Rest in Peace Joe

With sadness I have to write a few words abut the death of another former Redbird and native St. Louisan, Joe Garagiola. Joe passed away yesterday at the age of 90. Joe was born in STL on February 12, 1926 on grew up in the Northern Italian bastion of STL called “The Hill”. Growing up with Yogi Berra and playing baseball it was natural with his talent he would be noticed by the Cardinals who signed him at 16! Yogi is holding the ball and Joe is in the picture somewhere.

After service in WWII he would go on to play 5 years with the Birds, 3 with the Bucos, 1 with the Cubs and Giants. He won a World Series with STL in 1946 and had a career average of .257, 42 home runs, and 255 RBIs. But for many folks, especially those too young, or those not born at all, remember him from his broadcasting days.  Which began in 1955 with the Redbirds and ended in 2012 with the Dbacks-plus who could forget him on the Today Show! So much to say about the first two pictures-how young Harry Carrey and Jack Buck are, the Bud bat, old Skool microphone, blog mascot Angry Redbird and of course Joe. The second picture is hilarious. They are broadcasting from what looks like the bleachers, Jack and Harry shirtless, and Joe wearing a goofy hat. Priceless!

Growing up in STL Joe was always “present” in our pop culture and in our memory. I know that sooner than later we will loose all of the players, friends, and family of his era and I know the world will never be the same.

Card Show Stratego

The annual TRISTAR Collector’s Show is at the SF Cow Palace (TRISTAR SF) in a few weeks, of which I wrote about here TRISTAR 2015. Last year I visited the show without much of a plan-and thus lost myself. What I noticed last year is how few card dealers there actually were at the “collector’s show”, for the most part it seems to be modern memorabilia and collectables-I.E autographed photos, hockey sticks and the such, along with tables upon tables of SF Giants stadium giveaways such as bobble heads.  What card dealers they had there were mostly vintage in focus-there were “dime” boxes but they were jacked up to “quarter” boxes and the pickings were slim.

As with the other TRISTAR show, and I am sure every other one as well, there will be players from various teams and sports, retired or not, signing for a fee. This year Bob Gibson will be signing at the show-but the price for a single 8x10 photo is $79, Johnny Bench is $89, and Reggie Jackson is $99. Prices go up for other items. I think I will sit this one out-I have a certified on-card Gibby auto which set us back less than the cost of a blaster. As I write here I love the Topps Archives Auto series and Gibby’s “rookie” card version is at about that same price-so I would rather, if I was going to, pick that up. The idea of having no interaction with him, standing in line, and then carrying the item around the rest of the day doesn’t appeal to me.

So I have to have a plan for the show and as usual I will get there at the arse crack of dawn and get in line. I think all in all I am pretty chill person but I do admit being on time, if not very early, is a trait of mine-if I think I am running late I start to have a panic attack-chest tightens, breathing is hard, etc. Sorry the clinician in me comes out.

Action Item #1 Do a walk about looking for solid “dime” boxes-if I locate one that really seems like a winner I will dig in and do some excavating. If prospecting is no good move on to another mine.

Action Item #2 Focus on vintage Redbirds-not talking about T206s here-but vintage Topps singles-in particular commons I need to complete our team sets-I am looking for EX-NM.  I thought prices were decent-and it is hecka fun to look for them.

Action Item #3 For a few of the Topps vintage team sets we only need stars such as Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Red and Stan Musial. Hopefully, there isn’t a Redbird collector out there picking these up for a song-or better price than otherwise.

Action Item #4: Vintage Bowman singles needed to complete, or nearly complete, a couple of vintage Bowman team sets. 

 

 

Stay tuned for a follow up posting at the end of next month.

Better than a Blaster Bomb(ers) Edition

Growing up I really didn’t follow professional basketball-probably in large part because when I was very young the NBA departed St. Louis with the Hawks to Atlanta in 1968. I do remember the Sprits of St. Louis of the old ABA which ceased playing after the 1976 season. The only professional basketball game I ever attended was the Spirits. I probably will post about the Spirts another time. Thus, we in STL didn’t have a team and I didn’t really pay attention to the NBA until the Jordan years. As a result I can’t recall buying any basketball cards as a kid.

So when I was trolling EBay I came across a set of 1948 Bowman cards for the defunct Basketball Association of America. Who you ask? Well this league existed from 1946 until the end of the 1948-49 season when they merged with the National Basketball League and became the NBA. Some teams from the old BAA you would know are; Boston Celtics, Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers, New York Knickerbockers, Philadelphia Warriors, and the Rochester Royals.  I will let you all figure out what cities these teams are associated with now.  

You may ask what the point of all of this is. Well another team in the old BAA was the St. Louis Bombers which entered the league in 1946 and merged into the NBA but dropped out in 1950. The Bombers had a record of 96-73 over their life in the BAA.  Some famous players and one Hall of Famer played with the Bombers including Edward C. "Ed" Macauley inducted in to the Hall of Fame in 1960, Ephraim J. "Red" Rocha a NBA champion with the Syracuse nationals and two time NBA All-Star, Johnny Orr University of Michigan Coach from 1968-1980, then there was Robert W. "Bob" Doll the subject of this post-or least the subject of the subject of this post.

Bob Doll was born in Steamboat Springs, CO in 1919 and grew up in Ontario, California. He played with the Bombers 1946-1948 and the Boston Celtics 1948-1950. He averaged 8.4 points and 1.4 assists per game for his four year pro-career (Wiki). Unfortunately, he committed suicide in 1959 at the age of 40.

In 1948 Bowman issued a 72 card set of BAA players, each team was given 5 cards plus 12 cards were devoted to basketball plays-note no jump shots.  The key card of this set was the rookie card of George Mikan which in excellent condition will put you back about $2000. There are 7 other HOFers included in this set.

I may try to pick up the other four Bombers’ cards-and I would love some Spirits ABA cards but I don’t see me trying too hard.

2016 Topps Heritage Target Hanger Box

I am very lucky to have a supportive wife. She is supportive in every way and encouraged me to become what I have become. If at all possible we run all of errands together-we enjoy it and last weekend was no exception. We made a Target run and as I always do I checked the card section. Initially I picked up a Target Heritage hanger box but after walking around with it for a while I decided not to get it so I set it down to be put back on the way out.  However, she said you should get it and so I walked back over to where I placed it and grabbed it. I am glad I did. The 1960s have many of our favorite issues-1960, 1964, 1965, 1967,  and 1969. I love the 1967 design-with the bright photography, simple designs, green backs, and of course it was the year of my birth and a World Championship (in that order). I am not going to show you every card but here are the highlights.

Of course when I do pull a printing plate, insert, etc it is always this guy-which is OK with me. 

These are not the highlights of the box with the odds being about 1 per 108 retail packs this is! 

Love it-I have bid on last year's Bazooka with no luck-never willing to go above $10. So this more than makes this box worth it. Thanks Honey! 

I plan on picking up a box at the next Serramonte show I can attend in September.

Who knew? I Sure Didn't

Sitting here searching Google for interesting websites related to baseball cards-in particular vintage Bowman which I have a fascination with. In doing so I came across this website Free price guide for vintage baseball cards and the below information-taken directly from the website-credit given to such an excellent website. Underlining is mine.

"This is the Color TV set, the final Bowman-created card issue. Most collectors don’t know that this set was printed by Topps. Bowman, unable to keep on losing money, sold out to Topps early in the year.  Topps found the set ready to print with contracts signed, so they went ahead and printed them. Of course, they didn’t print as many as Bowman had planned to print. In fact, they only printed enough to fulfill their contract obligations, so these cards are scarcer than most collectors know. The whole set was a short print.

What makes them so sweet is that they can be bought for much less than they are worth. What makes them not so sweet is that they are nearly non-existent in mint condition, because the edges flake so easily."

Thank you for such information!

BREAKING NEW(s) Archives pick up

Thanks to Ray of the very readable blog All Cardinals All the Time left a comment on yesterday's posting of Redbird Archives Autos and turned me on to an unknown to me 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Andy Van Slyke Auto and what a nice looking card-and unlucky for me the EBay listing ended last night at about 6pm! Just minuets before I checked the comments, arrr.... but any who it isn't the only copy out there. So an alert has been set. Big thank you to Ray for this heads up. When I reviewed the Archives Auto checklists I had difficulty determining if the player's auto was when they were with the Cardinals or not.

 

 

Not sure if the above warrants a special posting but the below does and I also have Ray to thank for picking it up for less than the cost of two Blasters. I wasn't planing on doing so but the price was good and there were only 5 minuets left of bidding. Tadah! Stunning shiny goodness. I probably will lay low on picking up but a few cards in March and the first week of April as I will be attending the annual Tri-Star show in April and look to knock off some vintage singles from our want list. But what a way to end February

 

 

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