Bill's Baseball Card Blog

  Wade Boggs finished his Hall of Fame career with a .328 lifetime batting average and a .415 on-base percentage. The 12-time All-Star, 5-time batting champ, and six time OBP champ finished with 3010 lifetime hits and almost twice as many walks (1412) than strikeouts (745). "He may have the best hand-eye coordination of anyone I’ve ever seen. " Ted Williams 2005 National Baseball Hall of Fame Postcard. From SABR: The last line on Boggs’s Hall of Fame plaque is “Legendary for his superstitions,” and he was. Numerous stories tell of his different superstitions, whether it was wearing the same socks for every game, or fielding exactly 150 groundballs in practice each day. Every time he batted, he drew the Jewish word “chai,” meaning good luck and life, in the dirt, to wish himself luck. Perhaps the best-known superstition Boggs had was eating chicken before each game every day, and he became known as “Chicken Man” because of it. Boggs even authored a book titled Fowl Tips, which...

Lou Boudreau had a solid 15-year career as a shortstop, playing 13 years with the Cleveland Indians. Shortstops in his playing days (1938 - 1952) were expected to provide great defense, but were not expected to produce much offensively. Boudreau was an exception. In 1948, Boudreau won the AL Most Valuable Player Award with career highs in runs (116), hits (199), HRs (18), RBIs (106), BB (98), BA (.355), OBP (.453), and SLG (.534). He also managed the Cleveland Indians to the World Series title that year! Boudreau won the 1944 AL batting title (.327), and led the league in doubles in 1941, 1944, and 1947. He also led AL shortstops in fielding eight times. Boudreau still holds the MLB record for hitting the most consecutive doubles in a game (four), set on July 14, 1946. 2005 National Baseball Hall of Fame Postcard. Top: 1960 Fleer, Card #16; 1976 JDM/JMC 1955 Rodeo Commemorative, Card #4 of 30; and 1977 TCMA Galasso, Card #19. Middle: 1980-87 SSPC HOF, Card #115; 1992 Cramer, Card #...

I was inspired (in a confessional sort of way) by several recent blog posts on marked cards to show some of my own childhood misgivings with cards. The recent posts were by The Chronicles of Fuji ,  SABR Baseball Cards , and Dime Boxes - The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey .  The mutilization of this Clemente card is just embarrassing. What was I thinking! At least the defacing of this card made some sense - I must have felt compelled to highlight Mr. Cub's personal best statistics.  In case you didn't notice, on Concepcion's card I cut "Reds" off of the top of the card, only to tape it back on. I don't know what I was thinking. Love the front of this card. Seaver and Simpson have nearly an identical follow-through pose. But the back... ! I guess I had to highlight all of the pitchers that did, or would in the early 70's eventually play, for the Reds (except Gaylord Perry, and I can't explain that one). This is a great OPC card... ...exce...

  Major League Baseball has officially bestowed Major League status upon seven professional Negro Leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948. The decision means that the approximately 3,400 players of the Negro Leagues during this time period are officially considered Major Leaguers, with their stats and records becoming a part of Major League history. The seven leagues are the Negro National League (I) (1920-31), the Eastern Colored League (1923-28), the American Negro League (1929), the East-West League (1932), the Negro Southern League (1932), the Negro National League (II) (1933-48) and the Negro American League (1937-48). I don't profess to know what significance this will have on the record books and statistics, but it seems like an overdue gesture to recognize the players that were not allowed to play in the Major Leagues because of the color of their skin, even though many were clearly as good as their Caucasian contemporaries. Here are some random samples of cards from my...

  Bert Blyleven ( Rik Aalbert Blijleven) was born in Zeist, Holland, on April 6, 1951. Blyleven, who  pitched from 1970 to 1992, was a renowned curveball pitcher. He was a two-time All-Star and World Series champion. “It (his curveball) was nasty, I'll tell you that,” said Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson. “Enough to make your knees buckle. Bert (Blyleven) was a terrific pitcher – a dominating pitcher.”  That's pretty high praise! Improved scans!  In some posts I'll place several cards on the scanner and then individually crop each one. I'm cool with that for a dozen or so cards. But for larger collections that's too time-consuming. In this post, you'll see some blue construction paper in the background which was placed there because scanner was frequently cutting borders off of some cards. I think the scanner lid white background confuses the, um, scanner (?). This seems to help. 2011 National Baseball Hall of Fame Postcard. Top: 1971 O Pee Chee, Card #26; 1972/3 ...

  With stupid covid-19 around most of the year, I haven't made it to my LCS in ages. I finally decided to go check it out and was super happy to see it is still in business (mostly likely due to consignments and online exchanges). So I thought I show some holiday season love and throw some business their way. I picked up four packs of 2020 Panini Diamond Kings in hopes of getting some Hall of Famers for said collection. I was happy to see that there were 13 HoFer cards amongst the 32 card total (40%)!  Card #31. This card will be added to my Alexander collection which was featured in a post  here . It looks a lot like the 2019 Panini DK card. Card #4. This card will be added to my Alston collection which was featured in posts  here  and here . Card #38. This card will be added to my Baker collection which was featured in a post here . 2020 Panini All-Time Diamond Kings, Card #ATDK-19. Card #28. Card #20. 2020 Panini All-Time Diamond Kings, Card #ATDK-22. Card #1...