Folder of Fun Additions

 One of the reasons I love Sportlots so much is I can grab truly fantastic cards for only 18 cents apiece. 

Check out this one:

I don't remember Youppi, the mascot for the defunct Expos, but how could I pass this card by knowing it was out there?

I'm sure you've seen this Roger McDowell card from 1992 Triple Play. I was hoping we would see a pitcher take to the mound with a utility belt this summer as a part of practical joke. Some got really upset (Max Scherzer) but most were okay with it. I guess I'm a little disappointed the current MLB landscape doesn't have a big jokester like McDowell was known for being. 

Oh, Paul Noce. Poor guy!  Nah, I figure that ball is either glued to pants seat or perhaps some concoction of pine tar and gum has been applied?

Steve Sparks... wasn't he a knuckleball guy? Regardless, this card just makes me smile. I hope it put a smile on your face as well!

Enjoy the holidays!

Rooting for Buck

 Later this evening MLB Network will reveal the names of those players from the Early Baseball Era and Golden Days Era who are to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Each of the ballots consist of ten players, and 75% of the 16 person selection committee needs to vote for an individual to get the nod. You can find more information about the selection process and the different committees at the National Baseball Hall of Fame's website.

 I have opinions about many of the twenty combined names on the ballots, but I'm all-in on one particular individual: Buck O'Neil. 

 I visited the Negro League Baseball Museum in January of 2008, which started me down a rabbit hole about the often underrecognized Negro Leagues. I've learned a lot about many of the greats, like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell, but Buck O'Neil has become my favorite. 

 I actually had a somewhat comprehensive write-up on O'Neil's career and influence when I was counting down my favorite bobbleheads in my collection back in 2012.  Buck O'Neil's name is all over the game of baseball. 

Since then I have been tracking down baseball cards which focus on the Negro Leagues and anything Buck O'Neil related which I may happen upon. Yes, in fact, he is represented in my Folder of Fun.

Dreams Fulfilled and artist Graig Kreindler produced a 184 card set celebrating the Negro Leagues during the summer of 2020. I wrote a blogpost after purchasing a copy of the set and the first two cards I spotlighted were of Buck O'Neil. 

Fast forward to this past summer and I read The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America.  This book was just the pick-me-up I needed after a year of pandemic teaching. Buck seemed to have had such a positive influence on everyone he met and he possessed a special talent of being able to put a positive spin on nearly every situation. 

 Recently, I've jumped back into blogging a bit by showing off Mail Day purchases. A particularly special one arrived a week ago, but I saved it for today's post. 

I never met Mr. Buck O'Neil, but Joe Posnanski's book resonated so strongly within me that I felt I needed to immortalize Buck within my own collection. I haven't been this excited about adding a singular card to my handcrafted storage box in quite sometime.  Assuredly, this card was a pricey acquisition, but completely worth it.  

Good luck today, Buck!

The Original Crown Prince of Baseball

 Another great Mail Day today. 

I believe I first saw this card posted on Dime Boxes, and as I typically do with one of Nick's posts I wound up adding a few cards to my want list. I thought about purchasing a reprint of this 1939 Play Ball beauty, but I ultimately decided to go all in and spoil myself a bit. 

Boy, do I ever love fuzzy corners and that pure vintage feel! 

Al Schacht was the original "Clown Prince of Baseball" and he was known for his imitations of coaches and players. He started out as a pitcher, moved to the world of coaching and then eventually found himself entertaining thousands as an on-field baseball comedian. 

I wasn't previously familiar with Schacht as the subject of my previous post, Max Patkin. No matter. This card will find its home in my Folder of Fun and rightfully so. 

Catching Up with Cards

 My sister recently picked up a few cards for me during her latest card purchase. These two will go into my Folder of Fun.

I don't have much of anything from the 2021 collecting year so I was really happy when Jane passed this Ryne Sandberg Stadium Club card my way. Most excellent!

Kenny, aka Zippy Zappy, also sent me a pair of cards through a PWE. Embarrassingly enough, this one arrived back in August. School was just kicking off, and I was super busy then, but that's no excuse. My apologies for the delay in posting, ZZ!

National Baseball Card Day came and went and I didn't even notice.

Thankfully I have this Javier Baez card to prove it actually happened. 

And here's an addition to one of my player collections which hadn't seen much action the last couple of years. 

What you see above is a baseball relic of Kosuke Fukudome. I don't think I have many ball pieces in my collection. Very cool! My Fukudome collection is now up to 191 unique cards, 31 of which have come from Kenny. Thanks, Zippy Zappy! 

That Went Better Than Expected

 About two weeks ago my guy, Daniel Vogelbach, broke the Cardinals' hearts with a pinch hit walk-off grand slam. 

Pinch hit homers are very cool. Grand slams are most excellent. Combine the two with a walk-off and we have something worthy of Topps's attention. 

For a second I thought about purchasing one copy of the Topps Now card commemorating such a VOGELMNSTER event. And then I saw the back of the card.

I knew right then I must have at least two copies, one for my player collection and one to place in the Folder of Fun. 

Then I thought it might be a good idea to just purchase a lot of ten. Two cards would set me back $20, whereas there's a price break for ten at $5 per card. 

You see, I had my sites on a parallel. Vogelbach has not been included in a major release all year. So it's been a very slow year adding to my favorite player collection. An extra card in the form of parallel would be so sweet!

I could hopefully sell the extra Vogeys on Ebay and/or Twitter, snag a parallel, and keep a few base cards for my collection. In all, I pre-sold five on-line, which left me with five for my collection. I didn't make any money on the five I sold, but knowing the total cost to me was now only $25 and I made some other Vogelbach fans happy was a total win. 

Today the cards came in. 

Wow. I hit three parallels! I'm only missing the 1/1 and the red parallel, which is numbered to 10. Pictured above are the blue (48/49), purple (03/25) and the orange (2/5).  For what it's worth, 524 of these cards were made in all and there are 90 total parallels. Roughly one out of every 5.8 cards is a parallel. I think I beat the odds!

The five pre-sold copies are already packaged up and ready to ship with tomorrow's mail. The other two base cards will slide right into my collection as planned. 

Part of me almost wonders if Topps knows that I'm a Vogelbach super collector. Regardless, it was a fun buying experience which added four more Vogelmonsters to my collection! Woo-Hoo!

Thanks for stopping by!

My 1,000 Mile Jaunt Through Wisconsin

 Typically, I take one baseball themed road trip each summer. I stayed at home in 2020, because attending baseball games was not an option. This year I saw four games in five days, with an opportunity to see the Brewers play on my last day, but with Vogelbach being on the injured list I just kept on driving by Milwaukee on my way home. Get well soon, Vogey!

I started my trip out with a a card show just west of Milwaukee. There were only a dozen or so vendors there and only one had dime cards, but that was enough for me. I purchased around 150 cards from this gentleman. 

It's hard to pass up Ohtani cards for a dime each!

I wish this was a Cubs card, but I'll take what I can get when it comes to Theo. 

Starting Lineup, Canseco pitching, an oddball of Greg Luzinski and The Chicken. The boxes had a great selection!

These cards will go straight into my Folder of Fun. 

Again, just some really neat cards!

On this baseball trip I decided to try something different. Usually I try to knock another MLB stadium or two off my list, but this time I went the amateur and minor league route. 

First up was a game between the Kenosha King Fish and the Battle Creek Bombers. I arrived in the sixth inning of the first game of a doubleheader and watched the King Fish bullpen play spikeball in the outfield between games. 

Here's a picture of their mascot using a zip line during his grand entrance. Pretty cool!

The two teams belong to the collegiate Northwoods League. The rosters were crammed full of players from Big Ten schools and others around the country. I left the nightcap after the 3rd inning (2+ hours for 3 innings, ugh!) when the King Fish jumped ahead 14 to 2. They ended up winning 17 to 5.

My second game was in a western suburb of Milwaukee, and featured the Milkmen and the Gary Southshore Railcats, of the American Association, which is an independent league. 

This ballpark was absolutely gorgeous and I really took to their mascot, Bo Vine. He was extremely interactive with the crowd and I thought his uniform number, 2%, was pretty unique. 

I'm not sure I know what a railcat is, and I'm wondering if the scoreboard operator did either. Each player had a different picture of a cat, like grumpy cat! I got a chuckle out of that. 

I traveled up to Rhinelander and soon found out about the legend of the Hodag. 

In short, it was a publicity stunt in the 1890's, but the Hodag is kind of revered in Rhinelander. It's even the high school mascot!

The next day I played disc golf at three different courses. My favorite, oddly enough, was a local dump not too long ago. 

My main reason for heading north for this trip was to watch a game of Snowshoe baseball. 

Yes, Snowshoe baseball. If you're looking for more information here's the article which initially caught my attention. It does a great job describing the events of an evening in Lake Tomahawk. 

Dinner. Mmmmm...

I went for a cheeseburger and two slices of pie. 

Everything is donated, from the buns, to the meat, to the pies, to the wood chips on the field. All the proceeds are donated to a local cause and the entire community supports the effort. This demonstration of support and community kind of actually makes me want to move to Lake Tomahawk. 

Here's the pie board. Town members would walk up and donate their pie and the volunteers would divide it into eight pieces and place it in the refrigerators. The white board would see a LOT of action during the night! I had one piece of raspberry for dinner and one piece of peanut butter.

Then I went back and bought a piece of lemon meringue for dessert. I mean, hey, it was all for a good cause!

Here's a picture of the home team strapping on their showshoes. 

Below is a snapshot of the infield from my seat. By the time the game started there wasn't a seat to be had and there were more folding and camp chairs than I cared to count. 

I'm hoping this short video will give you an idea of how the game was played.  

They played nine innings and used a sixteen inch softball. My biggest take away was that everyone was there to have fun, including the umpires and announcer. Just a tremendously fun outing!

The next day I played another disc golf course in Manitowac, right on Lake Michigan. There were 36 holes in all, but #26 was definitely the highlight. Certainly not your traditional basket!

That evening I saw the South Bend Cubs play against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in Appleton. 

The Timber Rattlers have the best minor league ballpark I've seen for the A-level, and I've seen many. It could easily host a AAA team if given the chance. 

How about this for a carrying device for your concession stand purchases? Innovative. It was $2 beer night, so these boards with four holes cut into them were a pretty common around the park. 

My hat goes off to the scoreboard operator again. The Cubs had a fellow by the name of Ryan Reynolds in the lineup. Every other Cub had their head shot on the board, except for Mr. Reynolds. Good stuff. 

On the last day of my trip I played my sixth different course of the trip. 

Like many of the courses there were two tee pads and two basket locations. I knew going into the trip my arm wouldn't be able to take 135 holes of golf from the longs, so I played the shortest distances during each outing. I scored fairly well and came back to P-town with a nice boost to my disc golf ego!

What's gcool is I was able to play the three top rated courses in Wisconsin, according to the Udisc app, and each one was quite noteworthy in their own way. 

Here's a summary of my trip by the numbers:

Miles driven = 1,274

Days/Nights = 5 days and 4 nights

Aunts Stayed With = 1 night with Aunt Beth (Thanks, Aunt Beth!)

Ball games attended = 4 (Kenosha King Fish, Milwaukee Milkmen, Lake Tomahawk Snowhawks, Wisconsin Timber Rattlers)

Disc Golf Courses Played = 6 (Adeliade Park, Rookery Run, Sandy Point, Brandy Lake, Silver Creek, Rollin Ridge)

Disc Golf Holes Played = 135

Discs Found & Lost = 2 found & ZERO lost (Woo-Hoo!)

Mosquito bites suffered = Zero (but I used a bunch of bug spray)

Pie consumed = 3 pieces (raspberry, peanut butter, lemon meringue)

Beers consumed = 3 total (the best was Blue Bobber by Fox River Brewing Company)

Culver's Visited/Seen = Only stopped at one, but saw at least two dozen of the restaurant

Favorite Food (non-pie category) = Deep Fried Cheese Curds at Franklin Field, home of the Milkmen

Baseball Card Shops/Shows = 3 shops & 1 show attended 

Best Card Related Purchase = I finally found a 1985 Topps baseball set for a good price! Woot!

Consecutive days seeing Great Blue Heron = 4

Books Read = 1 

If you need a pick me up, then I would like to suggest The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America. 

Buck O'Neil was such a positive person. What stuck with me most through this book was how he could take any hardship, slight, or negative situation and always find the good in it. It's a quick read with many great stories about Negro League players. If you have the time, then I highly suggest. 

So, that's my summer trip. I feel more or less rejuvenated, although not quite ready to get back in the classroom. Lucky for me I still have a little time to get myself prepared. 

Thanks for reading about my trip! I hope you were able to take a summer vacation that made you smile as much as I did on mine!

Folder of Fun Additions and Mr. October in May

 Jeff, from the witty Wax Pack Wonders blog, reached out to me recently about some possible additions to my Folder of Fun. He offered up quite a selection, but it quickly became apparent that Jeff and I have very similar tastes in cardboard. Of the lot I found three I didn't already own a copy. 

Here they are in all their glory:

Jose Rijo flexing for the camera is an excellent way to start. Studio was always good for some unique poses. 

Speaking of unique, how about Dave Stewart in a tuxedo?

It's cards like this which make we want to start a new project: the nine best cards from each year of Stadium Club. That would be a fun one to tackle!

Last up is an ice bath celebration. I could have sworn I had a copy of this card, but I couldn't locate it for the life of me.

The PWE also contained a brilliant little surprise. 

My 1982 Topps set build, which I started in 2019, is now missing only twenty-three cards. Nearly every card I need is either a rookie card or a card of a Hall of Famer. I don't have any cardboard goals for 2021, but completing this set would be a solid win for my collection. 

One more little goodie, but this one came on the outside of the PWE.

Those are some old stamps! (Well, they're older than me at least.) Pretty cool!

Thanks for the fun PWE, Jeff!

Looking Back on Ten Years

 Ten years ago today I started blogging. My sister and wife each had their own blog and they posted on events and happening from their lives, so that's the angle I took at the beginning. I wasn't as carboard-centric as I am now with my initial posts, but I had jumped back into collecting in 2009 with Tri-Star's Obak set and found I truly enjoyed reading sports card content from other collectors. It was only a matter of time before I would begin blogging about cards. 

I started out with a food post inspired by the Chicago Cubs Cookbook. That was followed by vacation summaries, house projects, a Warrior Dash, bobbleheads, baseball games, posts about Gus (my first cat) and then my 33rd post showed off baseball cards for the first time. The cards were actually part of my table top epoxy post. 

Here's the first baseball card I posted on my blog:

1992 Upper Deck, Turk Wendell, #780

This card is now featured prominently in my Folder of Fun. Kind of neat how things work out. 

Scrolling through my first year of blogging has been a lot of fun. I never really intended my rambling posts to turn into a journal of sorts, but that's exactly what I'm looking at. For instance, I forgot how excited I was when rumors were first leaked that Theo Epstein had been seen in Chicago. 

Earlier this year I mentioned how I'm changing the way I'm collect and I believe I also see a slow shift in how I'm blogging coming on. Given that my life is largely focused around all things baseball and outdoor activities, perhaps a subtle shift of content, back to the early days of the blog, will be welcomed with open arms by my current audience. We'll have to wait and see what develops I suppose. 

Many changes have taken place in the last decade, but there's been one constant in my collection. I was chasing cards of this young masher back then, and this one arrived last week: 

What's serendipitous about my most recent Vogelbach purchase is it's a card from Panini's Donruss Elite Extra Edition set from 2011. That's kind of appropriate I think!

Thanks for reading and following along!