2019 Sportlots purchases: Let Me Tell You 'bout Kell

Everybody, be it Tigers fans or those that root for other teams, remembers Ernie Harwell as the voice of Detroit baseball, but those who caught Detroit games on TV from the '70s to the '90s will brag about the great PBP/color pairing of George Kell and Al Kaline.  The two were together for so long that I naturally associate their names when I hear either mentioned.

Today we're going to be focusing on Kell, a HOF 3B whose almost 40 years as a broadcaster bolster a less obvious induction case.  The Arkansas-born infielder originally signed with Brooklyn in 1940 but the released him a couple years later, and it was only in 1943 that he ended up with the team that gave him his start, the Philadelphia A's.  They flipped him to Detroit in May of 1946, and that's where he had his longest tenure, six-plus seasons, before stints with the Red and White Sox and finally the Orioles.

A very good hitter for average, if not power, Kell won the 1949 AL batting crown and was named to 10 All-Star teams.  He wasn't able to compile the kind of counting stats Hall voters prefer as he played in under 1800 games over parts of 15 seasons, leaded to a 37.4 bWAR and a JAWS number that puts him way below many players at his position.  Still, the Veteran's Committee elected him in 1983, and we Tigers fans are happy that they recognized a guy who enjoyed a solid playing career before finding his calling in the booth.

Kell isn't as popular among collectors as a guy like Kaline, so I hadn't received many of his cards in trades, and a smaller number of cards with the Tigers means I didn't pick up many myself in the past.  Fortunately it was Sportlots to the rescue once more with these 22 new items for my collection:

Once again there's lots of familiar sets from this series in today's post while a few stand out a bit.  Up top is the oddball-ish trio of '88 Pacific Legends, '93 Action Packed, and '93 Ted Williams.  You see those every once in a while but not terribly often compared to a lot of the other stuff coming up.  After those we have retro themed cards from '94 Upper Deck All Time Heroes and '98 Sports Illustrated Then & Now.  Then we keep up the black & white/sepia party with 2002 Greats of the Game and 2003's Flair Greats, SP Legendary Cuts, and Sweet Spot Classic.  I don't get sick of looking at these beautiful designs so I hope you don't get sick of my singing their praises.  What a great bunch of vintage photos on classic looks!

Compared to the last scan, this one is full of some fairly mainstream brands, though that doesn't dim their excellence.  Up top we finish off 2003 with the beautiful Topps Gallery HOF and then head into 2004 with strong offerings from Greats of the Game and SP Legendary Cuts.  The latter isn't quite as nice as other designs in the series but Fleer Greats kills it as always.  Down the middle are another gorgeous Sweet Spot Classic look, from 2004, plus 2005 Donruss Greats and the same year's Sweet Spot Classic, with a design I don't love quite as much as the previous two, but a terrific vintage photo.  At the bottom are one more SP Legendary Cuts appearance (2007) and a pair that used the same photo:  2013 Panini Cooperstown and Topps Tribute, another spiffy high-end set specializing in HOFers.

Now here's the scan where I get to mix things up a bit.  Kell's 2018 Topps Archives base is fairly standard, with its '81 Topps design.  And we've seen SP Legendary Cuts a bunch today, but this is our first horizontal version.  Then get into the unorthodox a bit with George's 2013 Panini Cooperstown Colgan's Chips disc insert, which is my fifth from the product.

But perhaps the most interesting item today is up last, a vintage throwback from a more modern time out of 1993 Upper Deck's All-Time Heroes.  Baseballcardpedia helpfully explains that these are done in the style of a 1912 set called Hassan Triple Folders (T-212), and this is indeed a tri-fold card, with the three distinct sections pretty clear in the scan.

Here's what the back looks like:

I'm kind of amused that the left panel is a photo of Kell with the Tigers while the excellent play at the plate photo is from a game he played while with Boston.  But that's the kind of thing you can do with an oddball item like this!

This nice bunch of Kells bumps his collection up to a more respectable 40 cards, and this series has me inspired to continue to add to it along with many of the players I've already featured or will be soon.  On that note, stay tuned for three more all-Tigers Sportlots posts!

2019 Sportlots purchases: Thanking Hank Thursday

As promised in my last post, today's is much more manageable at just 19 cards of a single player, a guy who certainly deserves his own post.  That would be one Henry Benjamin Greenberg.

The "Hebrew Hammer" and original "Hammerin' Hank" (though Mr. Aaron rightfully gets that nickname now), Greenberg plied his trade in Detroit for "12" of his "13" Major League seasons.  Quotation marks are definitely required here as he got all of 1 AB in 1930, and that season plus 1936, '41, and '45 added up to a measly 110 games split between four seasons.

But when he was on, boy was he on!  He piled up 150 or more RBI three times in his career, socked 58 homers in 1938--and piled up 331 dingers in just 1394 games--won MVPs in '35 and '40, and helped bring Motown its first two World Series titled in '35 and '45.  Oh yeah, and he missed large chunks or the entirety of 1941-45 due to military service.  Yeah, I'd say he was Hall-worthy.

Here's the nice selection of his cards I found on Sportlots to add to my small collection of one of the team's all-time greats:

Here's a mix of the usual suspects you've seen so far plus some new ones, some of which may pop up again in this series.  Hank was indeed an honorary captain for the '84 All-Star Game, played a couple years before his death, and that was a good sign for the team that went on to win it all that year.  Sportflics Decades Greats is back and Greenberg's run in the 30s is honored here.  You'll see a few more from Pacific Legends soon and maybe the raised surface of Action Packed a bit more, plus the always fun Conlon, besides what you see here.

Card #6 in this scan, honoring Hank's military service (one of two of those today) is from UD's Baseball:  the American Epic set made in '94.  Then there's a trio that's a sight for my sore eyes:  the comfortingly familiar 2002 Greats of the Game and Sweet Spot Classics and '03 Flair Greats.  I sure wish we still had products that looked like these, but at least I can enjoy going back and chasing what does exist, especially as it builds up some of my Tigers collections.

Round 2 brings a few more familiar looks:  2003 Fleer Fall Classics--a great reminder that Greenberg played in four World Series--plus 2004 SP Legendary Cuts and Sweet Spot Classics, with different designs using the same photo.  The newcomers here start with a 2003 Topps Record Breakers insert that highlights that 58-bomb campaign in '38, making him one of just nine players to reach that mark.  Also from 2003 is an Upper Deck Play Ball 1941 Reprint, which is probably as close as I'll ever get to owning the original.  And then there's one last vintage/modern mashup:  a 2010 Triple Threads base that has a newer design but a super cool old-school photo of the legend.

These last four hail from Panini brands so some of you have probably gone off to read something else, but for those have stayed, check out some pretty cool stuff!  Up first is another card that gives due credit to Hank's military service:  2012 Cooperstown With Honors.  The back does a great job of explaining just how much of his career he gave up for his country:

A rare non-player card is next in the form of a 2013 Cooperstown Museum Pieces insert.  Panini did a great job of showcasing some of the Hall's most interesting artifacts, such as Hank's 300th home run ball.  Given a fuller career of something like 15-18 full seasons, he likely would have been a member of the 500 club.  A pair of 2014 Classics cards capture that:  the base plus an insert called, yep, Home Run Heroes.  The back of the latter notes that Hank was just the fourth player to get to 58 round-trippers, and he still leads the franchise 80+ years later, with Cecil Fielder's 51 in 1990 (hit over the course of four extra games) getting the closest.

I hope you all enjoyed some cardboard of another Tigers legend.  I have a few more players to feature here and would love to get them all done in plenty of time to show off what's sure to be lots of COMC Black Friday/Cyber Monday loot when it arrives next month.

2019 Sportlots purchases: Happy Halloween from Prince Hal!

Happy Halloween, everybody!  In the spirit of the holiday--no tricks, just treats--I thought I'd show off some cards of a scary good former Tigers pitcher:  Hal BOOhouser!  ::spooky Halloween laugh::

Newhouser spent 15 of his 17 MLB seasons with Detroit, winning exactly 200 games and the 1944 and '45 AL MVP awards on his way to the Hall.  From 1944-50 he averaged 22 wins, and in '45 he led the Tigers to a seven-game World Series victory over the Cubs, just the franchise's second, with a 2-1 record, including the pivotal game 7 decision.

Hal hasn't been a big part of my Tigers collection to this point but I'd be happy to change that with purchases like this one, which added a season-appropriate 13 new cards to his PC!  Check 'em out here:

Well hey there, bunch of brands that I like!  80s Sportflics is a great place to start, in this case 1986 Sportflics Decade Greats, the card you see in its full animated glory up top.  I already mentioned some of Hal's best stats above so by now you should understand why he's part of the group "Best of the 40s."  Don't be surprised to be seeing a bunch of old friends throughout this series like the rest of the sets represented here.  From 2003 we have Flair Greats, Fleer Fall Classics, SP Legendary Cuts, and Sweet Spot Classics, while SPLC comes back for '04.  Everything looks great and I'm happy to have Newhouser as one of the Tigers I can collect among these great designs.

Some backs, because why not scan them when there's only 13 cards to show off today.  Wait, I did some extra work?  Spooky!

Moving on to somewhat more recent sets, but keeping things classy and vintage, we get one more SP Legendary Cuts appearance, this one from 2007, and then there's a fun 2012 Panini pair:  Golden Age and the horizontal Cooperstown.  The latter is a great use of the X-axis design!  The middle row takes us into 2013 with Panini Cooperstown once again, then an SP from A&G.  The Topps card stars a cool look at an old Detroit uni, and I don't think I even paid a premium for the short-printed issue.  Lastly, I came up with a pair of Topps Archives base offerings from 2016 and '18, each on a classic Topps design.

More backs, for those of you that care about that kind of thing.

The lucky 13 cards above give me a new total of 25 Newhousers, a pretty solid number.  You won't see me booing the chance for adding more as soon as I can, either.

I hope everyone has a great Halloween!  Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with something extra special that I've been keeping under wraps for a while.