Friday, May 22, 2009

A Few New Game-Used Cards

Just a quick post today showcasing some of the game-used cards that I've acquired recently. First, a few vertically oriented cards...



2005 Diamond Kings Materials Silver Bat-Jsy 295 #/100
2004 Leaf Certified Materials Mirror Combo Red LGD Bat-Jsy 222 #/250
2003 Topps Pristine Bomb Squad Relics Bat B RH
2004 Playoff Honors Players Collection Jersey Blue White 76 #/250

And now for a few horizontally oriented cards...



2005 Playoff Prestige Connections Material Dual Jersey w/Gwynn 23 #/250
2004 Donruss Timelines Boys of Summer Material Jsy 21
2004 Donruss Classics Dress Code Jersey 13 #/100
2005 Donruss Champions Impressions Hat Sox 313 #/219

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

More Pictures from Rickey's Hall of Fame Tour

After putting up the previous post, I found a few more pictures of Rickey's recent tour of the Hall of Fame. Thanks to the Associated Press, here's an inside look into Rickey's visit.



This is my favorite picture of them all, as it reminds me of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I can only imagine what's inside that wall of boxes in front of Rickey, and would really love to find out! The table in front of Rickey is full of memorabilia from his career that has been donated to the Hall, including shoes, bats, balls, and jerseys!



Wearing "stylish" white gloves (which Rickey might not mind wearing on a normal occasion), Rickey checks out an old bat of his which now finds its home in the Hall's archives.



Rickey admires the plaques in the Plaque Gallery, where his own plaque (wearing an A's hat!) will be hanging in about two months time.



Last but not least, Rickey's poses in front of the shoes that he was wearing when he tied Lou Brock's all-time stolen base record, with steal number 938, in a game that I was lucky enough to be able to attend.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Rickey Henderson Visits the Hall of Fame

Just a short update today, as I apologize for the lack of any new posts recently, but I wanted to get this one out there.



Before the official induction ceremony arrives, every new inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame gets to visit the Hall for a behind the scenes tour. The new Hall members are able to get hands on with the memorabilia (well, they do have to wear white gloves), holding items such as bats used by Babe Ruth and gloves belonging to Cy Young. About a week ago, Rickey and his wife took their own through the Hall.

Here's a link to both the MLB and Hall of Fame coverage, with each article containing several pictures and video clips of the event.


Sunday, May 3, 2009

San Francisco Tri-Star Show - A Second Chance

A few months after I started this blog, and got back into collecting again, I went to the big semi-annual Tri-Star collectors show at the Cow Palace in Daly City. I was a little disappointed in the show last year, as it was not as nice as I had remembered in being, but I was hoping that this year would be better.

I hadn't been to a show since then (gone are the days where there is one practically every weekend at some nearby Holiday Inn or strip mall), so I decided to give it another chance. My collection had certainly grown since then, as I had 41 post 2001 cards (about when I initially stopped collecting) at the time, and now I have 331!

I trekked the two hours from Sacramento, and after waiting outside in the rain (they refused to open the doors even one minute before 10am), it was time to browse. I know everyone probably has their own strategies for "attacking" a card show, but I like to take a quick look around first, and see if anything jumps out at me. I then go back for a second trip, carefully stopping at each table (unless it's filled with something like Pokemon cards, which really don't belong at these type of shows). This strategy paid off this time, as I was able to snag a pretty cool new Rickey collectible.





This is a 10-piece Rickey Henderson "puzzle" pin set that the A's are currently selling a the Coliseum. The large "pin" at the top is probably about 2" square, with each of the gold circle being individual pins, as well as the four other quadrants and the A's logo in the middle. The name plate at the bottom is even a large pin, which I didn't realize until I took a closer look at it for this post.

Jim over at tastelikedirt actually just e-mailed me a picture of this last week (the first I'd seen of it), which also contained it's $40 price tag. That's a bit pricey for a pin, but I was able to get it for half off at the show, which definitely made it worth the trip.



My next find was the premiere issue (I'm not sure how long it lasted, but probably not very) of Trading Cards magazine from July 1991, which I got for only a buck. Rickey has been on the cover of a lot of a lot of magazines over his approximately 25-year career, and while I don't usually pick up the regular baseball magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Inside Sports, I do like to collect any baseball card related magazines on which he is featured.



This was the other magazines I picked up, and it's actually the current issue of "Beckett Graded Card Investor & Price Guide" (not the most memorable name), which Beckett had available at their booth. I'll feature both of the Rickey articles in these magazines in the near future. The Trading Card magazine also has a few interesting non-Rickey articles, including one on why Fleer and Donruss had to initially include stickers and puzzles in their packs of cards.



Here's two of the seven Rickey cards that I was able to pick up from the show. I was holding out hope that everyone would bring out their Rickey cards, considering this was the first major show in the Bay Area since his HOF induction, but that didn't seem to be the case. The card on the top is a 2004 Leaf Certified Cuts jersey, numbered out of 100. The bottom card is a 2005 Studio Heritage jersey numbered out of 250. The green swatch on the top card is nice, as is the fact that they both feature him playing with the A's.



These next two cards are actually Topps stickers from 1989 and 1990 respectively. The look pretty ordinary from the front, but then you flip them over...



I know that's not the most exciting picture, but both of these stickers are blank backed. They actually started an interesting trend, as the three remaining cards that I picked up also become more interesting when flipped over.



Here's a 2003 Playoff Portraits of Rickey, once again featuring him as an Athletic.



But, flip it over, and it's a dual jersey and bat card numbered to only 25 copies.



This next card is a 2004 Playoff Honors Players Collection jersey, which features a nice black swatch of jersey from his time with the Mariners.



Flip it over, and you'll see that it's numbered 24/25. Cards serial numbered to Rickey's jersey number always sell for a premium, so it's nice to pick one up for a normal price, and then get a nice surprise when flipped over.



Here's what looks to be Rickey's base card from 1999 Skybox Molten Metal. But, flip it over...



And it is also blank backed. It is fairly common to find blank backed and printer error cards from Topps sets in the late 1980's, but anything more recent is usually pretty hard to come by.

So, although there wasn't the deluge of Rickey items that I was hoping for, I still added some great cards to the collection, including some nice oddball pick-ups. Unless things change unexpectedly, there won't be any Sacramento shows in the near future, and I'll find myself in Daly City once again a year from now.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Rickey Breaks Brock's Stolen Base Record

On this date in 1991, 18 years ago, Rickey Henderson stole base number 939, passing Lou Brock on the all-time stolen base record list.

I did a fairly photo extensive post on this last year, which you can access via this link.



Unfortunately, I don't have much time to create anything new, but I couldn't let the day go by unnoticed. Plus, if you weren't around last year, it's new to you!