1992 Hieronimus & Co, Leon Day

NN Leon Day

First off, I know nothing about this card. There is no number and no stats. I think that it is was made in 1992 since it has "Leon Day's Honors in 1992" on the bottom and those end in September. Either he didn't get any more honors that year or this card may have been made in 1993. The back only has tidbits about records he holds and feats that he accomplished. The picture on the front is pretty cool. It has a Goudey feel to it.

Leon Day pitched mostly in the Negro Leagues. He also played some in Canada and Puerto Rico. Most of his career was with the Newark Eagles, but he also played for the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Baltimore Black Sox. It looks like the picture is from one of the Baltimore teams.

Leon was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995. He died seven days after learning that he had been selected. According to Wikipedia, he is the only player in the Hall to wear a cap on his plaque that is from a team that is not in the U.S. or Canada. The cap is of the Los Tiburones de Aguadilla, a Puerto Rican team.

I got this card signed through the mail around 1994, I think. I got this card signed in the same way as Brooks Robinson and Hoyt Wilhelm. All three of them were in the same Beckett article about retired players that will sign for a small donation. When I wrote about the Wilhelm card, I thought that I may have got these signed around 1996. Leon Day died in 1995, so it was obviously before that.

This is a cool card. It is the only Negro League card that I have signed. The only other autograph that I have from a Negro League player is a signed ball from Buck O'Neil.

1992 Fleer, Kenny Lofton

#655 Kenny Lofton

Here is another card that I got signed through the mail back in the day. If it wasn't for this card, I would have forgotten that Lofton ever played for the Astros. I remember him playing the first half of his career in Cleveland (with one year in Atlanta) and then bouncing around to different teams every year in the second have of his career. He played for eleven teams in his 17-year career. The Indians were the only team he ever played with for more than one season and he played for them in three different stints.

This was the first baseball player's autograph that I had ever recieved that wasn't signed in blue or black (I had a footbal card signed in silver and a basketball card signed in gold). This was the only red autograph that I had until Rod sent me a few more.

Kenny has a pretty slopping signature. Usually, I don't care for these, but I have always liked this one. This was the first one that I had ever received that made me say "wow, look at that". It was so simple. Within a few days, I had the Kenny Lofton signature down to where I could have reproduced it without even looking at it. I don't know why I did that, but I did.

When I was playing ball in college, there were guys on my team that would practice signing their names all nice and neat. When they saw my signature, they told me mine was bush league. I told that that they have obviosly never seen Kenny Lofton's. I think that I may have started signing my last name the way that I do after I got this card. Kenny was a bad influence on me.

I just noticed this. Lofton's signed last name looks like the "A" that starts Steve Avery's last name.

09 UD: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I bought my first packs of 2009 cards today. I bought three hobby packs of Upper Deck. I think that this is the first time that I have ever bought UD hobby before. I was shocked when I got to the card shop and was told that the packs were $5 a pop. Then he told me that there was 20 cards per pack. So my three $5 packs were like six $3 packs from Wal-Mart. Plus, there are sixteen packs per box and one auto and two relics per box. So here is what I liked and what I didn't like.

THE GOOD

Brian McCann Dual Swatch- GJ-BM (37/149)

Not only this, but I got an autograph of a crappy reliever, but I'll leave that for later on. Two hits in three packs. Not bad.


Nolan Ryan 20th Anniversiry- 208

This is a cool looking card. I'm not sure if this is an insert or part of the regular set. But, I would guess insert.


Nick Franklin USA baseball- 18U-NF

I have no idea who Nick Franklin is, but I got two USA cards in the three packs. Both were from the under 18 team. I'm hoping that they put last years Olympic team in packs. I have a friend who was on the team and I haven't pulled a card of him in six years.


THE BAD

Pat Burrell gold card- 294 (63/99)

I have no use for gold cards. I didn't even realize that this one was different from the rest until my second time through. This is borderline ugly to me, but I needed something in the bad catagory.


THE UGLY

Gas price plummets Historic Firsts Predictor- HP-2

My first thought when I saw this was WTF. Why waste cardboard on this stupid card? This is pointless and I doubt that anybody will care that this card exists. It's just another worthless gimmick card. Plus, gas used be $0.99 a gallon. So how can this be a first?


A 2008 Documentary card in '09 UD- 4926

Here is another one where I said WTF and then added "why is this in here". I was starting to think Topps Heritage high numbers until I saw that this one is from the ALCS. This one takes off where the original set left off with a photo from interleague play. But, at least Jason hit a home run in this game. I bought one pack of this crap last month, got an auto, and I figured that I would quit while I was ahead.


A-Rod Yankee Stadium Legacy- 6720

When I got this card, I thought "Noooooo, not these again." I never paid any attention to these last year, but by looking at this one, I just realized that they must have made one card for every game at Yankee Stadium (I'm quick, huh). This one shows A-Rod for a game that the Yankees got spanked. The backs talk about him and have a boxscore of the game that has nothing to do with A-Rod. This may be where they got the idea of Documentary.



So, there they are. I didn't get much base cards that stood out to me besides an Alex Gordon card with him in the powder blue jersey. Most of the stars that I got were on team checklists.

1992 Fleer, Chris Haney

#483 Chris Haney

I got this card signed at a Royals Caravan stop in 1993. I got two cards signed that night. You can see the other one here. How about that red jersey/powder blue pants combo?

According to Royals Retrospective, Chris Haney is the 87th best Roayls player in their 39-year history. You can read all about Chris Haney's exploits in Kansas City here.

I realize that this is a very short post, but since I have a scanner now, I will be posting my first packs of 2009 here shortly.

1992 Fleer, Mike Mussina

#20 Mike Mussina

Here's another card that I got through the mail in the early '90s. I got this when Mike still played for the O's. I've seen a couple of recent Mike Mussina autographs pop up recently at 30-Year Old Cardboard, OMGautos, and Taste Like Dirt Baseball. It's good to see that he continued signing through the mail throughout his career.

In the 15 or so years that separate my autograph from theirs, Mike's signature hasn't changed too much. His first name now looks like "Mile" instead of "Mihe" on my card. The "u" in his last name in mine has changed to an "i" in the recent ones. And on mine, he signs his "ina" with an underscore and a backwards "c". Today, he adds a few scribbles before he does the backward "c". But overall, he has a very nice signature that has stayed pretty consistent over the years, especially his "M".

I know Mussina retired recently. What I didn't realize was what a great season he had last year. Not only did he win 20 games, but that was the first time in his career that he had won 20. It took him 18 seasons to achieve the 20 win mark. Plus, he finished with a 3.37 ERA. Way to go out on top Mike!

I had the privilege to see Mike pitch three times, all as a Yankee. I saw him pitch once in Kansas City and once in Toronto. He won both games (8 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 6 K in Toronto in 2001). I also saw him pitch once in St. Petersburg where he gave up 6 runs (only 2 earned) and took the loss in 4.2 innings of work in 2006. You win some and you lose some.

1992 Donruss Rookies, Rusty Meacham

#76 Rusty Meacham

This is the second of three cards of Rusty Meacham. I got this card signed at a Staten Island Yankees game back in August. Rusty was the pitching coach of the visiting Vermont Lake Monsters.

Rusty has a very interesting signature. I'm not sure what to make of it. It looks like he starts his signature on the right side of the card and loops it around to the left side to start signing.

1992 Donruss, Cal Ripken Jr.

#3032/5000 Cal Ripken Jr.

If I would have participated in the blog bat around, this would have been listed as the centerpiece of my collection. I got this card in a pack in 1992 and to this day, it is still my best pull. This was the second year that Donruss inserted signature cards in their packs. There is a lot of gold foiling on the card front, but I think that it looks pretty good for 1992 standards. Actually, I like the gold foil. It gives off a prism effect that adds a lot of color to the front.

It is kind of funny how I ended up getting this card. Back in 1992, my dad was headed to the supermarket and I told him to grab some cards for me. I told him to get one pack of baseball cards, one pack of football cards, one pack basketball cards, and one pack of hockey cards. To my dismay, my dad came home with two packs of '92 Donruss and I was pissed. I refused to open them up because they weren't what I wanted. So, my dad opened them up. When he got to this card, he said "what's this, a Diamond King?". That was the first year that the DKs were inserts, so they were cool cards to pull. So, I got up to check it out and I think that my heart skipped a beat when I saw this card.

In '92, this card booked for about $400. Last time I checked, it was at $250. That kind of surprised me since most of the certified autos today aren't worth a whole lot, especially if there 5000 of them printed. I just looked for one of these on ebay to see what they were going for, but I didn't see any.

The photo here reminds me of some '70s Topps pictures (it's tilted). Also, I finally got myself a scanner, so all of the scans are going to be much better looking. I am going to re-scan all of the cards that I have shown on here so they will look better. I have already got all of the pre-1980 cards redone.

Last year, Cal came to my hometown to speak at the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner. He took photos with everyone after the event and then when that was over, he signed for less than five minutes. I didn't get my ball signed. But when he was leaving, I noticed which exit he was going to use and intercepted him outside. He was nice enough to sign my 1998 All-Star game ball. However, he was in a hurry and he signed it with a Sharpie. We'll see how that turns out.