Jason Bartlett, an update on the SUPER COLLECTION!

I decided that I wanted to be Jason Bartlett Super Collector last month. He was hitting .380 and was leading the league in that category. He was also hitting homers and stealing bases like never before. Since his trade to the Rays he had instantly became my favorite player. He is a leader on the field and he solidified the Rays infield.
My wife bought every card our local card shop had of Barts, it was a surprise, and it was awesome. They were all base cards, though. The card shop guy had quite a few customers who also wanted to collect Bartlett.
I turned to e-bay and it turns out I was bidding against, not only the other would-be “super collectors”, but the card shop guys who were trying to track down cards for their customers. Fact is Jason doesn’t have a ton of premium cards. Most of them are from 2005 when he was a prospect with the Twins. I spent a while searching, watching and bidding. I had a very low budget and his cards were going sky high! It was kind of funny looking at my summary page which showed my max bid of $3.11 and the current bid of $23.55. I was out of my league. I had never pulled a Bartlett card from a pack (other than ’08 Heritage) and I couldn’t buy them anywhere. It seemed that my collection was going to be stuck at 5 cards forever. The 4 cool cards that wifey picked up, along with the lone card that I had already had.
That all changed this week. I finally won an auction for a 2005 Upper Deck Trilogy Generations of Materials card featuring JB. I already owned a similar card of BJ Upton, which featured bat chips instead of jersey bits on this JB card. It was to be my first “premium” Bartlett card, therefore becoming the cornerstone of my super collection.
It arrived today and it was not alone it the mail. I had two padded manila envelopes sitting in my post office box. The first was from Mario at http://www.waxheaven.com/ . Mario and his awesome Andrew Miller and Jose Canseco collections were the inspiration for me being “super collector” in the first place. I had found a weird, round Sportsflics disc of Canseco and had sent Mario a scan of it. He had never seen the card before, so I sent it to him for his collection. He insisted on sending a Barts card in exchange. Having had no luck in getting them on my own, I didn’t argue. It arrived today.
It is a 2009 Topps gold Bartlett. I didn’t even have the base of this card, so getting it in gold with a serial number (1004/2009) made it all the more awesome. It’s a pretty cool shot of Bartlett pulling in a pop-up on the road. I like the combo of the gold and the light blue. I also like the backs of the 2009 Topps cards. I like they show all of his career stats, rather than just his last season’s numbers. I even like the factoid they show wrapped in an arc over the top of the card. I had no idea he was a career .583 hitter against Odalis Perez. The Nationals are coming to town this weekend, but I don’t think Bartlett will be off the DL, plus I think Perez is doing a tour in AAA right now. Either way, it is a great card. Thanks Mario!!!
The other padded envelope contained my e-bay purchase, which is my first Bartlett game used card. I now own a ½” square of a Twins jersey that JB may have touched in 2004. The card is awesome! The card is 1/8” thick and is numbered on the front 18/50. It has head shots of the 3 players on the top, above their names and teams running horizontally across the vertical card with their swatches in the center. Bartlett is in pretty good company here, but I can’t help but feel that UD was a little presumptuous in their pairings. All 3 players play (ed) shortstop, but the similarities seem to end there. Aparicio was one of the best to ever play the game. He held the record for most games played at short (Omar Vizquel recently broke it) with 2,583 games. He never started at any other position. He never made the late-career switch to first, the outfield or (ugh) designated hitter. He started strong, winning the AL Rookie of the Year award in 1956. He was named to 10 All Star teams, won 9 Gold Gloves, won a World Series (with Baltimore) in 1966, he collected 2,677 hits (59th All Time) and stole 506 bases (34th All Time). Oh, and he was elected in the Hall Of Fame in 1984. At the point this card was made, the similarities between these 3 were minimal. Other than position, Bartlett, who had played just 82 MLB games had nothing in common with Aparicio. Furcal won the Rookie of the Year award, like Aparicio, “Fookie” was also an All Star in 2003. He had played 663 games at the position, and may have seemed like he was on his way to the Hall. I really doubt that. I am thinking that the good folks at Upper Deck just had a lot of pieces of Fookie’s jersey lying around and needed something to do with them. Since the retirement of Ozzie, Larkin and Ripken, I don’t think there is a definitive great shortstop on their way to Cooperstown. Some may argue that the Yankees captain is that person. Maybe. Edgar Renteria, Hanley Ramirez, Miguel Tejada, Mike Young, Jimmy Rollins, JJ Hardy, Christian Guzman AND Jason Bartlett are all great young players, no doubt. Are any of them Hall Of Fame bound? I think it’s too early to tell. Especially in 2005, none of them were on their way to being the next Luis Aparicio. In fact, I don’t think there is an active shortstop, other than Omar Vizquel (who incidentally is one hit behind Aparicio on the ALL TIME list) who should be thinking about Cooperstown. Nice card Upper Deck. I like it; I just don’t get the pairing.
That tangent and tantrum aside, the Bartlett SUPER COLLECTION is beginning to take shape. Thanks Mario! Thanks e-bay seller who didn’t list Aparicio in the description, therefore allowing me a great deal! I am seven cards in now with my collection. Nowhere to go, but up. Anyone want to trade me some Bartlett cards?

I am Super Collector!!!!

Super collector… That is what I wanna be. Maybe I have been spending too much time reading Wax Heaven, maybe I am terribly jealous of Mario’s incredible Andrew Miller collection. Maybe, reading about his Canseco collection brought me back to my youth when I was an obsessed player collector. Starting around 1986 or ’87, I somehow developed a connection with then Mariners second baseman, Danny Tartabull. I had started making my mother take me to card shows in 1984 while I was trying to finish my awesome hand-collated, 792 card set. When I got the last card I needed for that set, I felt emptiness. I was still working on the ’84 set while 1985 Topps was on the shelves, so I missed out on that. I couldn’t afford to be a part of that set anyway, collectors were scooping up all of the retail product and card shop prices for packs were way out of my range. 1985 Topps was full of hot rookies like Eric Davis, Mark Langston, Kirby Puckett, Roger Clemens, Doc Gooden,Jimmy Key, Orel Hershiser and Brett Saberhagen. This was the hottest thing going, so I decided to find an alternative. While all of my friends were obsessed with the heroes of the tri-state area, like Don Mattingly, Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, I decided to find a more remote prospect to adulate. Midway through the 1986 season, I made my choice. The Mariners had a very solid team that year. Guys like Phil Bradley, Alvin Davis, Spike Owen, Mark Langston and a young 2nd baseman with a lot of power named Danny Tartabull. Tartabull was moved to left field partway through the season and finished the year with 26 homers. He was my new favorite player. My parents somehow found me a number 4, Mariners jersey and I began scouring anywhere baseball cards could be found for his cards. In ’85 his rookie cards where in the Donruss set and fleer had him on a horizontal, duel-rookie card with Steve Kiefer of the A’s. Topps didn’t get on the “Bull” bandwagon until their 1986 Traded set, same on you Topps!
I wheeled and dealed for as many copies I could get my grubby little hands on. In the mid-eighties there were no inserts or subsets. You were lucky if your favorite player had 3 different cards each year. You had the hope of tracking down oddball stuff, SGAs, minor league cards, postcards and magazine appearances, but that was about it. You showed your dedication to that player by having a ton of their cards. I remember the sense of accomplishment I got when I was able to fill all nine spaces of a page with one card. Sometime around 1988, after the “Bull” had been traded away to the Royals, I talked my father into writing a check for me so I could place an ad in the back of Sports Collectors Digest. I proclaimed myself Danny Tartabull’s #1 fan and no one ever disputed it. I started getting cards in the mail, lists from other collectors wanting to trade for their favorite player, it was heaven!!! I think this was what made me truly fall in love with card collecting. I hit one-thousand cards in my Tartabull binder around 1990. I had a game-used bat, a few autographed baseballs, a signed 8X10, team issued postcards, minor league cards and I even tracked down all of his father, Jose Tartabull’s cards. I was a super-collector!!! I still have almost all of the cards today. When I hit 1,000, I did so with only 31 different cards and I wouldn’t have had that many if not for Score, Upper Deck and Sportsflics all popping up. It wasn’t too long after hitting the one-thousand mark in my collection that I stopped it. Tartabull wasn’t as exciting to watch and I was a teenager who rather spend his weekend’s chasing girls than wandering around at card shows, so I packed away the Danilo Tartabull book for a while. I didn’t think about cards too much until 1995 when I saw a pack of Topps Finest. I bought a pack, then a box, I was hooked again! The girl chasing was fun, but then I caught one, a bad one. I realized that my cards always made me happier than she ever had, so I was back! The next year the White Sox signed Tartabull and he had a career year at age 33. I finally met him that year in spring training and went to see the White Sox play at the Trop against the Devil Rays. I never really got back into collecting “Bull” again; I did start collecting White Sox cards. I have the majority of them packed up and ready to find a new home with the guy from the awesome White Sox cards blog. I still do find myself bidding on Harold Baines cards, still. It is an addiction!
Yes, and reading about Mario’s Canseco collection made me make the trip to my parents attic to dust off the old Tartabull binder and relive some old memories and think of all the similarities between “Bull” and Canseco. They were both rookies in 1986. Canseco won the AL ROY that year, Tartabull finished 5th in the voting. They were both of Cuban descent. They both had family that also played pro ball. They both hit a lot of the home runs in the 80’s and both struck out a lot! Canseco topped 100 RBIs six times, Tartabull 5. Canseco hit more than 20 long balls twelve times, Tartabull did it 7 times. Tartabull managed 100 walks once in his career; Canseco was never quite that patient. They both rank in the top 100 all time in At bats per homeruns and strike outs. They both were at the top of the early 90’s salary explosions; they were both limited in their careers by injuries. They were also both over looked by Topps until the 1986 Traded set came out. Canseco’s career lasted longer and his career home run total is nearly double Tartabull’s, but I still don’t think it’s a stretch to call them similar.
Another similarity is they both retired before the innovation of game-used card inserts and 50 different card products each year. Like Mario began collecting Andrew Miller to get in on the high-end inserts, I have decided on a modern player to become the new focus of my dreams of being a super collector…
First, I am a Tampa Bay Rays fan. Even though I went to the Trop to see the White Sox play, I was always cheering for the Rays. They are my home team and win or lose, I love them! Up until last year, I was buying high end cards of the Rays, cheap, on e-bay. My favorite is a SPx Winning Trios jersey card with BJ Upton, Carl Crawford and James Shields on it, awesome! Fortunately, the rest of the world is realizing what a great team we have here in St. Pete, but the downside is you can’t buy a card with those 3 guys on it for 3 dollars anymore. My current financial status prohibits me from chasing the whole team, I need a specific focus. Crawford, Upton and Shields are all out of the question because they simply have too many cards and I have too little money. I pondered the idea all day. My favorite Rays are Carl Crawford, Jason Bartlett and James Shields. I had a pretty good idea of who I was gonna pick for my focus, but I figured I would consult with my beautiful wife. We’re hanging out in bed one night and I say “baby, I wanna be a super collector, who should I collect?” I know what you all are thinking… You talk about baseball cards in bed? Yes, we do. I have stated in before, but I do have the most awesome wife in the world. Anyway, her response was quick. “You should collect Bartlett, he’s your favorite.” Excellent! We were in agreement and I had a mission! The next day, I began to scour e-bay looking for high end Bartlett cards. There were quite a few. Unfortunately, he is in a Twins uniform in most of them. More unfortunately, he’s hitting .375 and already topped his career best total in home runs, he’s having a banner year, which is awesome, but it precludes me from scooping all of his cards at “sleeper” prices. I found quite a few cards, most of them from 2007 and I am “watching” them all, about 20 cards. I already found his “white whale” card, 2007 Triple Threads 1 of 1. Wow! That could be the cornerstone of my new collection!!! I bid on it immediately, ready to blow my entire PayPal account on it. Sadly, that account only has 14 bucks in it and I was swiftly outbid. It’s at about 25 bucks with a few days left to go. Shucks! I guess I am not as ready to be a super collector as I thought. I did find some cool cards with higher serial numbers and I am still sticking to the plan. It’s a new day and this day will bring me yet another new name, I am Jason Bartlett Super Collector!!!!
Go Rays!!!