Troll's Topps Million, er single, Card Giveaway!

I want to finish 2010 Topps Updates SO badly! I have a few trades pending, but while at the LCS this weekend I bought 3 hobby packs from a freshly opened box. I ripped them right there and got nothing. Had I had more than 10 bucks to my name I would have kept ripping till I pulled the auto, but alas I am broke... Anyway, I got another MCG redemption card. I couldn't resist the excitement of unlocking it, but have no interest in redeeming it. I know that the huge Play at the Plate trade-a-thon is over and I don't know if anyone is still looking for these, BUT I did manage to unlock my 5th 1972 card. Does anyone want this Mike Nagy? I don't want anything in return. Just claim and email me. I will home from work around 1:00 AM Eastern. All of my want lists are updated by the way. I think I am down to needing just 2 cards to finish off all of the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays team sets from 1997 on up. I also have a new Most Wanted Card. Thanks for reading! troll out.

Collective Troll Card of the Day...

I am working my 2nd of 5 consecutive doubles today which has put a severe cramp in my posting… I didn’t want to go a day without posting, so here is another quick Card of the Day post. I am sticking with 1972 Topps since they are near the scanner and also sticking with the "he belongs in the Hall of Fame" theme… Today’s card of the day is a 1972 Topps Maury Wills, card #437. 1972 was Wills final year in the big leagues and this is also his final regular issue Topps card. It shows his stats for 13 seasons which is pretty close to his career totals as he only had 132 at bats in 1972. He appeared in his final game in October of 1972 and five years later his son Bump Wills made his Major League debut with the Texas Rangers. This card doesn’t show stolen bases on the back of the card which is what Wills was known for. It also lacks any biography-just the stats...He was 39 years old in ’72-although he still looks young on the card. He only stole 1 base that season; it was his 586th of his career which places him 19th on the All Time list. During his prime, Wills led the National League in steals for 6 consecutive seasons and he was in the top-10 in steals 11 straight times over his 14 year career. The only times he wasn’t top 10 were his rookie year in 1959 when he was a part time player and also his final two seasons. His best year, which he will forever be remember for, was the 1962 season when he put up monster statistics and won the National League MVP Award. He batted .299 with 6 homers and 48 RBI, but he also paced the league in games, at-bats and triples (10) and scored 130 runs (2nd). He also topped 200 hits for the first and only time during his career with 208. The truly amazing thing he did was top 100 in steals. He paced the Majors with 104 swipes while being caught only 13 times. That year he also played in both All Star Games, was the All Star Game MVP and won the Major League Player of the Year Award. He also won his second straight Gold Glove Award that year. Over his career he was an All Star 7 times, starting 3 of them, led the Majors in stolen bases during the 1960’s and helped the Dodgers win 4 National League Pennants and 3 World Series rings. He is another “what if?” player, although he wasn't afraid of flying, he just came up in a very deep organization. As a shortstop in the Dodgers organization, when he signed Pee Wee Reese had a strong hold on the position and when he moved to third base, Don Zimmer jumped in as the Dodgers shortstop for a couple of years, both of them blocking Wills. Maury Wills spent 9 seasons in the minor leagues before finally earning a spot on the team in ’59. That year he platooned with Zimmer, but ultimately made Zimm expendable and took over as the Dodgers full time shortstop in 1961 and was an All Star immediately. You have to wonder what kind of numbers Wills would have put up if he was in the big leagues at 21 or even 25. As is, beginning full-time at 27, Maurice Morning Wills was the shortstop and base stealer of the 60’s. He remained on the Hall of Fame for the maximum of 15 years, but never received more than 40% of the vote, making him another Dodgers MVP overlooked by the Hall of Fame. Other than his stolen base totals, his career numbers in hits (2134 career, 193rd All Time) and runs (1067) aren’t Hall of Fame caliber, but there is something to be said for his dominance on the base paths, his postseason leadership and the way that he changed the game. Cases for Wills to the Hall will come later, until then, enjoy his final Topps card. I love this game, I love its history and I love this hobby! But I am sick of working all the time… Please bear with me, I will be blogging it up regularly by the start of 2010 for sure! As an end note, if you are a Wills fan, I would recommend his 1991 autobiography "On the Run". It covers more than just baseball and goes deep into his personal life-it is a really good read. Troll out.

Collective Troll Card of the Day...

Today’s quick card of the day features a young right handed pitcher named Rik Aalbert Blyleven, commonly referred to as Bert. Most of you who read this blog know that Bert Blyleven is one of my favorite pitchers of all time and I truly believe that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. I WILL make a case for him and his due enshrinement soon and I will probably post several cards of him before the 2010 season begins. For now, the card of the day is from the 1972 Topps set, card # 515 of Bert Blyleven. BB’s rookie card is number 26 in the ’71 set-this is his second year card, but is one of my favorites. Blyleven had signed onto the Twins organization at age 18 and split his first pro season between rookie ball and at Orlando of the Florida State League. He did so well (7-2 combined) that he skipped AA ball all together and went to AAA. Bert began the 1970 season with the Evansville Triplets of the American Association as a 19 year-old, but after a hot start with them (4-2, 2.50 ERA, 63 Ks in 54 innings) he was promoted from being a Triplet to a Twin. He would start 25 games for Minnesota that year and posted a 10-9 record with a 3.18 ERA. The Twins would win their division and Blyleven saw postseason action before he saw his 20th birthday. His appearance was short-he pitched 2 innings in relief in a losing effort against Baltimore in the ALCS, but his two inning debut was a success. He struck out 2 and didn’t allow an earned run. In 1971, Blyleven’s first full year in the bigs, went even better. He logged 278 innings pitched (9th), completed 17 games (8th), pitched 5 shutouts (5th) while winning 16 games. His most impressive statistic was his 224 strikeouts (4th). He showed a remarkable curveball early on which set up his fastball even more dramatically. Of course Blyleven would go on and pitch for a total of 22 seasons with 5 different ball clubs, but this is where it all began-with the Twins in the early ‘70’s. Here is what the back of the card has to say about Bert Blyleven:
“As a rookie with the Twins in 1970, Bert became the 25th teenager in the history of baseball to ever win as many as 10 games in a season. He was named as the Sporting News American League Rookie Pitcher of the Year and was 12th in the AL in ERA (3.18). In his first big league start at Washington, 6-5-70, Bert gave up (a) homer to (the) 1st man he faced, Lee Maye, but proceeded to hurl shut out ball and won game, 2-1.”
A rookie, teenager pitcher who can pitch 9 innings of shutout ball after giving up a leadoff homerun is pretty remarkable, but that was Bert Blyleven. Stayed tuned for Bert Blyleven “Cards of the Day” and a case for BB to go to Cooperstown. He earned 63% of the vote last year-2010 just might be his year! I love this game, I love this hobby! Troll out.

A Cardboard Tribute to the World Champion 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates!

Remember when the Pittsburgh Pirates were good? Can you believe that they used to retain their star players? Believe it or not Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente (18 years) Bill Mazeroski (17 yrs) and Willie Stargell (21 years) spent their entire careers with the Pirates. How long do you think that Andrew McCutchen will last in the 'Burgh?
That stuff aside, I submitted my 22-page thesis (a major source of stress for me) on the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" with a focus on lead actress Vivien Leigh's film career today. I had to pull an all-nighter to do it, then had to spend a marathon day in class presenting it orally. Needless to say I am wiped out, running on empty and I have to be at work at 3:30 PM today and will be there till after midnight. It's gonna be a long night. I didn't get home from school until 1:30 and I thought about grabbing a nap which probably would have been a good idea-instead I decided I wanted to reward myself with a nice LONG, old school, Troll post, so here I am at a friend's house struggling to keep my eyes open and ready to bore the blog-o-sphere to tears, are you ready? Here we go! Earlier this summer I was at a card show in Orlando, I was trading like crazy at the time and I was hunting for cards for other bloggers, but I was also on a mission to build up my very small Roberto Clemente collection. I had my focus set on upgrading his 1972 cards as that was his final season (.312/10/60), the year he hit his 3,000th hit and the year that he passed away and I was born (same day). I already owned a copy of card # 309 of Clemente, but it was well-traveled, well-handled, well-loved and also well-worn. I found a dealer that had very sharp copies of both cards 309 and his In Action card #310, but he wanted to sell them as part of a team set. I wasn’t really a big Pirates collector, I wasn’t working on the ’72 set and really only wanted those 2 cards, but he gave me an amazingly low price for the lot and I walked away with about 30 cards for less than the "list price" of the 2 cards I was seeking. It was pure bonus to get 4 different cards of Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, too, and more bonus came in that many of these photos were taken in my home town of Pirate City (Bradenton) Florida.
I traded a couple of those cards to help people out with their want lists, but I hung onto most of them in the same team set bag that they came in. I planned on blogging about them (of course) but I couldn’t think of a story that would include all of the cards until now. Please bear with me as I set this up and take you back to the fall of ’71. It was actually September 1, 1971 and the Pittsburgh Pirates were taking on the Philadelphia Phillies. Danny Murtaugh (who belongs in the Hall of Fame and didn’t have a card in ‘72) was the Bucs skipper and he filled out the lineup card with these names. I don’t know if it was his plan to make history, but he did. I would imagine that he just wanted to win the ball game and give a few of his regulars the day off, but he made history in the process. The Pirates batting order follows.
Rennie Stennett, then a 20-year-old rookie batted lead-off and played second base. He only played in 51 games for the Bucs that year, but fared extremely well in limited use, batting .353. Gene Clines batted second and played centerfield. Clines played in 97 games that year and led the Pirates with 15 stolen bases. Roberto Clemente as usual, was in right field and batted 3rd, the position in the order that he held for the bulk of his career. He was an All-Star for the 12th time in 1971, he batted .341 and placed 5th in MVP voting. Left fielder Willie Stargell handled the clean-up spot. He led the NL with 48 homeruns, played in his 4th All Star game and placed 2nd in the MVP vote behind Joe Torre. First time All Star, Manny Sanguillén batted 5th for Pittsburgh that day. He would finish the season with a career high .319 batting average and would rank 7th in the MVP vote. Dave Cash, the Pirates normal 2nd baseman, batted 6th and played 3rd base in place of Richie Hebner. He would finish the year with a .289 batting average. Al Oliver, who got most of his playing time in center field, started at first base and batted 7th. AO would go on to bat .284 with 14 homers and 64 RBI that year. Light hitting, but slick fielding shortstop Jackie Hernandez got the start at short and batted 8th in favor of former All Star Gene Alley. Hernandez only played in 88 games that year and batted just .206. Dock Ellis, who gained fame and notoriety the year prior when he pitched a no-hitter while on LSD was the starting pitcher. He also started the All Star game that year, in 1971. He didn’t fare that well that day and the NL lost the game, but overall he was 19-9 that year with a 3.06 ERA and he finished 4th in Cy Young voting. The Pirates were managed by Danny Murtaugh in 1971 (97-65) and he put together this historic line-up. Murtaugh led this team, the 1971 Pirates, to a Worlds Championship that year; it was his second WS win personally. He also led Roberto Clemente and the Pirates to a World Title in 1960. Over his career he won 1115 games against only 950 losses, leading his teams to the Postseason 5 times in his illustrious managerial career. The Sporting News named him Manager of the Year in both 1960 and 1971 and he is one of only 36 managers in baseball history to win more than 1,000 games. Sport Magazine named him Man of the Year in 1960. I am putting emphasis on Murtaugh because he was an incredible skipper and also because he was just snubbed again in the Hall of Fame voting, again. The line-up that I listed above won that game, but also made history as that was the first time a team started an All Black Team in the Major Leagues. It wasn’t an All-African-American team-Clemente; Sanguillén, Hernandez and Stennett were all black Hispanics. It was the first all-black team, however, to start a game in the big leagues and they won that game and went on to win the World Series that year, beating the Orioles in 7 games. Of the nine men who started that game, six were regular starters, although not necessarily at that position. The regulars who didn’t start that game were third baseman Richie Hebner who batted .271 with 17 homers and 67 RBI in 112 games that year. Former All Star shortstop Gene Alley started the most games at that position (97 games) but his star was fading and he batted just .227 in ’71. The only true regular who didn’t start that game was Bob Robertson, one of the main sluggers on the team, who batted .271 with 26 homers and 72 RBI that year. He started in 126 games that year at first base during the regular season. Robertson had an amazing series at the plate in the NLCS that year against the Giants. He batted .438 with 4 homers and 6 runs batted in. He had the game of his career in game 2 when the Pirates crushed the Giants 9-4. Robertson, batting 5th, was 4 for 5 with 3 homeruns, a double and 5 runs batted in. He added one more homerun in the series in game 3 against Juan Marichal, the Pirates won that game 2-1, then won game 4 as well and advanced to the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. Of course the Pirates won, it was Roberto Clemente’s final World Series appearance and he made a lasting impression-he batted .414 with a pair of homers and took home the Series MVP Trophy. Steve Blass, who won 15 games during the regular season and led the NL with 6 shutouts, was 2-0 with a 1.00 ERA in the Series. He started and finished both games he appeared in and only yielded 2 runs in 18 innings of work. I hope this wasn’t too much of a stretch to tie in all of these ’72 Topps cards. The fact of this being the first All-Black starting lineup stemmed from conversations with Richie Hebner (who didn’t start the game) and Bob Veale (who will recieve his own personal cardboard tribute post) who pitched in relief that day. From there I hit the ol microfilm machine at the library and found the box score and went from there. I haven’t found any information to suggest otherwise in my research, but if you know differently don’t hesitate to correct me. I said at the beginning of the post that I didn't care to collect the Pirates or '72 Topps (gotta love the In Action cards!)-both have grown on me considerably this afternoon. I love the game of baseball and its rich history; I love to write about it and I really LOVE THIS HOBBY!!! I hope y'all enjoyed this 27-card salute to the Pirates. Troll out.