Sports Cards Ate My Brain

I'm a traditionalist so I keep my over sized cards in a shoe box. While I was looking through it I came across four tickets from games I had attended.ITh We'll go through them in chronological order. March 17, 1994 The Atlanta Knights were a farm team of the Tampa Bay Lightning.  Best known at first for having a female goalie in their first season the Knights won the IHL's Turner Cup in the 1993-94 seascuon. I don't remember what happened this particular game but I'm sure the atmosphere in the old Omni was good like it always was. May 7, 1996 Good ole Atlanta - Fulton County Stadium hosted this game during it's Farewell Season (as noted on the ticket).  The Braves moved to Turner Field the next year.   According to the box score I looked up the Bravos won in the 10th on a double by fan favorite Javy Lopez. Hall of Famer Greg Maddux started the game for the Braves and pitched 8 innings. Here's a link to the box score:   https://www.baseball-reference.com/box...

As a Falcon's Fan it has taken me awhile to write this post but the Super Bowl loss is mitigated by the fact that Tom Brady is my favorite player. My second favorite player is the other QB from that game that, unfortunately, did not execute in the 4th quarter.  All year I have known that the Falcons had to get to 30 points in a game to win and I was excited when they were in FG range with a change to get to 31 points.  As is well documented, that all went south. My favorite Matt Ryan card is from one of those hobby store giveaway sets: This is from 2008 Topps and is number 1 in the set. For those Atlanta haters out there, stop it (Michael Wilbon).  Everyone says we don't support our teams like other cities.  Half of our citizens grew up in other cities and they came to town with favorite teams, so get over it.  I'm sorry so many people chose to leave other cities to live somewhere better.

I really wanted to attend one of this weekend's games between my old favorite team (Braves) and my current one but health issues prevented it.  Unfortunately the Braves killed the Tigers chance at a playoff position but winning the last 2 games. I explained earlier this year why I no longer root for the Braces so I will not go into the reasons here.  There was a nice pregame ceremony and an over-produced postgame ceremony that I watched except when they cut to the new stadium. In 1996 the Olympic torch did not travel through Cobb County because of anti-gay laws it had adopted.  20 years later they get a Major League Baseball team.  This is not because the county has changed politcally.  That's all I have to say about that (Liberty Media).

I've been watching the Braves games just to see how much they totally stink this year. I realized that they only have 3 home runs this year but was totally blown away when Chip Caray and Joe Simpson mentioned that it had been over 500 ABs since the Braves hit a home run. To put that in perspective, the Mets had 23 during their 9 game road trip. I got nothing else to say......

While looking at the Atlanta Journal Constitution online media today I spotted an article entitled Braves Poor Start Reaches Liberty Media Stockholders Meeting written by Tim Tucker. In this article Liberty Media Chairman John Malone is quoted as saying “Now, keep in mind the Braves now are a fairly major real-estate business as opposed to just a baseball club.” Any questions on why the Braves suck so badly this year?  Any questions as to why I stopped following them?  The quote refers to the area surrounding the new stadium that the club will be moving to for the 2017 season.  The Braves are an asset that allowed the company to get use of a nice piece of land in Cobb County.  The seem to see no reason to field a team that anyone will want to watch this year. I will not watch the Braves and will not go to a game unless a really beautiful single woman wants to treat me.  Even then I may have to take a few minutes to make the decision. Go Tigers!

Say it ain't so! Enjoy your time in California, Andrelton.  I guess I'm an Angels fan now.

My concept here is loosely inspired by last week's Big Bang Theory episode in which Sheldon registers to be selected for an expedition to Mars. I started thinking about what I would be able to take with me on such a mission and decided I could take no more than ten 9-card pages from my card collection.  I also decided that each part of my collection cannot have more than one page.  The cards must fit into a regulation page as far as height and width but I am taking liberties with how thick some of the cards are.  This means my 1956 Topps Ernie Johnson had to be left out but some thicker memorabilia cards are included. Here are my ten page themes. 1. Braves 2. George Brett 3. Other Baseball 4. Football 5. Hockey 6. Basketball 7. Soccer 8. Golf 9. Other Sports 10. Non-Sports cards Here are the nine Braves cards: 1957 Topps 117 - Joe Adcock This is a perfect card to me and represents why I love the 1957 design. Joe looks like all of the 6'4" 210 lbs...

Here's the rest of what I got at the December card show. 1971 Topps 62 Rico Carty was a great hitter but was limited by injuries throughout his career.  Joe Torre's hat seems to be barely in his head. 1972 Topps 172 Topps occasionally put In Action or similar cards in sets to fill out their planned card count.  I'm not a fan.  Evans appears to be levitating to catch a pop fly. 1973 Topps 1 Forget the crease, this is a perfect card. 1973 Topps 266 Mike looks very intense but someone probably should have told him that he is not in the batter's box.... 1975 Topps 154 And again..... 1975 Topps 499 Marty started for the Braves for 5 years and was the epitome of a light hitting middle infielder.  His career slugging percentage was .347.  He did manage to drive in 57 runs in 1973 but didn't manage even 40 in any other season. 1975 Topps 589 We end our card show posts with the 1975 Braves team.  Clyde King managed during...

The 1969 design is far from my favorite Topps design but I gotta fill in those Braves cards. 196 - Lum Harris 1968 was Lum's first with the Braves.  He had previously managed with Baltimore and Houston. 282 - Pat Jarvis Sheriff  Jarvis went 16 and 12 with a 2.60 ERA in 1968. 300 - Felipe Alou Felipe rebounded from a sub-par 1967 season to post a .317 batting average with 210 hits in 1968. 385 - Orlando Cepeda Orlando struggled with the Cardinals in 1968 with a .248 batting average and only 16 homers after an MVP season in 1967. One more post to go from the December show.

I picked up six 1968 Topps Braves cards that I needed. 30 - Joe Torre Joe had a decent season in 1967 with 20 home runs, 68 RBI and a .277 batting average but this was after a season of 36, 101 and .315. 55 - Felipe Alou Felipe hit 15 home runs with a .274 average but like Joe Torre his 1966 season was much better with 31 homers and a .327 average. 76 - Jim Britton/Ron Reed Jim Britton pitched 2 games in 1967 and spent 1968 and 1969 with the Braves.  His only other major league season was with the Expos in 1971. Ron Reed played 19 seasons in the majors and was with the Braves until 1975.  From 1965 to 1967 he also played for the Detroit Pistons in the NBA.  He average 8 points a game over his 2 seasons. 134 - Pat Jarvis Pat had a fine season in 1967 with 15 wins and a 3.66 ERA.  He later became the Sheriff of DeKalb County, Georgia for several years before corruption charges ended that career. 286 - Cecil Upshaw A rookie in 1967, Ceci...

 (For those of you who have no idea who Bill the Cat is please search for Bloom County.) Jim Acker     Jim Acker was originally drafted by the Braves as a First Round pick in 1980 out of the University of Texas.  He was selected by Toronto in the 1982 Rule 5 draft.  I'm speculating that Bobby Cox may have had something to do with that since Cox went to the Blue Jays as manager in 1982. Jim was traded to the Braves in mid-season 1986 for pitcher Joe Johnson.  He spent parts of 4 seasons with the Braves and had a decent 3.71 ERA; however, in a reflection of how bad the Braves were in the late 1980's, he had a 7 and 27 record.  He started 15 games for Atlanta but was mainly a relief pitcher and led the team in Saves in 1987 with 14. In a fortuitous move, Atlanta sent him back to Toronto during the 1989 season.  The Braves got reliever Tony Castilla and some catcher named Francisco Cabrera.  If you don't know about Cabrera w...

The Braves are currently 75 and 75 and are 4.5 games out of the last Wild Card position.  The true Braves fan in me says they could get into the Wild Card game and then make it to the World Series and upset the American League champ.  The realist in me says this will not happen. The Braves just cannot score runs with any consistency.  The lack of clutch hitting over this season has been extremely frustrating.  I like Justin Upton a lot but with just ever so slightly better clutch numbers he would probably have 20 more RBI and be leading the league.  A big stat I just found is that Atlanta only has 26 Sacrifice Flies this year.  That is 6 less than any other team in the National League. A stat I heard on Friday's TV broadcast was that the Braves had scored 1 or 0 runs in 37 games this year.  That is basically a quarter of the season.  Add in the games that the Braves scored 2 runs and is must be a third of the season, at least. Best example o...

Tommie Aaron was the brother of Hank.  He played for the Braves from 1962 to 1971 with the exception of 1964, 1966 and 1967 which he spent in the minors.  Was the International League MVP in Richmond in 1967. Tommie was the first Aaron brother to play in Atlanta as a member of the Crackers in 1965. Topps used the same picture in 1963 and then six years later in 1969 which is odd but the 1969 card is my favorite.   I still need the 1964 and 1971 cards.  The 1964 is a major need as I plan on completing the complete 1964 set after I finish my 1976.  The 1971 is a high number short print and will require a good price for my to get it. After years as a minor league manager and a major league coach Tommie succumbed to leukemia in 1984 at the age of 45.

I decided to organize my Braves collection by player since scanning and posting by year makes me try to come up with different things to say about the same player. I have literally do have cards from A and Z (Zuvella) to post about.  Some posts will be dedicated to one player if I have enough of their cards and they merit their own post. David Aardsma is the first major league player alphabetically but the first hitter listed is Henry Aaron.  Braves fans still consider Aaron the true Home Run King.  Turner Field is located at 755 Hank Aaron Blvd. That is until they move to Cobb County in a couple of years and I stop watching them.  (Yes, I feel that strongly about it.) I picked up most of my early Aaron cards by trade at my favorite card show and have gotten some in trades from other bloggers.  The condition of most is far from perfect but considering my budget and desire to complete years I'll worry about condition later on.  All of the cards on th...