Song of the Week - Mombasa by Hans Zimmer

This is a live version of a piece of music from the movie "Inception". I love that movie and the music. "Mombasa" is played over the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio is being chased through the streets of, you guessed it, Mombasa.

Random Cards From My Collection #63

Card #29353
2008 SP Legendary Cuts #58 Roy Oswalt

Comments on the card/player: One of my favorite players who played for my two favorite teams, the Astros and the Phillies. I never bought much of this product because it was always pricey.
How/When acquired: I paid $0.50 at one of the very few Houston card shops in October 2009.

Card #8187
1991 Upper Deck #537 Pat Combs

Comments on the card/player: Packs of those early years of Upper Deck were always more expensive than other sets. Today repacks are loaded with them.
How/When acquired: No clue.

Card #22098
2003 Bowman Chrome #237 Edwin Jackson

Comments on the card/player: Edwin Jackson made his first start in 2003 on his 20th birthday. And he beat Randy Johnson.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.98/card for several packs of Bowman Chrome in August 2003.

Card #37212 
2011 Bowman Chrome Refractor #31 Shin-Soo Choo

Comments on the card/player: Choo was the MVP and best pitcher of the 2000 Junior Baseball World Championship won by his South Korean team. The Mariners signed him to a $1.35MM contract and turned him into an outfielder.
How/When acquired: Paid $1.00/card for 1 blaster box of Bowman Chrome in November 2011.

Card #40370
2011 Tri-Star Obak #86 Jonathan Singleton

Comments on the card/player: One of several minor league players the Phillies traded to the Astros in 2011 for Hunter Pence. Singleton made is major league debut with the Astros this season. In 60 games he's batting 0.193. The Astros must think highly of this guy since they have him signed through 2021.
How/When acquired: Paid $1.60/card for 5 Phillies cards in September 2011.

Card #46678
2014 Topps Allen & Ginter Natural Wonders #5 Door To Hell

Comments on the card/player: A natural gas fire that's been burning since 1971!  Why is there someone standing right next to it?
How/When acquired: Paid $0.50/card for 2 blasters and 3 rack-packs in July 2014.

Card #34922
2010 Topps #89 J. A. Happ

Comments on the card/player: 2010, the year that Topps made a radical change to the All-Star Rookie cup, but only on the base set.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.24 per card for 2 blasters in January 2010.

Card #5963
1990 Score #126 Tim Belcher

Comments on the card/player: In 1988, Score pioneered the use of a color photo on the card backs. They kept the same design, with some changes, through 1991.
How/When acquired: The only boxed set I ever bought when new.  I don't remember what I paid for it however.

Card #4109
1989 Donruss #227 Mark Langston

Comments on the card/player: In 1989, Langston was actually playing for the Expos. It was one of only 2 years of his 16-year career in the NL. He was 12-9 with the Expos.
How/When acquired: Acquired in a repack in 2007. There are always 1989 Donruss cards in repacks.

Card #13672
1995 Collector's Choice Silver #365 Lenny Dykstra

Comments on the card/player: Parallel cards were still a relatively new idea in 1995. Collector's Choice base cards had no facsimile signature. The Silver parallel had a facsimile signature in silver foil and the Gold parallel had one in gold foil. That's Jim Eisenreich with Dykstra on the back.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.60/card for 16-card Phillies set on eBay in October 2010.

2014 Panini Golden Age - Expanded Look Part 2

Here are some more cards from the hobby box of Panini Golden Age I recent bought.

Curt Flood #96

A 3-time All-Star and pretty good player whose career was completely overshadowed by his attempt to become a free agent rather than be traded to the Phillies in 1970.

Jimi Hendrix #105

A hero of my youth. Purple haze, man.

Haystacks Calhoun #107

This guy was a 640 pound wrestler. Yikes!

Cadillac Ranch #110

This is pretty interesting and by coincidence some relatives of mine just visited the place. If you don't know about it, here's the Wikipedia article.

Lee Majors (#127) and Farrah Fawcett (#131)

The set features several parings like this. Also included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Lindsey Wagner #128

Of course, Lindsey Wagner, The Bionic Woman, has some connection to Lee Majors as well. Couldn't they find a better photo of her?

Frederick Valentich #136

In my opinion, the weirdest subject for any card in the set. This guy was a pilot in Australia. One night he was out flying and radioed that he was being followed by a UFO. Then his radio went dead and he was never heard from again.

Nolan Ryan #147

Nolan Ryan in an A's uniform? According to the back of the card, this is Ryan during his Alvin High School Days.

Hank Williams, Sr. #149

35 Top 10 singles. I'm not a big country western fan but you can't go wrong with Hank Williams.

2014 Panini Golden Age - Expanded Look Part 1

I got a hobby box of Panini Golden Age and I'm finally through the base cards and minis. For those unfamiliar, Panini Golden Age is sort of like Topps Allen & Ginter and Upper Deck Goodwin Champions, except it's apparently not based on an old tobacco set. It's not primarily a baseball card set. It features all different sports plus celebrities, historical persons and places and things. I don't think that Panini Golden Age is as good as Allen & Ginter. For one thing, it doesn't feature any current players (especially baseball players due to licensing concerns). The design is much fussier than A&G as well. But I still like the set, enough to have bought a hobby box last year and this year.

Here are some of the more interesting base cards. Part 2 will be tomorrow. I'll show the inserts and hits later.

King Kelly #2

In the 1880s and 1890s Kelly was the real deal in baseball. He played for 16 seasons, 7 years with the White Sox. If I'm not mistaken, the first years of Topps A&G featured Kelly on the boxes and wrappers. He's wearing the 2nd weirdest hat on any of the cards in the box.

Harry Wright #4

Another big early innovator but more as a baseball executive and manager. He's got the weirdest hat. This is what I call a Wikipedia card, in that the photo comes from the Wikipedia article about the player. Goodwin Champions featured Wright a few years ago using the same photo.

John Pemberton #13

The guy who invented Coca-Cola while trying to find a cure for his morphine addiction (acquired when wounded in the Civil War). Another Wikipedia card with the image reversed.

Willis Carrier #17

Nothing particulary impressive about this card, other than the fact that he invented air conditioning, without which I wouldn't be living in the Houston area. In this year's set, the first 50 of each cards are called "Panini Golden Age First Fifty" and are serial numbered to 50. I pulled the First Fifty of this card as well as one of the base cards.

A nice gimmick. I suppose I have the 3rd one of this card that was printed.

Fatty Arbuckle #33

Arbuckle was one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era, signing a $1 million contract with Paramount in 1921. Late in 1921 he was accused of raping and accidentally killing an actress. The first 2 trials resulted in hung juries and he was acquitted in the 3rd trial. But as you might imagine, his career was toast. He died of a heart attack at age 46.

Fay Wray #45

You probably mostly remember Fay Wray as that woman hanging from King Kong's fingers. She had a career that spanned 57 years.

Eddie Gaedel #52

Signed by Bill Veeck to a contract in 1951, Gaedel is the only dwarf to play in American baseball. He made one plate appearance (8/19/51) and walked on 4 pitches. All the pitches were too high for Mr. Gaedel's 3 foot, 7 inch frame.

Tony Dow #71

Best know as Wally Cleaver from the "Leave it to Beaver" TV show. The set also has a card of the guy who played Eddie Haskell.

Northern Dancer #77

 Panini Golden Age loves horses and you can count on 5-6 horses and several jockeys in each set. Northern Dancer won 14 of 18 races in his 2-year career and then became "one of the most influential sires in Thoroughbred history".

Cast of "Lost in Space"
Billy Mumy #99

 

Angela Cartwright #98 Mini Hindu Brand Red Back 

Marta Kristen #100

There are probably other member of the cast as well.

2014 Leaf Autographed Baseball Edition

Leaf Trading Cards is owned by Bryan Gray, who is mainly known for his old company Razor Entertainment. Gray acquired the Leaf name in 2010 and shut down Razor. I've seen a couple of Leaf products on the shelves since then. To be clear, Leaf is completely separate from the Donruss brand (which is now owned by Panini) and, except perhaps for the logo, has no connection to Leaf cards of the 1990's and early 2000's. Leaf, of course, does not have a contract with Major League Baseball. I don't think it has a contract with the player's union either.

I saw this in Target the other day.

There is supposed to be an autographed baseball in the box. There are also an unknown number of "Leaf Autographed Baseball Edition" cards with the possibility of getting an autographed card.  The box wasn't very heavy, in fact it really didn't feel heavy enough for it to contain a real baseball.

Would  you buy this based on what I just told you? There is no other information on the box, including a price.

How about if I told you the box cost $39.99?

There might be a small group of players I'd be willing to spend $39.99 for an autographed ball but I'm not willing to spend that much on a pig in a poke.

Joel Youngblood's Feat

The Phillies announcers on today's Phillies-Mets game had an interesting trivia question.

What player had hits for two different teams, in two different cities, in the same day?  Somehow Jamie Moyer knew the answer:

I'll let Wikipedia tell the story:

On August 4, 1982, Youngblood became the only player in history to get hits for two different teams in two different cities on the same day. After Youngblood had driven in two runs with a single in the third inning for the Mets in an afternoon game at Wrigley field against the Chicago Cubs he was replaced in center field by Mookie Wilson, and traded to the Montreal Expos for a player to be named later. Youngblood rushed to Philadelpia in order to be with his new team, and hit a seventh-inning single. Interestingly, the two pitchers he hit safely against, Ferguson Jenkins of the Cubs and Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies, are both in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Song of the Week - Ship of Fools - The Doors

It isn't often that my love of baseball cards and my love of music intersect in anyway, but the other day, while I was scanning this card:

my iTunes library decided to play this song:



And that is how inspiration for a blog post is born.