2024 Baseball’s Best Relievers And Supersubs #9

Posted on May 12, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

For those who missed the previous posts, the general conceit of this series is that I’m making my own custom box set in the 1980’s Fleer style and each weekend I will feature a custom card of one of “Baseball’s Best Relievers” and another custom featuring one of “Baseball’s Best Supersubs”.

Our reliever of the week is the Orioles’ Yennier Canó, who had a breakout season in 2023, made the All-Star team as a middle reliever, became the setup man for closer Felix Bautista and took over as closer when Bautista suffered an injury. Lately he’s gotten more save opportunities with 2024 O’s closer Craig Kimbrel having some struggles.

The Twins’ Kyle Farmer is our Supersub for the week. Last year he played 40+ games at 2nd, 3rd and Short, but this year he’s getting most of his time at 3rd and 2nd. Although he came up in the Dodgers system primarily as a catcher, he has not caught a Major League game since 2019 with the Reds. Also in 2019 he made his sole MLB pitching appearance, closing out a 12-5 loss with 1.1 innings while giving up just one hit and no walks.

2024 Baseball’s Best Relievers And Supersubs #8

Posted on May 5, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

Our reliever of the week is the Athletics’ Mason Miller, who pitched mostly as a starter in 2023 but has been impressive since being converted to be the A’s closer and putting his 100+ mph fastball to work at the ends of games. He has 8 saves in 12 appearances with a 1.26 ERA, a 0.767 WHIP and he’s averaging 18.2 strikeouts per nine innings.
(Update: I forgot to mention that he was named the A.L. Reliever of the Month for March/April, which is reason I’d picked him in the first place)

The Blue Jays’ Cavan Biggio is our Supersub for the week. Biggio payed in 99 defensive games in 2023, half of them at 2nd base but also putting in double-digit games in the outfield and at 1st and 3rd. This year he’s maintaining a presence at all of those positions, but is playing the majority of his games at 2nd. He is the son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio.

Well-Loved Topps World On Wheels Cards (plus Weigh-In #81)

Posted on May 3, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

I wanted to share a bunch of 1950s Topps World On Wheels cards, but I didn’t have a lot to say about the cardS.

I also am way overdue for one of my Weigh-Ins, but if I went forward with my recent convention of matching up the Weigh-In number (81) to a year (1981), well… I had too much to say about my chosen set, 1981 Fleer, to have in the same post as a Weigh-In (and I published that post a couple of days ago)

So, after this first card – I do have a tiny bit to say about it – I’ll just intersperse my weigh-in with images of the remainder of the World On Wheels cards I picked up.

I couldn’t pass up this miscut WoW card, even though I already have the Cemo Turbo card.

Here’s the back… I looked up the card when I first got it because I didn’t know what the card number was, and then realized that someone had written “18” on the back in pencil.

If you’re wondering what the other card is, it’s #19, “Pegaso”

For those wondering what the deal is with a “Weigh-In”, here is my official Mission Statement:

Posting updates on the organizing and streamlining of my collection gives me a look at the big picture, keeps me honest and helps with motivation and/or guilt.

Changes in the 4th quarter of 2023 (from 10/1/2023 to 12/31/2023):

Net change in the collection: -188 (580 added, 768 removed)
Net change to the # of cards in the house: +982 (1,101 came in, 119 went out)

Most of the cards coming in were from three card shows that quarter, plus a push on 2023 Heritage (both the regular and high number sets). Most of the cards going out of the house were junk wax minor league cards which went into the recycling (Star Minor League cards featuring guys who never made it to The Show)

Totals since I started tracking on 10/16/2011:
Total # of cards purged from the collection, to date: 18,173
Net change to the collection, to date: +8,532

Total # of cards which have left the house, to date: 56,555
Net change to the number of cards in the house, to date: -9,956

I don’t feel great about the idea that with all the efforts I’ve made over the past dozen years, My collection is still larger than it was when I’d started and the cards in the house have gone down by fewer than 10,000 cards. I need to get better organized and a little more draconian when determining which cards to get rid of… There a lot of cards in my collection that I wouldn’t miss if they were gone.

Size of the collection:
Number of individual cards tracked in my Access database: 75,994
Number of cards that make up the sets flagged as completed in my Access database: 10,639
…which means I’ve got at least 86,687 cards in my collection.

Money spent on cards:
This does not count money spent on show admission, shipping, supplies, etc.

1st quarter, 2023: $169.07
2nd quarter, 2023: $235.65
3rd quarter, 2023: $176.74
4th quarter, 2023: $345.90

Average per month for 2023: $77.28
Average per month for 2022: $40.51
Average per month for 2021: $35.64
Average per month for 2020: $76.66
Average per month for 2019: $80.38
Average per month for 2018: $79.03
Average per month for 2017: $43.63
Average per month for 2016: $36.11

I didn’t track my spending before 2016. In 2016 and 2017 I didn’t go to many card shows because there weren’t any local shows, and I made the 5 hour round trip to a regional card show only once or twice a year.

It’s kind of nice to see my spending back up to pre-pandemic levels, and interesting in that I feel like I’ve been more focused on my buying, yet the money’s gone up.

Size of my MS Access card database:
I track my collection in a Microsoft Access database of my own creation. There’s quite a bit of work involved in keeping it up-to-date, so I like to satisfy my own curiosity by finding out how much information is currently in my database.

My database currently contains 1,071 set definitions and 267,893 card definitions (An increase of 10 sets and 2,442 cards since the last weigh-in).

It’s important to point out that this is merely the number of sets and cards which are represented within my database; Although I have no cards from 1949 Bowman, that set represents 1 set definition and 240 card definitions.

…And I’ve still got a bunch of images, so here they are…

1981 Fleer Was Like Jessica From High School

Posted on April 30, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

I grew up in the original middle class suburbs of Long Island, where most of the neighborhoods were no more than 10-20 years old. “Lily white” would not be an unfair description of my high school’s student body. It was not a completely uniform group… We had a sizeable enough Jewish population that we had school holidays for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah… but whether Jewish, Catholic or Protestant, nearly everybody could trace their lineage back to Europe. The darkest kids were Italian. Asian kids? Yeah, we had one – ONE! – in a school of over 2,400 students.

It was during my sophomore year that Jessica came.

I don’t know where Jessica’s family was from… I’m guessing South Pacific, possibly the Philippines. She wasn’t objectively beautiful, but she was pretty, had a nice smile, dark shoulder-length hair, was fairly tall and didn’t look like any other girl in the school. Every boy’s head turned when she walked by, because within our limited life experiences she was very exotic.

Our reaction to Jessica was kind of like my reaction to 1981 Fleer.

Prior to 1981 all I knew was Topps… Topps baseball, Topps football, Topps hockey, Topps Star Wars, Topps Wacky Packages… Topps was synonymous with trading cards and stickers.

Sure, there were other card companies, but they made stuff we didn’t pay much attention to. Those other companies made cheesy non-sports sets and “Football Action” cards which seemed to exist for the purpose of tricking kids into buying them (we didn’t know at the time that Fleer had a license with the teams but not with any of the players).

Into all of this came 1981 Fleer Baseball cards.

Fleer grabbed me from the start. Like Jessica, it may not have been the prettiest set out there, but man, it was different and that was exciting.

To my eyes, both then and now, 1981 Fleer’s design was on par with anything Topps had put out that year and in the couple of years beforehand (I’ve never been a huge fan of the 1979 design, and 1980 was regarded by me as a rehash of my beloved 1974 until much later in life).

The backs were noteworthy at the time. WHITE CARDBOARD? What madness is this???

Although Donruss also had the white cardboard, there was something kinda elegant and non-Topps-y about the 1981 Fleer card backs.

1979 and 1980 Topps were the first sets I didn’t complete within a year or two, but 1981’s competition also served to re-invigorate my collecting habits and I completed 1981 Fleer and Topps in fairly short order. (1981 Donruss was another matter which I revisited in a recent post)

This Rod Carew card is possibly my favorite from the 1981 Fleer set. It gives him an almost mythological look by showing him from slightly below with the San Jacinto Mountains in the background (The Angels did spring training in Palm Springs at the time)

Another favorite is this card of Joel Youngblood, who is really happy to be on the field.

With the exception of 1978, Topps had had been relegating managers to inset photos since 1975, so giving at least some of them full cards was a smooth move by Fleer and Donruss.

Combo cards which were in the set “just because” were a new concept to me and my friends. Topps hadn’t really done anything like it in the 1970s, with the exception of some subsets like 1977’s “Big League Brothers”.

1981 Fleer (and Donruss) also had more than one card of certain star players. This is Rickey Henderson’s regular card, but he also had a “MOST STOLEN BASES AL” card with a very similar photo.

I’m not sure what circumstances had Dick Tidrow hanging out near someone who appears to be a Reds coach.

I’m a sucker for batting cage shots. You could show Dennis Littlejohn in this exact pose during a game and I wouldn’t give it a second glance… but in a batting cage? Love it!

The batting cage love also goes for this Bert Campaneris card. Any guesses to who’s actually batting?

Similarly, I like “Hanging out in the on-deck circle” shots.

Provide your own caption to Larry Herndon sitting alone on the bench.

And I’ll wrap up with a nice portrait of Willie Stargell.

2024 Baseball’s Best Relievers And Supersubs #7

Posted on April 28, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

Our reliever of the week is the Cardinals’ Ryan Helsley, who is currently tied for the Major League lead with 9 saves (for a team with a 13-14 record, I’ll point out). Helsley has a career 10.7 strikeouts per 9 innings and in 2022 he had a fastball clocked at 103.1 MPH and made the All-Star team.

In 2024, he’s appeared in Topps Big League but doesn’t have a card in flagship Topps or Heritage just yet.

The Rangers’ Ezequiel Durán is our Supersub for the week. Durán appeared in 122 games in left, right and all four infield positions while batting .276 with 14 homers, 55 runs and 46 RBI. This year he’s played mostly at 1st and 3rd but has also put in some time at short and in the outfield. He was acquired from the Yankees in 2021 as part of the deal which sent Joey Gallo to the Bronx.

As with Helsley, Durán has appeared in 2024 Topps Big League but not in any other sets.

Topps Minus 50: April 26, 1974

Posted on April 26, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

This is the latest in my Topps Minus 50 series which addresses transactions and other changes to Major League baseball which might have had an affect on Topps checklists and the like.

In this post, we’ll be looking into one seven-player trade between the Yankees and the Indians.

April 26, 1974

The Cleveland Indians traded Chris Chambliss, Dick Tidrow and Cecil Upshaw to the New York Yankees for Fred Beene, Tom Buskey, Steve Kline and Fritz Peterson.

Although at the time the Yankees players and fans were very concerned about trading four pitchers away, the Yanks came out on top in this transaction. Chambliss and Tidrow were part of the Yankees World Series teams of the second half of the 1970s, but the four Cleveland acquisitions were not particularly outstanding, with the best being arguably rookie reliever Tom Buskey (whose rookie card came in 1975 Topps)

If you go for sabermetrics, the Yankees got a 15.4 WAR out of Chambliss over his Yankees career and a 4.6 WAR out of Tidrow’s Yankee seasons, while the only pitcher that Cleveland got a positive career WAR from was Buskey (2.9 WAR)

While all of the players acquired by the Yankees appeared in 1975 Topps with updated photos, none of the Indians four acquired players had new photos, despite Topps having nearly a full season to take care of business. I checked the boxscores and all four did pitch in 1974 games at Shea (where the Yankees were playing while Yankee Stadium was being renovated).

Dead Parrot Frankenset: April 2024 (Plus Coyote Thoughts)

Posted on April 23, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

This is the latest in a sporadic series on an ongoing project, a “Dead Parrot” Frankenset which features cards of NHL and WHA teams which are no more, which have ceased to be (as in the line from the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch). The Frankenset consists of a binder containing 44 sheets and the goal is to have it filled with cards numbered from 1 to 396, with each slot filled with a card featuring a hockey team that has gone to meet its maker.

In this post I have three new challengers, plus some additional Parrot-related content at the end of the post.

Card #19

The challenger: 1997-78 O-Pee-Chee WHA Larry Lund (Houston Aeros)

This photo is very dark… and is that jersey airbrushed? The lettering looks off.

Currently in the binder: 1980-81 Topps Joel Quenneville (Colorado Rockies)

Despite the residue from the scratch-off gimmick of 1980-81 Topps Hockey, this card nicely showcases the NHL Rockies uniforms.

It’s a tough choice because I like both Aeros and Rockies cards, but there’s not enough positives about the Lund card to dislodge the Quenneville card.

THE CHALLENGER IS DEFEATED!

Card #40

The challenger: 1970-71 Topps Gump Worsley (Minnesota North Stars)

I thought Gump Worsley was the last NHL goalie to play without a mask, but in verifying that I found articles that said that Andy Brown was the last and Gump was the second-to-last. Either way, it’s still a crazy way to play after the slapshot became prevalent in the NHL.

Currently in the binder: 1990-91 Topps Craig Wolanin (Quebec Nordiques)

Part of the factory set I bought for cheap a number of years ago. Nothing special about this card.

This is clearly a win for the 1970 Gump, vintage beating “junk”… but wait!

The referee is indicating that there’s a penalty against Worsley!

The Gump card shows pretty well in the scan and in the toploader, BUT once I pulled it out of it’s protective sleeve I could tell that it had some pretty extensive water damage… and now I’m questioning whether or not those black spots on the back are ink.

THE CHALLENGER IS DEFEATED!

…and maybe going into the trash. Sorry, Gump.

Card #63

The challenger: 1977-78 O-Pee-Chee WHA Poul Popeil (Aeros)

As mentioned before, I love a good Houston Aeros shot. This is definitely not airbrushed.

Currently in the binder: 1992-93 O-Pee-Chee Premier Eric Weinrich (Hartford Whalers)

Early 1990s Whalers cards are pretty prevalent within this project, and I’m partial to the green Whalers uniforms.

This one is easy…

THE CHALLENGER IS VICTORIOUS!

…and updates the already-completed Page 7 (cards # 55-63)

This is one sweet page, I’ve gotta say.

Wrapping up the new card section of this post…

I replaced one card and updated a page, but didn’t fill any empty slots or complete any pages.

The current totals remain at 357 out of a possible 396 cards (90.1%) and 21 completed pages out of 44 total pages (47.7%).

But that’s not the end of this post… I want to weigh in on how recent NHL news will affect this project!

Are the Arizona Coyotes now Dead Parrot-eligible?

You may have heard that the Arizona Coyotes will be moving to Salt Lake City for the 2024/25 season. Technically speaking the Coyotes franchise will become inactive and the Utah team will be considered a new NHL franchise which has acquired all of the Coyotes’ “hockey assets” (players, coaches, draft picks, front office, etc.).

However, if the Coyotes owner can get a new Arizona arena built and ready within five years, the franchise will be automatically reactivated (and I would guess there’s be something similar to an expansion draft, but we’ll worry about that if and when it happens).

This possibility of the team being reactivated is the only reason I hesitate to include the Coyotes in the Dead Parrot project. A re-activated Arizona Coyotes team would, as far as the NHL is concerned, be the same franchise with the same owner, and that team would have the same name and presumably the same logos and uniforms as the team that just played it’s last game.

An argument can be made that this wouldn’t be significantly different from the Winnipeg Jets. The original Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996 to become the Coyotes. The current Jets came about when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg in 2011.

At any rate, I have significant doubts as to whether the Coyotes owner will get a new arena built within five years, despite his intentions and ongoing efforts.

I have decided to allow the Coyotes into the Dead Parrot binder, but they will be a low-priority add, and there would have to be something special going on for a Coyotes card to knock another card out of the binder.

If and when the Coyotes team is reactivated, I’ll revisit this decision.

At the moment it’s all somewhat meaningless because I’m pretty sure I don’t own any Coyotes cards and I wasn’t able to find any at a hotel card show I went to this past weekend. Even so, I wanted to make this announcement and I will revisit it if and when I have a chance to add a Coyote to the binder.

2024 Baseball’s Best Relievers And Supersubs #6

Posted on April 21, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

Our reliever of the week is the Marlins’ Tanner Scott. Scott appeared in 74 games in 2023, went 9-5 without starting a game, earned 12 saves with a 2.31 ERA, a 0.987 WHIP, 12.0 strikeouts per 9 innings and a 3.6 WAR.

Scott appeared in 2023 Topps flagship and Chrome, but has yet to appear on a 2024 card.

The Reds’ Spencer Steer is our Supersub for the week. He played 156 games last year, splitting most of his time between 1st, 3rd and left field. He was named the NL Rookie of the Month for May 2023 after batting .318 with 6 homers, 8 doubles, 19 RBI and 18 runs. Even though he put in just 6 games as a DH, he was named the designated hitter on the 2023 Topps All-Star Rookie Team… but there’s no “Utility” slot on the team, so I guess the DH slot served that purpose.

Originally drafted by the Twins and sent to the Reds in the same deal as Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Steer appeared as a Minnesota Twin in 2019 Bowman Draft and Panini Elite Extra Edition.

2024 Heritage – A Quick Look (Yeah, Right)

Posted on April 18, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

I know plenty of blogs and other online card resources have already shared their 2024 Heritage cards, but I figured that I spent so much time looking forward to it that I should say something about the cards now that I’ve found a blaster in the wild.

Plus, I get into at least one detail that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere, and I’ve also gathered some information I’ve seen elsewhere that you might find of interest.

(As things normally go with me, I started out with a quick post but then added this image and that bit of information, and the next thing you know…)

The packaging is based on the wax pack boxes from 1975 Topps. Here’s the horizontal side of the blaster box which features Gerritt Cole:

…and here’s the original wax box. Using an online inflation calculator, that 15 cent pack would be the equivalent of 89 cents today.

The Mets pitcher on the box was rookie Hank Webb. My guesses as to why Topps used Webb: The Mets were popular, Webb was local (He lived on Long Island, which would’ve been a plus if there was an offseason photo session involved) and he was probably willing to do it for cheap.

Here’s Webb on his 1975 Topps card, which is not his rookie card (he was also on a 1973 Rookie Pitchers card). He’d also appear in 1976 Topps, and is the father of former reliever Ryan Webb.

Here’s the wrapper, which disappointingly features Cole artwork rather than the original 1975 wax wrapper artwork.

The original wrapper (OK, technically this is a 1975 Topps mini wrapper, but it’s not like most people can tell from a scanned image)

I’ll run through my first pack, and then touch on the inserts I got (and didn’t get) in my blaster.

The first card I pulled features Sparky Anderson. I’m not happy about including 1975 managers as part of the base set. In recent years I’ve become more about collecting cards which reflect a given season than I am about collecting sets, and Sparky Anderson, Earl Weaver and the like don’t represent the 2024 MLB season (nor do they necessarily represent the 1975 MLB season, as the card of Yogi Berra shows him with the Yankees even though Yogi managed the Mets in 1975).

The purple on Sparky’s card bothers me a bit, because it’s pretty dissimilar from the original purple… but I kinda expected some kind of color shenanigans.

To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not purple…”

“…THAT’S purple.”

I don’t pay much attention to card backs myself, which is just as well with this set because they turned out kinda murky. I’m telling you from experience that the card numbers are not easy on the eyes.

Something I noticed… These cards have the team name in tiny letters near the bottom of the back of each card (just above the Topps logo); Below is a detail of a card back where I’ve highlighted the name:

The last time we saw this was on 2021 Heritage (1972 design).

There’s probably a licensing requirement that the full team name appears on the card somewhere. If that’s the case, an addition like this wasn’t necessary on the past two years of Heritage because the 1973 and 1974 designs both have the full team name on the front of the card.

Moving on to the second card, featuring Paul Goldschmidt. One thing I’ve noticed is that the background on all of the photos has been adjusted to a lower contrast. It’s kind of interesting that they’re introducing that this year when the original had nothing like it going on.

Eury Perez is out for the year after undergoing Tommy John (not that Topps is to blame for that). This was the first card I saw where the team in question didn’t exist in 1975, and they did a decent job on this particular team. Some of them are less good, but I won’t get caught up in pointing those out.

I’m not wild about head shots where the player is wearing sunglasses, but maybe that’s just me.

Mark Canha is photoshopped into a Tigers uniform. It looks less fake-y on the card than it does in my scan.

Robbie Grossman is currently with the White Sox, one of 24 (by my count) cards which were out-of-date by opening day (and naturally 12 of those cards are SPs)

1975 Topps Zoo’s Who stick-ons is a set that I don’t remember at all but that didn’t stop Topps from making an insert based on it. At least I pulled one I would’ve wanted anyway.

These look very similar to the originals (although, being stickers, they have a blank back)… Here’s an image which I commandeered from TCDB.

Luis Severino, photoshopped into a Mets uniform, is one of three short prints which came out of my blaster.

Last card from the pack, a league leaders card which is nice-enough take on things. I somehow missed that Esteury Ruiz lead the AL with 67 steals (way ahead of Bobby Witt Jr.’s 49)

Moving on to some of the other cards of note in my blaster…

Back in the 1970s there was a band called the Bay City Rollers who were very popular for a time. They were hyped as “the biggest thing since The Beatles”… Sort of a Scottish BTS. They had a #1 hit in the US (but not the UK!) with “Saturday Night” (S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!).

They also had a 1975 card set put out by Topps (Another set I don’t remember from 1975)

This year’s Heritage borrows that set’s design, but they call it “Baseball Sensations”… at least they do on the checklist. The card itself doesn’t say anything about “Sensations” on it, and the only on-card reference to the insert name is the card number prefix (75BS).

Among other inserts I got…

New Age Performers

Then And Now (which looks more like a leftover 2021 Heritage insert design than anything to do with 1975)

Baseball Flashbacks (and now that they’re getting into players and moments I remember first-hand I might have to make something of an effort on these inserts)

I didn’t get any parallels, variations, relics or autographs.

Another mild disappointment… Any kid from 1975 could’ve told you that the All-Star cards were all yellow and red. If the kid from 1975 in question were particularly observant, they would’ve added that the player’s name is yellow, unlike the non-All-Star yellow and red cards).

I was honestly disappointed that 21st Century Topps didn’t pick up on that dedicated color combination (and I was also disappointed that I got two Braves All-Stars in my blaster).

Some additional errors and the like, all of which I found out about on other blogs or on the socials…

Rangers pitchers Jon Gray and Chris Stratton each appear TWICE in the base set, once as a short print and once as a ‘regular’ card. As a kick in the butt for Rangers fans, Stratton isn’t even with the team anymore, last December he signed with the Royals as a free agent.

The card of Red Schoendienst (who was the Cardinals manager in 1975) features an image of Whitey Herzog (who was hired as the Royals manager during the ’75 season).

The card of Blue Jays rookie pitcher Hagen Danner features a photo of pitcher Bradin Hagens (who’s pitched in Taiwan the past few years).

After Lance Lynn signed with the Cardinals, Topps used an old photo from his first stint with St. Louis rather than photoshopping a recent photo… not exactly an error but an interesting choice given that it’s been seven years since Lynn pitched for the Cards.

There are suspicions that some of the cards in the base set are double-printed.

Blog Bat-Around: Top 5 Pack-Pulled Hits

Posted on April 16, 2024 by The Shlabotnik Report

I saw this particular blog bat-around idea on Night Owl’s blog, and he got it from Diamond Jesters (“I got it from Agnes, she got it from Jim, we all agree it must have been Louise who gave it to him…”) and I’m always receptive to suggestions which relieve me of the task of thinking of something to write about.

I’ll tell you up front, this is not going to be an impressive list. My buying is relatively modest compared to a lot of collectors, and I don’t feel like I have the luck of the Irish in this category (even though I do have some Irish blood… well, going back multiple generations and 175 years)

The biggest hit I can remember pulling is one I never wrote about here on the blog, because I pulled it from a pack of 2014 Heritage and immediately put it in a box of cards I was getting ready to send off to COMC.

This was as close to the proverbial “I’m shaking!” moment as I’ve come, but it was more along the lines of “This sucker’s worth more than a couple of bucks. Don’t drop it, you klutz!” It remains the highest-priced card I’ve sold on COMC. My only regret on this one is that I didn’t use the COMC credit from this card to buy one biggie biggie card for my own collection (effectively trading it for something like the 1970 Topps Nolan Ryan card I need to complete the Mets team set).

One hit I did write about on my blog is a 2021 Heritage “No Stars” variation of Jacob deGrom… The image below – the hit is the one on the right – is from an earlier blog post which wasn’t about the hit itself but the fact that the variation’s photo was cropped slightly differently (look at how much sky is between the top of deGrom’s cap and the card border).

I once pulled this Joe Kelly autograph from a pack of Bowman Draft Picks And Prospects and sold it on COMC… unlike the prior two, I kinda regret selling this one. In my defense, at the time Joe Kelly was just some prospect-y guy I’d never heard of.

Jim Brosnan was not just a pitcher of the 1950s and 1960s, he’s also written several books about baseball including “The Long Season”, his diary of the 1959 season.

When I pulled this card in 2012 – it came out of the 5th Heritage pack I’d opened that year – I told myself that I should make a point of reading “The Long Season”. Guess what? I still haven’t read it.

My favorite of these top pack-pulled hits was this autograph of Bert Campaneris. I think this came from a pack of 2003 Topps, but I’m frankly not sure anymore.

I originally gave some thought to selling or trading this card, but I decided that I could find a spot in my collection for an autograph of an All-Star from my childhood.

So those are my top five… at least the ones I could remember or find mention of in my blog or COMC sales history. Hopefully I’ve made someone feel better about their own modest collection.