february nue jays, leafs...and a good reason for a lack of posts

February was a light month for trading cards in this household. With just Topps flagship available in stores (for baseball products), there was no need to visit the stores and rip cards. With only Heritage out now in addition, the lack of urgency to rip has plateaued.

This is just the third post here this month. There's a good reason for that, but I'll get into it at the end.

With the Maple Leafs playing quite well this month, playing nine games without a regulation time loss, I decided to look out for an auto of one of the team's young stars, Kasperi Kapanen.

Turns out it wasn't too difficult:

This nice little gold auto from Fleer Showcase (the Fleer name was purchased by Upper Deck recently) hardly set me back much, which is surprising considering the love that the hobby gives the Maple Leafs. I also added an O-Pee-Chee auto on COMC from Kapanen, but we'll see that later on when it is finally in hand.

But that was it for Maple Leafs. That craving was easy to quell.

So on to some Blue Jays, and we'll start with an oldie but goodie:

This would have been a painful purchase back in 2008 when it first came out, but JPA is now retired and his card values have plummeted. This is great for me, as this orange refractor auto (/25!) was have for under $10. A complete steal.

The following cardboard, which was almost offensively thick and must be stored in a snapcase, was even less and also numbered under 100 at /99.

There's no reason that this needs to be the thickness of 15 cards by itself, but it is.

A new Lourdes Gurriel came in this month as well, this one being a monochrome refractor from 2017 Bowman's Best. It's one of the prettier autos I have.

Just today, another Bowman's Best auto came, this one for the minimum bid of $0.99:

Warmoth was Toronto's No. 1 draft pick in 2017, so anytime I can grab an auto of his for under $10, I am very pleased. This one is limited to /250.

With the writing on the wall this spring about the Blue Jays not extending Josh Donaldson's contract any time soon, I decided to cast away my previous apprehension for chasing his cards, and decided to add some for memories alone.

Somehow, I ended up with a pair of patches. The first coming from the stunning Topps Definitive Collection from a Mother's Day jersey (in theory):

And the second in a less pleasing to the eye design, but with an incredible patch featuring the Maple Leaf from the Blue Jays logo:

...and limited to just /10.

Now. On to the reason for the quiet here of late.

Around the turn of 2018, my fellow writers at Jays From the Couch decided to take on a little endeavor. We were going to write a book. And we did!

It took many late nights and headaches and an incredible amount of editing, fact-checking and sore typing muscles, but we did it. We finished about a week ago, and are pleased to announce that it will be released through Amazon TOMORROW!

If interested, you can purchase a copy here for less than the price of those Donaldson patches. What you see above it the paperback, available from Amazon.com. The digital ebook is available from both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

Hopefully, this means more time to write here, but we'll see how that goes. 

a career in the stadium club: Jim Thome

In August, I will once again be making the pilgrimage to Cooperstown, NY for the Baseball Hall of Fame induction weekend. It's always a joy to see the motley of jerseys in the closed streets in the small Otsego Lake town, and every year, one of MLB's many cities will be well-represented.

Last year, it was Houston, Texas and Montreal, Quebec - the latter of which is no longer an MLB city.

I'm assuming we'll see plenty of Québécois again this season with the induction of the ultra-talented Vladimir Guerrero Jr. But also to be extremely well-represented should be Atlanta (for Chipper Jones) and a good mix of Philadelphians and Clevelanders.

While I plan to look at all of their lives through baseball cards in the coming months, I'll start with Big Jim Thome. Long known as one of the nicest guys in baseball, and worthy of enshrinement on that alone - Jim Thome also did one thing incredibly well:

Mash taters.

Thome was a fast riser in the Cleveland farm system, spending just four seasons down there, hitting just 51 HR between Rookie Ball and AAA, before earning a full-time job in the strike-shortened 1994 season.


1992

Believe it or not, scouts thought early on that Thome was undersized - just 175 lbs. when he was drafted as a shortstop out of high school.

While Stadium Club may have peaked as a base set in 1992, Jim Thome sure didn't.

1993

But seeing as he made it into the set in both 1992 and 1993, Topps probably knew he would be a mainstay for years to come. It's still strange to look back on his early career and see him A) fielding on the left side of the diamond as opposed to the right and B) fielding at all.

Seriously, Topps, there's taters to be mashed.

1994

Still thin. Still playing a position other than 1B.

The card? Still one of TSC's top set designs, in all of its mid-1990's label maker glory.

1995

The Cleveland uniforms really took off in 1995, as did Thome's career. He would go on to mash 25 HR in 1995 and drive in 73, slashing .314/.438/.558!

Sadly, Cleveland came up short to the Atlanta Barves superpitchers in the 1995 World Series.

1996

TSC '96 is an underappreciated set. Topps stuck with the foil, but got a little bit more ambitious than in previous years.

Thirty-eight more taters found themselves mashed.

1997

Let's just forget about '97 TSC.

Goddamn, though, look at those forearms.

1998

Honestly, I don't remember 1998 TSC, but at least Thome has found his way to 1B at this point. He's also starting to thicken, growing plump off that 1997 World Series cut, perhaps, despite losing in seven games to the Florida Marlins in one of my favorite childhood World Series matchups.

1999

Am I alone in my love of 1999 TSC? That's about as classy as you can make holofoil on the front of a card, and the semi-transparent logos in the top left corner were spectacular and surprisingly never matched by another copycat product.

2000

By 2000, there were whispers of a future Hall of Famer in Jim Thome. He didn't slow down, either, blasting  37, 49 and 52 HRs from 2000-2003, his final years in Cleveland before his 2011 homecoming at age 40.

2001

Dirt. 

2002

And another year I don't remember, 2002. Despite that, TSC found a real gem here with the alternate home uniform and pickoff play at first.

2003

Now, you might be thinking: "Jim Thome played well after the 2003 season, in fact, he had 231 home runs after that season!"

And you would be right, but there's a very good reason this post stops at 2003.

Because Topps Stadium Club did, and that's a damn shame. I also didn't think this post out as much as I had hoped, and with the recent re-vamp of Stadium Club, I must have assumed there were some more to post. But there isn't. Forgive me.



And Jim, if you see this: come visit our campsite in Cooperstown in August. You can mash the ceremonial Taters.

a trade! with million cubs project

Usually, I don't do many trade posts. Often, it's because I lack the energy to physically scan, crop and post the images. Other times, it's because ya'll send so many great cards, it's often overwhelming fot his (very) part-time blog.

But when another blogger post their side, I'll often reciprocate. And that's why we're here right now. A few weeks back I started corresponding with A Million Cubs Project. Eager to downsize my collection***, I decided to propose sending Beau a buttload of Cubs that I had no use for, hoping someone might enjoy my excess Sammy Sosa cards. I mean, I sure don't. I didn't intend to get so much in return, but when Beau asked, I answered: "some Blue Jays and (why the hell not) some Expos."

So I guess I am an Expos collector now, as Beau dropped some goodies.

But first, the Blue Jays.

The oldest card in the box was this Damaso Garcia. I had a friend names Damaso in elementary school for about a year before he moved away.

I have no idea what happened to him.

I really like 1981 Donruss. Especially this incredibly mis-cut Garcia. '81 is colorful and simple. These are good things.

Also good is EVERY KELLY GRUBER CARD EVER. Even 1991 Fleer yellowness.

If the 1991 Fleer is too much for you, set your eyes on the gaudiest of all Satdium Club sets, 1997:

I secretly collect Shawn Green, mostly because I'm sad he left Toronto so early for Los Angeles. I should probably be over it by now, but hell, look at that swing.

And look at this 1993 Leaf Studio of Blue Jays legend and World Series MVP Pat Borders. There are few sets as perfect as this one.

Spectrum, from Upper Deck in (inexplicably) multiple years, is not:

But I figured I had to show one shiny card from the Evil Black Blue Jays period. He also happens to be the Greatest Blue Jay of All Time (G-BOAT.) More on him on another day.

I'm not quite ready for that post, yet.

I am, however, ready to start welcoming more Expos into my collection. Beau did a great job facilitating that, including soon to be Hall of Famer, Larry Walker:

Upper Deck ruled the trading card world in the 1990s, and it did so with cards like the Walker's base card above. It's a masterpiece. They also took full advantage of subsets, like the Home Field Advantage card as well.

The trade also included this 1992 Donruss, depicting Walker in his short-term home at first base, getting those powder blues all dirty:

From Walker we move to another beastly Canadian, the pride of New Brunswick, Matt Stairs:

Stairs looks like he's also been rolling around in the dirt. A true ballplayer with light tower power, and inspiration for one of the greatest baseball-player themed shirts in existence:

Of course, we cannot talk Montreal Expos without the greatest to ever wear those powder blues, Rock Raines. There were a few Raines cards in the box, but the following stood out the most.

This is a 1990 Starline was a first for me. Also, I have never, ever seen these. So that's neat.

O-Pee-Chee is still active in Upper Deck hockey's offerings, and they're doing a mighty good job with those set nowadays. That's in direct contrast to the 1980s, when it was mostly a retread of Topps Flagship, like in 1987.

Regardless, any Raines cardboard is fantastic, and when you wood-panel the man, it's even better.

Back to Upper Deck. Part of the reason they dominated the 1990s was great photography on base cards with a simple, yet timeless design.

Both of those characteristics are on display here in this Delino DeShields card. There were three DeShields ones that stuck out, with the highlight being this checklist from the same set:

And illustrated by Vernon Wells, Sr.

Man, I should have actively collected DeShields in the early 1990s. He has some great cards.

We'll end on my favorite set of all time, 1993 Leaf. Despite being a beautiful set on the front, 1993 Leaf has the distinction of being "that set you put in a binder backwards" due to the stunning card backs which feature brilliant photos of the city skylines. Today, we've got John Vander Wal:

Just perfect.

Thanks for the Canadjian cardboard, Beau. And for those of you reading who haven't made it to his website yet, check it out. And be sure to send him your Sammy Sosa cards, even if they're not Cubs. Whoops.