(Free Card) Friday on my mind

I must say the recent Free Card Friday fad has been great fun.

With the absence of card shows, the free stuff so graciously offered up by my fellow bloggers has filled a void in my life. It's almost like virtual dime boxing. But not those teasing kind of dime boxes -- the ones I walk up to, flip through for a few seconds, and, quickly seeing nothing of interest, walk away disappointed. Nope, these are good dime boxes, the ones I could spend hours going through.

I've been lucky enough to secure a whole bunch of nifty Free Card Friday goods from a number of different bloggers over the past month or two, but the most prominent of my selections have probably been Brian of "Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary" fame.

In addition to the all-too-fitting golden Goldschmidt parallel at the top of this post (a mini-collection hit!) came these two shiny Darvishes from Brian's Free Card Friday festivities.

I'm not usually a fan of Prizm, but there really isn't enough green on baseball cards these days.

That colorful Scherzer parallel was another Free Card Friday find I knew was coming, but the shiny parallel of Mr. Cub was a complete and joyous surprise.

Brian's most recent Free Card Friday post featured a bunch of stuff I wanted, and I start feeling kinda guilty if I start claiming more than one or two cards at a time -- I can just hear the selfish echo of me saying can I have that one, and that one, and that one, and THAT one when I type out the comment.

But when such great cards are up for grabs, I can't help but do it -- no way I'm letting Thurman Munson inserts or Mark Reynolds parallels slip by me (yes I collect Mark Reynolds, for some reason).

Once again, Brian threw a few complete surprises in with my Free Card Friday spoils.

The Harden is a die-cut parallel from that weird era when Upper Deck seemed obsessed with the letter X, and the Alexei Ramirez is a mini-collection hit and a very welcome new card of a guy I've been a fan of and collected ever since he played for the hometown White Sox.

These were part of a Free Card Friday event Brian held a while back and haven't gotten around to posting until now -- I've still yet to find any of those Walgreens parallels in my area, and if it weren't for Brian I wouldn't be convinced they actually existed.

Also, while I've never been a fan of Diamond Kings, they still beat the hell out of Topps Project.

But Brian's far from the only person who's offered great Free Card Friday stuff on their blog -- these two came from Jeremy of the "Topps Cards That Never Were" blog.

Both cool, but I'm especially fond of that Musial since it's just a beautiful card (doesn't hurt that it's numbered to all of 30 copies!).

This Justin Upton Heritage refractor came from Kevin of "The Diamond King" who recently returned to the blogging business (welcome back!).

I probably shouldn't like chromed-up versions of old Topps designs, but my brain doesn't always listen to reason when it comes to shiny baseball cards.

A bigtime rookie on a Free Card Friday?

Apparently, because I graciously snagged this one for my budding Tatis Jr. collection from Rod of "Padrographs" on one of his Free Card Friday posts -- I'm a big fan of the younger Tatis but it still pains me to think that he was once in the White Sox system (and traded for James Shields!).

John of "Johnny's Trading Spot" has been holding Big Fun Games each Friday for the past few months, and I was lucky enough to get in on a couple.

I won a fun lot of A&G minis in a recent BFG, which coincidentally was the same prize pack I received the last time I participated in one of 'em (and I'm completely fine with that).

I entered another of John's BFGs recently, but like a dunce I forgot about it at thus lost my pick when time ran out -- thankfully John sympathized with my idiocy and still sent me a fine consolation prize of minor leaguers.

There's a few recognizable names in here, an all-star trainer(!), and my first card of Tom Kotchman -- a former coach and scout and the father of Casey Kotchman, one of my main player collection dudes.

Finally comes a handful of cards from Chris of "The Pedestrian Collector" who opened up a box of 1993 Ultra and offered up his extras in a recent Free Card Friday post.

I didn't think I still needed a whole lot of cards from this set, but apparently there's at least four because these stars I claimed were all new to me (I'll never stop confusing it with '92 Ultra, though).

Not long before his Big Fun Game party, Chris also sent me a separate package o' cards that included a nice stack of mini-collection hits (including one of the elusive 42-jersey photo variations from 2016 Topps!).

Chris knocked out a whole bunch of recent needs, including yet another photo variation with the Schwarber and a gold parallel of one of my Cards of the Year for 2019.

And hey, a Dime Box Dozen need!

As I've mentioned before, I recently started collecting Ted Simmons, which means that I raided Card Barrel's inventory for every card of his they had. But for some reason they didn't have a copy of this wildly common '88 Fleer single, which made it a prime Dime Box Dozen suspect and one I'm glad didn't last long on the list thanks to Chris.

So, yeah, you could say Free Card Friday (and its various incarnations) have been good to me lately. And I know that, despite my promises, I've yet to reciprocate the favor and offer my own free cards to the masses. But without revealing too much, let's just say I'm planning on it...soon.

Until then, it's Monday, and I've got Friday on my mind.

Tales of the minor leagues

A few weeks ago, during an otherwise innocent prowl through the internet, I discovered this card and knew, right then, that it was destined to belong in my collection.

It's damn close to being the perfect baseball card, or at least the perfect baseball card as I see it. It's weird, it's fun, it's a minor league card of a longtime fan favorite in his lesser-known later years, and, best of all, it features an in-joke only baseball fans would get. The clip of Lenny Randle blowing a ball foul on the Kingdome astroturf was on literally every baseball blooper tape I owned as a kid -- I can pretty much recite the announcer's play-by-play of it by heart. I've probably seen it as many times as other notable moments like Bill Buckner's unfortunate error and Roger Maris's 61st homer.

Never in a million years did I imagine there was a baseball card of the event...until, out of nowhere, this minor league masterpiece (from 1987 ProCards) barged its way into my life. The next obvious question became: HOW DO I GET ONE? I very nearly pulled the trigger on a $7 copy on COMC, but at the last second I decided to consult some other sources, and I'm sure glad I did.

A seller on Ebay had almost a complete run of cards from this set for a buck a pop -- including the Randle! -- and thus one of the most miraculous baseball cards in history was mine.

I thought that'd be the end of the story, but little did I know the chain of events that would spawn from the discovery of that single card.

As I said, that Ebay seller had a bunch of dollar singles from this set, and it's not like I'm finding gobs and gobs of 1987 ProCards in dime boxes or anything. And since I wasn't too keen on paying $3.50 shipping for a single card, I decided to take a peek through the other cards the guy had available since he was offering combined shipping.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long to find more stuff I needed -- Doc Gooden was an established major leaguer in 1987, but that didn't stop him from appearing in this minor league set during his brief (rehab?) stint with the Tidewater Tides (and their pillbox hats!).

Jim Walewander is an unknown name to 99 percent of baseball fans, but that's what makes minor league sets great -- chances are there's one guy in there who, for some reason, you have some kind of tie to or affection for.

I've already detailed why Walewander makes that list for me. He originally won my heart as the quirky ballplayer who liked the Dead Milkmen...until I discovered that he's actually from my tiny hometown and is in my mom's high school yearbook and everything.

Of course, I've since made it my duty to hoard as many cards of Jim Walewander as possible -- and now I've got an obscure minor league card of him to add to the collection.

The minor leagues can be a heartbreaking inferno sometimes.

Take a guy like Moises Alou. He was drafted by the Pirates out of college, toiled and fought his way up through Pirates' minor league chain for years, and eventually, finally, made it to the majors with the Pirates in 1990...only to be traded to the Expos after all of two games with them. Two games.

Naturally, this means I'm obsessed with any cards of Moises Alou on the Pirates, but that doesn't mean they can't trigger a slight hint of sadness for the guy.

I can understand why the cards I've shown of relatively obscure guys like Lenny Randle and Jim Walewander were only a buck a piece, and I guess I understand the Dwight Gooden too since it's not a pre-major league card or anything.

But I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Mark Grace from this set floating out there in the virtual dollar box. Mark Grace sure isn't obscure, and I've had a tough time finding any of his minor league cards at all -- this is only the second minor league Grace I own (of 400+ Grace cards total) and the earliest one in my collection, issued a full year before he'd crack the bigs.

And, oddly enough, I have Lenny Randle to thank for it.

But the story doesn't end there, because I quickly remembered another card from this set I've long dreamed of owning.

Sadly, it wasn't available in the aforementioned virtual dollar box, and all the copies I saw of it online were in the $15-20 range. But then, curiously, I stumbled upon a complete team set that included said dream card priced about the same as the individual copies. I made an offer for way less than I thought the seller would take, but, to my surprise, they took it, and just like that I'd won the complete '87 ProCards Stockton Ports team set for less than the price of a rack pack.

Most fans would think the Gary Sheffield was the card of my desire, and while it's a great minor league gem that'll definitely look nice in my binders, that wasn't what I was after.

This was the card I wanted.

And so the question: why would I want a minor league card guy whose prior year of stats on the back says DID NOT PLAY - DISABLED LIST? Well, mainly because this guy would eventually make the major leagues...twelve whole years later, and with a team that didn't even exist when this card was made.

Jim Morris might not be a household name, but the movie he inspired is a somewhat notable baseball film and one helluva story. You might know him better as being portrayed by Dennis Quaid in The Rookie, a premier baseball movie of my youth. Morris blew his arm out during a brief minor league stint in the '80s, only to reappear out of nowhere over a decade later throwing upper-90s heat in his mid-thirties. Best I can tell, this is the only card of Morris issued during that first failed stint in the minors, back when he was just another nameless minor league pitcher -- he was never a huge prospect (this card shows him during his time in the Brewers' chain) and didn't come all that close to making the majors. This'll go nicely with the autograph of his I found in a dime box last year.

And so that, all that, somehow managed pack itself into a single, frantic, manic night of my life, all of it randomly spawned by a goofy card I knew I needed to have -- quite the rabbit hole, eh?

The (Second) Dime Box Frankenset Bracket: The Championship

And then there were two.

#6 (Page 6) -- 1999 Fleer SI Greats of the Game #52 Joe Rudi (24 votes)

def.

#3 (Page 13) -- 1989 Upper Deck #117 Gary Pettis (16 votes)

#7 (Page 31) -- 1973 Topps #273 Chris Speier (23 votes)

def.

#11 (Page 47) -- 1993 Upper Deck #415 Denny Neagle (18 votes)

Not much drama in the Final Four.

Rudi, the fan favorite, once again crushed the competition, and Speier didn't face much of a challenge from Denny Neagle, easily sliding into the championship. Both of these cards have (rightfully) been clear stalwarts since the beginning of this tournament, so I wasn't much surprised by the results.

And so they become the last men standing in the frankenset bracket.

------------------

We've come a long ways in this thing, narrowing the 74 total page winners down to the two best, but, as they say, all great things must come to an end.

So here it is, the championship, for all the marbles: Rudi vs. Speier.

The Championship

#6 (Page 6) -- 1999 Fleer SI Greats of the Game #52 Joe Rudi

VS.

#7 (Page 31) -- 1973 Topps #273 Chris Speier

I'm both thrilled and saddened to say it, but: the final poll is now on the sidebar.

Happy voting!

The Card Barrel Quarantine Era continues

I've always been a bit of a homebody, so I'll admit this quarantine probably affects me way less than other people who crave the outdoors a bit more.

The thing I miss most is probably the ability to add to my card collection at will. If I was itching for new cards and had some money to spend, I could always go to a local card show. Can't do that anymore -- predictably, I'm really starting to miss card shows. I haven't been to Target in weeks, and I know it's not much of a tragedy since there aren't any new cards coming out. Ebay's fine but I don't use it much, and my Sportlots activity is sporadic, at best. COMC and Card Barrel are my two main online card outlets, and with COMC out of commission for the time being, that leaves Card Barrel as my main card supplier of the Quarantine Era.

I just received my second Card Barrel order in the span of a few weeks -- the fact that I received maybe two or three orders from them all of last year should tell you how stir-crazy I'm going for baseball cards right now.

Like the Denny's Mo Vaughn at the top of the post (it's still hard to wrap my head around Denny's giving baseball cards away), these are all new cards for some of my top-tier player collections.

The Gooden fits right in with the whole "wrong number" theme I posted about recently -- apparently he wore #64 in Spring Training with the Mets in '93 to try to recapture some of the magic of his youth.

An accomplishment: this order put me at over 9,000 cards for my mini-collections in total!

I somehow missed the Franmil Reyes during my first run through this year's Heritage checklist -- it's a brilliant nod to the similar Vada Pinson PATP in '71 Heritage (complete with a Yankee catcher and all!).

And speaking of Heritage, these four completed my "News Flashbacks" set for the 13th consecutive year.

I've never been much of an All in the Family fan, and I don't love The Doors as much as a lot of other classic '60s bands, but no matter -- it's a pleasure putting another Flashbacks set to bed!

One of the many tragedies of card collecting is that there are cards I want in sets I don't particularly like, but one of the beautiful things about Card Barrel is that I can just cherry-pick said cards for loose change.

The recent two-way player phenomenon has thrown a bit of a wrench in my "pitchers at the plate" mini-collection, but for now I'm still including guys like Ohtani and Michael Lorenzen under that umbrella (not to mention the Lorenzen also features a throwback jersey!).

I was so surprised by how much I liked the couple 2019 Bowman Heritage cards I bought in my last order that I pulled the trigger on a bunch more this time.

That Scooter Gennett was a nice diamond in the rough: I completely forgot the Reds traded him to the Giants late last year, and that's the first (and only) card I've seen of him in the uniform.

I suppose I'm doing my best to clean out Card Barrel's inventory on '97 Upper Deck -- seriously, I just love this set so much.

Much like the "wrong number" curiosities, I'm also partial to "wrong position" cards -- '97 UD documented the one(!) inning Archi Cianfrocco caught in his entire big league career, as well as Darren Daulton...the outfielder?

But '97 Upper Deck isn't just about the quirky and weird of the baseball world -- it's also got a ton of just plain nice cards.

This order had everything from DB Coopers to wrong positions to, yes, zero-year cards -- Eloy Jimenez (sadly) never got to play for the Cubs, and Michael Kopech came to the White Sox in the Chris Sale trade before his big-league debut.

And for some reason, I really like finding early Pro Debut cards of young stars -- I think it has something do with the fact that the minor leagues have otherwise been all but ignored by card companies in recent years.

Same goes for Heritage Minors -- that Schwarber was the most expensive card of this order (a whole $1.25!) but absolutely worth every penny.

I can't help but smile every time I see Conlon cards -- these were some of the first cards I bought when I first got back into the baseball side of the hobby, and, more than any other set, they've taught me about the game of the past and the guys who played it.

I've since picked up pretty much everything I need from the '91 and '92 Conlon checklists, but I'm still missing a bunch from the later ones -- these are all from the '93 set and feature such old-time greatness as The Big Train and a card of Connie Mack with a cameo from dead-ball legend Big Ed Walsh(!).

This order featured just a single Fan Favorites card, but boy was it a doozy.

As much as I may miss card shows and such now, I have a feeling that when I do look back on these weird times, I won't so much remember the cards I didn't get -- it'll be the ones that, against all odds, I did manage to get, mostly through survivors like Card Barrel, that stand out and cement themselves in my memory.

New blogs on the block

I admit, my first reaction when I hear a collector say they don't know about baseball card blogs is HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT BASEBALL CARD BLOGS?!

But when I pull back the lens a bit, I'm able to ask myself: how popular are card blogs, really, in relation to, say, a big breaker site, or other congregations of rich hobby bigwig people? Sure, I know the blogs are awesome, but I've been here for over eight years now. It's the world to me. And it's hard to step outside my world and see how the universe as a whole operates with unbiased eyes. I'd be interested to know how many social-mediaish collectors read blogs, or even know they exist. I'd bet it's not many.

More than anything, I guess I feel sorry for these people, especially when so many of them seem to long for a place to discuss baseball cards. Um, we're right here, and I like to think we're not all that difficult to find. I'm not very blog-savvy -- I didn't even really know what a blog was for a long time -- but even I managed to discover card blogs all those years ago.

And I'd like to think if I can do it, then pretty much anyone can.

I don't seem to interact with the tech-heavy collectors enough to hear all the "blogging is dying" remarks supposedly going around, but either way they couldn't be more wrong.

I mean, I've discovered quite a few people starting new card blogs in the last few months, and I've even traded with some of them already. A reader named Jeff has been sending me cards for a while now, and I'm happy to report he's finally decided to start a blog of his own recently, so go follow "Wax Pack Wonders" as soon as possible.

These two player collection hits came in a recent envelope with the '87 Hough at the top of the post -- a painfully common overproduction era card that triggered a near panic attack when I discovered I somehow didn't have it, and thus became a big sigh of relief when Jeff knocked it off my Dime Box Dozen list.

A reminder that I really need to clean my scanner (the cards look a million times better in person, believe me).

Jeff sent me a different package of cards even before that most recent one, a group that included a bunch of stuff off my want lists.

Good luck getting someone to send you a free Mike Trout insert anywhere but the blogs.

GQ inserts > GQ base.

It's not even close.

I love when new card bloggers somehow find me in the galaxy of blogs and reach out to let me know they've joined us and wonder if I can impart any advice (it's mind-boggling to think I'm a grizzled veteran around here). 

I received one such email from Jay of the new "Card Hemorrhage" blog, which you should also go follow right now. Often I offer to put together a little "welcome to the blogs" package together for new bloggers, because what better way to convince someone of how great this place can be than with free cards? I put together a few things for Jay, and while I didn't ask for anything in return, he graciously ignored those wishes and sent a few things from my want lists.

It's always a treat to get Heritage SPs since they seem to fall off the face of the earth the moment they wind up in packs.

Here's something I never thought I'd say: I now have a baseball card of Louis Armstrong!

As is my yearly tradition, and the impatience that comes with it, I've since completed the 2020 Heritage "News Flashbacks" inserts, most of them coming through a couple online orders. But this one from Jay was the first (and only) need I received via trade, and I love it. All in all, it's a great honor to be able to help introduce new bloggers like Jeff and Jay to this wonderful place called the cardsphere. And if you're new to us and reading this right now, I welcome you, too.

Now go read Jeff's blog and Jay's blog and all the other wonderful card blogs out there -- you've got a whole universe waiting for you.

The (Second) Dime Box Frankenset Bracket: Final Four

The Elite Eight has been trimmed down to the Final Four...well, almost.

#6 (Page 6) -- 1999 Fleer SI Greats of the Game #52 Joe Rudi (32 votes)

def.

#1 (Page 68) -- 1972 Topps #611 Rich Reese (13 votes)

#3 (Page 13) -- 1989 Upper Deck #117 Gary Pettis (27 votes)

def.

#9 (Page 23) -- 1960 Topps #204 Ryne Duren (17 votes)

#7 (Page 31) -- 1973 Topps #273 Chris Speier (25 votes)

def.

#1 (Page 51) -- 1973 Topps #456 Dick Green (20 votes)

#11 (Page 47) -- 1993 Upper Deck #415 Denny Neagle (22 votes + tie-breaking vote)

def.

#4 (Page 54) -- 1996 Collector's Choice #484 Rex Hudler (22 votes)

Three easy victories, and yes, you read that right -- one tie!

With Reese and Green losing last week, all four #1 seeds have now been knocked out of the bracket (highest remaining seed is Pettis at #3). I might as well reveal that I personally picked Dick Green to win it all, but alas, it wasn't to be. But enough about that: what about the tie? I'm looking to you, the readers, to help break it and decide who's moving on to the Final Four.

As usual, I ask the first five people who care to comment on this post to leave their choice between Hudler and Neagle, and the first card to receive three of those tie-breaking votes will move on to the Final Four -- I'll update this post once we have a winner.

EDIT: Neagle wins!

-------------------------

With the Elite Eight still in limbo, it's a weird time to announce the Final Four, given that we're still at a Final Five at this point.

Nevertheless, here's the hallowed matchups as they stand with tie still in place.

Final Four #1

#3 (Page 13) -- 1989 Upper Deck #117 Gary Pettis

VS.

#6 (Page 6) -- 1999 Fleer SI Greats of the Game #52 Joe Rudi

Final Four #2

#7 (Page 31) -- 1973 Topps #273 Chris Speier

VS.

#11 (Page 47) -- 1993 Upper Deck #415 Denny Neagle

The polls are now on the sidebar -- if Speier is your choice in the second matchup regardless of who wins between Hudler and Neagle (or vice versa), by all means go ahead and vote, but if you're on the fence I'll be updating the poll itself once the tiebreaker is decided.

So there's your exciting, nail-biting, weird wide world of the Final Four (Five?) -- happy voting!