2009 baseball card wrapup

It's January 2010. We have only a few weeks (maybe) until the 2010 cards start to appear. So it's time to wrap up the 2009 collecting year. I'm going to show some of my favorite cards of the year with some random observations and stats.


2009 Tristar Obek Tom Seaver (#39)2009 my be the year that we overdosed on retro cards. At least I did. I bought 4 backs of Obek in Walmart not knowing what it was. When I went back for more, there was no more. The set featured a retro design of former major league players with their minor league teams. Good concept and good execution.

A high point of the year for me was finding a baseball card store near my new job. I've not had easy access to a card store for many years. It may not be the best shop but the people there are knowledgeable and it's nice to talk about baseball cards with someone who knows what you're talking about.

2009 Topps Heritage Mayo Ichiro (#15)
OK, another retro card. This was an insert to Topps Heritage. I pulled two of these from a hobby box. Topps also produced a whole set of Mayo football cards. I don't do football cards.

I bought a number of hobby boxes this year which I don't normally do. In addition to Topps Heritage, I bought hobby boxes of Allen & Ginter, Topps 206, Upper Deck Goodwin Champions and Topps Update.

2009 Topps American Heritage Barak Obama (#126)
Although I generally dislike the trend to more non-baseball cards in baseball card sets, this set was a non-baseball card set which used baseball card designs. Topps used their base set designs from many years to make an enjoyable set. See Night Owl's post on the worst card in 2009 here. I voted for the Upper Deck Retrospective.

I acquired 3,272 2009 baseball cards. This is a bit down from 2008. In 2008, I acquired the most cards I had in years. I attribute this to getting involved in the baseball card blogosphere. Most of the 2009 cards I acquired by purchasing hobby boxes, blaster boxes and some loose packs. I also got a bunch of cards through trades with other bloggers and purchases of individual cards on eBay.

2009 Topps 2006 Cliff Lee (#46)
It was an exciting year to be a Phillies fan with them going to the World Series for the second year in a row. And Cliff Lee was a big part of that excitement. This is the only Cliff Lee card as a Phillie that I have. I don't think there are many Phillie Lee cards and there probably won't be many more since he's already not a Phillie. Although I was happy to pull this from the hobby box I bought, in general, Topps 206 is my biggest disappointment of the year. I really liked past Topps 206 sets and was looking forward to this. I don't think it is a very good set.

Another disappointment to me this year was the availability of cards in the local Target and WalMarts. New product was slow to appear and when it did appear it didn't last long.

2009 Topps WalMart Black Ken Griffey, Jr. (#30)
Speaking of WalMart, Topps sold alternative designs to their base set in Target and WalMart. WalMart cards had the background of the photos almost completely blacked out. The Target cards were on gray stock with an old-school logo. I thought it was a pretty clever ploy by Topps but I hope they don't do it again in 2010. I bought a lot more product from Topps then I planned to because of this, which, come to think of it is why they did this. So I'm sure they will do it again.

Overall, I acquired 8,436 baseball cards in 2009. The non-2009 cards were from various years picked up at the card shop, in repacks or on eBay. I also had all those late 1980s cards I got at the church bazaar.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Framed Silk Albert Pujols (1 of 10)
This may be the best pull I've ever had. I know I featured it before but I love this card so much I had to show it again.

My overall card collecting goal is to acquire one of each kind of card produced (which is another reason I was so thrilled with the Pujols card above, having to buy one of these on eBay would be expensive). For awhile in 2009, I concentrated in 1996 cards. There were 307 different kinds of cards (base sets, inserts and parallels) produced in 1996 and I had 167. I set a goal of getting up to 200 of them. I had 11 posts in 2009 featuring 1996 cards but I didn't finish the whole year. But I did get up to 202 1996 cards.

2009 Topps Mike Schmidt (#475b)
This seemed to be the year for alternate short-print cards. The regular Topps #475 features some other third baseman named Chipper Jones. I didn't pull this myself but got it in a trade with Dinged Corners.

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Championship Ryan Howard (#106b)
Another short print alternate design. Howard is featured on 106 and 106b. All of the 'b' cards have the moonlit background. As I mentioned, I bought a hobby box of this product and didn't get a single one of these short prints. Topps 206 had a similar thing going only the short prints, while featuring the same player had a completely different picture and different back.

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter N43 Ryan Howard (#RH)
These N43 cards are larger than regular cards and come one per hobby box. This is the first year I bought a hobby box of Allen & Ginter so this is my first N43. And, what luck, it was Ryan Howard, right out of the box.

If you've stuck it through this far, I've one more comment about 2009. In order for me to acquire one of each kind of card made, I need to know what's produced each year. I mainly rely on Beckett.com (mostly) and the card manufacturer's web sites. I also track how many cards are in each set. A few years ago, MLB put a limit on the number of sets each manufacturer could produce. They also declined to renew the license with Donruss and Fleer went out of business. This cut back on the amount of new product but through use of parallels and insert sets, the manufactures started increasing production. In 2008, by my count, there were about 141,000 different cards produced (counting every card by every player in every set). This was the most cards produced in several years. In 2009, production dropped significantly, to about 53,000 cards. My guess is that production will be even less next year with only Topps holding a license with MLB.

Trade with the Night Owl

I got an email out of the blue from The Night Owl the other week, offering me a trade, his Phillies and Astros for my Dodgers. He even sent a list of what he had. We reached a deal quickly. Here are my favorites from what he sent.

2004 SP Prospects Jim Thome (#44)I only had one card from this set, the Roy Oswalt. Now I have a Phillie to keep him company.

2009 Upper Decl Scott Eyre (#811)
Normally I wouldn't be too excited about a player like Scott Eyre. He was acquired by the Phillies in August 2008. Overall he was 5-3 for the Phillies in 2008 and 2009. He only pitched a few innings in the 2008 and 2009 playoffs but he pitched well. Ten years from now I'd be featuring him as a Phorgotten Phillie Phile. As near as I can tell there are only 3 cards featuring Eyre as a Phillie. One from 2008, this 2009 UD and the gold parallel to the UD. So this is the only Scott Eyre as a Phillie I have. From his Wikipedia entry, Eyre has retired. He also suffers from adult attention deficit disorder.

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Steve Carlton (# 124)
I bought a hobby box of Goodwin. It is probably my favorite set of the year from an appearance standpoint, even though I'm pretty tired of these retro themed cards. I already had the mini version of this card.

2009 Topps Chrome Refractor Auto Sergio Escalona (#239)
I had to give up a Dodger Allen & Ginter auto for this one. The card features an on-card auto and is numbered to 499. Escalona was 1-0 for the Phillies in 2009 in 14 appearances. Probably another Phorgotten Phillie some day.

1995 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle Roberto Alomar/Craig Biggio (#4)
This is the back of the card. Alomar is on the front. The back of this card is a lot more fancy than the front which was puzzling to me when I saw it. According to Beckett, this is a parallel to the rebular Team Pinnacle insert. This one has a Dufex back. The front is just foil. This card has so much foil on it that it will hold it's shape if you bend it slightly. Then you can flatten it back out. I never saw one of these before.

2000 Upper Deck Gold Reserve Scott Rolen (#237)
In addition to the Rolen, I also got Mike Jackson and Rico Brogna. I had never had one of these Gold Reserve cards.

In addition to these were the following:
2009 Topps Chrome Brad Lidge (#5)
2009 Topps Chrome Geoff Jenkins (#13)
2009 Topps Chrome Chase Utley (#62)
2009 Topps Chrome Miguel Tejada (#64)
2009 Topps Chrome Carlos Lee (#122)
2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom Hunter Pence (#22)
2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom deckle edge Chase Utley (#176)
2009 O-Pee-Chee Brian Moehler (#342)
2009 Goodwin Champions mini Jimmy Rollins (#215)
2009 Goodwin Champions mini black border Michael Bourn (#251)
2009 Uper Deck Icons Lance Berkman (#73)
2009 Upper Deck Xponential 3 Ryan Howard (#X3-HO)
2008 Topps Stadium Club Cole Hamels (#690
2006 Fleer Ryan Howard
2006 Topps Rookie of the Week Mike Schmidt (#615)
2001 Upper Deck Vintage Randy Wolf (#302)

I'm pretty happy with these. I sent out my cards to Greg last Saturday. I hope he is as happy with his end of the trade.

Thursday Night at the Movies - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

A special Sunday afternoon edition. I saw a trailer for this on Apple's web site a few months ago and thought it looked great. I hadn't seen any trailers in the theater. The Apple site does not have the trailer anymore but you can see a trailer here. It is Heath Ledger's last movie, in fact, he died while it was being made. For awhile, the movie was in limbo, but director Terry Gilliam got other actors involved and saved it.The review in the local paper was not good but my daughter and I wanted to see it so we did. It's pretty much a mess of a movie but an enjoyable mess. The 1,000 year old Dr. Parnassus long ago made a deal with the devil. In exchange for immortality, the doctor would give up his first born child at 16 years of age. It's three days until is daughter turns 16 and Parnassus is in a panic.

Parnassus, his daughter, and a few other characters operate a run down little carnival with a magic mirror. Pass through the mirror into the land of your imagination. Tony (played by Heath Ledger) is saved by the cast when they find him hanging by his neck on the underside of a bridge. Apparently, most of Ledger's scenes on this side of the magic mirror were filmed before he died. Gilliam used Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrel to play Tony on the other side of the mirror. It isn't explained why only Tony has a different face when he goes through the mirror, but that's a pretty minor point if you can accept everything else that happens through the mirror.

This is very much a Terry Gilliam film. If you didn't like his other films (I'm thinking Brazil and The Time Bandits) you probably won't like this either.

Song of the Week - This Wheel's On Fire by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity

I have 8,339 songs in iTunes. This is one of them.

This is a group that I really like but I think is pretty obscure. They were a British band from the late '60's. "This Wheel's On Fire" went to #5 on the British charts but didn't get much attention in the States. I'm not sure how I even know of them except that they probably got air play on the experimental FM stations in Philadelphia at the time (I'm thinking especially of WMMR). The song and the video pretty much represents British psychedelic music. When I went looking for this I was surprised that there were a number of their songs available including their remake of the Donovan classic "Season of the Witch", another pretty trippy video which looks like it came from the same session that produced the "Wheel's On Fire" video.

Brian Auger is the guy on keyboards. Both he and Driscoll went on to be involved in the experimental jazz scene in England.

Two Cliff Walk Newport RI Postcards

The other rectangular pieces of cardboard that I collect are postcards. I mainly limit myself to two subjects, Drexel University (my alma mater) and Cliff Walk, Newport RI (my namesake). I haven't bought any new cards for awhile (too preoccupied with baseball cards), but I just acquired these two and I have 4 more coming. I thought I'd show these two as they represent my least favorite type of card and my most favorite type of card. You can click on the images to get a better look.

This first one is my least favorite type. It features a glossy color photograph on the front and it is unused. I'm not showing the back because it's not interesting. The seller claims that this card is from 1953 but I have no way of verifying that so I'll just take his word for it. I paid $4.20 including postage which is close to the upper range of what I'll pay for a card. I have several cards depicting this same scene, from various years. It's in pretty good shape, just the lower right hand corner showing some wear. I suppose if somebody went into the postcard grading business, the cards would be graded along the same lines as baseball cards. This second card is more what I like. It has a linen finish and the colors are vibrant. It has some corner wear but not too bad. Also the postmark has bleed through which is a common problem with this sort of card when it has been used.
Here's the back. It was mailed on August 12, 1937. It is addressed to Hi Kids, and it's from Marion. The handwriting is hard to read but she seems to be writing about going to all the stores in the area. Also it was hot but is better today. Pretty typical stuff for a vacation postcard. I love how it is addressed to Main Street, Dexter Maine. No house address. Cliff Walk, at this time was a refuge for rich people from New York and Boston, so it's interesting that she is visiting here from Maine.

Many of these postcards have a publisher and a manufacturer on the back. Although the cards were published by different companies, they were manufactured by the same company, the Curt Tiech Co., out of Chicago.

Mike Schmidt Squished Penny

A few days ago the Dinged Corners blog did a feature on squished pennies. Squished pennies, also called elongated coins, have been around for a long time, since 1893, according to this Wikipedia article. I've seen the machines around in various tourist places but I can't say I've had a burning desire to own any. That is until I saw this on the Dinged Corners blog.

That's right, a Mike Schmidt squished penny commemorating his 500th home run on April 18, 1987. This was being offered in an eBay auction. Wasting absolutely no time, I jumped on eBay and bid on this item. And I won it with no other bids for only $4.75 including shipping.

I sure wish I knew where this came from.

Thursday Night at the Movies - Avatar

A special Friday afternoon edition of Thursday Night at the Movies.

We've been trying to get out to see this since it opened. Finally, my wife, daughter and I saw it last Friday, on New Year's Day. It is absolutely fabulous. You should go and see it. There is nothing new to the story. The primitive underdogs, against great odds, overcome the ruthless colonial power with the help of several of the oppressors who have "gone native". The off-worlders are after a mineral only available on Pandora, called unobtainium, a nice little throw away joke. But the story made sense, even if you've seen it before, and the cliches were kept to the minimum.You've probably read all about the astonishing special effects. And astonishing they are. Weta and IML were heavily involved in making this movie. Every dollar they spent (and they spent a lot of them) is shown on the screen. But Hellboy II had a lot of great special effects as well, and it stunk. A good story, well told, with the effects, makes this one great movie.
I would guess that at least 80% of the running time (and it's a long movie, almost 3 hours), is effects shots. It must have been very hard on the actors. The forest world that director Cameron creates here is stunningly beautiful, even if the biology doesn't always hold together (it bothered me that some of the large land animals had 6 legs, but others didn't, a pretty minor quibble).
But it all looked so real. The main characters are 8 foot tall aliens with blue skin with phosphorescent dots. They have long tails and long pig tails which enable them to mind meld with the "horses" and flying dragon things. But it was so natural that you just accept it and get on with the story and the action (lots of great action set pieces).

We didn't see it in 3D because my wife gets motion sickness in 3D movies. If you've got that problem, stick with the 2D. There are some scenes which, even in 2D, were motion sickness inducing.