Monday, March 29, 2010

2008 Newark Bears Choice Team Set

It's always fun to find out that there's card out there that you didn't know existed, and then try and track it down yourself. In regards to Rickey cards, that doesn't happen to me very often, but it did with the card below.


This card was part of a 2008 team set put out by the Newark Bears, who Rickey played for during parts of the 2003 and 2004 seasons. At the end of the set were a couple of black & white cards that featured famous Newark Bears alumni. I'm not sure how it managed to allude me for the past two years, but I had never even seen one until someone offered to sell me the card in an e-mail about a month or so ago.


The Newark Bears have been on pretty shaky financial grounds the past few years, and were bought out of bankruptcy by new management in 2009. I don't know the print run on the 2008 sets, but I don't believe many of them were produced, and have heard that any remaining sets might have been destroyed when the new management took over.

Here's a list of all of Rickey's other Minor League cards (at least, until another one pops up that I didn't know about):

1977 Modesto A's
1979 Ogden A's
1989 Modesto A's
2003 Atlantic League All-Stars
2003 Newark Bears
2004 Newark Bears
2008 Newark Bears

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

1988 Fleer Sluggers / Pitchers "Baseball's Best" Box Bottom

During the late 1980's, Rickey was quite frequently included as one of the players selected to be included on the panel of cards on the bottom of hobby and retail store boxes. Most of these are fairly common, with some of the O-Pee-Chee Canadian boxes being a little harder to find. But, none are as rare as the 1988 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers (also known as "Baseball's Best) box bottom. After searching for over 20 years, I finally came across one of these!


Here's a close-up of the card in question. I'm still looking for a nice "cut" version of the card, as the one that I picked up is still attached to the entire display box. Until I came into contact with a few collectors through this blog, I wasn't even sure if this card actually existed!


Here's what the complete panel looks like. I really want to attempt to "free" Rickey from the rest of the panel, but I know I won't be able to cut it accurately enough for my liking.


Until I received these cards in the mail, I'd never actually seen the back of one of them before. The Rickey is one of 6 cards in the set,and is number C-2.


Here's the top to the Sluggers /Pitchers sets display case, which were only available in large retail /drug stores, and contained 24 individual box sets. As a result, most of the display boxes were thrown out, and very few have survived today. Plus, since they were sliding around on store shelves, most of the panels include some surface wear, as well as various mounts of creasing.


The front panel of the boxes actually features a nice image of some of the superstars of the time. Although Rickey is not included, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens are some of those represented.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Trade with Thoughts and Sox

I received an an e-mail about a month of so from Thoughts and Sox regarding the Rickey Henderson Wal-Mart black parallel from 2010 Topps. Since it was one of the few 2010 Topps I'd yet to acquire, I was definitely interested. .

I'm incredibly behind on my posting, however, and since I noticed that he recently mentioned my return trade, I figured I should probably post the one that started it all.


If anyone happens to have the Target Throwback Oakland A's Franchise #137, I'm still missing that one, as well as the black parallel #/59.


Along with the Wal-Mart Rickey, there were a few other Rickey's as well, along with a bunch of other A's.


Young Reggie vs. old Reggie. I like young Reggie better, but I did actually get to see old Reggie play in Oakland.


Here's Rajai Davis doing his best Rickey impersonation. Rickey has been working a lot with Rajai during Spring Training, and claims that he'll be able to steal 80 bases this year. I hope he's right!


Some of my other favorite A's from the trade.


We'll end this with an awesome Rollie Fingers card. I love the look of this years Topps Tribute, especially the cards that don't have the players name on the front, and wish that Rickey had been included in the set. Plus, the photo features an Oakland Coliseum pre-Mount Davis, which is how I'd like it to be remembered.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

"Rickey Henderson Field" Dedication Hat

Update: I have managed to acquire the remaining inventory of hats from the event. If anyone is interested in purchasing one, please e-mail me through the blog. The hats are $30 each via Paypal, which includes Priority Mail shipping in the U.S.

Back in October 2009, Rickey Henderson's High School Alma mater had a dedication ceremony for the renaming of the school's baseball field to "Rickey Henderson Field." If you attended the ceremony, they had a couple of different merchandise items available for purchase, including yellow and purple baseball hats, a t-shirt and polo shirt, as well as a "program" for the event.


This is the yellow hat that was available, which features an embroidered logo of the sign that now hangs above the backstop on the field. I'll feature the rest of the items in a later post.





The side of the hat includes Rickey's #24, while the back of the hat includes the Oakland Tech (OT) logo, as well as the date of the dedication.


As mentioned above, here's a picture of the sign that now hangs behind home plate, which served as the model for the hat.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

2010 Topps Attax Sepia Foil Legend

While all of the Rickey inserts and parallels included in 2009 Triple Threads and 2010 Topps have been great, it was nice to complete a new set with only one card!



This is Rickey's one and only card from 2010 Topps Attax, where the complete checklist can be found here. It's a "Sepia Foil Legend" card, and there is one card from the set inserted in every $4.99 starter deck. With only 10 Legends cards included in the insert set, they haven't been too hard to come by. But, it is a pretty nice looking card, as I've always been a fan of the more creative and oddball releases.



Since this is a game (I have no idea how it's played), the backs of the cards are pretty plain. You wouldn't want to tip off the rest of the players that you had Rickey hiding in your deck!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Ante Up for Autism Charity Event

If anyone happens to be in Arizona for Spring Training, or just lives nearby, Rickey will be playing in the Ante Up for Autism charity event tonight, which is being hosted by Dave Stewart and Matt Kemp.



Tickets for the event are sold out, but general admission tickets are still available at the door.