Sweeeeeep!

This post actually doesn't have to do with the Dodgers three game sweep of the hated Giants of the North.  Nor does this post have to do with the Dodgers five game winning streak.  I just wanted to obnoxiously use "sweeeeeep" in the title because as a Dodger fan, I had to wait until the end of June to puff my chest out with pride based on the team's performance.  It has been a rough start for the Dodgers so far this season and getting a sweep against the team's biggest rival is the really high quality icing on the cake that melts in your mouth.

Now onto the purpose of this post after I got some brief gloating out of the way.  The time has come to churn out some trade posts.  I have noticed that I don't get around to posting about the cards that the kindhearted blog world sends me until bubble mailers become a scattered mess on my desk.  Once the clutter overtakes a portion of my bedroom, then I know it is time to give thanks to the trade partners that send me the goods.

Dime Box Nick is a Platter All-Star because he sends me some great cardboard and writes a kick ass blog.  Nick is able to find gems like this flashy Satchell Paige to send my way.  This may be my first card of Paige as a St.Louis Brown.  The few other cards I have of the pitching legend show him as a Cleveland Indian.  The spelling of his first name confuses me on this card.  I thought his first name only had one "L" and not two.  Since, I don't know anybody else nicknamed Satchel or Satchell, I have no point of comparison for the proper spelling.

This card motivated me to look up some of Paige's major league numbers.  It turns out that Paige started a game for the KC Athletics as a 58 year old.  This start came in the 1965 season and was his only appearance in the majors that year.  His previous stint in the big leagues came as a St.Louis Brown in 1953.  Paige had a 12 year gap between major league outings.  That is a huge span of years between pitching performances.  Oh yeah, I will mention this once more, he made a start as a 58 year old dude.

I will also like to mention how he did in his 1965 start.  Paige pitched 3 innings without giving up a run and only allowed one base runner.  He dominated for 3 innings as a 58 year old.  Just plain unbelievable.  Paige is a legend.

 
The bubble mailer sent to me by Nick was littered with hall of fame sweetness.  Most of the cards he sent me were new additions to my hall of fame collection.  I may need to start another binder for my American League side of my collection.  This Rod Carew may set the AL binder over the edge and a new binder will be needed.

I love the crystal clear images of the Upper Deck Past Time Pennants sets.  Why do some photographs on baseball cards seem crystal clear and next level while others don't take you into the setting of the shot?  Why don't card companies only use the best photo available?  What is the process to make and older image like this Carew look like it was taken by the best digital camera of 2013?  Any photography experts out there?

The early Fleer sets were notorious with their poor standards of photography and quality control.  Blurry and dark images somehow made it into some of the early-80s Fleer offerings.  Even with the sub standards, Fleer was able to churn out some cardboard gold.

Steve Yeager cards get featured at the Platter fairly regularly.  A baseball card blog named for Yeager would probably be a good idea.  Yeager has some cool looking cards and his image seems to represent what men looked like in the late seventies and early eighties.

Dime Box Nick has also claimed this week to be PWE Appreciation Week and is encouraging bloggers to send each other a couple cards in a plain white envelope.  This is a fantastic idea and I am sure many of his readers will follow suit and mail out something nice to their blogger pals.  I have already sent one out earlier today and will get some more out later this week.

Spread the kindness around the blog world.

Thanks for the nice cards, Nick.

Weird Player Combos

Some baseball card blogs that I have been reading express a frustration with new cards and want to cut back purchasing new products in 2013.  The card collectors that are going to buy less packs or boxes, may impact trading in a way.

I enjoy getting some random Dodgers base cards from new sets that I wasn't going to buy anyways.  Products like Bowman or many Chrome products probably won't be purchased by me in 2013 or beyond.  Other bloggers do buy these packs though and some even send me the Dodgers from those sets.  If the blog community as a whole, spend less in 2013, will there be less trading?

If I bought less packs of new cards, then my trade bait will go down.  I will become less likely to pull that Josh Willingham auto that some blogger may want.

It is just a thought. I am just curious to see if less baseball card purchasing will impact the trade aspect of collecting.

The blog community will always have some free giveaways.  I think the contest or just plain old fashion, "here are some cards, please take them," is ingrained in our blogging hearts.

Too Many Verlanders ran a giveaway the old fashioned way and I swooped in to claim a bunch of cards.  The grouping of cards that the blog runner, Dennis, sent me, were an abundance of multi-player cards.  The trickiness of having cards with multiple players on them, is that over time the card may turn out to be downright comical.

Maybe back in 2001, Jose Ortiz was thought of to be a stud like Rod Carew or Roberto Alomar.  This is a really nice looking card with shooting stars and your eyes do follow the progression that Topps chose to showcase.

Ortiz had a short big league career and crushed a whopping 14 homers in 3 seasons.  To his credit, Ortiz did play 17 professional seasons in the minors, Japan and Mexico.  He hit 203 home runs in those seasons.  He was a pretty good ball player but, just not major league caliber.  Certainly not at the level of greatness that was Carew and Alomar.

Should this card go in my Rod Carew section, Roberto Alomar section or a solo page for Jose Ortiz?

Here is a Bowman product that I can enjoy.  This is a '99 Bowman's Best insert featuring Nomar.  The set is called Mirror Image and you can see a lurking player behind Nomar throwing.  See that dude?

Yes, that dude is career scrub, Pablo Ozuna.  The last year that Ozuna spent in the big leagues was with the Dodgers in 2008.  He had 32 awful at-bats where he racked up a .242 on-base percentage.

The only reason that I remember him playing as a Dodger is because I remember questioning, why is he a Dodger.

This is such a nice looking card though, that I will place this in the random Red Sox section of a binder.  Nomar deserves that for being a good baseball player, played decent as a Doyer and for not being Pablo Ozuna.

I still have several more team bags to scope through that Dennis sent me.  I will pull out a bundle of these cards randomly and show off the cardboard fun.

Update on my 1981 Topps Chase

Awhile back I started to try and pick up certain cards from the 1981 Topps set.  Mostly cards of Dodgers and dudes in the Hall of Fame.  That list is slowly getting smaller and smaller.  I can sense victory.  The joy of completing a collecting goal is almost complete.

I just need a little more help and luck to get there.

I picked this up at my local card shop today.  It was just chilling in the dime box waiting for me to swoop in on it.

This also may be the only time an Angel gets featured at the Platter.  I am pretty sure I have never shown a card of a player down in the OC.

But, here at the Platter, I show respect to the legends of baseball no matter what uniform they wear.  I owe it to the baseball Gods to bow down to members of the Hall of Fame.

This is a great dime box find.  This card gets crossed off my 1981 Topps want list and also fits into my Hall of Fame collection.

If any of you guys have any of the remaining cards on my want list, please let me know.  Check out the list here.