Here's to the Forgotten Guys

 

Here’s to the forgotten guys in current Major League Baseball

                Pete

                Yordan

                Luis

                Vlady Jr.

                Wander

…Of course, I’m kidding. The above-mentioned guys are some of the biggest young talent in Major League Baseball. They’re certainly not being forgotten by the game. I know I enjoy watching those guys play. I guess what I’m doing in saying they’re “forgotten” is poking a little bit of fun at some segments of the collecting community on Twitter.

                Not a week goes by, okay maybe a week does go by, where I see a tweet from a fellow collector that I’m going to paraphrase as such: Whatever happened to so-and-so? Nobody in the hobby talks about him anymore. And I kind of have to laugh a little bit at that. Rookie-mania for a player and then…POOF! He’s gone! Off to trading card obscurity with the rest of dem bums.

                Obviously, that’s not true. I know that because I PC at least three of the four players that I mentioned. And as a budget (mostly) minded collector, I genuinely enjoy it that the heat is off these guys once the RC season is over and done with. I’ll gladly pay 20 cents for second year Vlady Jr. cards on SportsLots. But it is almost funny in this hobby, the way it’s rookie card this and that, and then the so-called collective amnesia that causes tweets like the one I mentioned to start making the rounds.

                I like rookie cards as much as the next collector.

                These are some of my current favorites.

                And this kid has me looking forward to 2024 Series 1…at least I hope he’s in it.

                The point is these players aren’t forgotten once they hit their second/third/fourth/etc seasons…but it does feel like it’s rookie card or bust…more so than when I was a kid. I remember rookie cards being big, but once a play was added to your cache of “that’s my guy,” all of their cards always seemed to be hot.

                Or maybe that’s just another lesson from the Junk Wax Era.

                Or maybe…maybe it’s because collecting skews older now, that card collecting isn’t what it once was. I mean, am I the only guy squirreling away all of his star player cards in a big huge mega box? Collectors I meet as an adult seem more team oriented than when we were kids. The chase card is king. The auto card. The numbered card.

                The rookie card.

                I guess there isn’t much to be excited about, about a 2^nd year Vladimir Guerrero base card.

                Unless you’re me.

                Vlady’s 2020 base is still my favorite looking of all of his base cards.

                So…I guess enjoy the current crop of big rookies while we have them.

                Adley

                Jordan

                Corbin

                Gunner

                And even Anthony too.

                By next year they’ll be in the where are they now? section of The Hobby.

                And it’ll be Elly De La Cruz all day long.

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

Next Friday: A trip back to 1980.

The Grail? Grail-ish?

 

The Holy Grail card.

            Or simply the Grail card.

            The one card that each collector has marked out there as the one card they want for their collection. The essential card. Some have it already. Some will seek it forever. Some revel in its illusiveness. And others are driven mad by that very fact.

            Some collectors have multiple grail cards.

            And what torturous lives they must live.

            I think by now we all know what the actual Holy Grail is. If you don’t here’s a primer. The Holy Grail is (mostly) perceived as a chalice and/or cup with healing powers, as far reaching in its power as eternal youth. The Grail remains hidden in the Grail castle where it is protected by the Fisher King. The Grail became associated with Jesus Christ in the 12^th century by its depiction in Robert de Boron’s painting Joseph d’Arimathie, in which the Grail is portrayed as Jesus’ vessel from the Last Supper, used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Jesus’ blood at his crucifixion.

            Thank you, Wikipedia.

            Most of us know The Grail as a holy vessel lost by Junior “Indiana” Jones in the 3^rd installment of that seemingly never-ending movie series.

            Although he did keep it from the Nazis.

            And can’t you tell how “excited” I am by the prospect of a new Indiana Jones movie.

            But I digress.

            For the purposes of this blog post, I’m going to view The Grail card in collecting as that singular card each and every collector wants for their collection. Yes, you may have five or ten other cards that you desperately want…but this is the card. The card you’d sell of your house to get. Your pets. Your spouse. Your children. The card you’d sell off your entire collection for, just to bask in its glory each and every day of your life…until the sports card Fisher King finds you and takes the card back to its proper home.

            For me, my Grail card is…this?

            …or is it?

            I’ve certainly looked it each and every day I’ve had the chance, since I purchased the 1963 Topps Willie Stargell rookie. 

            I keep it perched right here on my desk. 

            I often stop what I’m doing to just look at it and smile. The Stargell rookie is a card I wanted from the time I was a kid. I often pined for it at card shows, as it looked back at me under heavy card show showcase glass. It’s a card I felt destined to purchase when I got back into the Hobby in 2019. My coming to it recently is a very dull story: It was there. It was affordable. Blah, blah, blah…something about a union contract and money owed.

            But is it a grail card?

            Can a 1963 Willie Stargell rookie card be the Grail card for me…as long as this card exists.

            I’ve been a Willie Stargell fan my whole life. I was lucky enough to see him play in his last few years of baseball.

            I collect his cards.

            The rookie card is the final piece of that puzzle.

            I have his autograph.

            Before I purchased the rookie card, I already had this picture shining down on me during writing mornings.

            A Willie Stargell rookie card should take its rightful place as my Grail card.

            But…this…

            When I was a young collector and baseball fan, Roberto Clemente was already a legend. His exploits on the field, almost myth-like. His humanitarian efforts and the sacrifice of his life, almost saintly. Owning a Stargell card as a kid, not his rookie, think late 70s/early 80s cards, was a tangible. Owning ANYTHING Roberto Clemente was an impossibility. I didn’t own a single Roberto Clemente card until the waning days of my early collecting life, when I was sixteen or seventeen, and had a part-time job at the Pittsburgh Pirates Clubhouse in the Monroeville Mall. And even at that, they were the last few cards of Clemente’s playing days.

            I’ve since managed a few more, imcluding my favorite.

            When I got back into collecting in 2019, a Willie Stargell rookie card seemed tangible.

            A 1955 Topps Roberto Clemente card seems as illusive to me at 49 as it was when I was 10, 11 or 12.

            It’s the true Grail card for me.

            That’s not to say I’m not beyond happy and excited by this 1963 Topps Willie Stargell rookie card. It’s not in too bad of shape. There’s a little bit of wear on the right side. There’s a small stain under Jim Gosger’s face. Otherwise, I’m not complaining.

            And who are those other guys on the card with Pops Stargell?

            Starting on the upper left, we have outfielder Brock Davis. 

            Davis was a perennial cup-of-coffee guy in the big leagues, if we can have such a thing. He played six seasons, spanning from 1963-1972 (Houston, Chicago Cubs, and Milwaukee Brewers), with his biggest season being 1971, when Brock Davis saw himself get into 106 games. He has the distinction of appearing on a rookie card in 1971, a full eight seasons after appearing on the 1963 card with Willie Stargell.

            To Mr. Davis’ right we have outfielder/first baseman Jim Gosger. 

            Gosger played ten seasons in the big leagues, splitting his time between five teams, including, for all you Pilots collectors out there, the almost-famous Seattle Pilots for part of 1969.

Gosger saw the bulk of his action in 1967, when he made it into 134 games for the Kansas City Athletics.

On the bottom left of the card, we have outfielder John Herrnstein. 

Herrnstein played a total of five season in the Major Leagues, mostly in Philadelphia, with his last season (1966) divided between Philly, Chicago (Cubs) and finally Atlanta. Herrnstein’s most substantial season came in 1964, when he managed to get into 125 games for the Phillies. And…he gets the distinction of appearing on a 1964 Rookie Stars Phillies card with another legendary player you might recognize.

For me, this means one day I hope to own TWO John Herrnstein rookie cards.

           So, what is a Grail card? If the 1963 Willie Stargell can’t do it for me, and I continue to pin away for that 1955 Roberto Clemente card…then I don’t know. Maybe I’m one of those collectors who aren’t happy unless there’s something illusive out there, just beyond my grasp. I should take that back though. The part about the card not “doing it” for me. That’s dumb. That was a dumb thing to write. A 1963 Topps Rookie card of Willie Stargell isn’t a 1955 Topps Rookie Roberto Clemente. But the card means the world to me. The little kid collector in me is smiling.

Perhaps this post should’ve been about wish fulfillment.

Because THAT’s what this Stargell card is.

And wishes get filled so infrequently.

 Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

NEXT FRIDAY: Though you may recognize all of them…we’re going to discuss some “forgotten” players out there in the collecting world.

            

2023 Topps Heritage: Or Returning to that Same Dry Well....Again....and Again...and...

 

They knew I’d be back.

            Topps those sly devils.

            Sure, they delayed the release.

            There was a part of me that even thought, hell, maybe they won’t even do it this year.

            Maybe they’re done.

            After all, whenever I go to the MLB Store in Midtown, the only product I ever see there in bulk, not moving like the other sets…is Heritage.

            Heritage are the only cards I’ve ever seen discounted at the MLB Store.

            A part of me thought the big boys at Fanatics would look at the cost vs profits, or whatever big boys in finance do, and say, nah, this product ain’t cutting it.

            But….

            Here we are.

            And…

            

            There I go.

            I know I’ve slagged off Heritage here…a lot. If anyone has been on this sports card blogging journey with me, you’d know that I’ve started and stopped putting together every single (minus 2022) Heritage set since I got back into collecting in 2019. I’ve accused Heritage of being disingenuous. A bad representation of the real thing. I’ve bemoaned short print cards. I’ve sworn up and down that I’d never open up another pack of Heritage, and only buy the singles of Pirates and players that I wanted.

            Yet…

            Okay…there’s a reason I’m back at it with Heritage this year and, hopefully, ONLY this year. Two reasons, actually.

            First…it’s my birth year set. Back when I got into collecting, and honestly thought that Heritage was all that I was going to collect, I had this idea that when the 1974 design came around, I’d try to collect it AND the original 1974 set. I started on the original ’74 set back in early 2020. That lasted until I bought a batch of star cards from ComC, and then promptly decided that I wanted them for my PC.

            This also occurred around the time that I began to get frustrated with the short print cards in Heritage.

            To understand my second reason, you’d have to read this blog post right HERE.

            I don’t want to say building 1974 Heritage is some kind of a penance…it isn’t. I don’t waste money.

            But, I guess, for good and bad reasons, I feel very connected to this set.

            And 2023 Heritage is very…Heritagey.

            Yes, Topps gets the design right.

            The company mimics the photography of the original set to an annoying degree.

            There’s the requisite bells and whistles.

    
            That's out if 74 on the Scherzer for you folks into nmbered cards

    
                Some big boys

                And this:

                Usually I trade auto cards away...I'm thinking of keeping this one though.

                Although I know there's not enough Bells and Whistles for a lot of collectors, which is why I’m guessing I was able to find the last few editions of Heritage at a discount.

            There’s confounding stuff like this.

            Now, I understand not everyone is a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. So, let me explain. The first card, Michael Chavis, he was unceremoniously DFA’d by the Pirates in the last few weeks of the 2022 season. He’s currently playing for the Nationals. Card number two, Andrew McCutchen, well, he’s currently back where he belongs in Pittsburgh, working on collecting his 2000^th hit and 300^th home run. Yet he’s in a Brewer uniform. Card number three is of Carlos Santana, Cutch’s current teammate. He finished the year in Seattle. But there he is in computer-enhanced Pittsburgh black and gold.

            This isn’t a big complaint on my part. When I was a kid, if a player changed teams in the off-season, you were almost 100% guaranteed that player would be in the next year’s base set in an outdated uniform. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. Cutch is in a Pirates uniform in this year’s Big-League set. The on-fire Luis Arraez is clad as a Marlin. In this year’s Heritage, Arraez is still a Twin.

            Again, the older collector in me gets it. But the guy looking at this Heritage set wonders why Topps was able to do for one player, but not the other. In Cutch’s case it would’ve been too easy to put him in Pirates black and gold. If the air-brushing machine was broken that day at the Fantatics/Topps corporations, they could’ve simply used an older photo of McCutchen. Not too old…but something from 2016 or 2017, and most of us would not have been the wiser.

            I guess it’s just one of those things.

            Another one of those things, is Topps getting slap happy with the RC card logo.

            I site another example from my Pittsburgh Pirates.

            I believe the popular version of this error comes in the form of a Bobby Witt Jr. card with him in the Kansas City Monarchs uniform. Mr. Witt Jr, a much (if you’re into that thing) sought after rookie card in 2022, gets another shot at rookie fame here in 2023 Heritage.

            One last, the whole ordeal with the missing city on the California (I still call them that) Angels cards.

            As best I know of the situation, and it’s not much, but when Art Moreno bought the then Anaheim Angels, he changed the team’s name to the Los Angeles Angels (or if you’re not into the whole brevity thing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). Lawsuits were filed over the name change, and once the suit was dismissed the team changed its name to simply The Angels. No city designation. Therefore, no city designation on Topps cards.

            It makes Angels Heritage cards look awkward.

            That said, it shows that a lot of collectors ignored Archives, because Topps has been doing this for a few years now.

            For me, because of my connection to the design, I’m going to make an honest effort to collect the 2023 Topps Heritage set this year. At least the base set for this and high number. The fact that Topps stopped putting a ton of its marquee players as high numbered short prints in 2021, makes trying to collect short prints less daunting. $2 for a Rodolfo Castro is WAY better than paying $30 for a SP Mike Trout.

            But we’ll see.

            I say a lot of things.

            I make a lot of collecting plans.

            But I also know that there’s a big box in my apartment full of Topps Heritage cards from 2019-2022.

            Anyway….

Lastly, thank you to all of you and your kind words regarding Russell Streur. I'm glad you all enjoyed his writing here and elsewhere.

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

Next week: Series 2 is on the table. After that, we’re going hunting for the GRAIL…or maybe the Grail…I haven’t sorted that out yet.

For Russell

 

There are things you don’t want to say.

            So, it’s best to just come out and say it.

            Russell Streur has died.

            For those of you who read this blog on a regular basis, you know that Russell was a regular contributor to Junk Wax Jay. He was the guy who brought the knowledge and history to this blog, instead of the rantings and ravings of a lunatic that you generally get from me. I looked forward to whenever an email showed up from Russell, to see what he’d written, and also because I knew he’d class the blog up a bit.

            I knew Russell the way we know a lot of people these days, via the internet/social media/etc. Our relationship started over a decade ago with poetry. Russell ran an online journal called The Camel Saloon, which I was a regular contributor to, and a shorter poetry journal The Plum Tree Tavern, that specialized in shorter (think Haiku) poetry with an ecological bent. He did me the kindness of publishing an e-chapbook of my poetry. With Junk Wax Jay, it was nice to get the chance to return the favor to him, and get Russell’s sports card writing out to whomever found the blog.

            Russell was also a damned fine photographer.

            And from what I knew of him…a good man.

            Russell had been sick for a while. But we didn’t talk about that. Just the occasional, hope you’re doing well, etc. It’s hard to talk about illness. When my wife had breast cancer in 2014, I wanted to talk about anything but illness. I still don’t want to talk about illness. So, you talk about other things, like baseball, or baseball cards. I was glad when Russell reached out to me in early 2021, and asked if he could contribute. Back in the poetry days of Camel Saloon, I didn’t know he was a lifelong collector, because I hadn’t been back to collecting at the time. Through Junk Wax Jay, it was like getting to know Russell in a new way.

            In one email exchange he asked me for my physical address. Russell wanted to send me something. He knew I was (or well, I tried to be when money would allow it) a Henry Aaron collector.

            Russell sent me this.

            Remember when I used to moan and complain that highlights cards/league leader cards weren’t actual cards of a player?

            Yeah…well that stopped once Russell sent me this.

            Russell Streur wrote sixteen posts for the Junk Wax Jay blog, from the Negro League to Formula 1 Racing. From my view, they were all well-done, well-researched and written with a lot of love for the subject. With the loss of Russell, Junk Wax Jay is forever changed in a way that I haven’t even begun to conceive of. He was a big part of this blog. Though I always thanked Russell and talked about points in his posts, I wish I’d had the chance to tell him how much his posts mattered to me and to the blog.

            But life is sudden like that.

            We’d just exchanged our last set of emails just over two weeks ago.

            Anyway…we’ll get back to the business of Junk Wax Jay next week. For now, I’m going to leave links for five of Russell’s sixteen blog post. They are five (and boy was it hard to choose) favorites of mine. I hope you enjoy them if you haven’t read them before.

Easter Sunday 1987: Milwaukee County Stadium (April 2021)

Greetings from Forbes Field (September 2021)

Queen of Diamond: Effa Manley and the Negro National League Newwark Eagles (March 2022)

Collecting Milwaukee: 70 Years of Topps Milwaukee Baseball Cards (May 2022)

Greetings from Rickwood Field (May 2023)

 Thank you, Russell

Thanks for reading. Happy Collecting.