Recent Arrivals, Part I

I've reached that point again where I have a few weeks of Listia arrivals forming two large, unorganized stacks on a bookshelf. That means it's time to show them off to my fellow nerds before I file them away in their rightful places. The Topps Rookie Stars card above will take its place next to my only other 1969 Padres card. Drop by drop, I will eventually carve out the Grand Canyon that is that team set.

Jerry DaVanon played 24 games of his rookie season with the inaugural Padres before being traded to St. Louis in May; he went on to play with five teams in parts of eight lackluster seasons. His son Jeff DaVanon also spent parts of eight seasons in the majors. The San Diego-born San Diego State alumnus nearly became a second-generation Padre when he was signed by the team in December of 2007 but he was cut before Opening Day.

Clay Kirby is best known for being removed by his manager from what could have been the Friars' first and only no-hitter. As for Frank Reberger, he's deserving of a post all to himself one of these days. Speaking of which, I have really gotten away from doing different types of posts here. The last few months it has been nothing but acquisition posts. There was a good reason for this at first but now it's just a rut. By the time I wrap up Part II or, God forbid, Part III of this, I'll get back to switching it up; revive some old themes and introduce some newness. Pinky swear.

It's faint, but that card is autographed by Brian Lawrence in blue ballpoint pen. Not the best penmanship or a guy I'm a huge fan of, but it's a nice addition to my fairly small autograph collection. I picked up two other autographed Padres cards recently but haven't gotten around to taking pictures of either of them so they'll have to wait until Part II.

As I am wont to do, I won a few different lots of 2010 Upper Deck just to get one card from each. Of the three players, only the awesome Luke Gregerson is still around. I still collect Edgar Gonzalez, but if you collect his brother I still have some cards of him I'd like rid of. I'm not down with Dodgers, especially two-faced, lying, duplicitous turncoats who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions or statements.

I mentioned in the post before my last one that I got a handful of 2013 Topps Padres on Listia before ECDG swooped in and dropped the full team set on me. It wasn't a pointless bid, though; I did get this 'Chasing The Dream' insert of Yonder Alonso as one of the four. As for Milton Bradley, he wasn't a Padre for long but made quite an impression. It's hard to believe that it's been going on six years since I was at Petco Park for his first game as a Friar.

2004 Topps is one of those sets that I pretty much forget exists. It came out during my sabbatical from the hobby and has a fairly forgettable face. I did have a different card of Jay Payton as a Padre but it got lost in a shuffle so this is my only one for now. Same goes for Ramon Hernandez, I believe, and countless others.

Another player making his first appearance in my collection is Dave Eiland. I have absolutely no feelings one way or the other toward Mr. Eiland but he's on a baseball card pictured as a San Diego Padre and that's all it takes to get me to bid. The McGriff was a mistake since I already have a copy but I'm sure somebody will take it off my hands one of these days. The '95 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Special Edition (!) is my favorite of the three. I really like cards of players interacting with fans; I also have a soft spot for Eddie Williams because he was a Padre for three separate stints.

These are two of the strangest cards I've seen and thought "Yeah, I want that." They're checklists from a '94 Topps Black Gold redemption set. These will go into my player collections of Craig Biggio and John Kruk, respectively. At some point I'll need to add their full-sized counterparts.

Here are a few more Kruks, ones I had back in the day but are new to my current collection. It's nowhere near as many as I had of him as a kid but I'm back up to about forty or fifty-some cards of The Krukker now. I'm enjoying the process; it's a nice combination of memories. I feel like I may have said basically the same thing in a previous post but that's bound to happen now and then after a few hundred posts, especially when you're a little drowsy from cold medicine. Don't worry, it's just a sore throat and some sniffles being stifled by a capful of some blue Tylenol Cold liquid; no Li'l Wayne shenanigans here. Topical!

I got this trio of Tom Henke cards on the cheap because, hey, how many of us Tom Henke collectors are there out there? Well, I take that back; I know of a few collectors off the top of my head who collect players with big glasses or just any glasses. As for me, I've been snagging up whatever cards of him I can find since I discovered last summer that he made his major league debut on the day I was born. Curt Kaufman and Larry Ray also debuted that day but are nowhere near as easy to collect. Kaufman only got into 7 games in 1982, 4 in '83, and 29 in '84, appearing only on 1985 issues by Topps, Fleer, and Donruss. Ray's career consisted of one hit in six at-bats over five games with the Astros and he never found his way onto a major league card. A quick GIS does reveal a Tucson Toros card, though.

Well, I'm getting fairly sleepy and you're probably tired of reading this by now anyway. I guess there's time for one more card. You know what that means so I'm just going to leave a picture of my latest Joey Cora card sans commentary and leave on a high note like George Costanza.

21 Cards From '91 (Happy Birthday!)

Today is TMBGOTFOTE's 21st birthday, so I thought it'd make sense to post 21 cards from 1991. Not that she cares about the Padres or baseball at all but, hey, it's what's happening. Most of the pictures and scans are from when I was going to do this last year but forgot about it while doing actual birthday stuff that matters. On a side note, I think she's the only other person I've known who couldn't care less about their 21st birthday being their 21st. It doesn't matter to her because she doesn't drink; it didn't matter to me when I turned 21 because I'd had a fake I.D. for about three years...

The Many 29s In Padres History

Since February 29th only rolls around once every four years, I figured I should commemorate it in one way or another so I thought I'd look into all of the 29s in Friars history. In the 43 years of their existence, the Padres have issued the number 29 in regular season play to 22 different players. Frankie Libran was the first, followed by Jack Baldschun later in the season as well as in 1970. Jay Franklin and Ramon Webster wore it in '71. Pat Corrales and Lowell Palmer had it in '73
and '74, respectively, and Gene Richards wore it in '77. Mickey Lolich took it over in '78 and kept it through '79. Danny Boone was next in '82, succeeded by Elias Sosa in '83. After a seven year absence, Fred McGriff was the first to wear it for more than two seasons, from '91 until being traded in '93. Archi Cianfrocco held it down the longest, four seasons, from '95 through '98. John Van Der Wal assumed it in 1999 and another Boone, this time Bret wore it in 2000. Javier Cordona and Kory DeHaan put it to service in '02 and Gary Bennett, Robert Fick, Chris Hammond and Josh Barfield wore it one season apiece from '03 through '06. Kevin Correia had it in '09 and '10 and Luis Martinez was the last. It was vacated in 1972, '75, '76, '80, '81 '84-'90, '94, 2001, '07 and '08.

Mustache Monday: McGriff & My Mistakes

Fred McGriff was a hell of a hitter for a lot of teams. However, I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only one who immediately thinks of his magnificent John Oatesish pornstache when they hear his name (the Tom Emansky ad rates a close second).

Like McGriff, I'm a multifaceted individual who is recognized mainly for one thing. In my case, it's not a glorious face farm but a historic pattern of fuckin' up. This post's pic is an excerpt from a sketch pad of mine I'd occasionally scribble thoughts down in as well. As you can see, at the time I was really into catching nods. For those who don't know, that's the desired result of doing heroin or a shitload of painkillers. There was a period of a few months last summer/ fall where that was my main reason for getting off the couch. I'm grateful that I've been off of all that for a couple months or so and that it turned out better than my coke phase (basically the entirety of 2009) in that I didn't end up selling it and getting a gun shoved in my face. For now, I'm free of all that and I never get the desire to go cop but I wonder how much lower I can go if I ever stray back into that sort of thing. I don't see it happening- but, then again, who does? It's kind of scary...