The Voice of the Giants

Last season for the first time I subscribed the MLB package so I could watch as many Giants games as possible. Obviously that worked out well with them winning but one of the huge benefits was being able to listen to the Giants broadcasters, Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow.  The are homers and cheer for the Giants and their players but they are also fair.  If a Giant makes a bad play, they call it out.  If a call goes for the Giants that shouldn't have, the don't have blinders on and call it correctly.  I think I have heard they are a well respected team, I definitely know that I like them.

I was a fan of the 2013 release of Panini Hometown Heroes.  I bought a few retail packs and was on the verge of going after the set when I discovered they had a bunch of short prints (Note to card companies: There are collectors and consumers who buy less of your products when you include short prints - this goes for Topps Heritage some years for me as well).  The player selection was interesting as they went for more of the fan favorites versus just the superstars which was cool to see.  Mike Krukow even had an autograph in the set:

The lack of licensing with the hat and jersey being photoshopped out kind of stinks but I am happy to have an autographed card of this former Giant player and current broadcaster in my collection.

Kruk, as he is affectionately known, is battling a disease that is robbing him of the use of his quads which is severely limiting his mobility.  There have been quite a few stories and I have seen a couple interviews with him and his family.  At first he tried to hide it but he has really opened up.  Recently I have been seeing quite a few quotes from him about some of the Giants off season moves and potential moves which reminded me of this card and spurred on this post.  I am glad to have him as my team's broadcaster and his attitude when dealing with his health issues is inspiring.

2015 Collection Goals - The Year of the Base Cards

I thought about posting about my perfect predictions with regards to the Baseball HOF voting but don't want to come across as someone who gloats.  I was going to share my wallet cards first excursion but I haven't uploaded the photos yet.  Then I looked at the calendar and decided I needed to share my goals for 2015.

A few days back I shared my successes and failures with my 2014 goals.  I was going to post these 2015 goals the next day but decided to take some time to reflect and make sure I was focusing on the right areas of my collection to maximize my fun and enjoyment of this hobby.

In 2014, I was able to pick up just about all the Giants base cards that were released and got a high degree of satisfaction out of that.  I am a list person and really like marking a card or a set off my want list.  While I will have a couple of goals that may not completely pertain to my theme, I have decided that 2015 will be The Year of the Base Card.

Here are the goals I am setting for my collection in 2015:

1. Obtain all 2015 Giants base cards from all releases.

2. Acquire at least 800 Giants base cards from years past.  My want list has about 2800 going back to 1948.  I have no idea if this is a realistic target, I will try and knock as many off this list as I can but want to set some sort of goal.

Recent Giants Base Card Additions from 2005 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes - why haven't I gone after this set yet, it is great!

3.Concentrate my player collections on obtaining all the base cards of these players.  Certain player like McCovey, Vida and Lott will still get the focus of all cards including base.

• Willie McCovey
• Rickey Henderson
• Vida Blue
• Reggie Jackson
• Dave Winfield
• Ben Petrick
• Dave Parker (as a Pirate)
• Chili Davis
• Ronnie Lott
• Roger Craig
• Dwight Clark
• Chris Webber
• Charles Barkley
• Patrick Ewing

I have started making a few base card only want lists and added them to the bottom of my posted want lists.  I am using Beckett.com so I doubt it will be 100% accurate but should help in my shopping excursions.

3 new Chris Webber Base Cards - It has been a while since I added any new Webbers to my collection

 4. Finish my 1970 Topps set which will include:

• Paying off lay-away balance at old LCS for all but 17 off my want list
• Tracking down the final 17 cards that include: Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson RC, Hank Aaron AS, Hank Aaron, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, Al Kaline, Johnny Bench and Nolan Ryan

5. Knock 150 cards off 1971 Topps want list (currently at 340/752)

6. Knock 100 cards off 1972 Topps want list (currently at 481/787)

7. Complete 1956 Topps Presidents set (currently at 29/36 with 2 on the way)

8. Get all my base cards and inserts that aren’t part of sets or my player and team collections uploaded into Sportlots.  I just finished sorting and inputting about 5000 baseball cards that I have acquired since my move about 18 months ago and have a total of over 48,000 cards in the database.  I have tons of base cards from the early 80s to mid 2000s in a closest that I want to get input as well.  In addition to selling $20-$80/month in cards that I can turn around and use to buy new ones (almost like trading), Sportlots gives me a great database to locate the cards I have.  If you have needs by player or set, let me know and I can do a quick search.

9. Obtain at least 1 Giants card that will be the oldest in my collection.  I currently have 4 1933 Goudeys that are tied for my oldest card.

10. Make significant progress on my 49ers Vintage set collection and have at least 100 different cards by year end.

11. Update USC Football checklist with releases from the past 3-5 years (they are hit and miss) and obtain 50% of all base cards from 2014 and 2015.

12. My first non-base focused goal will be to add 6 certified autographs of players new to my Baseball HOF collection.

13. Maintain set building discipline, try not to collect every set that comes out

14. Have fun with the blog, post 200-250 times during the year, hold a couple contests, comment more on the posts of fellow bloggers, continue to trade and send some “just because” packages.

There you have it, I am pretty excited about these goals and will plan on keeping tabs on my progress through my blog posts.  As a former guy that chased all the big hits and didn't think my player collections were complete without every insert, parallel, relic and auto this is a big change.  It has actually energized me and I look forward to some collecting success in 2015.

McCovey Monday #66 - 2014 Topps Rookie Framed Black 125/199

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1200 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards every Monday.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.


I wanted to keep up my posting streak and feature a McCovey card (5 for 5 in the new year!).  I have a couple new ones ready to show but decided to clean out the scan folder a little bit and share this card that was an insert from Series 1:

This card is framed in black metal and is super thick.  It is numbered 125/199 and is one of 3 variations.  I posted the silver version /99 several months back and there is gold version /25 that I was never able to pick up.

I am not a huge fan of all the reprints Topps has done over the past several years but will always make an exception for a classic rookie card.  I ran across a stack of 2001 Topps Archives I have and it was pure joy looking through all the famous rookie cards.

The Most Generous Blogger Strikes Again

I am way behind in posting trades and packages that I have received.  I even have a few just because packages I received that I need to reciprocate.  I am going to push to mix in several of these trade posts over the next few weeks to get caught up and show my appreciation and thought I would start with the man I have deemed the Most Generous Blogger, Wes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk.  Wes stopped blogging back in October but promised to stay engaged in the blogging community.  His blog is missed but his generosity lives on.  I have two different packages from him to share today.

First up are cards from a World Cup contest Wes ran.  You were able to claim a card and send him a package back.  The contents of the packages would go head to head with an ultimate winner being named.

I claimed this great looking Tony Gwynn relic.  There weren't any Giants I needed so I jumped at this HOF relic with a pinstripe running through it. Gwynn has always been a favorite of mine and I was happy to add this to my collection of Hall of Famers.  I didn't get my return package sent out in time for the contest but I was happy to be able to send Wes the last 1969 Topps card he needed to finish his set.  It made me feel that I was able to return a little of the generosity he has shared with so many bloggers.

 In typical Wes fashion, he through in some extra Giants and I picked my 9 favorite to share:

These were all needs to fill various holes in my Giants collection.  The Marichal Dominican Dandy card is a great looking piece of cardboard and a couple of these finished off Giants team sets.

I believe this next group of scans were all from a postal flat rate box Wes sent me that was packed with goodies.  There was tons of good stuff included.  I pulled out 4 large team bags stuffed with cards and a few unopened cards.  Just the cards on top show the variety and quality of the cards I received:

 And here are some of my favorites out of the team bags:

 Boy I did a terrible job cropping this picture. Too lazy to go back and fix it.  These cards are all serial numbered with my favorites being the Grissom Stat Line card and the JT Snow die cut Elite card.  A great selection!

 Here are some retired Giants HOFers.  The McCoveys go into my Giants binders as I had the in my Willie Mac collection already. The rest also found nice slots in the Giants binders.

 This is a selection of base cards and stickers, all of which I needed.  The JT Snow Gold Label card looks great and I love picking up logo stickers - I need to get them all into a binder one of these days.

 This package contained a few vintage cards as well, one of these days I need to finish off my 1962 Post set, this McCormick helped.  Wes also tossed in a sweet looking football card of the GOAT Jerry Rice that went straight into my misc. personal collection box.

Finally there was a plethora of hits in the package.  Here are 5 of them.  The Kevin Mitchell Tribute Auto and Hunter Pence Relic we my two favorite but all of these were needs.

I don't know how he accumulates so many great cards but I sure do appreciate his generosity.  Thanks Wes for all the help you have given my collection.  Your blogging is missed but I totally understand and respect your decision to step away from the blog.  You did leave a crack open for a possible future return and I hope some day that will happen.

Hall of Fame Voting

On January 6th the voting for the 2015 Baseball Hall of Fame will be announced and my guess is that we will be seeing quite a few new players elected to the HOF.  The class of newbies is strong headlined by Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz - a pretty impressive trio of hurlers.  Gary Sheffield also joins the ballot along with several hold overs who have been tied to PED usage.  I don't want to get into the PED/HOF debate but I will just go on record saying it is a travesty that perhaps the best hitter in baseball history (Barry Bonds) and perhaps the best pitcher in baseball history (Roger Clemens) aren't members in the Hall that was designed to celebrate baseball history.  Maybe I am a softy but I would have Pete Rose in as well.  I am all about what they produced on the field and how they performed compared to their peers during their era.

This is why someone I see as a pretty obvious candidate hasn't generated a higher voting percentage.  For almost a decade, Tim Raines was second to only Rickey Henderson as a disruptive force and leadoff hitter.

In his 23 year career, Raines accumulated 2605 hits, scored 1571 runs, stole 808 bases and drove in 980 runs.  All very impressive numbers for a leadoff hitter and in my opinion Hall of Fame worthy.  He was an All Star for 7 straight years starting in 1981 and was the AS MVP in 1987.  He won a batting title in 1986 and finished 3rd two other times.  His closest similarity score per Baseball Reference is Hall of Famer Lou Brock.  In addition to the stats and recognitions, I saw Raines play and he passed the eyeball test, he was obviously one of the most respected and best players of the era.

Despite all of this, he has not come close to being elected to the HOF and with this year's strong rookie class I doubt it will happen in 2015.  Here are his percentages, remember that you need 75% to be elected.
2008 BBWAA (24.3%)
2009 BBWAA (22.6%)
2010 BBWAA (30.4%)
2011 BBWAA (37.5%)
2012 BBWAA (48.7%)
2013 BBWAA (52.2%)
2014 BBWAA (46.1%)

I picked up this card a few months back and love having it as a part of my collection.  I wanted to have an Expos card of his in my collection and hope that one day it will move into my Hall of Fame Auto collection.

If I was voting, here would be my 10 person ballot - Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez, Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza, John Smoltz Curt Schilling and Tim Raines.  I also would argue that Gary Sheffield, Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent, and Sammy Sosa are worthy based on their careers and there could be a couple of others.

My prediction is that the following players will be elected - Randy Johnson, Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz.  I think that Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza have a fighting chance as well but with so many deserving candidates my guess it that they fall short once again.

Any thoughts on the HOF voting and who will get in this year?

Emerald Nuts Pick Up

Since 2005, the Giants have had a stadium giveaway.  From 2005-2012 the set was sponsored by Emerald Nuts.  In 2013 Chevron was the sponsor and 2014 was sponsored by Coca Cola.  My 2014 set was missing a card and I am trying to figure out if it was released or not as the pack was factory sealed. 

I have been able to purchase the last 4 sets as they have come out and have been working to fill in the gaps.  I recently picked up the 2007 set.  The price has come down a bit since Tim Lincecum has started to falter, his rookie is part of the set. I only have 2006 and 2010 left.  I recently missed out on a 2006 set that sold for a pretty reasonable price, it was the only set I have ever come across.  The 2010 set has Buster Posey's rookie and while there are several for sale, the Buy It Now prices range from $70-$100 and I can't see myself ever spending that much on the set.

Here is the wrapper the set came in:

The cards have the same design at the 2007 Topps base set with the addition of the Emerald logo on the card.

 Here are the first nine, Chulk, Correia and Kline don't appear in the regular Topps set and Hennessey and Lincecum are in the Update set with different pictures.  Here are the regular Topps base pictures:

Cards 10-18:

In this second group, Sanchez and Taschner don't appear in the base Topps set and the rest of the pictures are the same. As a matter of fact, The Bengie Molina photo appears in both series 1 and 2, card numbers 4 and 342.  For some reason he has 2 identical cards in the set with the exception of the card number.

 Cards 19-26

 In this third scan, Sweeney and Ortmeier are not in the base set.  The rest use the same photos.  The Vizquel base card has a banner above his name celebrating his Gold Glove that doesn't appear here but it is the same photo.

Linden and the coach cards are all new while Winn, Roberts and Bochy have the same cards, absent the Emerald logo in the flagship set.

I have a daily email sent to me from eBay for new listings that include Giants and Emerald in hopes of tracking down the final 2 set.

Happy New Year! - 2014 Collection Goals - A Year in Review

I can't believe it has been over 2 weeks since I have posted.  I have some great trade packages to post as well as some other awesome pick ups.  I have been spending my hobby time on an organization project but want to make posting a priority moving into the new year.  Day 1 - 1 post - off to a good start!

I decided to look back on some of my collecting goals and give myself some letter grades with a little summary of what I accomplished.  Upon reflection, I have decided my 2015 goals will be a little more streamlined, with fewer focuses. Not only will this give me a secondary benefit of having a better chance of accomplishing most of my goals, it will primarily give me focus on how to spend my time and monthly budget.

Here are my recaps:

1. Get my card room and collection organized.  Includes:
having everything unpacked and put away (may need to acquire shelving to make this happen.  Everything is unpacked but not put away.  Definitely need to invest in some shelving.  Much more organized but not as much as I want to be.
having all cards not essential to my collection loaded into Sportlots to inventory and put up for sale (helps with trading as well, it is a free inventory program) Not done, have a backlog of about 2500 football cards and scores of boxes in my card closet from pre-2005.  However I did recently get almost 3000 cards, mostly from 2000 forward, input into Sportlots.
having an active trade list on the blog.  I envision this including sets where I have large lots of cards that I could make available for trade or purchase (cover my shipping fees and maybe make a couple bucks). Didn’t make it happen.
having all my want lists updated and have them include wants for all parts of my collection This is pretty much completed.
I contemplated a D+ but I did get a lot more organized and I am happy with the status of my want lists and these were to top 2 areas I really wanted to make an impact in 2014. Overall Grade C-.

2. Acquire Certified Autos of at least 4 of these HOFers:
Barry Larkin
Paul Molitor
Eddie Murray
Robin Yount
Mike Schmidt
Rod Carew
Red Schoendienst
Sandy Koufax
New HOFers (please writers vote some new players in!)
Scored Autos of Paul Molitor, Johnny Mize, Early Wynn, Whitey Herzog and Doug Harvey.  I also picked up a sweet Biggio Auto/Patch in anticipation of his election and had autos of newly elected HOFers Joe Torre and Bobby Cox in my collection.  
While I only hit 1 name on the list, I am super excited about how I did on this goal.  Overall Grade A+

3. Tie up some loose ends
Finish my Giants base sets from 2011-2013 Made some good progress here but still have some cards to track down.
Finish up my Giants base sets from the Turkey Red, UD Retro, UD Vintage and Topps Heritage and Topps Gallery, Fleer Tradition products  Didn’t do much work in these areas, still need about a dozen cards from these set.  Totally lost focus and think going forward I am going to focus on years instead of products.
While not complete, I am pretty happy with the first bullet and will continue to whittle that list down.  COMC on Black Friday was a pretty big help.  As mentioned about, I really didn’t rally around the second bullet and think my 2015 goals will focus around years instead of products.  Overall Grade C+

4. Complete my final 3 1960s Topps Giants team sets and finish 1 Topps or Bowman set from the 1950s
In at the buzzer.  Finished off my 1961 set with the Mays All Star featured at the top of the post in December.  I didn’t get any 50s sets complete but am just short of Mays cards for 1958 Topps, 1956 Topps and 1955 Topps.  With the 60s complete, I will turn my focus onto the 50s vintage and do some damage to this want list in 2015.  
Overall Grade B+

5. Complete 2000 Topps Insert Sets - I have completed my version of a Master Topps set since 2005 and I want to start filling in the gaps at least back to 2000. I will start with the oldest set and move forward. If I get this done quick, I may be able to start on other sets in 2014.
Started off with with buying one complete insert set then lost steam and focus.  I did create checklists for each of the sets from 1999-2004 but need to determine if this will remain a focus.  
Overall Grade D

6. Acquire all Ultra and Stadium Club Giants inserts
I gave this up early when I realized almost all of them are Barry Bonds and cost quite a bit.  This goal was abandoned before the end of February.
Overall Grade Incomplete

7. Make progress on 1970s Vintage sets:
Complete my 1973 Topps Set - Done!
Obtain at least 450 different 1972 cards (starting 2014 with 346) - 481 Different, exceeded
Obtain at least 250 different 1971 cards (starting 2014 with 83) - 340 Different, exceeded
Get 1970 Topps want list down to 50 or fewer cards - Down to 17 cards, kind of
I feel I did very well here. I finished my 1973 set in November.  The 1972 goal is close enough for me especially with exceeding the 1971 goal by so much.  In November I struck a deal with my old LCS in Orange County.  He had broken a set of 1970 Topps a couple years back and had quite a few of my needs.  I set up a payment plan and he set the cards aside for me.  Technically they aren’t mine yet but I am going to count them as success as part of this goal. Overall Grade A

8. Make progress on my non Giants player collections:
Rickey Henderson
Vida Blue
Reggie Jackson
Dave Winfield
Dave Parker (Pirates only)
Ben Petrick
I didn’t track these but made progress in all areas.  I picked up a few older Rickey releases and am trying to stay current with his new stuff.  There just isn’t that much Vida out there that I don’t have so I keep my eyes open.  I picked up quite a few Reggie’s, mainly newer issues, and may get active in picking up more cards from his playing days.  Most of the Winfields I got came in a trade.  Parker and Petrick have been here and there but they will never be at the top of my list, just fun to pick up.  Overall Grade B

9. Obtain all 2014 Giants base cards from all releases
Doing well here.  Outside of a couple of the later releases I have these complete.  It helped that I decided to classify variations as parallels.  
Overall Grade A

10. Create and share my strategy on football card collection to include:
Sets to chase - I decided to only collect the Topps flagship set for football this year and ended up just buying a factory set on Black Friday.  I usually get a Jumbo box and fill in the gaps at the LCS but this year the inserts were horrible so  I went the easy/cheap route.  Topps loses its license after next year so unless Panini comes up with a great looking flagship set, 2015 may be my last base set for a while. What I may do is go after some of the Topps set holes in my collection from the past.
USC Football Collection focus - My USC football collection is currently only being bolstered through base purchases in the dime/quarter box at the LCS, bid board wins at the LCS and Sportslot auction wins.
49er Player Collection focus - I have recently decided on my 49er focus.  I have made a checklist of vintage 49ers (1950-1970) and will pursue those team sets.  I am only looking at the major brands like Bowman, Topps and Phildelphia, not the team issue or oddball cards/items.  I suspect I will extend this same focus to 1980-current at some point and in fact have several team sets from more recent years already.
I completed this goal but took until now to share so I will give an Overall Grade of B.


11. Improve my trading by:
Tracking packages I receive
Creating a speadsheet with everyone I have traded with including their address and what they collect to make it easier on me
Send out more frequent PWEs just because
Trade more
I failed in every area of this goal. I did quite a few trades, sent a few PWEs out but cannot characterize my trading as improved.  Life got busy and I didn’t make this a priority.
Overall Grade F

12. Be smarter about set collecting. I will definitely buy Jumbo Boxes of Topps Series 1, Series 2 and Update but I really need to consider outside of those sets if I should buy the set online or bust boxes to build.  I love opening packs but it gets so expensive.
I think I did a solid job here.  I collected the Flagship/Update sets with Jumbo purchases.  I haven’t been as aggressive as I was in the past with the insert sets but will still look to complete them.  I completed Opening Day and Heritage through boxes/packs/trades/single card purchases.  I bought a complete Chrome set.  I completed Archives minus the SPs and I am not sure those SPs will ever be completed.  Stadium Club is probably the one where I went a little crazy but the photography got me.  I did pass on Gypsy Queen and Ginter and all the Panini products. 
Overall Grade B

Blog Goals

Here are a few things I would like to focus on for the blog itself:
Read 6 Sports related books and post a brief review of each
250+ posts throughout the year - that is 5/week
Run at least 5 contests
Failed in all 3 areas, I read and reviewed 3 books, all in the first half of the year.  I didn’t even get to 200 posts this year and did run any contests. However I do think I found a balance for me between the blog, my family time, my other hobbies, etc. that makes me happy so while I didn’t meet these goals I set at the beginning of the year.
I still give myself an Overall Grade of B as I think I have a solid fit of the blogging into my life.

Well, there you have it, some failures, some successes but it is a hobby and as I mentioned in my last goal summary, I am happy to have struck a good balance that works for me.  I will be sharing some 2015 goals in the next week or so and hope to get back in the groove on sharing some cards more frequently. Happy New Year and Happy Collecting!