I'm Sorry Willie McGee

I promised to do more posts about cards that are already in my collection and I have had this post planned out for about two weeks.  It just took a little bit of time to pull everything together and publish it.  Long time coming.

I spent a lot of time on my blog talking about my favorite baseball cards and players and definitely have a heavy tilt towards the Cardinals, Durham Bulls, and Tampa Rays.  Throw in a bunch of autographs, an occasional Tiger, and a little bit of college baseball and I cover a lot of different players in this space.  The tag bar on the right hand side of the blog is starting to get a little bit out of control.  I will work on it.  In the meantime, I recently had a reader ask me if I had a favorite player I had never made post on.  I thought about it for awhile, read through a whole bunch of posts, and the crazy tag list on the side of the blog and came up with this answer: Willie McGee.

How did I go this long without posting a single card of Cardinals legendary outfielder Willie McGee?  I am not sure, but the best thing to do is apologize and make a post about one of the finest outfielders from the 1980s.

1983 Topps Willie McGee RC

My favorite Willie McGee card is probably his 1983 Topps rookie card.  His Donruss is pretty cool too.  The majority of McGee's good  seasons were spent as a Cardinal, but since he played during the 80s the quantity of McGee cards out on the market is not huge.  He's also one of the more inexpensive Cardinals players you could choose to collect.  I pick up Willie McGee cards here and there, but generally I can find them in the cheapy bins at card shops for a few cents.

Any Cardinals fan who is reading this post could tell you some great story about something they say Willie McGee do, or some accomplishment he achieved during his career.  Basically, if you aren't a Cardinals fan Willie McGee is the best Cardinals player you never paid any attention.  He single-highhandedly won a World Series Game 3 in 1982 for the Cardinals as a rookie.  The box score doesn't mention the fact that he played some good home-run robbing defense in this game too, but yeah...

 

Willie McGee also won a National League MVP award in 1985 and a pair of batting titles in 1985 and again in 1990.  The 1990 batting title might be the best remembered of all McGee achievement because of the fact that he won the National League Batting Title, but spent the last month of the season playing for the Oakland A's.  After a half-season in Oakland, Willie would spend a few years playing for his hometown San Francisco Giants, a year for the Red Sox, but finished his career back in St. Louis.  He was mainly used an extra outfielder for a few years, but it was still a big deal when he called it a career in 1997.

The lone challenge in collecting Willie McGee cards has always been finding autographs and relics of the former Cardinal.  He has signed very few certified autographs since his career ended and the well has run dry on the supply of these cards.  He does have a Topps Fan Favorite, which uses the 1990 Topps design, and can be found every great once in awhile at a pretty steep price for a player like McGee.  He also has a Fleer Greats of the Game which can also pop up here and there and is a little bit cheaper in the neighborhood of $25 to $30.  Panini and Leaf have also recently had McGee cards, but they look expensive given what they are.  I only own a copy of the Fleer.  

2005 Fleer Greats of the Game Willie McGee Autograph

Relics cards for McGee are just as limited as autographs.  He has two relics: one is from a Topps Fan Favorites set and one from a Bazooka set.  The relics cards are not nesacarily expensive, but they are just hard to find at times. 

2003 Topps Bazooka Willie McGee Bat 

This is just a quick glance at one of my Cardinals favorites from the 1980s.  If you are a Giants fan there are plenty more cool McGee cards from the early to mid 90s in a Giants uni.  I even think one of the new Leaf autographs of McGee features him in a Giants uniform.  I'd also encourage you to check out the infamous Ryan Sandberg/Willie McGee hitting duel when you have an extra twenty minutes.  For those with less time I leave you with this classic commercial featuring Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee dressed up as old men at a bar. 

Top 50 On Cardboard- #1 Ken Griffey Jr.

Top 50 On Cardboard

#1

Ken Griffey Jr.

1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. 

Hobby Impact-

The most iconic rookie card in my collection belongs to future Hall of Fame outfielder Ken Griffey Jr.  I am sure that there are plenty of other collectors who could probably say the same thing about the best rookie card in their collection too.  While I am sure I have a few rookie cards that might bring in more money on the secondary market, no other rookie card has more meaning to me and to the hobby then the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. card.  

The popularity of the 1989 Upper Deck set was driven by the rookie card of Ken Griffey Jr.  Before Upper Deck baseball cards were low gloss cardboard.  Imperfect in many ways.  Nothing wrong that at all, but Upper Deck introduced the baseball card world to a glossier sharper looking card.  Without the Griffey rookie card would collectors have been had the same love for the 1989 Upper Deck set?  I am guessing no.  

Is there anyone who collected baseball cards in the nineties who does not have at least a little bit of love for Ken Griffey Jr?  There have been many good players who have come and gone during my time collecting cards, but Ken Griffey's career interested 22 of those years.  No matter the quality of season for Ken Griffey Jr., he was always at the top of hobby.  I first ran into Ken Griffey Jr. in middle school.  I loved his cards then and tried to pick up as many as I could.  

Over the years I picked up whatever Griffey cards came my way.  Is there really a bad Ken Griffey card?  I would argue no.  It really does not matter if the card is low end, high end, or in between.  Give me a piece of cardboard with a picture of Ken Griffey Jr. on it and you've made my day.  There are so many cool ones.  Like this one:

1998 Collectors Choice Ken Griffey Jr. 

A low end card, but such a cool picture.  It's one of the things that always made Ken Griffey Jr. a cool player to collect.  No matter your budget or level of collecting you could always find something that would look great in your collection. 

Over time my taste in Griffey cards took a turn upwards.  Upper Deck signed Ken Griffey Jr. to an exclusive autograph and relic card contract and put out a ton of his signatures and jersey swatches.  The cards were really expensive in the late nineties, but have come down in price over the past decade and a half.  Who wouldn't want to own a copy of Griffey autograph?

Besides being an iconic player of the game, Griffey has a great signature.  His autograph has changed very little over the years.  There are a few "low end" Griffey autographs which can be had for around $50 on Ebay.  If you want to own a Griffey autograph for the sake of owning a Griffey autograph, you should look into the 2004 UD Etchings set.  I believe the print run on the Griffey autograph in that set is around 1500.  It's the largest autograph run I have ever seen on a Griffey autograph and it's often reflected on the price of the card.

If price is not an object, and your looking for quality, I would look at Upper Deck autographs between 2000 and 2005.  There are plenty of them, with varying print runs, but many are on-card autographs and look sharp.  The newer Topps autographs of Griffey Jr. are also very nice.  Later 2000s Upper Decks are hit and miss.  There are some nice ones, but there are also autographed cards of Griffey on the White Sox (Why Upper Deck?)

In summary, Griffey is just a great player to collect.  He's had the greatest impact on baseball cards over the last thirty years and it's not even close.  Collectors have argued with me over the years about whatever flavor of the year had popped up, but year in and year out, Griffey was always amongst the most collected players in the game.


On The Field-
Griffey is one of the best center-fielders of all-time.  JAWS ranks him as the fifth best of all-time.  The top four center-fielders are Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Mickey Mantle.  There is a pretty big gap in WAR between the four center fielders and the rest of the group, but Griffey still ranks ahead of Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Duke Snider, Richie Ashburn, and Andre Dawson.  Really I think of Griffey's career in two segments.

The first segment of Griffey's career was played at a really high level.  The first decade of Junior's career was played in Seattle where he won an American League MVP, four home run titles, ten Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, and 10 All-Star appearances.  Add in an OPS that was consistently between .900 and 1.000, an OPS+ between 130 and 170, and a WAR that consistently crossed 5.  When you compare those numbers to the top 4 players on the JAWS center-fielder list, it's clear that Griffey fits the mold as one of the greats of the all-time.

The second half of Griffey's career was spent mostly in Cincinnati.  Griffey forced a trade to the Reds before the 2000 season.  While there were signs of Griffey's decline during his last two years in Seattle, injuries sped the process up in Cincinnati.  He was a good player, not great, when he was healthy.  However, he missed a lot of playing time during his nine years as a Red.  He basically played two full season as a Red.  You can count a third season if you include 2008 which was split between the Reds and White Sox.

While Griffey continued to increase his counting number stats like home runs, RBIS, and hits his other stats suffered greatly.  He posted one season over 40 home runs (2000) and won none of the accolades he received while playing in Seattle.   He did make a few All-Star game appearances, but failed to garner any other Silver Sluggers, Gold Gloves, or MVPs.  In fact, during his time in Cincinnati he only finished in the Top 25 for MVP voting once.

His OPS+ in Cincinnati was consistenly under 130, one season over, and his WAR never crossed 4.  Still, despite the decline I still enjoyed watching Ken Griffey as a Red.  It was painful to watch the decline, but if you were patient you'd see a flash of what made Ken Griffey Jr. one of the all-time greats.

One of my best memories of Griffey was from a game he played against the Cardinals in 2001.  I remember watching the game during my summer break from school.  The Cardinals were in the middle of the pennant chase against the Astros and were playing the lowly Reds.  The game entered the 11th inning and Tony LaRussa brought in Andy Benes to pitch.  Griffey came up and hit a ball to dead center field.  Those days patrolled by Jim Edmonds which usually meant a fly ball was either out of the park, or it was going to be caught.  Not that night.  I actually found a video of the play.  Vintage Griffey.

It's got to be one of his best moments as a Red.  It would have been cool to see Griffey stay a little bit more upright as a Red and see where his career numbers might have ended.  If if Griffey was just an above average player in Cincinnati, he could have easily reached 3000 hits and 700 home runs with more than 2 healthy season over his nine as a Red. 

Favorite Card-

There are so many that I could choose.  I will go with the 2000 Pacific Aurora Griffey card.  There are two versions of the card: The original Mariners card and a Reds card.  It's an inexpensive card, but was a really cool card at the time it was released.  You also can't go wrong with a Griffey rookie, the Collector's Choice card above, or any Griffey autograph.  

A Trip To Big D's Cards-Part 2

Jimmy from Big D's Card Shop in Raleigh helped me track down a pair of cool cards for my collection while I was off visiting my in-laws in Michigan.  The best part of buying a few cards from my local card shop while I was on the road?  It gave me a great reason to visit the store and check out a few more cards.  My cards from my road trip were set aside and Jimmy had actually sent me a picture of another card that interested me greatly.

While I spend a lot of time collecting Cardinals, Rays, and Durham Bulls players I do dabble in the Tigers a little bit.  As mentioned before, my in-laws are Michiganders and my brother in-law and father in-law are both pretty big Tigers fans.  We talk a little bit of baseball.  I have some good Tigers cards and thought this card looked awesome:

2008 UD Premier Patches Ivan Rodriguez Dual Patch

It's just a pretty incredible card.  The tiger patch has to be as good as it gets for a Tigers card, so this card found a home in my collection for the moment.  I was also able to pick up another Topps Tribute card for my Cardinals collection.  

2002 Topps Tribute Ozzie Smith Bat Card

 

I had picked up a Ken Boyer from Topps Tribute in Part 1 and was happy to add the Ozzie to complete my pair of bat cards from the Wizard.  I am going to have to go and check out my checklist of the Cardinals in the Tribute set to see how close I am to having on the relics cards.  In the meantime, I am happy with my most recent trip into Big D's.  I will be heading back next weekend for a Trade Night event Jimmy is hosting at the shop.  Should be fun.  Info below if you live somewhere within driving distance.

Top 50 On Cardboard- #2 Cal Ripken Jr.

Top 50 On Cardboard 
#2
Cal Ripken

Hobby Impact-
During the early parts of my collecting career Cal Ripken was Bryce Harper and Derek Jeter rolled into one player.  Ripken had incredibly popular and valuable rookie cards that can all be found in the different 1982 card releases.  There are four basic rookie cards if you are in the market for one.  There are the three base sets from 1982: Donruss, Fleer, and Topps.  Then there is also the 1982 Topps Traded.  He also has a couple of Rochester Red Wings cards floating around from his time in the minors if you want a challenging early 80s rookie to find.  Bring your wallet.

More about his rookie cards later.

Ripken was known as the Iron Horse on the field and built his reputation around his high level of play, despite never taking a day off.  Ripken was kind of the same in the baseball card hobby.  His first cards appeared in 1982 and for twenty years every set, almost, had a Ripken card.  As the hobby grew in the early 90s, the quantity of Ripken cards took off.  He was frequently a target for insert sets, and later on parallels, relics, and autographs.  Further, one of the safest buys for collectors was always a Ripken card.  He's still immensely popular and his cards still hold great value.

I do not specifically pursue Ripken cards, but I do not sell or trade them when I land them.  For me, I had two primary targets in rounding out my Ripken collection.  First, I wanted his complete line of rookie cards (minus the minor leaguers) which I accomplished.  My next target was an autograph.  I have had several over the year and at some point decided to get rid of all my sticker autographs, but I still have two on-card signatures in my collection.

My favorite:

I know that this Upper Deck card is not serial numbered and there is no print run known, but I love these cards.  I have had a few of these come and go through my collection over the years, but they are great cards.  The sticker autographs of Ripken tend to sell for $50-$70, but can go further north depending on the print run and brand.  Anybody seen the new Leaf cards Ripken autographed?  They are selling for less than $40.

Nicer brands with on-card signatures can easily cost more than $100.

On The Field-
This is a simple one to do, but I am probably understating the obvious.  Ripken is rated as the third best shortstop of all-time.  He was one of the greatest offensive shortstops of all-time, reaching 400 home runs and 3000 hits.  Ripken did play his last five years at 3B, but still he's deserving of the ranking.  Outside of the rankings Ripken also won the 1982 Rookie of the Year, the 1983 and 1991 American League MVP awards, and a pair of All-Star game MVPs in 1991 and 2001.

For me, Ripken's most important accomplishment in the game has to do with his consecutive games played streak.  I know this gets a lot of play, but it's a tremendous record and will likely not be touched for a long time, if ever.  You could see the record approaching a long way off, but it took a long time for Cal Ripken to achieve the mark of 2,130 consecutive games.  Honestly, it could not have come at a better time for Major League Baseball.

Fresh off a bad strike which prematurely ended the 1994 season, and delayed the beginning of the 1995 season, the Cal Ripken games played streak kept many fans attached to the game of baseball.  It was a good positive for the game after a few years of negative.  While many point to the home run exploits of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Ken Griffey Jr. as the savior of the game post-strike, but Ripken deserves just as much, if not more.

This short video clip does not do the streak breaking game justice, but I realize that people pop in to read my blog for my a couple of minutes, not two hours.  Although, the full game is posted on YouTube.



Favorite Card-
When I was a kid the 1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken Jr. card was one of the great baseball cards of the time.  I would argue that it's that greatest card from the early eighties.  I never owned one of these as a kid, or a teenager, or a college student.  New employed young person?  Nope.  It took me a long time to cross the card off my list of cool cards to add to my collection.  I rarely buy graded cards, so I need to be patient and track down a really nice raw copy.

I actually found one this first fall I moved to North Carolina at a small antique store in Hickory.  I was riding along with a friend who was looking for some furniture and was not really in the market to buy baseball cards.  The card was tucked into a display case and the owner told me a half hour long story about the time he met Vinegar Bend Mizell at a gas station.  Awesome.  One long story later, I walked out of the antique store with this beauty:

1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken 

A Trip To Big D's Cards-Part 1

For years I have been wandering around North Carolina without a card shop to call my own.  Over the past month I have found my way into a new card store in Raleigh.  There have been a few other card shops around the area, but Big D's card shop is head and shoulders above the rest.  Besides having a nearby card store to shop at, there are other benefits to having a local card shop in your corner.  One of the best benefits of frequenting a local card shop is having another set of eyes for your collection.

Just like other card collectors, I spend some time every week checking cards on the internet. I watch Ebay, COMC, Facebook trade groups, Twitter...I get some good cards from those places, but there are still cards out there that I miss or they get away.  Happens to the best of us.  Two weeks ago I took a trip up to see my in-laws in northern Michigan and was happy to get a message from Jimmy at Big D's Card Shop with a few pictures for me to check out after he ran across a few cool Cardinals and Ryas cards.

There were two cards that I needed for my collection.  I sent over some fundage over Paypal and I landed two sweet additions to the collection.  First up:

2012 National Treasures Evan Longoria Booklet 

This is my second Longoria booklet card.  Always love looking at these cards, but I do not have many in my collection.  I will work on it.  In the meantime, this is a sweet card and I am always happy to have more cards of the former Durham Bull hanging out with me.  I also picked up a cool Cardinals card:

2002 Topps Tribute Ken Boyer Bat 

This is my second Boyer bat card from the 2002 Topps Tribute set.  There are two variations on every player's bat card.  This card has the bat cut into the shape of Boyer's number 14.  The other variation is a shadow-box type of card where the number 12 is carved out of a square pieces of bat.  Pretty sure if you put the two cards together you have one square piece of bat.  Cool card of the former Cardinals third baseman.

A little bit more from Big D's tomorrow.

The Snorting Bull Presents....2012 Bowman

I promised I would post cards that were already in my collection.  I also decided to try to make another vlog post.  I tried a little formatting, simple, but I tried.

Top 50 On Cardboard- #3 Derek Jeter

My Top 50 On Cardboard
#3
Derek Jeter

1993 Topps Stadium Club Murphy Derek Jeter 

Hobby Impact- 
Jeter has obviously had an absolutely huge impact on the hobby.  Naturally it's faded slightly as his career has begun to wind down, but I think he will be a figure similar to Nolan Ryan once he finally hangs it up and retires.  While their were many popular Yankees during the teams run of four World Series titles in between 1996 and 2000, Jeter was the most popular figure on the team in the hobby.  Plus, let's be honest about something.  The Yankees and everything that comes with them are always popular around the hobby, but a special place is held for players who are able to win under that spotlight.  Jeter's not the best player of his generation, but he's at the top in terms of popularity because he won a lot.

Jeter has several rookie cards, but for my money there is nothing better than the Stadium Club Murphy card.  The set comes in a giant plastic model of San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium, but the card is awesome.  It's a card with little border or design to clutter it up, but just a nice picture of Jeter wearing his warmups holding a bat.  Sometimes simplicity is good, but in this case it is awesome.  I own one copy of the card, but would gladly trade all thirty other (or something like that) Jeter rookies in my collection for another clean well-centered copy of the card.

There are so many great Jeter cards out there that I am going to point out just some of my basics to Jeter.  There are better and bigger Jeter collectors out there, but I keep the good cards of him that I run across and do not really hold any animosity against him for being a popular figure in the game.

Besides the Stadium Club Murphy, if I had to own another Jeter card for my collection, I would make sure to add a copy of the 2007 Topps Jeter variation.  I get annoyed at all of the silly variations jams into some of their products these days, but the card that started a lot of the silly variation stuff out was this Jeter card.

2007 Topps Derek Jeter Mantle/Bush SP

The original card was cool because Topps only made one variation card in the 2007 set.  It wasn't like the 2013 Topps Update set which had a few hundred.  The story behind the card varies, but I believe Topps knew about the card and let it roll.  It's the best variation cards out there and probably the most iconic one I could think of as a must own.

Beyond owning a Jeter rookie card and the variation most Jeter collectors are going to focus on picking up autographs and relics.  His autograph offers collectors great value and retain their value very well.  Jeter has a great signature to boot.

2000 UD Ionix Derek Jeter Autograph 

You already I prefer the on-card autographs, so I would stick with something from the late 90s or early 2000s.  While Jeter autographs offer collectors really good value he has signed a ton of cards throughout his career.  The majority of his autographs are going to run you a pretty penny.  If the card is less than $100 something is wrong or it's fake.  I am always amazed that his autographs and relics have retained their value as well as they have over the years just based on the sheer quantity of cards there are out on the secondary market.

2002 Fleer Ultra Season Crowns Derek Jeter Jersey 

Relic cards are the same as autographs.  There are tons of them out on the market, or just keep opening packs of cards and you will run into a few.  He's the one guy who seemingly always has a jersey card. Bigger pieces and patches are always better, but it's also really important to pull pieces with a pinstripe. I always have a hard time with Fleer products and pinstripes.  There are probably a dozen Jeter jersey cards in my collection and none of the Fleer cards have pinstripes.  None.  

On The Field-
If you know me well you know what's coming here in a second, but I will say that the five rings that Jeter has accumulated over the years are quite impressive.  There are not many players who reach that mark and it speaks volumes that the Yankees kept him around for all five championships.  Championship rings are always nice things to have around.  Okay, let the shoe fall.

I was talking with a reader a few weeks ago about the Hall of Fame ballot which I posted on this blog.  I posted ten players I would vote for if I had a ballot and then posted a few other names at the bottom of the ballot.  The name on my ballot who drew the biggest outrage was former Tigers shortstop Alan Trammell.  Basically the reader had a problem with the fact that I would have voted for Trammell if I had a free space on my ballot.  Really, the best argument for Alan Trammell being in the Hall of Fame is Derek Jeter.  Do you believe Derek Jeter is a Hall of Famer?  Almost a universal yes.  Then why not Trammell?

Jeter rates as the 12th best shortstop of all-time accroding to JAWS, but I do not like the fact that they count ARod and Robin Yount as a shortstop, so I will bump Jeter up to tenth place all-time.  That puts Jeter right in the middle of the Hall of Fame shortstops.  He's behind Cal Ripken, Ernie Banks, Ozzie Smith, and Luke Appling.  Oh, Alan Trammell too.  He ranks higher than Barry Larkin, Lou Boudreau, and Joe Cronin.

If you look at Jeter's break down of oWAR and dWAR he rates as a 94.1 on the o and -9.2 on the d.  While the dWAR rating is poor the o rating of actually puts him in the top 25 players of all-time on offense.  If you use WAR he comes in at 71.6 which puts him 8th all-time for shortstops.  Behind Alan Trammel.  Also Honus Wagner, Ozzie Smith, and Cal Ripken.

There are also some good counting numbers on the Jeter resume too.  Everyone knows the 3,000 hits, but he also has 500 doubles, 250 home runs, and over 300 steals.  That's got to be a pretty unique club. Definite Hall of Famer in my mind.  Vote Trammell.

Favorite Card-
You know I hate posting the same card twice, but....