Another Mess Of Dubs

I did some well-overdue organizing the other day, sorting a few hundred cards I've gotten over the past couple of months and putting them where they belong. In the process I turned up a fair amount of duplicates I was previously unaware of. Like before, I'm going to post them here so Backstop, Underdog, and whoever else can claim whichever ones they need... That Eichelberger card above is one of my favorite cards ever, period. That huge chopstache he has going on, along with that uni- everything about it just clicks.

Don is the least known of the three Reynolds brothers in baseball. Larry is a player agent and I'm pretty sure you know about Harold... I'm not a big fan of '88 Fleer; it just seems so, um, disposable I guess. But any card of Goose Gossage is a good card so it all evens out.

Here are a few worthless cards from sets I like. You can't go wrong with '93 Upper Deck or mid-80s Topps.

It's worth noting that Topps got Cory Luebke's first name right after calling him Corey on his Gold Futures card. As for '90 Donruss, I consider it the kudzu of collecting. It's everywhere and you can't get rid of it.

More kudzu but this time it's Bip so you know it's going somewhere. Cedric Hunter doesn't have quite as much of an underground following but he is still kicking, signing with Cleveland in November. To date he has one Major League hit, a single in four at bats spread out over six games for the 2011 Padres.

Yep, more of 'em. Moving along...

Okay, that Whitson is the last one of those. I swear.

And finally, a few more slabs of junk wax from twenty-some years ago. I hope somebody has a use for some of these. If you're one of those somebodys, just let me know.

Part II: Return Of The Nick

Picking up where I left off with Part I, here are the other twenty-some cards sent by Nick from Dime Boxes. Of the ones above I'm especially fond of, uh, well, they're all pretty cool in their own right. Ruben Rivera cards always make me smile because I think of "the worst baserunning in the history of the game". Seriously, stop reading this and take 1:15 to watch that.
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Okay, you're back. That Perry card is pretty great, too. It's the only Ted Williams Card Co. card I have now; I had a bunch back when they came out but you know how that goes. Another company whose cards I was always a fan of is Pacific. This design is a pretty good representation of the sort of thing they brought to the table every year back then. I have the Joey and a couple of others from this set but that great sliding shot makes this one bonus-nice. I probably should have taken a better picture of that Interleague Showdown card but if making you squint is the worst thing I do today I'm going to call it a success. Sorry I'm lazy.

Ed Whitson and Bruce Hurst are two guys I don't go out of my way to collect but manage to have about a trillion cards apiece anyway. I actually didn't have either of these though so... nice! As for the Ausmus, that is some quality photography. Timing. It's everything. Also, it's weird seeing Joey Hamilton naked-faced. I always remember him with a big, round, David Wells-ish goatee on his big, round, David Wells-ish face.

In addition to the eight '84s I showed in Part I, Nick also sent along ten '83s. I'm pretty sure these are my first cards of Juan Bonilla and John "The Count" Montefusco. The Bonilla is my favorite of the batch because, well, you know how I feel about unsung second basemen.

Here are the other four of the aforementioned ten. I got really excited when I saw the Swisher. I have a card of him as a Cub but this is my first of him as a Friar. Not only is he Nick's dad, he is one of only four (hopefully soon to be five) West Virginia-born Padres. Can anybody name the other three? One's pretty obvious.

As luck would have it, very few of the cards he sent were ones I already had. In addition to one of the two Montefuscos above, only six cards are going on my ever-expanding doubles stack. I need to do an updated doubles post; it seems like the easiest way for Backstop and Underdog to let me know which ones I need to send their way. In addition to that OPC of Adrian Gonzalez, I have a bunch of non-double cards of him that I want rid of just because I don't collect people who say they "bleed Dodger blue".

These are the other three that will bring joy to another collector as I already have copies of them. And, yes, I still collect Mat Latos even though I assume he bleeds Reds red.

Wow, that was a lot of incredible cards! A huge thanks once again to Nick; I'm definitely going to have to package up my "Nick stack" and head to the post office in the very near future.

All Kinds Of Goodness (A Listia MegaPost)

Man, I have gotten soooo many cards from Listia. Not the past few weeks but that's a whole other story. I always- well, nearly always- would tend to take pictures of them almost right when I got them with the intent of posting them but we see how that turned out. So, I might as well show and tell about a slew of them so I can delete a bunch of pictures off of my lappy. Try not to get bored because I saved the best for last- and, trust me, it's worth the wait. It was worth the years of waiting it took me to get it.

First things first, up top are a few 2012 Topps I hadn't gotten yet. I already had the regular Logan but the Target Red Border was a nice addition.

Here are a couple of Geese. I didn't realize I already had the '88 Fleer when I bid for it but, as I recall, it was only 40 credits which equates to roughly one thin dime so I'm not complaining.

I had seen the card on the left before but never stumbled across it. On a side note, Mark Davis has got to be one of the most obscure Cy Young winners. Wait, that didn't sound right but I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. In other words, your casual fan would likely have never heard of him. On the right is a '95 Fleer. Dime Boxes' Nick always refers to it as the LSD set and for good reason. I remember at the time, the big deal was that they used a different design for each division. Amazingly, the NL West template was probably the tamest of the bunch. Eddie Williams is pictured here in his second of three tours of duty with the Padres.

I really like this Heritage issue of cult favorite Will Venable. Great smile, great card. I pictured it with a couple of actual '61 Topps cards. I actually got those on Listia as well; I've scored some pretty sweet vintage there and have started to post some of it over at NotPadres.

I've written about that Strom card before- well, kinda. Gotta love R.J.'s fro and that jersey. Don't gotta love Bobby V... Bleh.

Roberto Petagine had a long, successful career in Japan and even came back stateside in the mid-zeros but, again, that's a story for another time. It was hard to get a good picture of that Hermanson but you get the idea of what it does.

I have always really liked the '78 Topps design. A couple of these are doubles but they're all great. I spy with my little eye so much cool stuff in these eight cards. Two number one overall picks (Ivie and Almon), three mustaches, and two pairs of nice sideburns. There's a future Friars hitting coach in Merv Rettenmund and an early fan favorite in Gene Richards along with one of the most awesome names ever, Mike Champion. Also, why in the world is Richards choking up like that?

Here are a few of the many, many, many Gwynns I've picked up on Listia. I could, and very well may, do a megapost on just those. Or get back in the habit of doing "Tuesday's Tony Gwynn", "This Thursday's Gwynn" and stuff like that. I need to revive "Mustache Monday" too.

Wow, I'm not even halfway through my backlog of Listia picks so this officially just became Part I. But, I promised you a grand finale and this card won't disappoint. It's one I've wanted for yeeeeears and was beyond thrilled to get. It was part of a vintage bundle along with a 1970 Hoyt Wilhelm, a '73 Al Kaline, and others but was the only one I cared about.

IT'S THE COLONEL!!! Can you hang a star on that baby or what?!?! It's actually in remarkable condition for a 55 year old card. This is one I will absolutely not part with. Unless Jerry himself wants it but I don't see that happening. I already had a couple of '57 Topps cards but this was always the one I wanted to have. And now I do!

Well, that's that for now. There will be an inevitable Part II of this; I won't guarantee when but I'll try to make it soon. As always, thanks for reading; have a great Sunday!

Another Trade With All The Way To The Backstop

I just got done putting together a return package for Marcus of All The Way To The Backstop so I thought it was about time to do a post about the cards I got from him last weekend. There were so many good cards. Above is what appears to be the entire '86 Fleer team set- minus the Tony, the Garvey and the Hoyt, which I already had and sent the doubles of to Sam. If it isn't the entire team set, it's close enough.
I can never have enough Joey Cora cards. Duplicates, I don't care; I want them all. Marcus knows the way to my heart and included four- one I didn't have a copy of.
Speaking of him being in the know about who I'm all about, he sent these two Jedd Gyorko cards. Jedd, for those of you who don't know, is batting .355 in AAA and making the concept of trading Chase Headley a distinct possibility. I've been a fan of his since before the Padres drafted him in 2010- he was born and raised in West Virginia and played for WVU.
Yes, another Dave Staton card! I've added a few to the collection since the Sisterhood project began. On a side note, I've always liked those BP pullovers Lolich and Dade are shown rocking.
As much as I dislike Boch and his current employer, I still collect his cards as a Padre and that's a nice one I didn't have. I've always liked that 'Dream Team' Robbie Alomar card; I'm glad to get a new copy.
Lastly, here are a couple of current Padres. It's always good to pick up newer cards through trades as I rarely buy new packs. Thanks again to Marcus for the new Friars cards; I hope he likes what he's getting back.

Goose & Garvey

It's been a couple days since I posted anything so I thought I'd toss up a little scrap of filler to suffice until I have time to write a proper post in a few hours or so. Man, I love the unis from this era- those BP jerseys especially. Outside of that, there's not really much I have to say about this card right now that the back of it hasn't already said.

Mustache Monday: Totally The Goose

This is one of those times that happen every so often where I apologize for neglecting you and promise it'll never happen again. We both know the truth but both of you readers will be happy to know that I'm in my "on again" blogging mode for the moment and have a slew of new posts coming up.
Back during May as I was celebrating the wonder that is the May Beard, I had the idea of doing a "Mustache Monday" feature and promptly forgot about it as quickly as it had came to me. Well, I've churned out a few and set them to autopost the next few Mondays so this won't turn out as ill-fated as the "Tuesday's Trevor" idea which never really got off the ground- though I do have one set to go for tomorrow. Upcoming stache-rockers include Shane Mack, Gene Harris, Craig Lefferts, Chris James and of course Boch- both as a player and a manager.
Upcoming posts include one later today about Joey Cora, my mom and me (today's her birthday), a 2006 First Bowman Chrome Ernesto Frieri, the aforementioned Tuesday's Trevor, a Thursday Tony Gwynn and a little something about my love of camoflage. As always, I'm sincerely grateful for everybody that's reading this and I welcome your thoughts, criticism, and contributions. Sorry for my predictably unpredictable hiatus; thanks for being around when I finally came back. WG, I really sound like an alcoholic...

Another '86 Oddball

Commenter "Anonymous" (sweet user name, dude! It sounds all mysterious and shit) thought the oddball Rollie card was "a nice looking card", adding that "good design and the sweet 'stache gives it an old timey feel" and I wholeheartedly concur. While this promo (also from '86) features another sweet 'stache, it falls short in all other areas. I don't know which is more apparent- the two corporate logos or the logoless hat?