Mystery TTM From Gerard - Linda Ruth Tosetti

The next mystery TTM to come in from my buddy, Gerard, was this one from the granddaughter of Babe Ruth, Linda Ruth Tosetti.  She signed two of these 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth cards.

The cards came out great, and I appreciate Gerard getting them signed for me.  I was able to get Babe's adopted daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, on a couple cards a while back, before she passed away.  Tosetti is the daughter of Babe's only biological child, Dorothy (who passed away in 1989).

Thanks for getting these cards signed for me, Gerard!

TTM Success - Norman Lloyd

This was a really cool TTM success that came in a few days ago.  I got the idea from my buddy, Chance, to send to actor, Norman Lloyd following his appearance at the World Series this past October.  Apparently, Lloyd is the oldest living former World Series attendee, having attended the 1926 World Series in New York.  Lloyd attended that World Series as 12 years of age and watched Babe Ruth split his pants on a slide.

In 2017, at the age of 102, Lloyd witnessed a game between the Dodgers and Astros at Dodger Stadium, some 91 years later.

Lloyd (b. 1914) was a close friend of Alfred Hitchcock, having worked with him on Saboteur and Spellbound.

He is also known for roles in St. Elsewhere, Twilight Zone and Deat Poets Society.

Here is a link to the LA Times article regarding Lloyd's visit to the World Series.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-norman-lloyd-world-series-20171026-story.html

I mailed to Lloyd on November 18 and got the card back on January 23, for a 66-day TAT.

TTM Success - Julia Ruth-Stevens

A few weeks ago, I posted a TTM success from David Mantle, son of Mickey Mantle.  I also have received a TTM success from Rachel Robinson, widow of Jackie Robinson.  I thought those were really cool TTM successes, so I decided to try my hand at adding another, with Julia Ruth-Stevens.

I mailed via the Babe Ruth Museum and got two 1995 Topps cards back signed.  This was one I was really excited about, and am happy to see it come back.  Ruth-Stevens was adopted by Babe Ruth in 1929.

Ruth-Stevens celebrated her 100th birthday on July 7, 2016.

Christmas gift from Dylan

I got a package in the mail from my friend Dylan for Christmas and was really happy with what he included.  He also had something in there for my son, Chris, which was really nice of him to do.  In the package was a nice page-long note and two baseball cards.

The above 2014 Panini Classics triple relic of Frank, Brooks and Boog was one I didn't have in my collection, yet.  It is numbered 8/99 and looks really cool.  I knew it was coming, because Dylan was afraid that if he got me something, I would already have it.  I have heard that issue before, but I don't know why someone would think that.............

Dylan also included this Ruth/Foxx card, which I needed for my Foxx PC.  Not bad.  He doesn't have a whole lot out there, so it was nice to be able to add it.

Thanks so much for the gift, Dylan.  Chris also loved his gift.  I appreciate you thinking of us!

2013 Topps Series One - The Inserts

I have finished sorting the cards from my 3 jumbo boxes of 2013 Topps Series One.  I was able to make 2 sets and have enough leftovers from the third partial set to put some stacks together for some of my regular trade partners.  Today, however, I wanted to go through the insert cards and show what all I got from those.  You won't see the green parallels on this post, I want to do those separately because I think I have an idea for them (more on that later).

Chasing History: Not a bad insert set.  I think the cards look really nice and as you can see, they cover a wide range of subjects, such as the above Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth.  I pulled 30 of them, of course since they are one per pack.  Here are the numbers that I pulled.  All are up for trade except for card 39 - Jim Thome:  3, 5, 11, 15 (x2), 16, 17 (x2), 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32 (x2), 34, 36, 37 (x3), 39, 40 (x2), 41, 48, 49, 50.

As you can see, I got two Black Parallels.  Andre Ethier 26/62 and Angel Pagan 20/26.

I thought the die cut 'Cut to the Chase' cards looked real sharp.  The below Ken Griffey, Jr. is a really nice card.

I have Josh Hamilton (x2), Jeter, Griffey, Brett Lawrie, Yu Darvish, Carlos Gonzalez and Lance Berkman.

Imagine my disappointment when I pulled only one Desert Camo parallel and it was of Luke Hochevar.  Uggh.  I would have fallen out if it was Dylan Bundy or Manny Machado.  I'm watching a Chris Davis on Ebay right now.  I might pop on it, but the price is a little high.  We'll see.  I love the parallel set though.  It's different and it is a slight nod to our uniformed personnel, which is always good to do.

Out of my 3 boxes, I got only one of the 'Out of Bounds' short prints.  Not a bad card, it being of Matt Kemp.  I could probably get a good haul in a trade for it.  Maybe.  I can hope at least.

I really like these 'The Greats' inserts.  They look like something out of Tier One or something like that.  This is a nice subset for folks who can afford Topps Flagship, but maybe not the higher end stuff.  Of these, I pulled 5: Banks, Nolan Ryan, Musial, Seaver and Jeter.  I will likely keep the Musial for my Musial PC, but the others are up for trade.

The Chasing the Dream inserts are ok.  I think the design is the 2013 version of 1990 Topps.  Go ahead, look up 1990 Topps and see.  I'll wait.  See!  They resemble them at least, haha.  Oh well.  Here are the ones I have, in case there's a trade on the horizon: 1, 2 (x2), 5, 6 (x2), 7 (x2), 8 (x2), 9, 12 (x2), 13 (x3), 14, 16 (x2), 17 (x3), 18, 19, 20 (x2), 21 (x2), 24, 25.

I like the design of the Calling Card insert set.  They have little stories about some rituals that players have, which I think is pretty cool.  I ended up with 16 of these: Stargell (x3), Teixeira (x3), Ortiz, Dickey (x3), Prince Fielder, Lincecum (x2), Sandoval and Sabathia (x2).

A staple for any Topps set of recent memory, Gold parallels are back.  I pulled the above Manny Machado out of my first pack of 2013, so you know I was happy.  I got 12 of them: Machado, Rasmus, Samardzija, Kershaw, Santana, McCann, Andruw Jones, AL Wins Leaders, Raburn, Giants WS Champs, Fielder and A-Roid.

Finally, here are the latest minis, using the 1972 design.  I got Adam Jones, so I'm happy to add that to my Jones PC.  Otherwise, I'm kind of mehhh on these.  Here's what else I got, 30 of them: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 40 (x2), 42, 43, 46, 47, 49, 50.

Overall, I enjoyed this year's inserts.  I really love the green/emerald parallels.  I also like the other color parallels such as the pink and desert camo.  I want to make a couple rainbows of some Orioles, such as Chris Davis, etc, so we'll see how that goes.

The View From the National

Greetings from a hotel room in Baltimore, Maryland as I rest my feet from standing all day looking through cards at the National Card show.  This is my first National and I have to tell you that it is amazing.  I was overwhelmed with all of the stuff to look at, all of the card tables, all of the memorabilia.  There is a lot of sick memorabilia.  By sick I mean, it makes me sick to think that someone is lucky enough to own some of the treasures that I have seen today.  See the above Thurman Munson.

Take a look at the stuff we saw right when we walked in this morning.  There is no good way to tackle the amount of tables and boxes of cards.  You just kind of have to walk around and pray that you find what you're looking for.

Take a look below at some of the amazing autos I saw, like the finest known Jimmie Foxx autograph.  Jeez that thing is amazing, isn't it?

Or how about this Babe Ruth?  From his last public signing.  Crazy!

All of the corporate brands are there.  Topps, Panini, Ebay, COMC, Blowout Cards, PSA, JSA, etc etc.  Something I found funny was that the Topps booth was packed but Upper Deck only had a couple people milling about.  Looks like they are just about done.

You have to keep your eyes open at the National.  I was chatting with my wife (who came willingly, mind you) and an old man walked by and patted Christopher on the head.  I turned and looked and it was only Tommy Lasorda.  No big deal.......  HOLY CRAP!

So, Chris took my wife's autograph pad and got it signed be Mr. Lasorda.  He was actually really nice.  I have heard so many horror stories about him at signings, so we were really pleased that he signed for Chris.

Since the show is in Baltimore, they had some memorabilia concerning the ball clubs founded there.  I like seeing all of that old stuff.

Got several thousand bucks burning a hole in your pocket?  Well, you can take care of that by buying one of these Mickey Mantles.  Mmm, 1952 Topps Mantle.  Very awesome.

While I was chatting with one of the ladies from the AAGPBL, Joe Christopher, formerly of the Pirates, signed autos for some folks who bought a good amount of stuff from their booth.

While I was waiting my whole 2 minutes in line for Jim Rice (more on that later), I caught a glimpse of Hall of Famer and Oriole great Eddie Murray.

Chris and I met and got autos from Hall of Famer Jim Rice.  I'd like to say that he was nice (I mean he was) but we really didn't interact much.  At least he smiled in the picture.  We moved through the line so quick, there really wasn't much time for anything more than "Thanks Mr. Rice."  He thanked us as well and we were on our way.

I'm completely enjoying myself, but I do have a couple issues.  We bought autograph tickets for Frank Robinson and Ralph Kiner and both of them canceled!  Both are having health problems, which is a shame, but Ryan and I checked the Tristar website last night and didn't see info on their cancellations.  Oh well, the folks at Tristar were really accommodating and allowed us to exchange for equal value tickets so we swapped for Jim Rice and Joe Morgan.

The other thing is that it is so hard to find what you are looking for.  There is just so much stuff to look at and take in, you really can't do it in one day.  I'm glad I gave myself two days.  I have had no luck finding my 2009 Topps Brooks Robinson letter patches.  I did, however, find some cards for several other bloggers. 

I went to the show with Ryan from O No Another Orioles blog and met Julie from Things are Funner Here.  Always nice to meet some fellow bloggers in person.  I've known Ryan for quite a while now and stayed at his place last night.  He and I stayed up til 12AM looking at O's cards.

Tomorrow, I plan on getting my Joe Morgan auto and maybe pick up one or two more HOF autos that I have seen around.  I also want to see if I can find some Nolan Reimold inserts so I can try to complete some more Reimold rainbows.  Maybe I'll find some cool stuff among the boxes and tables.  You never know.

Hidden Treasures in Mississippi Part 3 - Trip to Japan and Autographs

One of the coolest things Mr. McNair showed me was in a briefcase he brought with him to dinner.  Inside the briefcase was an album that was given to Eric McNair when he was a member of the 1934 barnstorming team that toured Japan right before World War II.

The team featured players such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty O'Doul, Earl Averill, Eric McNair and were managed by the legendary Connie Mack.  One of the players, catcher Moe Berg, was even spying on the Japanese for the US government.  This story was featured in the book The Catcher Was a Spy.

Also in the album was some other autographs, one of which was this index card of Hall of Famer, Lefty Grove.  The coolest thing in the briefcase, though, was this framed paper signed by members of the 1934 barnstorming team.  Click on the photo if you can see the signatures, but Ruth, Mack, Foxx, Gehrig are all clear and legible.  All of these autographs are real, no copies here!

Pretty darn amazing, if you ask me.  Below is a photo of the team and Mr. Mack.  Lots of great players on that team.  I plan on reading the book about Moe Berg after I finish Eight Men Out.

So, these posts have been the highlights of my meeting with Mr. Don McNair, son of former big leaguer Eric McNair.  I met up with Mr. McNair's son Eric, III (grandson of Eric McNair) the next day for lunch.  He is also a really nice guy who turned me toward something really cool while I was in Birmingham, AL, so look for a post on that coming soon!

I Finally Got an Antique Baseball

I picked up this awesome baseball from Ebay recently.  I have been looking for antique baseballs over the last couple months and have finally gotten one.  I had no idea how expensive they were (I've seen some figure eight style baseballs selling for $200.00 on ebay).

 After doing a Google search on antique baseballs, if this is an Official ball, then it would date to between 1901 to 1934.  The A. J. Reach company manufactured baseballs for the AL with red and blue stitching beginning in 1901 and ending in 1934.  Spalding made baseballs for the NL with black and red stitching starting in 1911.  Looking closely at the ball, the stitches look blue.  Some previous owner of the ball scratched 'Babe Ruth' into the ball.

No, there is no way it is an autograph.  It is clearly scratched into the ball.

I imagine some kid owned it back in the late 20s - early 30s and imagined themselves calling a home run shot.  What would be really awesome, but never able to be proven would be if this ball was a Ruth home run ball.  Or maybe a foul ball?  The speculation is endless.

My thinking is that this ball looks amazing and I am really happy to have it in my collection.  If anyone knows more about antique baseballs and would like to shed some light on this, please feel free to do so.  I'm curious as to the origins of this beauty and would like to know more.

Trip To Cooperstown - Babe Ruth Edition

I thought I'd spend the evening listening to Hurricane Irene leave town and writing a blog post.

One of the coolest things I realized when I was walking around the Hall of Fame was that I was seeing first hand some pieces of memorabilia that shaped the very foundation of the history of the game that I love so much. There's probably not another player who completely embodies that history than George Herman "Babe" Ruth.
You all know that I am NOT a Yankee fan. I don't pretend to even tolerate them. I downright loathe them. However, I respect them. No franchise in baseball carries as much history as the Yankees. One of the biggest reasons is Babe Ruth. He was IT. A true showman. Whether you believe all of the legends. Did he really call his shot in the 1932 World Series? I don't doubt it, but there are stories that try to bring the legend of Ruth back to Earth somewhat. I love Ruth because of the larger than life aura that still surrounds him, even today. He might not have been the single greatest player ever (some believe that Ty Cobb should have that honor), but he should be player #1A. Ruth saved baseball from the black eye that was the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Ruth's epic home runs captivated crowds and put butts in the seats. They didn't call old Yankee Stadium "The House That Ruth Built" for nothing. So, my point is (because I'm rambling) that whenever I saw a piece of Ruth's memorabilia in the Hall, my heart skipped a beat.

I had to make sure that I, like many other fans before me, touched the bust of Ruth when I saw his plaque. I couldn't even speak when I stood and admired his plaque. In my opinion, the entire thing should be gold or something. Maybe some flashing lights. It is amazing to see in person.

It was really cool to see this book. According to the display case, Ruth signed this book for his nurse the night he passed away. It was one of his final acts and it is very fitting, signing an autograph on his deathbed.

By far, the coolest piece of memorabilia that I was able to get close to was Ruth's jersey. Seeing that big #3 and those pinstripes can take the breath away from even the staunchest Yankee hater. It was almost surreal to walk along the row of artifacts and items and come upon this jersey. Truly an amazing experience that all baseball fans should feel at least once in their lives.

Foul Bunt on Location - WELCOME TO COOPERSTOWN

I realized a lifelong dream today when I made the pilgrimage to Cooperstown, New York in order to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. I took 293 pictures in Cooperstown and over the course of time, I'll try to share them all with you. Right now, though, I'm really tired from all of this driving and I have a big day planned tomorrow (where I can finally meet another blogger in person) and see another minor league game (weather permitting).

The drive to Cooperstown from Rochester (where my younger brother had lined us up a hotel room) was beautiful. The weather on the drive down was just about perfect. The New York countryside was amazing!



Downtown Cooperstown was as picturesque as I had imagined it. I was so excited when we walked along the street and realized that right in fromt of us was one of the most hallowed halls in all of sports.


I'm going to skip right to when we entered the plaque room, even though this is the place we visited last in the building. I was so overcome with emotion when I entered the room, my mouth was wide open. I probably looked goofy, but I didn't realize, that's for sure. I made sure to remove my hat when entering, because, I don't know about you, but to me it was almost as sacred as a church. No sacrilege intended, but that's just how I feel about the place.

I stood in the entrance, tears welling up in my eyes, as I wrestled with the decision - You can only enter the room for the first time once in your life... whose plaque do you go to first. I thought long and hard and came to the determination that as an Oriole fan (I was wearing my Nolan Reimold shirt, afterall) it had to be...Brooks. I made my way to his plaque, touched it and took this picture. I made sure to read it, of course.


Then, as a baseball fan, next, I went to the 'First Class' wall and read each plaque for Ruth, Cobb, Mathewson, Johnson and Wagner. I made sure to touch the bust of Babe Ruth, as countless others had done. (Pictures of those plaques will be posted in a future entry).


Finally, the kid in me went to the plaque that I had waited all of my 'fandom' to see in person. Cal Ripken, Jr. I seriously had to fight back tears when I walked up and saw the plaque of the player who I idolized growing up. I could have gone to the Hall many years ago, but always told myself that I wouldn't go until Cal was enshrined. I know that anyone who knows me knows how important it was for me to be able to see Cal's plaque.

If you look closely, you might see a tear in my eye, but I did my best to wipe them away before this picture was shot. I can't put into words how awesome it was to be able to finally get to the Hall of Fame. I hope you guys enjoyed this brief look at what I accomplished today. I fully intend to post a lot more about the trip in future entries. I have plenty of pictures to be able to do it justice, that's for sure.

Thoughts on 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen

The scans kind of suck, because the cards kept sliding on the glass, but here we go with 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen. I picked up 2 packs from ym local card shop at $7.50 a pack (!!!!!!). I got some decent pulls, as far as players go. The above Frank Robinson was my lone Oriole. A pretty cool shot of him, nonetheless.


This Babe Ruth was pretty sweet. Especially since it depicts him in a Red Sox jersey.

I was also happy to see Jimmie Foxx in my pack. I don't have very many Foxx cards, so it is always cool to see him pop up.

I know a couple Yankee fans who would be happy to have this Reggie Jackson. I have already promised it to my good buddy Drew. The card looks pretty good, though, so I'm sure he will be happy with it.



Finally, I pulled this George Sisler mini numbered 9/10. I don't know if it is a parallel based on other minis, but seeing that it was a 9/10 was pretty cool. Since the Browns were the team that became the Orioles, and Sisler is probably the greatest Browns player there was, it is kind of cool to have the card.

Overall, I'm a little underwhelmed with Gypsy Queen, especially since the pack price was so high. It would have been cool to get a relic or auto, but knowing my luck, I'd pull Mark Prior. Blehh. Overall, the design is ok. I feel like the market is flooded with vintage sets. I think it is about time to put the re-issue concept to bed for a while.