Collecting The Negro Leagues and PITTSBURGH PIRATES NEGRO LEAGUES STARS GIVEAWAY 1988 ...2 by Russell Streur

 Collecting The Negro Leagues by Russell Streur

 

 

Topps Now, Card OS-52, 2021

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John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil, Jr., tireless champion of Negro League Baseball, finally gets his due this week when he is inducted in the Baseball of Fame.  O’Neill spent nearly all of his life in the game, joking that he became an overnight sensation at the age of 82 for his work with Ken Burns on the Baseball documentary series.

 

Born in 1911, O’Neill paid his dues in the Negro Leagues, breaking in with the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League in 1937 before a decade with the Kansas City Monarchs.  A three-time All Star at first base during his playing days, he then won four Negro American League titles as the manager for Monarchs during the declining years of Negro baseball.

 

Afterwards, he scouted for the Chicago Cubs, signing Lou Brock to his first professional contract.

 

"He got me started on a journey that became a 19-year major league baseball career," Brock said.  "It's no wonder that baseball is considered America's pastime.  Buck was one of its architects.  He helped shape the game.”

 

In 1962, O’Neil became the first black coach in the major leagues with the Cubs.  He mentored Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and other young players during a 33-year career with the North Siders.  In 1988, he joined the Kansas City Royals organization.  In his later life, O’Neil led the effort to establish the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and he served as its honorary board chairman until his death in 2006.

 

Some years ago, the good people at Cardboard Connection posted a piece titled “7 Awesome Negro League Baseball Card Sets.”  The un-bylined article works its way from the Fleer Laughlin sets of the 1970s through the Ron Lewis set of 1991.  A few subsets are included in the survey. 

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/guide-collecting-negro-league-baseball-cards

 

Here are some other sets to add to the list.

 

Remembering the Negro Leagues, Tuff Stuff Magazine, September 1992

 

Tuff Stuff was a trading card magazine that was first published in 1984.  It enjoyed a sometimes robust 25 years in print before surrendering to the digital page.  Along the way, the magazine regularly featured card inserts.  “Remembering the Negro Leagues” was the topic for a nine-card set in the September 1992 issue.

 

None of the cards in the set featured any single player.  Instead, the set invoked the bigger landscape of the Negro Leagues—the busses and Pullman cars, the teams, the stadiums and the East-West games.

 

Unlike the white major leagues, the World Series was never the signature event of a Negro League season.  Instead, the East-West Game brought out the glitter and the fans.  Gus Greenlee, owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and club secretary Roy Sparrow, are commonly given credit for creating the late season showpiece. 

 

Debuting just two months after the first white All-Star game was played in 1933, the East West spectacle was an instant hit.  Almost always played at Comiskey Park in Chicago, the game became the most important event on America’s Black sports calendar.  The Union Pacific added extra railroad cars to accommodate the fans flocking to the Windy City.  In 1944, the East West game outdrew the white All-Star game, and more than 50,000 fans attended the event in 1945.

 

“That was the glory part of our baseball,” said Sammy Hughes, chosen in 1937 from the Washington Elite Giants as the second baseman for the Eastern team.  “It was an honor to be picked even if you were just gonna sit on the bench.”

 

Exhibitions between black and white teams also drew big crowds.  Singer, actress and Civil Rights activist Lena Horne is pictured on Card 8 of the Tuff Stuff set, throwing out the first pitch in a 1945 game between nines from each side of the color line.  

 

 

1933 Negro All Stars, The Sporting New Publishing Co., 1988

 

 

Clockwise from upper left:  Willie Wells, Oscar Charleston, James “Cool Papa” Bell, William “Judy” Johnson. 

 

The title of this small collection suggests that it consists of players from the inaugural 1933 East West game.  The hint is partially true—seven of the players on the unnumbered 12-card set were selected for the September 10 event. 

 

First baseman Oscar Charleston of the Crawfords received the most votes in 1933 with 43,793 ballots.  Pitcher Willie Foster of the American Giants followed with 40,637.  Foster rewarded the fans with the only complete game in the game’s history, an 11 to 7 win for the West.  George “Mule” Suttles supplied the power for the winning side with a home run, a double, two runs scored and three RBIs.  Of the three stars of the game, nly Charleston is included in the set.

 

Photography is attributed to Charles Martin Conlon, but the set does not come anywhere the precision or the production quality of the Conlon Collections of the white major leaguers issued in the early 1990s.  

 

What Could Have Been, Inserts, Topps, 2001

 

 Clockwise from upper left:  Ray Dandridge, Card WCB9; Walter “Buck” Leonard, Card WCB3; William “Judy” Johnson Card WCB7; George “Mule” Suttles Card WCB8             

 

The ten Topps What Could Have Been insert cards from 2001 cover many of the same players and does a better job of image selection and production than the Sporting News set. 

 

 

The Negro League Baseball Players Association Give-Aways, 1992

 

Clockwise from upper left: Bill Wright Card 12, Edsall “Big” Walker Card 11

Martinez “Skippy” Jackson Card 18, Sam “The Jet” Jethroe Card 10

 

Baseball runs deep in the anthracite veins of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania.  Dozens of players from the county played the big-league game, and two Hall of Famers are buried within its borders:  long-time Detroit Tigers manager Hughie Jennings and American League umpire Nestor Chylak.  Even with the heritage, it’s a remarkable statement that the fan give-away at the minor league Scranton Wilkes-Barre Red Barons game on August 9, 1992, was an 18-card set of Negro League players produced by Eclipse Cards and sponsored by Kraft General Foods.  Painted by artists Jon Bright and John Clapp, the set includes well-known names like Leon Day, Double Duty Radcliffe, Buck Leonard and Josh Gibson as well as less famous players.  

 

Martinez Jackson played second base for the Newark Eagles in the 1930s before opening a tailor shop in Philadelphia.  Baseball ran deep in Jackson’s veins, too, all the way to Cooperstown.  He’s the father of Reggie.

 

 

Sponsored by Eclipse Enterprises and painted by Paul Lee, the four-card set pictured above was a fan give-away at Shea Stadium on June 2, 1992.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144279869489

 

Josh Gibson Inserts Topps 2007

 

Granted, a 110-card set based on Josh Gibson’s home runs was never going to be an easy task.  The lack of records for games played by Negro League teams makes it impossible to come anywhere near a true figure for Gibson’s total, much less a chronological progression.   But even left with just a fraction of the whole, there are numbers that can be documented.  Hank Aaron hit a home run every 16 at bats.  Gibson hit one every 13 in official records.  Gibson’s lifetime batting average of .374 is better than Ty Cobb’s mark of .366.   A 12-time All Star, a four-time batting champion, and the universally acknowledged home run king of Black baseball.

 

And there’s testimony.  Hall of Famer Monte Irvin said "I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron. They were tremendous players but they were no Josh Gibson." Hall of Famer Roy Campanella said Gibson was, "not only the greatest catcher but the greatest ballplayer I ever saw."  When Barry Bonds was asked about holding the home run record, Bonds replied, “No, in my heart it belongs to Josh Gibson.”

 

That’s just on the field.  There’s also his life.  The death of his wife giving birth to twin children, his own health problems, and his dejection over not being chosen to integrate the major leagues after World War Two.  “I think that’s one of the reasons why Josh died so early,” said Larry Doby.  “He was heartbroken.”

 

But Topps gives us little of this—just the same picture on all 110 cards and the same brief bio on the back.  Only the numbers change.   It’s a shame.

 

 

Front Row, 1992

 

In contrast, a pair of limited-run, five-cards sets issued by Front Row in 1992 includes player statistics on one card and biographical sketches on the other four.  Each offers an example of what Topps could have done with the Josh Gibson set, had Topps been truly invested in the offering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Negro Leagues Legends, 2020

 

If there’s one set of Negro League baseball cards to have, this is the one.  Commissioned to mark the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Negro National League, this 2020 issue of 184 cards is the most comprehensive set of Black baseball cards published to date.  Painted with grace and a sure hand by baseball artist Graig Kreindler, the set includes all the Negro League greats but really gains its worth by the wider net it casts. 

 

There’s a story worth knowing on every card.

 

 

 

Clockwise from upper left:  Lazaro Salazar, Card 60; Perucho Cepeda, Card 27; Ramon Bragana, Card 114;  Estaban Bellan, Card 156.

 

Players from the Mexican and Dominican Leagues and the Cuban and Puerto Rican Winter Leagues are included too.  Chief among the Latin players and managers are Lazaro Salazar, who eaned batting titles in three countries, won 150 games as a pitcher, and managed clubs all over Latin America to 14 league championships;  Pedro Anabal “Perucho” Cepeda, patriarch of the major league Cepeda clan; and Ramon Bragana, elected to both the Cuban and Mexican Baseball Halls of Fame.  Though white, Estaban Bellan is included in the set for his role in establishing the game in Cuba.

 

Left:  Effa Manley, Card 148.  Right:  Toni Stone, Card 167.

 

 Two women are included in the set:  Effa Manley, the formidable owner of the Newark Eagles and the only woman in the Hall of Fame; and Marcenia Lyle “Toni” Stone, who played as a teenager for the barnstorming Twin City Colored Giants and in later years with the San Francisco Sea Lions of the short-lived West Coast Negro League and the New Orleans Creoles of the Negro Southern League before finishing her career on the diamond with the Indianapolis Clown and the Kansas City Monarchs.

 

 

Left William Lambert, Card 83.  Right Unknown Player, Card 128.

 

Organized baseball was segregated for decades, but military teams did not always follow suit.  William Lambert, who pitched the integrated team of the USS Maine to the Navy championship in December of 1897, died along with most of his teammates when the battleship blew up in Havana harbor a month later.

 

The most poignant card in the set is the Unknown player, symbolizing all the Negro League players whose names and stories have been lost to time.

 

 

Minnie Minoso (Card 120, left) and Moses Fleetwood Walker (Card 110, right) also among this year’s inductees, are also included in this set.  It’s a home run collection, a mighty Josh Gibson clout of a set.  It will be hard to top, and definitely recommended for anyone interested in the history and players of the Negro Leagues.

 

 

 Buck O’Neil.  (Left) Negro Leagues Legends, 2020, Card 176;

(Right) Negro Leagues Legends, 2020, Card 184.

 

 

 

Fleer, Greats of the Game, 2001, Card 119

 

Play on, Buck.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES NEGRO LEAGUES STARS GIVEAWAY 1988

 

The Philadelphia Phillies played the Pittsburgh Pirates in a game at Riverfront Stadium on September 10, 1988.  Ron Jones homered for the visitors in the Saturday night affair but defensive miscues by his teammates gave the Pirates all the help they needed to overcome the swing.  Dave LaPoint pitched all nine innings and picked up his seventh straight win and 14^th of the year as the Pirates prevailed, 5 to 1. 

 

1988 marked the 40^th anniversary of the last World Series played in the Negro Leagues, won by the Homestead Grays over the Birmingham Black Barons, four games to one.  By that time, the Grays were playing most of their home games out of Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., but the team’s origins were all Pittsburgh and the club still maintained deep ties to the Steel City.   

 

Regardless of the Grays home address at the time, Black baseball owned a rich tradition in Pittsburgh.  The Grays themselves hailed from Pittsburgh’s Homestead neighborhood.  In the 1930s, the Pittsburgh Crawfords emerged from the Hill district and powered their way to three league pennants.  The Pirates, in partnership with the Duquesne Light Company, celebrated Negro League baseball that late summer night at Riverfront, presenting a plaque honoring the Grays and Barons to the city and giving away a set of baseball cards to the fans.

 

The set was one of the earliest ever produced on Negro League players, preceded only by the two Fleer Laughlin sets in the 1970s and the Fritsch collection of 1986. 

Narratives on the backs of the 20 cards were written by Rob Ruck, then a professor of history at Chatham College and now a professor at Pittsburgh University. With images obtained from the National Baseball Library, the Carnegie Library and private individuals, the cards tell the story of Black baseball in Pittsburgh from the beginning of the 20th Century to the demise of the Negro Leagues.

 

For the first time, Negro League team pictures were shown on baseball cards, including rare images of early Grays and Crawfords clubs. The dates of the photographs only hint at the long history of Black baseball in Pittsburgh.

 

 

            Left to right, front row:  Ben Pace, Jerry Veney, Emmett Campbell.  Middle row:  Pete Peatros,

Eric Russell, Cumberland Posey, Sel Hall, John W. Veney, Bob Hopson, Hubert Sanders. 

Back Row:  Henry Saunders, Sam Smith, B. F. Alexander, Roy Horne, Ralph Blackburn.

 

 

Left to right, front row:  William Smith, Tootsie Deal, ? Julius, Wyatt Turner, Reese Mosby, Bill Jones, Tennie Harris, Johnny Moore.

 Back row:  Nate Harris, Bill Harris, Harry Beale, Buster Christian, Jasper Stevens.

 

 

 

The Grays were one of the longest-lived Black ball clubs.  Formed in 1900 as the Blue Ribbons, the team renamed itself the Homestead Grays in 1910 and became a popular club on area diamonds, due in no small part to its talent.  In 1913, the Grays played their way to a 42-game winning against the local competition.  Cumberland “Cum” Posey worked his way from player to manager to owner of the team.  Posey guided the Grays as an independent club until joining a rebuilt Negro National League in 1935.  The Grays were declared league champions in 1937 and 1938.  During the years of World War II, the Grays increasingly shifted operations to Washington, DC, pulling in larger crowds at Griffith Stadium than at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.  Under the field leadership of team captain Buck Leonard, the Grays won six more pennants before the league disbanded at the end of the 1948 season.  Leonard's 15 years with the Grays was the longest stint of any player with any team in the history of the Negro Leagues. 

 

 

 

          

 

Players from two schools in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, McKelvey and Watt, formed the nucleus of the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the mid-1920s.  In 1926, the team won the city’s recreational league championship.  By the end of the decade, the schoolboys had become young men and the team rose to the top of Pittsburgh’s sandlot baseball ranks.  Hill District nightclub operator and numbers king Gus Greenlee bought the Crawfords in 1931 and raided the Grays and other clubs to replace the neighborhood roster with future Hall of Famers including Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson and Cool Papa Bell.  Unhappy with the rent charged at Forbes, Greenlee built and named for himself a concrete and steel stadium that seated 7,500 spectators.  It was home to the Crawfords until Greenlee sold the club off after the 1938 season.  The Crawfords won three pennants of the revived Negro National League between 1933 and 1936. 

 

 

 

Some diamond historians consider the 1935 version of the Crawfords to be the best ever in the history of the Negro Leagues.  Others give the nod to the 1931 Grays.  Oscar Charleston and Josh Gibson played on both clubs.

 

While many of the cards on the give-away set portray Hall of Famers with national reputations, two cards recognize Pittsburgh players vital to the development of baseball in the city. 

 

Willis Moody and Ralph Mellix are seen shaking hands on one of the cards.  As Ruck states on the back of the card, not every local team followed the Grays and Crawfords into the Black professional leagues.  While Moody and Mellix each played on the Grays, the truer legacy of the men comes from their decades with the 18th Ward, a team that represented Pittsburgh’s Black Beltzhoover neighborhood.

 

 

The Reverend Harold “Hooks” Tinker played in Pittsburgh’s industrial leagues, on the sandlots, and was a member of the Crawfords before finding a place behind the pulpit.  He never strayed too far from the diamond, becoming manager of the Terrace Village housing project team in the 1950s and leading the integration of Pittsburgh’s sandlot clubs.  

 

The set was distributed to fans on a folded 10” by 19” inch sheet with perforations to separate the individual cards.  Ruck tells the fuller story of Black baseball in Pittsburgh in his book, Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (University of Illinois Press, 1993).  He is also the author of Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Beacon Press: 2011), The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic (University of Nebraska Press, 1999) and other books.

 

Checklist

 

1              Rube Foster                                                                       

2              Homestead Grays                                                           

3              Cumberland William “Cum” Posey

4              Pittsburgh Crawfords (1926)

5              William “Gus” Greenlee

6              John Henry “Pop” Lloyd

7              Oscar Charleston

8              Smokey Joe Williams

9              William “Judy” Johnson

10           Martin Dihigo

11           Leroy “Satchel” Paige

12           Josh Gibson

13           Sam Streeter

14           James “Cool Papa” Bell

15           Ted Page

16           Walter “Buck” Leonard

17           Ray “Hooks” Dandridge

18           William Moody and Ralph “Left” Mellix

19           Harold Tinker

20           Monte Irvin

--Russell Steur

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

Next Friday: Card Pick-ups from my trip to Pittsburgh

1986 Pittsburgh Pirates and Transitional Team Sets or Where Have You Gone, Sixto Lezcano

 

I’m not a religious man by any stretch of the word.

            But there’s a joke that I appreciate.

            It goes like this:

            How do you make God laugh?

            ….

            Make a plan.

            I had planned on doing a pot pourri baseball card blog post this week. What that meant to entail was me actually going to an LCS here in Brooklyn (and by LCS I mean a sporting goods shop that sells older packs of cards), buying some random packs, and then talking about them on Junk Wax Jay.

            For whatever reason (work, heat, laziness) that didn’t happen.

            There almost wasn’t a blog post this week.

            But then something happened.

            Some one on Twitter posted their copy of this card.

            He’d had the card signed by Sixto Lezcano and was showing it off in his Twitter feed. That’s not to say there aren’t die-hard Sixto fans out there. I’ve come across a few. It’s cool being a fan of those random players, not top-tier, not even second tier, from your favorite team.

            I happily celebrated this guy’s birthday this week.

            Seeing the Lezcano card got me thinking about the 1986 Pirates team sets. The Topps one in particular, but this blog post can also be subscribed to the 1986 Fleer and Donruss team sets. The Lezcano card got me thinking about how much the 1986 team sets were transitional sets. What I mean by ‘transitional” is that it’s a team set that bridges the gap from one era of a team to another era. In the case of my 1986 Pirates team set, it bridges the gap from the remnants of the 1979 World Series team to the beginning of the era that brought about the 1990-1992 NL East Champion teams.

            But first let’s go back a year to 1985.

            The 1985 Pirates team sets still had a good number of players left who played on the 1979 World Series champion team.

            Not including manager Chuck Tanner, the number would be seven.

            By 1986 that number would be dwindled down to two players.

            With the loss of those members of the Fam-I-Lee, the 1986 Pirates team set is made up of some players who hung on with the team throughout the early into mid-1980s, but never really excited me as a team collector, or a fan.

            Guys like these.

            You get a rookie or so with the team, trying to make it.

            A couple of mainstays on all-star teams of the era.

            Seeds of a new dawn.

            But a decent part of the team set is made up by a number of players who came aboard the Pirates ship in 1985 to try and reverse the fortunes of a team that was rapidly declining in the mid-1980s. You know the kind of players I’m talking about. Guys hanging around the end of their careers, hoping to get one more decent season out of their bodies, or maybe one more paycheck from a team willing to take a chance.

            Guys like these.

            The Pirates finished a dismal 57-104 in 1985.

            Sixto Lezcano would be out of baseball after that season stuck in Pittsburgh.

            Steve Kemp and Johnnie LeMaster would soon follow.

            With the exception of Kemp (albeit briefly) none of these “ringers” would be on the 1986 Pittsburgh Pirates.

            One of them didn’t even make it beyond the 1985 Traded Set.

            Transitional for sure.

            It’s not like the fortunes changed much for the Pirates in 1986. They were 64-98 and pretty bad.

            Some of the guys from the 1986 set were still hanging around.

            But there was a new manager bringing life to the team.

            And this guy made his debut in late May of that year.

            This World Series Champion was back in the Big Leagues to stay in 1986, after playing parts of the previous few seasons.

            All 1986 Traded cards, of course.

           Those transitional 1986 Pittsburgh Pirates team sets can seem a bit dull on the surface. 1986 might’ve been the first time I was excited more for the product on the field than the actual cards that I was pulling from packs. But I’ve grown fond of the ’86 team sets over the years. Fond of their oddity. Fond of their place in Pirates history, even if the 1985 team was somewhat of a black mark. Baseball in Pittsburgh in 1985 was a black mark…let’s not forget those drug trails, shall we?

            Transitional for sure.

            But the transitional often times leads into a new foundational.

            With the seeds planted in the 1987 team sets.

           And further solidified with some additions in 1988.

            By 1989 Pirates team sets would be full of players I’d root for and watch take three NL East championships. Sure, there were some random guys along the way. And the Pirates could never set away from giving a player on his last legs one of his last shots in Major League baseball.

            Gibson would actually play three more seasons in Detroit…I just love the strangeness of him on a Pirates card.

            I don't own any Gibson with the Pirates cards...something that NEEDS to change.

            On Pirates team sets from 1987-1992/1993, the players you’d pull would become commonplace. That same group of guys showing up year after year. Solid. A team you could count on. Like the Pirates team sets building up to and even after the 1979 World Series champion Pirates. The sets that had Madlock, Stargell, and Dave Parker headlining them. Mike Easler. Omar Moreno.

            The memories can go on and on.

            So I’ll take those 1986 Pittsburgh Pirates sets for the little weirdo sets they are.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

Non Sports Cards : Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?

 

Here’s a story

            I’ve never been much of a non-sports collector. I don’t think it had anything to do with not liking non-sports cards. It mostly came down to money. And when you’re a kid (and often even as an adult) you don’t have a lot of money. Decisions must be made about how one spends their discretionary cash. Baseball cards vs. Star Wars cards. Baseball cards vs. a comic book. If I had enough money (usually a birthday or after Christmas), it was this action figure vs. that action figure.

            Choices had to made.

            In the realm of collecting, it was an obvious and easy choice that I was going to pick sports cards over any other kind of card, be it a Batman card or Star Wars card, or any other kind of non-sports card. Aside from a lack of cash, I usually had other means of representing my interests in those areas of entertainment. Action figures usually covered the gamut from space adventures to superheroes for me. There was nothing I wanted more, toy-wise, than action figures. For years they filled every birthday and Christmas wish list, and if I found myself with a decent bit of cash, there was usually a sports card/action figure split in how I spent it.

            See, I didn’t dislike non-sports cards.

            I just never had any room for them.

            In fact, there are only two occasions that I can think of where I sought out the buying of non-sports cards. The first was the Return of the Jedi cards Topps produced in 1983. Collecting those happened by accident…and via competition. I’ve talked about my friend Phineas on here before. Phineas always seemed to get the cards I wanted. The action figures I wanted. There was a time in my life wherein I thought Phineas had all of the good luck, and I had all of the bad.

            Phineas had this card.

            He made such a big deal about it, that I wanted it.

            It was like the damned Shigeru Takada card all over again!

            So, I found myself buying Return of the Jedi cards. Found myself bypassing (for a time) whatever sports card offerings the candy aisle had for me at my local Thrift Drug, the buy Return of the Jedi card. I ripped dozens upon dozens of packs trying to get that Time Out for Love card. Of course, I never got it.

            Phineas: 1

            Me: 0

            The other time I really got into non-sports cards was in 1991 with the release of the Pro Set Super Stars Musicard. I remember finding them at Phantom of the Attic comic shop when I’d go there with some of my comic book collecting buddies. They had them right at the counter. I was lured in by those very 1990s hot color packaging. And the cards were pretty cool too. They fit my aesthetic at the time. I was seventeen. I was buying a ton of music. I was slowly moving away from sports cards.

            I managed to pick up some in my return to collecting a while ago.

            Recently, the non-sports bug has been knowing at me a little bit. I think it might have something to do with this entertainment nostalgia phase I’ve been going through. I mentioned that a few weeks ago on the blog. Brady Bunch stuff. Batman stuff. Well, along with that I was getting me a good card purchasing itch. Fill-in some gaps on players I collect, that kind of thing. I figured maybe I could check out ComC and see what they had out there in the non-sports selections for some of the stuff I’ve been getting myself back into lately.

            I wasn’t disappointed.

            The first thing I grabbed were these.

            Now, ComC had a few of the cards that were originally released with the Brady Bunch series…but they were a little too rich for my blood. The Topps 2018 Flashback and Topps 2011 American Pie cards did the trick at an affordable price. I haven’t been too big a fan of the Flashback cards, generally finding them as annoying as the other inserts Topps throws into Heritage every year. But occasionally I come across ones I like. Most notably the Willy Wonka one from the 2020 Heritage set, which has to distinction of being the only card my wife owns.

            The American Pie cards from 2011, though...man, I wish I’d been around for that set! From what I understand it was a relaunch of the 2001 Topps American Pie set, only with a focus more on entertainment and pop culture as opposed to also including historical and/or political events as well. The set seems to run decade by decade highlighting the bits of culture that shaped each decade.

            Aside from the Brady Bunch card, I found this.

            Yes, you’re right, it’s a Jack Kerouac rookie card!

            Being the massive Kerouac fan that I am I snagged that one immediately. I’ve been a fan of Kerouac’s work for as long as I can remember. To say his writing shaped my worldview of art and what art could be…well…that would be a massive understatement. There was a time in my life where his words were bible to me. I’d read his novel like a devout zealot. When kids were wearing flannels in the 1990s, because of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, I was wearing them because of Jack Kerouac.

            And I don’t think I’m done with this American Pie set.

            There’s a Muppets card and a Mister Rogers card out there with my name on it.

            The last two purchases I made were intentional.

            I’ve sort of decorated a corner of my writing space with Beatles items. An Abbey Road poster. Some photos of Beatle-related places that I’ve had the pleasure to visit. I thought it would be cool to put up something that melded my Beatles love with my love of card collecting. So, I grabbed that Beatles card. The idea was to take the card to a framer, have it mated, and then put the card up on the wall with the other items.

            But I didn’t stop there.

            If my love of the Fab Four is boundless, then my love of the Pre-Fab Four is equally as great. I’ve been happy to call myself a Monkees fan since 1986. A true-blue second wave fan who caught on with those Monkees marathons that MTV was showing. I knew that The Monkees had trading cards. I believe it was Donruss who put them out in 1967. And I also knew that The Monkees posed in a similar director’s chair fashion as The Beatles has previously done. Why of course they would! In a couple of clicks I found the card. The plan now is to get them mated and framed together.

            I do actually have two other Beatles cards, courtesy of my brother

            

            I now have a small cadre of non-sports card in my card collection. They skew very specific to who I am as a person. The issue now (because why shouldn’t there be an issue) is what to do with them? They feel like, even more so than my sports cards, that they should be displayed in some fashion. Maybe in stands on my writing desk, or in those new connecting frames that BCR is selling. I don’t feel like they should just go in a binder or sit in a box. Of course, neither should some of the sports cards I’d like to show off, if only to myself.

            Wouldn’t you know it, though…there was one card I forgot to buy in that purchase. One I’d been searching for since 1983. Yep, you guessed it.

            Phineas: 2

            Me: 0

            And I forgot to get a Batman card!

            Anyway...

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

Next Friday: its Pot Pourri time on Junk Wax Jay