Blech

Sorry for the inactivity lately. I was sick as a dog for most of the past week and took the weekend off to fully recooperate. I have a few things lined up and should resume regular posting tomorrow.

Dave Magadan

Sorry about not posting over the weekend. I was whisked away for a surprise Father's Day mini family reunion and with no time to plan, I didn't get posts up. Oh well, you all lived, right?

The other day when I posted about my Jeff Baker pickup, I teased another Texas Ranger and it probably wasn't who you thought it was. I suspected some would think it was Geovany Soto. Some may have been able to pull pitcher Neal Cotts (doubt it) but it wasn't him either. I went even deeper into the roster...to the coaches side.

Another lousy scan, too yellow and too dark, but I think you get the idea. If I get around to rescanning it, I'll swap it out. Dave Magadan signed as a free agent for the 1996 season and split the season between pinch hitting and playing third, although he snuck in a few games at first as well.

This was the year after I graduated high school so I didn't spend much time following the Cubs that summer. I remember him being a Cub but nothing in particular. Once a Cub though...Always a Cub!

Ty(e) Waller

I have a dilemma on this one. When I did my research on Elliot Tyrone Waller, he was listed as Ty on his 1982 Fleer and Topps cards. If you look for him on Baseball Reference, he also comes up as Ty. So that's what I put on my card.

However, when I got this one back signed, you can see he added an "e" on the end of his first name so that it reads Tye. When I looked at his bio page on the Oakland A's website, he is listed as Tye. Listings on eBay go both ways. Minor league issues seem to lean towards Tye as that's how the name is spelled on the card while the Topps and Fleer issues go by Ty. A few were even smart enough to list it both ways in the header.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I'm very tempted to make another one. Thoughts?

Waller came to the Cubs as the player to be named later in the Leon Durham and Ken Reitz for Bruce Sutter swap with the Cardinals. He played parts of the 1981 and 1982 season with the Cubs, mostly at third base but also rotating into the outfield occasionally.

He spent 19 seasons in the Padres organization as a coach but has been with Oakland since 2007.

Despite a short career, he had a few highlights. When I get around to making the back for the card, I will include a tidbit like he had a pinch hit double in his first Cubs at bat and later scored. Or he had a career high 4 RBIs in a 14-0 drubbing of the Philadelphia Phillies on September 27, 1981.

5 More for 2013

I knocked out the creation of 5 more custom cards for the 2013 team set. Four of the five are not currently with the big league club.

Wrigley Wax did a nice writeup on Alex Burnett's short stint the other day. He was designated for assignment but cleared waivers so he is currently with the Cubs Triple-A affiliate in Iowa.

Steve Clevenger, normally a catcher, started the season in the rotation at third with Luis Valbuena but got hurt early on. He is rehabbing with Iowa right now.

Brent Lillibridge was designated for assignment once Darwin Barney was activated from the disabled list. He also cleared waivers and is in Iowa.

Shortly thereafter, Alberto Gonzalez was also DFA'd. With the return on Barney and the pickup of outfielder Julio Borbon, the Cubs needed more room. He cleared waivers, was sent to Iowa and then traded to the New York Yankees for a player to named later or cash a couple of weeks later.

Ryan Sweeney is the only player in the group currently on the roster. He started the season in Iowa and swapped places with outfielder Dave Sappelt who got off to a poor start in Chicago.

This brings me to 31/36 of the 2013 Cubs roster done with more on the way. You can see the rest here.

Matt Stairs

I'm going to admit I forgot all about this one and it was a pleasant surprise when it came in the mail. According to the SCN database, Matt Stairs used to be really good about signing his mail during his playing days. In fact, I'm pretty sure I sent him a letter and a card back in the day and got it back signed. I'm not sure what happened in the meantime, but he hasn't had a listed success since he retired in 2011. Maybe it is just a location thing as Stairs in Canadian and most likely retired there.

Anyway, I saw someone on SCN listing a private signing with Stairs so I jumped on the opportunity to add another former Cub to the ATCRCS collection. Normally when I send in for these, I have tracking on my outgoing envelope to ensure safe delivery as well as on my SASE. And I set up with the USPS website to get an alert when there is some update with the delivery confirmation.

But back to the Canada thing. I can't get delivery confirmation, coming or going, so this one was sent out with a hope and prayer. As you can see, it came back!

This is another one that scanned weird. On the real card, Stairs isn't that dark and the background isn't that pale of a yellow. As for the signature, there's not much flair that can be put into a name like Matt Stairs, so it's pretty basic, but also nice and legible (mostly).

It might hard to call a journeyman player like Matt Satirs underrated since it seems like half the league took a flyer on him. Somebody on 13 different teams (12 franchises) thought he was good enough to help them at some point or another. The only team to double dip in the Matt Stairs talent pool was the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals tandem. He started his career in Montreal and ended it in DC. His career stat sheet looks like my elementary school transcripts as a military brat. Here a year, there for two...

For the Cubs, their year was 2001, after saying goodbye to longtime first baseman, Mark Grace. The seventeen home runs Stairs hit that year matched Grace's career high from a few seasons prior. It also started a 3-year revolving door at first base until Derrek Lee came along.

In addition to playing for more teams than any other position player, Stairs had a knack for being warm off the bench. His 23 career pinch hit home runs are also a Major League record. As far as I can tell though, none of Stairs seventeen Cub home run were of the pinch hit variety.

This card is #58 in the ATCRCS collection.

Three More Desert Shield Cards

I mentioned yesterday that I will be putting the breaks on picking up any more repacks in the near future. The card budget took a hit the past six weeks or so and with two big card shows on the horizon (a local CSA show and the National), I'm having to prioritize.

 

I've avoided picking up any GQ, Archives and Bowman, not even just the Cubs, but I've been jonesing for some new cards. I headed over to eBay with a very small budget and was able to add a trio of 1991 Topps Desert Shield cards. As I've mentioned before, I'm being pretty particular about the condition of these cards, otherwise this 20+ year old set would be finished by now.

 

 

First up is current Yankees bullpen coach, Mike Harkey. He was a first round (4th overall) pick by the Cubs in the 1987 draft and deemed a "Future Star" by Topps in the 1989 set.

 

Next up is Astros third base coach, Dave Clark. He is also a former first round draft pick but was selected by the Indians in 1983 with the #11 pick. He joined the Cubs in exchange for Mitch Webster following the 1989 Boys of Zimmer season. He spent the 1990 season with the Cubs and then bounced around a little before returning for the 1997 season.

 

And finally, there's pitcher Bill Long. The Cubs picked him up from the cross town White Sox during the 1990 season. He went 6-1 with 5 Saves in 42 relief appearances but was released following the season. According to Wikipedia, following his retirement from baseball, Long became a teacher and currently teaches middle school social studies in Kentucky.

 

This brings me to completing just over 1/3 of the set. Another third should be fairly easy aside from finding excellent conditions versions, with the final third being some of the more pricier stars of the team.

Repack Sunday!

As much fun as opening up these repacks have been for the past few weeks/months, the novelty has started to wear off. I'm a little burnt out on them and the selection is getting a little thin at my normal haunts. After hitting up Five Below and Walgreens and noticing they haven't replenished since I took their last ones on separate occaisions, I splurged on one of the mid-level repacks from my local Target.

With all that said, this will be my last one of these until at least the end of the summer. Mostly because of the reasons listed above, but also because the return on investment isn't as good as when I started doing these. Too many duplicates. And I'm not just talking overall, I mean in the same box. Normally I don't compain about pulling Hall of Famers, but check out some of this collation:

 

Even with the PWEs and bubble envelopes that went out this past week, I still have a ton of these All-Star cards.

 

 

Not to mention these UK 1988 Topps cards. Chalk full of Hall of Famers, but enough is enough! I normally don't even scan these but this a typical representation of these regardless of the type of repack.

 

At least there's a Ryno and Dawson. I normally run with a couple of recurring themes and although i mostly will this time as well, there wasn't really anything worth pulling aside and noting as the oldest and newest of the box. I don't recall anything older than 1986ish and aside from the two guaranteed unopened packs, nothing else from the 2000s.

 

Speaking of which, the two packs were a 2008 Upper Deck (about as common as the All-Star and UK cards in these repacks) and a 2011 Allen & Ginter.

 

 

Nothing spectacular here either, one per pack Starquest Paul Konerko and a couple of former Cubs in Milton Bradley and Gary Matthews, Jr.

 

 

And my "luck" with A&G continues to astound. Nothing to see here folks.

 

 

I love a goof record breaker card and I was lucky enough here to pull two that have, so far, stood the test of time. And oddly enough, both regarding stolen bases.

 

Vince Coleman stole 50 bases in a row without getting caught, almost a third high than the previous record holder, Davey Lopes. I don't see this one being broken anytime soon. Even the minor league base stealing phenom Billy Hamilton, who stole 155 bases last year was caught 37(!) times.

 

 

John Wathan on the other hand, broke the record for most stolen bases in a season by a catcher, a mark that previously stood for 66 years. The card says 31 stolen bases broke the record of 30 but there's no mention that Wathan's final season tally was 36. I don't know if some of those are credited as time Wathan may have spent as a DH or pinch hitter or if Topps was just choosing to focus on the record that was broken.

 

 

Making another appearance in the "Oldest Looking Player on a Card" is Dodgers pitcher Jerry Reuss. Assuming that this photo was taken in 1986, its a little scary to think that Reuss was only about 37 when this photo was taken and not the 57 that he appears.

 

Here are a few oddballs that caught my attention:

 

 

All three of these came with a matching second like most of the All-Stars that started this post.

 

I haven't seen Ames cards in quite a long time. I have definitely been to one of these stores but probably not since around the time these cards were put out. Anything know if they're still around?

 

A pair of minor leaguers that never quite made it to the show. Hathaway topped out at Single A while Tito Stewart had a few seasons at the Triple A level. Hathaway had a three-year minor league career record of 19-13 with a respectable 2.64 ERA. I wonder what the story was there? Injured?

 

Stewart on the other hand toiled away in the minors for 9 seasons, mostly with the Red Sox but bounced around with San Diego and Montreal during his final year. According to his Baseball Reference page, it looks like he began as a starter before moving to the bullpen. Without looking too much deeper into it, looks like he finished a lot of games but wasn't getting a lot of saves. Sounds more like the guy they bring in to close the game when they're already losing. Tough break.

 

A couple of bunters that will find their way into a PWE soon enough.

 

These are a pair of name that sounded familiar but didn't match up with my first thoughts. On a personal note, I went to high school with a guy named Johnny Johnson. Obviously this wasn't him, but I still thought it was amusing. And you probably can't read the name on the other one because of the foil printing, but that is the other Pedro Martinez from the mid-'90s.

 

Because I grew up in the '80s, my first thought of McGwire is with the A's, but twenty years later, much of that with the Cardinals, these cards seem a little odd.

 

And last but not least, former, future and present Cubs from the box. Lots of variety here.

Eyebrows/unibrows, mullets and mustaches get a lot of hype in the card collecting world but if there's ever been a better widow's peak in baseball than Dwight Smith's, I challenge you to find it!