Fave 4: Chicago Cubs

The Cubbies. If like me, you grew up without a real home team, the Cubs or the Braves most likely became a big part of your life. For me it was the Cubs, Harry Caray and WGN. Every summer I would look forward to going outside while it was still cool, playing wiffle ball and other games, then heading inside around noon for lunch and the Cubs. Wrigley quickly became my home team, despite its location over a 1,000 miles away.

The Cubbies have always been the lovable losers, but some of my first memories of the Cubs were as *cough* Winners *cough*. Yup. 1989, one of the great Cubs seasons I can remember. 1987 was fun thanks to the Hawk and 1988 meant the emergence of Mark Grace and my total fascination with him. But 1989 was special. I was watching a team every day as they made the chase for the pennant. Too bad the damn Giants had to ruin everything.

1. Mark Grace

Grace will forever be one of my favorite baseball players of all-time. He didn't have the star power of guys like Griffey or Canseco, but he was my guy. When he came up as a rookie, I was instantly sold. I was never a fan of Leon Durham, and I wasn't even watching the team in 1984 when he committed his biggest gaffe. Grace was the young golden boy with all the promise. I hoarded his rookie cards and became obsessed with his play. His battle with Will Clark in the 89 NLCS was epic and had me convinced he'd become one of the greats of all-time. I hated to see him leave the Cubs, but at least he went on to win a championship.


2. Ryne Sandberg

Ryno was an amazing second baseman during a time when second baggers didn't do the things he did with a bat, especially when they could flash the leather. His 40 home runs in 1990 were just ungodly to me. I wasalways thrilled to pull a Sandberg card out of any pack and my friends were always willing to trade them to me, so I filled many a binder page with the man's image.


3. Jerome Walton

Jerome Walton might have introduced me to the idea of Rookie of the Year does not necessarily mean future all-star/MVP. I loved watching the rise of Jerome and Dwight Smith during their rookie years and figured these guys were on their way to becoming an amazing duo for years to come. Not so much, but I'll still never forget Jerome and his hat under helmet awesomeness.

4. Hector Villanueva

My favorite fat catcher. There was no better feeling than finding out that Joe Girardi or Rick Wilkins was on the bench and my boy Hector was gonna get some time behind the dish. Added bonus, won the Puerto Rican league triple crown. There's nothing he can't do.

Honorable Mentions:

Andre Dawson

I wish I had known more about the Hawk before he made it to Chicago, but I still enjoyed the hell out of the man while he was a Cub. No one has ever been as menacing with a bat in his hands. And that includes my boy, the much hated, Albert Belle.

Alfonso Soriano

I know that as soon as you call a player underrated, he essentially becomes overrated, but I feel like we are taking for granted how good this guy is. His combination of power is speed is rare in the game today and he is a ton of fun to watch.

Carlos Zambrano

Has there ever been a pitcher that's more fun to watch at the bat than on the mound? And that's saying something since he is a beast on the hill as well.

Doug Dascenzo

He was petite, not an attractive fellow, the definition of an underdog and to top all that he was an outfielder who is pictured on most of his cards pitching.

Greg Maddux

I was heartbroken when he left for the Braves. Ok, heartbroken is a bit strong, but it was upsetting. Just an amazing control pitcher.

Lloyd McClendon

I already talked about him on my Pirates list, but he was a Cub to me first and that's how I still think of him.

Mike Harkey

After a really good rookie season in 1990, Harkey never really put it together again. I got his autograph at a show in Texas when I was young, wearing my Grace jersey. The show was sparsely populated and Harkey spent about 10 minutes talking Cubs with me. Very cool.

Mitch Williams

A heart attack on the mound. He was just so much fun to watch, although you always thought he was about to combust. It still kills me that he became synonymous with the Joe Carter walk-off World Series home run.

Shawon Dunston

Combine the Shawon-o-Meter with the rocket arm and I was won over instantly. Half the fun of watching the Cubs in the field was hoping to get a glimpse of Shawon uncorking one.

The Cubs were certainly the team of my youth thanks to the fine people of WGN. To this day they still hold a small place in my baseball heart. Hopefully they'll win that elusive title someday, but then again half the fun of the Cubs is that they just seemed destined to never pull it off.

Go Halos!

Fave 4: Arizona Diamondbacks

The Diamondbacks have barely existed for a decade and in those 10+ years I haven't found a whole lot to root about in regards to this team. I despise the Yankees which led to me "rooting" for the D-backs in 2001, but even so I didn't really like team. I liked one player on that squad and it was only because he was one of my baseball heroes as a kid.

Really the highlight of the Diamondbacks for me came a couple of years back when I went to Arizona for Spring Training. Before we left for home, we stopped by the Bank One Ballpark and at the T.G.I. Friday's overlooking the field. Of course, it was the off-season and we were only entertained by construction crews working, but I like to think that may have been better than watching the team.

1. Orlando Hudson

I was really surprised when the D-backs decided to let him go, that turned into happiness when I saw the Dodgers were going to sign him, that then turned to giddy excitement watching him hit for the cycle on Monday. The guy seems to always be on base, always talking and always making great plays in the field. Why more teams weren't clamoring for his services I'll never know.

2. Travis Lee

Travis is a San Diego State boy, which automatically puts any player in contention for one of these lists. Combine that with an interesting story about his drafting and he becomes more intriguing. Lee was picked 2nd overall in the 1996 draft by the Twins, who failed to offer him a contract within, I believe, 15 days and he was granted free agency. He then went on to sign with the D-backs for over 10 million dollars. This was before I was really aware of Scott Boras, so it didn't really bother me. Now, it makes my stomach turn a little. Even so, Travis burst on to the scene in '98 and looked to be a legitimate star in the making. Unfortunately, that would not be the case. At least Arizona was able to package him for Curt Schilling.

3. Steve Finley

Defensively, Steve Finley was as good as it gets in center field. I enjoyed watching Finley in San Diego, but it seemed like he got much more attention in Arizona for his exploits. The only stain for me was his time as a Halo. Uggh. He absolutely robbed the Angels of 6 million dollars. Subsequent years Finley was followed by Edgardo Alfonzo and Shea Hillenbrand, so my hatred of Finley has transferred on.

4. Justin Upton

I must admit that much of my interest in Upton is due to baseball cards. In 2006, I pulled a Justin Upton refractor autograph that is probably one of my best pulls ever. Due to monetary reasons I have rooted for Upton ever since. Thanks to that interest I've actually come to appreciate Upton as a pretty solid young player. The D-backs are known for their young nucleus and this guy may end up being the best of all of them. Time will tell.

Honorable Mention:

Mark Grace aka The Man Who Would Be #1

Mark Grace is one of my all-time favorite baseball players, however he can only make one list and this WILL NOT be the one. I was happy to see Gracey get his ring with Arizona, but other than that I wasn't all that fond of his days with the D-backs. I like my Grace as a Cub, no substitutions.

So there's the meager list of Favorite Diamondbacks. I'm sure their fans have plenty more players to root on, but I just can't muster up the enthusiasm. One more expansion team to come, the Marlins. I'm not a Marlin fan either, but I have rooted for a heck of a lot more of their players.

Go Halos!

The Fun Card Back Pt. 2

The return of the fun card back is upon us. This is a bit of a Cub heavy edition, from all-stars like Grace and Sutcliffe, to the not so stars like Doug Dascenzo. Yup, 2 straight days of Dougie posts. And an added bonus, the Babe Ruth of Collectible Cardboard, Bip Roberts makes an appearance.

First up, a non-Cub, non-Bip, Bob Welch.

Maybe it's the Daddy in me, but you gotta love a card with Dad and child at the ballpark clowning around. Hailey is just a couple of months away from her first game and the excitement is in the air. Last week, we drove by a little league field with kids practicing and she announced that the Angels were playing and that we should watch.

Chuck McElroy

Why is this card back amazing?
1. Wire rim nerd glasses.
2. Blank stare.
3. Bubble gum bubble blowing.
4. Pitcher wearing a batting glove.

The Red Baron, Rick Sutcliffe

A perfect action shot of Rick squirting Mark Grace in the face with water. Added bonus point for a Grace cameo, which I'm a big fan of.

The actual Grace.

As I go through my Grace collection and add more and more cards to it, I find more and more cards I love. Not often that we see players out of uniform on cards. Love the shirt, the sentiment and the stare.

Lil Dougie.

Why is this a fun card back? Lifetime pitching stats - 4 IP, 0 Earned Runs. The Cubs should have kept this man out of the outfield and on the pitching mound. I'm always a fan of cards that show players playing out of position.

Finally, Cardboard Jesus, Bip Roberts

I'm just a sucker for any Bip card, so while this may not be quite as odd or funny as the others, I'm still a fan. Bip in the middle of the action, mid-fall. Bip always gives it his all.


So there's part 2 of who knows how many to follow. Times are slow with my Target refusing to stock the shelves with Topps.

Go Halos!

Cameo Fevor

The search for cameo cards has overtaken my nights. I've been up scouring my boxes searching for examples and noticing trends. I started to think maybe Ryne Sandberg was a King of Cameos after coming across the following examples:



Three cards, all from the early '90s, all with varying shots of Sandberg sliding into second.

Then I discovered an oddity that fascinated me. The curious case of Kirt Manwaring and Mark Grace.
It started with this card:

One of my favorite cards as a kid and a part of my Mark Grace collection, despite being a Kirt Manwaring card.

In my quick searches though, I found there was more:

Apparently Grace had quite a grudge against Kirt and photographers were well aware of the potential fireworks if Gracey was on the basepaths.

But there's more:

Not nearly as exciting or potentially explosive, but yup that's Kirt Manwaring behind the plate during this Grace at bat.

I'm sure someone out there could find more examples of players being linked on cards, but I'm sorta blown away by it.

Now getting back to my belief that perhaps Sandberg would be the new King of Cameos...well maybe not. I remembered a great Mark Grace website run by Brad Wackerlin. As part of that site, Brad has a Mark Grace card museum that includes a Cameos section. 33 Grace Cameo cards!! And the best part of it...another Manwaring/Grace combo!!!

I'm pretty sure Kirt hit fewer homeruns than he had appearances on cards with Mark Grace.

Amazing.

Go Halos!

Cameo Cards

In an odd run of events, I inspired Cincinnati Reds Cards to wonder whether or not the players in the background mattered to team or player collectors. His question in turn inspired me to want to search my own collection and discuss this topic. I have always been fascinated by what else is happening on a card. One of the first cards that popped into my mind was the 1991 Score Kirt Manwaring card.


As a collector of Mark Grace cards for a number of years I knew just where to find this card of a Giants catcher...in the back pages of my binder dedicated to a Cubs First Basemen. Besides just being a very cool action shot, I loved that this card had one of my favorite players on it. It instantly lost its status as a Giants card or Kirt Manwaring card and instead became a Mark Grace card.

So I decided to break out one of the storage boxes and grab a stack to see what I could find. To my surprise, I found a couple of nice examples and one jewel to add to a collection.


1992 Score Mike Brumley. Clearly these cameo cards most often show up on cards depicting an attempt at breaking up the double play. Here we have HOFer Cal Ripken Jr. sliding under the leaping Brumley. The vision of Ripken is small, but definite.


Clearly I bought too many packs of 1992 Score. Bill Doran just trying to save the throw into second while Ryne Sandberg slides in. Another real crisp action shot, with another HOFer on the slide. Score was all over it in 1992.

Finally, the card that made my day.

1992 Donruss Joey Cora Luis Polonia!
My main man Luis Polonia immortalized on yet another card. A card that I may never have known about were it not for the bantering of blogs. The Pursuit of Polonia continues and has just been strengthened. I love the Cameo Card!!

Go Halos!

The Cards That Define Me: #2 Mark Grace

As I mentioned briefly in a previous post, Mark Grace was my first true player collection. Growing up in the middle of Texas, I didn't really have a hometown team. The Angels were my favorite team because during summer vacation my family would drive out to California and my grandfather would always take me to an Angel game. Nowadays, not having a hometown team means nothing because you have MLB Extra Innings and a billion different sports networks showing games.

In 1988, if you wanted to see baseball on a regular basis you were watching WGN or TBS and no offense to the Braves fans out there, but I absolutely hated the Braves and their announcers. But more than that, even at the age of 10 I was a man of principles and I couldn't stand the fact that TBS started all their shows at 5 after the hour. Start your friggin' show at 1:00, not 1:05.

Although I had been collecting some before 1988, this was definitely the year that I became more and more invested. I found a local card shop to go to, I'd do more than simply buy random packs, and I had a number of friends who were collecting and trading. The summer hadn't gotten too far along before I had a favorite player to watch everyday. Mark Eugene Grace. Dawson, Sandberg, Dunston all of them were cool, but there was something about a young Mark Grace that just drew me in. It didn't hurt that Harry Caray could actually pronounce his name without stumbling over it and turning it into the name that sounded like a small European country.

From the bginning, I was a completist. I started to fill my binder up with multiple cards from 1988. I had 4 Rated Rookies, about a dozen Fleer Major League Prospects cards with Darin Jackson stealing some spotlight. I'm not sure when I got the next couple of cards or even how I obtained them, but they quickly moved to the top of page 1 in the binder.




That's right, not one but two Mark Grace Iowa Cubs cards. These cards were fascinating to me. I had a very vague understanding of minor league baseball and even less of an understanding of legitimate card companies and what a minor league issued card would be. To me these were priceless. No one else had them when we would flip through each other's binders and boxes looking for cards to trade.

After coming in second in the Rookie of the Year voting, (Screw you Chris Sabo!) Grace quickly became a hobby darling and my friends were always on the look out for Grace cards and my collection was soon rivaled by many of my friends, but not a single one could lay claim to a Mark Grace Iowa Cubs card.

So why does this card define me?

1. Mark Grace was my first true player collections and one of the reasons I fell in love with collecting baseball cards. There was something about the way he played that excited me and following the Cubs NL East championship in 1989, I was forever a fan of this guy.

2. These cards were special and unique in a time when, well...cards weren't very special and unique. I'd rather not deal with all of the artificial scarcity and numerous parallels that are so popular today, but I do enjoy having a rare card from time to time. In 1988, these cards absolutely qualified as special, unique, and rare. I was the envy of my friends, even if I wasn't able to spend as much money or have a father buying me any of the cards I wanted at the local card shop.

I'm proud to say I still have that first player collection binder and my Grace cards are still stuck to the inside of the binder pages, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The Grace player collection still lives, even if I haven't added a card in a dozen years.



Go Halos!

The Woes of a Player Collector

When I re-entered the hobby a couple years back, I quickly found myself overwhelmed by everything that was available. I wasn't sure where to really start and I definitely floundered for some time. When I left the hobby way back in the early 90's, I didn't have the funds to ever buy a full wax box, so that was definitely my first desire. I also spent time on eBay buying cards that I was never able to unearth during my younger days.

Here I was, a couple of clicks away from owning a beauty like this:


Finally, I was collecting cards like a kid, but with an adult's wallet. What could be better than that? Well, having a purpose for one. I liked all the different stuff I was buying and being able to open packs whenever I wanted to, but there was something missing. As a child, I was definitely a player collector. I never had the money to buy a lot of packs and build sets, but I did have a number of friends to trade with and we used to lug our collections to school everyday just for the 15 minutes during lunch when we might be able to make some trades.

I had two early player collections:
Kirby Puckett


Mark Grace


The more I thought about it, the more I knew I needed this type of focus. As an Angel fan, I knew I wanted to collect one of my own, but although the answer seems like an obvious one, I still struggled with it. Should I go with a vet I've enjoyed watching for years or a young guy who could have 10 more years with the team. After some deliberation...ok not really that much, I decided to collect Garret Anderson.


So the title of this post is "The Woes of a Player Collector", but after all that blubbering, you may be wondering what my woe is exactly. Well, my favorite player, a lifelong Angel is on the verge of no longer being a member of my team.

What do you do when your favorite player, the one you collect, is no longer a part of your favorite team? I'll always be a fan of Garret, but part of his appeal has always been that over these past 14 years, he's always had a Halo on his cap. Over the last few months my collection has slowed down considerably and I think some of it is because I could see the writing on the wall. I knew GA's days were numbered and I didn't really want to face what was to come. My collection has become much more diverse over the past year and I've started to spend less and less time on my player collections, but I know that in April, there's a very good chance a part of my collecting life will be gone.

Go Halos!