Dime Boxes -- The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey

Friday, January 26, 2024

I've moved since you last saw me

I know the last thing I need is yet another cardboard obsession, but here I am about to post about a new one.

It began rather morbidly, following the far-too-soon passing of knuckleball legend Tim Wakefield. I knew Wake had started his professional career as a position player, and had a few cards issued as such, but I thought they were unattainable. That is, until I checked Ebay and found a rather fairly-priced regional issue from Wakefield's minor-league days that listed him as a third baseman(!).

I couldn't hit BUY IT NOW fast enough, and before I knew it, an obsession was born.

That set off a chain of events that led to me wanting to discover other notable names who made odd and/or forgotten position switches early in their careers - and specifically ones that were documented on cardboard.

Like Wakefield, I knew dominant closer Troy Percival began his career as a position player, but I didn't know he had any cards issued as such until this obsession came about. Best I can tell, this is the one and only card of his lone season as a catcher in the Angels' system, and I was thrilled to snag a copy for a song recently.

As is the case with most of the dudes you'll see here, Percival probably had the right idea in switching positions since he hit a whopping .203 in Low-A ball in 1990.

Guillermo Mota is a trademark Dime Box Favorite - but he's unlike Wakefield and Percival given that I had absolutely no clue he started his career as an infielder in the Mets organization.

Switching positions isn't that uncommon of a tale - Kenley Jansen and Trevor Hoffman are a few others who come to mind that I don't yet own cards of as position players (though I have a bead on a minor-league Hoffman) - but seeing it on baseball cards kinda causes my brain to short out (in a good way!).

Sean Doolittle is another collection favorite who made the switch - an injury caused him to try his hand at pitching after a few middling years as a position player in the A's system.

I'd say it worked out well for him, given that Doolittle just retired following a fine 11-year career as a dominant closer.

But these shifts go farther than the position-player-to-pitcher phenomenon I've shown thus far.

Catchers are known to switch positions at various points in their career - the body can only take so much wear and tear - but I'm particularly fascinated by the guys like Dale Murphy who gave up catching earlier rather than later.

I've never seen a card that actually depicts Murphy as a catcher - he caught sparsely in his first few seasons with the Braves - but look closely and you'll find that weird "C-1B" designation on his early cards.

Recent memory may recall that Bryce Harper was drafted as a catcher, though I think it was always a given that he'd find stardom elsewhere on the diamond.

From what I understand, though, HOFer Jimmie Foxx was thought to be a legitimate catching prospect, so much so that his earlier cards show him in the tools of ignorance (this is obviously a reprint). A good amount of the earlier photos of Double-X on baseball cards show him as a backstop.

Foxx was never a regular catcher, but he did catch more often than I knew before I wrote this post - he was appearing in a game or two at catcher as late as 1944.

As I so often say, baseball cards are fun, but they can also be educational - I didn't know Stan Musial was signed as a pitcher until I unearthed this Pro Debut insert from a few years back.

Musial had a few successes on the mound - he actually won 18 games in Class-D ball 1940, his final season as a pitcher - but he obviously never would've become the "Stan the Man" we know and love had he stayed on the bump.

Of course, no discussion of this ilk is complete without mentioning The Great Bambino, a guy who gave up a career as a world-class pitcher to become an equally world-class slugger.

I love (and want) all Babe Ruth cards, but ones that show him during his earlier Red Sox pitching days are still ever-so extra special to me. They're a great reminder of how strange the trajectory of certain baseball careers can be. But Ruth is obviously the rarity in this field - most position switches, like the Wakefields and Percivals of the world, are born out of dubiousness or downright failure.

So I guess if you're wrestling with the Mendoza Line in the low minors, perhaps your destiny lies elsewhere on the diamond.

Friday, January 12, 2024

I can't change how I collect

I've been collecting for so long now that I can't envision a life without it.

I'm fascinated by the way my pre-teen self managed to come up with my fairly intricate binder system, a method that's remained largely unchanged as of now. But lately I'll admit that I've started running into a few roadblocks - some of said system simply isn't feasible anymore as I get on in years.

The crazy way I sort my cards often means that it takes a lot of time to file them away, a lot of moving cards from one slot to another and such. For a while, that was okay - I was able to devote a sizeable chunk of my waking hours to my collection.

Problem is, as I sit here typing these words at the age of 31 (going-on-32), I simply don't have the time and/or energy to do that anymore.

The easiest (and perhaps most obvious) solution to this quandary is to simply COLLECT FEWER CARDS and not the 8,623 different players and themes I insist on chasing.

But could I ever do that? Of course not! I admire those who can stop collecting one thing and seamlessly pivot to another. But it's just not me. I can turn the volume knobs of different things I collect up and down sometimes, but I can never completely shut them off.

For what it's worth, I've devised a slight revision to my binder system that should cut my filing time down by a good margin and keep the collecting part of my brain balanced. In the meantime, I can take comfort in other collectors I know who are just as crazy (I mean, widely curious) as I am, like longtime friend of the blog John of "Johnny's Trading Spot."

John is particularly good at shoveling heaps and heaps of cards onto people - what you'll see here come from a few different packages I'm woefully overdue in posting - and he knows I always want shiny Cubs.

John also produced a rare first for my collection - behold, the first of these curious '30s matchbooks I own!

They're are a prime example of something I'm not really interested enough to chase down and buy, but was over the moon to see fall out of a trade package as a surprise.

Nifty Cubs will always have a home with me.

I've been collecting for long enough now to grow nostalgic for players of my youth - that's the only explanation I have as to why I've been hoarding Mark Prior cards with more vigor lately.

More local love here, including those cool Jason Kipnis & Billy Hamilton parallels - a couple Dime Box Favorites who gleefully became short-term Cubs.

Cubs were the meat of John's mailings, but they weren't the whole feast.

A couple pitchers-at-the-plate came along for the ride - and while I don't specifically count flip-side hitting pitchers towards my mini-collection, I'll always take ones people happen to spot (especially of big names like Trevor Hoffman!).

I find it endearing that an oddball set documenting the hapless '62 Mets actually exists, and John sent along a few of those gems as well.

I had a couple cards from this set in my binders already (do nicknames get any better than "Vinegar Bend" Mizell?), but these two familiar names were new to me - nor did I know either of them were inaugural Mets.

Here's a card I never knew I needed - a '62 Mets team photo!

Come to think of it, this one's a prime example of why I can't collect any other way than I do right now. Team cards have never been a huge priority for me, nor does this one fit snugly into any of the nebulous players/themes/guidelines I collect. But did I get wide-eyed at the sight of it in a trade package? Of course!

In the end, even though the circumstances surrounding the collector might change, I truly believe that basic instinct to collect how and what we want never truly fades.

Friday, December 29, 2023

The best budget is no budget (a COMC order)

I've really never had a budget when it comes to baseball cards.

Part of this is because I don't collect the seismic kind of stuff that requires a budget in fear of having to sell a kidney. But that's not to say I can't overspend on cards - lately I've been worried that I'm plopping a bit too much of my paychecks down on cardboard, in fact.

It's easy to trick myself into thinking I'm a light spender since a lot of what I buy tends to fall into the "loose change" category. But a few Sportlots orders here, a couple infusions of cash into my COMC account there, and before you know it, there goes 50 bucks. It's not a good or bad thing, but sometimes I'm left looking at my bank account and wondering why there's not more money in there.

I think it's telling that I seem to post a COMC order every other month or so on here - and, you guessed it, here comes another one!

There's very little rhyme or reason to my COMC hauls - lots of times I'm as surprised as anyone else to see what I ended up finding.

Can't really tell you how I stumbled upon these three Star Mattingly panels, and they're not anything I've specifically targeted in the past - but hey, for $1.50 a piece (50 cents a card!) you know I'm buying 'em.

(Also, yes, I have since split these up into nine individual cards.)

COMC is a good place to find weird regional oddballs there's a 99 percent chance you won't see anywhere, ever.

Those Spanish Kellogg's have been taunting me for a while - the cheapest ones always seem to be like $10 - but thankfully that Carew was around $4 and fit snugly into my (non-?)budget.

Oddballs, as always, were the name of the game with this COMC order.

I don't remember ever buying equipment during my Little League days (I know at least a couple of my gloves were hand-me-downs) but I've been more inclined to beg my parents to get me a Louisville Slugger if a baseball card came with it!

Lately I've taken a page from the Sportlots handbook and started combing specific sellers' inventories for deals.

I came across one person who was having a nice little blowout of their minor league inventory and, as a result, scored some cool pre-fame issues of a few guys you might recognize.

But I get just as much fun out of finding minor league treasures of Obscure Guys I Collect For Some Reason - only in a card collection can Mike Fontenot and Junior Spivey have as much pull as Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout.

A lot of minor league stuff is just plain cool - I didn't even know there was a card of Mark Prior's brief stay in the Red Sox system until this order.

Couple that with a group of batboys who posed for a photo exactly how you'd expect a group of 12-year-olds to pose for a photo, and A CARD WITH A CAT CAMEO(!) - and you have a whole lot of fun on the farm.

A few of my bigger player collections got a nice little boost with this order as well.

I finally convinced myself to splurge on one of those "Gallery of Heroes" inserts I've been eyeing for far too long - spending $6 on a modern card is nearly unheard of here, but I'd say Vlad was worth it.

I supposed my budget would be in further shambles if I spent as much on packs as I used to.

But why do that when you can snag tough photo-variation SPs and other online exclusives on COMC for the price of one of those packs with five Marlins in it?

I'm on a quest to own every Hank Aaron Brewers card in existence, and I got one tiny step closer with that Heritage insert from a few years back - and speaking of guys on weird teams, how about a rare Jim Kaat Yankees sighting?

(It's also funny that exclusives I heard everyone raving about from this year's National are already showing up on COMC for almost nothing.)

A particularly fun helping of minis this time around - including Jim Bunning's only Dodger card, a Felipe Alou Venezuelan sticker, and a neat Bazooka!

Also, yes, that's a real 1950 Bowman Ralph Branca - vintage Bowman doesn't really do a whole lot for me, but when you throw one of a Dime Box favorite for a hair over $4, I'm helpless.

Japanese cards are one of my most frequent searches on COMC, and I had the good fortune to stumble across a couple weirdly affordable BBM Nomos this time.

COMC is mostly a place for combing and scouring and clicking BUY NOW!, but it can also be a rabbit hole for discoveries.

There's a good chance I would've gone the rest of my life not knowing this brilliant Father's Day Nationals set existed (stadium giveaway, I assume?) - but thanks to COMC, my collection is all the better for it.

A handful of not-your-standard-size baseball cards here, including a couple Permagraphics oddballs that I've never thought got nearly as much love as they should.

This was the COMC order when I decided enough was enough and finally sprung for a '76 SSPC George Brett that's been a thorn in my side for quite a while now.

Plus, Mr. Brett had a little company on the way to Dime Box HQ, including The Mick and a couple '78 SSPCs I still needed (not many White Sox Don Kessinger cards out there).

Full disclosure: I was excited to snag a cheap '55 Bowman Sal Maglie, only to later run to my binders and discover, wait, WHAT - I already have it?! (Side note: anyone wanna give it a good home?)

That Musial, on the other hand, was most assuredly not a dupe - those "Baseball Thrills" cards are excellent and cost less than Stan the Man's regular Topps cards will run you.

Still, the king of this COMC order was never in question: it's this scary '67 high-number of Rocky Colavito that looks like it went under a truck at some point.

I may be more inclined to drop heavier amounts of money on cards nowadays, but my goal of finding an affordable '67 Colavito was fixed on a hope and a prayer. I regularly see copies priced for hundreds at card shows, and the cheapest one I'd ever come across before this was around $80. (You better believe '67 high-numbers are feared for a reason.)

A copy like this - creased, mangled, and even with an updated "Dodgers" scrawled along the front by a young collector - was exactly what I'd always hoped to find. And for a mere $15, there it was waiting for me on COMC one miraculous evening. A prayer answered.

All in all, it's hard to have a budget in this hobby when I'm bombarded with so many things I DEFINITELY, TOTALLY NEED RIGHT NOW!

Friday, December 8, 2023

Twelve years

"Dime Boxes" turned twelve yesterday.

I admittedly don't post a whole lot these days, but that's not at all an indictment of my love of the blogosphere (more of me not having as much time/energy). This is still my favorite corner of the cardboard universe, and I'm forever grateful for the support so many of you have always showed to that teenager who started yammering on and on about how much he loved 1995 Fleer all those years ago (I STILL DO!).

I've given away cards for my last few blog-versaries, and since I really can't think of a better way to thank all you fantastic readers, I'm doing it again this year! I've got 20 pages' worth of random goodies up for grabs here - all you have to do is comment with something along the lines of "Page 1 - #8 (Molina)" for any card(s) you'd like to claim. (Also, with deep apologies to my Canadian friends, I have to limit this to US readers only due to insane shipping rates.)

Please feel free to grab as many cards as your conscience allows - all I ask is that all claimers please email your shipping address to me at nickpecucci AT gmail DOT com (even if we've traded before). I'll do my best to update this post with cards that have already been claimed.

Once again, I shout a big, hearty THANK YOU to all the great readers out there - and now I'll shut up and present you with the spoils!

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