Pirate Autograph Project: #5

This is the first certified auto I've shown off during the Pirate autograph project posts.  Francisco Cordova came and went before most baseball fans had the time to notice.  Signed out of Mexico in 1996, and went straight to the majors.  He had very solid seasons in 1997 and 1998, posting ERA's in the 3's and pitching a combined no hitter.

But the injury bug bit in 2000.  He pitched a few minor league games in 2001, but that would end his stateside career at age 28.  Cordova did continue pitching in Mexico until 2011, but he was nowhere near the form he had shown earlier in his career.

Yet another flash of hope for Pirates fans that was extinguished in the most unanticipated of ways.

Signature Sunday

Leaf's 1996 Signature Series set (and the alliteration it produces) was one of the landmark sets in the hobby, introducing the concept of the one hit per pack high end product a full decade before Topps would beat the concept into the ground each and every month.  The initial set, with three tiers of bronze, silver, and gold autographs, is one of the cleanest and most comprehensive autograph sets ever.

The set got a second helping when Leaf Signature Extended came out.  Similar concept, but the auto tiers were gone.  There were some big names included, but overall most of the mid-upper tier guys had been included in the initial release.  And the design...well, it's similar.  But not quite as clean, not quite as exciting.

But it does have a few gems on the Pirates end, including this rookie auto of Mexican free agent signing Francisco Cordova.  Cordova looked like the ace of the team through the late 90's, before his arm imploded as the Bucs christened PNC Park.  But he's still one of my favorite childhood Bucs.

Less Binder, More Wall

I realize I have been posting a lot more memorabilia than cards in recent months.  For better or worse, my card pickups have been slowing down significantly.  There just aren't that many Bucco cards out there that a) I really, really want and b) are at a price I'm willing to pay.  

At current prices I won't touch most Cutch cards, and even secondary players like Marte or Alvarez go for more than I'm willing to spend.  

In the mean time, I've been able to pick up some awesome future wall decorations.  I'm sure the card bug will bite me soon (the National should be a good cure), but for less than a Cutch auto that would just go straight to a binder or box, I can pick up awesome pieces that I'll be able to see and enjoy day in and day out.

This bad boy came from my pickups at the Robert Morris show.  I don't know that I'm in love with the Fleer World Series cards on the sides, but otherwise this pieces is great.  If you look closely at the artwork you'll notice...not much worth capturing from the mid-late 90's.  Jason Kendall in the bottom right corner and Ricardo Rincon and Francisco Cordova commemorating their no-hitter.  Otherwise, lots of bumblebee uniforms.  

Forever Young

Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while should know when I write - really write - I tend to take the scenic route.  But I've added a decent number of readers in recent weeks, so I thought a warning was needed.  If you don't like the long way there, just look out the car window and enjoy the pretty pictures.

When I got married this past October, there weren't a lot of decisions put squarely on my shoulders.  Which isn't to say I wasn't involved (I was).  Or that I wasn't opinionated (I am).  But for the most part Kate and I saw the wedding the same way, and the decisions in regards to food, themes, and overall ambiance reflected who we are as people.  And since we've been damn near attached at the hip since we were 19, the fact that most of these big, sweeping decisions could be made with a few glances and a facial gesture or two didn't come as any great surprise.

But the music?  That was all my kingdom. The playlist was masterfully crafted in a way that I could only trust myself with.  I wouldn't dare entrust the music, the soul of the evening both literally and figuratively, to some total stranger.  I was not about the spend my wedding night watching distant relatives gyrate to the Electric Slide or hear the latest Beyonce tune.  The playlist was as eclectic and expansive as my taste - some early punk smoothly transitioned into some smooth Memphis soul.  The night told the story of my growth as a person and as a music fan, and much like the grandiose combining of the record and dvd collections years earlier, Kate and I moving from two very separate people to one incongruous entity.

But while my initial playlist was pared from 8 hours down to a more reasonable three, one spot was completely blank.  The mother-daughter dance.  I just couldn't find a song that fit what I wanted to express.  And just as important - couldn't find a song that was short enough to get my uncoordinated ass off the dance floor at the most mercifully short length possible.

But as I made list after list of options, I couldn't get away from Bob Dylan's Forever Young.  All 5:01 of it.  Dylan changed the way I listen to music.  Driving on vacation to the beach in the summer of 1999 or 2000 I heard Like a Rolling Stone on the local oldies station.  They didn't play Dylan on any of the Pittsburgh stations we listened to.  And suddenly this music was unlike anything my teenage self had ever heard.  A few years later my mom bought me Dylan's Greatest Hits, which stayed in constant rotation throughout high school.  A Dylan poster hung over my bed.  And as I worked backwards, moving from loving more "classic" rock to being immersed in folk.  It may not have as monumental as Dylan going electric to the rest of the world, but for me it changed the way I looked at the world.

Which is the long way of saying that as I stood there for four and a half minutes (I found a slightly shorter live version in my massive Dylan library) waddling side to side with my mother in a pseudo slow dance, I spent what felt like a great deal of time thinking about...well, time.

For many of us cards are, in one way or another, a way of staying timeless.  Our critics call it a childhood hobby.  And at best our collections are attempts to cling onto passing memories and seasons.  When people find out that I'm married, it leads to natural assumptions.  That I'm older.  Or deeply religious.  Or desperately want a family.  Cause really, I'm well aware that I don't really fit the mold for the "married at 25" category.  And while it all fits together just fine and dandy in my little intellectual and ideological bubble, the "well we've been together nonstop since we were teenagers anyway" argument just doesn't seem quite gratifying enough for most folks.

But isn't that life?  Whether it's baseball cards, or music, or people, we mark out lives with these mileposts.  Ways of breaking down and understanding the passing of time.  And perhaps I'm not too good at playing by the conventions in that regard.  I'm 26, look like I'm 36, behave like I'm 86, and collect cards like I'm just plain old 6.

Flipping through my 1991 binder instantly transports me to my dad buying me a pack or two and a slurpee every time he took me to the gas station with him.  Or 2000, and my dad buying me 20 packs of Topps before dropping me off at grandma and grandpa's for the night before they went for a rare evening out.  Or registering for a Beckett account, feeling like a rebel because I clicked the terms of service saying I was 13 almost a whole half year before my actual 13th birthday.  Or hearing "Like a Rolling Stone" and being taken back to the backseat of our minivan, salty shore air cutting through the windows and the tightly woven lyrics ripping through me and pulling out a kid wanting more than what his boring suburban life could offer.

Our collections, if you'll forgive the drawn out analogy, are our playlists.  These pieces of ourselves placed in time and space.  Memories being made and remade constantly.  At times impossible to explain away to friends, or family, or coworkers.  But the very things that make us who we are, and how we see ourselves.  Whether you're 16 or 66 reading or writing about cards, those memories and connections are at their most basic quite the same.  And either way, may you stay forever young.

A Picture's Worth However Many Words I Just Typed

There isn't much down time nowadays with the wedding two weeks away (eek!), but I've been slowly working on getting some more Pirate team sets into binder pages.  It's fun to see to see an entire team set come together on a page (you know, when a large part of the team was actually represented in a set, unlike today's star only 100 card base sets).

And the photography?  Topps has stepped its game up in the last few years, but only because photo quality crashed and burned during the 2000's.

This 1998 Stadium Club set is just...wow.

The photo variety alone makes the set (well, partial set - there's another binder page still missing a couple cards).  Different angles, eye levels, and a variety of poses.  Even an awesome Jason Kendall play at the plate shot.  And the Tony Womack photo next to it is an excellent action shot.

Simple design, great photos, and even some high value cards from the Co-Signers inserts.

As the binders slowly take shape, I may scan some more full pages.  I love inserts, and parallels, and all that good stuff.  But great photos?  You can't beat that.

The Streak: Loveable Losers Countdown, 15-11

Remember how I used to think countdowns are kind of trivial?  Well, turns I was wrong.  They're kind of fun to do (though I still think the difference between 16 and 11 is pretty subjective), and turns out the blogosphere likes 'em too.  I think my pageviews yesterday doubled what they had been for the rest of the month combined.  If you write it, they will come?

Anyway, we're back into the second installment of the countdown.  This was actually pretty fun to put together.  Pittsburgh has always been an interesting sports town - sure, there are lots of fair weather fans, but there the city also has a strong streak of rooting for the blue collar, hard nosed guy who just...isn't all that great.  Think of Rudy without the annoying Notre Dame connections.

15) Pokey Reese - 2002-03

Reese was one of those "latest, greatest" free agent signings.  The Bucs were coming off an incredibly underwhelming 2001 season, and Reese himself had been pretty disappointing in '01 just a year after the Reds had refused including him as the centerpiece of the Ken Griffey trade.  Speed, decent pop, and amazing defense.  Good bounceback candidate, right?

Well...kind of.  His average continued to slip, and with it went the pop and steals.  Pokey played some fantastic defense, and was a blast to watch.  But we all know Gold Gloves aren't reeeally about defense. 

He managed to win a ring with the Sox in '04, but like so many other Bucco free agent signings, he was out of baseball after that.

14) Ricardo Rincon - 1997-98

Rincon didn't even play in the states until his age 27 season, jumping to the Bucs from Mexico.  But he undoubtedly proved to be the gift that keep on giving.

Before the '99 season the Bucs traded Rincon to an insanely deep Cleveland team for Brian Giles.  Giles put up some of the best single seasons in franchise history before being dealt for Jason Bay and Oliver Perez.

Perez kicked a laundry cart, was banished from the face of the planet, only to work his way back into the graces of the universe where he was allowed to become a lefty specialist.  Jason Bay his balls really far (though never into a river nor a bay), until being traded for a bunch of players who didn't pan out and current late innings reliever Bryan Morris.

So for those of you keeping score at home: Ricardo Rincon = Brian Giles, Jason Bay, Oliver Perez, and Bryan Morris.

We can only hope eventually Morris will be dealt for another wave of prospects, keeping the Legend of Ricardo alive.

Along the way he also delivered the greatest moment of the late 90's for the Pirates, teaming up with fellow Mexican League import Francisco Cordova for a no hitter

13) Jose Bautista - 2004-08

Admittedly it is a bit strange to see a former MVP on the list of lovable losers.  But Bautista spent pretty his entire Pirates career in the dog house.  GM Dave Littlefield decided to leave Bautista unprotected during the 2004 Rule 5 draft, setting in motion a comedy of errors that would see him suit up for 4 teams and rack up just 88 ab's during the 2004 season.

Bautista always looked like a solid player (though nowhere near the level he would reach with the Blue Jays), but was always blocked by...somebody.  Despite his versatility, able to play the corner positions, he managed to get blocked by Jeromy Burnitz, Matt Lawton, Joe Randa, Jody Gerut, Nyjer Morgan, and the Energizer fucking Bunny at various points in his career.  He saw significant action for a few seasons, but was set to be a non-tender candidate before being traded up north.

The lesson here?  The Pirates aren't allowed to have nice things.

12) Delwyn Young - 2009-10

Delwyn Young makes the list for pure effort.  Young came to the Bucs from the Dodgers in exchange for $1.  No there aren't zeroes after that.

You know how sometimes trades say PTBNL or cash considerations?  Sometimes that's the nice way of saying, "here, take him."

Delwyn Young came to the Pirates as an outfielder.  And not a great one at that.  But the combination of sheer desperation on both parts (Aki Iwamura came to the club looking more like Hideki Irabu, and Delwyn recognized that he had to do anything and everything if he wanted to stay in baseball) ended up in Delwyn Young making 52 starts at second base.

You know, the one that is definitely not in the outfield.

You couldn't help but cheer for a guy who was willing to quite literally do anything he could to stick on a big league roster, even if the results occasionally left something to be desired.

11) Josh Fogg - 2002-05

He's just one of those pitchers that...existed.  He didn't do anything exceptionally well.  He didn't throw hard.  Or even average.  He didn't have great movement.  Or stuff.  Or...any talent that would appear to make you a successful baseball player.

And some days that showed.  But Fogg was perhaps the Pirates most consistent starter for most of the mid 00's.  He was fun to watch, because he didn't seem to be too far from that 3rd starter you faced in high school.  Yet...this guy was in the big leagues.

And yes, if you're still keeping score that is yet another player in the "Unspectacular Ex-Pirate Who Managed to Have Postseason Success for Another Team" category.

The Day After

Opeing Day came and went, and in typical Pirate fashion A.J. Burnett pitched well, but the offense just did not hit. Thanks to mlb.tv, I've been able to watch quite a bit of baseball over the last couple days, and I'm absolutely loving it as I sit here watching Yu Darvish pitch a (thus far) perfect game as I type.

I'm quickly accepting that I'm terrible at this blogging thing when it comes to scanning.  I'm still working my way through cropping scans from purchases and show pickups from a month ago as I prepare for the monthly show in Dayton this weekend, and imcoming COMC spring cleaning special shipment, and an absolutely mindblowing lot I snagged off ebay.

As I sit here watching that which shall not be named, I noticed that one thing the Pirates have been sorely lacking in is "memorable moment" cards.  I love cards that commemorate a special moment or event, whether it's postseason highlights, career milestones, or individual achievements.  Unfortunately, there haven't been many of those in recent Pirate history.



I loved the 2010 UD Season Biography cards, since they featured actual game photos from the game discussed and covered a more broad range of highlights than the typical season highlights fare.

Both moments are ones that I recall from an otherwise very forgettable 2009 campaign.  Jones came out f nowhere as a non-roster invitee to earn the nickname The Legend, providing power to a team desperately lacking in it.

The Duke game was more memorable to me for the unique hats than for Duke's shutout, as the Pirates commemorated a trio of officers who died on the job.  I love (and cringe at) the caption noting the "rare sellout crowd."  I can't remember the specific details of the game - it wasn't a bobblehead game, and was probably too early in the year for a skyblast night - but I'm sure some kind of added incentive was involved to draw such a large crowd.  Until recently, sellout crowds were a rare sight in Pittsburgh.  

And of course I don't think I need to say much about these final two.

(The Other) Opening Day

Opening Day used to be my favorite card set.  And when I say used to, I don't mean it has been somehow usurped; it's just not something I come across anymore since I stopped breaking wax years ago.  Opening Day just doesn't seem to find its way into card show dime boxes or even the occasional trade package (maybe the blogosphere will be different?), and I just can't justify spending $20 on a blaster to get one or two cards for my collection when I could spend that money to come up with a small bounty of far more rare Pirate cards.

But for a few years, my collecting brain thought Opening Day was the coolest thing in the world.  And in a lot of ways, it's the product that I have to thank for the beautiful monstrosity of a collection I have today.  As a kid, my collection consisted of the occasional trip to the local card shop's dime box (I still adore my 1998 Glenn Rice SP Authentic) and whatever rack packs my dad would grab for me on my way home from work.  But by the late 90's, my interest in cards had been replaced by other things.  Backyard football, pro wrestling, Legos, and the pressures of a 4th grade workload meant my cards were retired to their place under the bed and largely forgotten.

I just figured that like most kids, card collecting was a phase I had grown out of.  In all honesty, I think there is a very likely alternate universe where I become just another person who outgrew their interest in cards and gave them away to a friend or sold them at a garage sale for a couple dollars. 

But that isn't how things worked out.  And the thousands of cards piled, boxed, and bindered up around me wholeheartedly echo that.




On Easter morning 2000, I woke up to what was - and still is - a typical Easter morning for my family.  Ham and eggs, an Easter egg hunt, and my Easter basket.  Being an only child has its perks.  Inside my basket, amongst the jelly beans and Peeps, were a few packs of baseball cards.  I hadn't opened a pack of cards in two years (1998 UD Choice football), and my card-loving days were well behind me  I was a mature adult of 12 years of age, and well beyond my card collecting days.  At that age, two years felt like it had been a world away, some faint reminder of a bygone past.

And then I opened them - 2000 Topps Opening Day.  The design just seemed so crisp, the silver borders accentuated by the big silver, foil Opening Day stamp on the card.  From those 3 or 4 packs, I vividly remember pulling a Francisco Cordova card, his gray pinstriped road uniform fitting in perfectly with the card's design.  Thanks mom and dad, but I'm over cards.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

As I spent the rest of the day pouring over every square inch of the cards, reading every mundane fun fact and stat line, analyzing the photos to microscopic detail, displaying a level of neurosis that seep into every sentence of this blog.

It would be too easy be too easy, too simple, to say the set brought me back to the hobby.  Before I was just a kid who had some baseball cards.  Who enjoyed cracking a pack of Collector's Choice during a trip to the grocery store.  In the two years away, the hobby changed and I changed.  I was hooked.  I was a collector. 

I asked my mom a few years ago why she picked up the packs.  She has an uncanny ability to always find great, and completely unexpected gifts, for every holiday.  But she undoubtedly knew I had little interest in cards at the time, and it just seemed like an odd thing to give me.  Her response was simple, straightforward:  "I needed something to fill up your basket, and I thought you might like them."  And as my parents spent my early teens driving me to card shows, stopping at little hole in the wall card shops on vacations, funding my collection, my collection grew, but so did the memories behind each of those cards.  So yes mom, clearly I liked them.

Inserts? Who needs 'em!?!?!

Thanks to a moderate snowfall, I had some extra time on my hands today.  I took advantage of the time catalog some new arrivals, listen to Van Morrison, and work on converting all my of my non-Pittsburgh PC cards to team-organized binder pages while watching Buffy.

As I paged through the various "stuff" I've accumulated over the years, I'm always struck by all the great looking insert sets the Bucs were left out of.  I can't argue against excluding the likes of Al Martin or Jason Kendall from many of the great looking late 90's insert sets.  But you'd think they might have made it into a couple here and there, just for some diversity.

Maybe that's why the parallel craze never bothered me all that much.  Excluded from insert sets, parallel sets were the one place you could be guaranteed to find some fun looking Pirate cards.  Do all the foil color variations get irritating?  Yes, though I was never as frustrated as I am with Topps' baker's dozen versions of the same card.

Still, the world of parallels have their pros and cons.

On the positive side:
-base cards often offer the most unique photography, and can often be enhanced by foil/refractor/border color changes
-it's always fun to complete the "rainbow" of a card, no matter how easy or difficult that task may be
-parallels can often be more price-friendly than insert sets, game used, and autos
-parallels allow for more expansive collections of those middling players who would never, ever make it into an insert set


And the cons:
-you see the same card design over.  And over.  And over. And over.
-parallels, particularly ones that aren't numbered, tend to dry up quickly on the secondary market because many dealers view them as not being worth their time
-while there are some great looking parallels, insert sets are far more likely to feature die cuts, more intricate designs, etc
-Did I mention the redundancy?                                                                                                                  

Still, parallels are some of my favorite cards to collect, particularly since the start of the Topps monopoly.  They add a lot of color and variety to my collection, and nothing looks better than a complete team set of a flashy parallel.

Don't get me wrong - I like inserts.  A lot.  But for the better part of the last two decades Pirate collectors have had to make due with what has been given to us.  Hopefully the emergence of Andrew McCutchen and wave of high end pitchers in the high minors may mean some more Pirates make their way into future insert sets.

But that won't change all the great looking card sets that will never occupy a space in my Pirate collection.  Unfortunately the time has come and gone for those cards to exist in black and gold, and the card companies certainly aren't the only ones to blame. 

But I suppose that's the nice part of having two far more (recently) successful teams in town.  As much as I may lament the exclusion of Al Martin from some '99 Fleer Mystique inserts, I can undoubtedly find Jerome Bettis or Kordell Stewart in their football counterpart.  A small consolation prize, perhaps.  But I'll take it.