Road to Wrigley 5K Race Goodies for Me!

 I ran one virtual 5K this summer, but nagging injuries have kept me on the shelf since. AJ, otherwise known as The Lost Collector, alerted me to the virtual Road to Wrigley 5K, but I had to sit that one out. 

Being a Yankees fan and collector, AJ didn't have much use for the giveaways which came with being a participant and since he is a uber-generous individual he sent them to P-town. 

It looks like Holiday has taken to the Cubs drawstring bag. 

I have a friend in mind to pass the shirt along to. 

Inside the bubble mailer and wrapped within the shirt was some cardboard. Woo-Hoo!

Late 80's Donruss always takes me back to my early collecting years. 

The two Sosa cards are separated by nine years, with 1992 Fleer Ultra on the left and 2001 Bowman on the right. Honestly, I thought there would be a notable body mass difference between the two pictures, but I'm not seeing it. 

When I see cards of Mark Prior and Starlin Castro back-to-back it's difficult to not think about what could have been. Both were touted as players who would help bring a championship to Wrigley. 

Prior and Castro were hotshot prospects who delivered on their talent for a couple of years, but then one was bitten by the injury bug and the other was swallowed up by mediocrity. 

It was not too long along ago my Sandberg collection passed the 1,000 card mark. I think AJ is trying to push me on to a second thousand. LOL

This 2003 Upper Deck Play Ball card of Kerry Wood is one I hadn't see before. It certainly has an old school feel to it that I like. 

Last up, some VOGELMONSTERS!

Assuming the NL sticks with the DH, I think 2021 will present Vogelbach with his best opportunity to secure a place for himself in MLB. Miller Park is a great place to hit and I think the Brewers will give him every chance to succeed next summer. I was bummed Vogelbach left Seattle, but I'm pretty stoked he found his way out of Toronto and to a ballpark which is within driving distance for yours truly. 

Thanks for the race goodies and the cards, AJ! I've added you to my ever-growing "send cards to" list. 

Have a great rest of the weekend, everybody!

Vintage Scorecards from Mom

 During my last visit to my parents' house my mom handed me a file folder from her youth. Mom & Dad have been making their way through the many boxes housed in their storage space in their basement. I actually have a stack of boxes, from my childhood, which I need to retrieve, but today's post will focus on some baseball related content from Mom's childhood.  

First up is a couple of pages from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from July 12, 1966. 

Thousands of "A" students had their names published in the paper. Hey, look! There's my mom!

Also, within the paper are messages from the MLB Commissioner, the AL and NL presidents, and August A. Busch, Jr., the president of Anheuser Busch.

14,545 students were given a ticket in the reserved seating area for the efforts in the classroom. Very cool.

Next up is a St. Louis Cardinals score card from the 1965 season. 

The first thing I noticed when opening up the scorecard were the penciled in attendance numbers at the top of the page, "22,003 people - 8,100 A Students."

Other things to note are some of the names from the game on August 18th, 1965, which include Felipe Alou, Hank Aaron, Joe Torre, Lou Brock and Curt Flood. Unfortunately, all of those honors students went home disappointed as the Milwaukee Braves defeated the Cardinals 5-3 on this day. Lastly, check out the "special plays" section at the bottom of the score card. I've never seen anything like that before. 

Here's another scorecard from the same year, but this one drew my interest a little more as the Cubs visited St. Louis.

Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks came to town and defeated the Cardinals 12-4, on June 25th, 1965.

Inside the scorecard was a 50+ year old relic: 

Aren't peanuts around $4 in a stadium these days?

Here's a slightly older scorecard from August 24th, 1964.

The Cardinals were able to turn the Pirates away, by the score of 5-1.

The Pirates had Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Bill Mazeroski in the lineup, but the late Bob Gibson put together this line: 9 innings, 6 hits, 1 earned run, 2 walks and 12 strikeouts. Wow. 

One more side note: The Cardinals began the day in 4th place (65-58) and 11 games behind the Phillies in the NL, but they would rally the last month of the season and eventually defeat the Yankees in the World Series. 

There were four more scorecards in Mom's file folder.

June 17th, 1966 - Phillies 6 and Cardinals 5. The Phillies had Dick Allen and Bob Uecker in the lineup.

June 29th, 1966 - Cardinals 2 and Giants 1. The Giants started Juan Marichal, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. 

July 8th, 1966 - Astros 6 and Cardinals 1. Jim "The Toy Cannon" Wynn and Rusty Staub were the big names in Houston's lineup, which handed Bob Gibson the loss.

July 13th, 1967 - Pirates 8 and Cardinals 5. The Pirates bested Steve Carlton in this match-up. The Pirates' lineup was loaded with recognizable names, Clemente, Stargell, Maz, Manny Mota and Maury Wills. 

The Cardinals were a force to be reckoned with during the middle part of the 60's, winning it all in 1964 and 1967, but they only managed to win two games of the seven my mom attended during this time. Sometimes that's the way it goes I guess. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these scorecards, but I sure did enjoy flipping through them and seeing my mom's handwriting throughout. 

Thanks for stopping by!

I am Groot.

 Back in July Daniel was featuring a stuffed Groot toy in his posts at It's like having my own Card Shop. A made a suggestion in the comments about showing Groot off in eleven straight posts to celebrate his blog's eleven year anniversary. Amazingly enough, he took my suggest and ran with it!

Here's one of my favorite pictures from his posts: 

Then a couple of weeks ago I had a flat rate box from Arizona show up randomly. I didn't think much of it at the time, but we all know Arizona is Groot's off-season home when he's not bumming around with Rocket Racoon. 

This box was loaded with things that made me smile. Let's start off with the note!

I will always take Vogelbach cards which need a good home and I'm touched that Daniel decided to send me Groot!

This is the 1,003rd Ryne Sandberg in my collection. It's a super thick 2017 Topps Tribute card. Fancy!

Kris Bryant had a rough 2020 at the plate and I heard he might be on the trading block.  The former MVP will be 29 when next season starts, which is his last under contract. 

Rizzo has a $16.5 million team option for 2021. I think the Cubs' front office will pick up that option without much hesitation. If there is a delay, it's only because they're talking about an extension. 

I know a bunch of Cubs fans who feel Javy Baez is the leader of the team, but I'm the in Rizzo camp. He may not be as flashy and exciting as Baez, but he checks all the other boxes. 

Kerry Wood cards!  Yes!

It's been awhile since I added some  KW cardboard to my collection. All of these were serial numbered, with the highest coming in at #/150 and the lowest being at #/25. Wow!

A blue Chrome first Bowman of the VOGELMONSTER? 

I'm kind of speechless. It is a duplicate, but it's a gem of a card!

Holiday got all puffy-tailed the first time she spotted Groot. Eventually she made it close enough to him to give him a sniff. 

Twice I've come home in the past week and found Groot in the middle of the dining room floor. I've been placing him on a high shelf in the office, but I think Hugo must have found a way to pull him down. Hugo has a thing with dragging stuffed toys around and leaving them near the kitchen. Thankfully, he never chews on them, so Groot is still in great shape!

Thanks for the Cubs cards and Groot, Daniel! Next time I acquire some cards I think you'll like I'll be sure to send them down your way. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!