2003 Richie Ashburn cards

I recently acquired a few 2003 Richie Ashburn cards to add to the several I had. I thought I'd show them off.

Richie Ashburn was always one of my favorite baseball players even though I don't think I ever actually saw him play. I was born in 1951, one year after the Phillies Whiz Kids went to the 1950 World Series with a young Ashburn. He was one of the best outfielders of the 1950s. He was traded to the Cubs in 1960. In 1962 he was the MVP of the 1962 Mets (quite an accomplishment I'm sure). He retired after that season. He was elected into the Hall of Fame with his good friend Mike Schmidt in 1995.

I know him best as the color man for the Phillies radio and television broadcasts. He started doing Phillies games soon after he retired and continued until, literally his dying day. He passed away in September 1997, in his hotel room, on the road with the Phillies. He was 73.

2003 Fleer Avant Hall of FrameThe name of this insert set is a clever (I suppose) play on words. It celebrates Ashburn's election into the HOF. The card is embossed so that the frame around the photo is raised. The card is serial numbered to 299.

2003 Fleer Hardball Round Numbers
Another serial numbered card, this time to 1,000. This was a 14-card insert set to Fleer Hardball. The base cards for this set are round. There were several of card issues in 2003 which were round for some reason. I'm pretty sure it's the same photo as the Avant card.

2003 SP Legendary Cuts and SP Legendary Cuts Blue

I had the base card and just picked up the Blue parallel, numbered to 275.

2003 Studio Enshrinement
A 50-card inset set in 2003 Studio featuring HOF players. I also have the Schmidt card from this set. The set is numbered to 750.

2003 Topps Heritage Flashbacks
I don't have too many cards from the 2003 Topps Heritage set. Flash Backs is an annual insert set in Heritage.

2003 Upper Deck Classic Portraits Baseball Royalty
This card is serial numbered to 1200. It is very thick and made made from multiple layers. The top layers are die cut so that the photo is insert several layers down, thus giving a picture frame effect.

2003 Upper Deck Vintage
I bought a few packs of Upper Deck Vintage back in 2003 and managed to pull this card from a pack. The photo sure looks familiar.

Song of the Week - No Myth by Michael Penn

I have 7,531 songs on iTunes. This is one of them.

Back in 1989, I was mostly listening to college radio and this song was played a lot. It was also a big top 40 hit as well. I remember that I bought a cassette single of the song, I think the only single in that format that I ever bought. Recently, I found a copy of Penn's debut album, March from which this song comes. It's a pretty good CD. Unfortunately, Penn was pretty much a one hit wonder. His subsequent releases did not do well. Two things I learned from reading his Wikipedia entry. He is Sean Penn's brother and he's married to Aiemee Mann. I found 3 videos of him performing the song live in 1989. I picked the Dave Letterman performance rather than the Arsineo Hall or MTV Unplugged versions because it's a trip to see Letterman with more hair.

Package from across the sea

Every once in awhile I get a package of cards from John at The Pursuit of 80's(ness). This time it was a mess of Astros. John has a knack of being able to find a random selection of cards, most of which I need. Luckily I've been collecting Red Sox cards for him all year and by the time this post appears they should be in the mail. Here are some highlights of what John sent.


1995 Score Gold RushGold Rush was a parallel to the Score base set. Upper deck was known for publishing multiple exposure cards like this but I never saw a Score card using the technique. The guy sliding into second base is Mark Parent of the Cubs. He only appeared in 44 games for the Cubs in 1994 so without too much trouble I could probably figure out not only what game this was from but which out in the game it was. This next card wasn't sent by John but I wonder if it is a continuation of the same play. It's a 1995 Pinnacle Artist's Proof. It's clearly a Cub that Biggio is leaping over.
2001 E-X
Published by Fleer, previous years of E-X were made of clear plastic. This card is a composite card. The front is plastic with a cardboard backing.

2002 Upper Deck 40-Man
For a couple of years in the early 2000s, both Topps (with Topps Total) and Upper Deck produced sets which tried to capture all the players a team had under major league contract. They were 1,000+ card sets. I never cared much for either brand so I don't have many of them. I never saw this particular subset from Upper Deck 40-Man.

2004 Flair
Another Fleer product. This was one of Fleer's upper end products. Always kind of pricey so I didn't buy much of it. I didn't have any Astros from this set. If you're only going to have one Astro from a set it mights as will be Jeff Bagwell.

2007 Turkey Red
I bought a few blasters of this but I had very few Astros. And I didn't have Oswalt, one of my favorite Astros.

2007 Upper Deck Goudey
I only had one Astro from this set and it wasn't Biggio. Biggio retired after the 2007 season and I'm interested in collecting his 2007 cards.

2009 Topps Attax Gold Starter Pack Exclusive
These were distributed 1 per starter pack of Topps Attax. I'd bought the one and only started pack I was going to buy so this card is appreciated. With fewer sets being produced these days the number of veteran cards has been drastically reduced. There have been only 88 Nolan Ryan cards produced this year. In 2005 (just to pick a year at random) there were 2, 597.

Thanks again John!

2009 Topps 3rd Basemen Cards

Continuing with my review of 2009 Topps base cards by position. Today, it's third basemen. I have 33 cards with players identified as playing 4rd base. 17 are fielding, 10 are batting and 6 are on base. Unfortunately, none of the cards are real interesting.Ronnie Belliard taking a swing. I included this because the angle is different from what is usually seen.
Here's Andy LaRoche talking with, I believe, his former teammate Russell Martin of the Dodgers. Discussing dinner plans perhaps.
Omar Infante bunting. You don't see too many players bunting in baseball cards and most of those are pitchers.
Evan Longoria tripping over a gold cup someone carelessly left in the base path.
Edwin Encarnacion coming in from the dark like the hounds of hell are after him.
Freddy Sandoval making a desperate throw to someone. This photo is puzzling to me. It looks more like he's throwing to the pitcher covering at first. Sandoval only played one inning at 1st base in 2008 and he had no fielding chances. He played a full 9-inning game at third, his only other playing time. He had 3 assists in that game so this must be one of them.
Willy Aybar with a special guest appearance by Derek Jeter.

1996 Bowman Phillies

In my opinion, 1996 Bowman was the last really good Bowman design. I did a full review of the design here, so I'll just concentrate on the players. Since Bowman has billed itself as the "Home of the Rookie Card" for many years, it's not a surprise that the 15 Phillies from the set are mostly rookies and minor league players (13 of the 15).

Remember that the Phillies had gone to the World Series in 1993. Their record for the next 4 years was:

1994: 54-61
1995: 69-75
1996: 67-95
1997: 68-98

They were not a good team. And based on what was coming from their minor league system (as evidenced by these Bowman cards), help was a few years in coming.

Jefferies was in the 2nd year of an $18 million contract with the Phillies. That was pretty big money for that time. Phillies fans never thought he was worth that kind of money and he was never real popular. He was traded in September 1998 to the Angels for Doug Nickle. Maybe the Angels thought Jefferies would be a help in their stretch drive. He hit .347 with 10 ribs in 19 games for the Angels so maybe he was. But they still finished 3 games out.
Lenny Dykstra was at the end of his career in 1996. He had season (and it turned out career) ending back surgery early in the season.
At one time this was a key card in the set but it hasn't held value. Rolen was the Phillies 2nd round draft pick in 1993 and made his debut in 1995. He was Rookie of the Year in 1996. He was a pretty good player with the Phillies and then for 2 years with the Cardinals, but his production has fallen off recently. It's hard to believe he's been around for 14 years. He and Marlon Anderson the only Phillies in the set who is still playing.
And speaking of Marlon Anderson. He was the Phillies #2 pick in 1995 and made his debut with the Phillies in 1998. He's a career .265 hitter and although he played 2nd base with the Phillies he's played just about every other position since he left the Phillies in 2003. He's been with the Mets for the past 3 years.
Wayne Gomes was the Phillies 1st round pick in 2003 and made his debut in 1997. Although he mostly started in the minor leagues he was strictly a reliever in the majors. His best year was 1999 when he had 19 saves. He ended his career in Boston in 2002.
Wendell Magee was the Phillies 12 round draft pick in 1994 and made his debut in 1996. In 4 years with the Phillies and another 3 years with the Tigers he was never more than a utility outfielder.
Ryan Nye, the Phillies 2nd round pick in 1994, made two starts for the Phillies in 1997 and one relief appearance in 1998 and that was it. He did hang around the Phillies minor league system until 2000.
Bobby Estalella was the Phillies 23rd round pick in 1992. He was never a full time player with the Phillies from 1996-1999. He did play 106 games with the Giants in 2000. On the back of this card it says "Nutrrition nut who carries a wok on road trips...Has gone from soft and overweight to lowest body fat in Phillies' organization". In the 2007 Mitchell report he was called "the poster boy for chemicals". It didn't seem to help his career any.
A 33rd round draft pick in 1993, Kevin Sefcik was a utility infielder for the Phillies from 1995-2000 and then for a year with the Rockies in 2000. He had two good years with the Phillies in 1998-1999, playing regularly and hitting .314 in 104 games in 1998.
My recollection is that Reggie Taylor was supposed to be the late 1990's version of Ryan Howard. He was a first round pick by the Phillies in 1995. He only played 14 games for the Phillies in 2000-2001 where he did nothing. The Phillies traded him in 2002 to the Reds for Hector Mercado. He was a starter for the Reds for 2 years but still didn't hit much. He's bounced around in a number of minor league systems since then and is now playing in Mexico.
Rich Hunter was 3-7 for the 1996 Phillies and went back to the minors until 2000.
Another disappointing 1st round draft pick, Dave Coggin was 10-12 in 3 seasons for the Phillies (2000-2002). He remained in the minors until 2007.
David Doster appeared in 39 games for the Phillies in 1996 and in 99 games in 1999. He hit .233 with 4 home runs.
Mike Grace was 16-16 in 40 starts for the Phillies in 1995-1999.
Matt Beech was 8-22 in 53 starts for the Phillies in 1996-1998.

2009 Allen & Ginter

I must be the last blogger to post 2009 Allen & Ginter cards. After fruitless weeks of waiting for a local big box store to get some blasters (are there 2009 A&G blasters?), I finally broke down and bought a hobby box on eBay. Yesterday I saw my first A&G locally, one of the Wal Marts near me has some loose packs. Hopefully y'all can stand to see a few more A&G cards. I'm gust going to hit the high points.The box topper was this Howard N43 card. This was a good start.
I got a few Phillies but Oswalt is the only Astro I got in the box.
One of the great things about your team winning the World Series is that there are some great baseball cards of your team the next year, like this Highlights Sketch card of Brad Lidge.
This was quite a surprise, a framed silk card of Albert Pujols numbered 1 of 10. I'd never seen one of these before. This was in addition to the three autos or relics the box was supposed to have.
Here's one of the relics. You can't go wrong with Ichiro. I also got a Jermaine Dye bat.
Here is the auto I got. This guy is apparently a winner on the "Survivor" TV show. I show I never watch. I'm not real happy with this card.
Here's a mini Vincent Van Gogh, looking to be about 12 years old.
There were 3 black bordered minis, including Geronimo.
This is a mini no-number card. I'd gotten one of these in a previous year. This year the cards are hand serial numbered.
My daughter was happy to see I got the Unicorn card.
There were two National Heroes cards, including El Cid.
And finally, I got two of the hoaxes cards. Being a big science fiction fan, I happy with this The War of the Worlds card, although I take exception with this being called a hoax. Although many people were fooled by the broadcast, there was no intent of a hoax.

Song of the Week - Stand By Me

It's hard to believe but I don't have this song on iTunes.

This is a recording made of various musicians (many of the street musicians) from around the world blended together into one video. It's done very well.