Binder Page Heroes - Vintage Calling!

Here we go again with another page pulled from my PC binders. Here comes a mix of old-timers from Topps base, subsets, and even an Upper Deck oddball.

These first cards were inserts before there were inserts.  They come from 1973 Topps and featured the All-Time stat leaders (up to that point) for a variety of baseball accomplishments.

I'm chasing this bunch, so I'd appreciate if anybody out there who has some of these lying around would send 'em my way - in a trade of course.  Just check my "Sets I'm Chasing" page to see what I have and what I need.

Before Pete Rose was The Hit King, there stood The Georgia Peach. 

 This card of Walter Johnson has yet another WJ card creeping up into him. We'll see that lower card again in a sec.

 Here's good ol' Walter once again, leading his second category in the set: Most K's.

Coming up - down below - is that long rectangular card that was creeping into WJ's "Shutout Leader" card.  This is from 1993 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes....

These are patterned after the T-202 Hassan Triple Folders cards. There's 165 cards in the set and I have 3 or 4.  Not chasing.

The cards immediately above and below come from a set I'm sloooowly chasing, 1963 Fleer.

About a week ago the Dodgers tied, and then broke the franchise road game-winning streak record.   It was previously held by the 1924 Brooklyn Robins.

What most sports writers or bloggers didn't tell us was the fact that back in those early days in Brooklyn, the ballclub was called by a slew o' nicknames, depending upon who was doing the slewing.

They were called, for example, the Superbas (which I always read as the Super-Bras), the Grays, the Grooms, and the Robins.

It's said Manager Wilbert Robinson, affectionately known as "Uncle Robbie", was the reason they were called the Robins.  Baseball history will record this as the last time any manager was affectionately called anything.

Here's the Dodgers' All-time Hit King.  Way to rock that hip-hop cap waaaay before anybody, Sir Z to the Ack. 

The final three in the line up come from vintage Topps...

I'm a big fan of knuckleballers.  Here's a prime example of old-timer knuckler Phil Niekro, with old-time Dodger Stadium lurking in the background.

1962 Topps brings us one of those great shared cards featuring former Dodger and Yanks skipper, Joe Torre and his amazin' eyebrows. 

Finally tonight, another knuckler showing us how to grip it.  Contrary to the pitch's name, you don't really use your knuckles at all. Just another tricky facet of that dang tricky pitch.

Top 20 Movies In Cardboard - Part 2

 Hey everybody,

 The movie/baseball card countdown continues...

 14. A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
It's not easy choosing just one of Clint's cowboy classics.  I chose this one because director Sergio Leone seamlessly recreated a Japanese Samurai film as a Western, which Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken later re-recreated as a 1930's gangster piece. 

"My mistake, 4 coffins."

The Dodgers have had no shortage of high priced mercenaries such as this guy...

...i think we all know this dollar chaser.

That said, aside from what they were paid, both of our mercenaries here did well enough wearing Dodger Blue.  They were certainly not high priced busts like Andrew Jones.   I would show a card of Jones, but criteria #2 for this post demands the card shown must come from my collection.  Andrew Jones cards have no place in my collection. 


 13. ENTER THE DRAGON
 This film took Bruce Lee - and martial arts movies - out of the obscure 3 movies for $2 movie theaters (that's where I first discovered him) and brought them into mainstream American culture like gangbusters.  Although Bruce Lee had a short film career, and died tragically at the height of his popularity and talent decades ago, he endures as an iconic figure to this day. 

"My style?  You can call it the art of fighting without fighting."

Much like Bruce Lee, Clemente had a short, brilliant career that was cut short by a sudden, unexpected death. And like Lee, he is spoken of in almost god-like terms.

12. SCARFACE (Paul Muni and Al Pacino versions)
Who don't know Scarface?

"You want a war? Hokay - I take you to war!" 

You cant see it from this card, but good ol' uncle Robbie here sported a Tina Fey-sized cheek scar.

 11.ROBOCOP
I love sci-fi movies, and I really love director Paul Verhoven's science-fiction visions.  For the longest time, I couldn't watch "That 70's Show" because I knew the dad on the show as the bad guy in Robocop.  I just couldn't see him as anything other than a brutal, bad man.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me." 

Of all the Dodger catchers I saw play, nobody - and I mean NOBODY - wore the Blue armor and protected the plate as well as rock solid Scioscia.

10. PATHS OF GLORY 

Stanly Kubrik's totally awesome WWI anti-war film starring Kirk Douglas kicking ass in glorious black and white.  If you've never seen this one, by all means, treat yourself and watch these great actors paired with a legendary director and a brilliant script. 

"We will take the Anthill."

It's an unspoken secret here in LA that in order for the Dodgers to occupy Chavez Ravine, well, the current occupants would have to be removed.  An entire community had Eminent Domain dropped on them and had to go live somewhere else because MLB was comin' to town!

I'm torn by this part of my city's history.  On one hand, I hate that the residents of Chavez Ravine got a raw deal, and on the other hand...I can't wait to get my hands on Opening Day 2013 tickets!


9. THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

Laugh out loud comedy that doubles as a love story.

" Is that hair gel? Can I have some?" 

There was definitely something about Mari - lyn Monroe.  Back in the day, every Red-Blooded American over the age of 13 wanted to give Marilyn a right-rogering.  And how!  Joe D married the sexiest girl in America, and oh yeah, he had some kinda hitting streak as well. 


 8. HEAT 
Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro play cat and mouse as the leaders of adversarial detective and thief teams, featuring the expansive backdrop of LA as an equal player.  Director Michael Mann is at his best.

The film climaxes in an awesome shootout through the streets of downtown LA. that foresaw (inspired?)  the real-life shootout that many of us watched live on TV as bank robbers in body armor and using automatic weapons fought the ENTIRE LAPD.

"I'm not selling anything, baby.  This sh*t sells itself."

The Ryan Express.  'nuff said.

 7. CABIN BOY
An obscure, funny as hell, Chris Elliot  comedy that nobody saw.  It's Elliot's twisted take on Rudyard Kipling's classic, Captains Courageous, which was also made into a Spencer Tracy film. In Elliot's vision, Cabin Boy is a rich, spoiled idiot, bumbling obliviously through life. 

"These pipes are CLEEEAAANNN !!!"

Sure the Dodgers gave us the first African -American in the major leagues.  Then Al Campanis decided we should give that progressive thinking a wake-up call by declaring on national TV, there are so few African-American managers in MLB because, you know, they can't float."  SAY WHAT????!!!!

THANKS for reading, everybody!

Next Post: Movies 6- 1