Tag Archives: Nolan Ryan

2019 Mets Card Spring Preview

Posted by on 11 March 2019 Comments Off on 2019 Mets Card Spring Preview

Where do we go from here?

So, yeah, not much going on here these days. After a monster 2017, I took a step back in 2018 and have continued that in 2019. Keeping up with the current releases just isn’t as much of a priority for me because there’s just too damn much out there and most of it isn’t particularly interesting. After seeing what Topps did with 2019 Series 1 Jumbo, I’m not hopeful for a whole lot of value in their products this year. And with rising overhead costs on the secondary market, it’s getting harder to track down hidden gems on the low end. On the plus side, I’ve got tons of great stuff that has yet to be scanned, so I’m buried in work if I ever come up with something to put together. Not much of a plus side, but there it is.

2019 is a transition year for the Mets as the Captain has left the field and the front office had significant turnover. That translated into a flurry of offseason moves, but whether that turns into success has yet to be determined. Last year had to have been rock bottom (just look at how many cast-offs were on the roster), but there were still a few glimmers of hope (Cy deGrom) tinged with despair (deGrom’s extension talks). Basically, same old Mets.
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What’s in Your Binder?

Posted by on 31 March 2016 Comments Off on What’s in Your Binder?

I’ll show you mine…

If you’re like me, you have more cards in boxes than you know what to do with. Small boxes, large boxes, multi-row boxes, toploader boxes… For most cards, their final resting place (before the inevitable trash can or recycle bin of fate) will be a cardboard box, never to be seen by human eyes ever again. It’s an efficient method of card storage, but efficiency often comes at the price of emotional connections. Sometimes, we want to keep cards viewable, even if we are the only ones who ever view them. And for that, we have binders.

Binders can hold a great number of different things. You name it and there’s a pocketed binder page made for it. Comic books, coins, postcards – if it’s flat, it fits in something. Nothing though, aside from a single sheet of paper, fits better than the 9-pocket sports card page. There’s just something about pages of plastic-encased cardboard that just feels right. Some people put every card in pages. Others limit the honor to a select few. In any case, I have just one question: what’s in your binder?

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Product Spotlight: 2015 Topps Heritage High Number

Posted by on 29 February 2016 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2015 Topps Heritage High Number

Back in packs, RCs are stacked

Heritage and I have a strange relationship. When the debut edition became the hottest product of 2001, I chose to sell while it was hot rather than chase the set. I skipped the next decade of Heritage and have bought some each of the four years since, never quite finishing any sets and always falling short of getting my money’s worth. Still, I keep coming back to be somewhat disappointed the next year…

Heritage High Number is a different story. I skipped it in 2012, bought a set at about full price in 2013 and made most of my money back on the autograph, and then never got around to buying a set in 2014. When I finally did pick one up the next year at a steep markdown, I still made back about half the price on the autograph. Not a bad track record, but there’s only so much you can get out of the 100-card factory set format. 2015 Heritage High Number though returned to a standard pack format and in the process became a strong contender for the hottest product of 2015.

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Mets Game-Used History: 1998 to 2000

Posted by on 29 December 2013 Comments Off on Mets Game-Used History: 1998 to 2000

The awkward early years in the growth of a new fad

After the first three jersey cards debuted in 1997 Upper Deck, this new type of insert took some time to develop into the hobby mainstay it has been ever since 2001.  The intermediate period of 1998 to 2000 brought several key developments that refined and expanded the game-used memorabilia offerings in baseball products.  At the start though, the Mets weren’t part of the story.

1998

Upper Deck was all about more in 1998.  Not only did the base Upper Deck product add a third series, but each series had a separate game-used memorabilia insert set.  Series 1 introduced game-used bat cards in addition to jersey cards.  Series 2 combined the two and introduced the first combo memorabilia cards with a piece of bat and a piece of jersey in every card.  Series 3 used the same style as the Series 2 set only without the bat chips.  No Mets were featured in any of those sets, so Gary Sheffield is shown as a stand-in with his bat and jersey cards from 1998 Upper Deck Series 1 and his bat/jersey card from 1998 Upper Deck Series 2.

The construction of these cards is worth noting.  Like the 1997 jersey cards, the 1998 jersey cards feature a swatch of cloth sandwiched between two thin pieces of cardboard.  The bat cards on the other hand use only a single piece of thin cardboard with the bat chip glued on top.  The bat/jersey combo cards use both methods, with the large jersey sections inserted between the pieces of cardboard and the bat chip glued onto the top piece, putting each piece of game-used material on a different layer.  This would be the last time that thin cardboard would be used in memorabilia cards.

1999

The other major development in 1998 was the trade that brought Mike Piazza to Queens.  With memorabilia cards still largely limited to major stars (and, apparently, Bubba Trammell), Piazza gave the Mets their best chance to break into some of the various sets released in 1999.  In addition to the 1999 Upper Deck Game Jersey card, Piazza also had the first Mets bat cards in UD MVP and UD Ovation.  And that was about it for the Mets in 1999.

So how about some ex-Mets?  Nolan Ryan and Eddie Murray were among the retired players with memorabilia cards in 1999.  Plain white swatches aren’t very exciting these days, but there wasn’t much more than that back then.  In fact, 1999 was the only year without a pinstripe jersey card from a current, future, or former Met.

But we did get a black jersey card from future forgotten Met Bubba Trammell.  And a Mo Vaughn bat card because, sure, why not?  Not all memorabilia cards in 1999 were this boring, thankfully.  New sources of material were starting to make their way into cards.

In 1997, we got the first jersey cards.  In 1998, we got the first bat cards.  And in 1999, memorabilia cards further expanded into hats and shoes.  Also new to memorabilia cards was Fleer with the first such cards to come from a manufacturer other than Upper Deck.  By now, it was clear what direction the hobby was headed in.

2000

There were plenty more firsts for Mets memorabilia in 2000.  The 2000 product year started with some big new Mike Piazza cards, including the first Mets patch card in 2000 Upper Deck Series 1 and a card in the first multi-level parallel memorabilia set in 2000 UD Black Diamond (single, double, and triple bat cards, single is shown above).  This year though, Piazza was not alone.

Robin Ventura joined Piazza in representing the Mets in 2000’s memorabilia inserts.  In addition to the now-usual bat and jersey cards, Ventura was featured on several autographed memorabilia cards.  In another first, Ventura also had the first Mets hat card in 2000 Skybox Dominion.

The final first from 2000 features a name that you might not remember.  Jorge Toca had an MLB career that spanned just 27 plate appearances over three seasons.  So it should come as no surprise that this piece of bat was from a minor league game.  Still, this is the first Mets minor league memorabilia card.

Outside of Mets cards, many familiar players were featured on game-used memorabilia cards in 2000, particularly in Upper Deck’s largest-ever Game Jersey set.  The memorabilia card was becoming so popular in fact that manufacturers were looking for more types of material to put into it.

And that brings us to the first memorabilia cards featuring items that aren’t linked to one specific player.  When it comes to common items used in baseball games, nothing is as prolific as the game’s namesake.  Dozens of baseballs are used in every MLB game for a total of more than 125,000 used every year.  Linking them to a specific player though can be a bit tricky.  The card above claims that the swatches are from balls that were used by Piazza and Ventura, respectively, but with an average lifespan of 6 pitches, does that even matter?  Even if the balls were used by these players, it may have been for only a few seconds.  This marked the start of memorabilia cards featuring all sorts of things used in games, from bases and on deck circles to walls and seats to dirt.  The memorabilia card’s evolution had only just begun.

The Essentials: 2013 Mets Manufactured Material

Posted by on 13 December 2013 Comments Off on The Essentials: 2013 Mets Manufactured Material

The kitchen sink of baseball cards has standouts and oddities

A lot of baseball cards have been released in 2013. Between Topps (MLB and MLBPA licenses), Panini (MLBPA license), Leaf (no licenses), and Upper Deck (MLBPA license but strict MLB oversight), more than 40 baseball products have been released this year. So which cards stand out from the rest? To answer that question, we’ll break down the key Mets cards from 2013 in The Essentials.

Manufactured material, like game-used memorabilia and certified autographs, traces its roots in the modern sports card era back to the late 1990s. Aside from its use as a surface for autographs though, it wasn’t until recent years that manufactured material came into its own as a hobby offering with diversity and innovation. Topps raised the bar in 2012 with premium metal manufactured relics and continued this trend into 2013.

Minor League Logos

So many things wrong with that d’Arnaud card…

Back again after their debut in 2012, minor league hat logo patches from many minor league teams were included in Topps Pro Debut and Topps Heritage Minor League. Oddly, it looks like these are the exact same patches that were used in 2012. Topps must have had a few extras left over… Note the use of last year’s logos for the St. Lucie Mets and Buffalo Bisons (as for why Travis d’Arnaud is shown with the Bisons, well…). Between the two products, six Mets were featured on logo patch cards, covering most of the top prospects in the Mets farm system. Unlike last year, a consistent style was used for both sets of logo patch inserts in 2013. It would be nice to see Topps continue this moving forward to create a running set with top prospects for years to come. The logos need a bit of an update though.

Mascot Patches

Not shown: Buster T. Bison. Not sure I even want to…

New for 2013, Topps Pro Debut added patch cards for various minor league mascots. Cyclones mascot Sandy the Seagull was the only mascot from a current Mets farm team featured in this set, but Buffalo Bisons mascots Buster T. Bison and Belle the Ballpark Diva were shown in their 2012 incarnations, so I guess they count (though I wouldn’t exactly call them essential). I’m not quite sold on these just yet.

Retail Commemorative Patches

At the major league level, the bulk of the manufactured material was released in the base Topps products: Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, and Topps Update. Many of those were the cracker jack-style prize inside $20 retail blasters, included as a consolation prize for spending $20 on a few packs of cards with terrible odds on getting anything good (with most of those “good” cards not worth much of anything anyway). Of course, with typical selling prices between $5 and $25, they sometimes make you feel like a bit of a chump for spending $100 a pop on hobby jumbo boxes where the only decent card is a manufactured relic that sells for between $5 and $25… But I digress.

The first of the retail manufactured patch sets feature miniature versions of commemorative shoulder patches or anything else Topps felt like making. Only two Mets were included here, David Wright with the Mets 50th anniversary patch and Tom Seaver with the 1969 World Series patch. I guess these can get filed away with all of the similar cards Topps has produced over the last few years.

The second retail manufactured patch set consists of framed mini card patches featuring an assortment of rookie cards and other random stuff. For the Mets, that meant rookie card patches from Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, and Jose Reyes and a very off-center 1970 Topps Nolan Ryan.

Silk Collection

Shoulder surgery starting pitchers for the, um, DL I guess…

Honestly, I’m not really sure how to classify silk cards. They’re not typically considered relics, but they are technically manufactured material, so here they are. R.A. Dickey, David Wright, and Matt Harvey are the big Mets names with silk cards in 2013, but I don’t have any of them so here’s Johan Santana and Shaun Marcum.

Award Winner Relics

This year’s theme for hobby manufactured relics was award winners. Each card featured a tiny metal replica of one of several featured awards, including MVPs, Cy Youngs, Silver Sluggers, Rookies of the Year, World Series MVPs, etc. The best looking of the bunch were the MVP relics, but the Mets have never had an MVP.

They have had a bunch of Cy Young winners though, most recently R.A. Dickey in 2012. Who was not featured in this set. Instead, we got Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden.

Darryl Strawberry’s Silver Slugger rounds out the three Mets featured in Series 1 with a photo that somewhat ironically crops out the bat he is swinging. Series 2 featured Mets Rookies of the Year Tom Seaver, Darryl Strawberry, and Dwight Gooden. Um, what happened to Jon Matlack? Am I the only one who remembers that he existed?

Proven Mettle Coins

And that brings us to the last and best category of manufactured relics, the coins. Last year, Topps introduced manufactured coin relics, the first I’ve seen since some pretty lame attempts in the late ’90s that embedded what looked like amusement park tokens into cards. The Topps version uses huge coins with the card barely wrapped around them. Only one Met, Tom Seaver of course, was featured in last year’s coins. In 2013, the Proven Mettle (get it?) coins featured a three-tier parallel with copper (#d/99), wrought iron (#d/50), and steel (#d/10) versions. David Wright joins Seaver this time for a total of six Mets cards. If you only get one manufactured material card from 2013, it should be one of these coins.

Did I miss anything?  Let me know in the comments.

Five Must-Have Mets Cards

Posted by on 19 March 2013 Comments Off on Five Must-Have Mets Cards

Cornerstones of any Mets collection

You know, I’m not doing enough fluff pieces on here.  While I continue to scan cards for some more significant pieces, here’s a quick look at a few nice Mets cards.  If you want to berate me for not including any cards from Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, David Wright, or Victor Zambrano, feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions.  Maybe I’ll even throw another of these together to fill space sometime.

1997 Upper Deck Game Jersey Rey Ordonez GJ3

There are few more significant jersey cards in baseball card history than Ordonez’s 1997 Game Jersey insert.  Actually, there are two, number GJ1 and number GJ2 from this set.  Ordonez is the odd man out in the debut jersey card set behind Ken Griffey Jr. and Tony Gwynn.  Still, this is the first piece of Mets jersey issued in a baseball card and helped to usher in a new era of collecting.

2000 Upper Deck Game Jersey Patch Mike Piazza P-MP

While Rey Ordonez has the distinction of having the first Mets jersey card, Mike Piazza became the first Met with a patch card in 2000 (let’s not talk about 1998 and 1999, at least not until I finish the next Mets Game-Used History segment).  Nearly impossible to pull at the time, this card still commands a decent price despite the multitude of Piazza patch cards on the market.  There’s only one first and this one is it.  Piazza has gone on to have countless patch cards released and more than 60 other Mets players have joined him.

2001 Upper Deck Signed Game Jersey Nolan Ryan Mets H-NRm

Nolan Ryan may be one of the biggest stars to come up through the Mets system, but he didn’t really do much as a Met. That doesn’t stop the card companies from celebrating Ryan’s time on the team though. Pieces of one of Ryan’s Mets jerseys (flannel pinstripes) began showing up in cards as early as 2000, typically depicting him in a Rangers uniform. Upper Deck gave all of Ryan’s teams their proper respect in 2001’s Game Jersey inserts. Between the base jersey, signed jersey, and dual jersey inserts, Ryan was featured in every uniform with pieces from the appropriate jersey. This Mets version includes a large (by today’s standards) swatch of pinstriped jersey with an on-card autograph. Short of an autographed Mets patch card (see 2011 Topps), this is about as good as it gets for Ryan memorabilia.

2010 Upper Deck A Piece of History 500 Club Gary Sheffield 500HR-GS

Gary Sheffield became the first player to hit his 500th home run as a Met in 2009 and Upper Deck commemorated it in 2010 with the final entry (so far) in the A Piece of History 500 Club bat card insert set. As with the other cards in this product, the card features barely cropped and/or obscured logos, which Upper Deck was not allowed to use. The product may have doomed Upper Deck, but this card remains a key piece of Mets history.

2011 Topps Marquee Titanic Threads Jumbo Relics Carlos Beltran TTJR-69

Released after Beltran had been traded to the Giants, this card might seem a bit out of place.  Its significance however cannot be overstated.  The included jersey swatch, big enough to feature three pinstripes on some versions, isn’t notable just because Carlos Beltran wore it.  The Beltran jersey cards in this product are in fact the only cards to feature a piece of Mets pinstripe jersey worn between about 2009 and 2011.  All others are either from before the recessed mesh style Cool Base jerseys were adopted or after the Cool Base formula changed to a more standard weave for the 2012 season.