Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards: Vintage Dodgers

Aloha, everybody,

In this edition of Social Distancing Diary, we check out vintage Johnny Podres, and we see the oldest Dodgers cards in my collection. 

Enjoy and aloha!

Cardboard Santa Brought Me The Best Zippy-Zap Ever!

Aloha, everybody, 

Whew! What a Christmas, am i right? I've got just a few days to lose all of my new Christmas weight before the New Year's feasts begin. 

Before Christmas hit, Cardmas hit me even harder with one of the greatest packages to ever arrive at ATBATT HQ. Zippy Zappy from Torren' Up Cards/Cervin Up Cards zip-zapped me - and it was a doozy! 

Enough about me; let's get to the cards. Leading off are a couple of Topps highlights cards honoring Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers.

 Here are current Dodgers Clayton Kershaw and Joc Pederson in action. Pederson is up first with a great shot of him coming out of the box, bat in hand..

I love Kershaw's ASG face here, but that 70's trucker hat is the worst. 

ZZ likes to include several zaps of minor leaguers in his packages, which is perfect for a collector like me. I'm the kind of guy who almost never rips packs of minor league/rookie class product, so gifts like these are always welcome in my collection. 

 I'm digging that Inland Empire 66ers shield. I've never seen these cards before. Martin pitches for the Phillies organization now. 

Young Corey Seager burst onto The Show at the tail end of 2015. He set a Dodgers rookie record by reaching base safely in his first 16 starts, and was the Dodgers' starting SS in the NLDS. I'm looking for him to be there on Opening Day 2016.

 Here's Corey playing for Team USA...

I love this shot of 2014 first-rounder Holmes with a Dodgers jersey, a tie, and some kind of draft board in some kind of studio, with a live-feed cameraman hovering behind him. This card accurately captures the artificiality of the entire affair. 

You know ZZ likes to toss in vintage, and this time was no exception. This zip-zap was gonna hit all the cylinders...

Willie Crawford is a sentimental-favorite Dodger for me...

Believe it or not, Mr. Hunt is my first 1968 Dodger. I believe I've just been handed a mandate. 

A package with just those cards (and the others I didn't scan this time) would have been a very nice Cardmas surprise, but good ol' ZZ stepped into the Extreme-Cardmas Zone with this one. 

A bit more context would be appropriate right about here. 

Back when I posted up my Ultimate Nine baseball cards, I mentioned that this 1933 Goudey was the oldest card in my collection...

ZZ said this in the comments about that post...
"No knock on the Goudey but I don't like that it's the oldest. Let's change that shall we..." 

I knew what the statement implied, but I never dreamed that someone whom I've never even met in person would be so generous as to make a statement like that come true. 

Well folks, there is a Cardmas Claus, and his name is Zippy Zappy. 

Ladies and gentlemen, from the famous 1909-11 T206 white-bordered, tobacco card set, take a gander at this little piece of cardboard gemology...

 The T206 set was released over a span of three years, and Joe Dunn played for the Brooklyn Superbas in 1908 and 1909. I figure that places this card as a 1909 or '10 issue - meaning this 'ol boy predates my Goudey by a quarter of a century. And it's my first ever Superbas player card! 

 The T206 set is most renowned for being the home set of the famous Honus Wagner card, as well as HOFers Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Cy Young. 

Dunn was no Georgia peach, and he didn't even crack the Mendoza line (before there was one to crack) in his brief stint with Brooklyn, but he did go on to become a championship minor league manager. 

This precious - yes, precious - 106 year-old card is now in my collection simply because of the goodness of another collector. The warm and sincere generosity of our community is absolutely incredible, and like nothing I've experienced anywhere else.

When I mention generosity, I mean it in a broad sense. Some of us give time to keep the big blogs on the block running with new material for us to enjoy day after day. Others are generous with commenting on posts and corresponding as friends behind the scenes. 

Some of us are generous with contests and opening packs every day of the season, with the intent to later give all of those cards to all of us. Some of us surprise each other with PWE's and packages "just because", or share their art creating custom cards that are later gifted out. 

Of course, our blogs would be forgotten without the silent readers out there who generously give us their time to come and read the ramblings about our hobby. 

Everyone gives in the way each can, and that's why I love hanging out in the cardsphere. It was a wonderful 2015, and I look forward to continuing the tradition into the new year. 

THANKS for everything ZZ (and shoot an email to me at your convenience. You can find my email address on my profile page). 

Aloha, everybody! 

 















 

No Dodger Game? No Problem. Let's Go To The Card Show!

Hey everybody,

Dodgers and Braves fans had the day off from our nailbiting playoff series today, which was great timing, because that allowed me to run out to the second Culver City Card Show.

Check out the kids at the show! Good for the hobby.  :)

I call it the Culver City show, but here's the official name...

The first show, back in May, was a blast.  I picked up a lot of great cardboard, but the real highlight for me was the grand meeting up of four Dodger bloggers - Spiegel from Nomo's Sushi Platter, Greg from Plashke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle, Ernest from Dodgers Blue Heaven, and little ol' me. You can see photos from that show here.

This time we didn't quite have another Mount Olympus of Bloggers meetup, but it was my pleasure to see Greg there and hang out with him, browsing binders and piles of cool cardboard for a few hours. Here we are in all of our card collecting geekdom glory...

Ernest and Spiegel, we missed ya!

This pic was taken by our new friend (and new reader) lucky Andy, who made one of the great scores of the show. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic, but he had a box full of binder pages FULL of vintage that he picked up for just $35.

That wasn't all he got lucky on.  His son, also named Andy, pulled a sweet and shiny Topps Yasiel Puig card, which he promptly gifted to his dad.  That Puig card is a real beauty.  Here's Andy...

I'm sure you want to see the cards I picked up today, so let's get to it!  I picked up enough cardboard for two posts, which I'll split into Dodgers and everyone else.  Here come the Dodger cards, in no particular order...

75 Topps Highlights.  This card is great because of all the extra Dodger lurkery.  In addition to workhorse Mike Marshall, we get the HOF long time skipper Walter Alston, catcher Steve Yeager, and not so great, short lived Dodger manager Bill Russell. 

Iconic Dodger card, and yet, I never owned one until now.  I've always loved that blurry, shaky background of humanity contrasted against the quiet hero, like a baseball superman. 

I really have to thank Greg for this pick up.  I had this 1933 Goudey in my hands earlier and put it back into the box. I was telling myself I didnt want to pay $6 for such a beat up card, but Greg hipped me to what a nice card and good price it actually is.  He was right, I love this card.

ASIDE: I know some of you on the other side of the country list prices that you see at shows like dimes and quarters, stacks of vintage for $8 and so on, but unfortunately, I never see those types of deals out here in L.A.  We pay the Hollywood markup prices out here.

BTW, I didn't know anything about Bud Clancy, so I looked him up.  His claim to fame came in 1934, when in typical Dodger fashion, he became the first first baseman to not record a put out in a 9 inning game.

Harris' claim to fame is having Sandy Koufax come in to relieve him. 

Can't go wrong with 60's Dodger clubbers.  I'm slowly but surely getting enough of these 1960 Dodgers to seriously chase the team set.

As soon as I spotted this baby, I hadda have it!  What's not to like?  Three Dodger pitching legends on one beautiful slice of cardboard...SOLD !!!  I just can't have too many Koufax's or Podres'.

Here's a great oddball that's in great condition.  I love that Osteen is on the double-play card, and not laser-shot-single-up-the-middle. 

 Another card that I didn't think about for 2 seconds.  I'm chasing this subset, so I'm now one step closer to completion. What an awesome card for a Dodgers fan. Anybody out there know who the lurkers are?  Norm Larker and Dan Demeter batted on either side of Furillo. 

Finally, 1959 Topps brings us another great trio of Dodger pitchers.  I love Podres' smile. He always seemed like a regular Joe to me.  He smiles like he's having a great time being a baseball player.

That's it for part one of my card show haul!

Next post: Cards from everybody else.  Check back for some very nice vintage.