2015 Maikel Franco Topps Gypsy Auto

After hitting .355 with the AAA Iron Pigs, the Phillies brought Franco up to the bigs as the starting 3rd baseman last Friday. Is it a coincidence that the Phillies have won 2 straight since he came up (4 straight in all)? Certainly.

I just happened to get this on-card auto on eBay last week. This is my second Franco auto. I hope this guy is the next Mike Schmidt.

The former 3rd baseman, Cody Acshe, was sent back to AAA to learn how to play left field. I don't know what that means for the Phillies current left fielder, Ben Revere, who's had a disappointing season so far.

Movie Review - Mad Max Fury Road

We went to see this last night, the opening night. We got to the theater about an hour before show time because we thought it would be crowded. We were the fist into the theater. The theater eventually got to be about 1/3 full. I predict a bad opening weekend.

Of the 120 minutes of this movie, I'd easily say that 100 minutes of it were car chases and running battles. If this is what you like about the Mad Max movies (and really, what more is there), then you'll love this movie. Is Tom Hardy a good replacement for Mel Gibson? Sure, it's not like there is any actual acting in the movie.

The action scenes are very well done. The action is relentless, from the opening Warner Bros. logo to the end credits. The dialog in the movie would take up, maybe 10 double-spaced typewritten pages. And some of that is grunts. In fact, Tom Hardy hardly more than grunts through the first half of the movie.

There is a plot, sort of. Charlize Theron is Imperator Furiosa. I was never clear if this was her name or her title. She's actually the main character in the movie. Max is just along for the ride. Fury is trying to escape The Citadel, where one crazy guy controls the water and the good looking women and the guns. Max, who is haunted by dreams and visions of those he couldn't help in the past, ends up helping her. The eventual lesson of the movie, if you can call it that, is that there's no place like home.

Do  you have questions like, how could civilizations degenerate so far since Max was a young man? In what appears to be a vast featureless desert, where do people find enough food and water to survive? Are there sufficient oil reserves in Australia to support this level of automotive activity? Where do all the bullets come from?  Forget all these questions, the chase is on!

The last real Mad Max movie, with Mel Gibson, was"Beyond Thunderdome". It was released in 1985. Of the three people with me in the theater (2 of my kids and one of their friends) only one of them was alive then, and he was only 1 year old.

2015 Bowman - Full Review

I gave a sneak peak of Bowman the other day. I bought 2 blasters and value pack. This yielded 193 cards, of which only 8 were duplicates. Let's review!

2015 Bowman #101 Greg Holland

This is possibly my favorite card of those I got. You hardly ever see cards featuring pitchers fielding and I don't ever remember seeing such a pitcher defensive play before. What a great photo.  Anyway, this card shows the various features. Notice the full-bleed printing around most of the card. The left side has the block with the players name and white corners. Team colors are used as highlights in various spots (the player's name block on the front an back, the lower corners on the back, even the card number).

Topps has apparently said that this would be a 2-series release although nothing on the packaging indicates this is a first series. The set is short, only 150 base cards, compared to 220 last year.

2015 Bowman #117 Mike Napoli

Mike Napoli with Cylon eye wear.

The last 30 cards in the set are labeled rookie cards.

2015 Bowman #149 Jake Lamb

As usual for Bowman there is the 150-card Prospects set.

2015 Bowman Prospects #20 Adrian Sampson

Note that they reversed the design for the Prospect cards. About half of the cards I got are labeled as "1st Bowman".

There are an astonishing number of parallel sets.

2015 Bowman Silver #61 Starlin Castro

 Note that the upper and lower left corners are not white, and the rest of the border is tinted. I wouldn't quite describe it as silver but that's what it's supposed to be. These are serial numbered to 499.

2015 Bowman Silver Ice #49 Jake Arrieta

I think this "Ice" holographic effect is pretty cool. The scan looks pretty cool as well but doesn't really look much like the actual card.

2015 Bowman Prospects Yellow #93 Justin Nicolino

The yellow parallels are only available for the Prospect cards. These come in the 3-pack value packs and are not serial numbered.  Notice that the full-bleed portion of the border is tinted yellow.

2015 Bowman Chrome Purple Refractors #133 Trey Ball

As usual Bowman also includes the Chrome versions of the Prospects cards. I pulled one of these, numbered to 250. For some reason, the Purple cards borders are colored all the way around, and in two tones.

The other parallels are Black (numbered to 1), Blue (150), Gold (50), Green (99), Orange (25), Purple (250), Red (5), Red Ice (5), Purple Ice and White Ice (1). Good luck!

2015 Bowman Prospects Autographs Silver Alex Balog

I did manage to pull an auto, and not just an auto, but the Silver (numbered to 499) version. I don't know who this guy is but I hope he's the next Nolan Ryan. The autos are on stickers.

Let's not forget the mini cards.

2015 Bowman The Farm's Finest Minis Maikel Franco

I think they are calling this effect "shimmer refractor". Every Phillies fan is all a-flutter waiting for this guy to be called up from the minors. Out of 193 cards this was 1 of only 3 Phillies cards. I got no Astros at all.

These come in several flavors. I pulled a green one, numbered to 99.

2015 Bowman The Farm's Finest Minis Green Shimmer Refractor Clint Frazier

1971 O-Pee-Chee

I'm pretty familiar with O-Pee-Chee cards from the 1980s and early 1990s. If you don't know, OPC was a Canadian company that produced Topps cards in Canada. The sets were generally the same as the Topps set each year, except that the OPC cards often had the O-Pee-Chee logo and English and French on the backs. I'm much less familiar with OPC in the 1970s.

I went looking for 1971 O-Pee-Chee Phillies cards on eBay. I was hoping to find a team set but the cards were being sold individually and some were pricey (more expensive than then equivalent Topps cards. I believe they are considerably rarer that Topps which would account for the higher price.  I decided to get one now and wait awhile for the rest.

1971 O-Pee-Chee #49 Don Money

As a comparison, here's Money's 1971 Topps card.

There is literally no difference between them, except for the centering

Here are the backs.

The backs are not the same. I've always liked 1971 because of the floating head in a box on the back. O-Pee-Chee puts the floating head in a star-burst in the center. I like that more. The O-Pee-Chee color is also more attractive. All the text from the Topps card is on the O-Pee-Chee in English on the right and French on the left.

I also acquired a 1976 Phillies O-Pee-Chee card which I'll share a little later.  I'm gonna have to get some more of these.

What surprised me is that no where on the card does it reference "O-Pee-Chee" or "OPC". The copyright line on the O-Pee-Chee card says T.C.G (Topps Chewing Gum) just like the Topps card does.

Random Cards From My Collection #72

Card #45759
2014 Bowman #115 Troy Tulowitzki

Comments on the card/player: I still haven't decided if I like the weird roots or veins on this Bowman design.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.28/card for a couple of blasters from Walmart in May 2014.

Card #8824
1994 Stadium Club #503 Kim Batiste

Comments on the card/player: The front of this card could be used for a Christmas ornament.
How/When acquired: I don't know but I probably got it new.

Card #43884
1990 Fleer #204 Dwight Gooden

Comments on the card/player: DID YOU KNOW? Only the ninth teenager to play for the Mets. According to baseball-reference.com he was 19.143 years old on his debut, just barely a teenager.
How/When acquired: I don't know but I probably got it new.

Card #47229
2014 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions #52

Comments on the card/player: Probably my least favorite year for Goodwin Champions. The Bus had a 10-year career as a running back starting in 1993. He was just elected to the Hall of Fame.
How/When acquired: Paid $.45/card for two blasters from Target in August 2014.

Card #11925
1987 Topps #21 Mark Davis

Comments on the card/player: Mark was the Phillies #1 draft pick in 1979. He played for the Phillies, Giants, Padres, Royals, Braves, Phillies again, Padres again and Brewers in his 15-year career.
How/When acquired: Don't know

Card #43947
2006 Bowman Chrome Refractors #34 Kevin Youkilis

Comments on the card/player: Youk, not very popular in New York, signed a $12,000,000 with the Yankees for the 2013 season. Back surgery in June put him out for the season, which I'm sure made him even less popular. He signed a $4,000,000 contract to play in Japan for the 2014 season but only played 21 games before plantar fasciitis ended his season. He announced is retirement in October 2014.
How/When acquired: Paid $1 at a card show in December 2013.

Card #37613
1991 Upper Deck #508 Dave Gallagher

Comments on the card/player: The orientation of the back photo in this set sometimes yielded weird results.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.04 for 100-card Fairfield repack in March 2013.

Card #3831
1994 Triple Play Nicknames #7 Mark McGwire

Comments on the card/player: And now you know why the A's sometimes use an elephant.
How/When acquired: Don't know but I probably got it new. Yes, I was buying Triple Play in 1994.

Card #26671
2011 Topps Gypsy Queen #266 Daric Barton

Comments on the card/player: The debut year for Gypsy Queen. Topps should have made it a one-off.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.44/card for 4 rack packs of Topps Gypsy Queen in May 2011.

Card #3449
1992 Stadium Club Dome #181 Kevin Stocker

Comments on the card/player: Although copyrighted in 1991, this 100-card set came out well into 1992. It came packaged as a factory set in a plastic model of the Toronto SkyDome, now called the Rogers Stadium, where the 1991 All-Star game had been played. It was pretty rare. 
How/When acquired: Don't know, but probably at a card shop or flea market later in the 1990s.

2015 Bowman - 1st Card from the Box

Since I generally like Bowman, especially the last few years, I bought two blasters and a value pack (to get the yellow parallel cards). Here's the first card out of the first pack I opened.

2015 Bowman #108 Aramis Ramirez

Some changes this year compared to the past 3 years. The design has less of the organic flowing-curves. The player name has been moved to a horizontal panel in silver foil on background team color. The team logo is moved from the front center to the left edge, in silver foil. But the big change is in the borders. For most of the way around the card, the photograph extends beyond the inner border right to the edge of the card. The first full-bleed print card from Bowman since 1994. I think I like it.

The back is virtually unchanged from the past 3 years. Just some border changes.

More to come.

The case of the disappearing logo

I've posted some pairs of cards recently where the same play is depicted on different cards. Here's what appears to be another such pair from 2000.

The first card is 2000 Topps. It shows Barry Larkin apparently on the first half of a double play. He's leaped over the sliding runner and thrown the ball to first.

The second card is 2000 Topps Stadium Club. It looks like it's an instant after the Topps photo. Larkin is descending and completing his follow through. The runner appears to be starting to sit up after his slide. I don't know who the Giant player is but it's clearly the same guy on both cards. The angle of both photos is nearly the same. If you look closely, Larkin appears to have dirt or mud caked on his right show in both photos.

So it this is the same play, what happened to the MLB logo on the center field fence?