Movie Review - 42

I realize I'm a little late to this party, since the movie came out in April, but better late than never.

If you're reading this blog, you've probably already seen the movie. If you're a baseball fan, and haven't seen the movie, you should see it.

The movie covers the events that lead up to Jackie Robinson being the first baseball player to break the color line and his Rookie of the Year 1947 season.  I knew the general outline of the story from baseball history I've read. I suspect that the movie pulled some punches here. Certainly there are some ugly representations of racism here but the movie would have you believe that Robinson came to be accepted by the end of the season. I read Hank Aaron's biography last year and even in 1954, when Aaron came up to the majors, black players were still not really accepted.

As a Phillies fan, I was appalled that the movie chose to use the Phillies as the most vocal representation of the racism of other players. Appalled but I guess not surprised. The Phillies were, after all, the last NL team to desegregate (finally in 1957). The Phillies manager, Ben Chapman, into whose mouth the most racist statements were put, was not fired after the 1947 season (although the team's 62-92 record would have justified it) as implied in the movie, but during the 1948 season. He did never work as a manager again.  Chapman and Robinson ended up appearing in a photo together to imply hatchets buried. Here's the actual photo.

I though Chadwick Boseman did a good job portraying Robinson. His next bio-pic will be as the hardest working man in show business. Harrison Ford was also good as Branch Rickey, playing a crusty old man to perfection.

2013 Pinnacle - First Look

Although they apparently didn't get the Leaf Brand when they bought out Donruss, Panini apparently did get the Pinnacle Brand.  When I saw that there would be 2013 Pinnacle I thought of nice, full-bleed printed cards with lots of parallels and inserts. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

I picked up 4 packs at Target at $2.99 per 8-card pack. Not terribly expensive but certainly a higher end card than Panini Triple Play (another 1990's brand brought back to life).

I'm pretty disappointed in the cards, both from a design standpoint and a photograph selection standpoint.

First off, the design. Really, black cards?  Black can certainly be a bold design point. Perhaps Panini was striving to recapture the look and feel of the very first Pinnacle sets from 1992 and 1993. These had black borders but unlike the 2013 reincarnation, they weren't drab.

What about the photography choices. I got 28 base cards from the 4 packs. All but two of the feature a player batting or a player pitching. When you seen either of these poses, you've pretty much seen the whole set.

Another design point. The team color highlights are so dark they add to the overall drabness of the cards. On some of the cards, the color is so dark, it just fades into the generally blackness.  Here's a pitcher card, and a rookie card.

The Rookie Card logo is the same they used on Panini Prizm. Maybe they were trying to make up for the brightness of that set by making this one so dark.  There were 2 cards featuring fielding plays. Here's one.

It looks just like a pitcher card. So does the other one I got.

There are several parallels to the 200-card set - Artist's Proof (another reincarnation from the '90s), Artist's Proof Blue, and Die-Cut. There is also a 150-card Museum Proof set which, I guess, just covers the non-rookie part of the set. Here's an Artist's Proof. I pulled 2 of them.

I never understood why this parallel, which features a textured multiple-colored foil overlay, was called Artist's Proof. I still don't.

There are a lot of insert cards and I understand there is supposed to be an insert in each pack. Along with the 2 Artist's Proof inserts, I pulled 3 more.

Only 5 cards in this set. By the way, each set comes in the same parallels as the base set. The back of this card is the only non-drab thing I saw.

There are 20 cards in this insert set.

And finally, this.

Clear plastic cards used to be a mainstay of 1990s sets. The card backs can be a bit goofy, though.

Song of the Week - Happy Cause I'm Going Home by Chicago

The band Chicago (beginning life as Chicago Transit Authority) was a big favorite of mine right up through "Chicago III". They've been around a long time since then and have had many hits, but, for me, Chicago stopped being Chicago, after III.

This is one of my favorite tracks from the album.  I couldn't find a live video so just sit back and listen.

1976 Topps Star Trek Cards

I'm not the world's biggest Star Trek fan, but I am a fan of all incarnations of the show, going back to the original series first aired in 1966.  I don't collect a lot of Trek memorabilia but will buy stuff that interests me when I come across it. Plus, anything Stat Trek is a good fallback for my family (especially my daughter) when birthdays and Father's Day rolls around.

I saw an article on 1976 Topps Star Trek cards on IO9.com. I'd never heard of them before.  I had to have a few so turned to eBay. Quite a lot of them are for sale and they are not real cheap. An unopened back goes for $40-$50.

I managed to find three cards from the same seller that looked interesting. Outside of the fact that all three of them are off-center, they are in good shape with nice hard corners and no markings.

"The Trouble With Tribbles" is one of the most popular shows from the original series. Here's Captain Kirk surrounded by dead tribbles. Scotty gets the last line in this episode when he tells Kirk that he transported all the remaining live tribbles to the Klingon ship "Where they'll be no tribble at all".

There are 88 cards in the set and there were 76 original episodes. I wonder if there is a card per show.  In this episode, Kirk finally gets the upper hand on the guy in the rubber lizard suit by mixing up a batch of gunpowder from stuff laying around on the ground. As a civilized man he refused to kill the Gorn even when goaded on by the Metron.

Another very popular episode, featuring the "evil" Spock from an alternative universe.

250-card Farimont Cube

I mentioned the other day that I was going to get several posts from the 250-card Fairmont repack cube.  Here's # 3. First off, there were a lot of nice cards in this cube, and a lot of cards I didn't have. Of the 250 cards, about 150 are going into the collection.  In this post, I'm going to focus on some of the more odd-ball cards.

1986 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers #17 Kent Hrbek

I had 2 cards from this 44-card set already (one of Mike Schmidt). This set was sold in a flip-top box in department stores. Fleer and Topps produced a lot of sets like this in the mid to late 1980s. Half the set were sluggers, the other half were pitchers.

1987 Nestle Dream Team #27 Roberto Clemento

This was a nice find. The 34-card (including a checklist card) set was produced by Topps. Cards could be found in Nestle candy and by a mail-in redemption. According to Beckett, the set was subdivided into 11-card subsets, depicting different eras in baseball. Im not sure when the Nestle "Modern Era" started considering that Clemente had been dead for 15 years when this set was issued.

1990 Topps Ames All Stars #28 Eric Davis

This is not an uncommon set to find in repacks. I've already got more than half the 33-card set from repacks. The card front has a heavy gloss. As you may have guessed these were available in Ames Department Stores. These stores were not located where I grew up in Philadelphia.

1990 Starline Long John Silver #6 Wade Boggs

You'd be hard-pressed to associate this set with the Long John's Silvers fast food chain since the store is not mentioned on the front or back. You could get a 5-card pack with the purchase of a food item at Long John Silver's. There are 40 cards in the set. I now have 3 of these and it looks like the National League cards are red and the AL cards are blue.

1995 Donruss Top of the Order #221 John Smiley

Yet another attempt to make a card game out of baseball cards. This was a 360-card set. It came in a 80-card  box with booster backs.

1997 UD3 #28 Ivan Rodriguez

I don't know to much about this 60-card set from Upper deck. I only have 3 cards from it, all acquired from repacks. Two of the cards I have look like this one with a gorgeous multi-colored foil finish. The other one has a sort of wood grain finish with a clear plastic insert.

1998 Pacific Online #275 Brian Hunder

By the first time I ever saw one of these cards, Pacific was defunct and so was the web site.

2007 Tristar Prospects Plus #97 Travis Snider

Not so much an odd-ball set as a minor-league set, I feature it here because Snider played for one of my favorite named minor league teams, the Lansing Lugnuts. I have a team cap I bought a few years on eBay.

Random Cards from My Collection #49

#10594
2008 Bowman Chrome Refractor #39 Tom Glavine

Comments on the card: The regular 2008 Bowman cards were the normal black borders with red highlights. I like that the chrome versions had white borders.  Still too much facsimile signature.
When acquired: October 2008
How acquired: Paid $1.00/card for a blaster box.
Player's season: 2008 was Glavine's last season and he finished with the Braves, where it all began. He was 2-4 in 13 starts but that hardly matters in a career where he was 305-203.

Card #6712
1991 Score Von Hayes #426

Comments on the card: This was a good design. Big photo on the front, simple colored borders (one of the colors was white) and nice photo and stat listing on the back.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: In June, Hayes got his arm broken by Tom Browning of the Reds. It ended his season. He was traded to the Angels at the end of the season but his career was also effectively over.

Card #4205
1997 Donruss #416 Brady Anderson

Comments on the card: This was a 25-card subset in 1997 Donruss, not an insert, featuring the top players with the top 25 batting averages in 1996. Reaching all the way down to #25, was Anderson at .257. Anderson actually hit .297 in 1996, so maybe this is career average?
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: Anderson led the American League in being hit by a pitch in 1997, at 19. A little down from his league leading total of 22 in 1996.

Card #34054
2012 Topps Archives #161 Chase Utley

Comments on the card: This was a nice set (as is this year's) but are you getting a bit tired of recycled Topps designs?
When acquired: June 2012.
How acquired: Acquired during the Great 2012 Summer Clearance Trade.
Player's season: Chase missed most of the first half of the season, coming out of spring training with knee problems.

Card #3915
1980 Topps #526 Phillies Team Photo

Comments on the card: I love team photo cards. I wish Topps would bring them back.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: My favorite Phillies team of all time. They were 91-71 in 1980 and won the first World Series in franchise history.

Card #770
1990 Score Rising Stars #6 Todd Zeile

Comments on the card: This was a 100-card set sold as a complete set in a blister pack. It features up and coming rookies.
When acquired: August 2003.
How acquired: Paid $9.00 for the entire set on eBay.
Player's season: 1990 was Todd's first full season. He played 144 games for the Cardinals, hitting .244 with 15 home runs. Good enough to place 6th on the ROY voting.

Card #21941
2002 Upper Deck Vintage #236 Jimmy Rollins

Comments on the card: Upper Deck Vintage was an attempt by Upper Deck to mimic Topps success at recycling their past designs by recycling old Topps designs. I like cards featuring players signing autographs but Jimmy looks a bit distracted here.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: In his second full season, J-Roll lead the league in plate appearances with 637 and triples, with 10. He was also an All-Star.

Card #2731
1982 Donruss #585 Mike Schmidt/Pete Rose

Comments on the card: From Donruss' second year of production. They really loaded up on the popular players of the day.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: Pete and Mike were both All-Stars in 1982.

Card #40470
2001 Fleer Tradition #234 Eric Davis

Comments on the card: Here's Fleer pretty much doing the same thing as Upper Deck Vintage.
When acquired: 2001
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: Eric had hit .303 in 93 games for the Cardinals in 2000. He singed with the Giants in 2001 and only hit .205 in 74 games. And that was the end.

Card #22310
2004 Donruss Elite #130 Bob Abreu

Comments on the card: Mirror finished cards with multiple parallels. I never bought much of this product.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: Bobby hit .301 in 2004 and and went to his first All-Star game.