Thursday, June 30, 2022

MURDER IN THE MOONLIGHT: THE KILLINGS OF GEORGE TRUSSELL AND WILLIAM MCKEEVER, CHICAGO 1866 by Russell Streur

MURDER IN THE MOONLIGHT: THE KILLINGS OF GEORGE TRUSSELL AND WILLIAM MCKEEVER, CHICAGO 1866

 

George Trussell went to the track for some drinking and gambling on the Tuesday Mollie Cosgriff shot him dead.

 

September 4, 1866, was supposed to have been a big day for Trussell, but not that big.  He was half-owner of Dexter, one of the most famous and successful horses in America during its time, and the racer was scheduled to run in the Chicago Driving Park’s feature event that day, a $5,000 match against two of his biggest equine rivals—General Butler and George M. Patchen, Jr.   But thunderstorms drenched the city in the morning and the race was postponed.

 




 

Kinney Brothers Tobacco N231, American Trotters, 1889-1890 Dexter. 

Not just for baseball players, tobacco cards also featured other popular sports and subjects.

 

Trussell knew his horses, and he knew his gambling, too.  He made a fortune running one of Chicago’s biggest faro houses in the mid-1860s.

 

It was also said that Trussell knew his drinking.  One Chicago newspaper called the tall, slim 32-year-old a considerable addict to the spirits.

 

So it wasn’t a surprise that Trussell went to Seneca Wright’s tavern on Randolph Street around 10 p.m. for a nightcap and a song after an earlier tour of downtown bars with some of his sporting friends.

 

What was a surprise, was when Mollie Cosgriff showed up at the saloon, wanting a word or two with George.  She looked, according to one newspaper, as if she had just come from a dancing party, wearing a striking white moire dress to the occasion, a shawl draped over her shoulders, drunk, and carrying a revolver in a pocket. 

 

Mollie was no stranger to the tavern side of life.  She ran a well-known house of ill-repute on Fourth Avenue.

 


Mollie Cosgriff.  Aka Mollie Cosgrove, aka Mollie Trussell.

 Image:  Dedmon, Emmett, Fabulous Chicago, 1953, page 95

 

George and Mollie were no strangers to each other.  Mollie had fallen into the demi-monde in Chicago after moving to the city from her home in Ohio.   Her attractive figure and alluring beauty naturally gained the attention and affection of Chicago’s fast young men, and George was no exception.  An affair evolved, and a child by Mollie’s calculations.  The romance ended from George’s point of view, but Mollie never lost her devotion to the man and commonly used his last name as her own.

 

The lingering feelings were not reciprocal.  George didn’t feel much like talking with Mollie that night, and he tried to push her out the front door of the tavern.  Seneca Wright came from behind the bar and briefly separated the two.  Wright returned to his bartending.  Pushing and shoving resumed.  One witness said George struck Mollie.  Others said he didn’t.  Mollie pulled her gun and shot George in the left chest

 

George lurched back toward the center of the saloon.  Mollie followed, and fired again, the bullet striking him in the back.  George stumbled toward a side door of the saloon.  Mollie shot him a third time.  He staggered out the door, into the entrance of Price’s livery stable, and collapsed.

 

As if just coming out of a trance, Mollie raced out of the saloon and threw herself on her former lover’s body, shrieking frantically, “O my George!  My George!  He is dead.”

 

 


 

A notorious gambler and owner of a famous horse, killed in his prime.  A jilted lover, a keeper of a lewd house, a drunken murderess.  Newspapers across the Northeast quarter of the country followed the story with salacious glee.  It was a sensation, pure and simple, and it seemed like it would be a tough act to follow.  But Chicago was a tough town.

 

Racing resumed in the Windy City.  Dexter beat George M. Patchen, Jr. in the postponed $5,000 race.  General Butler returned to Chicago after a short absence, and a reporter for the Tribune took notice.

 

 


Lithograph (reproduction).  General Butler, Silas Rich, Bashaw Jr.

 

“There is great excitement in sporting circles,” the paper declared on Friday morning, September 21, 1866, “about the great race…between General Butler and Cooley, for a purse of five thousand dollars a side, and set for tomorrow on the track of the Chicago Driving Park Association.”

 

General Butler was a popular harness horse whose career overlapped the Civil War.  His likeness circulated on Currier & Ives and other lithographs.

 

Cooley was a black gelding and a favorite on Chicago race tracks.  Locally owned, the fast trotter was described as “a big little horse” with “an eye full of intelligence and kindness.” 

 

In 1865, Cooley and a consort Princess raced two runners from the Seneca Indian tribe named Deerfoot and Stevens for a purse of $1,000 at the Chicago Driving Park.  To even the duel, the horses were to run four miles; the Senecas two miles and twenty rods.  Cooley and Princess finished the relay in a total of 10 minutes and 53 seconds.  Deerfoot and Stevens completed their course 38 seconds ahead of the horses to rounds of cheers from the crowd.

 

Heavy betting underscored the excitement for the sulky race between General Butler and Cooley.  “The knowing ones seem to be about equally divided in opinion as far as odds are concerned,” the Tribune computed, “though the majority seem to think the General stands the best chance.”

 

The Tribune had its doubts whether the best-of-five heats showdown between the horses could actually happen.  Torrential rains had drenched the city, washing away railroad bridges, uprooting trees and costing a month’s wages to the city’s carpenters, bricklayers and other laborers.  The paper worried that the track would be too wet for the race.

 

Keeping an eye on the sky, the Tribune predicted the match would be one of the most exciting contests ever witnessed in the West if better weather held.

 

On Saturday, the soggy ground that troubled the Tribune prevented the city’s Excelsior and Atlantic base ball clubs from playing a trophy match to cap an Illinois tournament.  But by mid-afternoon, the cinder track at the Driving Park was dry enough to run.  And, unfortunately, the Tribune’s prophecy came true.

 

The match between the horses was also a match between the drivers of the sulkies they pulled.  Manager Bill Riley drove Cooley.  Two men would steer General Butler that afternoon—jockey Samuel Crooks for the first two races, and quarter-owner William McKeever the remainder of the way.

 

McKeever was a cool customer, and a good enough athlete to have played for two of New York City’s premier base ball clubs.  He began as an infielder with the Gotham club in 1859 before taking on pitching duties for the rough and tumble Mutual club in 1863. 

 



American Archives, Origins of Baseball (1994).  Fields of Play.

Top: Card 7, Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, the ancestral grounds of the game.

Bottom: Card 18. Brooklyn versus Philadelphia.

 

The Origins of Baseball is a 100-card boxed collection that covers the sport from a woodcut of the game of Rounders dated to 1744 to  its mythical creation by Abner Doubleday in 1839 through sixty years of development to 1899.  The cards are excellently researched by Jonathan A. Mork and the set includes a special bibliography card.  Images are carefully balanced between players, teams and playing fields.  Individual cards can be found on ebay.  One recent full box set was priced at less than $25.  It’s a steal of home for the price.

 

Pitching was hard work in the brand of game played during the Civil War years.  Thrown underhand with the task of placing the ball over the center of the plate for the batter’s convenience, hurlers might throw hundreds of pitches during the course of a game.  Batters could wait for dozens to go by before selecting one to swing at. 

 


 

The great base ball clubs of Brooklyn.

Top: Card 16, The Atlantic Base Ball Club was considered the best team of the Civil War period. 

Bottom: Card 9. The Eckfords were just a step behind.

 

In 1861, McKeever pitched for New York against Brooklyn and the great Jim Creighton in the famous Clipper Silver Ball Match.  Creighton outpitched McKeever that day in Hoboken, but Creighton isn’t called great without a reason. 



James Creighton, Card 17.  The shadow of Jim Creighton hangs over the early years of base ball like a permanent eclipse of the sun.  The game’s first superstar, Creighton in his short career is often described as the sport’s best hitter and best pitcher.  In the fall of 1862, at the age 21 and seven months, he suffered an abdominal injury in a game and died from internal bleeding after four painful days.

 

Now nearing 30, McKeever had traded away the mound work for the less taxing pursuits of harness racing and gambling.  A half-hour delay after the scheduled start of the Driving Park match drew the disapproval of the crowd of thousands in attendance.  Odds favored Cooley 25 to 10 when the match finally began at 3:30 p.m.

 

General Butler pulled ahead in the first heat, building a five-length lead at the half-mile post but the horses were equal at the final turn.  A late surge by Cooley earned the win by a neck.

 

Cooley won the second heat by 15 lengths.  Bettors on General Butler, suspicious of the slow times turned in by Crooks and on the verge of seeing their wagers wiped out, begged McKeever to make a switch.  As the odds climbed to 100 to 25 on Cooley, McKeever took the lines for the third heat.  The move paid off with a win by 20 lengths for General Butler and the odds reversed themselves. 

 

Trouble began in the fourth heat.  McKeever appeared to cause six false starts in the handling of his horse and a half-an-hour was lost in fits and starts and ill-words between the drivers.  With darkness rapidly falling, the heat finally reached its start.  Two hundred yards into the race, McKeever suddenly swerved in front of Riley’s buggy, scraping Cooley’s nose.  General Butler won the race by a half-length.  Many in the crowd argued that the foul should have resulted in a dead heat, or the award of the race to Cooley.    Disarray prevailed when the track judges stuck with the win for General Butler.

 

By the time order was resolved, night had fully fallen and only moonlight illuminated the racing grounds.

More argument ensued, with half the crowd for the race to be called off due to darkness, and the other half demanding it continue.  A start was made despite the conditions.  General Butler broke in front along the rail as the horses disappeared in the darkness. 

 

In due course, Cooley returned to view, heading down the home stretch toward the winning line.  General Butler careened behind, without a driver.  A search quickly located McKeever, bloody and unconscious, face down in the cinders on the back stretch.  He was quickly carried to the home of J. R. Gore, a physician who lived nearby on Michigan Avenue.

 

Examination revealed extensive fractures to McKeever’s skull, with particular injury to the left temple, as if McKeever had been struck in the head by a hard object.  Gore extracted three broken pieces of the cranium.  Hopes were raised that the procedure would relieve pressure on the brain and allow McKeever to regain consciousness.  It soon became apparent that the patient could not recover from the injury. 

 

 


 

 With foul play evident, police launched an investigation.  After taking Riley into custody, suspicion fell on Tom and Peter Hickey, brothers who owned a saloon near the race track.  Police arrived at the saloon at two a.m. Sunday morning and arrested the brothers after a desperate fight that left the officers and suspects bitten, battered, billy-clubbed and pistol-whipped.

 

McKeever died Sunday afternoon without ever coming out of his coma. 

 

The Cook County Coroner opened an inquest on Monday.  The city’s sporting crowd packed the Central Police Station to view the proceedings.  A string of witnesses testified. Two said they saw Peter Hickey on the track between the fourth and fifth heat.  There were other figures in the shadows.

 

Man about town Seneca Wright said he heard Riley say in a nearby saloon after the third heat “I will win it or kill the damn son of a bitch.”  Wright said a man asked Riley in the saloon between the fourth and fifth heats if he was going to win the final leg.  Wright said Riley told the man “I have it all fixed.” 

 

Horace Yates was a track steward during the fifth heat.  He saw two men break off a board at the half-mile pole and cross to the inside of the track.  Darkness fell.  It was hard to see but Yates said the two men were still there for the fifth heat.  Yates said when the horses came along, General Butler was ahead by two or three lengths.  Yates saw McKeever fall.  McKeever was dragged 15 or 20 feet before the lines to the sulky slipped from his fingers.  Yates saw McKeever lying on the track, motionless and insensible.

 

Some men found pieces of a broken board on the track about 12 feet long.  The end of one piece had hair and blood on it.  Other men found a place in the race track fence where the board would fit.

 

On the second day of the inquest, Joseph Prednone said he was with Riley in the saloon before the fifth heat.  Prednone said Riley was drinking a good deal and was too drunk to safely drive.  There was bad feeling between Riley and McKeever, Prednone said, and if it came down to close driving, Prednone thought McKeever would get the worst of it.

 

Dr. Gore said the wound in McKeever’s left temple penetrated two inches into the brain and was the cause of death.  Shown the board, Dr. Gore said that it would be the most likely weapon to have caused the injury.

 

One witness said he heard men warn McKeever before the fifth heat. McKeever replied, “I can take care of myself.”

 

 


 

Riley sat in front of the jury on Friday night, September 28.   He was reminded he had the right to decline to answer any question that might incriminate himself.  Oath or not, Riley said he wanted to tell his side of the story. 

 

Not being sworn, Riley described the fatal moment.  Trailing the General by a length and a half after the turn, the jockey said he heard “a bit of a crash” and then someone call out, “Aha!  I have got you; you damn son of a bitch.” 

 

Seeing McKeever topple from his sulky, Riley moved away from the inner fence to avoid running him over.

 

Riley admitted to drinking before the heat but denied making any threats against McKeever or anyone else.

 

“I have never killed anybody,” Riley said, “and have never intended to.”

 

Riley denied any knowledge of a plot to obstruct General Butler during the heat.

 

“If I had heard of an arrangement to stop his horse, I would have warned him, and would not have started,” Riley said.

 

Riley closed with one admission.  “I did say, ‘If I could win the race, I would.’”

 

Tom Hickey denied any knowledge of the events surrounding McKeever’s death.

 

The jury returned its verdict on October, finding that a plot existed among unnamed friends of Cooley to prevent General Butler from winning the match, and that the result of this plot caused McKeever’s death.

 

Riley was released.  The Hickeys were charged with assault for their battle with the police on the night of their arrests.

 

A later history of the Chicago Police Department named Tom as the murderer. 

 

On October 10, the Driving Park Association banned all racing at the track and expelled Bill Riley for gross misconduct.  The owners of Cooley were also given the boot.   

 

It was too little, too late.  The reputation of the park was completely ruined by the murder.  It was sold at auction in December and soon demolished.

 


 
 

Turf Cigarerets, Card 9, Trotting and Pacing Races (1927)

 

 

Mollie Cosgriff went on trial that same month for the Trussell killing.  The charge was manslaughter, for which a sentence of up to life could be applied.  There was no argument that Cosgriff killed Trussell.  The only argument was whether she was justified in pulling the trigger, in fear for her own life when Trussell tried to push her out of Seneca Wright’s tavern.  The jury didn’t buy the bill of goods, but came close.  After deliberating just over three hours, the jury returned with a guilty verdict and the minimum sentence allowable, a year in the penitentiary.

 

It might be expected that a woman of Mollie’s notoriety and profession would have some connections.  In prison, she was given a private cell and allowed to receive visitors and wear her own clothes, but that was just a nickel ante in a smaller game.  Mollie had bigger cards to play:  she was pardoned by Illinois Governor Richard J. Oglesby after serving just a month of her sentence.  

 

In 1869, she was accused of running a house of prostitution in San Francisco.  The next year, she was reported to have gone insane.  Later, to be living among the Saints in Salt Lake City.  A reporter tracked her down, years later, in South Bend, Indiana, and asked her why she killed George.  Mollie reflected and answered a larger question.  “No mortal can endure but one hell in the world,” Mollie replied.  “That hell I have endured.”  Then she stood, took a seat at a piano, and began to play an aria from Lucrezia Borgia.

 


  

 Player’s Cigarettes, Famous Beauties (1937).  Card 8, Lucrezia Borgia.

 The series also included cards of Pocahontas, the Queen of Sheba, Nell Gwyn and other historical and fictional women of beauty and power.

---RUSSELL STREUR

 

 

Friday, June 24, 2022

Collecting by the Book : Or...Adventures in Reading/Where's LaVar Burton when you Need Him?

 


I become obsessed with things I’m obsessed with.

            That’s a funny sentence, isn’t it? But it’s kind of true. I get on kicks and the kicks go into overdrive and take up a good portion of my free time. Sometimes these are new obsessions. Most of the time, at least at my age, it’s reengaging with things that I loved in the past. A favorite TV show. A favorite superhero. A favorite Hobby, anyone?

            Here are two examples of what I’m talking about.

            I recently finished this book.


            When I was a kid, I was Brady Bunch obsessed. I watched the show in reruns continuously. I wanted toys with the Brady’s on them. I drew the Brady kids from my imagination. Wished I was a neighbor who could come over and throw the ball around with Greg, Peter and Bobby in that Astroturf backyard. I say it’s Alyssa Milano, but my first crush was probably on Maureen McCormick. And then Eve Plumb. But my story isn’t rare. My generation probably did more than any after it to solidify the Brady’s place in pop culture lore.

            But that was when I was a kid.

            When I finished that Brady Bunch book as an adult, it was like I’d recaptured some kind of joy. I found myself wanting more. So, I began watching whatever videos I could with the cast on YouTube. Interviews. Specials. There’s even an HGTV show staring the cast in which they remodel the inside of the Brady house to match the one we’d been seeing from the exterior our whole lives.  I found more books. Memoirs. I sat through entire episodes of the Brady Bunch Variety Show. I’m currently making my way through a podcast called The Real Brady Bros, hosted by Barry Williams and Christopher Knight. Greg and Peter Brady respectfully.

            And I’m making my way through all five seasons of the television show.

            Quite probably for the umpteenth time.

            And I’m loving it.

            I’m currently eyeing up this DVD boxed set.

            I recently finished this book as well.


            If there was a character who equaled my obsession as a kid as much as the Brady Bunch world, Muppet and Star Wars world did, it was Batman. I collected the comics, his and ONLY his. I watched the cartoons. I watched reruns of the ’66 TV show.

I wore the Underoos, man!

I dressed like Batman for Halloween. I acted like Batman on the playground at recess. I made those POW! and BAM! sound effects when we pretend fought (and sometimes really fought) in my neighborhood. With the exception of this year’s The Batman (thanks Covid), since 1989 I’ve seen every single Batman movie (yes, that includes 1997’s Batman & Robin) in the movie theater.

            When I finished that great book, the first thing I did was queue up that new Batman movie. Then I caught up on some of the animated films that have come out in recent years. And there are A LOT. I got myself back into Batman comics. I’ve since been through the Bane Wars and the Joker War. I’ve read about Gotham city putting masked crusaders on notice, by a new mayor who has a bone to pick. Now I’m getting ready to enter the Fear State, through the wonderful comics written by James Tynion IV.

            And I’m currently loitering in toy and comic book stores looking for the perfect 1996-era Batman & Robin action figures to put on my already cluttered writing desk, with all of these items.

            Books fuel my obsessions.

            They always have.

            When I went to Dublin it was Leopold Bloom I went searching for.

            I just finished this book.

            Guess what I’m watching too much of?

            At some point this week I’m picking up the first volume of these.

            It’s gonna be a Ring-A-Ding summer in my house!

            Books have also fueled my sports card collecting.

            One of them actually helped get me back into The Hobby.

            Back in October 2002 I wrote THIS article about my return to collecting in 2019. I got it mostly right. I discussed my anxiety. My nostalgia for collecting. The way I felt collecting cards as a kid, and how much different The Hobby was to me as an adult. I mentioned watching collectors open product on YouTube. I gave shout-outs to the blogs I was reading and the podcasts I was listening to. I wrote about how returning to collecting helped quell the anxiety.

But I left out one thing.

And what I left out of the essay was a book.

            Specifically, this book.


            If my memory serves me correctly, and it usually does, I read Josh Wilker’s Cardboard Gods during the summer of 2019, when my anxiety was at its worst. What I found in Josh’s book, despite its sometimes-tumultuous subject manner, was a calm. Not only a nostalgia for card collecting, but I genuine love. I felt at peace in his prose. I wanted to feel the peace. And I began thinking about my own childhood relationship to The Hobby, probably more with his book in my hands than I did watching Jabs or someone open up a wax box of 1987 Topps. I didn’t know it then, but I wanted to express how I felt about card collecting the way Josh did.

            Eventually I’d write something.

            But in the immediate, I wanted to collect again.

            Wilker’s book helped fuel the obsession. It was broad in scope. It, along with the other aforementioned blogs, etc., got me back into buying wax. Building sets. Starting up a PC again for the first time since 1992. The effects on my anxiety were slow at first. But they were tangible. Yes, there was worry during the day. But some of it was abated when I was able to come home and mess with cards, or spend my weekend morning collating sets, instead of waiting for my wife to wake-up so that I could complain about my job and act like the most woebegone man on the planet.

            But Wilker’s book was just a start.

            Not all of my collecting happens this way. The obvious way it through team affiliation and player performance. But I’m beginning to see that if I read a book about a specific athlete or team, I tend to dip my toe (or sometimes dive right into the deep end of the pool), into the card collecting aspect.

            Obsession.

            And it’s been a recent facet

            In the spring of 2021, my wife and I were vaccinated and finally able to go to Buffalo and Pittsburgh to visit family for the (mostly) first time since 2019. We were able to see our families, go out to eat and generally act like normal human beings. On a trip to a ½ priced books in the Pittsburgh suburbs. I came across this book.


            But I stupidly didn’t buy it.

            Instead, when I got back home to Brooklyn, I checked it out of my library. I was a baby to a five-year-old kid when the Pittsburgh Steelers were winning those Super Bowls and forging a dynasty whose legend looms large over city and team to this day. Those Steelers were already superheroes. Already talked about the echoes of gods walking amongst us. Never mind that by the time I old enough to watch The Steelers, it was when the winning stopped, the Super Bowls dried up, and those gods become mortals on the football field.

            Their legend was already locked up.

            I never thought I was going to return to football card collecting when I got back into cards. I’ve always liked football. But baseball is a way of life. A religion. I didn’t think football cards held a place for me. But getting back into them; it was an inevitability after I finished reading Their Life’s Work. If I wasn’t going to collect football cards generally, then I was at least going to have my fill of Steelers cards. And when I returned to Pittsburgh in July of 2021, I hit up the flea markets and did just that.


            I’m even buying the new guys now.

            I was a Dave Parker collector before I read this book.


            But, as with Their Life’s Work, reading Cobra got me to want to focus my collecting not on ripping all of that wax and building sets at random, but to focus more on the Pittsburgh Pirates cards I wanted. To connect my collecting to team history and lore.

            And it let’s you drop the dough on a cool card like this.


            It’s not just local teams.

            This book to collection ratio has been happening across the spectrum.

            I read this book on Dick Allen


…and this happened.  

I’m currently reading Dan Good’s wonderful book on Ken Caminiti.


…and yesterday I spent an hour or so going through boxes just to dig up these.



Next up is this one.


Rickey played so long, if I collect him, it’ll be like going down a rabbit hole in Alice’s Garden.

(And, no, I do not have his rookie…someone is gonna get my money on that one)

This book made me reconsider 1986 Topps, and is just a damned fine read.


If the guys in this book were playing now, they’d for sure, have a Topps rookie card. Probably in multiple products.

But for most of these guys its minor league sets or nothing at all.

Obviously, there are some books on players for whom you can’t just run out and fulfil your obsession buying cards.



But you can try.




And in some instances, reading a bio on a player just works to keep that long burning fire going.







What’s happening with all of this type of reading, or it least what I’m garnering from the experience, is that I’m developing a sort of subset to my collecting. Or what I call, Collecting by the Book. And I actually look forward to it. To seeing what books will show on my radar. How it’ll enhance and inform what I collect. I’m hoping a few more books that’ll get me digging into those boxes, like I did when I went searching for Caminiti. I don’t know what I’ll find. Or where they’ll go. Maybe in the same special place I reserve for cards that mean something to me. Maybe I’ll start a Collecting by the Book binder.

Right now, I’m in the hey-I’m-just-noticing-this-about-myself stage in this part of my Hobby journey.

So...stay tuned

Thanks for Reading! Happy Collecting!

NEXT FRIDAY: Russell Streur returns! 

           

           

 






Friday, June 17, 2022

2022 Topps Series 2 : A Study in Disappointment


 

This blog post is about disappointment.

            Or working through disappointment.

            I tried finding a Mister Roger’s Neighborhood episode on the topic (Fred always gives me a boost) …but I couldn’t find one. And I ended up just watching those Land of Make-Believe puppets all afternoon.

            Here, let me show you what I’m talking about in terms of disappointment.


            That was the Silver Pack I opened from the Topps Series2 Hobby box that I opened. My opening salvo to Series2, if you will. I always open the Silver Pack first. I don’t like to wait on surprises. And I was…well…

            Disappointed.

            Marcus Stroman? Come on, man!

            I know there’s a Shane Baz rookie card there. But I don’t collect pitchers. I don’t see the point. Even ones I like. Pitchers get hurt. Shane Baz was already hurt. And I don’t like the way modern pitching is run. Gone are the days of the workhorse throwing 7 2/3 innings then the set-up man and closer come in to finish off the rest. Those days are gone…and I get that. You can’t pitch 7 2/3 innings when pitching is all about velocity and throwing 100 miles an hour. There’s no nuance to pitching. There’s no subtly or true craftsmanship. I get that.

I don’t have to like it.

            So, you can keep your Shane Baz card. Your Clayton Kershaw cards. Your Verlanders and Scherzers, and all the rest.

            But I digress…

            I’m not disappointed in the 2022 design. Not at all. I honestly like what Topps has done with their base design this season. Although getting a number of cards whose backs looked like this was a touch disappointing.


            Anyone else get cards like that?

I can’t really touch what I’m disappointed in, and that’s what’s bothering me. No, it’s not the fact that there were no rookie cards of Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., and Spencer Torkelson (a name I can only spell because Monkee, Peter Tork’s, real last name is Torkelson), other than SP cards…none of which I got by the way. I didn’t expect to get one of the short prints. I know my luck.

            If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

            ***A brief aside, love my SP Vlady Jr. RC as I do (only because the photo is far superior than his Update one), I don't really appreciate the SP rookie card in base. In a world saturated with rookie cards, just do us all a favor Topps and give a player their one legit rookie card. Enough with the false scarcity....you do that enough with parallels and other bells and whistles***

           That said, two rookies that I was actually excited for are in Series2 as regular base cards.


            One is already playing for the Pirates and the other is currently in AAA, having his time manipulated by the Major League organization.

            I got the Pirates cards I needed.


            There’s plenty of star power in Series2.



            There’s even some fading star power.


            And there were even a good number of cards for all of those guys whose rookie cards we were all nuts over last season, who now have second year cards with Rookie Cups or Future Star plastered on their card, and only cost .18 cents on SportsLots, because who in the hell cares about someone’s SECOND card…right?


            Disappointed AND a touch cynical this week.

            Of course, there were the rookie cards.


            Fifty-Seven in Series2 to be exact. I managed to get forty-nine of those rookies in the Hobby Box that I opened. A quick check of them all revealed that thirty-two of the forty-nine rookies I pulled, the players were aged twenty-five or older. Now, I’m forty-eight. Twenty-five-year-olds blow my mind. I was twenty-five. Sometimes I can still taste twenty-five. Feel it in my soul. Sometimes I wish I could BE twenty-five again.

            But not if I were still a baseball prospect.

            Twenty-five is pushing it to still trying to be making it in baseball.

            Yet there are at least thirty-two cards featuring a rookie player twenty-five years or older.

            But even that doesn’t seem to touch why I’m disappointed.

            I got the requisite bells and whistles in my Hobby Box.

            The 1987 cards.


            Hey got Acuna! But he’s an effin’ Brave.

            A Jackie 1987.


            There are very few players for whom I collect post-playing-day cards. One is Roberto Clemente. One is Willie Stargell. Another is Henry Aaron. And the last one of those four is Jackie Robinson. Getting post-playing-day cards of Jackie Robinson in packs is special to me. It’s the closest I’m getting to the sensation of pulling a Jackie card. And I know I’m never going to own a real Jackie card from his playing days. These inserts are it.

            A small Oasis in an otherwise barren landscape.

            I got the foil cards.


            I got the one Gold Card.


            I got a SP card for a pitcher who plays for a team I’ve loathed for over thirty years.


            I got another SP for a star player for another team I absolutely loathe.


            (I’m going to try and get those out to people who actually like those teams)

            I was excited for the Diamond Greats Die-Cut cards because Willie Stargell has one. Instead, I got this guy.


            No disrespect to Randy Johnson and his Hall of Fame career. But if there is a post-playing-day card that I’m going to get…IN…ANYTHING…I…OPEN…it’s going to be Randy Johnson. I’m somehow fated to get a Randy Johnson card. It’s not a bad thing if you’re a Randy Johnson fan, but for someone, like me, who took barely a passing interest in his career (scroll up and read what I wrote about old school pitching and feel free to tap your HYPOCRITE button at home), I sort of shrug and move on.

            To these inserts.


            And another goddamned Red Sox.

            And these.

            Featuring a guy who regularly makes my Pirates look like fools…and another goddamned Red Sox.

            I didn’t get an auto card…par for the course.

            But I didn’t get a player relic.

            Instead, I got this.


            WTF?

            I don’t know if they were packaging my Hobby Box next to the Blaster Box section of the Topps Factory, but that card ain’t what was promised on the box, and…

            Shit.

            I think I know why I’m disappointed. It’s not the cards. It’s not the star cards. It’s not the rookie cards, or the fact that I was sweating it out until the second to last pack to even pull that Oneil Cruz rookie card. It’s not any of it.

            It’s the goddamned bells and whistle cards.

            What have I become?

            I often go OFF about how I don’t care about insert cards, and how I don’t understand them in regards to modern collecting. But…three years in…I expected...more? Maybe one player I liked or collected in that silver pack. Same with most of the 1987 inserts. All of my other inserts seem to be a Brave or a goddamned Red Sox. Then there’s my strange, twisted history with Randy Johnson cards.

            Yeah…I’m disappointed in the bell and whistle cards I got.

            But…

            Through disappointment comes understanding. I’ve been learning a lot about myself as a collector this year. I’m learning that I’m not the set-builder that I thought I was. I’m more of home team/single player (mostly for the home team) collector. Series2 would be underwhelming in that regard because there weren’t a lot of Pittsburgh Pirate cards, and I didn’t get a single Pirates player as an insert.

            So, I’ve thought about it. I think going forward, 2023 and beyond, I’m going to let other collectors spend their money and rip Hobby Boxes. Then I’m going to go onto SportLots/ComC and buy the singles of players, team players, and bells and whistles that I want. I seem to do that every single time I buy a Hobby box now, so why not save myself a couple hundred bucks every season. 

        I’m not going to stop ripping wax, even though giving up on Heritage and now Hobby base would appear that way. There’s Update and Archives after all. I might put my money toward ripping older wax now. I'm always on Baseball Card Exchange saying to myself, man, I'd love to buy that! If only I weren't ripping modern stuff. 

            And as for sets? I guess if I want that year’s set, I’ll just buy one when they become available during the summer.

            See?

            Not so disappointed now, right?

            Except…

            Remember last week’s post? When I said how excited I wad going to be to get a Michael Chavis card in a Pirates uniform? Remember that?

            Yeah...I got that Chavis card.


            In a Homestead Grays uniform instead of a Pirates one.

            Sigh.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

NEXT FRIDAY: Collecting…by the book. Interpret that as you see fit.

           

2024 Topps Series 1