2019 MLB Hall of Fame and the 30 teams/30 players blog bat around

There's two great topics to cover today instead of posting cards I bought, so let's hit 'em both!

First, the 2019 Hall of Fame election announcement.  Huge congrats to:

Roy Halladay:  200 wins, 2 Cy Youngs, 8 All-Star nods, a perfect game plus a no-hitter (the latter during the playoffs!) and a career bWAR of 64.3 over 16 seasons.  It's a shame he won't be there to celebrate his induction.

Edgar Martinez:  2 batting titles, 7 All-Star appearances, and a 68.4 bWAR in 18 seasons (though he didn't play a "full" one until his fourth).  Edgar was the Platonic ideal of a DH and made people appreciate OBP.

Mike Mussina:  270 wins, 7 Gold Gloves, 5 All-Star selections, a crazy 83.0 bWAR in 18 seasons, and he saved his best for last, winning 20 games in 2008 before retiring.  His Yankees career was bookended by World Series titles he missed out on, plus it's not his fault that Baltimore's owner was a cheap asshole.

Mariano Rivera:  652 saves (a record), five World Series rings (he was the '99 MVP), 13 All-Star selections, and a 56.2 bWAR in 19 seasons.  He waited his turn for a couple years then rode into the record books as a Yankees legend.  More often than not if the Yankees got to the 8th or 9th with a lead, it was "Enter Sandman" and the game was over thanks to the greatest closer the game has seen.  Also the first unanimous selection!

All four of these guys are very deserving and I look forward to their ceremony in Cooperstown this summer.

Next, the 30 for 30 blog bat around:  the player I immediately think of when I hear the name of each modern team.  (All scans that aren't mine come from COMC.)

Arizona -- Luis Gonzalez.  Came up with one of the biggest hits in World Series history--against Mariano Rivera, no less--after the D-Backs almost let the Yanks claim a fourth straight title.

Atlanta -- Greg Maddux.  With apologies to the likes of Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson, the best pitcher of his generation.

Baltimore -- Cal Ripken Jr.  Nothing against the Robinsons, but this one was easy.

Boston -- Ted Williams.  I've never been a fan of their recent teams so I went with an obvious classic choice here.

Chicago Cubs -- Ernie Banks.  C'mon, he's "Mr. Cub"!

Chicago White Sox -- Frank Thomas.  There was a period in the early 90s when I loved the White Sox, and that was mainly thanks to "the Big Hurt".

Cincinnati -- Barry Larkin.  The Big Red Machine was fantastic but give me Barry any day.

Cleveland -- Bob Feller.  An incredible pitcher who was fun to watch in old baseball videos and a pleasure to meet in person.

Colorado -- Larry Walker.  He had his best years with the Rockies and put up some crazy numbers in his time.

Detroit -- Lou Whitaker.  So many to choose from, especially Al Kaline, but I'll go with my favorite guy growing up, another legend (and deserving HOFer) who stuck with the team for his entire career.

Houston -- Jeff Bagwell.  Man was his crouched stance and wound-up swing fun to watch as he mashed homers.

Kansas City -- George Brett.  A great hitter and representative of his era.  Three words:  "pine tar incident".  Three more:  "straight fuckin' water".

Los Angeles Angels -- Jim Abbott.  You younger guys can have Trout, but I'll go with another Michigan favorite, the amazing pitcher who throw a no-hitter with one arm.

Los Angeles Dodgers -- Kirk Gibson.  Gibby would have been a good choice for the Tigers too, but I'm putting him here for his storybook moment in '88.  None of the recent guys really appeal to me, but those 80s teams sure were fun!

Miami/Florida -- Jeff Conine.  I'm not sure if I've seen him come up yet--Giancarlo Stanton is a popular choice--but he was an original Marlin that was among the team's leaders in games.

Milwaukee -- Robin Yount.  Another guy I got to appreciate a bit at the tail end of his career.

Minnesota -- Kirby Puckett.  Joe Mauer was my second choice (Killebrew was just too much before my time) but I had to go with the guy that brought energy to the '87 and '91 Twins.

New York Mets -- Gary Carter.  The Mets are one of the few teams here that I just never really cared for, but Carter's a HOFer that was a big piece of the '86 champs.

New York Yankees -- Derek Jeter.  I went with one of many obvious choices, just a more recent one.  Jeter was the face of the 90s/2000s Yankees dynasty, though I wish he would have made a pit stop in Ann Arbor on the way to Cooperstown!

Oakland -- Rickey Henderson.  The do-everything cog of the A's on four different occasions, he was the greatest base-stealer ever and put together the 19th best bWAR the game has seen.  And he was simply a blast to watch.

Philadelphia -- Mike Schmidt.  Nobody recent could topple the power-hitting 3B for the 1980 champs, though he retired when I was still quite young.

Pittsburgh -- Roberto Clemente.  I can't possibly add anything new in lauding a true legend and humanitarian.

St. Louis -- Stan Musial.  My modern choice would probably be Albert Pujols but Musial is such a beloved HOFer and career Cardinal that there was no question in my mind that he was "the Man" for the job here.

San Diego -- Tony Gwynn.  I opted against "Mr. Tiger" but went with "Mr. Cub" and now "Mr. Padre".  The greatest pure hitter of his generation lives on thanks to some very cool bloggers.

San Francisco -- Willie Mays.  This choice was far too easy, especially after I confirmed that most of his Giants career was spent in San Fran, not New York.  One of the greatest five-tool athletes ever.

Seattle -- Ken Griffey Jr.  The most fun player to watch in the 90s, health prevented him from being the true heir to Mays, but when he was playing, you stopped and watched.

Tampa Bay -- Rocco Baldelli.  First reaction:  "Eh, who cares?"  Second reaction:  "Jeez is Florida baseball garbage".  Third reaction:  "Ok, Baldelli was a good guy".

Texas -- Nolan Ryan.  He pitched for so long I got to see a lot of him in my formative baseball years, and the flamethrower was amazing to watch game after game.

Toronto -- Joe Carter.  That World Series homer, tho.  Other guys have come and gone but if that moment doesn't scream Blue Jays, I don't know what does.

Washington/Montreal -- Vladimir Guerrero.  The current version of Washington doesn't have enough history yet so I'm going back to the Expos days.  Again, Pedro Martinez was a good option, but Montreal is where Guerrero built his legend as his generation's answer to Clemente while toiling in relative obscurity.

I realize a number of my choices were obvious and/or unoriginal but I tried my best to adhere to the "first guy you come up with while not thinking about it" idea.  What do y'all think?

2018 Sportlots purchases: Hall of Tram

Credit:  Detroit Free Press

Like all Tigers fans I was thrilled for Jack Morris and Alan Trammell as they joined four other very deserving players in entering the Hall of Fame this afternoon.  To celebrate Tram's admission here's a look at the 13 cards I added to his collection via Sportlots this time:

We'll begin way back in 1981 with a fun Kellogg's hologram food issue.  This one has stats from the previous year when Trammell earned the first of his six All-Star nods, plus it looks awesome.  That's followed by somewhat of a spiritual successor, 1989 Sportflics.  While the '88 season for both player and team didn't live up to the exciting 1987 run he was again an All-Star and also won a Silver Slugger Award.

The next bunch is from the latter years of Alan's career, starting with one of his two 1994 Fleer base appearances; he shares the other with double-play partner Lou Whitaker, who should have joined Trammell in Cooperstown today.  Then there's a quartet of 1995 parallels:  Score's Gold Rush, SP Championship's Die Cuts (again, one of two), Stadium Club's Virtual Reality, and Topps' Cyberstats.  The latter pair extrapolate some stats from the strike-shortened '94 campaign, coming up with 108 hits (78 in actual games), 10 homers (8), 51 RBI (28), and a .254 average (.267).

Sticking with 1995 we move on to Upper Deck's good looking if hard-to-scan Special Edition.  The back refers to Tram as "The linchpin of the Tigers offense and defense throughout the 1980s".  Got that right!  Then we have the first of three cards today that were produced after his retirement:  UD's 2002 Sweet Spot Classics.  That beautiful design does justice to a great player's career.

The second group finishes off the vertically oriented cards, moving on up to Donruss' Team Heroes product from 2005.  The back makes this one of several cards today to note Tram's 1984 World Series MVP nod, and it mentions that he was the first in franchise history to combine 150+ homers with 200+ steals.  As it turns out, Trammell is one of just five Tigers to pile up more than 200 stolen bases, and the next closest to the HR/SB feat were all PC guys:  Kirk Gibson (short by six steals), Charlie Gehringer (19), and Lou Whitaker (57).  That's good company!

Next is a 2013 Panini Product, Hometown Heroes, and its Homegrown Heroes insert.  This one actually justifies the "hometown" name somewhat as Trammell's MVP performance in the '84 Series led the Tigers over the Padres from San Diego, where he lived as a kid.  Hey, he was a hero for somebody, just not the home team San Diego hoped!

At least we get to a pair of horizontal cards.  The first--a 1986 Fleer base--was an obvious choice because it pairs Tram with the other great AL SS of the 80s, Cal Ripken Jr.  As a matter of fact the back states that they "have no challengers in the American League"!  I'd definitely agree with that assessment.

Last up today is a '96 Score Dugout Collection parallel, a card that was produced as Alan was playing his sunset season, the end to a career that saw him put up the following numbers and accomplishments:

• 1984 World Series title (MVP)
• Six All-Star selections
• Four Gold Gloves
• Three Silver Slugger awards
• .285/.352/.415 BA/OBP/SLG
• 2365 hits, 185 HR, 1003 RBI, 1231 runs, and 236 steals
• 70.7 career bWAR and 57.8 JAWS (currently 11th overall among SS)

A career Tiger who even came back to manage (if unsuccessfully), he rightfully enters the Hall today and will be further honored in August by seeing his #3 retired by the team.  Congratulations, Alan Trammell!

2016 COMC purchases: I ain't even Maddux

While there's still plenty of problems with the current Hall of Fame voting process, I was happy to see the trio of Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell, and Ivan Rodriguez get elected last week.  Hopefully the several other deserving candidates won't be the victims of a crunch of very qualified individuals due to appear over the next few years.  In any case, a much deserved three-player class is a solid start.

Speaking of MLB legends, let's look at the last of my 2016 COMC cards I'll be showing off on this here blog, all of pitching guru Greg Maddux:

Let's kick things off with this--::RECORD SCRATCH::

That's much better.  Let's kick things off with this newly-peeled Mound Marvels insert from 1995 Donruss. (I'm generally fine with protective peels but not if they're accompanied by gigantic white stickers that obscure the best part of the card!)  This very cool chase set ("90s inserts rule!") featured some of the best pitchers of the time, and easily the best aspect of the cards is the circular, semi-transparent, sort-of holographic image of each player.  It's one of many examples you'll see today of the creativity of the 90s that's been destroyed by the Toppsopoly.  Fortunately, there's a ton of these great products to chase!

Don't be too surprised that I'm going back to the '95 Pinnacle well since it's my favorite all-time instance of that product.  First up is Maddux's Museum Collection card.  Unlike the other guys in my big four baseball PCs he didn't appear in any subsets of the base set so this is his lone Museum Collection card.  However, he did feature in some of the product's other inserts, including...

...this Red Hot card.  I showed off Gwynn's issue a couple posts ago and now I have Mad Dog's to go with it.  Ripken and Griffey are actually cards #1 and 2 in this set so I'll work on chasing them down too because I really like the design of these cards.  I mean, the heat they evoke looks pretty good right about now as I write this in the middle of another Michigan winter!

UC3 was a one-off Pinnacle product released in 1995; to read more about it, head over to the always-helpful BaseballCardPedia.  I'm not shocked that it lasted for just a year since the base set is pretty ugly, especially in comparison to Sportflix, which was also unfortunately short-lived in its 1990s incarnation.  Still, this fun insert, called In Motion, gives you a glimpse of the potential lenticular printing offered, and I feel like Sportflix delivered that in several of its 1996 inserts, which remind me quite a bit of this Maddux insert.

Let's keep this Pinnacle train rolling with another fun parallel--one of Greg's Starburst inserts from the '96 set.  Although the name changed from Museum Collection after its first two years of existence, the idea behind this Dufexed chase card is quite similar.  I said "one of" his cards from this set because Maddux was also part of the Hardball Heroes subset so I still need to track that parallel down at some point, along with others of my favorite PC guys.

Sticking with 1996 but switching up brands, here's a fun two-part insert from Upper Deck SP.  The 20-card set comprised 10 interleague matchups on a cool foilboard design.  While the only other one in my collection right now is Barry Larkin's, I may have to chase down Ripken's since he's the counterpart to Mr. Maddux here.  UD also produced die-cut versions of these, by the way.

And back to Pinnacle, but a couple years later.  1998 saw the release of the multicolored Epix insert which came in four different groups--"Play", like this one, "Moment", "Game", and "Season"--as well as three colors:  purple, orange, and emerald.  Though it might bring to mind the gaudiness of Pacific to some, I think it's a fun insert, even though it ended up as a one-off thanks to Pinnacle's demise.  It at least made it into other sports, though, and I have a couple hockey versions to prove it.

Today's last, but certainly best, Pinnacle card--and easily best overall!--is Maddux's entry in the 1998 Pinnacle Inside Behind the Numbers set.  This is a beautiful die-cut in the shape of the #31 jersey Greg wore while pitching for the Cubs and Braves from 1986-2006; he went on to sport #36 in his stints with the Dodgers in 2006 and 2006, and #30 in his one-plus seasons in San Diego.  With this post I've shown off entries from this set of Maddux, Ripken, and Gwynn, and will show off the Griffey I've had for quite a while in a future post.

Pinnacle definitely ruled today's post, but I certainly don't feel bad about closing things out with a Refractor!  Mad Dog had two cards in the 2007 Topps Chrome set--one with the Padres, and then this one showing him with the Dodgers and celebrating his 17th (and penultimate) Gold Glove; his 18 total are the most in MLB history.  Needless to say, the Refractor version looks fantastic, and this one reminds me that I have an unfortunate dearth of that type of parallel in my Maddux collection.  There's something for me to work on in 2017!

That's it for the 2016 COMC purchases I have to show off over here, but this evening's TMM post includes a couple more, then I'll have two more themed posts there before I wrap up my 2016 purchases and move on to other pickups, especially trade packages!

2016 eBay purchase: Michigan's Mechanical Man

Since I haven't posted much this week (or recently, in general!) let's pretend it's still Hall of Fame weekend because I have a pair of HOF cards to show off to y'all today.

My relative drop in number of purchases and overall spending has allowed me to up the ante on some of the purchases I do make, and therefore I've given myself a bit more leeway when looking at singles on eBay.  This month that led me to a fun pair of high-end additions of a couple of my favorite players.

Since I've posted even less on TMM than here recently I decided to show off one card on each blog.  As it turns out, both guys are Michigan Baseball-related while also fitting in well over here, so in a way I could have just flipped a coin to divvy them up.  But once you see the other card you'll understand why it's featured on TMM tonight.

Ok, on to this post's card:

Charlie Gehringer 2011 Donruss Limited Cuts 2 cut auto (#25/49)

Hey hey, it's former Tiger Charlie "the Mechanical Man" Gehringer!  And he's back in cut auto form!  Believe it or not, this is now my fourth auto (all cut-style, natch) of the HOF 2B after adding one last February and two more this past January.  Considering how crazy prices of cut signatures, especially deceased stars, can go, I'm proud to have this many of one of Detroit's all-time greats.

This one from Panini's 2011 Donruss Limited Cuts product differs from the other three--all of which are from UD's SP Legendary Cuts product--by lacking a photo of the player, which is usually a nice feature to have.  Since Panini couldn't use MLB logos, though, I suppose it's not a huge loss.  That's a minor part of the card compared to the excellent signature here, cut from a signed Hall of Fame postcard.  The hand-numbered cut is encased in a one-touch holder sealed with a Panini sticker, which is kind of a nice touch.

As you might imagine, cards from this Panini product aren't as highly sought after as others that are higher-end, licensed, and/or more scarce.  That allowed me to grab this copy as a relative bargain of a BIN for a bit more than $22, a price that easily fit my budget, especially for such a significant signature.

I'll continue trying to add more of Gehringer's autograph to my collection, whether it's a super-rare cut or something more affordable like this one, and I look forward to showing off more.

Please don't forget to head over to TMM this evening to check out my other significant HOF auto acquisition as it's a player I know at least a few of you collect!

Not just good--PLAQUE good

"When I was starting out they said, 'You're good, but are you plaque good?'  Well, today I can say 'Yes I am!'"

As everyone already knows and/or posted about today, the baseball world celebrated Ken Griffey Jr.'s induction into the sport's Hall of Fame (along with amazing catcher Mike Piazza).  I thought I'd take the opportunity to post his cards from my most recent huge scanning project in which I'm trying to scan everything I have of Junior along with Tony Gwynn, Greg Maddux, and Cal Ripken Jr.  All that's gonna take a bit but I at least have everything of each player from my large complete set collection scanned, so there's that!

The first three groups of scans you see below include cards I scanned (and possibly posted) quite a while ago but wanted to include as this is a day for celebration.

The RCs:

The hits:

The Hall-themed inserts:

Everything from here on out is newly scanned and uploaded to Junior's Picasa album, which now contains well over 400 cards!

With his co-inductee, Mike Piazza:

Some favorite sets:

'95 Pinnacle

'96 Sportflix

'97 Fleer

Other favorite set appearances:

Great inserts:

That swing, tho:

Excellent horizontal cards:

Other fun stuff:

Congrats to one of the greatest players of my generation on some well-deserved kudos!  I also offer well-wishes to Piazza, one of the greatest catchers the game has ever seen.  May these two remain in the memories of all baseball fans forever.