A place where Colorado Rockies baseball card collectors (all 3 of us) can waste some time reading about our favorite sport. The Rockies and their cards will be the primary focus, but I like to go off on tangents as well so anything and everything baseball related may be covered here.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Rockie Trading Post #25 - Special Returning Guest Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life

Welcome to the landmark 25th episode of The Rockie Trading Post featuring a grand total of 0 Rockies.  Today's special returning guest is Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life.  As some of you may remember Bo is a big time set builder.  If you don't remember here is the recap of our first trade.  I pretty much wiped Bo out of Rockies last time, so I decided to go into my old set collecting self and make a dent in one of my many uncompleted sets.  I sent him the last 3 cards he needed for 1989 Fleer (bringing my dupe stack from that set down to 9,997) along with a stack of 1990 Score he needed.  In return Bo sent sent me a big chunk of my 1984 Topps needs.  Here are some of my favorites.


This is my favorite card that Bo sent.  It commemorates the 3 no hitters pitched during the 1983 season.  What stood out to me the most is the commentary on the back.  Seriously click the pic and read that.  It looks like it was written by the Geico caveman with the lack of several words.  My new favorite sentence is "He whitewashed Expos 3-0."

Look at all of the Hall of Famers in that group.  I count 5, plus Rogers and Zahn were pretty good pitchers in their day as well.  Tom Seaver is pictured in his second go around with the Mets, before they foolishly lost him again for literally nothing.

I really miss the colorful uniforms of the 70s and 80s.  Sure some of them looked awful, but nowadays just about every team looks the same with rare exceptions.  Back then, you knew that when the Pirates were playing you might lose a retina if you stared at the shirt, but they did look bad ass.  To me nothing says 1980s baseball more than the baby blue road uniforms.  At least half the league had them at some point.

Here we come to a trio of vastly underrated players.  Amos Otis is probably the most underrated of the three.  He was an excellent player as a Royal, but was overshadowed by George Brett.  Tim Raines was overshadowed as a leadoff hitter by Rickey Henderson.  If he had played during any other era, he would already be in the HOF.  Finally we come to Joe Morgan.  It is hard to call a Hall of Famer underrated but he was often overlooked on the Big Red Machine teams and after years of his bad announcing people have forgotten just how a great a player Morgan was.  Of course that picture makes him look like he is either playing with a baby or singing a nice soulful tune.

You might be asking yourself what these three players have in common.  Of course the right answer is these are three people that have never been in my kitchen.  Other than that they are just three random cards I wanted to show.  Porfirio Altamirano is just because of his name.  Bert Campaneris is because of his positions listed (wouldn't IF have been simpler?).  Campy had a bright career in the 1970s with the A's and is best remembered as the first person to play all 9 positions in a single game.  Tom Hume should be collected more, because he looks like a nerd and so do I and many other collectors.

The last two cards I couldn't resist putting together to take a shot at Dodger fans everywhere.  If only there was an Ozzie Smith in the packet as well.  Anyway, (with apologies to Night Owl) I remember Cey as a Cub more than a Dodger because I saw him play as a Cub his last few years on WGN.  I miss Harry Caray.  Ah, Tom Niedenfuer, my favorite Dodger ever.  Growing up I didn't really have a favorite team, but the Cardinals were near the top every year.  For those of you too young to remember, Niedenfuer gave up a home run to the massive power hitter, Ozzie Smith in the 1985 NLCS.  I think it was Ozzie first lefty home run ever, but if not he didn't hit many.


Thanks again Bo for the trade and I'm sure we will doing it again.  Make sure you visit his blog here because he really is one the most observant bloggers out there when it comes to cards.  Well that just about wraps up this edition of The "Rockie" Trading Post.  Tune in next time when I will bring the Rockies back to their rightful place here with a returning Cubs fan.  Until then, we are officially signed off.






2 comments:

night owl said...

That Niedenfuer is a night card, too, and is being reserved for a night card segment when I'm particularly cranky (although I've ranted about him previously).

Cey was never a Cub. It's a figment of your imagination.

Bo said...

I'm glad you enjoy them!