25 Years of Baseball

2010 Topps Series 1:

1. #188 Joe Blanton
2. #87 Darin Erstad
3. #49 Jorge de la Rosa
4. #42 Prince Fielder/Ryan Howard/Albert Pujols (League Leaders)
5. The Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT-7 Orlando Cepeda
6. Peak Performance #PP-6 Steve Carlton
7. Topps Town #TTT15 Miguel Cabrera
8. #178 Kerry Wood
9. #83 Mark Teahen
10. #223 Ryan Church

“Carlton Cruises to First NL™ Cy Young Award”

“In what is viewed as one of the most sensational pitching seasons in history because it came for a last-place team, Carlton won his first of four NL Cy Young Awards in 1972.  He collected all 24 first-place votes after topping the circuit in wins (27), ERA (1.97) and CGs (30). Steve struck out a career-high 310 — 61 more than anyone else in the League.”

I wasn’t aware that the letters “NL” were trademarked by Major League Baseball.

I also picked up a bunch of heavy hitters in this pack:

2006 Topps Update #UH39 Zach Day

2006 Topps Update #UH104 Nook Logan

2010 Topps Series 1:

1. #254 Edwin Jackson
2. #116 Carlos Gomez
3. #195 James Shields
4. #314 Angel Pagan
5. #306 Milton Bradley
6. Tales of the Game #TOG-1 Ty Cobb
7. Legendary Lineage #LL26 Dennis Eckersley/Mariano Rivera
8. Topps Town #TTT1 Joe Mauer
9. #241 Rocco Baldelli
10. #78 Cesar Izturis

Spikes Up!

“Cobb’s hard-charging approach to the game was captured perfectly in a 1909 photograph entitled “Spikes Up.”  The picture shows a grimacing Ty sliding hard into Yankees third baseman Jimmy Austin, with loose dirt flying in all directions.  ”The Georgia Peach” hustled his way to an unprecedented 892 stolen bases in his career as one of the most fearsome base runners in Major League history.“

2006 Topps Update #UH8 Ramon Ortiz

2006 Topps Update #UH23 Felipe Lopez

2006 Topps Update #UH26 Ryan Wagner

I’ve been opening a lot of packs from 2008 and 2009 lately and I’d like to get back to opening more old wax again.  I wrote a quick pack randomizer spreadsheet function that will randomly pick an old wax pack for me to break whenever I feel up to it.  Today’s random old wax pack is 1993 Topps Series 1:

1. #279 Todd Burns
2. #158 Kevin Koslofski
3. #196 Pat Kelly
4. #199 Junior Ortiz
5. #253 Jose Guzman
6. #74 Steve Buechele
7. #212 Rick Reed
8. #316 Dave Nilsson
9. #219 Bip Roberts
10. Gold #387 Devon White
11. #203 Bernard Gilkey
12. #173 Andres Galarraga
13. #266 Rene Gonzales
14. #171 Doug Jones
15. #311 Jay Howell

Wow, ripping a pack of old-school Topps junk wax really puts card collecting into perspective.  No autos, relics, serial numbers, gimmicks, rainbows, refractors, or any of those “mojo hits” a lot of collectors look for these days.  Just 14 regular base cards and a gold card.

Back in 1993, I would have been really happy to get a Devon White gold card.  He was a 30-year-old 5-time Gold Glove winner and 2-time All-Star at the time.  Unfortunately for Devon, 1993 was pretty much the peak of his career.

2006 Upper Deck #972 Michael O’Connor (Rookie)

2006 Upper Deck #994 Santiago Ramirez (Rookie)

2006 Upper Deck #1218 Felipe Lopez

2009 Topps Updates & Highlights:

1. #UH1 Ivan Rodriguez
2. #UH8 Lance Broadway
3. #UH194 Ty Wigginton
4. #UH221 Adrian Gonzalez (Home Run Derby)
5. #UH117 Alex Rios
6. Gold Border #UH319 Ramon Castro (Serial#1000/2009)
7. Legends of the Game #LGU24 Paul Molitor
8. Topps Town Gold #FCTTT62 Russell Martin
9. #UH73 Sean West (Rookie)
10. #UH115 Jeff Weaver

The Ramon Castro gold card is #1000 out of 2009!

And a Legends of the Game card celebrating Paul Molitor’s 225-hit season in 1996:

“Moving back home to the Twin Cities, Molitor put together one last brilliant season for Minnesota in 1996.  He stroked 225 hits — his career high and the third-most in franchise history.  At age 40, Paul also became the oldest player ever to achieve a 200-hit season.  His 211th of the year — a triple against the Kansas City Royals on September 16 — was No. 3,000 for his career.”

And Pudge about to body-slam someone in the crotch with a baseball.  ouch!

2006 Upper Deck #867 Ramon Ortiz

2006 Upper Deck #868 Robert Fick

2006 Upper Deck #869 Royce Clayton