2014 Topps Stadium Club Group Break Swag from Nachos Grande

Couple of cards from a recent Nachos Grande group break. Unfortunately, Topps came up a little short on coallation and there were some duplicate autographs/hits in the break. Regardless 2014TSC has some quality photography and some fun shots.

2014 Topps Stadium Club #167 Domonic Brown

One of the blogs I miss most is Dinged Corners. I bring this up here because they had a collection of players smiling cards. If they are still collecting the above Dom Brown card surely would be a candidate.

When I first saw this card I also noticed that Brown is being interviewed by CSNPhilly broadcaster Gregg Murphy. I asked Mr Murphy about this via Twitter (@GMurphCSN) He noted "My Best side for sure"
 
Flip It

2014 Topps Stadium Club #165 Cole Hamels (A&B sides)

As mentioned above the collation among the boxes in the break wasn't great. A product of this was getting two Cole Hamels cards, which makes it easy to display the front & back of 2014 TSC in a single photo.  

Nice Pix, kind of a Meh back. basically a 6 year old blurb, minimalist demographic info and stats. I would think TSC would be better suited for more SABRmetric stats than WHIP.

Parallels

2014 Topps Stadium Club Gold Parallel #170 Ryan Howard

According to Cardboard Connection gold foil parallels appear one per master box. The card is running at a BIN of $3 on ebay


Bonus Cards

2010 UD Pure Heat #PH-13 Ryan Howard

Nacho's Grande being the good Group Breaker that he is threw in some bonus box breaks and cards. This is a nice Ryan Howard Die Cut by 2010 UD.  This was an unlicensed product and we don't see the Phillies nickname on the front, however it is on the text of the cards b-side.

Pure Heat is a 15 card insert set of 2010 UD. Among the 15 cards are 2 Phillies - Howard and #PH-4 Cole Hamels.

1989 Donruss #549 Darren Daulton

The 1989 Darrren Daulton Donruss Card is noteworthy for featuring the Phils Catcher posing in a right-handed batting stance. Earliest this year The Phillies Collector Blog asked Daulton about the card/pix and got the scoop from the subject himself. Happy to get this card as a bonus in the Group Break.

Sources & Links
Cardboard Connection
ebay 
Baseball Cardpedia
Phillies Collector

2014 Playoffs: Royals Tom Gordon Rated Rookie 1989 Donruss #45

The World Series starts Tonight in Kansas City. During the series we have scheduled a couple of team related postings for the Royals and Giants. Tonight we open with a great Royals card from the past -  Tom "Flash" Gordon

1989 Donruss #45 Tom Gordon Rated Rookie

How great of card is this. The Royals Blue, the great big smile on young Tom Gordon, The Rated Rookie Logo. For me the icing is Gordon's uniform number '36' on the cap.

Tom Gordon spent the first eight years of his career as a Royal, the bulk of that was as a swing man.  He did have 16 starts and an impressive 17 wins (combined starts and relief). It was good enough to place Gordon 2nd in the 1989 Rookie of the year voting behind Gregg Olson (27 Saves, 1.69 ERA)

He didn't become a closer until age 30 (in 1998) when he took over the role for the first time as a member of the Red Sox. He led the league with 46 saves and made his first of 3 all-star teams.

Phillies fans remember Gordon for his three seasons he spent with the club near the end of his career. In 2006 he closed out 34 games for the Phils and made his final all-star team. Gordon was a member of the 2008 World Champion Phillies, but did not pitch after July 5th and was not involved in the postseason. He was part of the 2007 NLDS squad and did get involved in two games versus the Rockies.

1989 Donruss Rated Rookies
Rated Rookies is a 20 card subset of 1989 Donruss that runs from #28-47. Thirteen of the 20 cards are considered Rookie Cards including Tom Gordon above. The most significant RCs of the Rated Rookies are Ken Griffey Jr (#33), Randy Johnson(#42), and Gary Sheffield(#31). Ron Jones (#40) is the Phillies rep in the Rated Rookie 20, The subset also includes 1993 team member David West and Free Agent bust Greg Jeffries.  

2015 Hall of Fame Candidate
Yes Flash is on the 2015 HoF Ballot and as part of our candidates series I will check my Tom Gordon vote as a YES. Some folks may question this vote as Gordon was a good player with a long career, but they haven't factored in my affection for the Steven King Novella "The Girl Who Love Tom Gordon". For his tenure with the Phillies and for being named in a Steven King title Tom Gordon gets one HoF vote from Team Phungo 

#WS2014
Royals in 7. I don't feel either team is great, but I am hoping for a great series.

Sources & Links
2014 Playoff Cards 

2014 HoF Candidates

Baseball Cardpedia
baseball-ref

2014 Hall of Fame Candidate: Craig Biggio 1989 Donruss #561

Earlier this year Craig Biggio had a pretty solid HoF Ballot debut. He picked up 68% of the 569 votes cast in the 2013 election. This left him 39 votes shy of the 427 necessary for Hall induction.

1989 Donruss #561 Craig Biggio

There are 28 MLB players who have 3000 or more career hits. 25 of those 28 are in the Hall of Fame, the other 3 are Derek Jeter (active), Pete Rose (ineligible) and Rafael Palmiero (in limbo).  Craig Biggio is on the low end of the club at 3060, but is good enough to rank him 21st all time.  Six of the 7 members of the 3000 hit club that are below Biggio were first ballot Hall of Famers - The exception is Palmiero.

He ranks very high in a number of offensive categories 1844 Runs (15th), 4711 TBs (33rd), 668th doubles (5th, 1st among second basemen). The seven time all-star also earned kudos in the field with four gold glove awards at second base.     


Biggio's WAR/WAR7/JAWS numbers are all just below the HoF averages for second baseman. Part of this may be due to his many ABs at other positions. I don't think we should hold Biggio's versatility against him here - his other positions were basically Catcher and Centerfield - not like he was slacking over at first or DH.  


1989 Craig Biggio
I am a fan of cards showing players outside of their typical position. The early Craig Biggio cards may be the King of the off-Postion cards. Unless you have done the pitcher/position player jump the best you can do is catcher. And here we have early cards of a potential HoF playing catcher - Love it.   

Phun Phact
The first of Craig Biggio's 3060 career hits came off of Orel Hershiser in a game where he was catching future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.

Phungo Verdict: HOF - 3000 hit clubs, several other very good accumulator numbers at a middle infield position and respectable advanced metrics.  Honestly, I am not sure how Biggio didn't get in a year ago.


Sources & Links
Phungo Craig Biggio HoF Index

2014 HoF Candidates 
Phungo HoF Page
baseball-ref.com