Pay up for the Group Break: Crime Dog Edition

We'll see how many people are on board with this one. Thanks to the folks who have already updated me on their status. To the slackers: pay up, cuz the Crime Dog sez so.

As an aside, the card will soon be leaving the compound and traveling to live with everyone's favorite Moose. I owe him big anyway, and have been slacking myself on sending this beaut to him. 

The Moose is Loose: Crime Dogs from GSNHOF

From time to time the Spastik one over at GSNHOF will drop me an email about McGriffs he can send me. I usually take a week+ to respond (between work and the group break things are what they are) and say I'm STILL getting my Freds in order (going on 6 months now) and will get back to him. After a few more weeks he sends me a package anyway. Great guy, that Moose----I have at least one Fred to send his way and have my eyes out for others.

First from the last batch is this incredible CD MiLB card.

The light towers in the back are iconic and scream 1980's minor league ball. I also like how the font on the Chiefs uni mimics the Blue Jays uni from that era. Very nice touch. As a side note, when I was a kid I remember someone writing an article about "how good will Fred be?" This was the late-80s when Dwight Gooden ruled the world, and the author mentioned how, at some point when the two were towards the end of their high school careers (they both hail from Tampa), McGriff took Gooden deep to the tune of 500+ feet and actually hit a light tower well beyond the OF wall. That is to say the Crime Dog had MASSIVE power, but could also rake the best of the best. Not sure why he's so under appreciated.

More highlights:

Bottom left: Fred finding Jesus in stereo. That'll have its own post. But you see across the top three cards and the bottom left the kind of remarkable consistency Fred had to his swing. Different cards, different years, the exact same follow through. Necessary stuff for a HOFer. Bottom middle: Fred as a Ray. And bottom right, late-80s Classic. I've got a soft spot for the Classic cards even if they are from a long-deceased brand. With the '87 Bo Jackson they were all the rage for a while. 

Thanks again Moose! Have a good one everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Gettin' the Group Break Going

Work took me to Mexico City for a while but I'm back now and ready to kick things off! Emails to breakers and people who posted have been sent out, so check your inbox if you signed up.

There will be breaking, there will be blogging. Things are (finally) calming back down.

First up, here's an AMAZING card from the Moos, Crime Dog and Friend. It's the minors, it's the 80s, it's AWESOME! More from that package and others to come soon.

Have a good one everybody and good night Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Trading Post: Epic Part II: Freds Thanks to Great Sports Name HOF

First, we have a Cy sighting over at Mark's Ephemera. Go check it out!

Also, a great contest over at Play at the Plate.

So, having declared myself a Fred McGriff player collector, I got an email from Great Sports Name Hall of Fame. I've already had great experiences with other player collectors like Troll and Chris OK and our pursuit of CCs, and HOF was pretty stoked to meet another McGriff collector. Surprisingly there are very few out there. He sent me a link to his Crime Dogs, and only asked for me to send him any thing I had not on the list. Between my recent acquisitions from Chris OK and Play at the Plate I had about 5 I could send (including that sweet '87 Fleer Glossy) plus another 5 I have from my original old-school collection, 10 in all. To send or not to send?

I mulled it over, but ultimately bowed to the awesome thoroughness of that list and decided to cut my Crime Dogs loose. In return, HOF hooked me up with a whopping 39 (!) Crime Dogs I'd never seen before. Keeping it simple, these are the highlights.

Fred being fan friendly. Nice card, nice shot, nice guy, pretty much how I have always imagined him: a fan-accessible HOFer.

This is actually a 92 UD that my scanner decided didn't need a white border and would look much better cropped, photo-to-border, like Stadium Club. Nice call cheap scanner! Love the ump, love the crowd, the ball and the baserunner arriving at the bag at the same moment. People remember Crime Dog for his offense, but he was also a defensive whiz at 1st. Dude here says Eddie Murray is the only HOFer with a high fielding percentage, and yet Fred never won a Gold Glove. Go figure...

Here we have photographic evidence that Derek Jeter is not the only player to have ever chased a ball into or towards the stands in the last 20 years, much less in the history of baseball. Fred's chasing one into the camera well gives this card a pretty cool, mis en abyme feel to it. Cameras at both ends, infinite Freds and the meaningless of it all in between...nice touch. Don't worry, the one guy in the stand with his hands on his head is also just a spectator, miscomprehending like the rest of us.

Speaking of which, this card sums it up nicely, doesn't it? "A Tale of Two Players"...two potential HOFers, one guy who played his way out of every town he ever played in, including Atl., and a guy who showed up every day to the park, took his position out at first, and just played. Two players, indeed...you'd need staples like those in the middle of the card to pull together any coherent narrative comparing their careers, that's for sure...

And then we have some more excellent cards of Fred at the bat...

Can't get enough of that swing, even if it has apparently spawned a vortex that threatens to tear the universe asunder, with you, me and Fred in it. Wow.

This swing is pretty awkward, but check out what it says there on the front...yep, Fred's no longer with the Braves, as pictured on the card. Instead, he's now with the:

Devil?!? Man, someone really dropped the ball on that one. Unless, of course, Fred really DID sell his soul to the devil to squeeze in a few last years of ball and make a run at 500 HRs, in which case listing his team on the back of the card as "Devil" is entirely appropriate.

So there you have it, and those are just the highlights! Thanks again, HOF! Hope you enjoyed the Freds I sent over.

Have a great one, everybody and Pumpsie Green, wherever you are, goodnight!

The Crime Dog Collection

35 from Great Sports Name Hall of Fame

11 from Play at the Plate

1986

Donruss, #28

1987

Donruss, # 621

Donruss HIghlights, #39

Fleer Update, # U-75

Topps, #74T

1988

Score, #107

Topps, #463

Topps, Team Leaders #729

1989

Bowman, #253

Donruss, #70

Donruss, DK-16

Donruss, MVP #BC-19

Fleer, #240

Score, #6

Topps, #745

Topps, mini #77

Upper Deck, #572

Upper Deck, Team Checklist #671

1990

Bowman, #513

Donruss, #188

Fleer, #89

Leaf, #132

Topps, #295

Topps, AS #385

Upper Deck, #108

1991

Donruss, #261

Topps, #140

Upper Deck, #33

Upper Deck, #775

1992

Donruss, #283

Fleer, #614

Score, #7

Upper Deck, #344 (thx HOF!)

1994

Donruss, Long Ball Leaders #2

Topps Stadium Club, #180

Upper Deck, #197

1995

Donruss, #232

Fleer, AS #15

Topps, #355

Upper Deck SP, #30 (thx HOF!)

1996

Score, #84

Upper Deck, #380

1997

Pinnacle, #8

Score, #9

Topps, #352

1998

Donruss Preferred, #54

Fleer Tradition, #130 (thx HOF!)

Score, #195

Skybox, #6

Topps, #349

Upper Deck, #730

Upper Deck Player's Choice, You Crash the Game #CG8 (thx HOF!)

2000

Fleer, #153

Topps, #31

2001

Fleer Platinum, #127

Fleer Tradition, Team Checklist #441

Fleer Triple Crown, #173

Topps Finest, #4

Topps Gold Label, #190

Upper Deck, Black Diamond #12

2003

Donruss Diamond Kings, #86

Topps, # T99

Upper Deck, #169

2004

Donruss Throwback Threads, #187

Trading Post: Epic Part 1: Crime Dogs Thanks to Play at the Plate

This will be a two parter full of intrigue. When I first put up that I was interested in McGriffs things picked up a bit trading wise, and Play at the Plate was quick to respond. I sent over a stack of Rangers, and he sent me a bunch of McGriffs, some neo-vintage Pops, and a couple of Rays. Here are some of the awesome highlights.

I'm also something of a Pedro collector, so this card is doubly awesome. It's a card commemorating the Crime Dog's posterizing of Pedro back in the day to a tune of a 462 foot HR. I hope at some point they also did a "Big K" series, of dudes like Pedro owning hitters back in the mid-1990's...but I get a feeling there is no such series. At any rate, it'd be awesome to see.

Now, there will be a trend here among the Freds I pulled. Along with Darryl Strawberry, he's got one of the most majestic swings I've ever see. It's also made for some consistently beautiful cardboards that show him having just raked another massive HR. This one's got Fred following through on a monster HR for the Rays, with what looks to be a Yankees catcher (Posada?) and by the looks of his barrel chest José Canseco lurking in the background. A couple of nice, scene setting details that really add to a great baseball pic. That said, what with the blurring and the letters and the logo, the design infringes a bit on the shot for my taste.

I'm thinking this ball went upwards of 500 feet. It's obviously a no-doubter. The catcher (looks to be a Cub) is standing up, his glove slightly betraying a sense of "WTF" was that pitch disgust. I like the bats in the dugout in the background, but again the design is intruding on a great shot. We have a mugshot of Fred top left, and massive lettering blocking the catcher. Man I wish I could see the look on his face as that 0-2 fastball he called for heads for the fringes of Fulton Co.

This is actually the back of a card (front to come). It's pretty awesome, but wait....follow his eyes...looks like this is a shot of Fred popping up to shallow left. Not quite as heroic, but still a shot of heroic failure, which has its own charm. And then the front:

Now, I know Mickey Tettleton played several positions in the OF, calling a guy who made his mark as a hard hitting catcher an "IF" is a bit much. It's like listing Fred as an "IF," when in fact the ONLY IF position he ever played was 1B. Why not just list him as that? There's no sin in being one-dimensional defensively, especially when some guys (I'm not listing names, you know who you are) don't even have that dimension.

And finally, the Goodwin Champions Upton.

This card says nightmares. This man isn't Bossman, Jr., he's THE Bossman. The stare, the gathering red storm behind him...this dude is just plain scary. Awesome, awesome card...almost so much that I came close to caving on the no-wax policy and buying a box at Target this afternoon.

Thanks again for the trade, Play at the Plate!

Have a great one, everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Trading Post: Budget Baseball Cardboarding

Yesterday I went with the compa to Target. I'm usually not along for those trips, but we were out and I had to stop by Lowe's to get wood to build compa a table anyway, so I went.

Theoretically I have nothing against large retail spaces, apart from the crowds, the cheap plastic goods, and the jackbooted abuse of labor that goes one behind the scenes. Example: I once worked 3rd shift at a (insert name of big box retailer here) stocking shelves. Not only did management lock us in the store (um...major fire safety hazard) but while we worked two guys on the other end of the store were stripping stains off of the floor with bleach. Fun times at minimum wage all around! No one ever said anything because, even 12 years ago in some parts of the country, the job you have is the job you have and if you protest...they'll just find someone else who IS willing to work under those conditions. It's no wonder why a lot of those places require a "training course" which is actually 5+ hours of anti-union propaganda: unionization would kill those places if employees had one iota of leverage.

But I digress...So, they had Goodwin Champions and Ginter in nice, non-ripped blaster boxes, and it was killing me. I opening a single box of Heritage way back when this year, but since I've ripped zilch, nada. AND I'm with the compa, so I know better than to ask or even try to slip one of those bad boys in the cart. Crisis averted, for the moment, and I keep telling myself: 48 cards for $20 when all you want are certain players (Crawford, Price, Gomes) that you could score some great scratch of on the 'bay for much less. The budget for the month is shot, so I'm waiting till Nov at this point anyway.

Long story short: no cards for me.

But them I get home, and cards from Chris over at Budget Baseball Cardboarding are in the mail, which is MUCH better than the $20 blaster because a) it's a horse trade we hammered out over email, which is like the new card shop only without the attitudes and dudes in jerseys who have no idea who Virgil Trucks is and no cards of Kevin Slowey and b) it's ONLY dudes I want in the package, no cards of rock stars, bigfeet, dead presidents, or UD's golden anniversary.

First up: a 2009 Topps Walmart CC (which I didn't have) and which will wait for later.

Next: 1987 Fleer Update Glossy Fred McGriff, "The Crime Dog."

Now, I was one of the folks that came out in favor of McGriff in Troll's HOF context a while back, and let's be clear: I've yet to see a coherent case put together as to why he's NOT a HOFer. Sure, he's short of 500 HRs with 493 lifetime. But in addition to the HRs he's got a .377 lifetime OBP, .886 OPS, and those are over 19 seasons. The Bill James sniff tests have him as a borderline candidate, but for me the point is that he's one of the greatest hitters of the 90's, a guy that brought power and average to the table. And if you're worried about 'roids, McGriff never ballooned physically or put up the gaudy numbers of his peers, so I'm guessing he was either a) clean or b) had the good sense to retire in 2004 before he could be implicated in any of that dirt.

Personally, Atlanta acquiring him from SD back in 1993 was one of the better mid-season pickups ever, and he was the power in the 1995 WS run. Atl let him go in 1997 (to the Rays of all teams!) and in many ways has been looking for a 1B ever since (sorry Capt'n Canuck).

And finally: 1974 Topps Fergie Jenkins.

That ain't the crop, folks, the card was printed at an odd angle, which makes it pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned. It's also an incredibly strange card to begin with: Fergie was sent over from the Cubs in 1973, which I'm guessing explains the utter lack of team insignias. This was originally a terrible picture taken when he was a Cub, but it becomes the ideal shot of him playing for the Rangers because it includes no Cubs references and involves no shoddy airbrushing. Problem solved! Also, if anybody has one, the last '76 Topps card I need is the Fergie 1976 Traded, so I'm willing to deal!

Thanks again, Chris, great trade. Have a great Sunday everybody!