800th post!!!

A pretty good weekend.  Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of my 29th birthday, I’m hanging out with family and friends this weekend for my first weekend not working in over a month, I found me some Topps Heritage, and this is post #800 of this humble little blog.

I’m getting perilously close to 1,000 posts, and this is another milestone along the way.  I try to do something different for any milestone post, either a look back at the blog or a tie-in to the number of the post.  Or both.  Which is what I’ll do here.

800 isn’t quite the hallowed number or milestone that some numbers are in the lore of baseball history.  It doesn’t mark some kind of special club for a certain statistic like 300 or 500 do, or even like 600 or 700.  That’s mostly because no MLB player has hit over 800 home runs.  One professional player has, though!  Sadaharu Oh hit 868 homers in Japan, about 200 more than any other Japanese player and about 100 more than any recorded professional player (noting that Josh Gibson is believed to hit a ton of homers as well).

But I don’t have any cards of Sadaharu Oh, so I’m going to go with the five guys who have stolen 800 bases or more.

5. Tim “Rock” Raines – 808

The first time I ever featured Raines was when going through the 1981 set, about 2.5 years ago.

In my view, Raines is the most egregious snub in the Hall of Fame.  At least among current players with no tie to steroids (Alan Trammell is also up there).  He’s best known for his incredible base-stealing ability, but, like the guy at the top of this list, that fact tends to short-change how good he was at everything else.  The most he ever stole in a season was 90 in 1983, though he likely would have topped 100 in his rookie campaign if not for the baseball strike.  If not for work stoppages, he’d have a few more swipes, though he wouldn’t have moved up ahead of #4 on this list…

4. Ty Cobb “The Georgia Peach” – 892

I think the first time I featured Cobb was 2011 Gypsy Queen.  Here’s a side-by-side of his 2011 and 2012 cards.

Like many other statistics, Cobb used to be the modern record holder in this category.  He also had the most in a single season with 96 in 1915, though he also got caught stealing quite a bit.

3. “Sliding Billy” Hamilton – 912 (or 937 or 914)

The only time I’ve featured the Hall of Famer from the turn of the 20th century was in 2012 Goodwin Champions.  I was going over the base set, and put the scan up of Hamilton and some other 19th century players.

The number of stolen bases Hamilton is credited with depends on the source – Baseball-Reference says 914, MLB says 912, and the baseball Hall of Fame credits 937.  Regardless, during the early part of his career, there were different rules for what counted as a stolen base or not.  There’s no way to estimate what that number would be under modern rules, especially since the above three sources differ from where you’d start anyways.  But I’d hazard a guess his total would be less than Cobb but more than Raines.  Regardless of how he got there, Hamilton was a run-scoring machine.  In 1894, he crossed the plate nearly 200 times – his 198 runs are 21 more than the next best total,

2. Lou Brock – 938

“Reveal” variation

I first featured Brock with his rookie card when comparing 1962 Topps to 2011 Heritage, but I like this card better.  It’s a variation from 2011 Heritage that shows him with President Jimmy Carter after getting his 3,000th hit.

Brock was the career leader for the first third of my life.  He also broke the (modern) single season record held by Maury Wills (who had passed Cobb as the first player with 100 in a season).  He broke Cobb’s career record toward the end of his run, and by some accounts broke Hamilton’s on the last swipe of his storied career.

1. Rickey Henderson – 1,406

Rickey has been featured prominently on my blog from the start.  This card has been on the right hand side since I set up the blog.  Henderson is one of my 3 favorite players of all-time, and going after the 1980 set (which is my birth year) was a big reason I wanted to start this project to begin with.

Henderson is the king of stolen bases – he holds the single and career records by a wide margin.  His 1,406 make him the only player with over 1,000 and only Vince Coleman is within a score of his single season mark of 130.  He has also crossed the plate more times than anyone in history, and he briefly held the walks record, too.

Honorable Mention – could this guy someday be on that list?

2013 Goals

The past two days I did a look back at 2012 – here’s a look forward at 2013 on this blog.  I’m going to put out a list of my 2012 collecting goals.  I think most collectors do some form of “goal-setting”.  Collecting means you’re trying to accumulate something.  Many collectors aren’t specific – but there is usually some kind of guidelines of what you collect – like Retro cards, base Topps, Jalen Rose – or in my case, all of the above.  Some collectors are more specific to what they want – I probably tend to follow a pretty set pattern.  If I don’t define what I want to collect, I’ll think I can get everything and just get frustrated.

Anyways, here’s my “card hopes and dreams” for the upcoming year – based on the collections I discussed in the past two posts:

1) Lifetime Topps Project #1 – Bust boxes for and post 6-7 more sets.  This would put me through 2003 or 2004 by this time next year.  This is far more realistic than what I hoped to do last year.

2) Lifetime Topps Project #2 – Finish up every set that I had started in 2012.  This will require me to finish up the following sets:

• 1992 – only 3 cards left, this should be easy
• 1993 – less than 10 cards to go, also should be easy
• 1994 – about 60 cards left - anybody want to trade!!!!
• 1995 and Traded – about 80 cards left - anybody want to trade!!!!
• 1996 – 1 cards left, should be easy.  Frankly, I wrote this post in mid-December.  Who knows, I may have finished it already by the time I actually post this!
• 1997 – 11 cards left, should also be easy.
• 1998 – 50 cards left – mostly because I got damaged cards in my series 2 box (see a forthcoming post).  This should be doable.

3) Lifetimetopps #3 – make dents into any insert sets that I’ve started.  I’d like to put a number to finish – but this is just too difficult to do.  Some of these older inserts are just hard to find via trade or at a decent price.  I just want to continue to make progress via trades (hopefully) or via Sportlots or COMC (more likely).  Here’s some of the sets still open:

• 1989 Batting Leaders – 8 cards left.
• 1990 Batting Leaders – 5 cards left.  Both of these are tough to find.  If I knock off a couple more cards in 2013 I’ll be very happy.  No way do I finish them, though.
• 1991 All-Star Glossy – 7 cards left.  I’d really like to finish this one.
• 1994 Black Gold 20 cards left.  Another set I’d love to cross off the list.  I don’t want to buy these though unless I find them dirt cheap.
• 1994 Topps Spanish Legends – 2 cards left.  Like Batting Leaders, this obscure set is tough to find.  I’ll probably just purchase these 2 cards at some point.
• 1995 League Leaders – 22 cards left.  This is a large set.  I’d like to finish it this year.  I think it’s doable.
• 1995 Finest Total Bases – 10 cards left.  This would be tough to finish.  These are also hard to come by.  Making a small dent would be fine.
• 1995 Traded and 1996 Power Boosters – 7 and 19 cards left.  I would also be happy just making a dent in these.
• 1996-00 “Reprints” and “Finest” (Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Ryan, Aaron).  Also just want to make dents into these.
• 1996 inserts and on – many cards left.  I’d just like to finish a few sets out of these, and make dents in some of the others!

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4) Jalen Rose – get up to 93% from my wantlist.  This is a small step – I’m at 92% of my “wantlist” currently.  This is harder than you might think.  This would take about 10 new cards in 2013.  I have so many, and frankly, a few of the cards I’m showing as “missing” may not even exist now.  I spent about $100 on the 20 cards I bought last year.  We’ll see what I can find!

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5) Retro Sets #1 – movement toward finishing my personal “master set” (as I define it based on when I see the product) for sets I’ve started:

• 2011 & 2012 Heritage.  Other than the Lifetimetopps project, Heritage is the second set I want to collect each year.  I don’t mind it spilling over into future years.  I would like to finish these up in 2013, though.
• 2012 Gypsy Queen.  Just need a few insert cards for these.  The retail cards are the toughest.  I want to finish this up.
• 2011 & 2012 Goodwin Champions.  I’m really close on both of these.  Hope to finish them this year.
• 2011 Lineage.  I should be able to finish the remaining inserts this year.  Getting all of those would be quite an accomplishment if I do say myself – but I think I can get there.
• 2012 Archives.  This will be tough because of the retail cards.  I’d just like to continue making a dent in this guy!

6) Retro Sets #2 – collect 2012 Gypsy Queen, Heritage and Goodwin Champions.  I’m assuming Upper Deck will release Goodwin again.  I may collect other retro products, but I plan on these three.  I don’t want to put any goals on them – it’s too tough to finish these up in the year of release.

7) Blog Posting – 200+ posts.  I posted over 330 times this year, but this number will go down.  I thought about saying 250, but I’m not sure I’ll get there.  225 would be a good reach goal.

8) Trading – at least 20 trades.  I made over 40 trades this year, and the year before.  We’ll see how this year goes – it’s getting harder to trade as I have less time for cards.

9) Think about a plan of what to do after I finish the Lifetime Topps project.  This is a carry-over from last year.  I have some ideas, and have put them in a list.  I really won’t have to put this into action until 2014.  I like doing my side posts like Saturday Suds, so those are some things I’ve done already toward this plan.

10) Have fun!  Probably the most important!  I enjoy collecting cards and blogging.  I’ll have less time for both next year, but I’d still like to keep it up and keep it fun!

State of the Blog

2012 in the Lifetime Topps Blog

My blog obviously follows my collections a bit, so what I wrote about in yesterday’s post is similar from a content perspective.

Stats - Ultimately, this stuff is in the category of completely useless but very interesting to me.  I’ve always loved statistics, which is a big reason I collect baseball cards.

This was my second full year of blogging.  I started in March 2010, but I really started posting consistently around September of that year.  I posted 91 times in 2010, 320 times last year, and 333 times in 2012.  That’s a lot of posting.  I won’t post as much next year – my job is harder, I have a kid now, and we have more friends around now that we live in Chicago.

All that stuff is really cool (well, the job part isn’t), but it means less time for cards.  I’ve actually been planning for this for a while – like last summer – and I’m slowing down my posts to 5x a week or so right now.  Eventually I think I’ll settle at around to being an every other day blogger. There were only 33 days that didn’t feature a post this year; that’s a lot of blogging.  At one point, I posted every single day from the end of October 2011 to March 2012.

I had a goal toward this last year:

8) Blog Posting – 250+ posts.  I thought I’d decrease last year, but I actually increased posting a little, so I can pat myself on the back there!

I do find it amusing to look at some of the site stats on WordPress.  I don’t worry too much about readership – except I do hope my blog helps me generate trades.  Here’s some things I noticed:

• My overall readership has gone up with the posting, not surprisingly.  “Lifetimetopps” had around 3,500 hits in 2010, while finished 2011 with around 32,000 for the year.  In 2012, this more than doubled – the blog finished with just under 70,000 views.  I wonder what will happen to this in 2013 with me posting less – we’ll see!
• This blog’s “hits” per day increased from around 100-120 during the last half of 2011 to a peak of 225 in October, but it’s currently getting about 160 (averaging 190 for the year).  I’m not really sure what all that means – is that “readership” – or automatic “clicker-ship” from junk sites, maybe?
• My busiest day by far was on October 18th.  I had a whopping 981 hits.  I should have figured some way to cheat to get 19 more to make it a cool grand.  I’ve never had a day other than that above 500.  In 2011 the previous high was around 380 – which I learned that a chat room had found my post about the 1984 Topps card of Darryl Palmer from the movie “Slugger’s Wife” – that’s a difficult scan to find so a lot of people clicked from that.  For the 981 hits on 10/18, there was something similar going on.  My 1963 statistics post got about 700 hits, and the search term was some variation of “what do Elston Howard and Sandy Koufax have in common”.  They were the 1963 MVP’s – and they wore #32.  That must have been a trivia question on a radio show or something that day.
• WordPress lists my top views of all time as the home page (which I think usually means the post of the day but people clicked on the whole blog not the post) with nearly half of my “hits” .  My Topps wantlist (trades – yay!) and “About” page are still the busiest individual pages.  After that is that 1963 stats page is the most popular individual post – almost all due to that one day!  The other wantlist pages I have are also up there.  Other popular individual posts of all-time is the summary of the 1985 Reds season and the review of the 1980 season.  Next is my overview of 2011 Goodwin.
• My most common referrers are search engines, the Sports Card Blogroll, and then close behind are Night Owl and Dayf.

I had two other goals from last year that related just to general stuff about the blog.

9) Trading – at least 30 trades.  I made over 40 trades this year.  100% plus complete!  Maybe this is the most important goal – the point of blogging about cards is the community aspect of it.  All of my trades are generated through my blogging or me reading other blogs.  The number 40 is about the same as last year – I think I may have actually made one or two more than last year.  I’ll shoot for less in 2013 given the other constraints on my time.

10) Think about a plan of what to do after I finish the Lifetime Topps project.  I actually have a list together, but it will be quite a while before I need to think about this – I probably will finish up the base cards toward this project sometime in late 2014.  I started doing Saturday Suds posts in 2012 – so that’s a fun thing I do that has nothing to do with cards.

State of the Collection

Happy New 2012 to everyone!  One New Year’s Day last year I took a look back at my collecting and blogging from the previous year – so why not do it at that point again this year?

My collections - I still divide my collection focus into 4 basic areas, described here in order of priority – My “Lifetime Topps” project, “Jalen Rose”, “Retro” Sets, and various “Upper Deck” sets and inserts.

Lifetime Topps project - This is my project to complete every Topps Base and Update set since the year I was born (1980), and to a lesser extent, the insert sets.  Meaning I want to finish the insert sets, but it isn’t my first focus.  This collection is the reason I started this blog back in March of 2010 with a wax and vending box of 1980 Topps.

I made good progress in 2012:

• I’ve opened boxes through 1998 set, as well as for 2010 through 2012 – I’ll continue to open a box as new products get released
• I’ve got nearly 16,000 out of the total 26,106 base cards toward the Lifetime Topps Project – I cracked 60% toward the end of the year!
• I’ve completed the 1980 through 1991 sets, and all update sets through 1994.
• I don’t count 2010 and on toward the project, but I’ve also finished up the 2010 and 2011 sets.  For 2012 I still need the Bryce Harper card 661 and a few cards from Update.
• I’ve gotten those cards from – in order of most to least – wax boxes, vending boxes, rack & jumbo packs, trades with fellow bloggers or readers, a cello box, already having the cards from back in the day (mostly 1986), retail blasters, Sportlots and COMC, and even a few from the 2010 Diamond Giveaway!
• I’ve also completed all but one of the “Glossy” Insert sets from ’83 to ’91 – still working on 1991 Topps Glossy All-Stars.  That’s the same spot that I was in last year – though I have bought some of that ’91 set – just not all of them.  I have purchased a few more of the 44 “Batting Leaders” insert sets from 1989 and 1990.  I finished the ’93 Topps Black Gold set from 1993 – thanks to an attic find back at my folks’ house .  And I’ve made good dents into the insert sets from ’94 through ’98.

My goals from last year were:

1) Lifetime Topps Project #1 – Bust boxes for and post about 10 more sets.  I got only halfway through this one – I’ve posted through 1996 and busted through 1998.  Ten was way too ambitious considering I posted about retro cards exclusively for 7 months of the year.  45% of the goal completed.

2) Lifetime Topps Project #2 – Finish up every set that I started in 2011.  This year, I finished up 6 of the 8 sets toward this goal.  That includes 1982 (by purchasing the Ripken!), 1983, and 1988-1991.  I’m very close on 1992 and 1993.  75% completed.

3) Lifetime Topps Project #3 – finish up any insert sets from 1995 Topps and earlier (within reason price-wise).  I like that I put at the end “within reason”.  That was a qualifier, and I used it here.  I did finish up 93 Topps Black Gold, and that’s about it.  I thought this had potential at the time – because Topps really didn’t blow up the number of insert set until 1996.  But the Batting Leaders from ’89 and ’90 are going to be very difficult, and the Power Booster and Finest inserts from ’95 & ’96 are tough to find via trade or at a really good price.  I’ve made good dents in this piece, though – while being fiscally prudent!  Giving myself a 25% complete here – but I’m OK with that.

Jalen Rose – This is the collection I’ve always maintained since I started collecting cards in the early 90′s.  I collect any Jalen Rose cards that are #’d to 50 or above (or not #’d at all).  That limitation was a smart decision made when I had a much lower collecting budget.  I’m pretty confident I have the largest collection of Jalen Rose basketball cards of anyone in the world – for whatever that’s worth!

Jalen had a few new cards in 2012 issued by Panini/Donruss/Playoff.  They’ve actually added 4 cards to my wantlist this year – which is less than the 21 from 2011.  I got all 4 of the 2012 cards, and in total bought about 20 toward this collection (I think the exact number is 19).  That’s good progress – I moved 90.5% to 92%.  When you’re that high on a collection like this, moving the needle at all is tough.  I’m buying more than they’re producing, so it goes up a little each year!

I have this as #2 priority behind the Topps project because I am always (and have always been) collecting Jalen cards.  I don’t buy too many any more, because there aren’t that many left and the old ones I don’t ave are hard to find.  But, I will still be collecting these even if I someday take another hiatus from baseball cards.

My goals from last year were:

4) Jalen Rose – get up to 92% on my wantlist.  Got it on the number.  100% complete.

Retro sets – This was my new collecting category last year.  In both 2011 and 2012 I’ve put down the Lifetime Topps project from April to September or so.  This starts with Heritage, continues through Gypsy Queen, Ginter, Archives/Lineage, and Goodwin Champions.  I go a little bit overboard – but I enjoy those products (except maybe Ginter – but it is fun doing Gint-A-Cuffs).

In 2012, I completed the 2011 Gypsy Queen master set – all 350 base cards including SP’s, and all of the standard inserts (including the weird Gypsy Queen insert set).  That’s quite an accomplishment.  I also finished the 2012 Gypsy Queen base set – not difficult because there weren’t SP’s, and am getting there on the inserts.  For Heritage – I finished the 2011 set – including all 75 SP’s.  Another good showing.  I still have a few inserts left – most of which are the Jackie Robinson variation set – but I’ve completed quite a few Heritage insert sets in both 2011 and 2012.  I’m actually pretty close on finishing the 2012 Heritage base set.

I’m getting very close on finishing the master set for 2011 Lineage – there are a ton of inserts, so this will be cool when I do complete it.  For 2012 Archives, I’m close to finishing the set (not counting card #241 of Harper) and doing OK on the inserts.  I made a good dent through COMC on those.  For Goodwin Champions – I’m very close to finishing off both 2011 and 2012 master sets – but not quite there yet.  One SP card to go for the 2011 base set!

My goals from the start of the year were:

5) Retro Sets #1 – collect and finish my personal “master set” (as I define it based on when I see the product) for 2012 Heritage.  Not sure why I thought this would be doable.  I will finish this in 2013, it’s just too much to do in the year of issuance without really focusing on it.  75% complete.

6) Retro Sets #2 – do the same for 2012 Gypsy Queen.  Again, not sure here why I thought this would be doable.  Same as above.  85% complete.

7) Retro Set #3 – Wrap up master sets from 2011.

• 2011 Heritage.  Almost there – 95% complete.
• 2011 Gypsy Queen.  Done – 100%.
• 2011 Goodwin Champions.  Almost there – 99% complete.
  
• Make a big dent into the 2011 Lineage inserts.  Done – 100%.  I’m actually closer to finishing this than I thought I could be.

Various Upper Deck – This is really just a continuation of old sets that I used to collect.  I didn’t add too much in this category again in 2012.  I have a collection of the Piece of History 500 and 3,000 club cards, and I added 7 cards toward that this year.  That’s actually quite a bit – the 500 homer cards can fetch a pretty penny, and I’ll probably never be rich enough to obtain the Babe Ruth (can’t win the lottery if you don’t play).  I got some other cards here and there in trades, but really not much this year, and I’m not focusing on this at all right now.

I didn’t have any goals toward Upper Deck at the start of the year.

So I think I did pretty well with my collections in 2012.  Hopefully I can wrap up some of the low-hanging fruit in early 2013!

Post #700!!!!

This is my 700th post – which seems like quite a milestone, maybe because of what’s happened since the 600th post.  I’m now a proud papa, I moved to Chicago, and the Reds became the only team that ever has or ever will blow a 2-game lead in the playoffs with 3 games left at home.

I thought it would be interesting to look at milestones on my blog and see how long it took in between them and what I wrote about.

1st post – March 2, 2010.

I kicked off the blog with an introduction to what I was doing with this Lifetime Topps project.

100th post – January 9, 2011.  313 days.

This is easily the longest in between.  Over 10 months before I hit my 100th post.  In reality, though, I didn’t really start blogging until August or so of 2010.  I went through my ten favorite cards up to that point, which was through 1985 Topps I think.

200th post – May 15, 2011.  126 days.

Here I did a post comparing my experience purchasing cards on Sportlots, COMC and eBay.

300th post – September 7, 2011.  115 days.

A little bit quicker, 11 days less.  For this one, I went back through old posts and chronologically determined the order in which I’d posted pictures of 300 game winners.  I had all but 7 of them at the time, and I think I’ve had at least Early Wynn since then (and maybe Warren Spahn).

400th post – December 20, 2011.  104 days.

11 days less again, my acceleration was constant at this point For this one I did a blog bat around post where I talked about which set I liked the best, which in 2011 was Heritage.

500th post – March 30, 2012.  101 days.

I basically was one post a day at this point.  This was probably my longest post ever – I did the same thing I did for the 300-win club, only with the 500-homer club.  Ted Williams was the only player I didn’t have a picture of yet, but he will actually have a post later this month for 1996 Topps.

600th post – July 15, 2012.  107 days.

Slowing down a little.  For this one, I did a post about all the guys who have a .600 career slugging percentage.

700th post – today.  116 days.

Slowing down some more. I’ll be slowing down a little more over the next few months with the new job and new responsibilities at home.  A lot of my posts were actually queued up earlier in the year when I didn’t have diapers to change!

What should I do for today’s post?  I could do 700 homers, but I’ve already done that for 500.  I could do .700 season slugging percentage, but that’s too long of a list, and I did slugging for a career with .600.

I could do at bats in a season.  It would be a manageable number, and I think I have pictures of Willie Wilson and Juan Samuel somewhere on the blog, in addition to Rollins and Ichiro.  But that’s not as fun as career doubles – which is a manageable list and probably some interesting info for those of you who don’t know the record holders for this stat!

The cards below have all been featured on my blog at some point in the past, and I own each of them as well.  Enjoy!

Tris Speaker – 792

Pete Rose – 746

Stan Musial – 725

Ty Cobb – 724

The closest player to 700 without joining this “club” is actually Craig Biggio, who has 668 doubles.

600th post!!!

I don’t have anything earth-shattering for the 600th post on this blog.  It’s a pretty large number, and I’m happy I’ve been able to keep it up.  There isn’t really much in baseball for this number other than the 600 home run club.  But that’s kind of cliché – I know that 600 is the new 500, but I did a 500 home run post for that milestone.  So the only thing I can think of is the .600 career slugging percentage club.

Babe Ruth – .690

Ruth is one of 2 players to be part of both “600 clubs” – the slugging and the home run version.  .690 for a career is beyond amazing.  This is arguably the most untouchable record out there.  Will somebody hit 56 games in a row?  Probably not – but it was recently done at the college level, so it’s feasible.  5,700 strikeouts?  Also unlikely, but if Randy Johnson could have had some control in his early years, he could have made a run at Ryan’s record.  Justin Verlander probably won’t equal Ryan’s no-hit record – but you never know, he could.  But the likelihood of anyone slugging .690 for a career is pretty much nil.  The difference between Ruth and 2nd place is great evidence for this.

Ted Williams – .634

Not coincidentally, the same two guys are 1-2 in on base percentage (though the order is flipped).

.632 – Lou Gehrig

The 1927 Yankees had 2 of the top 3 players in career slugging percentage.  Amazing.

.609 – Jimmie Foxx

Another 500-homer guy, he’s kind of underrated as an all-time great.  Probably just behind Gehrig as the best first baseman ever.

Albert Pujols – .609

Except this guy could be in there somewhere as well.  Though I don’t think he’ll end his career over .600.

Barry Bonds – .607

The other guy who hit 600 homers and is on this list.  He is also the only player to ever have an OBP over .600 in a single season.

Hank Greenberg – .605

Greenberg has the least homers on this list, though that’s because he missed a number of years to the War.

Post #500!!!!

Today is my 500th post, so I want to take a pause from the Heritage stuff that I’m doing to look back a bit.  It’s been a lot of fun.  I went through all the 300 game winners for my 300th post – so doing the 500 home run club seems good here.  I’ll go through to see where I first included each of the 500 HR club members in my blog.

There are 25 members of the 500 HR club as of today.  It’s unlikely anyone will join the club next year – though Pujols could if he has his best power season yet (he’s at 445).  Chipper Jones (454) and Vlad Guerrero (449) are ahead of him, but he’ll pass both of them this year and Chipper will retire (probably with around 470) at the end of 2012.  The numbers below represent the player’s ranking on the all-time list (i.e., Bonds is #1).

Post #7 – 18th (Willie McCovey – 521) and 13th (Reggie Jackson – 563)

I got these two guys in a post in April 2010 where I scanned cards from my 1980 Topps wax box.  That was so long ago – nearly two years!

Post #31 – 15th (Mike Schmidt – 548)

I didn’t pull Schmidt in either my 1980 wax box or vending box, so before I ever posted a Mike Schmidt card, I posted a picture of him in my 1981 MLB season in review.  This was done in August, 2010.

Post #11 – 5th (Ken Griffey Jr. – 630)

I featured a photo of Griffey on June 2, 2010 – which was the day my baseball hero hung up his cleats for good.

Post #39 – 25th (Eddie Murray – 504)

Murray is another guy I’m surprised didn’t make it onto this blog until earlier.  He was first featured in October, 2010 in my scans of 1982 Topps cards.

Post #45 – 2nd (Hank Aaron – 755)

Aaron also made his way onto this baseball card blog in a form that wasn’t a baseball card blog.  Since he had just made the Hall of Fame in 1982 – I showed off his Cooperstown plaque in the post I did for my “1982 season statistics”.  I had gotten to the end of my 1982 posts in the middle of October, 2010.

Post #53 – 9th (Frank Robinson – 586)

It’s hard to believe it, but Frank Robinson is almost out of the top 10 career list.  He’s on here in an interesting way.  At the end of October, 2010, I had moved on to 1983 Topps, and he had a manager card in 1983 Topps that I featured in my big post of my favorite scans from that set.

Post #64 – 16th (Mickey Mantle – 536)

The iconic figure of the hobby.  I put a scan of his 1952 Topps card in a post in November 2010 to advertise for the “Topps 300” – a cool idea that was put out by BDJ610, the blogger who runs the Sports Card Blogroll.

Post #79 – 11th (Harmon Killebrew – 573)

Like Aaron did, Killebrew first got featured in one of my “statistics” posts.  Harmon was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984 – I showed off this picture of the two Twins MVP’s when I finished up 1984 in December, 2010.

The 1969 AL MVP celebrates with the 2006 one

Post #83 – 3rd (Babe Ruth – 714)

Babe Ruth made it onto my blog in the same month as part of a trade with Night Owl that helped me get closer to finishing the 2010 Topps set.  He’s featured on the Yankees team card with his right-hand man, Lou Gehrig.

Post #87 – 10th (Mark McGwire – 583)

This Bash Brother made it in a couple of days later as I did the scans from my 1985 set.  Naturally, he’s featured with the 2 other big rookies from that set – though Big Mac is the only out of these three who didn’t have a 1984 Fleer Update card.  Through the end of 2010 – I’d featured 11 of the 25 500 home run club members!

Post #93 – 3rd (Barry Bonds – 762)

The all-time leader got in the action in one of my first 2011 posts when I featured him in the statistics post for 1985.  Aaron and Killebrew were featured for getting in the Hall of Fame – Bonds was featured for being the 6th overall pick of the ’85 MLB draft.

Post #120 – 6th (Alex Rodriguez – 629)

A-Rod will be 6th for only a short time more, as he’s 1 dinger behind his former teammate, Griffey Jr.  I had him featured when I got a Target blaster of 2011 Topps series 1 in early February 2011, which was exciting stuff at the time.  This card actually honors him passing the 600 home run barrier – maybe that’s something also for 100 posts from now.

Post #130 – 12th (Rafael Palmeiro – 569)

When I was done with the 2011 posts, I moved back to my project and 1987 Topps was next for the latter half of February.  I got Palmeiro in my post on the All-Star Rookie Team and Future Stars subsets, which I started doing when Topps put the Rookie Cup back on the cards in 1987.

Post #132 – 4th (Willie Mays – 660)

2 posts later I finally got Willie Mays in the mix – he was the gold card available for dealers who ordered cases of 1987 Topps Traded.  So he warranted a picture in that post.

Post #144 – 21st (Frank Thomas – 521)

In early March 2011, I got a scan of the Big Hurt in here – though surprisingly not with the White Sox.  I got an A’s card of him to help with my Upper Deck set collection.  This came from a trade with Angels in Order.

Post #158 – 21st (Ernie Banks – 512)

I picked up an Ernie Banks card from the Yo Momma set at a White Plains card show in late March 2011.

Post #168 – 24th (Gary Sheffield – 509)

The next month,I got the RC of Gary Sheffield in the post on the Future Stars and Topps ASR team.

Post #184 – 21st (Eddie Mathews – 512)

Toward the end of April 2011, I tried to squeeze what I’m doing right now for Heritage into just one post!  The Heritage vs. Vintage post I did then featured Eddie Mathews (who was appropriately lined up with Chipper Jones).

Post #200 – 7th (Sammy Sosa – 609)

I was wondering when Slammin’ Sammy would get in here – I figured it might not be until 1990 Topps.  But he was in a post I did in mid-May (actually it was in honor of my 200th post) on some purchases I’d made from Sportlots.  I must have found this Run Producers card for a good deal on that site.

Post #204 – 17th (Jimmie Foxx – 534)

I got a card of Double-X, which is from the 2011 Topps Vintage reproductions, as a trade from reader Hugo in late May.

Post #223 – 14th (Manny Ramirez – 555)

555, and now counting.  I got Manny’s 2011 Heritage card, with the Rays, as part of a trade with Play at the Plate.  I mentioned that this was probably Manny’s last card, though that’s now changed after he un-retired.  He faces permanent suspension if he tests positive ever again.

Post #371 – 8th (Jim Thome – 604)

These last three are pretty surprising that it went so long without a picture in my blog.  Thome had his first Topps card in 1992, and that got him into my post with 1992 Topps scans.

Post #404 – 23rd (Mel Ott – 511)

Only one more after this – Mel Ott is the last guy from this club I’ve posted thus far.  He was in the Home Run Heroes set for Gypsy Queen, which I completed and posted about in December of last year.

Post #500 – 18th (Ted Williams – 521)

I actually haven’t had Teddy Ballgame featured on this blog yet.  Sort of shocking.  I actually have a post saved that will show him in the future – here’s a preview…

The halfway point!

I missed realizing this when I finished with my 1994 Topps posts, but I’ve reached the halfway point of my Lifetime Topps project/quest/obsession in a couple of ways.  I got this idea and started working on it in early 2010, basically in response to the fact that Upper Deck had lost its license and as an excuse to start a blog.  So the Topps sets that you could really consider my “project” are the sets before that – 1980 to 2009.  So getting through the posts for 1980 through 1994 is really the halfway point for those posts.  Also, if you look at total cards I own of the base Topps sets from 1980-2011, I went over the halfway point when I opened the 1994 series 1 box.  I’m now at 52.8% of the 80-09 cards (I always keep this as a sidebar on the front of my blog).

I looked back at the “rules of engagement” that I put out there in the third post of this blog.  I had 3 “rules”:

1) Collect in chronological order, buy one wax box per year/series. 

Aside from the original wax box, I’ve accumulated more cards toward the goal primarily through a second box for that year (often vending) and trades.

2) I’ve got to do this on somewhat of a budget.

I’ve stayed with this for my Topps base set collecting – it’s the other areas where I haven’t

3) I wanted 90% completion on the previous set before moving on to the next set.

I panned this rule fairly early on – it just didn’t make sense as it could stall moving on to the next year’s set.  It could also directly impact goal #2, as I may just go with buying cards that I could eventually trade for.  And it could lessen the likelihood of making trades – so I figured as long as I had 90% cumulative, I’d move on.

In April through September last year, I paused and started focusing more on the retro sets that were coming out.  I want to collect some of those sets this year, but not quite as diligently if it comes at the expense of this project!  Anyways, it’s been a fun project thus far – 1995 is coming up soon.  That’s the last set I’m familiar with from my days collecting as a kid, so once I move on from there, I’ll be in new territory for me!

2012 Goals

Yesterday I did a look back at 2011 – here’s a look forward at 2012.  Hiflew over at Cards at the Quarry did something I liked and want to emulate over on this blog.  It’s nothing earth-shattering – but, hey, flattery is the sincerest form of imitation or something like that…

I’m going to put out a list of my 2012 collecting goals.  I think most collectors do some form of “goal-setting”.  Collecting means you’re trying to accumulate something.  Many collectors aren’t specific – bu there is usually some kind of guidelines of what you collect – like Reds cards, Retro cards, base Topps, Jalen Rose – or in my case, all of the above.  Some collectors are more specific to what they want – I probably tend to follow a pretty set pattern.  If I don’t define what I want to collect, I’ll think I can get everything and just get frustrated.

Anyways, here’s my “card hopes and dreams” for the upcoming year – based on the collections I discussed in yesterday’s post:

1) Lifetime Topps Project #1 – Bust boxes for and post about 10 more sets.  This would put me through 2003 by next year.

2) Lifetime Topps Project #2 – Finish up every set that I started in 2011.  This will require me to finish up the following sets (anybody want to trade!!!!):

• 1982 – ~20 cards left, but one of them is the Ripken – this is probably the most difficult (or at least the most expensive!)
• 1983 – only 2 cards left, this should be easy
• 1988 – 27 1988 Topps cards should be quite doable and quite inexpensive
• 1989 -  6 cards – even easier than the above
• 1990 – 50 cards left, still pretty easy since it’s 1990 Topps
• 1991 – 59 cards left, again, easy since this was at the height of over-production
• 1992 – 176 cards left – might be harder just to track down due to sheer volume, but I also just posted these recently so I’m sure some trading will help with this
• 1993 – 153 cards left – same as above

3) Lifetimetopps #3 – finish up any insert sets from 1995 Topps and earlier (within reason price-wise).  This actually may be more difficult than any other goal I have because of one set in particular.  That would be the Batting Leaders K-Mart blaster inserts from 1989 and 1990.  These are very cool cards and I want to complete for sure someday.  Whenever I find a fair price on those – I pounce on it.  But that doesn’t happen a lot, and I’m not paying $15 for Eddie Murray’s card in this set.  So that set may require patience that pushes it past 2012, but the others won’t be difficult at all.

• 1989 Topps – Batting Leaders still open
• 1990 Topps – Batting Leaders still open
• 1991 Topps – All-Star glossy still open
• 1993 Topps Black Gold
• 1994 Topps – Black Gold still open
• 1995 Topps – League Leaders, Finest Total Bases, Traded Power Boosters

4) Retro Sets #1 – collect and finish my personal “master set” (as I define it based on when I see the product) for 2012 Heritage.  Other than the Lifetimetopps project, Heritage is the second set I want to collect each year.  I hope to finish it each year, but I don’t mind it spilling over a little bit like this year’s Heritage set did.

5) Retro Sets #2 – do the same for 2012 Gypsy Queen.  I loved this set in 2011, and the Griffey (Which I’ve now shown about 5 times on this blog) has me all Gaga poker-faced.

I’m not going to put any collecting goals out there for any other 2012 sets.  I will most likely buy plenty of other retro stuff, but those are the only things I want to put as “goals”.  The other stuff in order of preference would be – the Archives product Topps has advertised, Goodwin Champions, and Ginter.

6) Retro Set #3 – Wrap up master sets from 2011.

• 2011 Heritage
• 2011 Gypsy Queen
• 2011 Goodwin Champions
  
• Make a big dent into the 2011 Lineage inserts

I’m actually really close on the first 3 sets, hopefully that will be done before I even start-up anything for 2012 sets. I think I could possibly get there for Lineage, but some of those inserts are pretty large and I’m fine with building those up slowly.  If anything, that time just makes the price come down and allows for more trades to happen.

7) Jalen Rose – get up to 92% from my wantlist.  I’m at 90% of my “wantlist” on Jalen Rose cards, I’d like to get as many new cards as he gets in 2012 as possible and get up to 92% total.  This is actually harder than you think.  I’m at ~90.4% now, up only from about 88% last year, which includes an increase in the denominator because of new cards he had – so I did make a good dent into his old cards last year.  But I think I spent about 150 bucks on Jalen cards this year for about 35 cards – so this could be a challenge.

8) Blog Posting – 250+ posts.  I posted over 300 times this year, I’m fine if that goes down a little (it will – based on a couple exciting “life events” to happen in 2012).

9) Trading – at least 30 trades.  I made around 40 trades this year.  I’d like to shoot for over 30 this year, but even more would be great!

10) Think about a plan of what to do after I finish the Lifetime Topps project.  I have some ideas, but I’d like to post about them when I get closer to the end of the project.

State of the Blog

Happy New 2012 to everyone!  New Year’s Day seems as good of a time as any to take a look back at my collecting and blogging from the previous year.

My collections - Currently I divide my collections into 4 areas, described here in order of priority – My “Lifetime Topps” project, “Jalen Rose”, “Retro” Sets, and various “Upper Deck” sets and inserts.

Lifetime Topps project - This is my project to complete every Topps Base and Update set since the year I was born (1980), and to a lesser extent, some of the insert sets.  This collection is the reason I started this blog back in March of 2010 with a wax and vending box of 1980 Topps.  I made good progress in 2011.  I don’t really have a great track of what I completed in 2010 versus 2011 - I know I’d posted through 1985 at the end of last year, but I think I had actually opened the 1986 box and nearly finished that set with cards I had from home (yes, I’m sure I did that when I think about it – because I conveniently picked those up from Mom & Dad’s around Christmas last year):

• I’ve opened boxes through 1993 Update set, as well as for 2010 and 2011 – I’ll continue to open a box or more as new products get released
• I’ve got 14,192 out of the total 29,142 based cards (just under 50% there!)
• I’ve completed the 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987 sets, and all update sets I’ve started to collect (1981-1993, 2010-2011)
• I could probably figure out the exact #’s from each source, but suffice it to say I’ve gotten those cards from – in order of most to least – wax boxes, vending boxes, rack & jumbo packs, a cello box, trades with fellow bloggers or readers, already having the cards from back in the day (mostly 1986), retail blasters, Sportlots and COMC, and even a few from the Diamond Giveaway!

It’s not as big of a focus, but I’ve also completed all of the “Glossy” Insert sets except 1991 Topps Glossy All-Stars (need all 22 cards).  I have 26 out of the 44 “Batting Leaders” insert sets from 1989 and 1990.  And I’ve got a whopping 1 card out of Topps Black Gold from 1993.  I have plenty of the 2010/2011 inserts, but that’s too complicated to get into percentages and all that for the time being

Jalen Rose – The one collection I’ve maintained and always continued to add to, basically since I re-started collecting cards in the early 90′s, is that of Jalen Rose.  I collect any Jalen Rose cards that are #’d to 50 or above (or not #’d at all).  That was a smart decision I made a long time ago when I had a much lower collecting budget.  I’ve written this before, but I’m pretty confident I have the largest collection of Jalen Rose basketball cards of anyone in the world – whatever that means.  

Surprisingly (or not, if you know much about the current state of the hobby), Jalen had quite a few cards in 2011 issued by Panini/Donruss/Playoff.  They’ve actually added 21 cards to my list of cards to buy in 2011.  But I’ve done well this year – I have written down that I had 88.8% of potential cards at the end of 2010 – I now have over 90%.   So I’m buying more than they’re producing!  I think I accomplished this by actually finding about 2 lots of international cards (from ’94-’96) on eBay during the year.

It’s interesting – I put this as #2 priority because I am always collecting Jalen cards.  I don’t buy too many any more, because there aren’t that many left and the old ones I don’t ave are hard to find.  But, I will still be collecting these even if I someday take another hiatus from baseball cards.

Retro sets – This is my new collecting category in 2011.  I actually put down the Lifetime Topps project in April (I had opened a box of 1990 but not posted about it yet) when I first opened a hobby box of Heritage.  That turned into a blaster of Heritage, 2 hobby boxes and a blaster of Gypsy Queen, 2 hobby boxes and a blaster of Goodwin, 2 hobby boxes and a blaster of Ginter, and 2 hobby boxes and a blaster of Lineage.  I think I went a little bit overboard – but I honestly really liked every one of those sets.  Ginter was my least favorite (it’s a product that I really think could use learn from the phrase “less is more”), but it was really fun doing Gint-A-Cuffs.

In 2010, I completed the Lineage base set, but none of the others.  Surprise – it’s the one with no SP’s!!!  I did complete a number of insert sets, and I am actually very close to finishing off both the Heritage, Gypsy Queen and Goodwin sets, including the SP’s.

Various Upper Deck – This is really just a continuation of old sets that I used to collect.  As it should be – I didn’t add too much in this category in 2011, with one exception.  I have a collection of the Piece of History 500 and 3,000 club cards, and I think I added about 10 this year.  That’s actually quite a bit – the 500 homer cards can fetch a pretty penny, and I’ll probably never be rich enough to obtain the Babe Ruth (can’t win the lottery if you don’t play).  I got some other cards here and there in trades, but I’m really not focusing on this right now.

2011 in the Lifetime Topps Blog - My blog obviously follows my collections a bit, so what I wrote about in 2011 is similar to the above. 

Stats – Ultimately, this stuff is in the category of completely useless but very interesting to me.  I’ve always loved statistics, which is a big reason I collect baseball cards.

First off, this is the first full year I’ve had a blog.  I started in March 2010, but I really started posting consistently around September of last year.  I posted 91 times in 2010, compared to 320 times in 2011.  Wow.  That’s quite an increase.  When I think about that – there were only 45 days that didn’t feature a post this year.  That’s a lot of blogging.  I basically started at around 2 posts every 3 days or so, and now I’m up to exactly once a day in November and December.  I kind of doubt I’ll keep that pace up completely – a big reason is that we moved to New Jersey in 2010.  And while I spend plenty of free time traveling, going to NYC, etc. – neither my wife or I have many really good friends up here in the Northeast.  I do most of my blogging while watching sports – whereas when I lived in Ohio I used to head to sports bars or friends’ houses much more.  These things could change next year, as some life changes are on the horizon.  I’m trying to build up a queue of posts – but I’ll probably scale down to every other day at some point next year.

Every now and then, I find it amusing to look at some of the site stats on WordPress.  I don’t worry too much about readership – except I do hope my blog helps me generate trades.  Here’s some things I noticed:

• My overall readership has gone up with the posting, not surprisingly.  “Lifetimetopps” had around 3,500 hits in 2010, while it will be finishing 2011 with around 32,000 for the year.
• This blog’s “hits” per month increased every month of its existence until I jumped from 2,600 hits in June to 3,700 hits in July.  I just couldn’t keep up that kind of “readership” (or automatic “clicker-ship”from junk sites, maybe).  The next 4 months I had between 3,100 and 3,300, so it was really more that July was a bit of an anomaly – I originally assumed it was when I did Gint-A-Cuffs, but that was actually August.  Strangely, in July I mostly did Goodwin Champions, comparing the current set to the old 1888 set.  That was my most fun product to do these comparisons, probably because Goodwin was a multi-sport set both then and now.  At the time of writing this (I actually wrote this around December 20th) – it looks like December will actually have a good chance of breaking the 3,700 record from July.
• My busiest day was on December 2, 2011.  I had a whopping 384 hits.  This was nearly double what my previous high had been before December.  At the time, I was really confused, but I learned a few days later that some chat room had found my post about the 1984 Topps card of Darryl Palmer from the “Slugger’s Wife” on eBay – which is a tough scan to find.  I had over 200 posts on December 3rd, too – mostly attributable to that post.
• WordPress lists my top views of all time as the home page (which I think usually means the post of the day but people clicked on the whole blog not the post) with nearly half of my “hits” .  My Topps wantlist (trades – yay!) and “About” page are the next busiest.  Interestingly enough, the most popular individual post of all-time is the summary of the 1985 Reds season.  This completely boggles my mind.  Next is my overview of 2011 Goodwin – this makes more sense. As I said above, I’m probably one of the only blogs that did much of anything on this set, and I did a lot.  Next is fixing 2011 Topps from Stale Gum’s blog bat around – another that makes sense.  After that it’s the 1980 season in review, a post about the Fab 5 being on ESPN (two more ?’s), the aforementioned Darryl Palmer post, and 2011 Heritage vs. 1962 Topps variations (good to see – I thought that was pretty informative to learn about when I posted it).
• My most common referrers are search engines, the Sports Card Blogroll, and then close behind are Night Owl and Cardboard Junkie.