One of the players who had been in my "To Be TTMed" box the longest might have been Vida Blue. I found out early on that he charged for his signature, so I put the cards of his that I was considering sending into my "charges a fee" slot and kind of forgot about them. When I started thinning out that part of my box, I made sure to get the Blue cards sent out once and for all.
The above 1975 Topps came out of one of my first deals with my good friend, Max. I had to make sure that this one was one of the cards I sent.
Also, in between the time Blue's cards were put into the TTM box and when I mailed them out, I had decided to try to get as many signed 1987 Topps as I could. So, that made the decision really easy as to what the second card I would send would be.
Blue (b. 1949) played in the majors from 1969 to 1983 and 1985 to 1986 for the A's, Giants and Royals. He had a career record of 209-161 with 2,175 strike outs and a 3.27 ERA. He was the Cy Young and AL MVP Award winner in 1971 when he went 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA for the Oakland A's. He also had Cy Young Award votes in 1973, 1975, 1976 and 1978; and MVP Award votes in 1973, 1976 and 1978. He was an All Star in 1971, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1981. He won the World Series with the A's in 1972, 1973 and 1974.
Blue appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot only four times between 1992 and 1995 and only received at most, 8.7% of the vote. A stronger look at Blue's candidacy should be taken, as he has very good career stats. One would think that he would have had some higher vote totals.
I mailed to Blue on October 4 and got the cards back on October 31, for a 27-day TAT. I paid his fee of $10/card.
I finally completed the 72 Topps, and it looks great. I'm glad I started the card a while back with Wood; now it is complete.
