a quick trip to tatooine

with the trade of juan uribe to the braves, i would expect alex guerrero to eventually settle in at third base. at least until hector olivera is ready.  however, most of guerrero's playing time of late has been in the outfield, since both yasiel puig and carl crawford are injured.

last year, topps included guerrero in many of its sets, and listed him as a second baseman.  that made sense then, but he has yet to play at second in the major leagues.  here are three of those cards, with guerrero turning two to boot.

2014 topps walmart blue

2014 topps chrome purple refractor

and 2014 topps mini pink parallel

notice that the cards show guerrero throwing to first without a lick of grass in sight.  that's what makes a tatooine card a tatooine card.

here are some others from my mini collection

1994 donruss bobby bonilla

1995 upper deck luis lopez electric diamond parallel

1996 upper deck brady anderson vj lovero showcase insert

2000 topps stadium club bobby abreu

2001 fleer tradition corey koskie

2011 topps carlos beltran

and 2012 topps emilio bonifacio

i am guessing that there is all kinds of mischief one can get into at mos eisley spaceport, so the vegas code probably stands - what happens on tatooine stays on tatooine.  unless you're luke skywalker bragging about taking out womprats to a group of rebel pilots.

card show stuff

it's been over a month since wallet card and i went to the semi-annual regional card show, and i still haven't shown off the other cards i bought and scanned.  like this 1951 bowman don newcombe card

it's nice that the 'bull pen' is labeled and that curious george's man in yellow is watching newk warm up from the stands.

i picked up a card for my 1965 topps set, and it features three hall of famers

say hey! the giants must have had a pretty good team in 1964 with all that power (plus juan marichal and gaylord perry on the mound).  well, they won 90 games but were 4th in the national league, 3 games back of the pennant winning cardinals.  the dodgers were two games under .500, but bounced back pretty well in '65.

i also grabbed a card for my 1957 topps set for a buck - don mossi

i won't mention the ears.

from the dime binder, a 1982 topps sticker of pedro guerrero

showing his co-mvp form in the 1981 world series

the rest of the stuff comes from the dime boxes, and they were brimming with junk wax. i took some new to me double plays, like this 1993 donruss spike owen

1993 leaf ricky gutierrez

1994 leaf jose lind

1995 leaf carlos baerga

and 2001 fleer tradition marlon anderson

a little something for pretty much every facet of my collection!

double plays are a dime apiece

it's always fun to get a trade package from nick at dime boxes in part because he also collects double play cards, and so he sends me some that turn out to be new additions to my collection.

for example, i already had this 1968 topps game card of claude osteen in my dodger collection

but now i have one for my double play binders, too.  sure, it doesn't show the play at second base, but it still references a twin-killing enough to warrant a spot in the binder.

here are some more traditional double play turns that nick sent:

1991 leaf wally backman

1992 topps bill doran gold 'winner' parallel

1997 fleer alex gonzalez

2012 topps mike aviles gold parallel

2001 fleer tradition jay canizaro

2003 upper deck 40man junior spivey

and a 2004 mlb showdown 'hard slide' card

obviously, that's wes helms sliding in, but i'm not completely certain of the cub turning two.  2003 was helms' first season with the brew crew, so it is most likely either alex gonzalez or mark grudzielanek (and just by visual inspection i know that it's not grudzielanek).  it turns out that on may 7, 2003, keith osik of the brewers hit into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play with helms as the lead runner.  although the second baseman for the cubs that day was ramon martinez, the shortstop was indeed alex gonzalez.

thanks for the dp turns nick!

a few more double play turns and some other cards from the heart of texas

here is some more goodness from the box of cards that i received recently from brian at play at the plate.

a few more double plays that are new to my collection - 1999 pacific denny hocking

1999 pacific crown collection rey ordonez

2000 fleer ultra tony batista

and a couple from 2001 fleer tradition - ron belliard

and pokey reese

i'll give fleer some credit for bringing to mind 1956 topps without being totally obnoxious about it.

brian included a 2002 fleer ultra eric karros gold medallion edition parallel

which cleanses the palette between vintage-y looking cards, more of which you are about to see.

a good portion of the box included cards from 2002 upper deck vintage.  this was the set that was basically 1971 topps with the photo moved above the team/player/position text.  here's the carlos febles card from the set

looks like a rundown.

strange to see david ortiz in a twins' uniform after all these years

one of the more interesting cards in the bunch was this ichiro card

with him legging out an infield hit, which he often did.

now, upper deck would tell you that they were paying homage to 1971 o-pee-chee, which is why the backs of the cards are yellow

this would be what the latter series of o-pee-chee looked like in '71, with the rectangular photo like topps had for the entire set run.

anyway, we know that o-pee-chee claim to be tenuous at best since upper deck wound up altering their 2009 o-pee-chee set to look nothing like the 1977 set which it was rumoured to be featuring prior to its release.

whether by design or not, some of the cards do remind me of 1971 topps, like this bernie williams card

that reminds me of the tommie agee card from 1971, just a bit more 'zoomed in'.

here are a few cards from the postseason scrapbook subset

an alfonso soriano walk-off in the alds

jeter walk-off in the world series

i'm not sure why upper deck chose to say "a last at-bat" on soriano's card, but "walkoff" on jeter's

more jeter love from game 5 of the world series

he drove in two runs and took to breakdancing at home plate, apparently.

finally, however, let us recall the fantastic end to the 2001 world series, thanks to mark grace and luis gonzalez

that was awesome.  just like the box of cards brian sent.  i'll be showing some of the pacific goodness in another post or posts.  stay tuned…

let's bat around with make believe cards

i am going to take a very narrow approach to the third bat around, and just address one set i would like to see issued next year or someday.

i went crazy for topps heritage in 2001. i pre-ordered a box as soon as i heard about it and waited not so patiently for the release date. long story short - the guy i pre-ordered from went out of business or worse, and i never got my box. i still bought a lot of packs, though. then i went crazy for topps archives when they came out. same with topps fan favorites. upper deck vintage. fleer tradition. i have always believed very strongly in the strength of baseball's connection with the past, so seeing current players on vintage style cards was almost as cool as seeing some of my favorite retired players in different poses on those same style cards.

couple all of that with my love for the final tributes - cards that include a player's complete career statistics issued the year after they retire - and you get what would be my favorite set. a set that would include a 1970 don drysdale, a 1977 hank aaron, a 1988 topps steve garvey, a 2007 todd hollandsworth, a 1976 juan marichal and a 1973 jim lefebvre.

now, i understand that there are limits to the number of retired players that can be included in a base set, so you could include current players on cards in the style of the year they were born. how about a 1972 topps manny ramirez or a 1985 topps evan longoria?

given the appreciation i and others have for the digital work of punk rock paint, goose joak, the writer's journey, white sox cards, and others, i think this set would be awesome. i would even pre-order it.

oh, and i would also like to see documentary done correctly. and sold in team sets. thank you.