Darryl Porter. I Mean Darrell Porter.

I like to glance through the Topps Vault page over on Ebay every once in awhile to see if I can find a cool Cardinals or Durham Bulls card.  I have kind of moved on from some of the blank back cards that come out of current releases that I used to pick up the last few years.  No regrets in many cases about owning some cool one of a kind cards of players I really like, especially some of the ones that do not get a ton of cards made.  My blank back Taylor Motter might be one of my favorites....

Pretty sure I never even made a post about this card.  Motter is one of the universally beloved players amongst Durham Bulls fans.  I was so happy to pick up this card.  More recently I have really turned my focus on finding 1980s and 1990s Cardinals stuff on the Topps Vault.  Recently I came across one of the great Postseason actors in Cardinals history.  

1982 World Series MVP Darrell Porter.  

I have bought a few of the photo proof card in the past and really enjoyed go through the different Topps products from that year to match them up to a specific card in a specific set.  For example, I ended up with a Willie McGee photo proof card a few years back.....

which was listed on the Topps Vault Ebay Store as being from 1990.  The photo does not match his 1990 Topps base card....

but it might have been used for his Topps Big card.  Maybe.  

In any case, it was definitely used for his Topps Fan Favorites card in 2003.  

I was looking forward to taking in the same sort of trek with the Darrell Porter card.  Based on the photo posted on the Ebay Store I already had a good idea of where the search was going to take me.  It's not like there were a ton of 1984 Darrell Porter cards.  Here was the listing picture....

It looks a lot like the small corner picture on Porter's 1984 Topps card....

I started collecting in 1983, but 1984 was the first year that I collected the entire year with a realistic chance at assembling an entire set of cards.  I love the design of these cards and they still rank as one of my favorite sets of all-time.  

Well, the package arrived and the photo proof was actually a little disappointing.   It's a teeny tiny little photo of the former catcher.  Maybe because it's a small picture on the card?  I've never tried to mass produce my own baseball card set, so I am not entirely sure why the picture is so small.....

Your guess is as good as mine.  The best part of the card actually ended up being a Topps Company envelope that was stuffed into the package.  

I am not sure what the 1 23/32 number in the corner is exactly, but the 285 is Darrell/Darryl/Daryl's card number in the 1984 Topps set.  I guess this could also be the O-Pee-Chee proof since the top of the envelope has the OPC letter at the top, but the O Pee Chee card is just the same as the Topps card with the exception of the logo?

Anyway, I guess I have a tiny picture of Darrell Porter and a cool Topps envelope where someone could not spell his first name the correct way.  Glad there was someone editing something at Topps back then.  

Unexpected Snow Day Find

I have lost count of how many snow days we have had here in Raleigh this school year.  I was not sure whether to post Snow Day 9 or Snow Day 10 as my Facebook status this morning, so I put them both down.  I had a great extra day off hanging out with my three year old and also got to spend some time sorting more cards from 2002.  This afternoon I stumbled upon a set which I had total forgotten about until I started pulling out the cards from my various team boxes.  This evening I present the 2002 Fleer Fall Classics Set:

 

In sorting out my 2002 sets I have found that several of the sets look like they could have been another product from that same brand.  Almost as if the card company had two design ideas for a card product, rejected one, and then still made a set out of the losing card design.  In so many ways the Fall Classics set looks like a failed design concept for the Greats of the Game line.  In fact, this design is really pretty close to the 2005 Greats of the Game set.  The cards in Fall Classics however do focus on the great players from postseason play and not necessarily the greats of the game.  Two separate groups of people.  Still there are plenty of big names in the set: 

 

There are two features of this set which I really like and made it an enjoyable set to spend half an hour of my afternoon flipping through.  First, the backs of the cards post the players postseason statistics for their career.  Not unheard of with baseball cards, but certainly gives you a different view of some players.  Here's a look at the back of the Bambino.  

 

  The other cool thing, as previously mentioned, is the fact that Fleer put in players who were good postseason performers.  There are plenty of players who have been able to find a few moments during the postseason to play their best games and sometimes the kind of slip through the cracks.  Many baseball fans can tell you plenty about the World Series rings won by greats like Babe Ruth and Stan Musial, but they had plenty of help along the way.  So, I decided while I was flipping through the set to pick out three good, but not great players, who have made a big impact on the postseason during my lifetime (Please not they had to have a card in the set-Big Papi is not in the set)

Depending who you ask, Trammell could be considered great, so I am putting him third on my list.  He only appeared in the postseason twice in 1984 and 1987.  The 1984 team won the World Series and was perhaps on the most dominate teams of the past thirty years.  Basically the Tigers lead the American League from Game 1 through Game 162 and then bludgeoned the Royals and Padres to win the World Series.  Trammell hit .364 in the ALCS and then batted .400 in the World Series winning the MVP.  

At times Porter was a great player, but there were a lot of distractions around Darrell's career.  Go read up, I am not rehashing it.  Porter had several appearances during his career in postseason play with the Royals and Cardinals.  However, he played a key role in the Cardinals winning the 1982 series against the Brewers and took home the World Series MVP.  Kind of cool to see him recognized on cardboard for his great postseason play.  

Last one.  I could have gone Gibson here, but basically the two biggest postseason home runs hit during my lifetime belonged to Kirk Gibson and Joe Carter.  The Gibson one was cool, but it was at the end of the first game.  Joe Carter's walked off a series.  That has not happened too often.  So, you've probably seen it a few hundred times, but it never gets old. Great call on the play too...

"Touch 'em all Joe you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life"