Bill's Baseball Card Blog

His plaque sums it up nicely. 1960 Fleer card #23. 1979 TCMA card #26. 1987 (?) Hygrade (?) card #63. 1981 TCMA card #174. Thanks for stopping by. CinciCuse Bill

2018 Topps Throwback Thursday (TBT) card #006. The people of Arizona must be shaking their heads. The following is a 1988 reprint of 1909 T206 Piedmont Sherry Magee error card. See below for the current price for an original Magee error card in fair condition... Wow! According to the PSA website, "this is one of the three big rarities in the T206 baseball set along with the Honus Wagner and Eddie Plank cards. It is also, perhaps, the most famous error card in the entire hobby. Sherry Magee was an excellent major leaguer, finishing his 16-year career with a .291 batting average and 1,176 RBI during the Dead Ball Era. In fact, he led the NL in RBI on four separate occasions and finished among the league leaders in home runs several times, but his solid performance is not what makes this card so desirable. Magee’s name was initially spelled incorrectly as “Magie” and then quickly corrected, with the corrected version printed in much higher abundance than the coveted error....

Barlick  was the first base umpire and stood directly behind Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Jackie Robinson when Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier on April 15, 1947. He worked six no-hitters, along with the first games at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium, Houston’s Astrodome and Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium. 1990 T&M Sports Puzzle Pieces #1 - 4. 2012 Panini card #97. “I think the greatest testimony for [Barlick] was what is said about any good umpire: You never knew he was there,” said St. Louis Dispatch sports editor Bob Broeg. Be well, CinciCuse Bill

Everyone is familiar with cards showing the wrong player, but here are a few I rarely see mentioned. If you know who Pete Mackanin is you know he's white. This 2006  Topps card #287 appears to me to be Lloyd McClendon. This 1982 Fleer card #639 honors Len Barker's perfect game pitched. The problem is that Bo Diaz (pictured on the right) didn't catch the game, Ron Hassey did. The following 1989 Topps card #37T of Bob Geren is actually a photo of Mike Fennell. Mike played minor league ball from 1982 - 1985 making it up to Double A. I believe Mike was a bullpen catcher for the Yankees at the time of the photo. Mike was born in Saratoga Springs, NY, played college ball here in Syracuse at LeMoyne College, and reportedly lives outside Rochester in Fairport, NY. This 1973 Topps card #360 features Gene Tenace, not Joe Rudi. In the 1972 Reds-A's World Series, Tenace was a menace to the Reds with 4 home runs, 9 RBI's, and a .348 batting average. Oh yea, the A...

The 1957 Hank Aaron Topps card #20 is probably the most famous reverse negative card out there. A right-handed batter shown batting left handed. It says right on the back "Hammerin' Hank was the Top Batter in the National League in 1956." You'd think someone at Topps would have caught this, but I don't believe they ever issued a corrected version. Oh well, all the better for collectors. I picked up this Aaron card on ebay last year for about $30, which I thought was a good deal. I'd seen it listed for twice that in almost all cases. I'm not much of a grader, but given the year this card looks to me to be in good to very good condition. It has creases from left to right, one right through the Brave's patch, and the other just above the lettering, and those only show on the card front. It's off centered and has slightly rounded corners. But all in all it's a nice looking card to me and that's all that matters, especially at that price. ...

Reprint. Let's get that out of the way. I'm not that big of an error card chaser. A supposed original, one of a kind, is currently being auctioned on ebay at $10,000! The write-up says that the faint lettering of Thomas' names unique and like no other. Carlos Santana 2011 Topps Lineage #TV8. There's a hint of gold toward the bottom of the black spot where the name is supposed to be. I'm not much of a card seller, but I'm always rooting for this guy in hopes that the card value will go up. BTW, today is Carlos' birthday! Happy 34th Carlos! Bobby Bonds 1990 Pacific Trading Cards, Inc. #128 when Bonds played in the Senior Professional Baseball league. Of the first ten 30/30 players, Bobby did it five-times! The apple didn't fall too far from the tree - his son Barry also did it five-times! Joe Schultz Jr.'s' name is missing from this 1973 Topps Tigers Field Leaders card #323. According to Baseball-Reference, Schultz played i...

I don't buy many new cards these days, but I wanted some Hall of Fame postcards for recent inductees, so I went shopping on the HoF website. Besides the postcards, all I purchased was the Reds 2020 Topps Reds team set. In the (short) set, there were cards of Reds I collect such as Joey Votto, Louis Castillo, and Geno Suarez, which were welcome additions to my Reds collection. I was disappointed it did not include a Frank Castellanos card, who signed as a free agent over the winter, and due to his 1-yr contract and the stupid COVID-19 situation, may not ever play a single game for the Reds. Nor did it include a card of Japanese free agent pickup Shogo Akiyama. But there was this card of Nick Senzel: It's a fine enough looking card (I like dirty jerseys and ripped pants), but the back of the card was quite a surprise! It's Nicks' name, position, team, even the write-up is all Nick. The rest of it is Cavan Biggio of the Blue Jays. All the vita and statistics a...

We're all familiar with the big name athletes that played in MLB and in the NFL: Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, and Brian Jordan. The first two are practically household names. But there have been several others, some fairly recently, and some from long ago. There are probably others that have played in both leagues, but the following is my collection that features such athletes. 1990 Score Bo Jackson. 1985 Heisman Trophy winner. NFL's 1st overall draft pick in 1986. First professional athlete in history to be named an All-Star/All-Pro in both baseball and football. Bo's on the field baseball achievements are legendary: homering in his first All-Star game appearance and being named MVP of the game; a one handed home run; running up an outfield wall, and so many more. A hip injury limited his playing career in both sports, but ultimately Jackson's MLB career spanned 9 seasons and his NFL career 4 seasons. There's no info on the back of the Auburn University...