Rockie Trading Post #25 - Special Returning Guest Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

Welcome to the landmark 25th episode of The Rockie Trading Post featuring a grand total of 0 Rockies.  Today's special returning guest is Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life.  As some of you may remember Bo is a big time set builder.  If you don't remember here is the recap of our first trade.  I pretty much wiped Bo out of Rockies last time, so I decided to go into my old set collecting self and make a dent in one of my many uncompleted sets.  I sent him the last 3 cards he needed for 1989 Fleer (bringing my dupe stack from that set down to 9,997) along with a stack of 1990 Score he needed.  In return Bo sent sent me a big chunk of my 1984 Topps needs.  Here are some of my favorites.

This is my favorite card that Bo sent.  It commemorates the 3 no hitters pitched during the 1983 season.  What stood out to me the most is the commentary on the back.  Seriously click the pic and read that.  It looks like it was written by the Geico caveman with the lack of several words.  My new favorite sentence is "He whitewashed Expos 3-0."

Look at all of the Hall of Famers in that group.  I count 5, plus Rogers and Zahn were pretty good pitchers in their day as well.  Tom Seaver is pictured in his second go around with the Mets, before they foolishly lost him again for literally nothing.

I really miss the colorful uniforms of the 70s and 80s.  Sure some of them looked awful, but nowadays just about every team looks the same with rare exceptions.  Back then, you knew that when the Pirates were playing you might lose a retina if you stared at the shirt, but they did look bad ass.  To me nothing says 1980s baseball more than the baby blue road uniforms.  At least half the league had them at some point.

Here we come to a trio of vastly underrated players.  Amos Otis is probably the most underrated of the three.  He was an excellent player as a Royal, but was overshadowed by George Brett.  Tim Raines was overshadowed as a leadoff hitter by Rickey Henderson.  If he had played during any other era, he would already be in the HOF.  Finally we come to Joe Morgan.  It is hard to call a Hall of Famer underrated but he was often overlooked on the Big Red Machine teams and after years of his bad announcing people have forgotten just how a great a player Morgan was.  Of course that picture makes him look like he is either playing with a baby or singing a nice soulful tune.

You might be asking yourself what these three players have in common.  Of course the right answer is these are three people that have never been in my kitchen.  Other than that they are just three random cards I wanted to show.  Porfirio Altamirano is just because of his name.  Bert Campaneris is because of his positions listed (wouldn't IF have been simpler?).  Campy had a bright career in the 1970s with the A's and is best remembered as the first person to play all 9 positions in a single game.  Tom Hume should be collected more, because he looks like a nerd and so do I and many other collectors.

The last two cards I couldn't resist putting together to take a shot at Dodger fans everywhere.  If only there was an Ozzie Smith in the packet as well.  Anyway, (with apologies to Night Owl) I remember Cey as a Cub more than a Dodger because I saw him play as a Cub his last few years on WGN.  I miss Harry Caray.  Ah, Tom Niedenfuer, my favorite Dodger ever.  Growing up I didn't really have a favorite team, but the Cardinals were near the top every year.  For those of you too young to remember, Niedenfuer gave up a home run to the massive power hitter, Ozzie Smith in the 1985 NLCS.  I think it was Ozzie first lefty home run ever, but if not he didn't hit many.


Thanks again Bo for the trade and I'm sure we will doing it again.  Make sure you visit his blog here because he really is one the most observant bloggers out there when it comes to cards.  Well that just about wraps up this edition of The "Rockie" Trading Post.  Tune in next time when I will bring the Rockies back to their rightful place here with a returning Cubs fan.  Until then, we are officially signed off.

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RTP #5 - Special Guest Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life!

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

Welcome to the fifth episode of The Rockie Trading Post.  Today's special guest is Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life!.  For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of trading with Bo, he is a major set collector.  All that he is attempting to collect is definitely a challenge, but I hope my trade package and others from the community helps him out.  I sent him a 300 count box of mostly overproduction era dupes from many different sets.  In return he sent me help for a couple of sets and random Rockies.  Here are the highlights.

You may asking why I am featuring a reliever in a Dodgers uniform as the first card of this trade.  Simple because I learned the most from this card.  Seanez never played for the Rockies after being acquired for Jody Reed during the expansion draft, but he did have a surprisingly long career.  I was real surprised that his career lasted until 2008 with 4! different stints with San Diego.

Here we one of four 1995 Collector's Choice SE's that Bo sent.  We have a Charlie Hayes with an awesome face mask.  That is just a sweet card with the blue foil border, the mask, the bunting in the background.  The 1996 Topps is probably my least favorite Topps base design of the 90s.

AWESOME MULLET ALERT!  The third card in this trio of Rockies from the mid 1990s is Greg Harris and his mullet.  Actually I think mullet is an understatement for that hair.  We have to come up with a nickname for his hairstyle.

One of the two sets Bo helped me out with is 1993 Topps.  He sent me approximately 100 cards to bring me within 27 of knocking this set out (I am SLOWLY getting set wantlists together) .  I'll show off a few of the more interesting ones.

The Kirby Puckett is probably one of the more memorable (whether you love it or hate it) cards of this set.  I also like the Detroit Tigers cards of this year because a lot of them featured throwback uniforms.

This is Tim Wakefield's rookie set.  I haven't fully checked, but he has to be one of the last remaining active players from this set.  There are 14 manager cards featuring one NL and one AL manager.  This one features the great Don Baylor, Colorado's first manager.

In series 2 the first cards of the expansion picks of the Rockies and Marlins were depicted against some odd backgrounds.  The Tatum card would have worked 5 years later as the background for a DBacks pick, but Denver isn't a desert!  Andy Ashby is photoed in what appeared to be Greg Brady's bedroom.  Finally, we have Mr. Marlin Jeff Conine apparently chosen away from the Roman Gladiators.

The 1993 card I wanted to show is Sam Militello.  Why am I showing off a card of another over-hyped failed Yankees pitching prospect?  To rub salt in the wounds of Yankee fans?  Partially, but I was more interested in what it appeared Mr. Militello was saying to the camera.  Look closely, here I'll help.

That's right, Topps caught him (probably unintentionally) flipping the bird.  Just a couple of years after the Billy Ripken mess at Fleer and the Paul Gibson crotch scratching at Score, I wonder if Topps considered airbrushing the finger away.

Next we have 1988 Donruss, Bo sent me 50 or so to bring this set within 1! of finally being complete.  I was going to show off the best photos that I got, but there weren't any in 1988 Donruss, so I figured I'd go with a trio of great 80s players.  For fun, try and guess which card I still need from this set.

 

Finally we have these two.  Bo emailed me near the end of our trade with a few extra cards that he just got listed by set and card number.  I asked him to add the one 1980 Topps and one insert sight unseen.  I didn't even look up who they were, I just wanted a little surprise.  SURPRISE, they are both Yankees.  Oh well, I like the Gamble and he will the starter card for my 1980 Topps set.  The Hernandez I am going to ship off to a Yankee collector.

Thanks again Bo for the trade and also make sure you check out his blog for interesting cards such as this.  On Monday, I received 5 different trade packages from generous bloggers and readers, so the next few episodes of TRTP will be coming fast and furious.  Each trader will get their own post because I believe that if you take your time and money to ship out needed cards to me you deserve and will get FULL recognition.  So until next time, this is The Rockie Trading Post signing off.

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