The Junior Junkie: the Baseball Cards of Ken Griffey, Jr. and Beyond

Saturday, May 10, 2014

New PC Announcement: Bryan Clutterbuck

It was recently pointed out to me by another blogger that I am difficult to shop for because there's not all that much I collect. There are only a handful of players I collect (in addition to the obvious) and no entire teams or sets. So over the next few posts I will be adding some new player collections to my repertoire. If you spot someone in these posts you have a bunch of cards for, feel free to send them my way!

Current PC's:

Ken Griffey, Jr.
Will Clark
Chuck Finley
Rusty Staub
Ron Kittle
Vida Blue
Marquis Grissom
Jay Buhner
Javy Lopez

New inductee: Bryan Clutterbuck

The many stares of Bryan Clutterbuck

Admit it - there are some guys you collect, and you're not really sure why you collect them. The biggest one of these for me is Mr. Bryan Clutterbuck.

I suppose my love for all things Clutterbuck can be traced to this post where I first came across the term "Clutterbuckian," which remains to this day my favorite Internet word. After I read that post it was all downhill.

BC played for a total of two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers. He went 2 and 6 lifetime with a 4.21 ERA and a WHIP of 1.395. For his two years of service in Milwaukee, Bryan was compensated $133,000.

I guess I just dig his look. He seems like your average Joe, goin' out there and makin' it happen for all us schmos who are at home mowing our lawns and taking out the garbage. It says, "Hey, you want to go play baseball? Go out and do it."

Do I spot an uncorrected error?

Bryan had a long minor-league career as is evidenced by his large quantity of available minor league cards. He also had a great name and a thousand-yard stare that could psych out a pigeon from across the street. And as you can see here, his facial hair started to get pretty fantastic towards the end of his career.

Bryan's get-a-beer-with factor is extremely high. I would definitely invite this guy to a barbecue. He wouldn't even have to bring anything.

Welcome to the collection, Mr. Clutterbuck.

Friday, May 9, 2014

New PC Announcement: Javy Lopez

Javier "Javy" Lopez was one of the greatest catchers of the 90's. In his 15 years he hit 260 dingers (243 as a catcher) with a lifetime average of .287. He also got his World Series ring with the '95 Braves along with my another recent PC inductee Marquis Grissom.

It's never been formally admitted, but based on an interview Javy gave in 2010 he probably used PED's in some form during his 2003 season. :-(

I know, I know, but Lopez was not as prolific as some, so I'm giving him a pass.

As a batter, Javy hit .324 lifetime in 60 postseason games with an OPS of .817. He also caught in three All-Star games. When Javy came up for election in the Hall of Fame, he received only 0.2 % of the vote, putting him out of contention for a conventional ballot-based induction.

Javy caught some of the greatest pitchers of our time, three of them from a single team: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz. He put out base stealers with a 28% lifetime efficiency though it was much higher in his earlier years.

I don't know what it is about Javy that makes me drawn to his cards, but there you go. I think he didn't get enough acclaim when he played, particularly during his spectacular run in Atlanta. The guy did his job well, even before his suspicious 43-home run season. I like that.

Javy doesn't seem like a "get a beer with" kind of guy. I would prefer to go clubbing with him. He strikes me as one hell of a wing man.

Welcome to the collection, Javy.

New PC Announcement: Jay Buhner

This one should come as no surprise as Jay was Griffey's right-hand man both in the outfield at the Kingdome and in life as you can see here. He was also a huge fan-favorite in Seattle, a sentiment that continues to this day.

Buhner started as a Yankee, but we won't hold that against him. He hit a respectable 310 home runs with a lifetime average of .254 in his 15-year career. Once hit for the cycle during a 14-inning game in 1993. Jay was as clutch a player as you could find.

Buhner got a lot of nice cards during his heyday with the M's. His cards remain relatively affordable, but they are by no means cheap as he has a lot of fans out there.

Here are a few bright spots from my collection:

It seems Jay was always doing something funny with his mouth, a characteristic that was only amplified by his trademark goatee and bald head:

He was also the quintessential blue-collar baseball hero.

I mean how cool is this guy? Don't you want to have a beer with him?

Welcome to the collection, Mr. Buhner.

New PC Announcement: Marquis Grissom

Rainbow!

I've been an unofficial Marquis collector for some time now. I've found that somehow his cards always seem to come my way - lots of them. It's high time I make it official.

Marquis Grissom was a consistent base-stealer and power hitter throughout his 17-year career, not to mention a totally classy fellow. He got his World Series ring with the Braves in 1995 which is probably where I started pulling for him. Oh, and he was never formally implicated in the use of PED's. I got mad respek for Mr. Grissom.

And you can't deny - it's pretty cool that he's one of the very few players to get that hallowed 1990 Donruss Rated Rookie Rainbow.

Now if you look at Marquis' cardboard, he was just exciting enough a player to get some quality cards, but never such a sensation as to make those cards cost a fortune. Here are a few bright spots from my collection:

He's also got a great scowl. He had it when he was in the minors:

And he had it in the sunset of his career:

I feel like he always looked angry. There was a time when I would go out of my way to get cards of Marquis smiling just because there were so few, and yet you see what he's doing on that card? Signing autographs. The guy does works with numerous little league teams as well as a charity to help parents in need. He wasn't angry - he was modest. Behind that scowl is a heart of gold, my friends.

Welcome to the collection, Mr. Grissom.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

WILKommen to the 2 x 3 Heroes 80-cent PWE Trade Post Extravaganza

I got a PWE from Jeff of the excellent card blog 2 x 3 Heroes who found a dealer doling out Griffey oddballs for a nickel apiece!

I'm ambivalent here because while it is clear that the seller undervalues Griffeys, he also let them go for a nickel each much to the benefit of the change-toting Griffey enthusiast.

Check out all the value:

There are actually eight of these that Jeff sent, but I somehow missed one in the scan. These are from the 1991 Playball set, and I know very little about them apart from the fact that designs within the same checklist vary greatly.

That one on the bottom left is the Gregg Olsen Topps Mini Superstar from 1990. Junior is in good company with Nolan Ryan here, and in sticker form no less.

Speaking of stickers:

This card of Junior with Marquis Grissom came at a great time as you will see in an upcoming post. Also I just bought this Glow Stars card from COMC like two weeks ago. I'm kicking myself.

Thanks a lot for thinking of me, Jeff! Of the cards in that PWE I needed two for the collection, and the rest are cards I see very rarely or only have singles of. Excellent pickups, Jeff! Good eye, good eye.

35,000 Cards or How to Make Your Wife Angry

I have a bunch of unused vacation time at work, and they made me take a week of it even though I had nothing planned. So I decided to use this time to catch up on household projects I've been putting off - things like repairing the backyard gate, replacing rotten wood, some painting and tiling, you know - man stuff.

One of those projects was to go through the absurd amount of cards I have for trade and weed out all the overproduction era "junk" wax. Pretty much anything made from 1987 through 1993 with the exception of any desirable parallels, stars, and inserts I came across went into piles on my sorting table. I also threw in the boxes and boxes of 2013 and 2014 Topps and Bowman my card shop guy has provided to me. By the time I was finished (it took a solid six hours of work), the table looked like this:

No one photograph can do this awesome pile of cardboard justice, so here are eight more:

Were there such a thing as baseball card porn, that was it.

I put everything into two boxes. Here they are on the hand truck without which they would be utterly immobile:

That bottom box is full to bursting. I hate the word "literally," but there is literally not even a cubic inch of space remaining in it.

I would donate them all to the nearby school, but they already have tons of these things (as I will mention in a later post). Instead, I've listed them on Craigslist. I'm asking $75 for the lot. I'm assuming somebody will try to talk me down to $50 and I'll end up accepting $60. That's no problem. I just want them gone.

Anyway, when my wife saw all this cardboard at once, she was shocked. I've always been pretty good at hiding the massive number of cards I have, but the very nature of this project prevented that. At least she was happy to hear it was all going bye-bye. Hopefully.

3000th Griffey Contest Results

Here it is, and only six days late. As you may or may not have seen, my 3000th unique Griffey card was this 2008 SPx American Heroes number. Here is the unedited scan of said card:

I asked everybody to guess what number this card was stamped according to Price is Right rules (closest without going over). As you can see, those who went with the low end were a lot closer.

I expected someone would win with a guess of #1 which Matt of Red Cardboard did, but another blogger gambled with a slightly higher guess and came within thee numbers of the answer. That blogger was Jeff of One Man's Junk (Wax) with his guess of 29! Congratulations, Jeff. It doesn't look like we've traded yet, so I need your deets. I've got a package of cardboard heading your way.

Thanks for playing everybody!