Interview with Shane Monahan

Shane Monahan played nine years of professional baseball, including two for the Seattle Mariners. He is now the Lead Scout for KASE Management, a sports management and marketing agency in Atlanta. He kindly took the time to answer my questions about baseball cards.

Bo Rosny: Do you have any stories about cards of yourself or of other players?
Shane Monahan: I do not have any fun stories about my cards very boring.

BR: Do you have a favorite card of yourself or of another player?
SM: My Rickey Henderson rookie card is my favorite, I have like 30 of them.

BR: Do you collect baseball cards?
SM: I collected baseball cards as a kid and stopped after high school.

Thanks! Here is a Monahan card from my collection - not "boring" at all.

Kevin Mitchell, infielder?

It's hard to believe considering his rotund body type, but Kevin Mitchell was originally an infielder, playing third base and even shortstop. In 1989 Upper Deck captured his fielding form in this great shot.

The back is even better, not so much for Mitchell, but for Paul Blart, Stadium Cop wearing the shortest necktie ever.

Mitchell had all the grace of a brontosaurus and was later moved to the outfield, where he made a famous barehand catch of a fly ball in St. Louis.

Upper Deck Beachball Club

On his 1991 Upper Deck card, Bert Blyleven is shown with a beachball...

but on the back is actually revealed to be amember of the Upper Deck softball club. That's quite a ringer for the company softball league.

Who's choking Luis Polonia?

Here's famed pitcher, er, outfielder Luis Polonia on a 1992 Upper Deck card.

And here he is on the back, getting throttled by one of Lance Parrish's sons.

But which one of these future minor leaguers is strangling Luis? 12-year old David? Or 9-year-old Matthew?

Green Hat Day at Wrigley Field

A while back I posted a card of George Bell with a bunch of neon hats behind him. I wondered if there had been a Green Hat Day" at Wrigley Field in 1991 like the Pink Hat Day Yankee Stadium had that year. Thanks to Wrigley Wax, I now know that there was. He wrote, "According to the 1991 Cubs Media Guide, Sunday, April 14, 1991 was Neon Cap Day, with free hats going to the first 20,000 adults. Bell went 2-5 as the Cubs beat the Pirates 6-4 in front of 25,994 fans." Here is the link to the boxscore.


In addition to Upper Deck, Score Fleer and Donruss were at the game.

Danny Jackson started for the Cubbies, allowing four runs in six and two-thirds innings. He walked five and did not strike out a single batter. He got a no-decision.


Heathcliff Slocumb relieved Jackson and pitched a perfect inning and a third for the win.


Bob Walk started for Pittsburgh, allowing four runs, three earned, in five and two-thirds innings. He left in the sixth with a strained right groin. He presumably went on the DL as he didn't pitch again for a month.


Bob Kipper pitched a scoreless inning and a third before being replaced by Stan Belinda, who would lose the game, allowing a bases loaded walk to Doug Dascenzo in the eighth.


Curtis Wilkerson went 1-4 with a run scored, but made an error (it wasn't costly).

More fallout from the Craiglist haul

I finally got the last card I needed to complete my 1988 Donruss set, my first completed Donruss set.

Al Leiter is the best announcer the Yankees have.

These two cards now give me 791 out of 792 from 1990 Topps.


The last card I need is the Sammy Sosa rookie card. Anyone have an extra to trade?

Speaking of trading, I am going to have a lot of trade bait coming out of this haul, particularly from the following sets:
1986 Topps
1987 Topps
1988 Topps
1989 Topps
1990 Topps
1991 Topps
1993 Topps
1988 Donruss
1989 Donruss
1990 Donruss
1991 Donruss series 1
1989 Fleer
1989 Score
1989 Upper Deck
1989 Bowman

It will take a little time to figure out exactly what I have but if you have any interest let me know.

Wow!

My first Craigslist buy in a long time, and it's huge - a bunch of albums and a box of cards for $10 total. Wow.

I haven't even finished going through it. There will be a lot of dupes available for trade - I'll have an update on that .

Just about all commons, but there were some cool Derek Jeter rookies. In addition to these was the 1993 Topps card, which I already had so it's available for trade if anyone is interested.

Yankee cards go to a good home

Yesterday I got some unloved Yankee cards from the Mets fan Stats on the Back, thanks to his giveaway.

What an awesome card! This may be the best baseball card of all time.

It was a good day to get a card involving the White Sox and a no-hitter. I wonder if Andy Hawkins ever wishes he gave up a hit just to avoid the ignominy of losing a no-hitter.

Got some regular and some mini 1987 Fleer cards. This is the only way Wayne Tolleson is bigger than Dave Winfield.

Here is a 1990 Donruss Best card. I think this design looks much better in blue than the red of the base set.

Phil Lombardi's favorite card - found!

First off, thanks to Dinged Corners for their kind words about my ballplayer interviews. In the unlikely event you are unfamiliar with their blog, check it out immediately as it is one of the best out there. It's brought to my attention numerous funny and interesting baseball cards.

Second, thanks to Don at Trammell to Whitaker, who was able to locate the Doug Baker card that former Yankee Phil Lombardi said was his favorite.

Lombardi had written: "There is a card of a player Doug Baker. I think it was when he played for the Toledo Mud Hens in the mid 80's. He was wearing Kurt Rambis looking glasses and was in a catchers squat with his glove on backwards from what I can remember. Doug was a middle infielder with the Tigers. I saw it once but would like to see it again. In fact, I would buy it if you can find it! Could you track it down and send me a copy?"

I found his other Mud Hen card online, but Don has the genuine article, and it is a great card! Here is Don's scan:

Thanks, Don!

David McCarty's favorite cards

David McCarty played for seven teams in his eleven-year major league career. He is now an associate at Lee & Associates, one of the country's largest commercial real estate firms. Though not a collector, he did respond to my inquiry as to his favorite cards.

"I do have a few cards of myself that I like- the Team USA card, a Red Sox card (not sure who makes it), and a couple of the Twins minor league cards. I do not collect cards, but do have some of each of mine that the card companies or fans have given me. "

Thanks!

Baseball card story from Billy Brewer

Billy Brewer pitched for four major league teams, including the World Champion 1996 Yankees (but never the Brewers). Now the pitching coordinator for the Waco Storm, he responded to my request for baseball card stories with an all-too familiar tale...

"I do not collect cards but it is a very cool hobby. The best story is about my dad. As a kid growing up in the 50's and 60's he collected cards. Had a ton of cards with the likes of Ruth, Maris, Williams, etc... you get the drift. My grandma cleaned up a little to good and tossed them all. Needless to say they would have been worth some cash."

Thanks!

I have one Billy Brewer card in my collection, a 1993 O-Pee-Chee from his time with the Royals.

A great trade Engineered

I made a mega-trade with Jeffrey of "One Sexy Engineer" (don't worry, it's a G-rated site) last week and got my cards this weekend.

Lots of great and fun cards.

With this McGwire, I now only need one more card to complete my 1988 Donruss set. Ironically, considering all the Yankee packages I have gotten from fellow bloggers, it's a Yankee card. Anyone have #43, Al Leiter?

Here's .160-lifetime hitter John Smoltz swinging for the fences. Will it go out?

No! Robbed of a home run by center fielder...John Smoltz!

Bong Puffer. Very funny. My piece-of-garbage stoner/drunkard neighbors would enjoy this card.

Naturally, lots of great Yankees, like Willie Randolph.

No Yankee is more fun to get for a fan my age then Don Mattingly. Simply no one looks better on a baseball card or anything else baseball related.


As much of a Yankee fan as I am, I can still appreciate great cards of players from any team. That includes even the Mets and Red Sox.

Some nautical gifts from TribeCards

David from TribeCards sent some fun packs of Pirates and Mariners. Arrrr!

Here are the Pirates:

The Pirate package also contained this mysterious package.

What is it?

Ta-da! A 1977 Pepsi disc of Jerry Reuss.

Even cooler is the back:

The Big Red Machine and two random Indians - this must have been a regional Ohio offer. I wonder how many people actually have a "To my buddy" shirt from Pete Rose.

There was also a replica 1954 Topps card.

The Pirates logo was a lot more bad-ass 55 years ago. He could certainly beat up today's rather sickly-looking version.

Perhaps with the popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean it is time for a logo makeover?

Here is the pile of Mariners, ancient and modern:

The most interesting may be this Edgar Martinez card. Apparently he is part of "The Hitters Club."

The back has an interesting feature - career projection:

A spike in 1992 followed by an immediate dip, then dominating the late 1990s. What a perfect projection! How was Fleer able to project so accurately?

Turns out the card is from 2000. Apparently, Fleer doesn't project the future, but the past. Not very brave. It's like me projecting that the Phillies will win the 2008 World Series.