Time Travel cards from various times

Another great Time Travel Trade with Diamond Jesters:

2020 baseball! The contents of a pack, including inserts that take from old card designs. (The '79 style Fisk is actually from 2016)

 '60s baseball!

 70s football! The smaller item is a 1972 Sunoco stamp.

Part of a nutritious breakfast

I got a Free Card Friday package from the ever-generous Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts. I didn't realize until I got the cards that every card in the package was cereal-themed.

Yost is my first '62 Post. Kelloggs cards from the beginning and end of the 1970s, and the checklist card from the 1984 Topps Cereal set. Great cards all of them.

1981 Topps Roy Lee Jackson

The front: Simple spring training shot.

The back: Jackson is from Opelika, Alabama. Another Opelika native, John Herbert Orr, was a US Army Intelligence official who developed magnetic tape from captured German technologies during World War II. After the war Orr created Orradio Industries to supply magnetic tape to the U.S. Government. The company was acquired by Ampex in 1959. The company later changed its name to Quantegy and closed in 2005 after the company went bankrupt as demand for analog tape dried up.

The player: Roy Lee Jackson was a middle reliever for the Mets, Blue Jays, Padres and Twins from 1977 to 1986. In 280 games he went 28-34 with 34 saves and a 3.77 ERA.

The man: Known for his singing voice, Jackson sang the national anthem several times, as famously captured on his 1984 Fleer card. He also appeared on an early episode of “3-2-1 Contact” demonstrating how a curveball curves. He is now the pastor of the New Creation Service Center in Opelika.

My collection: I have 18 of his cards, from 1981 to 1987. I would be interested in trading for 1984 Blue Jays Fire Safety #25.

Cards from Fuji

Somehow I had never traded with Chronicles of Fuji before. I rectified that recently by sending him some San Jose Sharks from my recent hockey acquisition. He sent me back an amazing package of vintage.

I had completely forgotten he was going to send me cards, and had no idea what he was going to send, so I had no expectations as to what would be in the package. These were the cards on the outside of the team bag, so the '55 Bowman was the first thing I saw. Talk about an awesome surprise! That is George Freese, older brother of the more well-known Gene Freese.

 In addition to the terrific '61 Post card of George Altman, there were four great cards from '70 Hostess. Wally Bunker is my favorite here, the 3D set-up with the closeup makes it feel like he is in the room with you.

 '59-62 cards.

 '63-'68s. Tony Taylor is a high-number - I've had pretty good luck with the '64 high numbers.

 I don't know if this was intentional on Fuji's part, but I love vintage cards where the owner stamped it with their address and/or phone number. This is the first one I've seen with a return-address label. Campbell is right outside of Fuji's home city of San Jose. No area code necessary in 1966. A few years earlier Santa Clara County got the 408 area code as it split off from San Francisco's 415, but until the last 1970s permissive dialing between the two codes meant they did not have to use the area code when dialing into the other code.

A Mighty PWE

Should PWE be pronounced "Pee-Wee"? Not when it comes from Bob of The Best Bubble. His are always mighty. Here is what he sent me this week, in exchange for some cards for his mini-collections:

A couple of early '70s semi-high-numbers

 Some mid-70s Hostess goodies, including a "Rickey" Reuschel error card

 Two '75 minis, a 1974 TCMA Gashouse Gang card, and a 1988 Topps Mini Leaders card that knocks off one of my last two needs for that set. Anyone have #76 RICK Reuschel to trade?

Vintage backgrounds: The Big A

The Big A is the famous scoreboard of Anaheim Stadium, which loomed over left field until renovations for the arrival of the NFL's Rams in 1979 necessitated the relocation of the Big A to the stadium's parking lot. The card of Billy Cowan with a "halo" is well-known to most baseball card fans.

 But my eye was drawn to this one of Clyde Wright showing the Chevron ad behind him. The space above the big scoreboard was used by a variety of sponsors but Chevron seems to have used the space the longest. F-310 was notable as the first gasoline specifically marketed as environmentally-friendly.

Even cooler, part of the sign lit up at night, as can be seen in this 1966 photo of Marcelino Lopez pitching to the Yankees' Roger Maris.

1981 Topps Jorge Orta

The front: Nice action shot a Yankee Stadium. Notice the fielding cap under the batting helmet, not something you see anymore. Orta played in one day game at Yankee Stadium, a 7-2 Yankees win on June 29. Orta had two singles in five at-bats.

The back: Topps included two extra statistics for Orta’s 1979 season, one that is now largely discredited and the other now considered one of the most important in the game. Baseball-Reference has his on-base percentage as .348, not .351.

The player: A two-time All-Star, Jorge Orta played sixteen seasons in the major leagues for five teams, mostly the White Sox and Royals. He was a .270s/.280s hitter with a little power and a little speed. In 1,755 games he hit .278 with 130 HR and 745 RBI.

The man: His father, Pedro Orta, was a famous slugger in Cuba, known as the “Babe Ruth of Cuba”. Jorge Orta had a long minor league coaching career and is now retired.

My collection: I have 33 of his cards, from 1973 to 1987. I would be interested in trading for 1984 Fleer Update #86.