My Reward For Being A Courteous Holiday Shopper

I went out on the Saturday before Christmas and braved the area of concentrated retail surrounding the local Open-Air Upscale Shopping Experience (once referred to as a “mall”).  My next-to-last stop was at Target, so I decided to reward myself for meeting the pre-Xmas frenzy with a smile.  I walked into the card aisle, and the first Fairfield repack I saw hanging there had this on the front:

David Wright & Mr. Met said “Psst, Joe!  You can’t NOT buy this repack!”

I’d assumed it was a card from a Topps Mets team set, but when I got home and opened the pack, it was numbered TB5.  What the…?

I did a little Googling and found that it’s from an 8-card 2008 “Back To School” set. You can read about these cards via some 4-year-old posts from JayBee (he of the Blogroll and Topps Baseball Card Blog) and Paul (he of the Random Baseball Stuff).

Should you not feel like linking, the gist of it is that Target (and perhaps other stores) sold a “Back To School” bundle which included 2 packs of series 1, 2 packs of series 2 and two cards from a special 8-card set (numbered TB1 – TB8).  If I saw those “Back To School” packages in my local Target in 2008, I probably only saw ones which had Chipper and A-Rod in them.

The repack also contained this lovely 1984 Donruss Ron Cey.

It’s funny how I largely ignored this set in 1984, bought maybe one or two packs and said the Eighties equivalent of “meh”;  yet I now like the set, I value it for it’s relative scarcity, and I hang on to any cards that come my way.

Finally, I got this Darryl Strawberry All-Star Glossy which has somehow eluded my grasp for all these years. The 4 Fairfield repacks I’ve bought over the past month or two have contained so many All-Star and Rookie Glossies from the 1980’s that I’m going to have to make those the next sets that I inventory, just to see how many of these I really, really need.

Since I didn’t wish everybody a Merry Christmas – Hey, I was busy! – I’ll wish everybody a happy Boxing Day.  I hope that, whether for Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whichever December holiday you observe, you all got some cool stuff.

Without A Cup, Part 5: Third Base

In 1974, Topps didn’t use a cup… That is to say, they didn’t use the golden “All-Star Rookie” cups on the cards which feature members of Topps 1973 All-Star Rookie team. Since Topps didn’t honor those players, I will. Today we’ll be looking at the third baseman on that team.

This is Dan Driessen’s rookie card. Driessen was a key member of The Big Red Machine of the 1970’s, and would also play for the Expos, Giants, Cardinals and Astros in a career which stretched from 1973 to 1987. He would also be the first National League DH during the 1976 World Series against the Yankees, the first World Series to use the Designated Hitter.

In 1973, Dan batted .301 with 4 homers and 47 RBI, and tied for third in NL Rookie of the Year voting. He played 35 games at first that year, and in 1975 he’d move to first full time, which allowed Pete Rose to move from left to third.

Although in 1973 Driessen played 87 games at third and 35 games at first, Baseball Digest made him the first baseman on their rookie all-star team. I couldn’t find any definitive reasons for this, but I strongly think it’s because they wanted their third baseman to be this guy on the right… Ron Cey batted .245 with 15 homers and 80 RBI in 1973, and I hear he’s got a few fans in the Sportscard blogosphere…

For those who aren’t Cey fans, his rookie card is not the 1973 “Rookie Third Basemen” card he shares with Mike Schmidt and John Hilton, but instead the 1972 high-numbered card he shares with Ben Oglivie and the S.F. Giants’ Bernie Williams.

Next time, on an all-new “Without A Cup”: One of the coolest cards in the 1974 set

1978 Hostess Ron Cey; Weigh-in #22

I frankly don’t have much to say about Ron Cey… Six-time All-Star, Played for the Dodgers, Cubs and briefly for the A’s.

Fact that I just learned:  He was drafted by the Mets in 1966, but did not sign.

Facts and stats are nice, but you’re really here to bask in the Penguinosity of this card.

Enjoy!

Numbers for this week:

Cards coming into the house: 0

Cards leaving the house:  0

Cards entering the collection:  102

Cards leaving the collection:  24

Cards moving from inbound to outbound without entering the collection:  200

To date:

Net change in the collection: -543

Net change to the # of cards in the house:  -2720