Columbia Antique Shop Pickups - 1953 Topps Hall of Famers

I finally got a chance to visit my brother in Columbia, SC after almost a year.  I try to get down there a few times a year, but last year, I was only able to get down there for the crawfish festival in May.  We went down there to hang out, since it had been a while, and also to get out of town for a bit.  The drive down wasn't bad at all, even though there was a winter storm a little farther west of where I was.  It was cold as crap all weekend, though.

As always, I made sure to visit Conrad at Chic Antiques while I was in Columbia.  I emailed him ahead of time so he would have an idea of what I was looking for.  This time around, though, he wasn't able to locate any of the Hall of Fame baseballs that I had on my mind.  That made it easier for me to focus on cards, however, and I was able to knock a nice chunk out of my 1969 set while I was there (will be shown in a later blog post).

Since I didn't get a ball, I got some nice vintage for a few friends of mine.  Aside from the 1969s, I only took home two vintage cards for myself.  The above 1953 Yogi Berra was one that I have seen there a few times, but haven't bought.  Finally, I took the plunge and added it to my collection.  It is a really cool card and I am glad to have it alongside the rest of my Berras.  I think 1953 Topps is a very underrated set.  I have a couple of the big name cards, with the Satchel Paige, Berra and a couple others.  The Mantle is ridiculously priced, but otherwise, this may be a nice set to work on here and there at some point.

Speaking of 1953 Topps, I added another with this nice Ralph Kiner.  Conrad pretty much did a buy one, get one free on these.  For the price he had the Berra listed, I paid that price for both of these cards.  I don't know which card looks better, Berra or Kiner, but I do enjoy the old school Pirates logo on this one.

I intend to start up another 50s set sometime soon, and Conrad has been enlisted in helping me get started.  I doubt it will be 1953, but I do look forward to the day when I can work on this one.  I think they are beautiful cards.

Card Show Pickup - 1949 M. P. and Co. Ralph Kiner

I think this would be a good candidate for the POBC blog (Poor Old Baseball Cards) blog.  We all know how much I enjoy a "well loved" card.  This one is a card that I picked up from the card show this past weekend from the same seller where I got my Kaline RC.

This is a 1949 M. P. & Co. (R3202-2) Ralph Kiner.  As you can see, it is beat up pretty bad, but still looks really cool.  According to oldcardboard.com, this set was released as a strip of 8 cards.  I got it for $3.00 because I like Kiner, and also because the card looked really cool.

I'm happy I picked it up.  I'll probably look around and see if I can find one in better condition at some point, and I will also see who else is on the checklist as well (ok, I cheated and looked a few up on Ebay... THERES A BOB FELLER!!).

Mail From Max

I got a huge stack of cards from my buddy, Max, a few weeks ago that had a ton of Hall of Famers and Orioles.  In there were a bunch of these Action Packed cards from 1993.  I had forgotten about these cards until Max had sent them.  The Hall of Famers he included are all guys I like.

Another nice card he included was this 2012 Gypsy Queen Adam Jones relic.  I think I have one already, but I don't remember.  I'm glad I got it, regardless.

Thanks so much for the cards, Max!  I wish I could type more, but I am smack in the middle of wrapping presents and doing the mad dash to the holidays.

Non Orioles From Joey

I got a nice package in the mail the other day from my buddy, Joey.  He sent me a ton of Orioles cards, but some of the stuff in the package that stood out the most was the Non Orioles cards.

I have worked over the years to include cards and PC players who aren't Orioles so I can add some diversity to my collection.  One of the Hall of Fame players I loosely PC is Ralph Kiner.  Since we met him in 2013, I have been picking up stuff of him here and there.  This 2012 Gypsy Queen is a good example of one of his cards that I would grab when I saw it.

Eddie Murray is known largely as an Oriole.  This 1992 Donruss Diamond Kings card shows him as a Met, obviously, but still looks awesome.  I still to this day love these cards.  I love how it pops when scanned.

Finally, Joey included this dual relic of Bobby Crosby and Eric Chavez as a surprise in the package.  UD Reflections was a decent product and this dual relic is pretty nice.  I thought it was cool of Joey to throw it in to surprise me, and it did!

Thanks so much for the package, Joey!

Cards From Vacation

One of the things I enjoyed while I was on my vacation was that there were several card shops right near where we were staying in Michigan.  I visited two different shops (one of the shops, I visited twice) while on vacation and left them with a great many cards for my collection.

One of the shops had a box of really rough vintage cards that he hadn't gone through, yet, and I was working on a trade on Instagram for some 1954 Topps, so I offered to sort the box for the guy.  He had no problem with that, and I really enjoyed it.  I found some rough treasures, and had a good time chatting with some of the other patrons of the shop.

I found the above 1955 Bowman Ralph Kiner in the box.  It has seen better days and I almost put it back in the box, but part of me figured that no one would appreciate it the way I would, so I added it to my pile.  It pretty much became a throw-in in our overall deal, so I was glad I added it.

This 1953 Bowman Warren Spahn had also seen better days, but I love '53s, so I made sure to add it as well.  I have the Musial and Reese out of this set, and each card I see looks really awesome.  The 1953 set is one of the best-looking in all of the card sets out there in history, so anytime I can pick one up, I try to.

On that note, I saw this Nellie Fox 1953 Bowman and wasn't too interested, initially, but I figured that I really didn't have any of Fox's cards in my colection, and it, too, was a 1953 Bowman, so I added it to the pile as well.  Fox is one of those guys that you kind of forget is a Hall of Famer, but he is, and had passed away long before he was enshrined, so he was one of those guys who never got to enjoy being a Hall of Famer.

I had seen this Robin Roberts posted on other blogs before, but when I saw the opportunity to get this one for $2.50, I jumped all over it. Roberts is shown as a Yankee on this card, but he would never pitch a game for them.  He had been purchased by the Yankees from the Phillies in October of 1961, only to be released by the Yankees in May of 1962.  He was picked up by the Orioles on the same day and would have a bit of a career renaissance in Baltimore and was pivotal in adding veteran leadership to that young pitching staff.  He was released by the Orioles in July of 1965.  Had he been able to stick with the Orioles for one more year, he may have been able to collect his first World Series ring.  A World Series Championship was something that Roberts would be missing from his Hall of Fame resume.

Sometimes, when I look at vintage cards, I really enjoy seeing the old, obsolete teams and their jerseys.  I picked up this 1966 Topps Catfish Hunter for a steal.  I had my choice of this or a 1967, and I chose this one.  I felt that it showed off the uniform much better.  The current A's colors are correct, but seeing the KC hat just seems odd.  This is a great shot of the future Hall of Famer, and a 2nd-year card, no less.

Here's another with a cool retro uniform.  I took significant chunks out of my 1959 and 1969 sets while vising the shops as well.  I forgot to count how many from each set that I purchased, but I know I had more 1959s than 1969s and I got more big name 1959s as well.  Along with Hall of Famer, Schoendienst, I got Early Wynn, Louis Aparicio AS, Nellie Fox AS and a bunch of high numbers.

The biggest 1969 I got was this Pete Rose All Star for $12.00.  Not too bad.  I also ended up with a Lou Brock All Star card as well, and a few other base cards for the set out of a $1.00 box.

So, those are all of the cards I picked up while I was away.  I felt like I did very well.  I also did a really good job of keeping up with them as the trip went along.  I had brought along a Rubbermaid tote box and kept these with the cards I brought to show Dustin and Andrew.

Thanks for taking a look.  The next several posts will be about all of the mail I had received before I left and while I was gone.  Stay tuned, as the blog will be back of in full force again.  I hope you all missed me!

Rest In Peace, Ralph Kiner

Today, another Hall of Famer was lost when Ralph Kiner passed away this morning at the age of 91.  He was really nice to Chris, Drew, Adam, Joe and I this summer when we met him during an autograph signing. I have to commend the guy for getting out of the house at 90 (at that time) and meeting and greeting fans.

Kiner took the time to painstakingly sign the two baseballs we had and was nice enough to speak to Chris. I'm really sad to see him go, but he leaves a legacy as one of the greatest power hitters of all time.

So, I leave you all with this overlong video of Mr. Kiner signing autographs for us.  Special thanks to my good friend, Drew, who shot the video.

I'll be back on later tonight hopefully to resume my Fan Fest posts. If I don't get one on tonight, I'm sure you understand why.

Hall of Fame Induction Weekend - The Ceremony

My parade post yesterday concluded the activities we did last Saturday.  Sunday, we had reserved for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.  With an ominous forecast, we took our seats in the grass at the Clark Sports Center about an hour before the scheduled start time, only to learn that the beginning of the ceremony was to be delayed due to passing showers.  We (Me, Drew, Drew's dad, Chris and my brother Adam) each took turns hanging at our area while some of us would go eat, look at souvenirs, walk around, etc.  Soon, it began to rain... and rain... and rain.  We had to take cover under one of the tents near where we had set up.  Our folding chairs and the blanket we brought were soaked.  Finally, the rain let up and they began the induction.

They began with the customary introduction of the Hall of Famers present for the ceremony.  Present were Sandy Koufax (he wasn't in the parade) and Roberto Alomar (both shown above), Bob Gibson (not in the parade), Rollie Fingers (not in the parade), Don Sutton, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Gaylord Perry, Wade Boggs, Orlando Cepeda, Goose Gossage, Ralph Kiner, Phil Niekro, Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Dennis Eckersley, Pat Gillick, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, Ozzie Smith, Andre Dawson, Barry Larkin, Bert Blyleven, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Rod Carew, Billy Williams, Hank Aaron and Rickey Henderson.  I think that was all.  I'm counting 31 of them, but I think I read that 32 were there.  I may have missed one.  Anyway, there were a couple who were in the parade, but not at the induction in Tony Gwynn and Whitey Ford.  Doug Harvey was supposed to be there, but apparently had a heart attack on the plane ride to the event and was hospitalized.  This is only something we overheard from one of the shop owners and have yet to see anything posted online.

The induction was of three people via the pre-integration era veteran's committee.  1880s star and barehanded catcher, Deacon White, former Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert and former umpire Hank O'Day were the three people being inducted.  Since all of them died in 1939 or prior, their distant relatives were present for their inductions.  The ceremony also consisted of the formal plaque readings of certain Hall of Famers who were elected during wartime but due to travel restrictions for World War II, they never got formal inductions.  There were guys such as Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby and guys from the HOF class of 1945.  Their plaques were read by current Hall of Famers.  The most compelling one was Cal Ripken's reading of Lou Gehrig's plaque.  Because of the lack of a superstar name, the ceremony was quite mundane.  While we were all happy for the relatives of the guys who were posthumously being inducted, it would have been cool to hear a speech from someone I had grown up watching.  I know I wasn't the only one who felt this way.  If you look closely at the pictures above and below, it definitely looks like Ralph Kiner is taking a nap.

Seriously, he is at the far left of the front row.  The poor guy had nodded off.  Well, you can't really expect a 90-year old to sit through all that talking.  Again, I commend him for making the trip, and I hope I am able to travel still when I reach that age (IF I reach that age).

Anyway, The ceremony was cool.  Drew and I can say now that we were present when these three guys were inducted into the Hall.  That is something really awesome when you think about  it, especially with us being such huge fans of the game and also such huge fans of the HISTORY of the game.

Remember to continue to check out Drew's blog for his take on these events and stay tuned to this one as I show some of the stuff we saw during my second ever trip to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Hall of Fame Induction Weekend - Meeting Ralph Kiner

After Drew met Johnny Bench, we went outside to regroup and decided to check out another signing event down the street at the local CVS.  They had advertised Gaylord Perry, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal and Ralph Kiner, among others.  Drew had already gotten me a ball signed by Kiner way back in August of 2010 (you can read that post here) but I posted that ball on another failed blog.  Anyway, with Kiner being one of the oldest living Hall of Famers, I had been wanting to meet him for a while.  I had a chance last year at the National Card Show, but Kiner cancelled at the last minute.  At almost 91 years of age, I was really lucky he was able to make the trip to Cooperstown.

Kiner's age definitely was showing as we paid for tickets (I mistakenly bought two tickets to meet Kiner at $50 a piece, but luckily, Drew bought one of the signed balls off of me), you could see the line wasn't moving very much at all.  I was really worried that we wouldn't be able to get to our next signing, which was about to begin in about 30 minutes.  I went to the guy who was running the signing and asked him if I could just go ahead and get a refund since I had somewhere else to be and he said "No, I'll get you your baseballs signed."  I told him that was nice and all, but we really had come to MEET Kiner.  He said "Yeah, I know, come on."  So, I grabbed Chris and Drew and the guy put us in the FRONT of the line!  I was really nice about wanting the refund, because with all my years spent dealing with customers, I know better than to make a scene.  I really wasn't expecting the guy to drop us in the front of the line ahead of everyone else, but I definitely wasn't going to argue.  We all got a ton of dirty looks, though.  If anyone in that line reads this blog, I'm sorry.

That being said, I was EXCITED to get to meet Kiner.  When he signed the ball for Chris, I could see why the line was taking so long.  Kiner labored through signing his name, taking about a minute or two to get his name on the ball.  I really respected the effort he put forth to sit there and sign for fans at his age.  He could have easily stayed home, but he made the trip and signed for all the folks who paid admission.

Here is the ball that I kept, selling the other one to Drew.  As far as the other one Drew got me 2 years ago, well, I'm keeping that one as well for sentimental reasons.

Kiner (b. 1922) played in the majors from 1946 to 1955 for the Pirates, Cubs and Indians.  He retired after only 10 seasons in the majors with 1,451 hits, 369 home runs and a career .279 batting average.  In his brief career, he led the league in home runs 7 times (the first 7 years of his career).  He hit 35 or more home runs 7 times and hit more than 20 in 9 of the 10 years he played.  The most he hit in a season was 54 in 1949.  That year he finished 4th in the NL MVP voting (the best of his career) and was a 6-time All Star.  Kiner never appeared in a postseason.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1975 (his 13th ballot) when he was named on 75.41% of the ballot.  His voting percentage is third from the bottom all-time, better than only Fergie Jenkins (75.40%) and Al Simmons (75.38%).  His election in 1975 was very controversial, but over time, many have accepted the fact that albeit he had a short career, he is still a Hall of Famer.

1951 Topps Red Back #15 - Ralph Kiner

Ralph Kiner (b. 1922) played in the majors from 1946 to 1955 for the Pirates, Cubs and Indians.  Tutored by the legendary Hank Greenberg when the latter was a member of the 1947 Pittsburgh Pirates, Kiner emerged as one of the premier power hitters in the history of baseball.  Kiner led the league in homers for the first seven years that he played.  Playing 10 seasons, he would hit more than 30 home runs in seven seasons; 40 or more home runs in five; and 50 or more twice.  He was a .279 career hitter with 1,451 hits and 369 home runs.  He finished as high as 4th in the NL MVP voting (1949) and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1975 (his 13th ballot with 75.4% of the vote).

Hall of Fame: 4

I Got My Autograph Tickets for the National

My vacation starts when I head home from work on Friday.  On August 4 and 5, we (my wife, son, myself and fellow blogger Ryan) will all be going to the National card show in Baltimore.  I'm really excited.  This is the reason I haven't bought anything in a while.  After purchasing my 3 jumbo boxes of Topps Series 2, I have devoted all of my savings toward paying for my autograph tickets and building a sizable amount to take with me to said show.

Chris and I are going to meet Frank Robinson and Ralph Kiner.  I already have Kiner on a baseball, but I wanted to be able to say I met him.  Same goes for Chris.  I thought it would be cool for him to be able to tell people (when he is my age) that he met an all-time great.  Kiner is pushing 90, so who knows how many opportunities will come along to meet the guy.  I'm still going to get a ball signed by him, so I will have 2.  I might possibly authenticate one of them and trade it for another Hall of Famer that I don't have, but I haven't decided yet.  I will also be adding a new Hall of Famer to my collection when I have a ball signed by Frank Robinson.  For some reason, a ball signed by him has eluded me so far, but that won't matter after I meet him in person and have him sign a ball for me.

I am going to sit down over the next few days and make a list of some things I want to look for at the show.  I most definitely will be on the lookout for 2009 Topps Brooks Robinson Letter Patches to hopefully finish off my collection.  I may also look for some 1948 Bowman to make a dent in that set.  Maybe I'll look for another 1951 Topps Red Back set, since, you know, I can't freaking find mine...  Maybe some Bowman Bob Fellers.  Maybe some Virgil Trucks cards (2011 Wrapper Redemption Auto, maybe?).

I'm really excited!  I'm also excited about the other part of my vacation, which is pretty much destination unknown right now.  I intend to check out some MiLB teams somewhere, but I'm not sure where, yet.  Most likely Memphis and/or Nashville, but I'm not ruling out Montgomery, AL, either.  I still need to decide.

Anyway, I'm excited, as you can tell.  I'll be looking for cards for certain friends of mine as well.  You know who you are!

Card Show Pickup - 1948 Bowman Ralph Kiner RC

I picked up another huge need for my 1948 Bowman set at the card show. I got this Ralph Kiner rookie card from a dealer who I buy from on a regular basis. He always does me well with prices, so I was happy to take it off of his hands. I now have 20 cards from the 1948 set (42%). I still need the Johnny Mize and Yogi Berra RCs, which should take me a while.

Ebay Pickup - 1950 Bowman Ralph Kiner

I have something cool Kiner related coming soon, so I went on Ebay looking for an affordable Kiner card and found this:
A 1950 Bowman Ralph Kimer. Obviously, it isn't mint, but in pretty decent shape, for a 60-year old card.

The back also looks pretty good. I'm quite happy with it. I hope you guys enjoy it as well!!!