There's something about Bowman

I'm about to do something I don't think I've ever done in the history of this blog, and that's devote an entire post to Bowman.

Bowman fascinates me for all the wrong reasons - it's become a historic brand while also producing decades and decades of entirely forgettable baseball cards. How forgettable, exactly? Enough that I had to do an internet search to remember what 2022 Bowman looked like. That's how little the cards stick in my memory.

When we're talking about post-revival Bowman (1989-present), we're talking about cards that really aren't meant for me. There's a desultory group of known stars alongside a gluttony of rookies, of whom only a small fraction will ever crack a big-league roster. 

The latter, however, are what most people buy Bowman for - the hope that a Single-A unknown will become The Next Big Thing. 

Modern Bowman began under a bad moon - I've often declared '89 Bowman to be The Worst Set of All-Time.

I don't know if I still believe that these days - I've found other sets I hate more than this - but I think most of us can agree that '89 Bowman is just plain dull. Not to mention the weird oversized thing that triggers my OCD every time I look at one of these in my binder. Just an incredibly bottom-tier group of baseball cards.

People are justified in believing crazy sets like '95 Fleer are worse than this (not me, of course!), but if nothing else I would have to imagine those people would at least admit that '95 Fleer is interesting - not one of us can say the same for '89 Bowman.

Bowman was never destined to be a set we were supposed to collect or even discuss, really - it's pretty much about the prospects and that's it.

No one is buying a pack of Bowman because they fancy themselves as a connoisseur and want to appreciate the design. Most of what Bowman puts out there barely qualifies as a design. It's like Stadium Club but infinitely less fun for collectors like myself. I suppose I don't fault anyone for wanting to get the jump on the next hot thing, but that's just not the way I collect - I struggle to understand how that can be called "collecting" at all. 

But whether you want to call it branding or whatever else, even I'll admit there's something special about having a guy's first Bowman card - although do me a favor and don't tell anyone I found this Trout rookie in a dime box back in 2011, or, perhaps even more egregiously, that I wouldn't have bought it at all if he wasn't wearing a throwback jersey!

While I sat and tried for a good few minutes trying to think of what random Bowman sets looked like without consulting the internet.

1996 Bowman? 2002 Bowman? 2007 Bowman? I couldn't remember a single one. And when I finally broke down and looked, the reaction wasn't Oh yeah, that's right! as much as it was Oh, I can see why I forgot that. I'm in the minority, in that the only cards I even remotely care about in today's Bowman are the veterans - on the rare occasion I open a pack of the stuff, the prospects feel like filler to me. And even then I forget what the cards look like two seconds after I put them in my binder.

So that begs the question: are there any Bowman designs I actually like?

The answer: in the 34 years of Modern Bowman (1989-2022), there are exactly two sets I can honestly say I like.

The first is 1992, probably the most universally adored Bowman set among card collectors. The prospect lovers get their fill with some of the most famous rookies of the generation (Piazza, Rivera, Hoffman, etc.), but it's also just a darn good-looking set of baseball cards. I don't own as many as I'd like - they didn't seem to be mass-produced like most cards of the era - but the ones I do have are excellent. (Even the weird fashion-show rookies are memorable in their own way.)

In Bowman's long string of apathy, '92 is really the only time I can say they hit on something classic.

Perhaps as a result, I think most people sleep on what Bowman did the very next year.

There's a Jeter in '93 Bowman, but it's not one of his more famous rookie cards, and outside of that I'm not sure this set has any other notable prospects. As a whole, though, I'd argue this is one of the most unjustly ignored offerings of the '90s. While not as timeless as '92, I've always thought '93 Bowman was a solid set, with a few cool photos mixed in for good measure (something you can't say about Bowman very often). It doesn't deserve to be lumped into the rest of Bowman's long and generally unspectacular history.

In the end, I suppose what I find most interesting about Bowman is that I hear both everything and nothing about it - people talk about this prospect and that prospect, but no one ever seems to care anything about the cards themselves.

Thumb twiddling

This is the time of year where I just kind of sit around twiddling my thumbs.

Baseball still feels far away, the hot stove is cooling off, and since my interest in other sports is minimal (at best), that doesn't leave much excitement. Last year's card releases are pretty much over, and the debut of the new card season is weeks in the waiting. So what's one to do other than twiddle their thumbs?

The good news here is that I still have a good amount of stuff rolling in from my fellow bloggers - card mail is even more of a blessing in these barren winter months. And sometimes said mail isn't even limited to cards. Take this Ryno comic, for instance, a rather unusual item that came from Bob of "The Best Bubble" blog a while ago.

The "FREE TRADING CARDS! FULL COLOR!" were (sadly) nowhere to be found, and although I've never been much of a comic guy, this'll take its place among the oddball joys of my collection.

Bob also threw in a couple other quirky gems - hard to beat an airborne Babe on an old-timey play at the plate.

I know Topps issued special cloth reprints in blasters a few years back, and I'm guessing someone dissected that Ryno from the card frame at some point...maybe? (If it's not that, then I have absolutely no idea what it could be.)

An overlooked benefit to getting cards in the mail is that it can often be educational.

Jeff of "Wax Pack Wonders" was nice enough to send me this Jim Abbott, and even noted that it's a gold Electric Diamond parallel - I don't know about you, but I had no idea those were a thing.

Nor did I ever dream that Puerto Rican League cards existed!

Can't say I've heard of any of these dudes, but there will always be something thrilling about owning cards from an entirely different country.

Sending me new Jim Abbott cards is one of many ways to put a smile on my face.

These Abbotts came courtesy of Tom of "The Angels in Order" blog and I'm smiling right now just looking at them.

A few more goodies from Tom - Livan Hernandez isn't particularly high on my collecting totem pole, but I couldn't resist a card with a massive hole in the middle for no apparent reason.

Tom even sent along a few other needs as a thank you for my 11-year giveaway, which was most welcome but most but definitely not necessary.

(Totally forgot I was trying to build that MLB Network insert set.)

A big box from Kenny of "Torren' Up Cards" came in the mail a couple months ago, and when I finished rubbing my hands together and opened it...this fell out.

From what I've seen, a few other bloggers were Zapped with one of these odd Pete Alonso plushies - it's one of those strange items that manages to simultaneously (and paradoxically) make me think COOL! and ...what am I gonna do with this??

Thankfully, a few more conventional pieces of cardboard came along for the ride in this Zapping, including a few treasured Utz oddballs!

Still never found any of the cards around here, though I buy their potato chips more often than I probably should.

YES! CARD-GENS!!!!

(Bonus points for the weird Giants Carlos Beltran & Rockies Jason Giambi sightings.)

I'm on record on being way more of a cat person, but I'll campaign for bat dogs in baseball forever (especially Golden Retrievers!).

Finally in these thumb-twiddling times comes a couple PWEs from longtime friend-of-the-blog and all-around good guy Joe Shlabotnik of "The Shlabotnik Report" fame.

I'm long overdue in posting an envelope I received from him a while ago, one that included a few early-2022 set needs - and yes, I've been dividing those Opening Day inserts into three separate miniature cards for my binders, because that's why the perforations are there, right?

A couple more recent needs from Shlabotnik HQ, including a Tris Speaker I was thrilled to get since Heritage SPs seem to fade into oblivion from the moment they're released.

Mr. Shlabotnik sent me a second surprise PWE that arrived here in snow-bound Illinois just last week - a fun smattering of cardboard that knocked out a few Heritage High Number insert needs.

Given that I'm not much of a fan of the movie, I feel weird liking the "Field of Dreams" games as much as I do - I mean, I still get the warm fuzzies remembering Tim Anderson's walk-off homer in the first one a couple years ago.

A few more recent needs along with a new Javier Baez from the sadly defunct Topps Stickers brand (bring 'em back, Topps!).

The Topps Debut portion of this year's Archives is absolutely fantastic, and this one in particular is wonderful (is there such thing as a bad Roberto Clemente card?) and a treasured finale to this great PWE from the Land of Shlabotnik.

With cards coming out weekly and a 24-hour channel devoted to the game, it's true that baseball is more of a year-round sport than ever these days - but that doesn't stop me from wanting the snow to melt and the Super Bowl to be over and done with already.

Number one

Might as well not bury the lead here - Dad got me a 1952 Topps Andy Pafko for Christmas this year!

I feel like I've been saying this more and more about the stuff I've been adding to my collection lately, but this is a card I never, ever thought I'd own. It's hard enough finding anything from '52 Topps on the cheap these days, and CARD #1?? Forget it. But once again, Dad comes to the rescue and whacks me over the head with a major boost to the binders. It's been a common tale throughout my collecting life.

It's true that I've gone on record by saying '52 Topps is grossly overrated, but even I can't deny it's an iconic set, and Andy Pafko kicked off what would be a long and fruitful history - baseball cards as we know them might not exist at all these days if Topps hadn't come along.

The back explains how Dad was able to find a copy that fit into the relatively small budgets both he and I have - but back damage doesn't really bother me, and besides, that all-important "#1" is still visible!

Off the top of my head, I can't think of another guy whose (relative) fame is almost solely based on a baseball card. If he wasn't card #1 in '52 Topps, Andy Pafko would've long faded into that miasma of pretty-good-but-never-great '40s and '50s ballplayers whose name might occasionally get mentioned by a diehard fan these days. But thanks to Topps, Pafko's a binder guy, and I want all of his cards - and the card that made that possible is now in my collection!

I found it interesting that you don't often hear about the "Number Ones" of most of the other big companies - so in honor of Andy Pafko, I thought we'd take a look at the guys who got a few of the other card brands we (sometimes) love off and running.

Donruss picked a winner by having (then) future HOFer Ozzie Smith at Card #1 in their inaugural '81 checklist - and it's a darn fine piece of cardboard with those brown-and-gold Padres unis and a sunny Wrigley Field shot.

I honestly had no idea what Card #1 in '81 Fleer was until I looked it up for this post, which seems weird given how monumental the entry of Fleer and Donruss into the marketplace was for the ultimate future of the hobby.

Fleer matched the star power of Donruss by tapping Pete Rose for the #1 slot, though the card itself isn't anywhere near as good as the '81 Donruss Ozzie.

It's not easy to hit a home run on the first try, but I've always thought Score had the best inaugural set of any brand in the history of baseball cards - it's also probably my favorite design in the entire Score catalog.

However, much like Fleer, I didn't know what Score's first card was until I consulted the archives - given the time and place, it makes sense that it'd be Donnie Baseball.

One could argue that, in terms of prestige and general oomph in the hobby, the '89 Upper Deck Griffey has long lapped the '52 Topps Pafko.

Inevitably, I always see this one get mentioned in the "Best Baseball Cards Ever" discussions. Look, I acknowledge the it's a fine card, and I'm proud to own a copy - one that, in true Dime Box fashion has some paper loss along the bottom - but it's nowhere near the best baseball card ever, and probably isn't even in my top five or ten favorite Griffey cards alone.

It's a monumental piece of cardboard, of course - Upper Deck forever changed the trajectory of the hobby, and this is the card that started it all. Take a straw poll of today's collectors, and I'm sure a lot of them would tell you they'd rather have Griffey over Pafko.

Me, though, I'll take Pafko every time. 

(THANKS, DAD!)

It's not Black Friday without COMC

I'm sure the words "Black Friday" alone send shivers up the spines of many retail workers. 

I've been lucky enough to avoid Black Friday madness in my work career - bookstores aren't known for having huge sales - and, as a shopper, I don't go near any kind of retail store on that dreaded day. I don't like crowds, and I feel terrible for the people who have to work at said stores on Black Friday. 

But I must admit that I'm no Black Friday angel, because I did do a good amount of online shopping during COMC's crazy sales in what I imagine was a hectic time for the people who work there - I imagine people with carts running through a warehouse pulling thousands upon thousands of cards. Heavy discounts and free shipping convinced me to have the stack I was rapidly building sent off to me. This order had my usual of smattering of cheap fun, but there were also a select few "bigger" cards (see: anything more than two or three dollars) that I finally decided to pull the trigger on.

Case in point: this strange minor-league Hoyt that makes him look like Zorro (printing press mishap?) is a card I've been eyeing for a while (no pun intended), and at a little north of three bucks I decided the time was right to plop it into my cart.

I stumbled into a lot of neat minor league stuff this time around - including a fun early look at Dime Box Favorite Mike Easler and what I believe is one of Brad Ausmus's first professional cards.

Also, god knows I'm no Curt Schilling fan, but that's the first card I've ever seen of his early years in the Red Sox organization - he was actually drafted by Boston before being traded to the Orioles shortly after.

I regularly plug "TCMA" into COMC's search bar, and every once in a while I'll come across a nice payoff.

(Something about seeing Gaylord Perry in those McTastic Padres uniforms always makes me chuckle.)

Didn't set out to buy a bunch of SSPC Reds, but I can't complain with this quartet of Cincinnati stars - the Bench is a '75 SSPC, and the other three (George Foster, Ray Knight & Ken Griffey) are from the '78 checklist.

As usual, I snagged a bunch of otherwise unattainable Topps exclusives on the cheap - Cobb is from something called Topps Brooklyn(?) and while I'm not a huge fan of most of the Living Set cards I've seen, that Big Sexy is a gem.

I doubt I'd know about those Topps Logofractor things if I wasn't on Twitter - I think they're sold exclusively at the Topps Store in NYC and people were losing their minds about 'em for a little while there - so I was happy to find that Bryant for the princely sum of 80 cents.

Always love finding cheap Topps Now stuff.

Minis of various makes and models - and why am I only now learning there was an '88 Fleer Mini set?

Managed to find a few people selling Topps Retired Signatures at deep discounts, and I snapped up all of these without a second thought.

Topps Retired is fantastic at featuring guys who don't otherwise get a ton of cards (Tito Fuentes!), but once in a while you'll also find a famous dude on a weird team - anything of Ralph Kiner on the Cubs is a rare sight.

I think I managed to get two of the four Wrigley Field stadium giveaway sets back in 2013, which I'm thankful for, but up until now the fact that I'd missed the Jose Cardenal & Andy Pafko cards was a pain in the rear.

The A's cards are reprints of a neat (and scarce) '50s oddball set - before this order, I had no idea Johnny Sain finished his career with a brief A's stint. 

Shiny stuff and general higher-end cardboard that add a bit of glamour to my binders.

That Eddie Grant is a tough SP Legendary Cuts short-print and one of just an extreme few cards of his I've seen - I believe he was the only active major leaguer killed in WWI.

Oddballs remain the name of the game on COMC - I'm trying harder and harder to find affordable stuff from that Jewish Major Leaguers checklist.

(And can we get a round of applause for that Cracker Jack set which actually uses Cracker Jacks as the card border?)

Squirt Steve Garvey, an oddball play at the plate, Negro League founder Rube Foster, and minor-leaguer Rod Carew - all in one, tidy scan.

From Wikipedia: 1990 Score McDonald's is a 25-card set distributed at only eleven McDonald's restaurants in rural Idaho and Oregon during a three-week period in the Spring of 1990.

If you were ever gonna set odds on a set I'd never see, that'd be a massive longshot. But somehow I found one on COMC, and it just so happened the cheapest card for sale was a sweet Ozzie Guillen double dip!

Add oddballs from Remax, Holiday Inn, and west-coast Mother's Cookies giveaways, and you have quite a few cards that probably have no business winding up in my collection here in chilly Illinois.

A few horizontal goodies - I really should just try and build that whole "Nickname Greats" insert set already.

It's not a COMC post without scanning a few cards that have nothing in common together - Tsuyoshi Shinjo is one of those not-uncommon Japanese busts that I still have a soft spot for, and you better believe I needed that card of him discoing on a motorcycle!

("The Babe" is an awful movie, but how could I pass up a baseball card of John Goodman?)

Black Friday sales allowed me to add not one, but TWO(!) new Japanese Ichiros to my collection, now the fourth and fifth such cards in my binders - I remember when it was a pipe dream to get a single one.

Black Friday or not, it seems to be getting harder to find deals on vintage I need these days, but I managed to sneak a few gems into this order.

I searched far and wide for a cheap-ish copy of that '62 Dave Giusti at the card show I attended not long ago - I only recently discovered it even existed, and the walls of ads in the background make it an ideal frankenset nominee. Trouble is, it's a high-number, and I couldn't find one cheaper than $8 at the card show. Thankfully, COMC yet again came to the rescue - I snatched that copy for a shade over three bucks.

Couldn't pass up that second-year McCovey for $8, and finding any Nu-Scoops card for $4 is a coup, much less a big name like Cy Young!

I'd like to take a moment here to immense thanks to Jackie Jensen, a man I've mentioned a few times before, and a longtime friend of the Dime Box binders.

Jackie was a prolific slugger in his day, but his cards cost almost nothing now. I can't touch most '53 Bowman Colors I need, but I was able to get the Jensen from that set and his '57 Topps card for about what a single pack of modern stuff costs.

In short - all hail Jackie Jensen!

But the best and biggest Black Friday buy was an easy choice - none other than a '57 Topps Yogi Berra!

I don't own nearly as many playing-day Yogis as I'd like - they've always seemed to command a premium at shows - and this gloriously beat-up '57 is easily my oldest card of his now. I paid about $20 for it, but even being the cheapskate I am, I didn't flinch to click "BUY" because that's way cheaper than any other copies I'd ever seen. Just like that, another card I long assumed I'd never own somehow fell into my hands.

Whether I want to admit it or not, I think we'll all agree that my collection owes a deep debt to Black Friday.