Diamond King

Sometimes you have to look pretty hard, but there are some real gems on youtube.  And I'm not talking about videos of cats.

From time to time there are some awesome highlight reels posted on youtube from the 90's.  Say what you will about the steroid era, but homers flying out of cookie cutter parks left and right were fun to watch.

For better or worse, the Bucs seemed largely immune to all the juicing going on.  The team was bad, and the hitters seemed to miss the memo on balls flying out of the park.  But there was the occasional bright spot.  Jeff King was a disappointing former first overall pick who at least briefly found his power stroke.

I don't remember much about the '96 season - but it was tons of fun to watch the bounces balls took on the Three Rivers astroturf outfield.

King is probably remembered best for his mustache, and perhaps for what most viewed as a surly disposition.  Honestly, I can't comment on the latter, since all I know is that it certainly felt like the sky was falling to an 8 year old when King and Jay Bell, the team's two best players, were shipped out before the '97 season.

Perhaps King's career could have played out differently.  He was largely relegated to a reserve role early on as the early 90's teams wanted more experienced players at the corners during seasons with high expectations.  And you certainly can't accuse King of being a player that hung around the game too long, retiring after the '99 season at just age 34 despite 3 successful seasons with the Royals.  At the end of the day, King and Bell will likely be remembered as the last holdovers from the Pirate contending teams.  The void between the '92 team and the '97 Freak Show was a cavernous gap.  But at least there were some players to keep us entertained, oblivious to the continued suffering Pirates fans would endure into the next century.

My Flea Market Adventure

While my posts have been pretty infrequent, there has definitely been a consistent theme when I do get around to writing: bemoaning the lack of card purchasing opportunities in the Pittsburgh area.

The wife-to-be and I have always loved going to estate sales, thrift stores, and the like.  She likes to find old furniture and clothes to re-purpose and fix up, and I'm always on the look out for some new collectibles for my future man cave.  Preparing for the wedding has only intensified these thrift store ventures - we're using mismatched vintage plates for the reception, and are doing a lot of the decorations and crafts ourselves with a vintage fall festival/halloween theme.  In short, it will be awesome.

We have just about exhausted the supply of plates in every decent thrift store in the Pittsburgh metro area, so we were both really caught off guard when my Kate's mom mentioned a flea market we had absolutely no idea existed.  It's only about 20 mins from my parents' house, but after a little digging I discovered why this gem of old junk had remained hidden to us.  It opened in 2007, right around when I was starting college, and is set off the highway behind a Wal Mart.  Yep, never had the slightest idea it existed even though I've probably driven by it a few hundred times.

So we decided to take a break from wedding related stuff to go do...some wedding related stuff.  In all honesty, I must confess she was much more focused on the task at hand.  I was using my keen Black and Gold-dar to look for new finds for my collection.  At this point, I can spot a pile of McFarlane, a dime box, or some old Starting Lineups from 40 yards away after years of practice.

Aside from a glass pumpkin for $1, we struck out on the wedding side.  Fortunately for me, the collectibles end was for more lucrative.

As soon as we exited the indoor portion and stepped out into the outdoor vendors, I spotted a table with Starting Lineups and a few boxes of cards.  A quick flip showed it was mainly early-mid 90's star base cards in toploaders.  Even at 5/$1, nothing seemed worth the price tag, but I decided I would stop back later after making the rounds.

I ended up coming away with some awesome non-card stuff that I'll show off a little later.  But after making my way around the other vendors, I made my way back to the cards.  Again things didn't look promising.  But I found one numbered card.  And then another.

And while I'd love for this story to end with my finding a hoard of 90's inserts, the finds were far more intermittent.  I picked up most of the cards with the idea of trading or flipping them.  But at these prices, the 90's nostalgia they bring back may end up being well worth the $3 I spent.

 But the dig wasn't without some great finds.  This Sosa/Marris Black Label '98 Gold Label card definitely would have drawn a nice chunk of change in the late 90's.  Even today, it's a great card.  But...nostalgia!

Speaking of which, since Pinnacle is back, any chance at also seeing some of the awesome 90's Score parallels again?

The foily goodness of the decade was out in full force in these Naturals inserts.  The cards have foil on both the fronts and backs, and the bright backgrounds really let the player photos stand out.

Pinnacle Mint was one of the more unique products, including coins of various rarities in each pack along with the cards.  Much more creative than the Topps cards with regular ole pocked change that people are shelling out big bucks for, don't you think?

And of course the day wouldn't be complete without at least a fewwwww main-collection pickups.  The Steelers '94 75th anniversary throwbacks are my absolute favorite uniform, and I couldn't pass up the chance to add the Dawson, which will be heading out in the mail to be signed.  The other cards are additions to my respective Pitt and WVU collections.  Finding college uniform cards can be tough, and neither program has turned out a ton of pro players, so they'll find a home in my slowly expanding binders.

Nothing that will drop your jaw, but some fun and unexpected additions to my collections.  And while the range or quality of the cards may not rival some of the other flea market finds I've seen folks have, I'll definitely have to make a point to stop back in the next few weeks.


I guess that's part of the fun of a flea market - these cards aren't worth much anymore, and like most of the stuff on dealer tables they are well past their prime.  But for a few dollars the fun of digging through the boxes not knowing whether I would find a few cards that might simply be fun, nostalgic additions to my secondary collections, or a 90's goldmine that might be able to fund my own collecting.

Back to Basics

Since moving back to PA, the sudden lack of card shows is leaving me feeling way out of touch.  One of the few benefits to being in Ohio was the regular access to card shows.  With a large show every month in Dayton and even larger shows in Columbus every few months, most of the commons from a new release and with some luck a decent number of the parallels would find their way into my collection within weeks of the product hitting the streets.

There is a show in November.  Other than that, there is not a single show, mall show, awkward little hotel show, or anything else between here and 2014 in all of western PA. 

That's the long way of saying I know 2013 A&G came out.  But I don't know a damn thing about it, except that the design doesn't make me want to drive 5 hours to go buy them at a show (and yes, I am overlooking the far more rational and cost effective option of just buying the things online).

As I've started adding my Pirate collection to binder pages, it provides an awesome opportunity to view my collection from a new perspective.  Up until now, my dozen or so monster boxes and shoe boxes were organized as such: commons by year and set with dividers marking each year, inserts/numbered cards/rarer parallels in their own box(es), a shoebox of certified autos, and a couple monster boxes of ip/ttm autos organized alphabetically.  Of course there were the odd boxes of cards still in need of sorting as well.

Point is...I could never really see all the cards from one release in one place without either pulling a bunch of cards from different places or the magic of photoshop.

So when I gathered all the cards together and put them on the page...



Oh my. 

Maybe the skies didn't open, the clouds didn't part, and it wasn't one of those ah-ha moments the way it is seeing the Sistine Chapel or Roman Coliseum.  But it sure felt like it.

2006 Allen & Ginter was a thing of beauty.  Each card appeared to be a masterfully crafted piece of artwork, enhanced by the dirtied, heavy card stock.  Slap an autograph on there, and there are few things more aesthetically pleasing in this hobby.

I could complain about the decline in quality in more recent A&G sets.  The lack of care with each and every base card.  Cookie cutter design, creating "retro" sets that are no longer based off of an actual historical set.

But I really don't care.  Just look at those cards!  Ok, maybe I could do without the spring training jerseys in each photo.  But what is art if not for our enjoyment and criticism.

Double Header

Two posts in one day?  I don't think I've pulled off that feat in a few months.  Heck, even one post has been pretty tough to come by. 

Even with the Pirates in their first pennant run of the millennium, I can't help but be at least a little excited about the upcoming football season.  And even though I'm a proud Mountaineer, now that the Backyard Brawl has been disbanded and the Big East is (virtually) no more, I can cheer juuuuust a little bit for Pitt.

Pitt has had a tradition of good, if not great, running backs.  And while Shady McCoy may not live up to the accomplishments of Tony Dorsett or Curtis Martin, his autograph certainly has a place in my collection.  I snagged this in Dayton a few months back for $8.  I'm pretty sure this is the most I've ever paid for a non-Pirate card (which isn't saying much, since the previous high was probably something like $3), but I'm thrilled to add it to my slowly developing college collection.

I Love the 90's

I've lamented this countless times on this blog, but perhaps the one biggest downside (for me) in the past two decades of losing baseball was that the Bucs were largely excluded from every cool 90's insert set.  There are fantastic sets out there that leave player collectors of the big name players from the decade still chasing hard to find inserts a decade and a half later. 

But even without the super insert goodness, there are some sweet cards from the 90's.  The players on the cards are just a little less exciting...

 Can you see why I'm excited about a new Pinnacle release?  I have found dozens of the Starburst and Museum Collection cards in dime boxes, but the Pirates always seem to elude me.

 Speaking of resurrected brands, I know people have mixed opinions on the new Leaf.  I'm not a big fan of repack products in general, but I have enjoyed the original products Leaf has released.  In a different hobby landscape, I'd like to see what they could do with an actual MLB (or evan MLBPA) license.  Perhaps some day.

Oh, these guys used to exist too.  Upper Deck had the market pretty much cornered on high end products since the late 90's.  Even without logos, I'm curious to see how their Fleer Retro baseball product turns out.  The set looked great in hockey and football, even though the Penguin and Pitt Panther starpower in the set have put the cards a little out of my price range.

A Little Nostalgia

It's been about two months since I boxed up my collection.  But aside from a few ebay sales, a few COMC purchases, and the occasional ebay win...I haven't spent much time thinking about cards.

It's not that I've lost interest, or want to stop collecting.  But the break has certainly served me well.  I have been burnt out on cards - the piles continued to build, and build while I was in Ohio, and by the move I think it was a relief to have them out of sight for a while.

And in truth, many of the recent sets haven't really interested me.  I added cards I didn't have for the simply reason that I didn't have them.  But cards I truly want almost always come from the 90's and early 00's, and my true want list has dwindled significantly.

But skimming some card forums, I came across a preview box break of 2013 Pinnacle.  I'd imagine some collectors don't even remember Pinnacle.  But they came out with some incredibly fun products in the mid 90's, and some of the rarer inserts can still command a pretty penny.

Sure, this new release lacks MLB logos.  Sure, the sheer name value of the marquee players will probably never match the 90's, when every insert set could be loaded up with 50HR guys who had a strong hobby following.  But I haven't touched a new wax product since 2007, and seeing this product made me want to go out and grab a box when the product goes live.  

The McCutchen insert here shows that a card can still look amazing without MLB logos.  Sure, the base cards look rough, and some uniforms look better sans logos than others.  But this card, oozing 90's nostalgia, has me more excited than any card Topps has put out in the past half dozen years.

I've Been a Bad, Bad Blogger

Apparently it's been a full month since I last posted.  Geeze.  After being gone from Pittsburgh for three years, it's taking even longer than expected to get settled in.  Add in wedding-related stuff during just about every free moment (I spent 3 evenings this week along going to various stores to do registry stuff), and add in that there has not been a single card show in the Pittsburgh area, and cards have sort of moved to the back burner.

Thankfully we're entering the home stretch with the wedding, finally think we found an apartment that has everything we are looking for at a great price point, and of course the cardboard itch is coming back.

Ironically, this all happens while the Pirates are in the middle of the best season in far, far too long.  In all honesty, I'm still adjusting to the idea of competitive baseball.  And with the Steelers looking to be rebuilding and the Pens coming off a disappointing, but successful, season, it seems all the casual sports fans are once again flocking back to the Pirates.  Sadly the stadium hasn't been filled with a new fleet of McCutchen and Burnett jerseys, but rather an array of girls in Victoria Secret Pirate tshirts that appear to be about the same thickness as Hulk Hogan's tear away tshirts and frat guys in backwards baseball caps.  So is the price of winning, I suppose.  But I must say that for all the misery, errant throws into the stands, and botched baserunning over the past two decades, it was glorious to never have to deal with fair weather fans.  The seas were consistently stormy through those years.

But this season has also brought up some interesting connections.  For the team to be historically bad for such an extended period, it will be interesting if the "streak" will be bookended by playoff appearances.  Of course I can't imagine any playoff loss being more heartbreaking than Sid Bream's death blow to the Bucs.

And the team is not without some connection to that '92 team.  Jay Bell joined the team as hitting coach this season, and though I am hesitant to ever put too much blame or praise on a coach or managed, he was a well regarded candidate before getting the job.  Bob Walk was a starter in '92.  Now he's a broadcaster whose Ban the DH campaign has won a piece of my heart.  Even during the worst years, Walk was always good for a laugh with his honest, hilarious analysis.  Watching mlb.tv earlier in the season made my appreciate his style, since most broadcast booths are dedicated to the continuous praise of the parent club, regardless of performance.

Really, the only thing missing is the voice of the team.  Longtime broadcaster Lanny Frattare left the team unceremoniously after the 2008 season.  For most of my life, Lanny was the Bucs.  His voice was the only constant as a revolving cast of characters put on the black and gold. 

This season is only a reminder that "there was nooooo doubt about it."