Rod Carew HoF Index

Phungo Rod Carew HoF Index
1977 Hostess #3 (Var/SP)
1981 Topps #100
1983 OPC #386 All-Star (DeGumming experiment)
1991 Bowman #3 (1976 ASG +40)

1991 Bowman #3 Rod Carew

Tonight in honor of the Phillies rare trip to Minnesota (and as part of our 1976 All-Star Game Coverage) we take a look at Twins Hall of Famer Rod Carew.

1991 Bowman #3 Rod Carew III

When he played in Philadelphia's Bicentennial All-Star Game Rod Carew was 30 years old and was playing in his 10th major league season.

Incredibly He was also a member of his 10th All-Star Team.

In every one of his eight previous All-Star games (Made team but DNP 1970) Carew played 2nd Base. 1976 was the first mid-summer classic which Carew played at his new position, First Base.

The Seven time batting champion did not fare quite as well in All-Star game play. In 1976 Carew was 0-3 with a walk and a stolen base. At the time the performance brought his career numbers to 2-24 a .083 Batting Average. Quite an anomaly for a player who batted .328 in the regular season through that point in his career.

Carew's All-Star performances would improve during the 2nd half of his career, he finished with a career .244 BA in 48 ABs. His best performances was in 1978 when he had a pair of triples and scored two runs.

1991 Bowman
I went with the 1991 Bowman card over one of the many Rod Carew All-Star cards.

This is because I am fond of the #29 Jersey stamp on the upper right. The flair represents Carew's uniform number that was retired by the Twins on July 19 1987.

Recently Rod Carew suffered a major heart attack, and may possibly need a heard transplant. Subsequently in partnership with the Twins Carew and his wife Rhonda launched a project to raise funds for the American Heart Association - the name of the initiative is The Heart of 29 Campaign.

Flip

1991 Bowman #3 Rod Carew III (b-side)

The post career card highlights Carew's accomplishments during the 1970s including his six batting titles and 1977 MVP award.

Sources and Links
1976 ASG Index
Rod Carew HoF Index
Minnesota Twins
Baseball-ref
Cardboard Connection

Sunday Night Baseball: Angels Rod Carew 1981 Topps #100

With Sunday night baseball in Anaheim for the Tigers and Angels we take a look at Hall of Famer Rod Carew

1981 Topps #100 Rod Carew

Rod Carew spent seven of his 19 seasons with the California Angels. While his best years were behind him by the time Carew got to LA, he still was an important contributor to the team. Carew was a member of each of the Angels first two playoff clubs (1979, 1982), and represented the team in six All-Star games. A hitting machine Rod Carew ranks 2nd among all Angels in both Batting Average (Vladimir Guerrero .319/.314) and On Base Pct (Mike Trout - .395/.393).

The Angels retired Rod Carew's #29 on August 12th 1986. He was the first player to be so honored by the club who had previously retired the #26 for owner Gene Autry (26 was chosen to symbolize the 26th man)

Angels Retired Numbers (photo 2014 0523)

Of course it is the entire career of Rod Carew that makes the Panamanian born infielder a Hall of Famer. He earned an MVP and Rookie of the Year award with the Twins while racking up 2082 of his 3053 career hits (Ranks 23 in MLB history).

Carew's .328 batting average ranks 34th all time and would top all active major leaguers (Miguel Cabrera .321 as of 2015 0516)

His seven batting titles rank fourth all-time behind Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and Tony Gwynn.

1981 Topps
This is Rod Carew second Topps base card as an Angel. 1981 was the fifth time that Topps awarded Carew a Hero Number, an honor they would bestow on the hitter 10 times during his playing career.

1981 Topps #100 Rod Carew (b-side)

There he is Rod Carew with close to 1900 games under his belt and a career .333 batting average. 2394 hits down, 659 or so to go 

Sources and Links
Phungo Rod Carew HoF Index
baseball card database
Baseball-ref
LA Times (Jim McCurdie)
LA Angels

2014 Topps A&G: Quick Hits and Thoughts

Yeah I am way behind on this quick hit review but I am going to publish it anyway.

Picked up a Rack Pack and a single of 2014 Topps A&G a few weeks back. These are the Highlights.

 

2014 Topps A&G #307 Cliff Lee 

Decent Design, still says Ginter but it just different enough form other sets to keep it interesting. 

The Team Name dwarfing the player name is a bit jarring. This is a departure from prior A&G designs.  For most part past A&G designs have not featured team names. In 2011 a square team logo was displayed on each card.

Lee was the only Phillies player I got in the bounty. 

2014 Topps A&G Heritage #223 Tony Gwynn

I don't remember how many cars I picked up in the packs. I am thinking 24. Close to half of them were Hall of Famers. This is probably my favorite out of those - Pulling a card of the recently deceased Tony Gwynn brought a pang of sadness to me. 

2014 Topps A&G 129 Hank Aaron

2014 Topps A&G 228 Orlando Cepeda

2014 Topps A&G 215 Johnny Bench

I have a pretty solid HoF cards collection and these are nice additions. I like the classic Braves uni on Hammerin' Hanks card. 

2014 Topps A&G Minis

Minis are always a highlight of AnG. The Carew and Wacha cards are both members of the 3 card special border pack that comes inside rack packs. Massaccio was a painter, the image Topps used is directly from wikipedia - glad I spent $3 on that pack.

2014 Topps A&G Pastimes #PP-MT Mike Trout #PP-NR Nolan Ryan

I think this is the 2014 A&G common insert. The B-sides lists the players hobbies - Trout collects baseball cards, Nolan runs a baseball team. 

#100 Queen Victoria @#119 Felicia Day

Some of the non-baseball cards in this year's set. Here we have the one time Queen of England and an actress from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

 

At the outset A&G inserts were always minis, not so much anymore. Neither of these do anything for me, maybe if I see some of these other members of these sets I will change my mind, but both of these are losers.

 

What Would You Do With This? - 1977 Hostess Twinkies Uncut Sheet

You can click any image in this post to enlarge the photo.


1977 Hostess Twinkies Uncut Sheet

More and more of my friends have found out that I have been collecting baseball cards as a pretty serious hobby(or obsession) recently. As a result I have inherited some cards or other memorabilia from different folks.

A few weeks ago our friend Susan donated the above item to the Phungo Museum.

You may have seen some of these cards cut or on a 3 Card Panel. They were issued with Hostess Twinkies. This is a Full Sheet of 90 cards.

At the top of the Photo, I placed some Topps Gold Cards from the last few years for a size comparison. The Hostess Sheet cards would measure 2.5 x 3.5 if cut evenly. Each individual "card' has a smaller dotted line that could be used to cut a smaller card.

Also at the top of the sheet you can see the Color Marks that are probably used as part of the printing process to insure color processing quality.

The 90 players on the sheet represent 60% of the 150 card set.

There are some great names in the collection featuring several major stars and Hall of Famers from the 70s.

Here is a couple of the cards that sit next to Mike Schmidt.


Yep those are Hall of Famers Gary Carter, Jim Rice, and Dave Winfield in addition to the Mike Schmidt card.

The Steve Carlton card is also in a pretty nice neighborhood.

According to the Stardard Catalog of Baseball Cards the six cards above make up panels 38 and 39. Cards 112-115 (Richard's Row) and cards 116-118 (Hernandez/Nettles/Lefty)

The sheet is in good condition at best and I doubt that it would generate a lucrative offer if I were to sell it. I would guess $20, perhaps $40 to the right buyer.

However, there is one remarkable aspect to the sheet:


Pardon the display angle of the cards - for some reason some of my photos are rotating when I edit them and upload them to blogger.

At any rate for whatever reason there are two cards on the sheet that are swapped. The Rod Carew card above is Typically #9 in the 77 Hostess Set. while....


Reggie Jackson is usually #3.

The Standard Catalog mentions this and notes that the #3 Carew and #9 Jackson cards are Unissued Proofs. Which I imagine explains why this is an entire sheet - it was a proof.

The fact that we are dealing with a "rare"/short printed Reggie Jackson item here, may influence the value of the card sheet, but I doubt it would significantly.

Unless somebody out there absolutely has to have the sheet, I believe I will look into framing the cards. I haven't measured it, but given the size and number of cards. I would estimate the size at roughly 26x42 inches - including about 4-5 inches of clear spaces at the top of the sheet.

I think it would make a great conversation piece in the center of my man cave/card collection room when I have one.

What would you do - Frame it, Sell it, Cut it and sell the Reggie?

Sources and Links
Phungo Rod Carew HoF Index
Reggie Jackson HoF Index

The Great Rod Carew Degumming Experiment

Last week I opened a 27 year old pack of O-Pee-Chee baseball Cards over at A Packed to be Named Later. As you would imagine the stale gum was affixed to one of the cards, which happened to be a Rod Carew All-Star card.

There were a couple of comments on ways to remove the gum. One was to put the card in the freezer overnight. This is how we remove excess wax from a candle encased in a glass, so the approach seemed reasonable.

Rod Carew in Plastic Baggy - excuse the shadow - once again I would have failed Photography 101.

Rod Carew in Freezer sharing a shelf with a frozen water bottle, which will be needed while attending a 100 degree humidyfest game later this week.


The Results.....


Voila - minimal scarring. The gum remained affixed but less so I think. I left the card in the freezer for a week, mainly because I forgot about it. It was still pretty well stuck - I then hit it with the wave for about 15 seconds. That loosened it a little further.

In the end I stuck a knife under the gum and pried it off. The card looks better than the scan, it isn't mint, but it is acceptable.

Sources and Links
Phungo Rod Carew HoF Index

Card Show Report - 2010 05 14 Exton Mall, Exton PA

I mainly scoured cheapo bins in the 2-3 hours I spent at the Exton card Show. I was able to knock out about a dozen cards from my Phillies Want list and another dozen cards from my other want lists.

There were some minor surprises. In one of the dime bins I was perusing I found 3 Chicle cards and picked out all of them. I spent a good deal of time in a nickle bin which actually had a number of 2010 Topps Cards, and 2010 UD - including a good chunk of the Biography set. There were several Bowman Chrome cards in there as well.

My biggest surprise was finding a couple 2007 Topps XFractors in the dime bin.

The Pictures:

2010 Topps National Chicle Lou Brock
Later in the year I may have skipped the other Chicles (Zambrano, Braun). I was a bit of a Brock fan when I was a kid, and I will always at least consider any retro card of his when thumbing through a budget bin.

The Phils


I am pretty sure all of these came from my Phils vendor. I am good for finding a bunch of Phils cards in his bin at every show, I picked up these and a bunch of 2010 Topps Phils Commons all for $5. Someday I will get around to cataloging my haves and wants for the Phils Carlton collection, but I haven't as of today.

Set Building
These cards are all from different sets I am building:

2007 Bowman Heritage
2007 UD Masterpieces
2008 UD Spectrum
2008 Topps All-Star Rookies


The Retro
I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. The Brooksie is from the 2006 Topps Rookie of the Week promotion. I picked up maybe a dozen of these. The Action Packed card is of Roberto Clemente.

Shiny
As always there were lots of Bowman Chrome in the nickel box, not as many Topps, but I did find the above Ibanez card in there.


Other Nickles



There is one woman who often has a nickel box at the show - this week she had a lot of 2010 Topps commons (no phils) and 2010 UD cards including gobs of the Biography cards. She also had the above Soriano card - which was homaged in the 2010 Topps Yo Momma Set. Who needs the reprint when you can get the original for a nickle??

I am not a football guy nor a Giants fan, but I could not let this 08 Masterpieces Football cards sit in the nickle bin.

All told I went through $28.50 at the show in about 3 hours. $5 in Phils card, $7 in the nickle bin, $6 in a dime box, $1.50 on a Grab Bag, and $5 on a six pack off oddball packs to open over at A Pack To Be Named Later.