Song of the Week - A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request by Steve Goodman

By the shore's of old Lake Michigan
Where the "hawk wind" blows so cold
An old Cub fan lay dying
In his midnight hour that tolled
Round his bed, his friends had all gathered
They knew his time was short
And on his head they put this bright blue cap
From his all-time favorite sport
He told them, "Its late and its getting dark in here"
And I know its time to go
But before I leave the line-up
Boys, there's just one thing I'd like to know

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League

Told his friends "You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can"
That's what it says
"But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan"
The Cubs made me a criminal
Sent me down a wayward path
They stole my youth from me
(that's the truth)
I'd forsake my teachers
To go sit in the bleachers
In flagrant truancy

and then one thing led to another
and soon I'd discovered alcohol, gambling, dope
football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis
But what do you expect,
When you raise up a young boy's hopes
And then just crush 'em like so many paper beer cups.

Year after year after year
after year, after year, after year, after year, after year
'Til those hopes are just so much popcorn
for the pigeons beneath the 'L' tracks to eat
He said, "You know I'll never see Wrigley Field, anymore before my eternal rest
So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,
and I'll read you my last request
He said, "Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field
On some sunny weekend day (no lights)
Have the organ play the "National Anthem"
and then a little 'na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye'
Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin
and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every base
In all their holy wrath
Its a beautiful day for a funeral, Hey Ernie lets play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,
and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I'll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left-field wall
Will bid the bleacher bums ad?eu
And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue

The dying man's friends told him to cut it out
They said stop it that's an awful shame
He whispered, "Don't Cry, we'll meet by and by near the Heavenly Hall of Fame
He said, "I've got season's tickets to watch the Angels now,
So its just what I'm going to do
He said, "but you the living, you're stuck here with the Cubs,
So its me that feels sorry for you!"

And he said, "Ahh Play, play that lonesome losers tune,
That's the one I like the best"
And he closed his eyes, and slipped away
What we got is the Dying Cub Fan's Last Request
And here it is

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League

Phorgotten Phillie Phile - Byron Browne

Byron Browne came to the Phillies in 1969, as part of the Curt Flood deal with the Cardinals. The Phillies also got Joe Hoerner, Tim McCarver and Willie Montanez in that deal so it wasn't a total bust.Prior to coming to the Phillies, Browne had played in 164 games in 5 years for the Cubs, Astros, and Cardinals. He played in 104 games for the Phillies in 1970 with a .248 BA. He was let go in June of 1972. I sure don't remember him.

I am often surprised to find that marginal players like Browne have listings in Wikipedia. His entry is particularly unkind. Here's an excerpt:

"From 1970 to 1972 he was a member of several Philadelphia Phillies teams that were among the worst ever to play professional baseball. Although a few teammates described Browne as having the best natural power on the team, he seldom delivered, particularly in the clutch. To some cynics, his chief contribution was the refreshing breeze on hot and humid South Philadelphia evenings which emanated from his regular swings and misses."

He does have a nice smile on the only card of his that I own.

1989 Baseball Card Sets

In that box of baseball card related stuff I got from the church bazaar, there was a box of 1989 Donruss, and the complete set of 1989 Topps. I thought I'd do a review of the main sets from 1989.

In my opinion, 1989 was the first year when collecting every card of your favorite players or team started to get difficult. Score cards were introduced in 1988, and Bowman and Upper Deck came out in 1989. So you had to chase 6 sets to satisfy your collecting jones. Of course, it would only get worse later and by 1991, it was getting almost impossible to get every card of a player you collected, much less every team card.

I only had three players who I had already scanned cards from each set, Bruce Ruffin, Mike Schmidt and Von Hayes. Schmidt I want to keep for their own post. I thought the Hayes cards were better than the Ruffin cards.

BowmanThis was the first year for Bowman and, in a way, was as big a deal as the Upper Deck set in that it changed the game somewhat. It was a second full release of cards from a single manufacturer, Topps. They went with oversized cards somewhat the same size as early 1950s Bowman cards. They wisely stopped that after one year. The cards are a pain in that they are too tall for regular 9-pocket sleeves. The design was relatively simple and there were no variations. Every card featured the thin red border. The backs, in another effort to be different, featured stats for the player against the other teams in his league. The cards are printed on non-white card stock. There were no subset cards in this set so if you were a player collector, you were only looking for one card. The key rookie card from this set, as for most releases in 1989, is Ken Griffey, Jr. There was also a hard to get full parallel set, Bowman Tiffany, so if you were a fanatic collector, you had a problem.

Donruss
By 1989, Donruss was an old favorite, in it's 9th year. For the past few years and on into 1990, Donruss offered off-beat designs. The design featured bizarre color combinations fading from one side of the card to the other. There were about 5 different color combos which varied randomly. The cards, unlike Topps, are printed on white card stock like past years of Donruss. The backs were identical to the previous few years, featuring the past 5 years of stats and some biographical info. There was the Diamond Kings subset, so if your favorite player was one of the top players, you may have needed two cards from the set. Griffey is the key rookie card in the set. There were insert cards to this set, the MVP Bonus and the Grand Slammers sets. And as they had done before, Donruss put out a Rookies set. Also this year they had a Baseball's Best set. This was a fairly large set (336 cards), only available in a factory set. Donruss also put out a Traded set in 1989.

Fleer
Also the 9th year for Fleer. This is often called the pin-striped set. Like Donruss, Fleer was experimenting with set design. There were color variations from card to card. The colored stripe above and below the photo varied, more or less, with team colors. Like Donruss, Fleer had always used white card stock. The backs were very similar to previous years with career stats and biographic information. Griffey is the key rookie card in the set. There were no real subsets in the set. There was a Fleer Glossy parallel available as a factory set and several insert sets. There was also an update set.

Score
This was the second year for Score. They pioneered the concept of a color player photo on the back of the card. There were 5 color variations on the front and the same color on the back. The colors are totally unrelated to the team colors as you can see on the Hayes card. The back contains career stats and biographical information. Score missed Griffey in the main set. The key rookie cards are Craig Biggio and Randy Johnson. The only subset which might cause you to need to look for more than one card for your favorite player are Season Highlight cards. Score had several short sets, like the 100 Hottest stars set and an update set in 1989 which includes the Griffey rookie card.

Topps
The Topps set had a more traditional design. The color border around the photo was coordinated to the team color while the team name and player name banner were sometimes coordinated and sometimes not. The back had carer stats and biographical information laid out like most prior years of Topps. The cards were printed on non-white card stock. Topps also missed Griffey so the key rookies are Biggio and Johnson. Topps had a parallel Tiffany set available as a set and an update set, also available as a set which included the Griffey rookie card.

Upper Deck
The real game changer in 1989 was Upper Deck. Printed on white card stock with crisp color photos on the front and back and holographic logos to prevent counterfeiting. This set also contains the hottest card of 1989, the Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. Beckett lists this card at $40 today which is 5-6 times what the card from the other sets list for. You can get the card graded an 8 on eBay right now for that. By contrast, an 8 Donruss card is going for less than $5.

So, if you were a big Von Hayes fan (and hey, who isn't?) how many 1989 cards would you have to chase. Here's the list:

Bowman #406
Bowman Tiffany #406
Donruss #160
Donruss Baseball's Best #47
Fleer #571
Fleer Glossy #571
O-Pee-Chee #385
Score #38
Sportsflics #181
Topps #385
Topps Big #302
Topps Tiffany #385
Upper Deck #246

That's 13 cards, not too bad. I left off the list stickers and SLU figures and cards. But Hayes isn't a good player to compare year to year. Barry Bonds was on 18 cards in 1989. In 1991, he was on 49 cards. In 1999, he was on 399 cards. In 2002, his peak year for cards, he appeared on 881 cards.

Song of the Week - Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf

I have 8,312 songs on iTunes. This is one of them.

Sex, Rock 'n' Roll and Baseball. Three great American pursuits.

1979 Topps Burger King Phillies

I recently acquired the 1979 Topps Burger King Phillies set. This was a 22-card set, plus a checklist card which was available from Philadelphia area Burger King stores. You got 3 cards with a purchase of french fries. I already had the 1980 Burger King set. The cards feature the same poses as on the regular Topps set and the backs are identical to the regular set with the exception of the numbering. What is interesting is, unlike the 1980 set which features the Burger King logo on the back and no Topps logo, the 1979 set has the Topps logo on the front and no Burger King reference at all. The checklist card is the only indication that the set is from Burger King. I'm not going to show the entire set, just the cards which are different from the regular Topps Set.
Danny Ozark #1 - In 1979, Topps didn't have manager cards. There was a very small head shot of the manager on the team checklist card. The back of this card features Danny's managerial stats all the way back to his minor league managing days in 1956!
Nino Espinosa #11. Nino was 14-12 for the 1979 Phillies. He was traded by the Mets to the Phillies in March of 1979. He is featured as a Met in the regular Topps set.
Doug Bird #12. Bird was acquired in a trade with the Royals in April 1979. This is his only Phillies card. He was 2-0 in 32 games for the Phillies in 1979 and the Phillies released him in April 1980. Bearded baseball players were pretty rare in 1979 and he's got a wild one.
Pete Rose #13. The Phillies signed Rose as a free agent in December 1978. He was supposed to lead the Phillies to the World Series after three straight years of being knocked out in the NLCS. The Phillies didn't even make the playoffs in 1979 but of course won the World Series in 1980, thanks in a large part to Rose's leadership and play. This is his only Phillies card from 1979 as he is shown with the Reds on his Topps card.
Manny Trillo #14. The Phillies got Manny in a trade with the Cubs in March of 1979. He was another key member of that 1980 World Series team. This is his only 1979 Phillies card.
Pete Mackanin #17. He is a curious choice for this set. The Phillies selected him off waivers from the Expos in early September 1978 and he played 5 games for the Phillies in 1978. He appeared in only 13 games in 1979 before being traded to the Twins in December. This is his only 1979 card. He would be one for my Phorgotten Phillie Phile.
Greg Gross #22. Gross was acquired by the Phillies in the Manny Trillo deal. This is his only 1979 Phillies card. He hit .333 as a regular player for the Phillies in 1979 but only hit .240 in 1980. He was 3-4 in the 1980 NLCS.

Book Club - Spent by Geoffrey Miller

Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist. In this book he examines conspicuous consumption in terms of the six personality traits: intelligence, openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability and extroversion. According to the Miller, our purchases are powerful indicators of our personality and are used to lure in suitable mates and friends. It's a pretty good read and Miller has a good sense of humor which makes the reading much more enjoyable.He goes through the 6 personality traits one by one. The chapter on conscientiousness went through topics like "High-Maintenance Products", "Pets as Conscientiousness Indicators" and "Collecting". Uh-oh, Collecting. What does he have to say about collecting?

"High conscientiousness shades over into obsessive-compulsive behavior. Among consumers, this often takes the form of collecting - acquiring large numbers of products within a particular category, plus the expertise to discuss them intelligently with like-minded collectors."

OK, so what?

"A high, even toxic, level of conscientiousness is foremost in the resourceful acquisition, ordered display, and habitual care of one's collection. Runaway collecting is the apotheosis of runaway consumerism. With the eBay collectibles section, everyone can now participate in hoarding and fetishizing of objects across most imaginable categories: firefighting memorabilia, Desert Storm militaria, Disneyana, Pez dispensers, snow globes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer figurines, nautical decor, replica movie swords, vintage pet-food ads, vintage flue covers, and risque postcards".

Well, at least he didn't mention baseball cards.

"Yet one person's obsessive hoarding is another person's rational investment strategy, or his acquisition of tools and materials required for some enthusiasm. I contemplate the 2700 pairs of shoes that Imelda Marcos collected in the Malacanang Palace, and feel moral outrage for the poor of the Philippines. I contemplate the comparable number of used books that I have bought, and feel like a dutiful researcher. We can all rationalize our cabinets of curiosities."

Let the rationalizing begin.

Random Frank Thomas Cards

The Big Hurt

I took a half-day of vacation the day before Thanksgiving and decided to visit the card shop near where I work before heading home. I picked up these Frank Thomas cards, 4 of the 5 are retro cards.
2003 Upper Deck Play Ball #18. This is a nice set, based on a pre-World War II set of the same name.
2004 Donruss Kings #38. As I've probably mentioned before, this is one of my all-time favorite sets.
2007 Topps Turkey Red #26 regular back. All of the Turkey Red sets are good but the 2007 issue is probably my least favorite.
2007 Allen & Ginter #160. The 2007 set was virtually identical to the 2006 set but still a great set. Is it just me or does Frank Thomas look out of place in something other than a White Sox uniform?
2004 SP Authentic #59. I don't have many cards from this set, probably because I don't like it very much.