1981 Donruss, Bo Diaz

#517 Bo Diaz

This is the fourth and final card that my wife bought me for Christmas this past year. All four cards were slabbed '81 Donruss autographs from deceased players/managers that were all DNA/PSA certified. While Dan Quisenberry was my favorite of the bunch because of the Royals connection, this one was probably the coolest just because Bo passed away less than ten years after this set came out.

Bo died in 1990 while adjusting his satellite dish on his home in Venezuela. He was only 37 years old at the time.

Nonetheless, Bo had a successful Major League career. He played in the league for thirteen years with the Red Sox, Indians, Phillies, and Reds. He was a .255 hitter that slugged 87 home runs and drove in 452 RBI. He played in one World Series and two All Star Games.

His best season was with the Phillies in 1982. That year he hit .288 and had career highs with 18 dingers and 85 RBI.

'81 Donruss Tracker: #222

1981 Donruss, Dick Williams

#453 Dick Williams

This is actually the second card of Dick Williams that I have posted on here. I posted the first one in 2008. It was a cool '84 Fleer checklist card that Rod, from Padrograhs, gave me. Less than three years after that post, Dick passed away. But, I was still able to add him to my Donruss set thanks to my wife stepping up her game this past Christmas. This is the third card, out of four, that she bought me to help me out with the project. All four cards were of deceased players.

Dick managed in the Majors for 21 years. He was a constant presence with some team every year from 1967 to 1988, with the exception of 1970. Over that span, he managed the Red Sox, A's, Angels, Expos, Padres, and Mariners. He took the Sox, A's, and Padres to the World Series and won in twice with the A's in the early '70s.

One of the best seasons he had was with the Expos in 1979. That club finished 95-65. Those 95 wins were the second most victories he had in a single season. Unfortunately, the Expos came up two games short to the eventual World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates.

Dick finished his managerial career with a 1571-1451 record. He won manager of the year three times and was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.

'81 Donruss Tracker: #215

1981 Donruss, Chuck Tanner

#257 Chuck Tanner

Here is the second of four '81 Donruss cards that my wife bought for me for Christmas this past year. This one features long time manager, Chuck Tanner, who passed away in 2011.

Chuck had played in the Major Leagues for parts of eight seasons with the Braves, Cubs, Indians, and Angels. He appeared in just 396 games over that time and hit .261 with 21 home runs.

Chuck got into managing after his playing career and managed four different clubs over nineteen consecutive seasons. He lead the White Sox, A's, Pirates, and Braves. Over those nineteen seasons, his clubs had five second place finishes and his 1979 Pirates team won it all. For his career, his clubs posted a 1352 and 1381 record. He won American League Manager of the Year with the White Sox in 1972.

'81 Donruss Tracker: #196

1981 Donruss, Dan Quisenberry

#222 Dan Quisenberry

Obviously, I did not get this card signed through the mail as Dan passed away from a form of brain cancer in 1998. Instead, my lovely wife bought me this card for Christmas two months ago. She couldn't figure out what to get me, so I talked her into buying me some signed '81 Donruss cards from deceased players. She ended up getting me four of them, which was really cool of her. All four were PSA/DNA certified and all four will be unslabbed and put into my binder with the rest of the '81 Donruss.

Growing up in Kansas in the '80s, I certainly knew who Dan Quisenberry was. Even though I didn't realize how great of a closer he was in that era, I knew of him because of his side arm delivery. Playing catch in the backyard usually turned into imitating your favorite pitchers windups. At some point, you always had to uncork a Dan Quisenberry side arm pitch in there and it usually wound up ten feet to the left of the person you were trying to throw it to.

Dan pitched for the Royals, Cardinals, and Giants during his twelve year career. Over that span, he racked up 244 saves while making two All Star teams and leading the American League in saves five times.

'81 Donruss Tracker: #194

1993 Classic Four Sport, Jermaine Allensworth

#273 Jermaine Allensworth

Here is a card that was given to me by the Bob Apodaca Day contest #3 winner, Steve. He was the skillful winner of the Mickey Mantle bobblehead and he told me that he would send me this card as a way of saying thanks. I told him that it wasn't necessary, but he sent it to me anyways. Since I am not one to turn down autographs, I graciously accepted. Steve said that he pulled this card out of a pack back in the day.

Jermaine was the Pirates first round compensation pick in 1993, out of Purdue. He rose quickly through the minor league ranks and made his Major League debut in 1996. In 61 games that season, Jermaine hit .262 with 4 home runs and 31 RBI. In '97, he played 5 AAA games and spent the rest of the season with the Pirates, hitting .255 with 3 home runs and 44 RBI. He spent all of '98 at the big league level, but he ended up spending the time with three different franchises.

He started the season with Pittsburgh and was hitting .309 in 233 at-bats. The Pirates then shipped him to the Royals and he stayed there for 30 games and he hit .205 with them. The Royals then flipped him to the Mets and he finished the season with them, hitting .205 in 54 games. Jermaine played in 40 more games for the Mets the following season and that was the conclusion of his Major League career. He finished up as a .260 hitter with 15 homers.

Even though, Jermaine never made it back up to the Majors, he never quit trying. He retired just over two years ago after spending the final five years of his career playing in the now defunct Northern League.

Thanks Steve!

2001 Quad City River Bandits Grandstand, Terry Tiffee

#24 Terry Tiffee

Here is the second card that Tiffee gave me when he came by my house while I was in college. You can read about that here.

Surprisingly, these are the only two cards that I have signed by Terry. I have two of his 2003 Topps cards (one regular and one gold), but I have been unable to get those signed so far. I had planned on getting the regular issue one signed at a Oklahoma Red Hawks game in 2008. Terry was with the Las Vegas 51s at that time. But, he got picked to represent Team USA in the summer Olympics that year. It worked out well for him, though, as he was able to capture the bronze medal at the games. I do, however, have a few signed balls from him and an autographed bat that looks great.

Terry made his "#" sign on his "ff" on this card and then forgot to add his number.

2000 QC River Bandits Roox, Terry Tiffee

NN Terry Tiffee

Here is one of my favorite autographs. The reason why I like this card is because Terry Tiffee is the only person I have personally known to make it to the Major Leagues. Tiffee and I were teammates with the 1998 Pratt Community College Beavers. Not only were we teammates, we were also close friends during the two years we went to school there.

In 2001, my buddy Dustin and I made our inaugural ballpark roadtrip. We saw games at Camden Yards, Veterans Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Skydome, and Wrigley Field. The game at Wrigley was a day game, so after that we high-tailed it to Davenport, Iowa to see Terry play for the Quad City River Bandits. We hit some heavy traffic leaving Chicago and ended up getting to the game in the fourth inning (which worked out fine since we got in for free). After the game, we met up with Terry and he gave us some balls and stuff. We would have went somewhere to hang out, but Terry's folks were in town that weekend.

Once his season was over, Terry was heading to Liberal, Kansas to see his girlfriend (now his wife). I was going to school at Kansas State at the time and he called me up and asked if he could crash at my place for the night. My roommate at the time also played at Pratt, so we were more than happy to have him stay. As soon as he got to our place, he gave us both a couple of cards that he had signed. It was pretty cool seeing an actual baseball card of someone you knew. That will probably be the last time that that ever happens to me.

I like how Terry signed this card. He made the bottom of the two "f's" in his last name look like the # sign and then put his number after it.

As mentioned before, Terry is playing for the Quad City River Bandits in this card. The River Bandits are still around today, although they did briefly change their name to the Swing of the Quad Cities for a bit. One difference is that they are now affiliated with the Cardinals instead of the Twins.

How is this for foreshadowing? When we were at Pratt, Terry actually owned a River Bandits hat.

1940 Play Ball, Bob "Suitcase" Seeds

#91 Bob Seeds

This right here was the coolest Christmas present that I recieved this year. Actually, this is the best present that I have recieved in some time. This was given to me by my best friend, Dustin. Dustin used to do all of my scans for me before I got my own scanner and he was my lone reader when I first started this blog. He picked this card up from ebay. Apparently, my Lou Brissie post caught his eye when I was talking about my oldest signed card and he decided to get me an older one. This card is nine years older than the Brissie card. Not only is it my oldest signed card, it is also the oldest card that I own.

Prior to this card, I had never heard of Bob Seeds (aka Suitcase). That just makes it more fun learning about him and checking his stats.

Bob played for five teams in his nine year career. He was mostly a backup player, with the exception of the 1932 season. He was a career .277 hitter who had career highs in home runs (9) and RBI (52) in 1938 while appearing in only 81 games for the Giants. In 1936, he played in 13 regular season games with the Yankees and made it onto their World Series roster. He only made one appearance in the Series and that was as a pinch runner in game five.

In that game, the Giants grabbed a one run lead in the top of the tenth. In the bottom half of the inning, Bill Dickey lead off with a single and Bob was sent in to pinch run for him. The next two batters popped out and Bob ended the game by trying to steal second. At that point in his career, Bob had been successful in only 13 of 28 base stealing attempts. With the bottom third of the order up, the Yankees must have been desperate (or Bob said "screw it" and took off anyway). Even though they lost the game, the Yanks still went on to win the Series in six games.

On the back of the card, it says that Bob is the only Major League player to own his own ball club. That was the Amirillo team in the West Texas-New Mexico League. Also, it says that the Giants purchased him from Newark and he is called Suitcase because he has switched teams so many times.

Bob has been deceased since 1993, so I guess that this card could be labeled an "unpossible autograph".

Here is the dilemma I have with this card. This card is graded.



I'm not into graded cards and I don't have anyway to display this. Generally, I like to keep all of my signed cards in binders. So here is the question. Do I leave the card in the case or do I remove it? If I were to remove it, does anyone know the best way to do that with these cases?

1995 Old Judge, Karim Garcia

#14 Karim Garcia

This card was given to me as a Christmas gift from my dad when I was in high school. Why he picked this particular card is beyond me. I liked the Dodgers at the time, so I am sure that the local card shop owner talked-up this card to my dad. Either way, it is still a cool card to have. I wish I still got random autographs for Christmas.

Karim had a ten year Major League career with seven different teams. The most games he ever played in one season was 113. That was in 1998 with the exspansion Diamondbacks. After the 1999 season, he was pretty much up and down from AAA to the Majors for the rest of career. He might best be described as a AAAA player. He dominated AAA (.288 average, 205 home runs), but not the Major Leagues (.241 avg, 66 HR).

As for this set, I know nothing about it. This is the only card that I have from it. All I know is that it was made by Signature Rookies and the card is small (slightly bigger than an A&G mini). I have no idea if these cards made up their own set or of they were inserts in another set.

1993 Ted Williams, Sal Bando

#42 Sal Bando

This card was a gift to me, I guess you could say. Back when I was basically given the '69 Topps Frank Howard card, this card was thrown in. I had the Howard card on my want list and Scott, from A Pack A Day, filled that void for me. I sent him a self-addressed stamped envelope and he sent the card to me. When I got the card back, I noticed a weird inscription under his return address. It said "You stole my A's". I had no idea what that meant until I opened the envelope and saw this card. Scott is from Philly and I live in Kansas and am a Royals fan. Once I put two and two together, I thought that it was pretty funny. Thanks, again, Scott.

Speaking of funny, I have had kind of a funny day. I woke up early and drove for three hours to Kansas City for the Royals game. I got there just before noon and set up shop by the Royals parking lot. When I got there, it was cool and cloudy, just like the weather report predicted. Then, it started to mist and then rain (not in the forecast). Then it stopped. I got a couple of Royals to sign for me while it was dry. Then it started misting again and that continued for the next two hours. By the time that I had had enough, I was up to 21 signed cards and I was cold and wet. So rather than go get something to eat and get ready for BP (which I was pretty sure they would not be having), I got in my car and drove the three hours back home. What a day. Only a couple of the cards smeared because of the persipitation. After the best pitcher in baseball (right now) signed my three cards, I figured that I had had a good enough day.

1990 Fleer 4

#4 Robin Ventura

This card is from the Soaring Stars insert set. This is the only card from that set that I have. I bought a ton of wax of '90 Fleer and never got one of these, so it must have come in cello or rack packs. There are only twelve cards in the insert set.

I got this card for Christmas one year from my Grandma. Wal-Mart was selling these cards in the early or mid '90s. I think it was ten bucks for an autographed card and it came in a nice hard case and with a certificate of authenticity. The Wal-Mart in my town only had two different players, and Robin was by far the better of the two. I'll show the other one in a few months. Any guesses?

Robin had a long career in baseball and made lots of money. He made two All-Star teams and played in one World Series. He now does commentary for ESPN during the College World Series. But, for me, he is best remembered as being Nolan Ryan's punching bag.