Pat Darcy Is Lost

I last updated my 1975 Topps mini Durham Bulls project back in November.  I was down to just eight cards to finish off the "team set" of former Durham Bulls players who appeared in the set.  I already had the big names, Hall of Famers and greats of the era, so I was down to a few commons.

Now, I am down to one common. We'll save that story for the end of the post.  

Yes, the cards are mini even if the scans are large. A little blurb about each player is included.  

Jim Ray is first up.  He was on the 1965 Durham Bulls as a starting pitcher, but spent most of his Major League career as a relief pitcher.  Pretty good during the late 1960s, threw really hard, and was nicknamed "The Ray Gun".   Ray pitched for the Tigers in 1974, but spent the rest of his career in the Minors.  This is his final card.  

Easily the best player in this post.  I've posted a few Bibby cards before.  He was not only on the Durham Bulls, but also a local player from Franklinton, North Carolina and attended Fayetteville State University for college.  Bibby played for the 1968 Raleigh-Durham (it's an airport) Mets.  He had been out of baseball the two prior years serving in the Vietnam War.  Bibby played a total of 12 years, won more than 100 games, which included being a starting pitcher on the 1979 World Series winning Pirates team.  

I was a little disappointed with this card.  I bought it off of SportsLots, but it is clearly not in "Mint" condition.  Overall, a little disappointed with my recent experiences with SportsLots.  More on that later in the post.  I will find another copy of this card at some point.  Morales played for the 1968 Raleigh-Durham (airport) Mets, but spent the majority of his career with the Cubs.  He was long-time coach with the Dodgers and Expos after retiring.  

Leroy Stanton was on the 1968 Raleigh-Durham (airport) Mets.  He played roughly a decade in the Majors and had some good years along the way with the Angels and Mariners.  Probably most noted for being traded with Nolan Ryan from the Mets to the Angels for Jim Fregosi, but was also an original member of the Seattle Mariners in 1977.  In fact, he led the team in home runs and RBIs during their first season.  

Bobby Heise was on the 1967 Durham Bulls.  The first year the team was a Mets affiliate, also the last year before the Mets decided that the team should be renamed after an airport.  Bob played on 7 teams in 11 years.  I could tell you his career slash line, but let's just say that even his slugging percentage is under .300 (that's really bad).  Something nice about Bob?  He could play all the infield positions.  That's all I got.  

I was excited about John Denny's rookie card, but he did not play for the Durham Bulls.  He did lead the National League in wins during the 1983 season.  Nope.  I bought this card for Rawley Eastwick who was on the infamous 1971 Raleigh-Durham Triangles. 

I need to do more research into why people in the late 1960s and early 1970s decided to go away from just using the Durham Bulls name.  Anyway, back to Rawly Eastwick.  

Rawly Eastwick led the National League in saves twice while pitching for the mid 1970s Cincinnati Reds.  Relievers weren't a huge deal back in the 1970s, but Eastwick was a good pitcher. Won two World Series rings with the Reds.  

This was actually a pretty tough card to find.  There are no short-prints in the 1975 Topps mini set, so I am not sure why there are not many of them on Ebay or COMC.  

Last card.  

Ted Martinez was on the 1968 Raleigh-Durham Mets.  He was in the Majors for 9 years, mainly as a utility/bench player. Apparently, he was a favorite interview of Ralph Kiner's during pre and post game radio shows for Mets broadcasts.  As the story goes, Ted did not speak much English, but it was okay because Ralph did not speak much Spanish. I can't find a clip, but apparently they were pretty fun together.  

Let's talk about Pat Darcy.  

Here is the Pat Darcy card that showed up in my mailbox.  

At the beginning of the post, I had stated that the cards were all Minis even though the scans were giant.  Not true here.  I bought a Topps Mini of Pat Darcy off of Sports Lots, but I was sent a regular 1975 Topps card.  I got a refund, bought a second copy, and it appeared to be headed to my mailbox last week.  It was supposedly delivered in the morning last Thursday, but my mail does not show up until late in the afternoon.  It did not show up in the late afternoon, or the next day.  I asked my mail carrier about the package, gave him the tracking number, but all I got a shoulder shrug.  

Pat Darcy is lost.  

Maybe the third time buying a Pat Darcy card will work out better than the first two times.  

The Search For Hak Ju Lee Continues Part 2.....

A few posts back, I showed off a new card of former Durham Bulls shortstop Hak Ju Lee.  His career was sidetracked by a knee injury and he ended up returning home to Korea.  It's been hard to follow his career in the KBO, but I have still enjoyed dabbling in collecting his cards.  Here was the card from the last post....

While I was writing the post, I found an interesting video online showing a crowd of fans at a Samsung Lions game singing the Hak Ju Lee cheer song and doing some sort of dance.  The video identifies Hak Je Lee as the "Religious Sect Leader of the Samsung Lions"

The song is catchy and I am sure that something is being lost in translation here.  

Anyway, I ended up picking up another Hak Ju Lee card last week.  I do not have Hak Ju Lee saved in my Ebay searches anymore, but I just type his name in from time to time.  A nice looking autograph popped up, it was inexpensive, so I decided to go ahead and buy it.  

Which takes me back to my previous Hak Ju Lee post.  After sharing the post on Twitter, a person shared a Hak Ju Lee tweet with me from the 2019 season.  It was incredible and the perfect follow up to the forty-five second video above showing fans sing and dancing.  

The Tweet shows a video of Hak Ju Lee dancing to the song from the video above, only he's wearing a robe and standing at home plate while he's doing it.  Even crazier when the at-bat starts and he's still wearing the robe.  Seriously.  

Per @JoshLindblom52's request, here's the video of the moment: pic.twitter.com/JVJ075MTnZ

— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) July 21, 2019

I either need to watch more KBO games, or we need more Major League Baseball players wearing robes and dancing before they take their at-bats.   

Back to baseball cards.  Here is the new Hak Ju Lee card.  

This card is from Bowman Black, which was a cross product autograph set that Topps put into all the different Bowman products.  Hak Ju Lee's cards were in the regular Bowman product.  Nice looking card, but I did not shell out for one when these first came out.  I try not to pay crazy prices for cards of players in the Minor Leagues.  I like the silver ink on the black background.  Really pops out.  

There are not too many of the Bowman Black autographs floating around on Ebay, so I am happy that I was able to find this card.  Plus, it gave me a chance to share the video of Hak Ju Lee dancing.  

Set Appreciation Post #11 - 1998 Topps Tek

The Topps Tek set with a grand total of 8,100 cards.  There are 90 cards, each with 90 different background patterns.  The idea is slightly absurd.  I know a lot of player collectors who love this set, not many set collectors though.  I collect Ray Lankford cards, he's in this set, but I do not own all 90 different variations of his cards.  It's not even really something I am working on anymore.  I tried, but it is not a very easy task.  

They don't really scan very well, but here are six of my seventy something Ray Lankford cards.  

This one is going to be quick.  

Base Card 

A little closer look at the patterns.  The cards are transparent and made out of an acetate material.  The action photo on the front of the cards is the same regardless of the pattern.  The pattern number is on the back of the card.  

The pattern number is on the bottom corner underneath the card number.  The card backs all have a portrait style color photo.  There are no stats on the back of the card, rather Topps put down the date they thought that the players should reach certain milestones.  Topps used a similar stats set up on an insert set in their Topps Laser product, but we will make fun of that set on a different day.  

The design on the front of the card is decent enough.  The design on the back is not great.  I feel like the second player photo on the back looks busy.  I also wish there the stats were a little different.  Again, Speculative stats are never great.  

No Inserts

Yep.  There are no insert sets in the 1998 Topps Tek set.  Makes collecting the set a little easier.  However, there Diffractor parallels, same idea as the refractor cards in every other Topps product.  Nobody knows how many Diffractor cards of each patterned card there are, but it is a small quantity.  

I have a few Lankfords.  If you have a favorite 1990s player in this set, they do pop up from time to time.  I didn't own any Lankford diffractors, but then managed to find three of them in roughly a year.  

I kind of like the idea of not having any inserts.  The Topps TEK set is geared towards player collectors, it's actually nice to just have the base cards with nothing else to find.  

Best Former Durham Bulls Player In The Set 

I like that there are some different players in this set.  Always nice to see new faces, especially in a set that was only 90 cards.  I decided to go with a player who did not get into many of the small sets from the late 1990s/early 2000s, but also a former player with a current connection to the Durham Bulls.  He's actually connected to the area in general.  

I decided to go with Quinton McCracken who was the Durham Bulls first base coach in 2019.  He also played for the Durham Bulls as a player in 2000.  Beyond his two appearances with the Bulls, McCracken is actually from Wilmington, North Carolina and played football and baseball at Duke.  Did Chipper Jones ever return a punt for a touchdown against Clemson?  How about Andruw Jones or David Justice?  No?  Quinton McCracken did.  

Best Cardinals Card 

Again, whoever made the checklist for Topps TEK did a great job.  There are three Cardinals players in this set.  The standard Cardinals who appeared in these late 1990s small sets were Mark McGwire, Ray Lankford, and then some combination of Ron Gant, Dennis Eckerlsey, or Andy Benes.  Every once in awhile, you got a Brian Jordan, like you get in this set.  

Obviously not on the same level as McGwire, not quite as good as Lankford, but he was a pretty big contributor for the 1990s Cardinals.  In his last three full seasons as a Cardinal (95, 96, and 98), he led the team twice in WAR and finished second the other time.  His career numbers are also better than both Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders.  

Best Non-Cardinals/Durham Bulls Card 

Topps TEK is a pretty unique set, so I am trying to pick a card here for a different reason.  

There were no update sets in the late 1990s, but you could usually find players in new uniforms as the season went along.  Topps TEK was a late fall release, so there were several players who were traded within the season.  

Gary Sheffield is a Dodger, but started the year as a Marlin.  

Mike Piazza is a Met, but started the year as a Dodger.  Also a stop off with the Marlins.  

Randy Johnson is an Astro, but started the year as a Mariner.  

There is one long-time Major Leaguer in this set who is in a rather odd looking uniform.  I love cards like the 1984 Fleer Update Pete Rose Expos card, or Rickey Henderson Mariner cards, etc, etc.    According to COMC, this is the only card this player had with this team during the 1998 calendar year, and only one of two dozen cards this player had with this team in all.  They have over 1,500 cards in stock of this player.  

Here is the card. 

Konerko played 2,200 games as a member of the White Sox and 28 games as a Red.  His lone 1998 card as a member of the Reds with this Topps TEK.  He had several Reds cards at the beginning of the 1999 card calendar, but was traded to the White Sox weeks after the end of the 1998 season. Most of his 1999 cards are with the White Sox.  I know he was also on the Dodgers for part of a season and had tons of cards made while he was in their Minor League system. 

How Does It Compare?  

On paper, this is a really great concept for a set.  My main criticism is the fact that it is actually pretty difficult to assemble the full run of 90 cards for a player.  Should it really take more than 20 years to assemble a set?  No.

The design is decent, but nothing spectacular.  The back is weird with the speculative stats too.  Give me some good old home runs or strikeouts.  If we are just strictly comparing it to other acetate card sets from this era, it's definitely behind the Skybox EX products.  

The two biggest positives are the checklist and the fact that the set is focused on collecting base cards and not not bogged down with inserts.  I love that Topps squeezed in some different players, star players in new uniforms during an era with no update sets, etc.  

It feels like it fits best in the middle of my list.  It obviously needs to be below the 2001 Fleer EX set.  I will also put it below the Mini League Leaders set, but above the burlap sack cards in the 2017 Heritage Minors.  

11. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

10. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

A Giant Project

My first project for 2021 is going to be assembling a complete set of 1964 Topps Giants cards.  I do not own a complete set from the 1960s, so this is something different for me.  It's a small checklist and the usual really expensive players in the set are not really all that expensive.  

I posted one card from the set last week.  

I have four more that have shown up in the mail during the first part of this week with several more on the way.  Here are the first four new cards.   

First up is a pair of Milwaukee Braves.  I bought these two cards together.  I viewed it as a good sign that I was able to find a Hall of Fame pitcher and great player from the era for $7.  Here is the Joe Torre.....

I wish I knew the 1960s stadiums a little better. Torre is wearing a road uniform, but I cannot figure out the stadium in the background.  I had thought that the square object behind him might be a blurred out Anheuser-Busch sign that was in left field at Sportsman Park in St. Louis, but I think the scoreboard was under the sign.  Not quite right.  

Back of the card.  

Next.  

The centering top to bottom is a little off here, but no complaints.  This was from the end of Spahn's career, definitely looking older here.  Love the hat brim. 

Next up is a St. Louis native.  

I have picked up a few Elston Howard cards over the years.  St. Louis produced a lot of baseball players during the 1950s and 1960s, kind of a fun to pick up their cards from time to time.  Elston Howard is not a Hall of Famer, but definitely a great from his era. 

Nice write-up on Elston Howard's 1963 American League MVP season on the back of the card.  

Last card for this post.  

I think Freehan was in the 1963 Topps set, but it had three other players on the card.  So, 1964 was the first year he had a stand alone card.  His regular Topps card is a really goofy posed shot where he is half squatting down, but half-heartedly.   This is a much better card.  

and the back.  

I know that it is not going to be too difficult to find the majority of the cards, but I am going to put this project at roughly 6 months.  There are short-printed cards in the set and there is also a budget here.  The wife is not going to be happy if I drop a couple hundred dollars on some high grade copy of the Mickey Mantle card.  Here is the checklist.  Cards I own are highlighted in red.  

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

The New Goals

I actually put a lot of thought into this year's goals.  

No, seriously.  

1. More Pre-1970s Durham Bulls Cards/Sets 

I have done a few different set projects on this blog over the years.  I really enjoyed the one I did this past year with the 1975 Topps Minis.  

Did I know who was on the checklist going into the project?  No.  

I have the cards that complete the "set" and will be making the final post for the 1975 Minis within the next week or so.  I am going to try and do three similar Durham Bulls sets this year, but with a little variation for added challenge.  I am going to attempt another 1970s set, but also do a 1960s and 1950s set as the other two.  I am leaning towards working on the 1971 Topps set for that decade, I will figure out the 1960s and 1950s at some point.  

2. A 1960s Set Project (Maybe Two) 

I am going to work on a 1960s set.  Something smaller.  I am not going to try to chase down a few hundred cards.  I am willing to work on something with a more limited checklist, especially one where I can buy the Mantle card without refinancing my mortgage.  Although, interest rates are really low. 

Topps Giants is my likely target.  

If I finish off the Topps Giants set, I have another two or three others that I am considering for the second half of the year.  

3. Find Another Former Bulls Player.....

How many Blake Snell autographs have been posted on my blog during the past four to five years?  

Just a few.  

I thought I had another year with Blake Snell before I had to move on to another player, but the time arrived a little sooner than I thought.  I will still find some Snell cards on the Padres, but it's not like I am going to go out and find thirty of his autographs next year.  

One in-house option would be to work more on cards of Michael Brosseau..... 

The second in-house option would be to go after more Brandon Lowe cards.  

4. Be More Consistent With Writing 

Last year was the least I have written since I started blogging back in 2012.  There was something really hard about sitting down at a computer to type of blog post after sitting in front of a computer for 10 hours during the day to teach my students.  The last few years I had settled into a nice pace where I posted 3 times a week.  Usually once on the weekend, a short weekday post on Monday or Tuesday, and then a late week post.  

That didn't work this year.  

I am hoping to get back to a more consistent pattern, even if it means my overall quantity drops.  

That's it.  We will see how I did next January.  

                                                                                                                   

The Old Goals

A quick run down my collecting goals from 2020.  

Here were my goals from 2020:

1. No new sets from packs. 

2. More Durham Bulls and Cardinals single cards. 

3. More Posts About Sorting 

I will do a few new goals for 2021 this weekend.  

1. No New Set From Packs - Complete Success 

So, for starters I did not complete a single 2020 calendar year set.  None.  In fact, I barely even opened any packs of 2020 cards.  I bought a few packs of Topps Heritage from Target when it was first released, same with Series 1 and Series 2 of the Topps base set.  I was not chasing down packs of cards by driving around in between all the Targets and Wal-Mart stores within an hour of my house.  

The majority of the time and money I spent on 2020 calendar year cards went towards buying a few select Project 2020 cards from Topps.  I think there were probably my three favorite cards out of the product:

I bought some of those Super 1970s cards and posted what came in my pack last week.  

That's it.  I think all of my 2020 cards might fit into a 300 count box save for the Topps Project 2020 cards because of the packaging.  

2. More Durham Bulls and Cardinals single cards - Success 

I feel like this is where most of my time and money went in terms of cards coming into my collection.  I feel like the two biggest successes were working on finding the 1975 Topps Mini cards of the former Durham Bulls players in the set, along with finding a copy of the 1959 Topps Bob Gibson rookie card.  

The Gibson rookie was by far the highlight of my collecting during 2020.  

I picked up this card at the height of the Topps Project 2020 craze.  I was able to flip around a Bob Gibson card from that set for this card.  It's not perfect, but I was just blown away to even land this card.  

The 1975 Topps Mini set was something different.  I have plenty of modern Durham Bulls cards, but not nearly as many from the 1970s and earlier.  There were plenty of good Bulls players who appear in card sets from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.  Really fun to learn about these players and find their cards.  

3. More Posts About Sorting - Not So Great 

I started out the year posting about sorting cards.  

By the middle of the year, I was not posting about sorting cards.  

My card closet is not in an organized state at the moment.  

New goals for 2021 later this weekend.  

Slightly Let Down.

I was really excited earlier this year when Topps announced that they were putting out a set that was created with the owner of the Super 70s Sports Twitter account.  The Twitter account is sort of a cross between sports and pop culture with a heavy 1970s lean.  Sure, there is a little bit of 1960s and 1980s cross over in there from time to time, but the account generally does a good job of staying in its lane.  

For example........

Brilliant.  

I was hoping the set would be the Topps equivalent of the 2001 Upper Deck 1970s set.  If you collected cards at the time that set was released, you know that's a high bar to meet.  There were some really strong inserts, great names from the decade, and a solid autograph checklist.  I thought Topps was up for the challenge of matching cards like this one from the Upper Deck set.....

 

It took awhile for the box to show up, but last week it appeared in my mailbox.  I was excited to open the pack of cards.  It's one of the few current 2020 products that I have opened this year.  

The packaging inside the box was pretty nice.   

Now that I mentioned the Twitter account and the packaging, I am roughly 50% of the way through the highlights for this product.  The set has one major flaw.  Maybe I am being picky, but I am going to go ahead and borrow a meme from Mad Man and one of my current favorite sayings at work.  

Works great in 2020, usually more than once in a week.  

So, here is the problem.  Ohtani has nothing to do with the 1970s.  He wasn't even born in the 1970s.  Sandy Koufax did not pitch in the 1970s.  In fact, he retired in the middle of the 1960s.  It's not even like he pitched in the late 1960s.  I am not scanning on my cards from the box, they are on my Twitter if you really need to see them, but there were a lot of other non-1970s players.  

Not to keep harkening back the Upper Deck 1970s set either, but that product only had players from the 1970s, which is what made it a really great product.  I'd like to think there is still a market for that type of product 20 years later.  Has Topps looked around at who collects baseball cards nowadays?  There are a lot of people who would eat up a set filled with players from the 1970s.  

Here is the sad part.  

The 1970s cards that are in the set are really well done.  It's not like I am expecting a set of Hall of Famers.  J.R. Richard and Dave Kingman are definitely more in line with what I thought would be in pack of cards.  These are great cards.  The 1970s themed insert cards are even better.  I pulled three insert cards, one of which was an autograph, out of my box of 1970s Topps.

This card is a gem with Rich "Goose" Gossage wearing shorts for the White Sox.  

Lou Brock wearing sunglasses.  Yes, absolutely great 1970s card. 

This Gorman Thomas card is also awesome.  The mustache is magnificent, as is the long hair cover up his ears and the long side burns.  

I understand that I am being a little hard here.  There are truly some really great 1970s cards in this product.  If had to go back and keep my $20 and not order this box, I probably would have still picked up a few singles on Ebay or COMC at some point.  It's not a total disappointment, I just feel slightly let down.