FERNANDO

 

Fernando.

            FernandoMania!

            Hearing and reading about Fernando Valenzuela’s passing last week, it took me all the way back to when I was the youngest of a baseball fan, to when my love of the game was just beginning to grow. Fernando was one of the first baseball players I got to know and root for, as a kid, who wasn’t a Pittsburgh Pirate. I was seven in 1981. I’d just had my first pack of cards bought for me a year earlier. I was buying more cards and receiving more cards in 1981. My tale of West Virginia woe, anyone? So, by 1981 I was starting to really learn players. But none was more vivid than Fernando Valenzuela.

            I swear I saw him pitch at some point that season on NBC’s Game of the Week.

            I can still feel the hype coming out of my television.

            Apparently, FernandoMania even began on my seventh birthday.

            I was a Los Angeles Dodgers fan for a lot of years because of Fernando Valenzuela.

            The current economics of the game have sort of changed that for me.

            But we’re talking baseball cards here.

            When I was a kid, I kept Fernando’s cards with all of my star cards.

            When I got back into collection in 2019, I did the same thing.

            I’m not a massive collector of Fernando, or anything, but his cards have never found their way into any of my common boxes, supposing you believe in such a thing as a common card. There’s still a slot in my stars/Hall of Famers monster box for him. I was glad to see all of the attention and tributes paid to him. On Facebook I’m friends with quite a number of people in the L.A. area, and the love for and memories of Fernando Valenzuela are still there. He’s a part of, and will always be a part of. Dodgers lore.

            Rest in Peace, Good Sir.

            And thank you.

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

Joey Bart

 

It’s a raw deal being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

            The current owner is cheap.

            He won’t sell the team.

            He hires clueless people to run his team.

            And he does so giving them more room on the leash that he should.

            The Pittsburgh Pirates have had 27 losing seasons in the past 31 years.

            If I’m correct, the Pittsburgh Pirates have the longest losing streak in all of the major sports.

            None of the team’s prospects seem to pan out.

            I’m not going to be a fool and site the Pittsburgh Pirates being a small market team, even though I’m firmly (and yes I’m union) in the camp of Major League Baseball adding a cap/floor system. I can’t even defend the small-market excuse, when teams in Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Detroit are all in this year’s playoffs…or were.

            The Pirates went 76-86 in 2023.

            The Pirates went 76-86 again in 2024.

            Only with this guy on the mound for most of the season.

            On August 3^rd, if you can believe it, the Pirates were actually in the running (close running) for a Wild Card spot. But a total collapse that month sealed the deal.

            Again, it’s a raw deal being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

            You have to look for silver linings when you can get them.

            The same goes for being a collector of Pittsburgh Pirates player cards and team sets.

            My silver lining is this guy.

            On April 2^nd, 2024, the Pirates acquired Joey Bart from the San Francisco Giant for current minor league pitcher, Austin Strickland. I’m sure to a lot of you collectors out there, Joey Bart just comes to mind as once promising prospect, who failed to deliver on his 2^nd overall pick promise. And maybe you’re right. I know in 2021 when there was a Bart card/Joey Bart insert card in every Topps release, I just lumped him in with all of the other big-shot rookies that people talk about that season, and then are done with by the following year. As a collector, I get tired of “this year’s” big rookies.

            To be honest, I don’t know what happened with Bart in San Francisco. Did the Giants push him along before he was ready in 2020, because Posey sat out there. Was the pressure too much. I know Bart was hurt a few times in in San Francisco, and in their minor league system, and maybe that had something to do with his performance, and for the Giants finally souring on him.

            But I’m glad they did.

            Even though Joey Bart had two stints on the IL for the Pirates, he put up some pretty good numbers. In just 80 games, Bart his .265 with 13 home runs and 45 RBI. Granted it’s the Pirates, but Bart’s home run total tied him for 4^th place on the team. And he played solid defense as well. People in Pittsburgh started calling him Joey Barrels, and when Bart hit one of those 13 home runs, we said he’d hit, a Bart-Dart.

            He actually made a lot of fans forgot how much this kid was flailing, as our 1/1 pick only a few short years ago.

            I still have hope for Henry Davis.

            But I sure hope Joey Bart is wearing the black and gold for a lot of years.

            In short, I became Joey Bart collector in 2024.

            These were the Bart cards I already had gathering dust in assorted boxes.

            And I love these inserts from 2021.

            I did a recent ComC purchase (the same one in which I got those Danny O’Connell cards) and made sure to get myself some Joey Bart cards.

            Now, THIS is a catcher's card!

            I think 1983 is starting to become one of my all-time favorite sets.

            Jackson Holliday, Colt Keith, Wyatt Langford, Jackson Merrill, Jackson Chourio, and Paul F-ing Skenes all have RC in 2024 Update.

            But do you know which player’s card I’m most excited about?

            You guessed it.

            I tend to latch on to Pirates catchers. Been doing so since I pulled this card out of my very first pack of baseball cards in 1980.

            I’m glad Joey Bart is a Pittsburgh Pirate.

            I hope he has a healthy 2025 season as our number 1 backstop.

            I’m glad to be a Joey Bart collector now.

            And every night I go to bed praying that Bob Nutting sells the team, so that us Pirates fans can have a chance to feel what those Tigers, Guardians, Padres, Brewers and Royals fans are feeling right now.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

           

 

           

Pete

 

The king is dead.

            Or rather…

            …long live the king.

            Something like that, right?

            I imagine a lot has been written, and a lot will be written about Pete Rose in the coming weeks. I’m sorry to add to that. And it shouldn’t be shocking or surprising that a 83-year-old man has died. It’s just…well…Pete Rose loomed over baseball like a gloomy shroud for over thirty years since he’d been banned from the sport. More than Bonds. More than any of those “roid” guys from the 90s/early 2000s. So, it is kind of shocking. Say what you will about greenies and pep pills or whatever, but Pete Rose wasn’t pumping steroids into his body to play the game of baseball hard-nosed and fast the way he did in his 20+ year career. He’s the all-time hits leader for a reason.

            And yet…

            There’s the gambling (although what in the hell does that even matter now). And the low-life associations. The philandering. The lifetime ban. That “nifty” character clause in the Hall-of-Fame balloting that voters like to site, that probably would’ve kept him out regardless. But on paper, undeniably, Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. But he’s not in the Hall of Fame. I think it would be a disingenuous slap in the face to put him in the Hall of Fame now that he’s gone. Maybe that sounds stupid. But it just doesn't feel right.

In my own experiences with Pete Rose, I never saw the man in his prime. When I got into baseball, Pere was over 40 and over the hill. And the walls were closing in. I finished a book over the summer entitled: Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O’Brien.

The book was good. It pulled no punches. Pete Rose was a hero on the field, and not so much off of it. I don’t begrudge a person their dark side. I’m one of those people who can easily separate art from the artists, or I guess the baseball from the ballplayer. But…when I finished O’Brien’s book, I have to admit I was pretty certain that I wasn’t going to do a Collecting by the Book blog post on Pete Rose.

            And yet…

            Let’s go back to childhood.

            When I was in the heart of my collecting years, let’s say 1984-1987, Pete Rose was just an absolute giant in the sport of baseball, and probably more so in The Hobby. Pete was heading toward immortality and that made trying to get his cards an exciting prospect for a young collector. Baseball and baseball fans love players whom are heading toward immortality. I remember being 10 and people talking about Pete Rose trying, probably actually breaking Ty Cobb’s hit record, within the next year or so. I learned who Ty Cobb was because of Pete Rose.

            The very idea of seeing Pete break that record was exciting.

            I remember when I got this card.

            My first Pete Rose card after that horrible suitcase debacle.

            It was one of the front cards in a rack pack that they were selling at the Giant Eagle supermarket. My grandma bought it for me because we were staying with her and my grandpap while my parents were out of town, and when there was some money to buy kids who missed their parents something, adults did the right thing back then. I remember opening the rack pack in the backseat of my grandpap’s car and just being excited over the Pete Rose card. Looking at it as we drove to Star’s bar where my grandparent’s had a few afternoon beers. Bringing the cards in the with me to look at it over and over again, as I sipped Ginger Ale and ate those octagon-shaped Lance’s cheese crackers.

            You could take kids to bars in 1984.

            When I was a kid older Pete Rose cards were unaffordable because he was nearing thar hallowed record. I mean, to be honest, if it didn’t come in a pack, most older cards were unaffordable to me back then. But Pete? Forget about it. You couldn’t even get a kid to trade you a Pete Rose card. In 1985, I certainly had a lot of cards for players that I was looking to pull out of a pack. Gooden’s rookie card comes to mind. I wish I could remember the excitement of pulling this one.

            Because it would’ve been exciting.

            Because 1985 was the year, right?

            Pete Rose heading toward breaking Ty Cobb’s hit record was THE baseball news that entire summer of 1985. Us kids, us collector’s; we all had Pete Rose fever in that summer of 1985. I always claimed to have memories of seeing Pete Rose break Cobb’s record. The setting: I remember I was at my Aunt and Uncle’s, just sitting there watching regular old TV, and the news interrupted with one of those bulletins, right; Pete Rose’s record breaking at bat. For years I believe that’s what happened.

            But I was wrong.

            And kind of right.

            The footage I saw was actually from Sunday, September 8^th, 1985, when the news did, in fact, interrupt regular old TV to show a Pete Rose at bat. And I was at my Aunt and Uncle’s, watching regular old TV when it happened. September 8^th, 1985 was a Sunday, and most liked I would’ve been at my Aunt and Uncle’s because it was my cousin’s birthday party. The Pete Rose hit that I saw on TV that day was in a game against the Cubs when Pete Rose TIED Ty Cobb for the all-time hits record.

            But what I, and millions of us witnessed that day…well, I let the folks at SABRexplain.

            How many of you remember being excited when Topps did this in 1986?

            As a fan and collector as age 12, I was already well-versed in baseball cards and how Topps celebrated achievements.

            Pete Rose getting the Henry Aaron treatment.

            And it seemed fitting…at that time.

            But…Pete Rose squandered that immortality…didn’t he? The compulsion to gamble. The compulsion to lie about it, and spending the next thirty some years never owning up to it. Maybe that’s pride. Maybe that’s delusion. Maybe the standards of a sports hall of fame should stick to the sport…or at least not be so selective as to what bad behavior is acceptable and what isn’t. Maybe Pete Rose understood something about the mystique of baseball that us fans didn’t. I know when I got back into collecting in 2019, I certainly made sure to get some Pete Rose cards.

            This one is a personal favorite

            And all I know is that Pete Rose couldn’t carry Heny Aaron’s jock strap…at least when it comes to integrity.

            But I can’t pretend that I wasn’t that excited kid, waiting on history to happen.

            Rest in Peace, Pete. You were an exciting part of a lot of collector’s lives in the mid-80’s.

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

 

Collecting By The Book: The Uncommon Life of Danny O’Connell: A Tale of Baseball Cards, “Average Players” and the True Value of America’s Game.

 

When Steve Wiegand was a kid, back in the 60’s, he did with his allowance money what a lot of us kids did…

…he went to the store and bought baseball cards.

I know that I sure did. With every red cent that I could get my hands on. Birthdays, Holidays, the odd chore I was coerced into doing; I’ve mentioned on here my penchant for digging around under couch cushions in order to round up enough scratch for a single wax pack. For me, it was going up to the Ritzlanad Shopping Center, to the candy aisle in the Thrift Drug, where the baseball cards rested on the top shelf, reaching up my hand and digging as deep as I could into the wax box, pulling out a pack somewhere in the middle or at the bottom of the box.

Because all of the star cards were in the bottom packs, right?

And then there’d be the excited walk back home, either alone or with a friend or two, that stale gum in our mouths, breaking our teeth, as we searched through packs hoping for maybe this guy:

Or that guy:

Or that guy:

Or one of the members of my blessed Pittsburgh Pirates:

It was the 1980s and cards were plentiful, the packs were, well, packed, and the wax was still cheap.

What a time to be alive.

For Steve Wiegand, in 1960, the experience was the Par Liquor store., spending a nickel on a pack of cards or two, and the rest on BIG TIME soda.

Steve was a Giants fan.

He always hoped to get this guy in his packs.

He usually got this guy.

And that collecting streak of “bad luck” was the impetus, years later, for Wiegand to write his book: The Uncommon Life of Danny O’Connell: A Tale of Baseball Cards, “Average Players” and the True Value of America’s Game.

Here’s the cover photo again:

I found out about this fantastic book via John Newman’s always excellent and informative Sports Card Nation podcast. John had Steve Wigand on his show back in May for a two-part episode, and it’s beyond worth listening to, if you have an interest in so-called “common” cards and so-called “common” players, like I do. The book is an excellent read. Not only does Wigand do an excellent job telling Danny O’Connell’s story from growing up on the streets of Patterson, New Jersey, to his time in that golden era of 1950s/60s Big League Baseball, to his untimely death at age 40, but he finds a way to weave into his narrative the history of card collecting from cigarette packs to $1,000 1/1 auto refractors blah blah blah.

A collector like me eats books like this for lunch.

And because I tend to pick up some of the cards of players that I read about; I did the same with Danny O’Connell’s cards.

The 1951 Bowman is definitely the oldest card that I now own. It might be the oldest baseball card that I’ve ever owned. The 1953, 1956 and 1961 Topps are the first I have of those years since I got back into collecting 5 years ago.

Special emphasis on the 1955 Bowman, because that too is also my first 1955 Bowman and I’ve always loved this design. 

Have to get some Pirates in this design.

For me, collecting by the book is a fun way to collect because I get to buy older cards, and not break the bank.

Although my fall/winter baseball reading might be making this habit a bit prohibitive.

I’m not sure I know what it means to be a “common” player or be a “common” card in a sport that has only had 20,459 or so players to ever play on a Big League roster in the entire history of the sport. And Mr. Danny O’Connell was so slouch either. He played ten seasons in the Bigs (missing two years for military service) with my Pirates, the Milwaukee Braves, those San Francisco Giants, and then finally ending his career with the second iteration of the Washington Senators in 1962. O’Connell played in 1143 games and managed to get over the 1000 hit mark with 1,049. He was a lifetime .260 hitter. Placed 3^rd in voting for Rookie of the Year in 1950, and 16^th for MVP in 1953.

Not too shabby, huh?

But to a young Steve Wiegand, Danny O’Connell was no Willie Mays.

He was just the guy who seemingly showed up in every single pack that he bought.

In reading Wiegand’s book, I began to think of my own collecting/pack ripping history, and who was always that player who showed up in every single pack, irking me when I was hoping for a Don Mattingly or Barry Bonds card. It wouldn’t have been a Pirate. I was always excited to get Pittsburgh Pirates cards. So, I had to go outside of my hometown team to think of the player who seemingly showed up in every single pack of cards that I bought.

I came up with this guy.

Son of Pirates great and CY Young winner Vern Law, like Danny O’Connell, Vance Law began his career with my Pittsburgh Pirates, before moving on to the Chiago White Sox, Montreal Expos, Chicago Cubs and Oakland A’s, in a career that spanned 11 seasons, 1212 games, 972 hits, and an appearance in the 1988 All-Star game.

Vance was one of those players who got to appear on multiple Future Star cards, along with two Pirates I spent a good many years rooting for.

The fine folks at Fleer and Donruss thought to give him a rookie card of his own.

Yep, Vance Law seemed to show up in every single pack that I ever bought.

Not true…but it felt like

For fun I thought I’d dig around in my “commons” boxes to see just how many of Vance Law’s cards I could come up with.

Surprisingly, I found very little in the one box.

Maybe Vance didn’t show up as much as I thought he did. Still, I’m going to go ahead and think of Vance Law as my Danny O’Connell…maybe if I snoop around enough they’ll be enough info on him to write a book.

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!