Signed 87 Set Pickup - Tom Seaver

This was going to be a tough card to get, far before Tom Seaver announced that he would be retiring from public life due to a recent diagnosis of dementia.  He had already largely given up signing, and I knew my best hope of adding him to my collection was going to be through the secondary market.

Luckily, I have two other guys I know that either are putting the set together, or have already completed it.  They both have been helping me look for some of the tougher guys, and when one of them messaged me the other day to tell me that a Seaver popped up on Ebay, I jumped at the chance to go ahead and cross that name off of my list.

The cost was pretty high, but in the end, I would have regretted letting it pass, so I made sure the card would be in my album.

Seaver (b. 1944) played in the majors from 1967 to 1986 for the Mets, Reds, White Sox and Red Sox.  He had a career record of 311-205 with 3,640 strike outs and an ERA of 2.86.  He won the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year Award and was a three-time NL Cy Young Award Winner (1969, 1973 and 1975).  He was a 12-time All Star (1967 to 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1981).  His best MVP finish was 2nd in 1969.  He won the World Series with the Mets in 1969.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 with a then-record 98.8% of the vote.  His vote percentage still ranks third all-time.

COMC Pickup - 1971 Topps

I sold a decent amount of cards on COMC recently and had almost $30 in store credit.  So, I decided to use most of that to knock some pieces out of my 1959, 1969 and 1971 set needs.  A big card I still needed from 1971 was the above Tom Seaver.  I got this one for $3.50.  As you can see, it is a little rough, but for what I'm expecting from this set, I'm ok with it.

I also got card numbers 117 (Ted Simmons), 154 (Cesar Gutierrez), 175 (Jim Hickman) and 200 (1970 NLCS Game 2).  Not bad.  I now need 120 cards to complete the set, but a lot of them are high numbers, so who knows how long that will take.

Hall of Fame Signed Baseball - Tom Seaver

I was able to knock another Hall of Fame baseball off of my list with the help of my good friend Andrew over at Andrew's Baseball Cards (he needs more followers).  Andrew knew I needed Seaver, so, during one of his sessions on Ebay, he located an auction for a Seaver ball that was ending soon and sent it my way.  $39.99 (and free shipping) later, it was mine!

Tom Seaver (b. 1947) played in the majors from 1967 to 1986 for the Mets, Reds, White Sox and Red Sox.  He was the 1969, 1973 and 1975 NL Cy Young Award winner and the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year.  He won the World Series with the Mets in 1969.

Seaver retired with a record of 311-205, 3,640 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.86.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 (his first year of eligibility) when he was named on 98.8% of the ballot.  His voting percentage is the highest all-time.

Seaver is my 67th Hall of Famer (65 of whom are players/executives/managers and 2 of which are broadcasters - I have added broadcasters and writers to my HOF needs list, check it out!).