I own a couple of thousand autographs, the majority have never appeared on my blog. Here is a random autograph that I have never posted.
Today: 2015 Stadium Club Autographs Eric Davis
Why Do I Own This Card?
Eric Davis is one of the most talented players from the 1980s and 1990s. He was also on the St. Louis Cardinals for a few seasons at the end of his career. Why wouldn't I want to own one of his autographs?
I have actually posted other Davis autographs on my blog, just never this autograph.
When Did I Get This Card?
I pulled this out of a box of Stadium Club towards the end of 2015. It was a nice pull. I took a break from blogging for a few months at the beginning of 2016 and never posted this card.
Back of the Card
I love that Stadium Club uses actual card back on their autographs. We get statistics and a nice write-up describing Davis' style of play and one of his career accomplishments. This is what we deserve on the back of baseball cards.
Pacific Aurora has a mundane base set with a few incredible inserts, which makes it a pretty awesome product. You've got to take the boring with the exciting with this product.
2000 Pacific Aurora was also the first card to feature a Hall of Famer in his new uniform and they did it in a creative way. Overall, this is one of the worst products that Pacific Trading cards made in the late 1990s and early 2000s and it is still probably middle of the pack in terms of overall quality. They were a high floor, high ceiling type of card company that is sadly lacking in the current baseball card market.
I miss Pacific.
Shall we look at the 2000 Autora set?
Here is the base design......
Pacific started the Aurora product in 1998 and it basically had the same design concept all three years it was produced. Two photos on the front, one action and one posed, along with a solid colored background. The design in decent. I know the teal colored background is a little weird on this Darin Erstad card, but this is one of the few teams where that statement is true.
Pacific was consistent with their brands and the products tended to run true to that branding from year to year. While this is not the most exciting design concept, you knew exactly what you were getting when you bought these cards. The original Aurora was also a per-pack-insert product released in 1998 that was sold at retail stores. The 2000 set was a Hobby issued product with no per-pack insert guarantee.
Back of the card.
I like the sepia photo with the gold and maroon colored writing and trim. Really good look. The stats are basic, but the large photo and readable card numbers in the bottom right-hand corner more than make-up for anything left off the card by Pacific. Solid effort here.
Let's get one highlight out of the way.
Best Base Card
The off-season proceeding the 2000 baseball season featured the high drama of Ken Griffey Jr. demanding a trade off the Mariners. He had a no-trade clause and was essentially only willing to accept a trade that put him on his hometown Cincinnati Reds. The trade ended up happening in early February after teams had made their way to Spring Training and the early 2000 baseball card products had already hit the shelves.
Griffey getting traded to the Reds was huge news. The trade put the three best home runs hitters of the day, Griffey, McGwire, and Sosa, all in the same division for the foreseeable future, or Mark McGwire got gimpy knees in the middle of the 2000 season. Pacific capitalized on the excitement by producing the first Ken Griffey Jr. card with him in a Cincinnati uniform, making half his cards Mariners and the other half Reds.
Great card, one of my favorite Griffey cards.
On to the other things I cover in my set posts........
Favorite Cardinals Card
It's really hard to pick out the "best" cards from this set. They are slightly devoid of personality, but I decided to go with Fernando Tatis. He had a short window of success with the Cardinals and 1999 was his best season. Fernando Sr. went 30 plus home runs, 30 plus doubles, 20 stolen bases, and nearly hit .300 come in with a .298 average. He also walked more than 80 times. It was a really unique stat line, especially for a third baseman and I love seeing those numbers on the back of the card.
Favorite Former Durham Bulls Player
McGriff played on the Durham Bulls at the end of his career in 2004. He's one of the few players who is smiling on his posed photograph for this set. I like the happy vibe on this card. I also like that you get McGriff's batting stance in the top right corner. He's got one of the more unique and identifiable stances from the 1990s.
One more card and we will talk about inserts......
While the 2000 Pacific Aurora set did not have inserts in every pack, they did offer a parallel card per pack. The majority of parallel cards were pinstriped. I know there are people who enjoy these parallel cards, but I am not a huge fan.
Perhaps if my favorite team wore pinstripes, I would feel differently. Looks kind of weird on a Cardinals card, but it makes sense and looks good on a Yankees card.......
Inserts
Now we get to the good stuff with Pacific Aurora. The inserts.
The most basic insert was the "Pennant Fever". When the Aurora product first started in 1998, these were the inserts that generally came as the per-pack. Pacific continued this insert again in 1999 and 2000. Based on the number in my collection, I would guess that a box typically came with 3 or 4 of these cards. The foil along the bottom of the card is nice, but this isn't even the close to the best thing in this set.
Let's get serious.
Pacific made some great cards involving nets in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yes, nets. You'd think that might not work for baseball, but sounds like a great concept for a basketball insert. What has nets on a baseball diamond? Dugouts and foul poles. The good people at Pacific employed some creative people who made great cards like this Shawn Green, which is a Dugout Net card.....
It's not a game-used card or anything, just a die-cut card with the cut-out section being filled in with netting. I am not sure the scan does the card justice, but these are some of the best inserts from this era. The one draw back for these cards is that they were thicker and would chip along the bottom. Check out the white around the bottom of the net.
Most of the cards in this insert set are available online for less than $5, which reminds me that I have not done a set project in a long time. More of these might be making an appearance in this space in the near future.
Last one for this set.
I love that Dugout set with the die-cut space for the netting, but the Styroteach insert with these batting helmets might be even better. These remind me of the Donruss Hard Hats inserts that came out in the mid 1990s. Just a really nice insert card, again I am not sure the scan does this justice.
Unlike the Dugout set though, these are really pricy on Ebay and COMC. The cheapest cards are around $10 with many being closer to $30 or $40. Not sure I can put together this complete set those prices given the quantity of cards. For now, I am happy with this Barry Bonds card.
So, how does the 2000 Pacific Aurora set rate?
I think it's biggest positives are that it has great insert cards and a solid base set. Having the first Reds Griffey cards pumps up the nostalgia factor for me and I am sure others who collected during this time. When you add in the fact that these were $60 a box for 24 packs, there is a lot of upside here. Obviously, the base card design could be much better, but it's also not horrible. Aurora also has a small checklist with only 150 cards. That means you're only getting 4 to 5 cards of your favorite team.
I ended up giving the set three Wool E. Bulls for the checklist and set design, everything else was above average with the final rating coming in at 3 1/2 Wool E Bulls.
You can still find boxes of these cards for less than $100 on Ebay, if you're interested. Given the recent interest in opening old packs of cards and boxes, that's not much of a mark up from the original price.
Yesterday was the start of Teacher Appreciation Week at my school.
I received an Oscar.
I also got a raspberry cheesecake popsicle after lunch.
I also got a pack of 2023 Topps Big League from one of my students. I should have taken a picture of the pack of cards, but did not. I borrowed one from the internet.
I made a post about these cards a few weeks back. Fun cards that are kid-friendly. You're not likely going to pull something to big from one of these packs.
It has been 4 months since I last updated my progress towards completing a set of 1964 Topps Giants cards. Way back in July, during my last 1964 Topps Giants post, this was the last card I shared....
I could feel the positive momentum after posting this Mickey Mantle card. Nothing was going to stop me from finishing this set off by the end of the summer. After all, this set has a small checklist and the Mantle card is one of really challenging cards in the 1964 Topps Giants set.
A few more tough cards and thirty easy to find commons?
Slam dunk.
I will be kind to Duke later in the post.
Well, I went on vacation to Michigan and I did not post any new Topps Giants cards.
School started and I did not post any new Topps Giants cards.
Several have come in the mail. I have not scanned the majority of the cards and I have not updated the checklist from the previous posts. I am going to divide the Topps Giants cards that have arrived in the past two months into a few posts during the second half of October. I will update the checklist on the last post.
So, for this post I have two new 1964 Topps Giants cards.
First, is a card of long-time Reds outfielder Vada Pinson.
Great photo on the front of the card. I love the sleeveless Reds uniforms from this era. I also noticed that Pinson is holding a bat with the number 18 on the knob, rather than his number 28. I went to look up the player with that uniform number, which belonged to Gordy Coleman. He's a well-known player in these parts.
Quick side story and interesting ACC sports factoid about Gordy Coleman.
Gordy was the Reds first baseman for most of the 1960s, before being replaced by Tony Perez. Prior to playing with the Reds, Coleman played both baseball and football at Duke University in 1953. That was the first season that the ACC played football and Coleman helped the Blue Devils to a perfect conference record. Duke was the first team to win a conference title in the ACC in football. Shocking. Gordy Coleman dropped out of school the next year to play for the Cleveland Indians, who later traded him to the Reds.
Back to Vada Pinson.
The picture of Pinson flying into home is incredible.
However, this is another card back that spends time talking about a good Major League player's career in the Minor Leagues. Why? Yes, they gave some highlights from the Majors mixed in there, but Vada Pinson was a really good player in the early 1960s. There was nothing better to talk about than his stats in A Ball?
Prior to 1964, Pinson had already hit over .300 three different times, led the league in hits twice, led the league in double twice, led the league in runs once, made two All-Star teams, and also appeared in the 1961 World Series. Yes, some of this did end up on the card, but there is no reason to talk about his career in the Minors. He's not quite a Hall of Famer in my opinion, but I have heard some good arguments over the years for including him.
Next.
Picked up another Hall of Famer from the set, Nellie Fox. This is a really odd card for me. Nellie Fox is one of those players who only looks right in one uniform. I know he played for the early Colt 45s/Astros teams, but to me, Nellie is always a White Sox player. He is still got a big wad of tobacco in his mouth, which seemed to be a frequent feature on his cards during the 1950s.
Back of the card.
This is one of the better cards of the set. No Minor Leagues and a solid write-up on what made Nellie Fox a good player. For a guy at the end of his career, I dare say this is a good career summary if you did not know anything about Nellie Fox. I even like the picture of him throwing the ball over the runner sliding into second base. The only way to improve this card back would be to squeeze Luis Aparicio into the picture.
When you think of Bowman sets from the early 2000s, what comes to mind? Black borders were a must. Tons of hype for a bunch of prospects that may or may not (ding, ding, ding) have made a significant impact in the Major Leagues. This post is about the 2002 Bowman set, but it could really be about all the Bowman sets between 2002 and 2006.
There is a theme for this post. Let's try this meme.
Base Set
The set has a black border because it is a Bowman set from the early 2000s. You were expecting something different. Tisk, tisk. I usually use the first card in the set, but it appears that I am missing my Adam Dunn card. I have this set marked complete, so I did a little investigating to see where the card went.
The story of where the card was is more interesting than the second card in the set. I scanned this one when I started writing the post, just in case Adam Dunn was gone.
The veteran cards in the set all have a red border to distinguish them from the prospect cards which have a blue border. The pictures on the card are mundane. The Roger Clemens card has him batting, otherwise, they are not interesting.
The backs of the Bowman cards have changed little over the years. These write-ups aren't exactly 1988 Score and the descriptions of the players are generous. I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I read that "fluid shortstop" part.
Remember that time Jeter dove into the stands at Yankee Stadium and smashed some old women and his face into one of the seats?
There is nothing fluid about this catch.
Derek Jeter getting an overly generous biography from a baseball card writer.
A Lengthy Side Story About The Adam Dunn Card
Over the pandemic, my 10-year-old spent a lot of time reading about baseball. As a two-teacher household, it was hard to work with him while we were teaching our classes online. My wife and I frequently told him to find a book to read for a short time when he got stuck. He also dabbled in baseball videos on YouTube.
He is one of those people who can read a book and can recite every fact back to you that he read. While he generally sticks to topics like stadiums, Hall of Famers, Cardinals, and Durham Bulls players, we went through a phase last summer when he got really into reading and watching videos about players with odd careers.
If you have never read anything about Adam Dunn, he's a weird player. There is a Dorktown video about the weirdness of his career. This is the preview screen for the video on YouTube.
I could see where the video has appeal to the average 10-year-old.
Anyway, he also killed time during the pandemic by looking through my old scorecards, ticket stubs, and baseball cards. He'd ask me frequently about taking cards from my collection, most of which I was indifferent about.
Apparently, the 2002 Bowman Adam Dunn card was one of them.
"You can scan my card" is the line I got when I asked him about the card. I tried trading back for the card, but he is currently demanding a Ji-Man Choi autograph. That's a little steep for an Adam Dunn base card.
Luckily, I am on vacation, so writing an extra side story in this post doesn't really matter.
The World's Most Smudged Autographs
In the early days of this blog, I actually worked on finishing off a set of 2002 Bowman autographs. I had pulled several out of packs back in the day, decided it would be an easy project. There are very few cards on the checklist, no real big names.
It would have been really easy, but 90% of the 2002 Bowman autographed cards are smudged.
One-time Durham Bull and drug test failer, Wilson Betemit with smudges.
Art Howe's favorite first baseman who would not take a walk, Carlos Pena.
My favorite card in the set belongs to former Cardinal outfielder Ryan Ludick.
I spent some time, that I am never getting back, trying to find these autographs in good condition. There are several of these cards that I have multiple copies of due to trying to upgrade. No matter how hard you look, they are all smudged.
Big mistake.
Topps having quality control issues......
Best Non-Cardinal/Non-Durham Bull Card
I like looking through old Bowman sets to see the prospects that did not make it almost as much as those who became something in the Majors. This Ronald Acuna card makes me feel old. He was a career Minor Leaguer with the Mets who got a baseball card in the 2002 Bowman set. Little bit different player than his son, Ronald Acuna Jr.
Ronald Sr. had a career-high of 8 home runs playing for the Mets two A-Ball teams in the Florida State League and South Atlantic League. While he lacked power, Ronald stole 20 bases almost every season he played in the Minors and had several years where he crossed 30. Ronald Sr. also has a card in the 2002 Bowman's Best set.
I cannot find anything about what happened to Ronald Sr. after he stopped playing baseball outside of a ton of photos of him at Braves games (New Balance sweatshirt).
Best Cardinal Card
This was such an easy pick for me. The second I picked out this box from the stack, I knew the Cardinals card that I was going to pick for this post.
So Taguchi was the first Japanese player signed by the Cardinals. He was initially somewhat of a disappointment and ended up spending parts of his first seasons in the U.S. playing with the Cardinals Triple-A team. In the end, he was a fourth outfielder for the Cardinals, but he was one of those lovable bench players.
The back of his card was actually fairly accurate. He was a spray hitter and superb defensive player. The Cardinals ended up pairing him up with outfielders like Chris Duncan and Reggie Sanders, who could hit but had limitations on defense. Frequently Duncan or Sanders would start the game, Taguchi would come in late as a defensive sub.
While he was really known for his defense, I think his best moment in the Majors was his go-ahead home run off of Billy Wagner in Game 2 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. The Cardinals lost the first game of the NLCS and were tied with the Mets late in Game 2. I am sure that if the Mets win the game, go up 2-0, the series turns out differently.
This is the home run.
Taguchi ended up on the Phillies after his contract ran out with the Cardinals and he managed to pick up a second World Series ring with the team in 2008.
Best Durham Bulls Card
I chose a former Durham Bulls player pictured as a Blue Jays prospect. Rich Thompson was a decade away from playing with the Bulls when this card was produced. However, if you followed Triple-A baseball a while back, it was pretty hard not to know the name Rich Thompson. He was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2000 out of James Madison University and was in Triple-A by the next season. Such a quick riser would surely make it to the Majors, right?
Here is his well-earned 2002 Bowman card that was likely made due to his rapid climb through the Minors. Topps also put him in their base set as a prospect and in T-206.
He disappeared from major baseball card products after 2002, but he continued to play in Triple-A.
Right up on the back of the card seems fair.
So, here is what happened to Rich Thompson:
+He played a total of 13 years in the Minors, he appeared for a Triple-A team in 12 of those seasons.
+He played for the Triple-A teams of the Blue Jays, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Phillies, and Rays.
+He twice made the Majors. Once in 2004 with the Royals where he played in 6 games, but only got 1 at-bat. He did not have a hit. The Rays called him up in 2012 where he had 2 hits in 22 at-bats. His career batting average is under .100 and he has more stolen bases (7) than hits (2). Rich Thompson still made it, that counts for something.
+His final two seasons in professional baseball were spent with the Durham Bulls. He was excellent on the 2012 team, hence the call-up to the Rays. Thompson had a rough year in 2013 and retired after breaking his foot while fielding a ball.
Some years Rich Thompson was on your team, some years Rich Thompson was not on your team. He was a scrappy player who was easy to support. Further, while the Minor League records can be a little sketchy at times, I would have to think that his 300 career steals at the Triple-A level would have to be pretty far up the list. Overall, he has almost 500 steals in the Minors. Again, that has to be far up the all-time leader's list.
Thompson is still loved around the Minors almost a decade after he retired. The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, Phillies Triple-A team, has given away multiple bobbleheads of Thompson and I have also heard there are pictures of him hanging in the front office of the team.
How Does It Compare?
This set is not really all that interesting, so it has to rank in the bottom half of the list. This is post #14, so I will start at 2017 Topps Minor League Heritage and work down the list.
-Both 2017 Topps Heritage Minors and 2002 Bowman are prospect-driven sets. While I am not a huge fan of the 1968 Topps design, a boring border with interesting cards is better than a boring border and uninteresting cards.
-1995 Emotion XL is at least interesting and has good photography, even if some of the labels slapped on the players are really stupid. Better than over glossed Derek Jeter bios.
-1988 Donruss, while I don't love the borders, it's still more interesting than the 2002 Bowman set. Plus, that set has a Tom Glavine rookie, which is better than any prospect card in the 2002 Bowman set. Let's go down another spot.
-2000 UD Ionix. Now, we are talking about the right neighborhood. Predictable short checklist with the same 2 or 3 players on each team getting cards. Ionix has better autographs and some nicer high-end touches, but there is something nice about having the larger checklist of 2002 Bowman where you get cards of the players I put into this post.
Picked up a few new Topps Giants cards for my set project. There are a total of four cards in this post, they were all pretty easy to find and inexpensive. My next update is going to have some really good names. Thought about waiting a week, but I think the next group of cards deserve their own post.
First up for this post is Reds pitcher Jim Maloney.
Here is the back of the card.
Solid player. Made a few All-Star games, struck out a ton of batters.
Next up is Bob Bailey. I know him mainly as an Expo in the 1970s, but he started out with the Pirates in the early 60s. Kind of an interesting career path. Here is the front of the card.
He was much more of a fielder at the beginning of his career who hit the occasional home run. Then he got sold to the Expos before the start of their first season. He started hitting home runs in bundles and was one of their offensive stars.
The back of the card focuses on his defense. The second sentence was generous in describing his offensive talents at this point in his career. Love that action picture on the back. Very nice.
Next.
I was a little disappointed in the top to bottom centering on this card. I bought it from an Ebay seller who had multiple copies. I paid for one copy, got another copy. Tried to return this copy, got my money back, and the guy told me to keep the card. I might replace this one at some point, but for the moment it's staying.
Back of the card.
Another great action shot here with the pitch almost over his head. I also like that the mention his basketball career at Duke on this card. Groat's career with the Pirates was far more notable than his time with the Cardinals, but he did win a World Series with them in 1964.
Last card.
I did not know too much about Gary Peters before writing this post. He had a really good beginning of his career, but was out of baseball by his mid 30s. He won the 1963 American League Rookie of the Year, two ERA titles, and once won 20 games.
Back of the card.
Looks like he had a really odd motion.
Here is my updated checklist. I have 14 out of the 60 cards, roughly a quarter of the set. A few new cards will be posted next week, a good name or two is included in the next group of cards.
1 Gary Peters 2 Ken Johnson 3 Sandy Koufax SP 4 Bob Bailey 5 Milt Pappas 6 Ron Hunt 7 Whitey Ford 8 Roy McMillan 9 Rocky Colavito 10 Jim Bunning 11 Roberto Clemente 12 Al Kaline 13 Nellie Fox 14 Tony Gonzalez 15 Jim Gentile 16 Dean Chance 17 Dick Ellsworth 18 Jim Fregosi 19 Dick Groat 20 Chuck Hinton 21 Elston Howard 22 Dick Farrell 23 Albie Pearson 24 Frank Howard 25 Mickey Mantle 26 Joe Torre 27 Ed Brinkman 28 Bob Friend SP 29 Frank Robinson 30 Bill Freehan 31 Warren Spahn 32 Camilo Pascual 33 Pete Ward 34 Jim Maloney 35 Dave Wickersham 36 Johnny Callison 37 Juan Marichal 38 Harmon Killebrew 39 Luis Aparicio 40 Dick Radatz 41 Bob Gibson 42 Dick Stuart SP 43 Tommy Davis 44 Tony Oliva 45 Wayne Causey SP 46 Max Alvis 47 Galen Cisco SP 48 Carl Yastrzemski 49 Hank Aaron 50 Brooks Robinson 51 Willie Mays SP 52 Billy Williams 53 Juan Pizarro 54 Leon Wagner 55 Orlando Cepeda 56 Vada Pinson 57 Ken Boyer 58 Ron Santo 59 Johnny Romano 60 Bill Skowron SP
