theMick.com

 Here is a recent card show pickup.  Not a super special card, but not bad either.  It is from 2011 Gypsy Queen.  It's not the front of the card that I want to talk about today though.  

It's the back.  Or more precisely, the text on the back:

I am both a numbers guy and a 'check your facts' guy, so pretty immediately, this sentence caught on my brain.  For two reasons...

Issue 1. Those first few distances listed, 734, 656, 650 etc.  Now the lengths of long home runs have always been tough to get real agreement on, but if you Google it, you don't see numbers in the 600s.  Some that pop up include Joey Meyer - 587, Josh Gibson - 580, Babe Ruth - 578, and yes, Mantle at 565.  But this says Mantle hit 6(!) longer than any of those!  I went to themick.com as it is cited on the card as the source of this claim, and yes, that Mantle centric site does indeed claim these numbers, along with the stories of each of them.  Some questionable math is cited to get that 734 number, and the others are only semi-supported.

Issue 2. Let's add up those numbers... 734 + 656 + 650 + 643 + 630 + 620 + 565 + 550 + 535 + 530 = 6113 feet.  That IS a long way, but it is NOT 2.83 miles.  1 mile is 5280 feet.  So these numbers add up to 1.16 miles, not 2.83.  

What a weird card!!  I wonder if I could get a fact checking job with Topps.  Or maybe one of you awesome readers can fact check my fact checking?  Did I get it wrong?

High numbers mess

 

While visiting my brother in Boise a few weeks ago, he insisted that we buy some baseball cards.  We went down to a store called Scheels, which is kind of a crazy store.  So much stuff.  Outdoor and sporting gear mostly.  It's a huge place, with statues of both famous people and generic athletes all over the parking lot.  Impressive, kind of.  There wasn't actually a dedicated sports cards section, but in multiple spots around the store, there were displays with blasters of various stuff.  Unfortunately, not much in the way of baseball, but we found some 2024 Topps Heritage High Numbers.

Now first, it was a fun rip, especially since it was with my brother.  Brought back memories of waaay to far back to mention, ripping packs together.  But as you will see, High Numbers is a bit of a mess.  

First, the box guaranteed 3 Green parallels.  It took a bit to figure out which ones were the green parallels, but they ended up being the 3 on the top of this pic:

The others are single color parallels, I guess.  Part of the reason for our confusion was that the backs of the 'Green' parallels say 'White Border' in tiny, tiny text.  Even more confusing, the Chapman and Pfaadt above also say 'White Border' on the back.  Close up scan:

The trademark/copyright text at the bottom of the back of the cards is even smaller.  I couldn't even make it out clearly with a magnifying glass.  Like size -1 font!  These next few are SPs and #d chrome cards, plus a mini.

And lastly, a few rookies.  I seem to have been having good luck with rookies lately.

One more lame thing about 2024 High Numbers.  Baseballcardpedia.com says that since it was released extremely late, more than a month following the release of 2025 Topps Series One, that they regard Heritage High Number as a 2025 product for rookie card purposes, rather than a '2024' set.  I don't know if that will catch on, but according to them, the above cards aren't even RCs. 

Come on Topps!!

Serial lot winner

 The winner of the serial numbered cards is...

With a guess of 72,222...

Jeff B!!!!!

The actual correct total of the serial numbers was 71384....

Jeff also got a bonus knock off of 10%, for a total guess of 72,138

Jeff, I hope to get the box out tomorrow!!  I do have an address for you, but it has been a while, so if you get a chance, shoot me the current one.

Observations on the guesses...

Rod had the most cards from his 10 player guesses, with 9.  No, he didn't pick 9 players out of his 10 picks, but Manny Machado has 5 cards in the lot, which bumped his total.  Don't worry Rod, none of the Machado's are from his San Diego days.

The average guess was 93715, which is 22331 above the actual number.  People guessed high this time, after collectively guessing low last time.

Here are the numbers of cards from everyone's player picks:

Elliptical Man-2

Matt-0

Brett Alan-0

Jeremya1um-1

night owl-0

Johnnys Trading Spot-0

Rod (Padrographs)-9

Chris-0

Brad C-0

Jeff B - Wax Pack Wonders-2

Fuji -1

OhioTim-1

The Angels In Order-1

gcrl-1

Derek-7

Thanks to everyone who participated, this will happen again sometime in the future!

Nuther serial giveaway

 Its back for the third time!

Up for grabs today is a stack of exactly 100 serial numbered cards.  This stack probably wouldn't be interesting to team collectors or player collectors, as I am betting that most of the teams in MLB are in here somewhere.  But if you are an omnivore collector like me, or want a quick way to accumulate trade bait, or just like serial numbered cards, this may be for you!

The rules this time might be a little convoluted, but I don't want to do the same thing every time.  

To enter:

-Leave a comment here on this post.
-Guess the total sum of the serial numbers the card in the lot.  So if there were three cards in the lot, one #/100, one #/ 999 and one #/25, the sum would be 100+1999+25 = 2124.  Obviously, with 100 cards in the lot, the number you will be guessing will be much higher!  This time, there is no penalty for going over, just closest to the number.
-Optional - in your comment, you may list up to 10 players that you think that there might be a card of in the lot.  For each card in the lot of a player that you guess, you will get 5% of the difference between your guess and the actual total knocked off your guess.  Example:  Your guess is 500 off of the actual total, but there are 8 cards in the lot from players that you guessed. In this case, you would get 40% of the 500 that you were off, or 200.  So your final guess would be 300 off.

Since I am allowing player guesses, no photo of the actual lot this time.  But here's a silly pic so that the post isn't all text.

He's not in the lot....

There are 13 Hall of Famers in this lot, but many of the cards are also of relative nobodies.  The COMC.com value of this lot would be somewhat high.... the actual resale value is much lower of course.

The highest serial number in the lot is #/9000 and the lowest is #/5.  I would not take the results from the last contest to be a perfect guide for your guesses, but do what makes you happy!

OK, that's all the hints, feel free to make your guess in the comments!  

Guessing will close on Thursday, April 24th at 5PM Pacific time!

Holiday for Judge swap

 So sometime late last year, I was picking through a dollar box at the local show.  And I found a Topps Chrome Aaron Judge.  Not usually a buy for a dollar, but as many of you know, you can take Topps Chrome cards of last year's MVPs in to local card shops for a $20 in store credit.  There were only a few days left until that offer expired, so I made a rare card shop trip.

The shop was a nightmare.  I doubt I will be back for a long time.  Over half of it was Pokemon, when it used to all be sports cards.  Tons of old smelly guys with annoyed looks on their faces pushing through crowded spaces.  Bummer.

But I found Topps Holiday Mega Boxes, which usually sell for $40+ for only $29.99.  And with my Judge to trade in, I got it for $10.  A fun rip, which for $10 seems like a holiday miracle for me.  Anyway, here is what I got in my box.

Variations and a 'hit'

Seems like the Judge Santa hat was a good trade for the Chrome Judge straight up.  But I got lots more!  Bichette had a brutal year last year, but I still believe in him.

Rookies.  Seems like I got most of the sought after ones.  Can't complain.  

And believe it or not, that's all the scans I took, back when this box actually got ripped.  So whatever other interesting cards were in there, you'll just have to use your imagination!

A few incoming

 I've been ungrateful.  Over the last while, a bunch of cards have made their way from various parts of the country.  Time to show some off!

First up, gcrl shot me some stuff for no reason, much appreciated!  Early Finest are sweet, and any McGwire that I don't already have is a rare treat!

Johnny sent me a prize win from his blog, this Carter RC.  I hadn't had a copy of that card since back in the 80s, very cool.  He also included the Doby from 2001 Archives Reserve, a set I have been slowly accumulating for years.  Not the last of those in this post!

Tom from The Angels in Order had a freebies post where I grabbed these.  Well loved vintage especially, is always welcome!

More Johnny.  Yep, you guessed it.  Another envelope chock full of Archives Reserve and Finest!!  Johnny doesn't play around.

Rod from my neck of the woods threw a big old package of Mariners my way.  This scan is by no means all of what he sent!!

More Johnny.  Johnny must have dug deep, because the Archives Reserve just kept coming!!

And more....

Well that's it for now.  I gotta thank all the amazing bloggers who keep the postal service busy.  Thanks guys!

Zoo time

Been a while since I posted.  That seems like a common phrase on this blog, and on many blogs in the card collecting community.  My main excuse this time that my computer died.  I ended up rebuilding it on my own, which took a long time due to my laziness, and needing to send back a part that was delivered to me broken.

But I do have a few posts mostly ready to go, so hopefully for the next 4-6 weeks, I should be posting somewhat regularly.

Since I don't have any other content for today, lets do a silly giveaway!

I've seen these Oregon Zoo x-ray cards from 2024 Allen & Ginter on a few blogs.  At a recent card show, I was able to grab some of them cheap.    Here is what I have:

Claim away in the comments!  Claim one card, claim multiple cards, no real rules.  PWE delivery...

Thanks!

Tom Silardi? A show recap.

 The recent card show produced some pretty fun stuff.  Here's a sampling:

1 Beltre refractor, #d /660.  This kind of card I would take all day long.

2 Teddy Ballgame numbered pinky card.  I'd prefer a playing days Ted, but this was surprisingly cheap.

3 Black and White Ohtani.  baseballcardpedia.com estimates 90 copies of the Black and White were made.  I got one!!

4 1998 Diamond Kings insert #d/10000.  I totally love these. I want more!

5 Playing days Mantle!!!!!!!  It's hammered, with some damage on back.  But still!

6 1997 Pacific Die-cut of the Big Hurt.  Definitely love these.

7 Weird card.  It's a 'Topps Spotlight', Grayscale Filter parallel, numbered /49.  I always loved the original of this card, so it is very welcome!

8 Numbered Nolan.  It's ok, bit falls short of the rest of the cards in this scan.

9 I've wanted this Bregman Photo Variation SP since I first saw it on one of your blogs.  Now it is mine!

I got this for $4.  I bet most folks don't even really know who Woo is, but he's pretty good, and this is numbered /25.

I don't know where I got this card.  When I got home and went through the cards from the show, this was in the stack.  I don't even remember it from the show.  Anyway, it isn't my cup of tea, and as you can see, the auto is a bit fuzzy.  So I am offering it up in a PWE to the first claimer in the comments.

Pretty great show!

Bad Mail

I haven't been having the best luck with the mail lately.  Incoming mail has been wonky for a few reasons.  First, my address has changed, and a few friends have sent me cards to the old address.  Unfortunately, they never made it to me.  I don't feel good about that, sorry to anyone who has gone to the trouble of sending me stuff that didn't make it.

But then, I got a couple of my giveaway mailings sent back to me.  One was to Elliptical Man, using the same address I had always used.  It came back as undeliverable.  Oh well, I am reaching out to Brendan to verify that address.

But the one that confuses me was a PWE I sent to The Angels in Order over a month ago.  That one showed up in my mailbox yesterday looking like this:

The stamp is perfectly good, and I have never had an issue with insufficient postage on even larger PWEs in the past.  But evidently this can happen sometimes.  Annoying!

So Tom, I didn't forget about you.  I will resend tomorrow, and hopefully the cards make it this time!

And since I don't want a post without a card in it, here is a quick Ichiro from my collection:

Hall Bound indeed!

Skenes and a puppy

 Another pick 'em for my loyal readers.  If you want one, claim in the comments!  One per commenter, PWE delivery....

Row 1 card 1 - taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 2 card 1 - taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 3 card 1 - taken

Last show of the year

 Happy New Year!  I'm a bit late, but that's not unusual for me.

The last card show of the year brought me mostly new stuff, meaning almost all stuff from the last couple of years.  Shiny stuff and die cut stuff, both of which I love, but not much outside the 2020s.  Here's a sampling...

2024 Topps Pristine Bo Bichette #/75.  This Pristine design isn't great.

2017 Chrome Freddie Freeman refractor.  I love refractors of stars that are a little older.

2023 Pristine 'Gold Pristine Pulsar Refractor' Lou Gehrig #/50.  Both this card and the Pristine Judge appear to me to have been liberated from those 'uncirculated' slabs.  Fine by me!

2024 Finest Blue Checkerboard refractor Vlad Jr.
2023 Pristine 'Pristine Pulsar Refractor' Aaron Judge.  Nice card.

1999 Topps Power Brokers Mike Piazza.  The oldest of the bunch, love old die-cuts.

2024 Topps Cosmic Chrome Launched into Orbit Julio Rodriguez.  Shiny!

2024 Pristine 'Oh Snap' Juan Soto.  Weird card.  I guess I love newer die-cuts too!

2024 Pristine 'Squeaky Clean' Bobby Witt Jr.  Another kind of strange concept.  Go Pristine!

I also lucked into a huge Puka Nacua thing.  I guess it is a box topper or something.  The graded Kemp was a gift from a buddy at the show, and shows just how huge the Nacua is.

Perhaps the most interesting card I picked up was this 'case hit' from 2018 Donruss.  I guess they are pretty rare.

I'm not a huge Bellinger fan, so I guess I'd be up for trading this if anyone is interested.

I'm not a blogger

 That's a strange title for a post on a blog, I guess.  I'm blogging right now!  It's more accurate to say that I'm not a good blogger.  That much should be obvious to anyone who reads here, since I rarely post, and when I do, it's not of huge interest to most.

But the old blog is still good for one thing, and that is giving cards away.  

In years long past, I liked doing something bigger around the holidays to celebrate.  Lots of cards going out to lots of friends.  Postage rates and my shrinking finances seem to have put an end to that.  But I still like the idea of getting cards out to as many folks as I can, so I am going the PWE route this year.

And since I traded away a decent SP card I had been holding on to, I have a small stack of stuff to distribute.  There is a lot of duplication (3 copies of 2 different cards), but I hope they are good enough to attract some commenters, especially for the free price!

Each commenter can pick ONE card from the scan below and I will send them out in nine joyous PWEs across the blogosphere.  Here are the nine cards up for grabs.

Row 1 - Card 1 taken, card 2 taken, card 3 available
Row 2 - Card 1 taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 2 - Card 1 taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken

Yes, that is 6 Ohtani RCs, I told you there was a bunch of duplicates.  They are not his most desirable RCs, but still.  The scan makes it look like the Vlad RC has a scratch, but the card looks fine in hand.  The Solo is from 1977 Topps.

Please check the comments to make sure what you choose is still available, I don't have extras to send and don't want anyone to comment in time, but get left out.  Since we are close to Christmas, and the postal system is overburdened this time of year, I can't guarantee they make it by then.  But hopefully before New Years!

Thanks!!  If you claim a card, please email me your address even if we have swapped cards before.  I am trying to keep my addresses updated, since mine has changed.

Serial Stack 2 - the Winner!

**First things first... I recently had a generous fellow blogger contact me to ask if I had received a PWE he had sent me.  Unfortunately, I did not, the cards were sent to my old address and were not forwarded.  So if you want to send me anything, please reach out for the new address. 

On to why you are here.

The winner of the serial numbered cards is...

With a guess of 68000 flat...

Ginko-5!!!!!

The actual correct total of the serial numbers was 69046....

I was personally pleased that the winning guess came from a second guess that Ginko received for pimping the contest.  Thanks!!

I will be filling out the box that I am sending the cards in with a few extra cards to make it fit tightly. Nothing too special, don't get excited.  The box that I will be using to ship the cards was originally sent to me by none other than Night Owl some years back when he was sending extra Dodgers cards out to people.  It would have been slightly poetic if Night Owl had won, so I could return the box....but alas, he didn't guess.

Observations on the guesses...

Gregory was the closest to go over with a guess of 72395

Johnny had 2 guesses from pimping.  One was the highest guess (131003) and the other was the 3rd lowest (38964)

The average guess was 57298, about 12000 below the actual number.  Which is about what I would expect when I add the "without going over" rule.  People gotta guess low to be safe.

The lowest guess, by John Sharp was 11111.  Since I noted in the original post that the highest serial number in the cards was /9000, if John was correct, that would have made the other 99 cards in the lot average a serial number /21.  That would have been some prize!!

I discovered a new blog from the comments, Tanner Bibee's Lumber Co.  He is just starting, but I love finding new blogs!

The first guess, by The Angels in Order, was 44,444, which he called 'weird'.  What was really weird is Matt from Cards over Coffee commenting not once, but twice, on the last day of the contest, guessed the exact same number, 44,444!

Thanks to everyone who participated, and Ginko, if you don't mind shooting me your current address, it has been a while since I sent anything your way and would hate to send it to the wrong place!

Show time again

 **Reminder that if you haven't got a guess in yet, go here to try and score some serial numbered cards....

Here's a quick little recap from my last card show.  Let's start with my traditional 9 card scan and comments....

Row 1 - Old Timers.  Always glad to grab early 70s cards when they are cheap enough.  And that's my first Frank Howard relic, I like it!

Row 2 - the regular season offensive MVPs in shiny form, along with an unnecessarily crazied up Winfield.  At least it's serial numbered.

Row 3 - Cool mini die-cut of Ryan.  For some reason I hadn't seen these before, even though it is from back in 2021.  The Canseco is as unnecessarily crazied up as the Winfield, but I like them both anyway.  And the Betts looks quite nice in hand.

Next up, 2 very different Art Shell cards.  Time does a number on us all.

The one on the left is Shell's RC, even though it was his 4th year in the league.

The back of the card is pretty strange.  Shell was a Tackle (duh), but his RC has Punt Return stats.  And he didn't even return a punt in the year the card was made.

Goofy, Topps!

On another track, I have accumulated some Paul Skenes cards:

I have 5 of the regular Bowman, and 4 of the Chrome.  I wouldn't mind trading some of these away, if there is interest.  For example, I would happily send 3 of the Bowman out for a single Skenes Topps RC.  I'd also be willing to trade them for other stuff, just make me an offer!

That's it for today, thanks for reading.

Serial stack contest - part 2

I had a lot of fun with my previous mini-contest to give away a stack of serial numbered cards.  So much so that I have been accumulating another stack for another go, and today is the day!

So up for grabs today is a stack of exactly 100 serial numbered cards.  This stack probably wouldn't be interesting to team collectors or player collectors.  I am betting that most of the teams in MLB are in here somewhere.  But if you are an omnivore collector like me, or want a quick way to accumulate trade bait, or just like serial numbered cards, this may be for you!

If you want the cards, what you need to do is guess the total sum of the serial numbers, without going over, Price is Right style. (That is a change from last time...)  So for example, if there were three cards in the lot, one #/100, one #/ 1999 and one #/125, the sum would be 100+1999+25 = 2124.  Obviously, with 100 cards, the number you will be guessing will be much higher!

Here is a pic to help you with your guessing...

There are 18 Hall of Famers in this lot, but many of the cards are also of relative nobodies.  The COMC.com value of this lot would be very high.... the real resale value is much lower of course.

The highest serial number in the lot is #/9000 and the lowest is #/8.  I would not take the results from the last contest to be a perfect guide for your guesses, but do what makes you happy!

OK, that's all the hints, feel free to make your guess in the comments!  And I am going to go old school, so if you pimp the contest on your blog, you can have an extra guess, just put the link to the post in the comments with your second guess.

Guessing will close on Thursday, November 7th at 5PM Pacific time!

Quick congrats to the Dodgers

 I won't go crazy writing about the series, since I am not one of the several very good Dodgers oriented bloggers out there that will do a great job of it, but I did want to congratulate the former Brooklyn squad on its 8th championship.

I was happy to see a couple of Dodgers I really like play pivotal roles in the win, Walker Buehler and the MVP, Freddie Freeman.

Buehler has had a tough run with LA, with health issues all over the place.  I thought highly of him early in his career, but he just hasn't been able to stay on the field.  Maybe this is a turning point?  Even if it is, I think it might be doubtful that he stays a Dodger next year.  We'll see.

Conversely, I didn't think much of Freeman when he was young.  I don't really know why, but he didn't click for me.  But over the years, I've definitely grown to root for him.  I like doubles guys, and Freeman is the current active leader.

Here are a card of each of them that I picked up recently.  The Buehler is /99 and the Freeman /199.  Not exactly "Dodger Blue", but I definitely like them both.

Randomness catch up

 This post consists of a few scans that were in my drafts from card shows over the last few months.  I had some trouble posting for a while, but seem to be getting back in the swing of things, so let's take a look!

I've been picking up Stadium Club singles lately whenever I see them in the cheap boxes.  Pictures of all time greats or just funky photos are what I grab.

I believe these were all dimes or quarters.  Not sure why they decided to make the Carter card black and white, but I like it that way.

This one, I probably overpaid for, $1 I think, but I quite like the pic.  The X-Fractorness doesn't obscure it quite as much in hand.

No theme here, total randomness:

The beat up Aaron was only a couple of bucks, a steal.  The Betts is an Image Variation.  Before this card, I was not aware that there were Image Variations in the Chrome Anniversary sets.

Football???  For a buck, this card, numbered out of 75, was an interesting pickup.  I have more nice Justin Herbert cards than I need.

Basketball???   The Starting Lineup cards are cool, and the oddball Blazers autos were a nice cheap find too.  Vandeweghe and Bates were quite popular around here back in the day.

Back to Baseball.

From worthless (Showalter, but I like the image) to expensive (the Alonso is a tough pull and goes for a few bucks) to the vintage-ish (the bottom row is actually from 1983, The Starliner Stickers set, whatever that is).

Last one!

Another hodgepodge with no theme here.  Numbered Refractors of Kershaw are nice.  The Johnson card is one of those super thick hunks of cardboard.  Moments and Milestones is a ridiculous set, but and Ichiro numbered /10 is welcome here.  And the Acuna is my first "Super Rare Red Foil" card.  Super rare might be pushing it, but it's cool.

My weird 2024 MLB stats recap

 So the regular season is over.  I love statistics, so I was perusing the final season stats for MLB, as I often do.  A few things popped out at me, so I thought I would post about them.  These are only things that interest me, not anything that has wide appeal, so don't get excited.  But I've broken it down into 4 sections, 2 about specific statistics, and 2 about specific players.  Hope there is something interesting in there for you!

Batting average

After a slight rebound in 2023 to a MLB wide batting average of .248, 2024 saw a decline to .243, tied for the worst league wide average since the infamous Year of the Pitcher in 1968.  This is a bummer for a guy like me who likes to see the ball in play!

Only 7 players in MLB had a batting average of .300 or higher in 2024.  That's the fewest in any year for at least the last 20 years (that's as far as I had patience to look).  

The highest number of players at .300 or higher in the last 20 years was in 2009, with 42 players.  Wow.  

Of the 7 that made it this year (2024), all but one also had 30 home runs or more.  In that 2009 season, of the 42 above .300, only 6 of them had 30 bombs.  Kind of interesting.

Elly De La Cruz

Elly is one of the most fascinating young players in the bigs.  He's HUGE, especially for a SS.  He's FAST too.  Understandably, a lot of collectors are interested in him.  I too am intrigued by him, but at this point, I am more intrigued by his flaws.  Of course, if he can shore up the flaws, he could be one of the all time greats.

First, the good.  Elly led the majors in Stolen Bases with 67.  I think we are all aware of that, as for a while, he was on quite a pace.  Interestingly, Elly also led the majors in another stat, Errors, with 29. That seemed like an unusual combo, so I did a super quick scan, and found another player who led the league in both SB and E.   The one I found was Luis Aparicio in his rookie year of 1956.  I imagine there are others... if anyone knows of any others, leave them in the chat.  

But Elly didn't stop there.  He also led the majors in a third stat, Strikeouts with 218!   I haven't found anyone else who had that triple crown, SB, E and K for a season!  Has it happened?

So Elly struck out the most total times, but was only the 24th worst from a Strikeouts per Plate Appearances perspective.   He struck out once every 3.15 Plate Appearances.  The worst in the bigs was Elly's teammate Will Benson who struck out once every 2.19 Plate Appearances, or 154 Ks in 383 PA.  So it could be worse!

Shohei Ohtani

First off, I think Ohtani's offensive year was jaw-dropping.  Most stats will show Aaron Judge with the better offensive year, and I can't really disagree.  However, Shohei shouldn't be overshadowed in any way by Judge.  So let's talk about the aspect of Ohtani's game that Judge can't compete in, stolen bases.  Ohtani had an incredible jump in all aspects of his stolen base game this year.  **quick disclaimer - I am one of those pedantic people who think that current stolen base numbers aren't as impressive as 'the old days'.  It's flat out easier now with the rule changes!!**  OK, back to the awesome.... First off Shohei swiped 59 bags this year, 33 more than any other season in his career.  That's just a massive jump for a 30 year old player!  He also was successful at a crazy clip.  He was only caught 4 times, for a stealing percentage of 93.6%.  In his career before this season he was only at a 72.2% success rate.  Another huge jump!

Strikeouts and Walks

OK, first a quick reminder:  MLB Strikeouts are way, way way up and seem to go up even higher every year.  Again, I find myself in the old fuddy duddy camp, where we dream of a past where striking out 100 times meant you weren't much of a hitter.  So here's some interesting strikeout stuff from 2024.

(These stats include players with at least 20 walks)

Only 4 players in MLB had more walks than strikeouts:  

Juan Soto - 129 walks to 119 strikeouts, 1.08 BB/K

Mookie Betts - 61 walks  to 57 strikeouts, 1.07 BB/K

Steven Kwan - 53 walks  to 51 strikeouts, 1.04 BB/K

Kyle Tucker - 56 walks  to 53 strikeouts, 1.04 BB/K

Every other player in MLB had more strikeouts than walks including the player who is indisputably the best at not striking out....

Luis Arraez!  He only struck out 29 times in  661 Plate Appearances.  That's once every 22.79 Plate Appearances.  He beat the next best player, Steven Kwan by more than double.  Kwan struck out once every 10.45 Plate Appearances.  Arraez doesn't walk much either, only 24 times on the season!

So that's my random stat musings for 2024.  If you made it this far, you must be a stathead too!

Goodbye Charlie Hustle

Back to back passing posts.  Not fun times.  This one will be a little longer than yesterday's, because Pete Rose had a larger impact on my life than Dikembe did.  That is not to say that I think Pete was better in many ways than Mutombo was.  For instance, I think that I would enjoy hanging out with Mutombo far more than I would have with Rose.  The drive, focus, maybe even obsession that defined Rose probably wouldn't have made him the easiest friend.  In the few shows I have seen where Rose got to talk and show his personality, he seemed intense, almost to the point of being abrasive.  But he would have been fun to talk baseball with, as it's almost all he seemed interested in.

The impact Rose had on me was due partly to my obsession with numbers.  Heck, that's a part of why baseball and cards are so attractive to me.  Baseball is the most statistics oriented of the major sports.  And as a kid, one of the first real big numbers that was challenged was 4191.  And Pete did the challenging.

He wasn't the best player in the league, though he led the league in several stats several times.  But he wanted it as much as anyone, and never let up.  He is the all time leader in not only hits, but games played and plate appearances.

I have 71 Pete Rose cards in my keeper collection.  Here are 18 of them that popped out at me today when I was looking through them:

Pete in an Expos uniform always tickles me.  And cards of Pete with other players have often jumped out at me as well.

A little more vintagey with the second scan.

 Like most all of the vintage that I have been able to accumulate over the years, the is all a little beat up.  But with Pete Rose, a little beat up is almost appropriate.  I love all of these, but that 64 Topps is one of the jewels of my collection.  I don't imagine I will ever have a Pete Rose rookie, but the 64 is a much better looking card anyway.  However, if anyone has one, I would like to get a copy of one of the 1998 Topps Pete Rose Jr. cards.  Topps Chrome, Flagship or even Opening Day.

Deke was cool

** I wrote this post earlier today, when I heard about Dikembe....  Now I hear that Pete Rose has passed too.  That'll have to be another post.  Quite a day.** 

Dikembe Mutombo died at only 58 of brain cancer.  That's a sad one.  I had a co-worker die of brain cancer at 58 a few years ago too.  Seems far too young...

Mutombo was never the best player in the league, but he was the best shot blocker at times, and an asset to his teams.  He was a lot of fun too, I always laughed at those commercials where he made appearances like this one.  I know this is usually a baseball card blog, but here are a few of the Mutombo's I own.

OverVladdy'd

  So my card show habits should be well known to readers of this blog.  I head straight for the cheap boxes and rarely come up for breath.  This has a big effect on how my collection develops.  Here are a few examples:

1. Certain players, I end up with a lot of.  This is because these players, while good players, do not have a high $$ value among the greater collecting public.  Because of that, I end up finding cool cards of theirs (serial numbered, cool inserts etc.) all over the cheap boxes.  Some examples are Joey Votto, Juan Gonzalez, Zack Greinke...  My collections of these kinds of guys are pretty cool.

2. The hot rookies generally don't make it into my collection.  Actually, this 'problem' seems to have diminished lately.  With the card companies pumping out soooo many cards due to the resurgence of the hobby, base RCs and even some nicer RCs are starting to end up in the affordable areas of the show.  As long as they are not graded.

3. Another effect of soo many cards being pumped out is that I am finding just a ton of the recent cards in the cheap bins.  Nice ones too, so they keep my attention even as I wish for more older stuff.  In fact, I've noticed that the ratio of 2020-2023 cards in the stacks I bring home has skyrocketed.  Used to be, maybe 60% of my stack was from at least 10 years ago, but now it might be more like 15%.  Lots and lots of new stuff.

Which brings me to the point of the post.  I have my keeper cards in alphabetical order, so Vladimir Guerrerro's cards are right next to his son, Vladdy Jrs cards.  As I was going through them the other day, I realized that even though I have been collecting Vlad Sr for a loong time, I actually have MORE Vlad Jr cards than his dads.  That isn't because I want baby Vlad more, its just that they are very plentiful in the cheap bins!!  That just felt weird.  Its not that I don't like junior, but I really like senior.

The end result of THAT, was that I went through the Vlad Jr cards I had in my keepers, and pulled a bunch.  They aren't bad cards, but I think I will focus my Vlad Jr collection a little tighter, at least for now.  So I have a bunch of Vlad Jrs below (they weren't all keepers) that I am willing to trade if anyone needs to bulk up their collections of him.  I'd strongly prefer to send a bunch out in bulk, rather than one or two at a time, but will entertain offers!

Young Vladimir started slowly this year, but really came on and should get some down ballot MVP votes.

Anyone else have players that they accumulate too many of?

Anyone want to trade for BabyVlads??  Shoot me an offer in email if you don't mind (find my email in my profile), I'd rather keep offers private at this point.  I like most players, modern and vintage, so many kinds of offers would make me happy.

Here's what I have available.....there are a few nicer base cards, but most are inserts or parallels of some kind.