Sports Cards Ate My Brain

 I was one card short of my Kaline goals from the Beckett Marketplace so I switched to Ebay and found the 1969 base card I needed. Card number 410 completes my run from 1957 to 1973.  What about 1974 you ask?  It's around here somewhere so I will have to search for that. Maybe sometime I will decide to buy his cards from before 1957 and purchase some more All-Star and multi-player cards of Al but I am satisfied with where I am. This completes my fun money run on my Braves and Tigers collections unless I win some lottery money or another Stimulus check comes out. I hope you have enjoyed my pursuit and will look forward to what I post in the future.

I'm a little late with this but Happy Birthday to Bobby Cox. I met him once in the bookstore I worked in and helped him find a children's book for a gift. He had on his Braves jacket but I would have recognized him anyway. I think it was around 1990.

To recap:  These are the cards I would take with me if I could take ten 9-card pages with me to Mars. I 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. The third page is made up of non-Brave, non-George Brett baseball cards. 1909 T206 Rube Geyer This card has to be included because it is my oldest baseball cards and is from one of the great sets.  This one has the common Piedmont back.  I got it at a pawn shop for $3.  For those of you who may be unaware, cards of all types were packaged with cigarettes in the late 19th and early to mid 20th century. 1968 Topps Game #8 Topps Game cards were inserted in 1968 packs.  This is my favorite one because it is an all-time great plus it is a Home Run.  This is one of the sets I'm trying to complete. 1969 Topps #237 This is Bobby ...

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...

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.

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...