Blog Bat - A- Round: 30 Teams, 30 Players (National League)

Aloha, everybody, 

Yesterday's post featured my American League picks for the 30 Teams, 30 Players Blog Bat - A- Round. 

Submitted for your approval, here are my National League picks. Let's check 'em out. 

Aloha! 

Night Stacks Part Two

Aloha, everybody,

Welcome to Part Two of the tall stack of cards that I received from Night Owl (Part 1 is here). Picking up right where we left off...

Once again I must ask you to forgive the un-smart crop job done by my supposedly smart printer. This 1962 Topps is a complete card, but my printer lopped off the right edge. Grrr!

Perranoski, originally from the land of Springsteen, was the pitching coach in what I used to refer to as Lasorda's mafia, which was made up of Tommy Lasorda's long-time coaching staff. That group of coaches worked together 15 years or more. 

How about a Cy Young winner on something too big to be a real stamp, but too small to be a real card? Unfortunately, my brilliant scanner decided to lop off three of the deckle edged sides...

Here's a soccer player advancing the ball with his hand...
 

N.O. is almost single-handedly keeping my O-Pee-Chee supply chain up and running. Who's down wid o-pee-cheeeeee?

 Gimme some more 70's mustache...or, in o-pee-chee parlance, le moustache.

 How do you say lousy manager in French?

One can fit a whole lotta goodness in a big stack of cards. Such as food issues...

 Full-bleed, double exposure bulldogs...

 Full-bleed bulldogs turning into Indians...

Glorious, golden-framed, gold medal wearing managers...

NEWWWWWWW Piazzas,

 You can even hide some boring, ugly cards in a big ol' stack...

Even Gibby looks bored by the design

Good thing he can't see the urine yellow back

Speaking of ugly, here's a card that personifies the trade of Pedro Martinez for Delino DeShields...

Look above Delino's bat. See that baseball being fouled straight up? That's exactly what that ridiculous trade amounted to. A lousy pop up. 

Every stack worth its height needs some tribute cards...

 Capping off this mad stack from New York, is a fistful of cardboard devoted to one player, whom I'm pretty sure was obscure even to the teams he played on. 

To quote the great Vin Scully, "And now, something for the Roger Cedeno Marching and Chowder Society"...

Yup, it's a whole lotta Roger Cedeno cardboard - and that's how you cap off a stack. 

We started this recap with a story about someone asking for a stack of money. We'll close out with John Lee Hooker doing the same...

A whole stack of THANKS to Night Owl for the supercool cards. 

Aloha! 






 

Who Got Cards? We Got Cards!

Aloha, everybody,

Before we go any further...drink this in...

Do you all remember that scene from the movie Goodfellas? I'm referring to the scene where Ray Liotta (playing gangster Henry Hill) pulls out a stack of money because the wife asked for some shopping funds. 

He asks her, "How much do you need?" She responds by making a rather large letter "C" shape with her thumb and forefinger. It's not about a specific amount, it's a measurement of how high a stack of money she wants. 

THAT'S how thick the stack of cardboard was that I received from the King of all Card Bloggers, the venerable Night Owl.  

N.O. doesn't do PWE's like many of us who send a few cards in a measley envelope and call it a bombing. No sir, when N.O. sends you cards, he is sending serious numbers, team bags and stacks. 

Best of all, if you're lucky enough to be a fellow Dodger fan, just about all of that cardboard is of the wondrous Dodger Blue variety.

 Since N.O. is so beloved and respected in the blogosphere, people from all around the country are constantly sending him cards galore. That means his overflow and extras are passed on to his fellow Dodger collectors in huge stacks full of cardboard gems. Aint life grand?

Here's a great example. This shiny Flair Showcase features a great photo of Nomo at bat. The kid could hit, and he even displayed occasional home run power. 

Here's something else I love about this Nomo card - it's the outstanding backside, featuring a washed in blood, obvious tribute to the master of mayhem, Japanese film director, Takashi Miike,

  
Another blogger named Greg, from Plashke, Thy Sweater is Argyle is the biggest Russel Martin collector I know.  He probably had this card long ago, but it's my first time to come across this awesome PATP with a crashing Yankee? White Sox? Anyway, the guy looks out to me.

What would a package from Night Owl be without some vintage Dodgers?

Sometimes I think Tommy Davis is the only Dodger on this checklist, or they double-printed Tommy's cards, because his is the only Dodger card that I ever seem to come across from this set. 
 

 Good ol' Bobby Castillo was a local boy from LA, and seemed to have settled somewhere close to my neck of the woods, because almost every year at my sons' PONY baseball opening day, he would show up in his Dodgers jersey (which still fit well) and toss out the honorary first ball of the season. 

Here's World Series hero Charlie Neal. The Dodgers appeared in 1959 Topps in photos that were shot at the Los Angeles Rams' new home for the 2016 football season, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

Many LA Ram fans probably thought the Rams always played in Anaheim Stadium, sharing the confines with the Angels, but us old-timers remember they played in the Coliseum before moving out to Orange County.

Welcome home, Rams. 
 

Apparently someone along the way decided to scratch out the word "outfield" under Ron Fairly's name. Perhaps Fairly dropped a can of corn and lost a critical game, causing some irate ten year-old to angrily scribble out the word with a hearty, "Yeah, right."

It's getting late now, and I'll have to stop here if I want to hit the Publish button before I sleep. We'll have to break this post up into a two-parter. Most recaps of cards received from N.O. take up two posts anyway. It's par for the course. 

I've probably already lost the west coast red eye readers, so perhaps only Night Owl will see this late night post. That's just fine with me, because it'll simply be two Dodger goodfellas, talking about tall stacks of cardboard. 

Up next: Part 2

Aloha!

What The Heck Am I Doing With Giants Cards?

Aloha, everybody,

Let's start off 2016 with a re-declaration of what ATBATT is all about. I do this because of something the venerable Night Owl mentioned in his post about some cardboard gold that I recently sent to him. Here is what N.O. had to say:

"So here we are at a package from All Trade Bait All The Time. Oscar doesn't really feature all trade bait all the time on his blog. It's mostly Dodgers he received, games he saw and beer he drank. But, I'm not showing any night owls on cards on my blog either. It's just a title."

 It is just a title, but some of you out there might think the cards I show aren't available for trade, unless I specifically mention it. Thus, I want to add a bit to N.O.'s observation, and gently assure you that almost every card I showcase on ATBATT is indeed trade bait - even the Dodgers. 

As with all of us, of course some cards in my collection are untouchable, but every man has his cardboard price, and I'm open to any offer for just about any card, if it will benefit both of our collections.

That said...we'll launch 2016 with a hearty, "What'll you give me for these?" 

Here's the back side...

 What we have here is a 5-card set of metal Willie Mays cards from 1995. They were a gift to me from mom. Bless her heart for supporting my card collecting hobby, but apparently she had no idea that giving me gift cards of a San Francisco Giant would be akin to gifting Johnny Roseboro a RC of Juan Marichal. 


The cards come inside a little tin with colorful embossing and a "sandblasted" surface texture...

Here they are in the tin, each metal card individually wrapped in plastic...

I discovered this tin while rummaging through my closet for Christmas wrapping paper. I hadn't looked at them in years. You saw card #1 from the set earlier; here come the other four, in order...

I know they're mass-produced junk metal from the junk wax era, but I've gotta admit, the design is right on, the colors are vibrant, and I like the raised stars and crossed-bats nameplate on the front...

...and rolled framing around the rear...

The cardmakers stumbled a bit on card #4, as it represents May's stint with the New York Mets, but fails to show him in a Mets uni on the front or back...

 Card #5 gives props to Willie, Mickey and the Duke...

It's a cool little set, and the Say Hey Kid was a great player, but it's definitely possible for me to have too many Giants in my collection.

So, if offering up for trade a gift from dear old mom won't convince folks that I'm sincere about "All Trade Bait, All The Time", then nothing will. 

Aloha!

 

Sunday Night (Owl) Cards (Part Two)

Aloha, 

In last Sunday night's post we began to review the cards that Night Owl sent to me. In honor of the regular baseball season ending today, let's take this review all the way to the end as well. 

The last post featured some oddball highlights, and today we'll lead off with tribute cards and inserts, which I thoroughly dig...

 Typical of dem Bums, this card commits to eternity the memory of how the Brooklyn club managed (yet again) to pull heartbreak out from the jaws of victory.  *Sigh*  As Vin Scully (the Master) has observed so often, nothing ever comes easy for the Dodgers. 

In praise of all the great left-handed hitters in general, and southpaw Dodgers in particular...

 GREINKE FACE!!!!!!!!!

How about some more sweet vintage oddball....

I've got a few color variations ( or just color fades?) of this Jackie Robinson; I've got two shades of green and at least three shades of orange/tan...

Puig recovered from a bad hammy just before season's end, so let's squeeze one of his cards in before the review ends...

GREINKE FACE!!!!!!!!!

 

Any cards celebrating Piazza's rookie baby-mustache and Matt Kemp's powder Blue throwback uni are perfect fits for my collection...
 

Now the "conventional" cardboard highlights, but first...

 GREINKE FACE!!!!!!!!!

 My binder happily welcomes this knuckleballer Charlie Hough RC...

More Dodgers vintage coolness...

                                            A TV set Dodger!  

 On the card back Russ mentioned kids should resist the urge to grow up too fast...

 Teenagers in the 60's must have had a hard time resisting all that when those big breasted Russ Meyer comedies like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! hit their local drive-ins. 

We'll finish with a card from the man who will take the ball to the mound against the NY Mets in Game One of the NLDS. It's a magnificent, burnt-orange refractor, featuring one of my all-time favorite Kershaw baseball card photos...

THANKS for these fantastic new additions to my collection, N.O. !

As you mentioned, the previous post about these cards brought good luck to the Dodgers for clinching the division. Now let's hope this one will bring Blue Good Luck against the Mets. 

Aloha!