Bill's Baseball Card Blog

As mentioned in my One Card Away post, I've been trying for 15 years to collect at least one card of each member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In that post, I exclaimed my excitement of obtaining Ben Taylor and Andy Cooper cards from the superb the Graig Kreindler Negro League Centennial Set , which whittled my HoF want list down to one card -  John Schuerholz. From my experience, the Taylor and Cooper cards were thee most elusive of all Negro League cards to collect; however, there were several other Negro League cards that took quite a long time to collect as well. These elusive cards include the following Hall of Fame players: 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #74. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #26. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #136. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #93. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card#56. The 2020 Negro League Centennial Set is by far the most comprehensive card collection of people associated with the Negro L...

The June 26 post by CommishBob turned me on to the Graig Kreindler Negro League Centennial Set, which I also learned coincided with a similar post by P-Town Tom on the same date. Both posts beautifully summarized this truly great set. Links to the above sites are below, but Blogger’s new interface doesn't readily allow us to view that text, which is just great. Thanks Blogger’s new interface 😠 CommishBob  CommishBob Centennial Set  Graig Kreindler Negro League Centennial Set P-Town Tom P-Town Tom With this post, I want to share that my recent purchase of this Centennial Set brought me TO WITHIN ONE CARD of my main goal to collect at least one baseball card of EVERY MEMBER of the National Baseball Hall of Fame! This set included cards of Ben Taylor and Andy Cooper, two Negro League players that have almost no other cards ever made of them. I am so grateful for those posts, and this great set, because I now have one legit card of both players!  2020 Neg...

Finally! MLB will finally get underway today, and I couldn't be happier! It was 30-years ago that the Reds went wire-to-wire to sweep the favored Oakland A's in the 1990 World Series. The 1991 Fleer cards and the one 1991 Score card below are a visual reminder of that series. Could this be the year for the Reds? As C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic wrote: "If it seems like the Reds are a trendy pick recently to make the playoffs, there’s plenty of reasons why they believe they can live up to those expectations." C. Trent writes about off-season acquisitions of Shogo Akiyama, Mike Moustakas, and Nick Castellanos to shore up the outfield, infield, and the DH. And how newcomer Mike Miley will join Anthony DeSclafani at the back-end of a strong rotation of Sonny Gray, Luis Castillo, and Trevor Bauer. He also writes about how the short season and relatively easy schedule favor the Reds. After too many years of being bottom dwellers, it's about time for some optimism ...

Continuing with a series on baseball trivia. The question is: What do these players have in common? Try to figure it out and leave your answer in the comments. See my answer within the post. 1981 - Villain #1 Fernando Valenzuela (LAD) 1982 Topps, card #6. 1983 - Villain #2 John Denny (PHL) 1983 Topps, card #211. This is one airbrush job I really like. 1988 - Villain #3 Orel Hershiser (LAD) 1989 Fleer, card #11 of 12. 1995 - Villain #4 Greg Maddux (ATL) 1995 Score, card #32. 2014 - Villain #5 Clayton Kershaw (LAD) 2014 Topps, card #604. I'd be shocked if anyone has the answer at this point. Here are some clues: The year of the Villain correlates to the year of the Victim.  Victim #1  Tom Seaver (CIN) 1981 Kellogg's, card #38. Victim #2 Mario Soto (CIN) 1983 Fleer, card #603. Victim #3 Danny Jackson (CIN) 1988 Topps, card #55T. Victim #4 Pete Schourek (CIN) 1996 Topps, card #112. Victim #5 Johnny Cueto (CIN)   2013 Topps, card #196. Here are the pitching records ...

I'm starting a new thread on baseball trivia. The question here is: What do these players have in common? Try to figure it out and leave your answer in the comments. We're on the honor system here. See my answer at the end of the post. Luis Gonzalez (AZ) 2002 Topps Opening Day, card #56. Dale Murphy (ATL) 1981 Donruss, card #437. Dave Concepcion (CIN) 1975 Hostess, card #47. Pete Rose (CIN) 1975 Hostess, card #29. Todd Helton (COL) 2019 Topps, card #175. Jerry Koosman (NYM) 1972 Topps, card #698 (or 869 😜). Have you figured it out yet? They're all shown with a National League club; but that's not it. Ken Boyer (STL) 1988 Pacific, card #12. Steve Garvey (SAN) 1983 Topps, card #37T. Randy Jones (SAN) 1974 Topps, card #173. Last chance. Rusty Staub (Mont/Wash) 1971 Topps, card #560. Okay, time to answer or take a guess. Answer: The uniform numbers of these players have been retired by the team noted, but...  none of them are in the HOF (yet 😉). Thanks for hanging in ther...