1986-87 Topps Hockey - One Card Closer!

I'm getting closer each month to finishing off my #1 collecting goal for hockey, completing the entire 1980s Topps run. Recently I spent a whopping $1.56, plus $2.50 shipping and handling, to knock another card off of the 1986-87 Topps want list:

This is Steve Yzerman's third Topps base card. I don't have a Beckett in front of me, but I believe it's one of the more valuable cards in the set behind the Roy RC, Gretzky, Lemieux and Wendel Clark RC. I was more than happy to grab this one for $4 shipped.

Yzerman would enjoy a 90-point season in 1986-87, his best to date at that time. He would go on to top 100 points for 6 consecutive seasons after 86-87 though! It still pains me that the Whalers took Sylvain Turgeon two spots ahead of Steve in the 1983 entry draft. Imagine if Ron Francis and Steve Yzerman could have been teammates throughout the 80s. What might have been!

With Stevie Y occupying his proper spot in my 1986-87 Topps binder, I am now just 7 cards away from finishing this set off!

Merry Christmas!!!

2011 Top 20 Under $25 - #11 - Normand Leveille Auto

Back to the countdown of the top 20 (under $25) items from this past year that did not get a post initially. Today we have #11 in the countdown, yet another auto...

What is it? A 2010-11 Panini Limited Select Signatures Normand Leveille auto.
When and where did I get it? Early March on eBay.
How much did it cost me? $12.00 (plus $2.95 shipping).

Of all the autographs I added to the collection this year, I'd say this is the most unique. I first saw the card on Casey's Drop the Gloves blog and tracked down my own copy just a couple of days later.

I think most hockey fans know the story, but for those who don't Normand was an up-and-coming young winger for the Boston Bruins in the early 80s. He was a good enough scorer to be drafted by the B's in the first round (14th overall) of the 1981 entry draft. After a decent rookie campaign in 1981-82 (33 points in 66 games), he was off to an even better start in 1982-83 when tragedy struck.

On October 23rd, 1982 the Bruins were squaring off against the Canucks in Vancouver. Normand had just enjoyed a great first period where he scored his second and third goals of the young season. In the locker room during the first intermission though, he began to feel dizzy and complained of shoulder pain. While being evaluated by the training staff, he lost consciousness and was rushed to an area hospital. Doctors confirmed that he had suffered a brain aneurysm due to a congenital condition. After hours of surgery and three weeks in a coma, he regained consciousness. He did well with his recovery, regaining most of his motor skills and was even able to walk again, however his hockey career was over. He would never again take to the ice in an NHL game after that first period in Vancouver.

It's certainly interesting to consider how different the Bruins franchise may have looked later on in the decade had Leveille been on the roster. He had topped the 100-point season in Juniors and was scoring at a point-per-game pace at the NHL level when the injury brought his career to a dramatic halt.

Normand did make one final appearance in front of the Boston faithful during the closing ceremonies for the old Boston Garden. With Ray Bourque's assistance, he made one final lap around the ice, bringing many in attendance to tears. Definitely a memorable moment in Bruins history.

While he may be an obscure name to many hockey fans, I was thrilled to add this one to the collection. Considering the card is hard-signed by Normand rather than being a sticker auto, and is numbered to 99 copies, I thought this was a steal for around $15 shipped...

The Rest of My Vintage Hockey Haul

Happy Sunday everyone. After consecutive baseball posts, it's time to get back to some hockey cards. A few weeks ago, I posted a pretty good quarter box haul of vintage hockey. Here are the rest of the cards from that same trip to the local shop, the ones that didn't come from the quarter box:

The majority of my quarter box haul from this day consisted of 1973-74 Topps hockey, and I grabbed a few more from this set out of the dollar box, including this Henri Richard. Maurice's younger brother was a lifelong Canadien. He won an astounding 11 Stanley Cups as a player with the team, including 5 straight to start his career. His number is retired by the team and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979.

Alex Delvecchio's 1973-74 Topps card finds him at the tail end of an extremely long career that began in the 1951-52 season! He would play in just 11 games in 1973-74, his final year in the league. In total, the longtime linemate of Gordie Howe appeared in 1,549 games over 23 seasons, all with the Red Wings. Like Richard, his number is retired by his team and he was elected to the Hall of Fame.

The next three cards are all from the 1974-75 Topps set, and brought me to 240 out of 264 cards. I have a feeling this will end up being the first Topps set from the 1970s that I complete.

Second year card of Bill Barber, also in the Hall of Fame. I thought I already had a copy of this one for some reason, but the Want List said otherwise...

A few big names that I needed for the 1979-80 set were available on the cheap as well:

The man who once scored 10 points in a single game against the Bruins...

The man responsible for one of the most comical looks ever captured on a hockey card...

One of only two leaders cards that I still needed. Pretty decent group of netminders there, huh?

Even after these four 1979-80 Topps cards, I still have a decent way to go for this set. 73 cards left to be exact. I've finally gotten this one into a binder and my want list is up to date, so if you've got any extras floating around let me know.

I grabbed this off-center, mis-cut 1963-64 Topps Black Hawks (yes Black Hawks, not Blackhawks) team card. Truth be told, it's not as bad as it looks in the scan. Besides, it was so cheap, and other than the alignment issues is in really good shape. Having the Stanley Cup front and center certainly doesn't hurt either. I'm a big fan of team cards and this is now the oldest in my collection.

This card is everything a 70s hockey card should be. I've had my eye on this one for quite some time, great to finally cross it off the list. 23 cards to go now for the 74-75 Topps set, and another great Esposito for the collection to boot. Speaking of which...

Like the 73-74 Topps cards from the quarter box haul, this card was in fantastic shape and couldn't be left behind. Finishing things off, we have my favorite card from the lot:

All in all I took home a pretty sizable stack of 73-74 Topps that day. Even though I'm still less than halfway to the 198-card set I have added it to my want list so I can start picking away at it.

This lot cost me $12 total, I think I did pretty well...

2011 Top 20 Under $25 - #12 - A Couple More Lineage Autos

Continuing on with the list, today's post actually contains two different cards from the 2011 Topps Lineage set. I stayed away from this one, mainly due to the atrocious backs. I didn't buy so much as a single pack, but there were a couple of things that intrigued me about the set. More than anything I was interested in the 1952 Topps Reprint Autos, as there were 5 Red Sox on the checklist. I posted the first two, Don Lenhardt and Ike Delock, when they arrived in the mail a few months ago. I ended up purchasing two more around the same time, but never got around to posting them until now:

What is it? A 2011 Topps Lineage Dick Gernert 1952 Reprint Auto.
When and where did I get it? eBay, just as the playoff races started heating up in August.
How much did it cost me? $12.01 (plus $3.00 shipping).

Gernert was a mainstay on the Red Sox from 1952 through the end of the decade before being dealt to the Cubs after the 1959 season. He'd go on to play for the Tigers, Reds and Colt .45's before retiring. Given that this is a rare high-series card in the 1952 set, it's unlikely that I'll ever own an authentic copy of this card, but this isn't a bad substitute at all.


What is it? A 2011 Topps Lineage Ted Lepcio 1952 Reprint Auto.
When and where did I get it? eBay, same day as the Gernert card above.
How much did it cost me? $10.45 (plus $2.25 shipping).

This Ted Lepcio was the card I wanted most out of the four that I've shown so far. It's the only horizontal card, and I've always like the photograph with bleachers in the background. Like the Gernert card, this is a high series short print in the 1952 set, so unless I feel like shelling out some cash I'll likely never end up with the original.

The auction that I won was actually for a redemption card, and I was a bit skeptical since I don't have much experience with these. I entered the code on Topps' web site and just a couple of weeks later the card was in my mailbox. No complaints there. I guess if you count shipping the total for both cards came to just a hair over $25, but close enough!


This brings me to four out of the five 1952 Topps Red Sox autos from this set. The only one I'm missing at this point is Johnny Pesky. I'm pretty sure his autograph is short printed compared to some of the others, as I've only seen a couple of them ever hit eBay, both going for more than I was comfortable paying. Maybe someday...but for now I'll enjoy the four I do have.

The Ultimate Baseball Card Set - Card #232

Ever feel old? I recently joined a floor hockey league, and after my first session this past weekend I was sore for a couple of days. It made me realize that I'm definitely not getting any younger. I definitely am getting older. Perhaps if you can relate to this feeling, today's induction into The Ultimate Baseball Card Set will help you feel a bit better.

As is the custom though, before we get to the winning card, here are some runners-up...

Card #232 in the 2010 Topps set is a pretty nice team checklist of your World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals (as well as a guy who recently became $250 million richer)...

I have card #232 from one of my all-time favorite sets. However, despite being a high-numbered card, Mr. Kokos here is not all that exciting, and besides I already posted about this card almost four years ago now.

Card #232 in the 1960 Topps set is Jim Busby of the Boston Red Sox. This is possibly my favorite set of the entire 1960s Topps run, and that old Red Sox logo is a thing of beauty. There are a couple of other decent #232's from the 60s as well...

...I like the background of this 1966 Glenn Beckert...

...and this 1969 Topps Dave Ricketts isn't too shabby either. All of these are nice cards, but they don't make me feel any better about the fact that the years are ticking by. The winning card sure does though:

1977 Topps - #232 - Minnie Minoso Record Breaker

I really like the Record Breaker cards from the old Topps baseball sets, and this may be the one I like most out of the many in my collection. I never knew it existed until a short while back when I was working on completing the 1977 Topps set. As you can tell from the front, the card pays tribute to Minoso becoming the oldest player to record a hit in an MLB game. An impressive feat no doubt, but it's even more impressive when you see the details. If you had to guess how old Minoso was when he recorded this hit, what would you say? 47? 50? 52? If you guessed any of those you'd be too low! Check it out...

No, your eyes do not deceive you, Minnie Minoso connected for a single towards the end of the 1976 season at the age of 53! How amazing is that? I'm sure many of you were aware of this, and maybe this is one of those sports trivia facts I should have known, but I was shocked to learn about it.

Minoso's accomplishments deserve a post of their own, which I hope to get to someday, so I won't give you a full breakdown here. If there was ever a feat that was worthy of a baseball card though, I'd say this is it. Perhaps even more amazing than his 1976 single is the fact that he got two more MLB at bats four years later in 1980, at the age of 57!!! Unfortunately he wasn't able to record a hit in either, but impressive nonetheless.

When you think of sports records that may never be broken, I'd say this has to be near the top of the list for baseball. All of a sudden I don't feel so sore...

The Ultimate Baseball Card Set, which now stands at 3 cards and counting, can be seen here.

The Ultimate Hockey Card Set - Card #9

Time to select card #9 in The Ultimate Hockey Card Set. A couple of weeks ago I sold off some David Krejci cards, and I used the money to pick up two new cards for the collection that I've had my eye on for some time now. The first was Steven Stamkos' Young Guns rookie. You'll see the other one at the end of this post...

Choosing card #9 was not difficult at all, there were really no cards that even came close to topping the winner. There are a few #9's in my collection that are at least worthy of showing though...

The 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Premier set is definitely a classic. I hope to include a card from this set one day, but today is not that day!

Richard Brodeur's card from the 2008-09 Upper Deck Legends Masterpieces set is pretty sweet as well. That Canucks jersey is fantastic.

This was plucked a while back in what was definitely one of my most successful quarter box raids to date. Emile was a significant figure in the Whalers organization for years.

Card #9 in the 1977-78 Topps/O-Pee-Chee Glossy insert set has a pretty good shot of Rick MacLeish...

One of the most collected sets of my youth, 1991-92 Upper Deck, features an Eric Lindros card at #9. I always liked the Canada Cup subset from this set, most of the big names from the era were included, and so were some up-and-coming stars like Lindros and Selanne.

Marcel Dionne is #9 in the 1981-82 Topps set. A great player but not the most exciting looking card, and that's coming from someone who loves the 81-82 set.

That brings us to our winner, the other card that I picked up with my David Krejci loot...

1985-86 Topps - #9 - Mario Lemieux (RC)

This one has been on my "white whale" list for quite some time. Completing the entire run of 80s Topps sets has been a major collecting goal for a while now, and Lemieux's rookie was the biggest obstacle of the entire decade in terms of book value. It felt great to cross this one off the want list.

Mario was always one of my absolute favorite non-Whalers. His 1992-93 season alone was one of the most remarkable sports stories of my lifetime. After a crazy start to the season that at one point included twelve straight games with a goal, it looked like Lemieux might be able to make a run at Gretzky's records for goals and points in a season. In mid January, fans were shocked by the announcement that he had been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. At the absolute pinnacle of his career, when he had mastered the game and was playing at an elite level every single night, he was sidelined by a terrible illness. He missed over 2 months of play, yet returned on the same day as his final radiation treatment, and had a goal and an assist! He led his Penguins to 17 straight victories to finish the season and a #1 playoff seed. Despite playing in only 60 games he still won the scoring race with 69 goals, 91 assists, and 160 points. How could you not root for this guy?

You could make the argument (and I wouldn't disagree with you) that Lemieux is the most prolific scorer in hockey history. He's 7th all-time in points, and 9th all-time in goals. Look at this list of the top 12 goal scorers of all-time though:

#11 (tie) - Jaromir Jagr - 656 goals in 1,297 games played (as of this post).
#11 (soon to be #12) - Brendan Shanahan - 656 goals in 1,524 games played.
#10 - Luc Robitaille - 668 goals in 1,431 games played.
#9 - Mario Lemieux - 690 goals in 915 games played.
#8 - Steve Yzerman - 692 goals in 1,514 games played.
#7 - Mark Messier - 694 goals in 1,756 games played.
#6 - Mike Gartner - 708 goals in 1,432 games played.
#5 - Phil Esposito - 717 goals in 1,282 games played.
#4 - Marcel Dionne - 731 in 1,348 games played.
#3 - Brett Hull - 741 goals in 1,269 games played.
#2 - Gordie Howe - 801 goals in 1,767 games played.
#1 - Wayne Gretzky - 894 goals in 1,487 games played.

So, if you set Lemieux aside and look at the other 11 players on this list, the least amount of games played by any of them is Brett Hull's 1,269. Even that is 354 games more than Lemieux was able to play in. Guys like Messier and Gordie Howe...Lemieux could practically play an entire second career before approaching their total games played numbers!

I decided to take a look at the 8 guys ahead of Lemieux in career goals. I broke down how many more career goals they had than Lemieux, how many more career games they played than Lemieux, and how long it may have taken Mario to catch up to their goal totals had he remained healthy:

#8 - Steve Yzerman - 2 more goals, 599 more career games - at his career average pace, it would have taken Lemieux just 3 games to surpass Yzerman. No question at all that injury kept him out of the 8 spot...

#7 - Mark Messier - 4 more goals, 841 more career games - so, if Lemieux had gone on to play as many career games as Messier, he would only have had to net 4 goals in the next 10 1/2 seasons or so to surpass Mark! No question that he was a more prolific scorer than Messier.

#6 - Mike Gartner - 18 more goals, 517 more career games - Again, no question. At his career pace Lemieux would have needed just 24 more games to net 18 goals. Gartner played 517 more games than Lemieux. Enough said.

#5 - Phil Esposito - 27 more goals, 367 more career games - Getting tougher but still falls in Lemieux's favor. At his career pace we'd be talking less than 40 games for Lemieux to make up the 27-goal difference. Phil played the equivalent of nearly 5 full seasons more than Lemieux.

#4 - Marcel Dionne - 41 more goals, 433 more career games - Again looking at career goals-per-game Lemieux may have surpassed Dionne had he played just 56 games more than he did in his career. At this point I'm thinking Lemieux is at least the #4 best pure scorer of all-time.

#3 - Brett Hull - 51 more goals, 354 more career games - Here's where it starts getting tricky. Hull had 51 more goals than Lemieux, a significant number for sure. Here's the thing though...in 1992-93 Mario had 69 goals. In 1995-96 he had 69 goals. The two seasons in between? He sat one out completely and in the other played just 22 games (and scored 17 goals). Even if you assume that he would have scored only 35 goals in each of those two seasons if healthy (an insanely low estimate given these would have been his peak years, as evidenced by the two 69-goal bookmark seasons I referenced), that still would have been enough to surpass Hull's career numbers.

#2 - Gordie Howe - 111 more goals, 852 more career games - If you use Lemieux's career average of .75 goals per game played (Howe's is actually .45 goals/game), it would have taken him around 148 games to score 111 goals in theory. Let's take those two lost seasons I just referenced when comparing Brett Hull a moment ago. If we assume he would have netted 45 goals in each of those seasons, still a potentially low estimate in my opinion, that would have been an extra 73 total. At that point you'd be looking at a deficit of less than 40 goals, and Howe would still have over 700 career games in hand. Mario may have made up the difference had he played the full 1990-91 season alone (he scored 19 goals that year despite appearing in just 26 games). Sorry but I think Lemieux was a more effective goal scorer than Howe, the numbers don't lie. There, I said it.

#1 - Wayne Gretzky - 204 more goals, 572 more career games - Okay here is where it gets incredibly difficult. I know Gretzky played 572 games more than Lemieux, but 204 goals is a whole lot of scoring. Let's have some fun playing with hypotheticals...

We'll say that Lemieux really did have the same types of seasons in 1993-94 and 1994-95 that he had in the years prior to and following. If he scored an average of even 55 goals those two years (14 less than he scored the seasons before and after this two-season stretch) that would give him 93 more in total (since he did score 17 in 1993-94), leaving him around 110 shy of Gretzky. If you factor in the two months that he missed in his amazing 1992-93 season, based on the rate he was scoring that year, that's another 25 goals missed, which would put him about 85 shy of Wayne. In 1990-91 he scored 19 times despite appearing in just 26 games. Had he played out the season at that pace, he would have scored just shy of 40 more goals, at which point he'd be less than 50 goals from surpassing Gretzky's total. Factor in Lemieux missing the 1997-98, 1998-99, and 1999-2000 seasons entirely and it's totally conceivable that he could have surpassed the Great One. You can only imagine how many he may have tallied during those three lost seasons given that he scored 50 just before that and then 35 in just 43 games in his first season back in 2000-01.

At his career pace of .75 goals/game Mario would in theory have needed 272 more games to surpass Gretzky's goal total. You could make the argument that this stat is skewed by some of the monster years he enjoyed. Well, then let's take a look at the three seasons before his first retirement in 1997. The lowest goals/game he registered during any those three campaigns was a .66 goals/game. Even if he appeared in just 70 games a season for those three lost years, and scored at that pace, that would give him an additional 140 goals. I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but had things gone differently for Lemieux it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could have been the only player in history to tally 1,000 career goals!

All said and done, Mario missed 513 career games due to injury. Obviously the illnesses, back injuries and other issues prevented us from ever finding out for sure, but it is interesting to consider whether or not Lemieux could have potentially passed Wayne Gretzky as the league's all-time leading scorer. No matter what he's easily one of the top three offensive players of all-time as far as I'm concerned. It definitely makes for an interesting debate at least. I'd love to hear any thoughts? Are you in agreement or have I given Lemieux way too much praise here?


The Ultimate Hockey Card Set, which now stands at 11 cards and counting, can be viewed here.

2011 Top 20 Under $25 - #13 - Liut Auto!

Continuing my countdown of the top 20 pick-ups from 2011 that were under $25 and did not initially get a blog post, today we look at spot #13...

What is it? A 2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Mike Liut auto.
When and where did I get it? eBay, just a few weeks ago now.
How much did it cost me? $7.50 (plus $3.00 shipping).

Release a set of decent looking hockey cards featuring players from my youth and I'm pretty much sold. Include some Hartford Whalers and I'm even more interested. Throw in autographed versions of the Whalers cards and there's no doubt I'm tracking them down as long as the price is right.

When Upper Deck released its 2011-12 Parkhurst Champions set a while back I was excited to see three Whalers on the checklist; Gordie Howe, Ron Francis and Mike Liut. I'm not sure whether or not there's a Francis auto, I'm beginning to think there isn't because I haven't stumbled across a single one on eBay yet. Howe's card is great but the auto is a bit out of my price range. I was able to snag Mike Liut though for a mere $7.50!


This would be my first auto of the Whalers top goaltender during the latter half of the 1980s. I've since picked up one or two more of these Parkhurst Champions autos on the cheap, I'll have those posted soon.

The Ultimate Baseball Card Set - Card #21

I decided a few months back that I was going to compile The Ultimate Baseball Card Set, a franken-set of my all-time favorite baseball cards to go along with the hockey version I've been plugging away at. I selected the first card, a 1971 Topps Thurman Munson, all the way back on the first Sunday of the 2011 NFL season. I've done nothing since! Time to get cracking...today I'll choose card #21 for the set. As usual, let's look at some of the cards that did not make the cut first:

This 1975 Topps Rollie Fingers was in the running for sure. Despite that fantastic facial hair though, this card just didn't cut it. The photo isn't exactly stellar, and as you can tell from the scan my copy of this card is more than a bit off-center (it's got some wax stains on the back too!).

Nolan Ryan's 1990 Leaf card didn't really stand a chance, but '90 Leaf was one of the more desirable sets during my first go-round at collecting so I thought it was at least worth showing. I picked this card out of a quarter box at one of the few cards shows I've ever been to about 4 years ago.

The runner up was this 1962 Topps Jim Kaat. A great card for sure, but like the Hall of Fame selection committee recently did, I'm going to pass on inducting Jim here.

That brings us to our winner. If you were a child of the 80s and 90s like I was, you might have already guessed which card I went with for #21 in the set...

1982 Topps - #21 - Bob Bonner/Cal Ripken Jr./Jeff Schneider RC

Aside from being one of the iconic cards of the 80s (if not one of the most iconic Topps cards period), this card was the pride of my childhood collection. Ripken was a boyhood idol, and this card was one of my most prized possessions from the time I pulled it from an '82 Topps vending box I got as a birthday present. When I think of the baseball card boom of the 80s, this is one of the first cards that comes to mind.

I think most collectors feel the same way about this card, as it came in at #12 in this past year's top 60 list of Topps baseball cards. True, Ripken's solo card from the 1982 Topps Traded set is much more valuable but in my mind this is the card I think of when it comes to Cal's rookies. Nowadays you can get a really nice copy for less than the cost of a blaster.

When I first got back into collecting in 2007 I actually pulled another one of these in a 1982 Topps rack pack from Dave and Adam's Card World. That one's been traded away, but I still have my childhood copy to this day.


The Ultimate Baseball Card Set, which now stands at 2 cards and counting, can be viewed here.

2011 Top 20 Under $25 - #14 - Another Graded Pesky

What is it? A 1950 Bowman Johnny Pesky, graded EX-MT 6 by PSA.
When and where did I get it? April 3rd on eBay.
How much did it cost me? $17.67 (plus $2.00 shipping).

2011 was a big year for Johnny Pesky as far as my collection goes. When the year started off I had no vintage Pesky cards, which is an absolute shame. As a Red Sox fan who collects baseball cards, there was simply no excuse for this. I remedied that situation early on this year when I flipped a Jordan Eberle short print for two vintage Pesky cards. A couple of weeks after that I picked up this 1950 Bowman card to complete the trifecta.

This is definitely the oldest card in the countdown, at least by a couple of years. As I've said numerous times, I'm a sucker for early 50's Bowman baseball cards, so I couldn't pass on this one for less than the cost of a blaster shipped. This actually came from the same seller and in the same shipment as another 1950 Bowman card that I posted back in May.


Now, if I can only track down 1949, 1951 and 1952 Bowmans, and maybe even the 1951 or 1952 Topps Pesky cards...