Publishers Clearing House, Pt 1: Baseball Purchases From The Past Year

Because, you know, I’m a publisher of sorts… I mean, the button I click on to finalize these posts says “Publish”… and this post is a sort of clearing house for cards that I never worked into a post, so…

Unlike other entities that reference clearing houses and publishers, however, there is no opportunity to win anything.  Sorry.

As a collector of “Captain Kirk” McCaskill, I was more than happy to pick up this minor league card of him with the Redwood Pioneers, his second professional team. This is a TCMA card from 1983, and McCaskill was drafted out of the University of Vermont in 1982.

Starting with Bert Abby in 1892, there have been 12 UVM alumni to play in the Majors, and Kirk is still the most recent. The only other UVM alumni over the past 60 years was former Pirate/Red Sox/Astros/White Sox/Mets/Cardinals/Cubs pitcher Jack Lamabe. The Catamounts have done quite a bit better in hockey, with alumni like Martin St. Louis, Patrick Sharp, Tim Thomas and John LeClair.

I like this shot of Brian Roberts, but I’m curious about the other player… Not only do I not know who it is, I’m not even sure what team that is. Looks like some sort of throwback uniform.

Or am I just missing something obvious?

This card of Doctor K is from the 2002 Topps Super Teams set.  I don’t know what else to say other than I need to get more cards from the Super Teams set.

A 2013 Opening Day Stars card of R.A. Dickey. If Opening Day had 3-D cards seeded one every pack or two, I would buy a whole lot more packs of OD.

This Jeff Kent card is from the 1993 Toys R Us box set.

Kent wore #39 only in 1992, after the Mets picked him up in an August trade that sent David Cone to Toronto.  For the 1993 season, he switched to #12.

Finally, a cheap autograph of Orioles utility guy Ryan Flaherty.

Although Ryan is finishing his 4th year with the Orioles and has never appeared in fewer than 77 games in those 4 years, it wasn’t until 2015 Topps Series 2 came out that he appeared on a nationally-distributed card with the Orioles.  As of right now, if you pulled out my Orioles current roster binder and flipped to the infielders, in Flaherty’s three slots you’d find the above card and two Pro Debut cards.  My Topps flagship factory set hasn’t worked its way into my roster binders yet, nor has the Heritage High Number card of Ryan that I recently got in a PWE… but that’s a story for another day.