Random Cards From My Collection #79

Card #5628
2001 Topps Combos #3 Cal Ripken, Jr. and Brooks Robinson

Comments on the card/player: Two great players on one card. How can  you go wrong? This was a 20-card insert set in 2001 Topps. It brings to mind player combo cards from the early years of Topps.
How/When acquired: I paid $0.15/card for a box of Topps in 2001.

Card #19407
2010 Topps #351 Koji Uehara

Comments on the card/player: Two cards, three Orioles. This was Uehara's last full season with the Orioles, when he had 13 saves. He's with the Red Sox now and has 20+ saves a year for them since 2013. And he was an All-Star in 2014.
How/When acquired: I paid $0.19/card for packs of Series 2 Topps in 2001.

Card #24067
2004 Topps Total #170 Roy Oswalt

Comments on the card/player: This Topps set promised to have every player on each team's 40-man roster. The result, an unattractive 880-card set. If that doesn't sound like enough cards, many cards had 2 players on them.
How/When acquired: I paid $0.10/card for a for packs of Topps Total in August 2004. At least they were cheap.

Card #20043
1990 Donruss #278 Von Hayes

Comments on the card/player: Do you like the color red? Then 1990 Donruss is for you. In my opinion, the continuance of several years of weird Donruss designs, which will finally end with 1992 Donruss.
How/When acquired: I don't know.

Card #10215
2008 Upper Deck Star Quest #10 Chipper Jones

Comments on the card/player: Lucky us, we had one of these horrible cards in the last random card post.
How/When acquired: I paid $0.25/card for blasters of Upper Deck in 2008. 25 cents for this junk! At least it's Chipper Jones.

Card #32527
2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #220 Joey Votto

Comments on the card/player: The second year for Gypsy Queen which I liked quite a lot in 2011. I didn't like this as much and I like it less and less each year.
How/When acquired: I paid $0.43/card for a hobby box of Gypsy Queen in April 2012.

Card #54371
2015 Topps Update #189 Adam Warren

Comments on the card/player: I remember everyone, including me, being pretty excited about the 2015 Topps design early in the year. But I was getting burnt out on the design by about half-way through this enormous 400-card update set.
How/When acquired: I aid $0.12/card for a hand-collated set of Topps Update plus inserts from eBay in October 2015.

Card #38735
1988 Donruss #480 John Morris

Comments on the card/player: Hey, another in the string of weird Donruss designs. I have more than half of this 660 card set despite never buying a single pack of it.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.04/card for 100-card Fairfield Repack in arch 2013. Repack fodder, that's why I have so much of this.

Card #32440
2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Future Stars #FS-EH Eric Hosmer

Comments on the card/player: Hosmer was 3rd in the ROY voting in 2011 and he's had a pretty good career since, gathering 3 Gold Gloves and a World Series ring along the way.
How/When acquired: In addition to buying a hobby box of this product as mentioned above, I also bought a rack pack and a blaster box for $0.46/card, which is where I pulled this card.

David Bowie (1947-2016)

It was with a lot of sorrow when I woke up Monday morning to learn that David Bowie had died at 69. If I had to make a list whose overall body of work I could not do without, David Bowie would be in the top 5.  I don't own every David Bowie album and I really lost track of him during his Tin Man years but I have his 2013 release and will buy his latest.

"Hunky Dory" was released on December 17, 1971. I had just turned 20 and was about to spend my first extended period of time away from home. I had a co-op job through Drexel University for 6 months on Long Island starting on January 2, 1972. This was one of the few albums I took with me and I played it constantly. It was not Bowie's first album but it's the first one that drew much attention. Picking my favorite song from most of these albums is going to be tough, but I'm going with "Life on Mars" for this one.

This is probably the 2nd Bowie album I bought. "Space Oddity" is a 1972 release of his November 4, 1969 album "David Bowie", renamed after the lead track which had been a minor hit in 1969, especially in Great Britain. After the success of "Hunky Dory" RCA rushed out several older Bowie albums with new packaging. My favorite song is not the title track, but "Janine".

"The Man Who Sold The World" had originally been released on November 4, 1970. I have this repackaged version that came out in 1972. In just three albums, Bowie had shown a great variety of styles, from the prog rock sensibilities of "Space Oddity", hard driving rock in "The Man Who Sold The World" to more of a folk-rock sound in "Hunky Dory". Although each album was different, I loved them all. For my favorite track I'm going with "All The Madman", just edging out the title track.

"The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars" released on June 16, 1972, just blew me away at the time. Over 40 years later, I can still listen to any track on this album without tiring of it. Hard to pick just one track, but I'm going with the first track "Five Years".

Reading about "Alladin Sane" (4/13/73) on Wikipedia I see that opinions on this album are mixed. But you know, back then, I wasn't reading reviews to decide what to buy. It was a new Bowie album so I bought it. To me, it's very much like Ziggy Stardust, part 2.  Favorite track, without a doubt "Panic in Detroit".

"Diamond Dogs" (5/24/74), is a post-apocalyptic concept album that managed to grab me twice, once as rock and roll, and again as science fiction. The title track is great but for shear drama and post-apocalyptic bleakness, I like "The Candidate"

"Young Americans" (3/7/75) is almost a repudiation of his entire career so far. Recored at the famed Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, he goes full blue-eyed soul here. But Bowie's genius is, that what ever music style he tries, he gets it right. One of my other top artists is Neil Young, who has had just as many musical twists to his career as Bowie. The title track is my favorite.

With "Station To Station" (1/23/76) Bowie moves into his "Thin White Duke" era, an era he is lucky to have survived. It's a very strong album, especially considering that he was taking so much cocaine at the time that he later said he didn't recall anything about making the album. The title track, all 10 minutes and 14 seconds of it is one of my all time favorite Bowie songs. The cover is a still from the movie that Bowie made with director Nicholas Roeg "The Man Who Fell To Earth".

"Low" (1/14/77) begins the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" in collaboration with electronic musician Brian Eno. Compared to his previous work, there is a lot of difficult music here, not so nearly as accessible as his earlier work. He himself was going through a difficult time, trying to kick his cocaine habit. "Always Crashing in the Same Car" is my favorite from this record.

Although I liked "Low" and I own "Heroes" (10/14/77) I was getting a bit tired of Bowie at this time in my life. I didn't even buy "Lodger" the third in the Berlin Trilogy. Also, I wasn't listening to music as home as much as I used to so I'm not as familiar with the tracks here. Only the title track made much of an impression on me. I have the album in iTunes now along with another 16,000 songs, so I hear something from it once in awhile.

I got married in 1980 and had less time for music. I didn't get a copy of "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)" (9/12/80) until 2010. Much more accessible music than The Berlin Trilogy. The stand out track for me is "Ashes to Ashes".

"Let's Dance" (4/14/83) was the fist Bowie album since "Station To Station" to get me excited. It was also Bowie's biggest success in years, selling 7 million copies, actually making it his best selling album. At the time I almost felt like a sell-out for liking it because it was so popular but I'd been a fan for long time by then and not just somebody jumping on the bandwagon. He'd had a hit with "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" as a single the previous year, which is why I probably bought the album, but I think my favorite is "China Girl".

It may be a soundtrack album but "Labyrinth" is still a Bowie album. My wife and I saw the movie in theaters and love it. Davie Bowie and Jim Henson? Are you kidding me? "Dance Magic Dance" is the best song. Look for the video on YouTube.

I'm afraid that Bowie's next 7 studio albums made no impression on me at all.

Released 3/8/13, "The Next Day" was Bowie's first release of new material in 13 years. It's a pretty solid rock and rock and roll album but nothing really grabs me like his earlier material. I don't mean that in a negative way. This was released over 40 years after "Hunky Dory". I've heard a lot of music since then. It's hard for anything to really grab me anymore.

I don't know anything about is just released album, "Blackstar" although I've seen the video for "Lazarus" and it's pretty disturbing considering his recent demise.

This has been a sad undertaking but as I'm writing this "Lady Stardust" is playing on iTunes cheering me up.

Repack Madness 2015 - Part 1

I bought a few repacks this year but didn't get too many of them open until the end of the year. So late November into December was a time of opening repacks. I'm pretty happy if I need 50% of the cards I get in a repack. I figure that the per card price is low and the cards I don't want can be trade bait for later. And by card I need, I pretty much mean any card I don't already have.

I bought 2 repacks on 3/22/15. This first one, from Fairmount, had some packs and some loose cards amounting to 89 cards. I needed 46 of them for a 51.6% keep rate. Above target!  Now were any of these cards any good?

1987 Hygrade All-Time Greats Grover Alexander

I had 2 cards from this 100-card set. I had a heck of a time trying to figure out what these were when I got the first one. The cards are not numbered and do not have a manufacturer's name. They were made by Hygrade Food Products is located in Detroit and got their start by supplying hot dogs to the Tigers. I remember Hygrade Franks as a kid. Today they are known for Ball Park Franks. I imagine this set came in packs of hot dogs or were available through mail order. tradingcardsdb.com has a full checklist. As a bonus (for me) Alexander was a Phillie from 1911 to 1917.

1987 Hygrade All-Time Johnny Bench

Now I have four.

Update: So much for the hot dog theory. Hygrade was a company that sold baseball card price guides in the late 1980s. See this post http://wrigleywax.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-from-hygrade.html. And thanks to blogger Laurens.

1990 Topps Hills Hit Men #32 Cal Ripken, Jr.

Another food-related product I don't know too much about. I believe this glossy 33-card set was issued by Topps for Hills Brother's Coffee. 33 cards is the general size of a set that came packaged like playing cards. By coincidence, both Hygrade and Hills Bros are owned by Sara Lee these days.

1991 Upper Deck #91 Tom Pagnozzi

Pretty good bunt photo. Someday I will own 1990, 1991 and 1992 (and maybe 1989) Upper Deck sets, acquired mostly from repacks. I pulled 2 other '91s plus a checklist from 1990 UD.

1991 Bowman #410 "Shot Heard Round The World"

1991 Bowman was an early example of a set to employ gold stamping, although they only used it on certain cards, like for MVPs and Rookies. It was also unusual to put gold stamping on a non-glossy card. It still is unusual today.

1992 Megacards Ruth #38 Babe Ruth

These were issued from 1992 through 1995, I don't have enough of them to tell, but I imagine they cover Ruth's career from the early years to the end. The card is glossy and printed a nice sturdy white card stock.

A large portion of the cards were recent packs.

2013 Topps Archives 1983 All-Stars Cal Ripken, Jr.

2 Ripken cards in the package. Not too bad.

2014 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Gold #97 Sparky Anderson

I really like to get cards for my Reference Albums. I didn't even know these existed. Neither Beckett.com nor baseballcardpedia.com mention them. I finally found them in tradingcarddb.com. They have the checklist but images for only 4 cards from the 350-card set (now including this Anderson card). Does that mean they are rare?

Jeff Bagwell - Almost Hall of Famer

Jeff Bagwell became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2011. A guy has to get 75% of the votes to get elected. Since 2011 Bagwell has received 41.7%, 56.0%, 29.6%, 54.3%, 55.7% and this year a big jump to 71.6%. Only 15 votes shy. Maybe next year. I was primed to do a tribute to Jeff if he was elected but I'm going to do it anyway. He played 15 seasons. Here are what I consider his best card (at least that I have) from each year of his career.

1991 Stadium Club #388 (I have 12 cards from 1991)

1992 Stadium Club #330 (I have 32 cards from 1992)

1993 Upper Deck Iooss Collection #2 (I have 24 cards from 1992)

1994 Donruss #365 (I have 23 cards from 1994)

1995 Leaf Great Gloves #1 (43 cards)

1996 Leaf Picture Perfect #9 (36 cards)

1997 Stadium Club Firebrand #1 (27 cards)

1998 Sports Illustrated #59 (41 cards)

1999 Ultra #207 (25 cards)

2000 Stadium Club #167 (26 cards)

2001 Fleer Tradition #243 (34 cards)

2002 Topps 206 Relics #TR-JB (37 cards)

2002 Fleer Hot Prospects MBL Hot Tandoms #JB-MP

Here's a second card from 2002 because it's a dual relic card with Mike Piazza. Congratulations to Piazza for overcoming the steroid taint in his 4th year of eligibility. 

2003 Topps 205 #204a (39 cards)

2004 Diamond Kings #84 (49 cards)

2005 Flair Diamond Cuts Jersey Blue Foil #DC-JB (27 cards)

Bonus: favorite post-career card.

2015 Topps Update Rookie Sensations #13 (27 cards)