well, as I just picked up a copy with an Amazon gift card I've had sitting around forever.

Here's the back...

Collecting Yaz - 1976 Topps

A few months back I decided that I was going to collect Carl Yastrzemski, and showed off my first acquisition, a 1967 Topps. It's hard to believe that was all the way back in May, and although I've picked up a few since then I haven't posted a single one. Time to play catch up. The second card in my Yaz collection is from the 1976 Topps set:

This has always been one of my favorite Yastrzemski cards, and it's easy to see why it won best Yaz card of the 70's in a poll run by Night Owl. First of all, the photo is fantastic. I have no proof of this but every time I look at the card I imagine Yaz just crushed one around Pesky's pole and into the right field seats at Fenway Park.

On top of that, 1976 Topps is a very under-rated set. It may not have the pop of the 1972 or 1975 designs, but it's pretty solid in its own right and is better than the last 3 designs from the 70's that came after it. The red and yellow used in the border and on the bottom of the card really compliment the red in Yaz's jersey and the yellow in the hand rails depicted in the crowd behind him.

This card ranks right up there with the best from the decade in my opinion, and I'm happy to add it to my collection.

Yastrzemski Collection

1967 Topps

Night Owl Spotted in Rhode Island

I am a very slow trader. While I ultimately try to make the packages I send out worth the wait, it takes me forever it seems to get them out the door. The latest example, a trade with blogger Night Owl, is probably the longest developing trade I've ever had. Here's how it came about. Way back in November of 2009 (yes, you read that correctly!), Night Owl posted this Kevin Youkilis card he had picked up via a box break of Ultimate organized by Dan at Saints of the Cheap Seats:

He indicated that he was open to trade offers on this and I jumped on it. It may not be a nice as the other Ultimate cards in my collection, but I like Youkilis and I'll trade for just about any Red Sox card I don't have. Problem was I did not have any Dodger hits to offer in return. Fast forward 5 months to April of this year...I pulled a Chad Billingsley jersey card from a pack of Masterpieces baseball. You'd think the trade would end there, but there seems to be an unwritten rule that whenever you exchange cards you throw in some surprises. So I took another 5 months before I finally sent the Billingsley and a bunch of other Dodger cards off. Greg also included some bonus cards in his package:

The Ultimate card wasn't the only Youkilis I got. This is my very first (and still only!) 2010 Allen & Ginter. It looks nice enough but I still don't regret skipping out on this set. Very much appreciated were 5 cards that get me closer to completing my 2008 Upper Deck set:

I am getting tantalizingly close to finishing this one off. In fact I now need less than 30 cards to be done with it, if you have any lying around please check my want list!

Here's a Hideo Nomo card from a shiny set I've never heard of before.

A 1976 Topps Rick Burleson. He was definitely before my time but he was known as a scrappy player and I'm sure I would've loved watching him play had I been a fan in the 70's. Finally, perhaps my favorite card of the bunch, a 1972 Topps Rico Petrocelli:

This card showed up in the mail right around the same time I posted my graded '66 Topps Petrocelli card. 1972 was Topps' best design of the 70's in my opinion, and I'm very happy to add this one to my slowly growing collection. This is only my 33rd card, but I do have quite a few of the key Hall of Famers like Yaz, Nolan Ryan, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron and Harmon Killebrew, so I'm getting there...

Best of all, I knocked another state off of Night Owl's trade map since I was the first person from Rhode Island to complete a trade with him. Thanks for the great package Greg, it was worth the wait!

What I Bought Instead of Allen & Ginter - Post #7

Okay, this sounded like a good idea for a set of posts initially, but it's really getting old. Time to wrap it up here. Here's the final item I purchased in lieu of a 2010 Allen & Ginter hobby box:

2004 Donruss Leather & Lumber - Lumber Cuts - Will Clark

I already picked up a whole slew of Clark cards earlier in this run of posts, but I really wanted to add an auto to my collection. I decided on this one for a few reasons. I had never heard of the Leather & Lumber sets but I really liked the design of the card. I've never been a fan of sticker autos so I wanted to avoid that, and while this one isn't "on card" per se, I like that the signature is on a small piece of inset leather. The card has a classic feel to it that I really like. Here's the back:

Nothing to write home about here. The card is serial numbered which is nice, but this won't be making Night Owl's card back countdown by any means. The other selling point for me was the price, I won this one for $12.50, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

Cost: $12.50
Running Total: $88.50

2010 Allen & Ginter hobby boxes were selling for well over $100 when I came up with this idea, but they have since dipped to between $85 and $90 for the most part. On top of that I'm sick of writing these posts so I'm going to call it here. Let's review what I got for my money in addition to this Clark:

-A nice on-card auto of a key member of the Red Sox "Impossible Dream" team from 1967
-1/2 dozen PSA graded 1967 Topps cards
-Completed my 1991 Topps Stadium Club Series 1 baseball set
-Grabbed a whole slew of Will Clark cards for the player collection
-Picked up a nice chunk of 1993-94 Upper Deck SP hockey
-Two graded second year cards of Red Sox legends

I think I did pretty well all in all, and I'm positive that I will enjoy having these items in my collection much more than what I likely would've pulled out of a hobby box of A & G!

What I Bought Instead of Allen & Ginter - Post #6

Alright, most of the 2010 Allen & Ginter box rips are done and bloggers are moving on to other things, so I really need to wrap up this series of posts. When we last left off I spent a whopping $3 on a lot of 1993-94 Upper Deck SP hockey cards. Today's post consists of only two cards, but gets me much closer to my final total. These are the other two cards I won recently via Sirius Sports Auctions, a couple of 1960s Red Sox All-Star Rookie (second year) cards:

First up is legendary Sox shortstop Rico Petrocelli. My 1966 Topps collection has recently ballooned thanks to a healthy stack of them in the dollar box at the local hobby shop, and I'm happy to add this graded Petrocelli to the mix.

The backs of the '66 cards aren't exactly spectacular. The other card is...

1965 Topps Tony Conigliaro! This was the card in the auction that I wanted to win more than any other. In fact, if I ranked all the 50s/60s cards on my want list this would easily be in the top 20. Conigliaro's tale is a tragic one. I'm sure anyone reading this already knows the story, but Tony looked like he was becoming one of the next big stars in the game when, in 1967, he was hit in the face by a pitch from Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton. He was gone from the game for nearly a year and a half. Ultimately he made a pretty dramatic comeback but he never really regained his pre-injury level of play.

After his retirement, he was visiting Boston (he was born and raised in Massachusetts) when he suffered a heart attack at the young age of 36 years old, and slipped into a vegetative state. He remained that way for over 8 years until his death in 1990.

I'm very pleased to add both of these cards to my growing vintage Red Sox collection. They are two of the most famous and well-recognized Red Sox players from their era, along with Carl Yastrzemski.

The Conigliaro cost me $11 and the Petrocelli $7.

Cost: $18
Running Total: $76

From the Dollar Box - 1963 Topps Gary Geiger

Tonight's dollar box special is a 1963 Topps Gary Geiger:

First of all, I would pick up any card from the 1963 Topps set in this condition for a buck, especially a Red Sox player. It is slightly off top to bottom but is well centered side to side, has sharp corners, a clean crease-free front and back and tremendous eye appeal. On top of that the awkward posed photo is great; sunny day with the crowd in the stands and what appears to be a third baseman taking grounders in the background.

I didn't even realize until I got this home that it was a high numbered card, in fact from what I have found online this appears to be part of the 6th series (cards 447 - 522) which are apparently more difficult to find in good condition.

I knew nothing about Gary when I grabbed the card, but it turns out he's a pretty interesting guy. Known for his speed, he is one of three Red Sox players to hit an inside-the-park grand slam at Fenway Park. He was also drafted as a pitcher (as evidenced by the cartoon on the back of this card), however he pitched only 2 innings (one appearance) in his Major League career.

From the Dollar Box - 1992 Upper Deck Williams Baseball Heroes

The Upper Deck Baseball Heroes inserts have always been some of my favorites. I knew I was missing at least a few from the 1992 Ted Williams run, so I couldn't pass up the entire set of 10 for a buck. I don't have much time today so I won't bore you with my commentary. Instead, I'll let the cards do the talking:

#28 - 1939 Rookie of the Year

#29 - 1941 .406!

#30 - 1942 Triple Crown Year

#31 - 1946 & 1949 MVP

#32 - 1947 Second Triple Crown

#33 - 1950s Player of the Decade

#34 - 1960 500 Home Run Club

#35 - 1966 Hall of Fame

#36 - Checklist