Cake or gum? 1976 Steve Yeager

Last time it was a cakewalk for cake, 8-2. Who will win here?

Hostess's card has some people in the background. I can see one uniform number, looks like it starts with a 7. Probably a minor leaguer in spring training camp. Topps goes for the closeup, with the bat on Yeager's shoulder, with the reflection of the sun captured in Yeager's helmet.

Yeager was one of baseball's premier defensive catchers. Though he never won a Gold Glove, he was renowned for his strong throwing arm and his game-calling abilities. He was not a great hitter (.228 lifetime average) though he did have a little power (102 HRs in his 15 year career). Yeager was at his best in the postseason: in 21 World Series games he hit .298 with 4 HR and 10 RBI, much better than his regular season numbers, and was co-MVP of the 1981 World Series. Yeager had a reputation as a macho tough guy like his famous cousin Chuck Yeager, but he was also a partier who enjoyed the LA nightlife. In 1976, he married rock singer Gloria Giaone, who had toured with the likes of Steely Dan and Three Dog Night. The wedding took place on the steps of City Hall, with LA Mayor Tom Bradley as Yeager's best man. After his playing career Yeager was a longtime minor league coach for the Dodgers, owns a Jersey Mike's franchise, and appeared in the Major League movies.
 

Wood vs. Wood #262

Last time it was a 7-4 winn for 1987. Who will winn here?

Bob Schmidt is listed as a Senator, his team for 1962. He spent most of 1961 with the Reds, and I can just see the edge of the shortened jersey sleeves the Reds wore on the left side of the photo. Schmidt had come over in a late-April trade with the Giants, for whom he had played the last three seasons. The backup catcher didn't see much playing time with Washington, spending most of '63 and all of '64 in the minors. His last major league stint consisted of 20 games with the Yankees in 1965. Schmidt's rookie season of 1958 was by far his best, hitting .244 with 14 HR and 54 RBIs, earning an All Star Game appearance. He also set a major league record with 22 putouts in an extra inning game. Overall in 454 games he hit .243 with 39 HR and 150 RBI. Schmidt died in 2015.

Jim Winn follows through (warm-up pitch?) at Shea Stadium. Winn appeared in three day games at Shea in 1986. He allowed two earned runs in 5.2 innings, walking six and only striking out one. The Pirates lost the games by scores of 4-1, 5-1 and 6-1 (though not in that order). Winn was a middle reliever for the Pirates from 1983 to 1986, the White Sox in 1987 and the Twins in 1988. In 161 games he went 12-17 with 10 saves and a 4.67 ERA. Control was an issue, for his career he struck out 159 and walked 156. For over 30 years Winn has been a salesmen for Conco Quarries in Springfield, MO.
 

1974 Topps Deckle Dating: Bill Russell

Something weird going on with Russell's eyebrow.

June 9, 1973.

Russell went 1-for-4 in the Dodgers' 4-2loss to the Mets. Their old nemesis Willie Mays was still a thorn in their side at the age of 42; walking and scoring the Mets' first run in the first, then breaking a 2-2 tie with a home run in the third inning.

In other news, less than 20 miles from Shea Stadium, Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes to become the first triple crown winner since 1948. In Spain, General Francisco Franco relinquished control of the cabinet and named Admiral Luis Carrero as Prime Minister. It would be a short run for Carrero, who would be assassinated in December.

His 1974 Topps Stamp photo appears to have been taken at the same time. He's got the same thing on his eyebrow here. Maybe stitches? I can't find it in any other photos of Russell from this time.

 

1981 Topps Mike Sadek

 

The front: Something weird is going on with Sadek's arm. Is it resting in something soft, like a towel, with his arm at just the right angle to be cut off? Or, knowing that he had a reputation as a prankster, is that even his arm at all in that sleeve?

The back: The pinch-hitting experiment lasted four games, with Sadek going 1-for-6 as a lefty.

The player: Mike Sadek was a part-time catcher for the Giants from 1973 to 1981. His games played varied from 19 to 64 during that time. In 383 total games, he hit .226 with 5 HR and 74 RBI.

The man: Sadek, who died in 2021, stayed active in the Giants public relations department after his playing career ended, until retiring in 1999. He was known for being somewhat unusual. One quirk was taping a baseball card to his locker of each pitcher he hit a home run off of. (He only hit five in his career, off of Grant Jackson, Jamie Easterly, Dave Robert, Phil Niekro and Larry McWilliams.) On the topic of cards, his son recently posted his extensive collection of graded cards of his dad on Reddit.

My collection: I have nine of his cards, from 1974 to 1981. I would be interested in trading for 1979 San Francisco Giants Police SGA #NNO.
 

1976 SSPC Doug Rader

 

The card, in brief: An all-time great card photo. Nice of SSPC to switch to horizontal to fully capture the shot. Known as "The Red Rooster", Rader was known for his flaky, goofy antics on and off the field.

Playing career, in brief: Doug Rader played for the Astros from 1967 to 1975, and had brief stints with the Padres and Blue Jays. He was a great defensive third baseman, winning five straight Gold Gloves. At the plate he had the profile of a modern player - low average, good power, high strikeout totals, decent walk totals. Overall in 1,465 games he hit .251 with 155 HR and 722 RBI.

Post-playing career, in brief: Rader was a long time coach, who had unsuccessful managerial stints with the Rangers and Angels. He is now retired an living in Florida.

My collection: I have 20 of his cards, from 1967 to 1978. I would be interested in trading for 1975 Astros Photocards #NNO, another crazy photo of his.

 

Roundup

I may not be buying cards for now, but still have regular cards in the mail, not only from bloggers but from the trading groups TCDB (Trading Card Data Base) and OBC (Old Baseball Cards). Trading is still cheap enough!

Got a single card in a TCDB trade with dmarek. It's an interesting vintage miscut. I assume the red and yellow lines indicate the end of a sheet.

These six game from Greg Henthorn of OBC. These might not be big names but almost all are the tougher semi-high or high-numbers.

Canadian OBCer Andrew Goguen sent these Canadian OPCs. The most interesting is the Bob Watson, "Announced his retirement".

From TCDB, I finished lildog7's E.T. set, and he finished my 1993 Hostess set, along with a few Bowmans.

These Baltimore Orioles came from TCDB's BOCards. Also a Topps flashback. I guess Topps wasn't comfortable with using the full Jaws poster.

Some oddballs from Jeff9679. I am always up for some unlicensed cards.

Some more semi-highs from OBC's Casey Branton.

Finally, this was my last eBay purchase (hopefully not forever!). $20 is a great deal for this card, even in this condition. He's just a Red Sock anyway. Still, can't be spending $20 on a card these days.

 

 

Time Travel Trade!

Here's this month's Time Travel Trade with Diamond Jesters.

Usually my first cards of the new year come from these, though this year Kerry beat Matt by a day with his pack. I'm still liking the shiny best of all. Maybe it doesn't come out in a photograph but they look pretty good in hand.

 I should also correct Night Owl - I didn't actually grow up with foil cards. I grew up buying cards in packs from stationery stores and drug stores from 1986-1993. I only knew the major brands - Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score, UD, Sportflics. I wasn't aware of the high end cards like Stadium Club and Elite until later on. So I actually got out right before foil started hitting the major brands. By '93 Score was fading out and there weren't too many packs around, so that set still has lots of holes for me. It's UV coated but otherwise no more shiny than a 1970s card. Some old-time HOFers in there too, though Slingin' Sammy was a football HOFer, not baseball.

He's a good segue to the football cards that came from this trade. The only vintage this time around came from football. I was collecting football cards in '88 (again, nothing shiny other than the coating) but I still only have about half the set. I didn't have any Pro Set as a kid (I had shifted to only baseball by '90) so still lots of needs there too.

 

Cards on Cards contest winnings: my first 2025 Topps pack

I was an award winner in the Cards on Cards college football contest, and my prize was a 36-count pack of 2025 Topps. These are my first 2025 cards!

Here's my first card in the pack. Topps says the design is supposed to look like a subway map. Lots of bloggers think it looks like the '82 design. Personally I'm reminded more of 1992 with the rounded border on top and bar on the bottom.

My favorite part of the set is the colored foil border. It brightens up the otherwise-bland design. I thought it looked especially nice with a bunch of cards in hand, seeing the different-colored foil bars shining in the light. I couldn't get a good picture of that effect, though. It's weird to me how much hate the foil is getting on other blogs. (Especially the two big Dodger blogs - did Ron Cey once get attached by a foil monster or something?) Foil is also supposed to be very "90's" which is also supposedly terrible - again, i don't get it. One funny thing is that a very "90's foil" thing happened with this Kershaw card, as part of his name that was printed on the foil didn't print right.

Overall I think these cards look better in hand when you have a few of them at once. They don't look great in a photo but in person the colors pop more. It's not as good a design as last year, but it's OK. The player photos are still "pitcher pitching", "batter batting", etc. Even the fielding and celebration photos look pretty similar to each other. You'd think you'd at least get a "batter batting" where the ball is meeting the bat, or a double play turn, or even a different angle once in a while.

I got two Yankee cards in the pack - ironically the first was of a Met. I wish the Yankees got blue foil instead of the gray foil, which doesn't shine as well as the other colors.

Some "hits". Two Stars of MLB inserts. Unfortunately one is a Met but the other is one of the game's biggest stars. This set was looking very similar year to year and got freshened up nicely this year. I think the gold looks good, though again other bloggers seem to hate it. The 1990 Topps card is pretty good, it's a design from my youth that hasn't been overdone yet, so it was a bit nostalgic. Elly de la Cruz is another big star which is nice. It's funny that the 2025's don't have batter strikeouts but they do show up on the 1990 design, so you see he had a whopping 218 strikeouts! Finally, just a base card, but to get the base card of the best player in the game is pretty awesome. I don't usually read the stats on the back but I did in Ohtani's case, and they're mind-boggling.

 

1970 Topps Booklets: The Jay Johnstone Story

Looks like they forgot to color in the logo on Johnstone's cap.

Down in the Valley is a folk song that dates back to the 1920s. It's been heard everywhere from a Burl Ives record to the opening scene of the original Friday the 13th movie.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose was a 1968 hit for Dionne Warwick, for which she earned her first Grammy.

Finally, no more singing, but an actual MLB highlight! Like the Walt Williams booklet, Topps chose a promising young hitter for a bad team. Andy Messersmith was the same age as Johnstone and also had a breakout season, and was arguably as good a choice. Other than that is pretty slim pickings: Jim Fregosi, Ken Tatum, maybe Rick Reichardt.

 

Cake or gum? 1976 Randy Jones

Last time gum trounced cake, 10-2. Will this be closer?

Two very different photos this time. The hostess card has Randy in front of the visitors dugout at Shea Stadium, the site of so many Topps photos over the years. There are so many visible details, from the view of the stadium and the sky beyond in the background, players on the field, fans in the stands, and in the foreground some Padres in the dugout and a ball bag on the steps. Topps's photo, meanwhile, has a close-up of Jones at home at Jack Murphy Stadium, with some pretty good stadium detail on this one too.

Randy Jones won 100 games in his ten-year major league career. A two-time All-Star and twenty-game winner, he was the NL Cy Young Award Winner in 1976, going 22-14 with a 2.74 ERA and 25 complete games for the Padres. After his career he owned a restaurant and had a barbecue sauce business. He is now the chairman of the Randy Jones Foundation, which provides opportunities and resources for military families. He shared his thoughts on baseball cards with this blog in 2014.