memorial patches for kevin hickey and moose

bill 'moose' skowron passed away in late april, 2012, and fellow white sox alum kevin hickey died a couple of weeks later.  the white sox honored both former players with diamond memorial patches on their 2012 jerseys.  the top one read 'hic man' for hickey, and the bottom patch had 'bms' for bill 'moose' skowron.

you can see both patches on the road grays thanks to francisco liriano's 2012 topps update card

as well as on the home pinstripes courtesy of adam dunn's 2013 topps

and 2013 topps opening day cards

and even on the throwbacks thanks to alex rios' 2013 topps archives card

but the card that gives us the best view of the patches is this 2012 topps heritage high numbers francisco liriano card. it's the one that goes in the memorials binder

one thing i like about this relatively new collection of mine is that i get to learn about players that i might not have known much about otherwise.  i did not know that kevin hickey's story rivals that of 'the rookie' jim morris or that philadelphia eagle player that disney made a movie about.

hickey was a steelworker who played softball and went to a tryout held by the white sox in the late 1970's.  he did well enough that he wound up getting to play in the minor leagues.  he eventually earned a call up and pitched in the majors for parts of six seasons - three with the white sox and three with the orioles.  even after his playing career was over, he remained close to the white sox, and was the team's bp pitcher from 2004 up until his death.

skowron i knew more about, largely because of his role in the dodgers' 1963 world series sweep of the yankees.  it was his lone season as a dodger, but he hit .385 in the fall classic with a home run to help defeat his former team, which he was not too thrilled about.  beginning the following year (after a short stint with the senators), skowron played for the white sox for a few seasons.  after retiring, he returned to chicago and served as an ambassador for the team as a member of their community relations department.  skowron appeared in 7 world series as a member of the yankees to go along with his one as a dodger, but the yankees did not wear armbands in 2012.

uh, wait - what? hey! good god those are baseball card boxes!

pay attention to your peripherals, kids.  even when driving on a saturday morning running errands.  you never know when you might be passing by folks setting up a here-to-fore unknown flea market and catch a glance of some familiar white cardboard boxes being added to a table.

that's what happened to me last saturday.  i doubled back after completing my errand (hastily, i might add), and sure enough, my well trained eyes had not deceived me.  there were three or four large white boxes set up - dime boxes at that.  two of the boxes were even sorted by team.  by team!  what a timesaver.

i wound up buying 140 cards for 13 bucks.  it was awesome.

the very first card i saw was this 2008 topps chrome matt kemp xfractor

nice.

there were a bunch of non-team sorted inserts, too.  like this 2013 topps lance berkman cut to the chase die cut card

a 2013 topps opening day aroldis chapman blue sparkly parallel

and a 2010 topps angels/vladimir guerrero gold parallel

i wound up buying about 25 different gold parallels from 2006 topps update, as well as a few gold, emerald, and walmart blue parallels of 2013 topps.

there were some rarely seen sets represented in the boxes like 1999 upper deck victory.  i grabbed some dodgers and a double play card that was new to me.  hello orlando cabrera

let's get back to the dodgers.  here is a nice and shiny 1998 donruss mike piazza fantasy team insert

fellow rookie of the year raul mondesi was represented by this 1999 pacific private stock card

i also picked up a black bordered mini of rafael furcal from 2010 topps allen & ginter

in total, i had found 110 singles featuring dodgers, double plays, memorial patches and a few others that will turn into cards for some of you out there in baseball card blogging land.

the other 30 cards i bought were part of a twins' stadium giveaway set from 2005.  it features 29 of the most memorable twins moments throughout their history.  the 29 tied in with the local station that carried twins Saturday games that year.  can you tell that the station was the twin cities' fox affiliate? yes, the 30th card in the set features homer simpson.  

note that the geniuses who produced the set also misspelled 'collectable' as 'colletable'.  d'oh!

 

here's a look at nine of the cards from the set.  many of the images look like they were tv screen grabs, which makes sense, i suppose.

in addition to the homer card, we have cards commemorating the all-star game at the met in 1965 (the twins also hosted the all-star game in 1985 (at the metrodome) and will host it again in 2014 at target field).  there is also an homage to harmon killebrew's monster home run (which is still honored inside the mall of america), dave winfield's 3000th hit, eric milton's no-hitter (i was supposed to be at that game), bob allison's catch in the 1965 world series that robbed jim lefebvre of a base hit in game 2 (the twinkies beat sandy koufax to even the series at one game apiece), paul molitor's 3000th hit, kirby puckett's home run to win game 6 of the 1991 world series, and the first postseason game in twins history - game 1 of the 1965 world series.

the twins faced, of course, the dodgers in that series.  the photo which was used on this card features dodger reliever howie reed as he pitches to either mudcat grant or zoilo versalles.

back to the allison card for a moment - at target field, the twins have done a great job recognizing the history of the franchise, as well as baseball as a whole in the twin cities and the state of minnesota, too.  there is a wall where they have posted famous quotes and calls regarding the twins, and the dodgers' own vin scully is represented by his call on that catch by allison.  here's a picture i took during a tour of the stadium.

here are the rest of the cards from the set

that's not a bad set - killer, carew, tony o, and herbie pulling ron gant off the base.  not a bad flea market find.

it's like i like it like this

brandon league looks excited.

i was excited, too, to receive a trade package from it's like having my own card shop a while back.  that 2013 topps opening day blue sparkle parallel looks better than it scans.

there were other nice cards in the package, including a 2009 topps steve garvey ring of honor insert

topps actually used a photo of the garv from 1981 for the card that celebrates his lone world series title which came in 1981.  genius.

here is the card that started the trade - a 2013 topps gypsy queen dustin pedroia

turning two! alex rodriguez forced out at second! two of my least favorite players on one card!

here's a 2009 topps heritage derek lowe card.

the sleeve that contained this card had a note that this card was a possible short print.  it was! it is!

1995 score raul mondesi rules insert

it looks like one of mondesi's rules was to smack cory snyder on the forehead after each run he scored.

more mondy! this time courtesy of 1994 fleer flair

this next card is a 2003 fleer ultra insert of hideo nomo

nomo appears on a couple of these 'double up' inserts.  unfortunately, this is the one with kaz sasaki on the other side, not the ichiro one.

one more japanese import to finish off the post - 2003 fleer focus jersey edition kazuhisa ishii card

it says that the card is mlb 'shirtified'.  perhaps the worst play on words for an insert set ever.

thanks daniel!

that'll do, rhubarb runner

it has been a while since i received this package from rhubarb runner.  i send him some twins stuff, and he reciprocated with dodger goodness.  he noted that he hoped what he had sent was enough to compensate for the cards that i had sent to him.  uh, yeah.

2001 leaf certified materials steve garvey jersey

my favorite relic set of all-time.  someday i will showcase the cards that i have from this set.  i especially enjoy that the garvey jersey that was chopped up was from his early days with the team - all wooly and what not.

2012 topps update bobby abreu gold parallel

the latest 'out of place guy' for the dodgers.  it looks like this year's entry will be brian wilson.  maybe.

2012 topps update kenley jansen gold parallel

2013 topps heritage carl crawford

2013 topps heritage clayton kershaw league leaders (strikeouts)

kershaw got the small box by just one strikeout.  at least topps figured out where to put the league leader on these cards this year.

2001 topps sandy koufax southpaw greatness insert

kershaw may well fit on this card someday in the future.  kudos to topps for using these pitchers' actual heights, by the way.  spahn is 6'-0", carlton 6'-4", koufax 6'-2", and the big unit is 6'-10" (all measurements according to baseball reference).

2004 playoff absolute memorabilia landon donovan fans of the game insert

i understand that donovan is not too bad at futbol.

the last card i will show from the goods i received is this 2013 topps opening day zack greinke super short print

i've posted this card before.  now i do own one.  even though i still think that cards like this are the antithesis of what opening day is all about, it's nice to have one in the collection.

so, yeah. rhubarb runner.  that'll do.

i can't begin to imagine how cool next year's version of this card will be

topps put an opening day highlights card of clayton kershaw in their 2013 opening day set.  that makes sense, but what doesn't compute for me is that it was a super short print.  why put ssp's in a set like opening day?  why put them in any set, really.  anyway, i picked one up for a reasonable price.

the card celebrates his 7-inning, 9 strikeout, no runs allowed performance against the giants on opening day 2011.  he picked up the win as the dodgers beat the no-cals 2-1.  next year's card should be spectacular, as on opening day this year, kershaw shut the giants out and provided the first sign of any dodger offense with an 8th inning solo home run.  that whole game was an opening day highlight for sure.

since opening day, however, i've been feeling a bit blue about the team's performance.  things are starting to look up, but maybe a different type of blue will cheer me up

like a 2007 topps chrome blue refractor jeff kent card

that blue scans so much better than the 2010 topps chrome blue refractors.  here's russell martin's card to prove it.

and then there are the walmart blue bordered cards, like this 2012 topps hong-chih kuo

and these 2013 topps josh beckett

and aj ellis cards

walmart went with a different shade of blue for the 2013 topps heritage parallels, of which i have the matt kemp specimen

although it's no chrome refractor, i like the looks of that card.  hopefully kemp doesn't make me blue by blowing out his hamstring.

no getting around it, this is a trade post

a while back, reader brian was interested in some 2013 topps opening day cards that i posted and initiated a trade.  i appreciate that - both the reading and the trading.  i apologize that it has taken this long to get a post up showing what he sent my way.

brian shops at toys r us, thankfully, and sent me some purple dodgers from 2013 topps.  here's matt kemp

chad billingsley

and randy choate

there were a couple of cards from 2013 topps opening day, too, such as this adrian gonzalez blue sparkle parallel

and a trade wouldn't be complete these days without a double play card - here's brandon phillips turning two

upon closer inspection, it looks like the padres player is wearing a '48' memorial patch in honor of bullpen coach darrel akerfelds who passed away in june of 2012 from pancreatic cancer.  i'll look for an actual padres card showing the patch before i put this one in the memorials collection.

thanks for the trade, brian.  i hope you keep reading and we keep trading!

a do it yourself repack

i was at target a couple of weeks ago and was distracted by something shiny while i was doing the self checkout thing.  it was this 1999 pacific prism vladimir guerrero card conspicuously placed on the front of a repack.

of course i bit and brought the repack home with me.  i also grabbed a few loose packs from the marked down bin, plus a couple of 2013 topps opening day packs.  good thing i did, too, because that vladdy was the only card in the repack that is worth showing.

one of the marked down packs that i bought was 2012 topps heritage.  there were a couple of cards worth writing about in there, starting with this 2011 nl batting leaders

no need to go into hysterics about the large trademark symbol or the fact that matt kemp does not belong in the diamond.  it's been done.

the other card to show off (not really) is this jason bay sp

i bet bay wishes he could go back to the way things were in beantown.

next up was a pack of 2010 topps update which yielded this regular topps card

stephen strasburg card 661.

i also netted an expired million card giveaway card featuring a 1974 topps mike schmidt

and a card of the out of place garret anderson

who was no longer with the dodgers when the card was released.

moving on, 2011 topps chrome had only four cards per pack.  one of them was a josh hamilton card

the last marked down pack i bought was 2012 topps gypsy queen.  this cal ripken jr insert fell out of the pack

literally, as the dinged upper right corner will attest.

and then, my two packs of 2013 topps opening day had a cole hamels od stars insert

and a pablo sandoval blue sparkly parallel

story of my year - i am pulling giants like nobody's business.

not a bad repack - the do it yourself version trumped the factory repack hands down.  i might have to do it again and live blog the duel.