Social Distancing With Baseball Cards - Vintage Dodgers Edition

Aloha, everyone, 

Thanks for returning to Social Distancing With Baseball Cards - Vintage Dodgers Edition. 

Inside: Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny World Series Hero Podres (in an LA uni!) and much more. 

Enjoy and aloha! 

Social Distancing with Baseball Cards: Rickey, Reggie and Hot Packs

Aloha, everybody, 

Today's Social Distancing with Baseball Cards brings us Reggie and Rickey cardboard, along with the one time I hit a hot pack at a card show. It contained a complete, sweet insert set. 

Enjoy and aloha! 

Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards - World Series Vintage Subsets!

Aloha, everyone, 

In today's edition of Social Distancing Diary, we check out a World Series vintage subset, and a couple of Al Kaline cards, on his RIP day. 

Enjoy and aloha!

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!

Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards Surprise PWE Edition

Aloha, everybody,

Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards spurred on a fellow collector way out in Texas to send me a surprise PWE. Let's see what was inside.

Enjoy and aloha!

Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards ~ Opening Day Edition

Aloha, everybody, 

It's Opening Day, but all a the ballparks are closed. In that case, let's enjoy checking out some vintage Johnny Bench and Duke Snider cardboard.

Enjoy and aloha!

Social Distancing Diary with Baseball Cards #7

Aloha, everybody,

Today we check out non-Dodgers rookie cards and game-used relics.

Enjoy and aloha!

Social Distancing Diary ~ With Baseball Cards #6

Aloha, everybody, 

Today we check out some custom cards made by the very talented Baseball Card Breakdown, and we see the first of many Dodgers autographs to come. 

Enjoy and aloha! 

Social Distancing Diary - With Baseball Cards #5

Aloha, everybody,

Today, let's check out some non-Dodgers vintage from 1961...

Enjoy and aloha!

They Say Legends Never Die. I Hope Legendary Collectors Don't Really Retire

Aloha, everybody, 

Maybe you heard, the man who built a collecting and trading empire under the moniker of JBF has retired from the game. It's the end of an era. 

It's the flaming out of a torch the blogosphere thought would burn bright, like a thousand Willinghams, forever. 

Mi hermano is stepping down from brutal trading wars and year-long contests to savor the fruits of his many past victories and to complete some personal collecting chases that remain. 

Before stepping out of the spotlight, good ol' Wes dropped a few "Retirement Packages" into the mail. Of course he did, because that's the man's M.O. - generosity at all times. 

I mentioned this in the upcoming video, but in case you don't watch, I'll mention now that I'm the trader I am today because of Wes. He never knew it, but my Alabama brother was a cardboard mentor to me. He showed me that generosity is the life blood of trading FUN. 

My offerings are always humble, just what I can scrape together on a modest (and more often than not) nonexistent cardboard budget for trades. He never made me feel our trades were dependent on equal monetary values, and he never stopped sending things to me because my return packages didn't meet the heft of what he sent to me. 

Wes taught me that it was the act of sharing what someone else wanted, and not counting nickles, that mattered. My Cardboard Santa and Operation PWE campaigns can be directly traced to how Wes rolled. They are a cardboard legacy, if you will. 

Presentation speech completed, let's open the package Wes sent me, and review Azacca IPA, a beer from Founders Brewing, out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

Aloah! 

Maybe Target will Start A "One Star Club"

hey everybody,

My Dodger buddy Night Owl wrote a great piece about topps' new super-elite, double exclusive club for "passionate" collectors.  in it, he referenced another great post from The Wax Fantastic. 

Being a sort of passionate blog reader, i followed the link, and was glad i did, because that was yet another great read.  as an aside, i'm glad to have discovered Andy's blog.  Since his is a perspective from "the other side of the atlantic", i get to expand my mind a bit further, and i get the quiet enjoyment of reading a blog with occasionally quaint spelling (i.e. programme).  ah, the simple pleasures.

suffice it to say, i am probably NEVER gonna be in topps' 5-star club, because i don't ever foresee meeting their requirements.  First of all, I don't have a minimum of $10,000 extra cash annually to spend on baseball cards.  heck, even if i hit the lotto and i had that much to burn on cards, i couldn't in good conscience sit down and write a required 500 word essay for topps declaring why i wanna be in that dopey club anyways. I wonder how the topps brain trust settled on 500 words being the right amount to establish passion?  i wonder if i could include citations in the 500?

as our friend Night Owl reminds us, we readers and bloggers are certainly passionate enough about our collections and collecting habits in our own ways, even without topps' blessing.  i may not have ten grand, but i can scratch together $3.99 to take a chance on this little package i spotted at my local target...

i'm passionate enough to spot that daryl strawberry card, and i know my fellow bloggers and readers are passionate enough to want (or need!) the assorted extras in the package.  as would be expected, there's plenty of set and team filler, and i'm happy to report, a few feature players and cards you all might want in trade.   let's see what i pulled...

young kirby !  and yet another addition for my mike schmidt collection!

there's 22 all-star cards in this set and i got about 10 of them.  the gloss and colors on these cards are shiny and gorgeous like they came out of a pack yesterday.  below are a few more...

Fernando pitched in this 1986 all-star game and he got 5 consecutive strike outs.  alas, no Fernando in this package.  however...

how's this?  one of my favorite yankees!  bernie williams RC!  nice.

any knoblauch fans out there?  this pacific card is sweet.  the photo is embedded and can be seen from front and back.

remember when jay buhner being traded away from the yankees was mentioned in seinfeld?

chromey goodness

gotta love this shot of gibby advancing to the plate. all business and getting zoned in.  i think gibby looked like this when he was seven, mustache and all.

CUBBIES !

i'm not a fan of this donruss set, so this schmidt is available...

this nomar card is a beauty. the shine is very refractory.

finally!  a Dodger.  and one i didn't have yet. :)

closing out with a pittsburgh legend. 

it just goes to show you don't have to spend $10,000 to enjoy your passion. 

THANKS for reading!

Binder Page Heroes 12 Dodgers Swatch Edition

hey everybody,

ugh ! the orange and black just won and will advance in the fight for the N.L. pennant.  the reds are dead (sorry Nachos Grande) and the dusty baker post-season curse is still very much alive and well. 

back when i first started the B.P.H. series, the original intention was to first showcase my binder featuring non-Dodgers, and then finish up with my Dodgers binder.  well, since the Boys in Blue didn't make it into the playoffs, i've decided to switch things up a bit and drop in some Dodger posts.  i was starting to miss posting about my favorite team and the Dodgers have so much october history - both great and not so - that here's my part of keeping the Dodgers active through the post-season.

this first Dodger B.P.H. post will feature swatch relics.  despite the letdown i feel after the Great Swatch Scandal of 2012, i still cherish these cards because i believe the vast majority of swatch cards out there are legit, these feature my favorite team and some of my favorite players, some of these designs are really beautiful, and most of all, this collection is only a reality because of trades made with my fellow bloggers and much appreciated readers.

let's check em out....

like a geek, i kept this Kershaw inside its cello wrap.  

 Kershaw had me worried a bit this season with his foot trouble, which i think led to his later hip problem.  he still finished as our unquestioned ace and some great numbers.  he had an ERA of 2.53, and an AWESOME strike out to walks ratio of 229 SO to only 63 BB.  absolutely sick ! 

BTW...i think that's gonna be my rapper name if i decide to pursue a hip hop career : cello wrap ! 

Don Sutton was the first great Dodger pitcher i can remember.  this card is cool because it honors Sutton's best season and features his topps card from that year.  however, there's no indication the jersey is from that particular season.

i featured this card in a semi-recent trade post.  i love the '1,2,3 strikes you're out' caption, as that so accurately captures what it was like to be a batter facing Gagne in his prime.  i'm not showing the rear of this card as it's pretty darn boring.

the shiny purple on this card is absolutely beautiful.  i'm sure rockies fans would like this purple for their players cards. it's low numbered out of only 12, and Jeff Kent was one of my Dodger favorites when he played for us.  has he been eliminated from that TV survival island - or whatever that atrocity is called - that he's on? 

yeah, Kemp was the legtitimate mvp last year, but i still say he had no business stinking up the 3 spot in the Dodger line up for sooo long when he was in such a bad slump.  i wonder if he even tried to talk Mattingly into dropping him in the batting order until his swing straightened out - which as we all know now - it never did. 

card back - meh

i absolutely love the design of this card.  Manny bein' Manny in the photo, a nice glossy surface, it's limited to his number -99, the Dodgers logo featured prominently, and some cool trivia on the rear telling about how Manny came to be number 99.   great card.

more shiny goodness that doesn't show very well here, and more limited edition goodness.

the first of 2 Shawn Green cards.  this one came to me in a trade with a reader.  THANKS !

great design on this card front.  it seems to indicate this jersey was worn on opening day.  the rear the card doesn't give me any more info, but i'm going with the thought that this jersey was worn on a bright, sunny, fantastic opening day out at Chavez Ravine, with Vin Scully calling every play, and everything right in the world.  

THANKS for reading !