Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards: Mantle, the Babe, and Giants

Aloha, everybody, 

In this episode of Social Distancing with Baseball Cards, we check out some tribute and vintage Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, the Babe and more.

Enjoy and aloha! 

Prizes, Trades and Gifts Are What Makes The Cardboard World Go Round

Hey everybody,

Gotta get in a post about more great cards that graced my mail lately...

First up is a thanks, (but no pics this time).  HUGE THANKS go out to Patrick, the mastermind behind The Card Hobbyist.  If you like a blog that also features cool games with da shite prizes, Patrick's place is definitely in your wheelhouse.  As a matter of fact, I'm happy to say this is the second time I won a contest over there.

But why no pics?  Two reasons:

1. I won basically the same A & G Dodger cards in a box break at Tribecards a couple of weeks ago and I've already  posted them.  Yes, they were essentially doubles, but they were also doubly great because they were 2013 Dodgers, and they contained a second Puig RC!

2. Since they were doubles, I gave the cards from Patrick right over to my son, who was stoked to have his own Puig rookie.  Thus, those particular cards were not scanned are now stashed away securely in his binder. No pics, but double thanks for the great prize, Patrick.

The next batch does have pics. These are the result of my first trade with Nate, who is kinda new on the blogs.  Nate's site is Big 44 Sports Cards.  Nate's a stone Pittsburgh collector, so that means, you best have some Pirates or Steelers for trade.  But no Penguins, Nate?  To each his own.

Heck, I don't collect hockey myself, but here's a note for all you hockey collectors out there. I would love a hockey card from one of the baddest L.A. Kings to ever wear the uni...Tiger Williams.  I grew up on Tiger in the days the Kings wore the Purple and Gold of the L.A. Forum.  Did you know Tiger holds the all-time record for most penalty minutes?  Yeah, back in those days, the Kings were doormats of the league, but Tiger wasn't one. Tiger was bad- ass personified.

So I shipped some black and gold Pirates to Nate, and he sent over some cool stuff to me...

You can never go wrong with golden sparkle Kershaw

And you can't ever go wrong with Cobb on cardboard.  Here we get a fantastic portrait of the Georgia Peach. That sly glance of Cobb's says everything, but reveals nothing.  Also, limited number.  Sweet card that I hadda have.

Finally, comes a great gift I received a while back.   A gift - unexpected and out of the blue.  This was no simple PWE.

Supercool Bert, from Swing And a Pop-Up, came through once again and sent me another fistful of cardboard from the 1987 Hy-Grade "Baseball's All-time Greats" set.  Bert has now helped me to get the chase to under 10 cards.  I can't believe it!  Just 9 cards to completion.  Check my "What I Collect" page if you have any extra Hy-Grades lying around.  You just might have those final 9.

This Hy-Grade set is very cool.  It's big limitations are the simplified green border and cardstock thinner than Topps.  But the upsides are a checklist of baseball history and royalty, and the photography is mostly great.  It features quality early color photo technology and lots of close up photography.   In addition, the players are often shown in their primes and we get more than a few legendary stadiums in the background. 

Since the Dodgers are opening a 4-game series against the ELIMINATED team from the bay, let's start off with a Dodgers/Giants face off.

 You're gonna feel like you're walking down a wing in the baseball Hall of Fame...

How's about all that cardboard?  Pretty good, thanks to my fellow collectors.

Top 20 Movies In Cardboard - Final Chapter

Hey everybody,

Here's the final three films from the epic ATBATT series: Movies As Cardboard...

3. RESERVOIR DOGS
I figure everyone has already seen this Tarentino study of the ill-fated Serpico wannabe,Tim Roth,  as he infiltrates Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel's gang of LA thieves.  The problem is, although the gang looks great on paper, these guys ultimately fail in every way possible.

"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie?  Or are you gonna bite?"

 

Presenting a schedule.  I've been collecting Dodgers schedules since the 90's.  Here we have the Dodgers' version of Reservoir Dogs.  One would think with an incredible four straight ROY (which eventually became five in a row!) we woulda had a better run and caught a pennant or two.  Apparently we didn't have enough juicers on the roster to compete in the juicy NL West. 


2. A FEW GOOD MEN
Fantastic courtroom movie!

"You don't have to wear a patch on your arm to have honor." 

Speaking of juicers, here we have 2 Home Run Icons whose records have been "broken" by questionable men using questionable methods.  As I searched my binder for the right card to pair up with the title "A Few Good Men", this one jumped right out at me.

Maris earned his record in a race between two guys ON THE SAME TEAM - at the center of Baseball's universe at the time...and most of New York wanted Mantle, rather than Maris, to break the Babe's record.   In Aaron's circumstance, as he chased the ghost of the Babe, he also had to contend with very real death threats and piles of racist mail.

McGwire and Bonds, on the other hand, dealt with an adoring public gleefully cheering them on every game, loving sports reporters, and in McGwire's case, being dealt a few too many groovers down the pipe as he got closer to Maris' record, and Sosa got closer to him.

1. THE MATRIX
Did this movie absolutely blow your mind like it did mine ?

"Dodge this."

"Oops, you mean I'm not supposed to take the red pill AND the blue one?"

 

Finally, a card that reminds us of one of the best scenes in The Matrix; the shootout on the rooftop when Neo amazingly contorts his body in order to dodge bullets. 

It's my pleasure to close out the countdown with Hideo Nomo, one of my all-time favorite Dodgers. He was nicknamed The Tornado for good reason.  Nomo had a wind up that twisted and bent his body in ways American batters had never before seen. 

The photo on the card above is not a pick off throw to third, and it's not shot from a weird angle.  This is the view batters had from home plate.  Nomo wound up like a corkscrew and said, "Hit this."  Not many could, and on one rainy night in the batter's heaven that is Colorado, nobody did.

THANKS for reading! 

Binder Page Heroes Vintage Ed. (+1) Part 2

Hey everybody,

Here comes Part 2 of this vintage card binder page.  Where the last post, Part 1 , featured a couple of Bowman '55s, this one will feature cardboard from the early 60's.

First up is this cool World Series action card with Roger Maris.  This is a great photo showing everything we love about baseball in the 60's.  It's got the powerhouse yanks, unis with stirrups, a catcher decked out in old-time gear, classic WS bunting, people wearing suits and ties in the stands, and the best part of all, the giants losing.  :) 

OK trivia fans: Who's that playing first for the giants?  (answer follows the back of the card)

That's Orlando Cepeda at first base.  BOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!

We've seen this guy before.  I think good ol' Night Owl featured him in a post about freaky dudes wearing freaky eye wear. 

    I snatched this card in the past topps giveaway contest. 

I noticed the card back mentions Brosnan wrote a book about baseball.  According to wikipedia, he wrote "The Long Season", which was considered the first behind-the-scenes look at baseball player's lives.   Apparently there were a number of players who were not too happy about that.  This was long before another Jim, by the name of Bouton,  wrote "Ball Four". 

Here's the +1 mentioned in the title.  While it's not an actual vintage card, I paired it in the binder page with Maris' WS Hero card.  I'm trying to build a small collection of Maris cards, but most of what I have are from releases after his playing days.

Here's a cool card that my old lady picked up for me at a yard sale.  :)

 Finally, below is a great pic of that classic Yank, Yogi Berra, posing at old Yankee Stadium.

How about that stat - by '61, Berra had played in 68 WS games! 68! Some guys never get to play in one.

THANKS for reading, everybody!