Opening salvo of the Tucson - I-Cubs series

On opening night of the Tucson-Iowa series, it took a rehabbing Matt Garza to keep the Padres bats in check, as Iowa won 1-0. Garza three-hit Tucson, as the I-Cubs picked up their lone run on a sacrifice fly by SS Donnie Murphy.

Clayton Richard got the start for the Padres, and except for givng up three straight singles in the second inning, topped by Murphy's sac fly, he held the Cubbies to four hits, with eight strikeouts. When he was hit, he was hit hard.

Tucson had a few bright moments however. Here, 1B Brandon Allen gets a Cubbie caught in a rundown. Allen and C Rene Rivera led the Padres bats, with a pair of hits apiece. Rivera looked pretty good behind the plate, handling Richards, Brad Boxberger and Tommy Layne.

 

We're hoping to see Sunday's final game of the series, but the weather doesn't look good for Sunday. Otherwise, we're thinking of possibly heading out again tomorrow.

 

All in all, it was a good game, our first outing of the season.

Tucson's coming to town!

 

One nice thing about living in a large metropolitan area, such as Des Moines, is having access to minor league baseball. Here in the Hawkeye state capital, the Iowa Cubs reign supreme, more than 300 miles from their Chi-town parent club.

While I enjoy taking in the occasional I-Cub game, what makes this weekend special, is the Tucson Padres, San Diego’s Triple A affiliate, are in town for a four-game series, May 16-19.

Since Tucson is in the Pacific Coast League, we only get to see them play here every-other-year. We caught a couple of T-Pads games in 2011, and last year the games were in Kino Stadium.

You can rest assured we’ll be sporting our Padres colors at Sec Taylor Stadium.

Thursday night’s promos include dollar hot dogs, live music (90 minutes before the game), mug night and Wells Fargo 2-for-1 tickets. Friday night games always end with a fireworks show, while Saturday, we can expect Gildan Night (I have no idea what in the heck that is), as well as Great Clips charity clips. The Tucson series ends with Classic Baseball Cards, Family Day, Food Pantry Day and Safeco Run the Bases (where kids can tear around the basepaths following the game).

I’m planning on bringing my camera to the game and hope to get some decent action shots to post on my blog. I’m hoping Robbie Erlin or Tyson Ross pitch this weekend, and I can get a nice picture of Kyle Blanks or Jonathan Galvez at the plate. Matt Garza’s pitching for Iowa tomorrow, but Tucson’s pitchers are TBD through the weekend.

As for autographs, I’ll have to see, my wife gets bored if we get to the game too early.

All in all, I’m definitely looking forward to this weekend!

1992 High 5 Tony Gwynn decal

 I've finally set about organizing my Tony Gwynn cards. Before, they were inventoried and then tossed into a 200-count box - the right side were the good Gwynn cards and the left side, my copies and the ones I can't quite figure out exactly what they are.

Now, they're inventoried and grouped by issue year. Now, it's so easy to find whatever Gwynn card I'm looking for.

Going through them, one of the oddest cards I've found, is not really a card at all, but rather a static cling,. I'm talking about the 1992 High 5 Removeable Decal. My copy has no backing on it, and in a minute, I'll tell you why.

In 1992, Original Products, Inc. issued several sets of static decals featuring random Major League Baseball superstars and team sets. OP was a California corporation which produced and marketed vinyl products depicting popular TV stars, musical entertainers and professional athletes.

These decals came either on sheets with five player "cards" and a log, or as a 'Superstar" sheet with five players and the "Superstar Collection" logo. These sheets cost $2.99 each and the backing paper had a 5"x7" color photo that could be cut out and framed. The decals were unnumbered.

The pack containing Tony Gwynn was part of the five-decal set with Barry Bonds, Dave Justice, Darryl Strawberry and Ron Gant. The 5"x7" photo on the back was Dave Justice.

If you wanted to keep the decals with its backing intact, you had to cut each decal individually, which ruined the photo. There aren't too many collectors willing to do that, so my card, as I stated earlier, has no backing.

Makes for some pretty interesting card history, eh?

1991 Padres Desert Shield Cards

My most humblest apologies for not writing sooner, but two weeks of annual training and a busted computer took its toll on me. However AT is now over and I actually fixed the busted screen myself, so all is well again.

Recently, I received some cards in the mail I had originally been looking for more than 20 years. Thanks to a handy E-Bay purchase, I was able to find nine of these 27 cards.

But first, a little background - In 1991, Topps took its 1991 base set, added a gold, Desert Shield logo to the upper right-hand corner  and sent them overseas to American troops during Operation Desert Shield in 1991. This set was then distributed in 15-card packs.

When I was called up for Desert Shield/Storm, I was sent to Daharan, Saudi Arabia, to serve with the 593^rd Area Support Group. One of the first things I did was search out those Soldiers who had been there the longest, to see if they had any packs of Desert Shield cards.

 “No luck,” many of them told me. Either they weren’t interested in them, they didn’t want to carry them around in the field, they traded them away for better MRE items, or threw them into the burn barrels. One guy told me of a friend who had to burn two cases of them at the base he was stationed at because the commander didn’t want them “sitting around in the supply room.”

Well, at least now, I have a nice start on finally collecting these cards. Some, like the Gwynn card, are going to be hard to come by, but we'll see. I've waited more  than 20 years so far.

Finally, if I may, let us have a brief moment of silence for Storm Thorgerson, 69, the British graphic artist best known for designing the surreal album art for Pink Floyd, who recently passed away. Thorgerson attended school with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and Syd Barrett, was a teenage friend of David Gilmour and, later, became the band's main designer.

His iconic covers include the inflatable pig flying over London for “Animals” and the rainbow of light emerging from a prism on “The Dark Side of the Moon,” considered among the greatest album covers of all time. I must have gone through three albums of the “Dark Side” alone,  during the days of my mis-spent youth.

R.I.P. Storm Thorgerson. R.I.P

 

Dueling card shows good for the fan?

As I drove past Urbandale’s Merle Hay Mall last Friday night, I noticed a sign it was hosting its Sports Cards and Collectibles show on Saturday and Sunday. “Cool,” I thought. Since I was helping with a local track meet on Saturday, I figured I’d find a good excuse to take my wife to the Mall Sunday after church and pick up a few cards.

I’ve been to a couple of the mall shows before, but this one seemed particularly small, with about a half dozen vendors. In its heyday, this show would host more than a dozen sellers with tables full of cards.

I found some really nice dime box cards (which I’ll cover in a later post) and had some interesting conversations with the dealers who were present. However, by then, my wife’s patience was beginning to run a little short, as she began reminding me we hadn’t eaten yet and it was now 2 p.m.!

Heading to the restaurant, I saw a sign at the Urbandale American Legion Hall (less than a half mile away from the mall), that they were hosting their monthly Sports Cards and Collectibles at the same time. I enjoy the Urbandale show and have gone often enough to be recognized by a few of the dealers there.

However, like many collector’s, I’m on a somewhat limited budget, so I could only attend one of those card shows that weekend. Since I spent my “allowance” at the Mall, I didn’t even go into the Legion Hall (that, and the fact my wife reminded me yet again, that we still hadn’t ate).

Whether it’s a lack of communication, neither site caring what the other was doing, or whether this shaped up to be an out-and-out battle for the collector, I felt a great disturbance in the force. Two different card shows, in two different locations, both being held at the same time – why make a collector make a stand, as to which card show, which location do they support?

These smaller card shows are usually a hoot. Where else can you kibitz with other like-minded collectors, get either a compliment or good-natured ribbing about your choice of sports team, and get great deals on sports cards?

But why compete directly against each other? Nothing good can come of it, as all this does is weaken both shows, both in attendance and in sales, in a warped sense of “divide and conquer.” Ultimately and unfortunately, they’ll both fall by the wayside.

Sometimes it’s hard enough finding just one card show, whether it’s in Iowa, North Dakota, or Delaware. There are plenty of places across the country where card shows have ceased to exist, or they’re just not locally available.

Don’t make it any harder on the fan then it already is.

1992 Padres Police D.A.R.E. safety set

One of the many packages that arrived in my mailbox lately included a rather interesting card set, and one many people feel they could do without – a 1992 Padres Police D.A.R.E. safety set. Love them or hate them, safety card sets have a definitive place within the sports card hobby.

Personally, I happen to like them.

When we lived in Denver, our local 7-11 offered one 1988-89 Denver Nuggets Police/Pepsi Team card with each slushy you got. Once the offer expired, I persuaded the store managers to let me take them off their hands, rather than throwing them away. I hit up three different 7-11's, collecting a total of six boxes of cards. One of the boxes, I actually traded for a Scottie Pippen rookie card (long since traded).

This Padres safety set follows the pattern of most police and fire sets – all 30 cards are printed on a very thin card stock and they’re unnumbered .  There are minimal stats on the back – Birthdate, birthplace, bats/throws, height and weight. What sets the safety card sets apart, are the cute little safety tips, such as “Don’t tie your shoelaces together when going on a long trip.”

 

Since these cards are part of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, the safety tips deal with their, “Just say NO!” campaign.  For example, on Fred McGriff’s card, the tip reads, “Your family believes in you – they count on you to do your best. You hurt them if you’re on drugs or alcohol. Always D.A.R.E. to do your best and say “NO” to drugs.”

The photos themselves aren’t bad, albeit a little small. You have to dig that photo of Benito in full catcher gear, with those funky shades.

As far as I can tell, one of the first baseball card safety sets was the 25-card, 1980 Charlotte O’s. The highlight of the set was Cal Ripken, Jr., who would go on to Baltimore the following year. Police officers in Charlotte, N.C. would give presentations to local schools, and then give out a few of these orange baseball cards to educate children about proper safety. Needless to say, it made for a very hard set to collect.

You have to admit, though, it’s a great way to get your message out. What’s more popular than baseball cards among the young’uns? They get a card of one of their favorite hometown players, with a little safety message, to boot. For the fire/police departments, it’s a win/win situation.

In the meantime, there’s a 1984 San Diego Padres Fire Safety I have my eye on...

SportsCardForum - You gotta love it!

SportsCardForum - You gotta love it!

 As I’ve stated earlier, I enjoy trading cards more than I do purchasing them. There’s something about the ritual involved with trading – contacting your trade partner, getting to know them, the give and take, the good-natured bantering, setting up the trade, and finally, the excitement of the package arriving in the mail.

My favorite, most enjoyable and professional trading card site I’ve found is SportsCardForum (http://www.sportscardforum.com/). I’ve been a member since St. Patrick’s Day, 2003 and have served on the Hockey Card team, the events team and as a volunteer. I enjoy how the site is managed, and protects its members.

I belong to two different trading groups on the site – the SCF Baseball Card Traders and the SCF Football Card Traders. The baseball group has 19 members, while the football group has 20 traders (the Bills, Browns, Bucs, Cards, Panthers, Raiders, Rams, Saints and Texans are still open, by the way). Each trading group is divided into six different sets of trading partners. Each month, you’re assigned a different group to trade with.

Last month was my first with the baseball group, as I replaced the former Padres member, and I’ve been trading for about 5-6 months on the football site. It’s a rather nice way of getting rid of unwanted cards and receiving those you’re definitely more interested in.

Back to SportsCardForum – they have members who are interested in trading (and selling and buying) football, baseball, hockey, basketball, racing, MMA, wrestling, Benchwarmer, golf, tennis, soccer and boxing. You can even trade DVDs, CDs, or almost whatever you want. There's an invaluable TTM section, a program to inventory your collection and other goodies.

Best of all, the price can’t be beat – It’s a free website.

Here's an example of a few of the Padres cards I received in a recent trade. Again, I love the old Padres uniforms and wish they would return to the brown and gold, at least akin to what Rollie Fingers is wearing (gotta love that moustache!), rather than the "Dodger Blue" they currently sport.

Give SportsCardForum a try sometime. I think you'll like what you find. Who knows, we could be trading in no time. My nom de plume is "Comatoad."