2013 HOF Induction Ceremony Recap!

Hey guys, Drew back here. And yeah, we were in that. This year's Induction Ceremony was already planning on being a gloomy day for baseball, as three long dead inductees were being brought in by the Veterans Committee. It didn't help that the weather didn't even want to cooperate. There was a rain delay (fitting) for over an hour at the ceremony, and we were all forced to duck under various tents located around the area. We left our chairs and blanket out in the middle of it all, so by the time the rain stopped, we had no choice but to stand. Had we been standing a couple yards to our left, we could've been yelled at by a guy sitting nearby. At one point the guy became so frustrated with the man standing in front of him that he got up in the other guy's face, only to be pulled back by his son. What people do to see Deacon White get inducted into Cooperstown...

William and I, while appreciating the impact that Deacon White, Jacob Ruppert, and Hank O'Day made on the game we love today, came to see the returning members of the Hall of Fame. Not too many of them showed up, however it wasn't a complete wash in any way. Rollie Fingers and Rod Carew were two of the first players announced, both of whom are usually expected to be there. You can't have a Hall of Fame extravaganza without the handlebar moustache!

One of the marquee players of the pack was undoubtedly Sandy Koufax, the legendary lefty of the Dodgers! Sandy seems to love coming up for the induction every year, although he generally prefers to keep out of the public spotlight. It was great to see him though, and he really looked great for his age.

Rickey definitely won the "Best Dressed" award this year, as he seemed to find a way to look good wherever he ended up. You can also see in this picture how hard it was raining, and this was after the actual rain delay.

Frank Robinson also left his mark on the stage that day, and it was great to get to see him again. Hopefully one day I'll get a chance to meet him and add an autograph of his to my signed baseball collection!

I put my camera away for a while until the weather cleared up because I didn't want to risk my mom's high end camera being wrecked. I snapped a few pictures later on of both sides of the stage, and every time I looked at the left side of the podium, Ralph Kiner seemed to look.. well.. asleep. I give the man tons of props for being there, so he could sleep all he wanted. After all, listening to relatives of obscure Hall of Famers can be a little taxing, as all of our group realized.

The ceremony itself lacked a little bit in terms of speeches, but I think that was the goal of the Hall of Fame in this controversial year. However, they finally got some spare time to pay tribute to the players inducted into the Hall between 1939 and 1945, who never received a formal induction due to the US involvement in World War II. Twelve players were inducted in that timespan, therefore 12 current members of the Hall read off each of their individual plaques. The biggest names of the 12 were legendary second baseman Rogers Hornsby along with "The Iron Horse", Lou Gehrig. Who better to have read their plaques than perhaps the greatest living second baseman, Joe Morgan; to read Hornsby's plaque, and "The Iron Man", Cal Ripken Jr.; to read Gehrig's? Here is Cal reading off of Gehrig's plaque, courtesy of my video camera!

While the day was muggy, the ceremony proved to be one of the bigger statements the Hall has ever made. There were many references to "playing the game the right way", which all seemed to be jabs at the Biogenesis/PED/Steroid era. I'm hoping that next year the Hall will add many players, including the ballot's first timers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, and managers Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, and Tony LaRussa. I'm not sure if I'll be there again, but I'll be watching it on TV without a doubt.

See Ya!

TTM #88 & Birthday Gift! Brooklyn Dodgers Edition!

Hey guys, Drew back here! Lately, as most of you have seen, I've been really getting into pictures and memorabilia, almost to the point where I'd rather have photos over cards. I can see why people think otherwise, as Night Owl wrote in his post the other day, but I just feel like it would be cool to clutter my wall with all sorts of awesome autographs I can stare at all day long. And, I have to say, it's refreshing to hear a "I'm so jealous" by my friends once in a while, but I'll keep that between us! Anyways, sometimes I don't even ask for something and I ended up with it, as in this case. My dad's uncle received a picture from my Grandpa about 20 years ago, and for my birthday, he thought it would be fitting to pass it down to me, given I'm such a big baseball fan.

The picture was this team photo of the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers! I am in no means a Dodgers fan, but I am a baseball fan, and I think it's awesome to now have a piece featuring legends like Koufax, Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and of course, Jackie Robinson. 

I don't know how soon it will be before this goes on a wall in my house, but if it doesn't have a good spot here, it will definitely one day. I dream of having a mancave when I'm older at my house so I can show off my collection even more. Hopefully that dream will come true, and if it does, I'll certainly find a spot for this. (even though they beat my dang Yankees in the World Series) Thank you Uncle John for thinking of me, and giving me this sweet gift. 

But, we're not done here. I found it fitting that the other day I happened to get a TTM success from one of the players in this picture- the guy to the left of Sandy Koufax. The success took only 9 days, and well, it was even better than I expected!

 

Yes, those are all autographs of Carl Erskine, a former Dodgers pitcher! Erskine was never quite Koufax, Drysdale, or even Newcombe, but he was certainly one of the more consistent pitchers of his era. The 1 time All Star finished his 12 year career with an ERA at exactly 4.00, compiling 122 wins and only 78 losses. He signed 4 items for me, even though I only sent two! He is now one of 6 autographs I own from the 1988 Pacific set, which I've been using a lot lately for TTM requests. The card below that is some sort of personal card he included, with a bunch of advice on the back. Also, he signed my index card and pimped out a nice inscription without a doubt, and he wrote "Hello Drew, Thanks for writing and for your interest, Regards, Carl Erskine" on my letter! I'm really happy with the success, and I'm glad I'm beginning to broaden my horizons with my baseball knowledge.

Again, a big thank you to my Uncle John for the great picture, and to Mr. Erskine for being such a class act! See Ya!

White Plains Card Show 1/22/12 Recap, Part Three!

Hey guys, Drew back here! So, continuing on the series, here is Part 3, which features all of the relics we purchased between Dad & I at the show! Check it out:

PART 3: Relic Additions

This is where the show began to get out of control for us, as we picked up a ton of nice new cards to add to the collection! We'll start with all the jerseys, including our Tier One set additions, and then work our way to the autos. Lets get started!

We lead off with a 2010 Allen & Ginter relic of the reigning NL MVP, and possible PED-user Ryan Braun. Braun was starting to go up the ranks on my favorite non-Yankee player list, but I think he's starting to creep back downhill a bit. I think for the sake of baseball he should give the trophy back, whether he is truly guilty or innocent. It would show a lot of class for him to admit himself being wrong. Why should he worry about giving it back though? If he really thinks he didn't use PED's and he just had a great season, he might as well go back out and try to win another MVP award next season! Anyways, I got this card for free from a vendor because I bought two fairly expensive autos from him, and I liked the color of the swatch more than anything else on the card.

Speaking of PED's, here's a Jason Giambi patch card numbered to 45 from 2008 UD SPX! I've never really been a big Giambi fan, mainly because when I was getting into baseball, he was on his way out of baseball. Also, I got into the sport not much before the Mitchell Report and the Steroid Saga was underway, so it didn't give me a whole lot of reason to like him. But, like A-Rod, I dealt with him being in the Yankee lineup. I got this card only because the patch is just awesome all around! I see 3 different colors on the patch and a neat design, as well as a pinstripe sneaking onto the card in the corner of the swatch! Pretty neat for sure!

These two Robinson Cano relics kind of went hand in hand for me, as Dad got them for me from the same vendor as a lot. The vendor I bought these from is definitely one of my favorites at the show, and he's there every time working at the same table as Hunter, another one of my favorite vendors at the show who I've mentioned before. Anyways, I needed both of these 2007 Topps Highlights jersey and 2009 Legendary Cuts jersey cards for my Cano PC, and it's even cooler to see that they both have pinstripes!

Next was a pretty sweet dual relic from again, 2009 UD SP Legendary Cuts! This card features jersey swatches from both Bo Jackson and Albert Pujols. I don't really see the connection between the two, but I like both of them a lot so it's pretty cool for sure. I'm not a fan of the Pujols signing in LA but I still have respect for him because if he hasn't done steroids or PED's, he's one of the best players of all time. 

Along with the Pujols/Jackson card was another sweet dual relic of two of my favorites, Reggie Jackson and Josh Hamilton! Both of them reside in my Secondary Collections group, and it's only fitting that I would eventually add this one to the collection!


The final three relics I was able to add to my collection last Sunday were needed for my Topps Tier One relic set I'm working on! Going into the show I had 5 cards total from the 50 card set, along with 3 that were incoming from trades and eBay. As well as the incoming pickups, Dad was able to help me add 3 more at the show! 

The first relic was of one of my PC players, Don Mattingly! This card is absolutely awesome, with a nice crisp photo and a solid overall design. The Yankees are pretty well represented in this set, with Babe Ruth; Lou Gehrig; Joe DiMaggio; Mickey Mantle; Reggie Jackson; Thurman Munson; Mattingly; and Paul O'Neill. One of the main reasons why I decided to collect this set was because there were a lot of Yankees relics I needed to add that were included! I've already got plenty of Mattingly but I can never get enough of one of the top players in all of baseball in the 1980's!

Card #2 just so happened to be a bat relic of one of baseball's most legendary hitters, in Tris Speaker. Tris is very often overlooked by some of the heroes in the game from his time period (1907-1928), such as Cobb; Wagner; Ruth; and a young Jimmie Foxx, but he was by far one of the best hitters to ever pick up a bat. He retired in 1928 with a lifetime batting average of .345 and 3,514 hits. When he retired, only Cobb had more hits than him, and to this day he still ranks 5th all time. To now own a piece of his bat is something special, even if its just a small part of what he used to get himself to an elite level of baseball skill.

As dominant as Speaker was for all of those years, the best relic we were able to pick up was of Dodgers legendary lefty, Sandy Koufax. This is the dual relic version, numbered 41/99. Sandy is a rarity in today's hobby, but thanks to his contract signing with Topps over the past year, collectors all around the world have been able to add his autograph and memorabilia to their collections! Koufax doesn't have the raw career stats that would put most pitchers in the Hall of Fame, but his level of dominance in about a 5 year span was great enough to put him in Cooperstown with ease. Being able to own a part of his jersey is unreal, and I'm really grateful for my dad to be able to help add cards like these to my collection!

Thanks again Dad for all of the awesome cards you got for me! The autos will be on the next post, and following that will be able 2-3 more posts until I complete the in-depth recap of one of the best shows I've ever been to!

See Ya!

Revealing the Mysterious Binder... A Little at a Time... Sandy Koufax & The LA Dodgers Edition

Hey guys, Drew back here. So, as I've been doing lately, I've been showing off a few cards at a time from my holy grail of collecting, the binder of brilliance! This time I'm paying tribute to Sandy Koufax and some of his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates! Let's see what the binder of brilliance has to share of this pitching legend:

First, we have two cards from the 1964 set, from the 1963 World Series Highlights subset! They show Koufax and his famous powerful windup, with the headline above proclaiming his 15 strikeouts in Game 1 of that series against the Yankees. This is an unfortunate card for Yankees fans, because following this game they managed to get swept by the Dodgers. Oh well, you can't win them all, and it's always nice to see different teams win outside of the Red Sox.

These final two cards of Sandy Koufax feature some of his great pitching teammates, Don Drysdale and Johnny Padres. The card to the left is a 1965 Topps NL ERA leaders, and I find the card to be really cool. Two teammates on the same leader card really shows the dominance of their pitching staff at the time. Koufax won the Cy Young award in 1965 after going 26-8 with a 2.04 ERA and 382 strikeouts. Nobody can even come close to those numbers nowadays, because they are completely unheard of! On the right card, Koufax and former pitching great Johnny Padres are displayed as "Dodger Southpaws". This card is really knicked up, but I still really like it, because anything with Sandy on it is a great one.

Sandy Koufax won only 165 games in his career, mainly due to the fact that he only played 12 seasons because of an arthritis condition that ended his career. His career ERA is 2.76, and he struck out 2396 batters. He made 7 All Star teams, won 3 Cy Youngs, 4 World Series championships, and 3 pitching Triple Crowns. Wow. Had he pitched longer, you can make more of a case that he is the greatest pitcher to ever take the mound.

These cards from this binder so far have been unreal. You could only imagine the look on my face when I uncovered this from the ruins of 1989 Topps and 1990 Donruss! Thanks so much again to the nice lady who gave me the cards! And for the rest of you, stay tuned for the next installment of the series!

"There are two times in my life the hair on my arms has stood up: The first time I saw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the first time I saw Sandy Koufax throw a fastball."- Dodgers Scout Al Campanis

See Ya!