2016 Heritage First Pack PLUS a Hanger

Got my hands on some 2016 Heritage cards on Monday, a Single Pack and a Hanger. Thanks to the Topps/Target Coupon that was part of our 2016T Blaster we opened last month the Hanger went for $6.99.

We start off with the loosey

2016 Heritage #120 Billy Hamilton

Fittingly he exciting Billy Hamilton leads off our first pack. Card #120 in the original is Floyd Robinson who reps the Reds as well, although it is on a cap-less card as he had been acquired from the White Sox following the 1966 Season.

#217 JP Howell
#9 Wil Myers
#136 John Danks
#157 Manny Machado

Nice set of cards at the top of the pack, Howell, Myers and Machado are all great examples of 1967T. The Danks card has some sort of Cactus League backdrop that adds a bit of variety to a set that is bound to be heavy on profile shots.

Wil Myers drew his former uni number (9) with the the Rays.

 #498 Odubel Herrera

First Heritage Insert is a High Number of a Phillies Player. Thats a W.  Good shot from Clearwater. Team Phungo was there roughly a year ago, perhaps this shot was taken while we were in town.

#71 Caleb Joseph
#313 Seth Smith
#66  Eddie Rosario

We can't get a Topps card of the Orioles Starting Catcher but we do have back up Caleb Joseph. The Rosario card looks like a dugout shot, which is a bit of a departure from the style from the original 1967 set, however it does maintain the spirit of the era.

Hanger Highlights

We will start out with the Hanger All-Star Team

Battery

Mark Buehrle
Hisashi Iwakuma
Santiago Casilla
Evan Gattis

The Buehrle card is a great one of a great player. Gattis is listed as a DH here but I snuck him into the Battery section for his Catching roots, and one cannot dismiss the hipster beard. 

Brandon Belt
Giovanny Urshela
Justin Bour
Starlin Castro

The Indian Urshela is one of those cards of players in the box that I didn't know. Actually had close to 300 PAs in 2016. Hell Justin Bour  is in the Phillies Division, Hit 23 Home Runs and got a rookie cup and I don't know him. Bour was not in Topps Series 1, Assuming his flagship card is in S2 he will be 28 prior to the release of his r-Cup card. I am assuming this is Starlin Castro's first card as a Yankee - We will return to this in the Inserts portion of our show.

Hunter Pence
Starling Marte
Coco Crisp
Jackie Bradley

Crisp once again displays a unique look - Still not as cool as his 2014T Card. Saw Starlin drop a can a corn in a game against the Phillies y-day, nice shot w/ the camo didn't see those in 1967.


Inserts Mojo Chasers

Chrome Aroldis Chapman (#d /567)

Ok a year ago this would have been a fine card to draw as the Serial Numbered bonus. Unfortunately in the last 12 months we found out Chapman is a jerk and now he is on a different team.

This is is my issue with the Starling Castro card above. Topps got him in a Yankees uniform, Chapman here got traded within in a month be he remains on a Reds card. 

#479 Lorenzo Cain (Hi Number)

Cool shot, Solid SP to pull. 

Standup #14 Mike Trout

Uhm this is disturbing. So far in 2016 I have picked up A Blaster, A Hanger and a couple of looseys and have scored 3 Trout inserts.

#TAN-YD Carl Yastrzemski & Chris Davis

The 1967 Font looks goofy on inserts. 

Mets Maulers: Lagares & Granderson
Atlanta Aces: Freeman & Markakis

I like using action shots on the Multi-Players, for a look back at our recent post on the originals click here.

Angels Team Card & Checklist

The team cards are goofy. 

Sources and links
1967 Topps / 2016 Heritage Index
Cardboard Connection
Baseball-ref

2016 Topps Blaster Break

Since I struck out looking for 2016 Heritage tonight you are getting an unenthusiastic posting on a Blaster of 2016 Topps.  The first pack of the blaster can be found here.

Blaster All-Stars - Battery

2016 Topps
#50 Salvador Perez
#300 Buster Posey
#237 Carlos Ruiz
#4 Sonny Gray

I am protesting 2016 Topps tight shots epidemic by feature mainly catcher's in our Battery part of the lineup. The position and the gear give the photographer more opportunities to create interesting shots. Here we have the Catchers for the two most recent World Series champs and the Phillies own 2008 WSC catcher. We featured the Ruiz card a few weeks back in our First Phillie of 2016T posting.

Sonny Gray won the battle for the only Pitcher card to Make the Blaster All-Star because I don't think he gets enough press, and I like the high socks.


Blaster All-Star Infield 

#241 Freddie Freeman
#137 Joe Panik
#310 David Wright
#225 Scooter Gennett

The David Wright is just another tight shot on a batter. I do like how we can see his number not only oh his jersey but also on the sweatband. Freddie Freeman celebrating a Homer is a nice highlight in the box. Scooter Gennett gets a 5 number Freddie does not.

Blaster All-Star Outfield

#272 Denard Span
#312 Curtis Granderson
#227 David Murphy
#8 Michael Brantley

Granderson wins the interesting shot here.  I realize Span and Murphy look virtually the same, but still like them.

Inserts 
Just some Quick Comments here, Would like to return to these individually in the future.

2016 Topps #BB-60 Berger's Best Mike Trout
2001 Topps Update #US-175 Mike Trout

Once again Topps has a set featuring cards that are basically re-issues. This is one of the relatively recent 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout. I think the one on the Left is the 2016T version, with the original on the right - The foil is in Gold this year as opposed to Silver on the original. Not sure if this was an accident of by design.

I have seen a couple of the Berger cards now and I like them more than I thought I would.

 2016 Topps #MLBD-35 MLB Debut Mike Trout

My first blaster of 2016 Turned out to be a Mike Trout Hot box, with a pair of his insert cards (although we did not pull the #1 Base card)

MLB Debut is basically This years version of 2015 Topps Retail Only First Home Run cards - which I think may be the Topps common insert. Ok idea for an insert set.

2016 Topps #FP-15 First Pitch Bill Withers

Bill Withers is the 2015 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame musician responsible for "Lean On Me".

I don't care if this set doesn't showcase baseball players, I think the FP insert is fun. My only issue is that I don't believe that Topps has featured one from Philadelphia.

2016 Topps #WOW-15 Henry Urrutia

Walk of Wins is a nice idea for a Insert. I believe these are new for 2016 and replace last year's similar but defensive minded Robbed Insert Set. Both sets are retail only.

2016 Topps #MLBW-6 Wacky Packages

Advertising for another product. I don't know whether I should be happy or bothered that only six of the 30 teams are represented by this set.

2016 Topps #AM-03 Amazing Milestones Carl Yastrzemski

This is the Target only insert. I believe that WalMart got an Insert involving "Greatest Streaks" A set I would probably find more interesting even if it omit's Pete Rose and Joe DiMaggio.

2016 Topps #PIS1 Pressed Into Service Mitch Moreland

Lots to like about this set including that the Acronym is Three-Quarters of PISS.

2016 Topps #B2B-5 Back to Back Reds

I was sick of lineage, but I am not sure this is an improvement

Obligatory Blaster "Hit"

2016 Topps #MDM-NR Major LEague Debut Medallions Nolan Ryan

The Medallion was the last thing we opened out of the box and I told Mrs Phungo we want a Ryan Howard card here, after we saw the card she quickly quipped "Well you got a Ryan"

By The Numbers

81 Cards
72 Base (roughly)
1 Phillies card (Chooch)
10 Inserts
1 Fake Relic (Ryan)
2 Hero Numbers (Posey, Harper)
I think there were also a couple of foil cards.

There you have it, I think I may have snuck in an extra insert or two from looseys I picked up w/ the Blaster coupon, but basically it's a blaster. Sorry, I try and be accurate in my counting numbers, but it has been a busy couple of weeks. 

Sources and Links
Phungo 2016 Topps index
BillWithers.com
Cardboard Connection

2013 WS Game 1: 1975 Topps #205 MVPs Yastrzemski & Cepeda

I wanted to find a card that combined the BoSox and Cardinals and was very happy to find this beauty.

1975 Topps #205 1967 MVPs Yastrzemski & Cepeda (image swiped from baseball card database)


The 75T MVPs is one of the most fun subsets in the Topps canon. It marks both the 25th anniversary of Topps and the MVPs of each of those seasons.  In 1967 the MVPs were Yaz and Orlando Cepeda pictured here on the minimalist 67T Design.

Recent MVP discussion appear to come down to discussion of various traditional stats vs the single WAR stat.  Tonight I would like to examine the WAR numbers for these two future HoF players during their 67 MVP seasons - which was the only MVP for each. 

Yaz
Working from Left to Right we start with Yastrzemski.  He won the AL Triple Crown in 1967 and collected an astounding WAR of 12.41.  The 12.41 WAR is the highest single season number for anyone in the history of the game that is not named Babe Ruth. Yes Yaz won the Triple Crown and he had the 4th highest WAR in history, but he didn't get voted MVP unanimously.  Cesar Tovar received a single #1 vote for his 2.44 WAR season - I have no idea.    

Orlando Cepeda
Of course in a year when Carl Yastrzemski puts together one of the greatest seasons in history and doesn't get a unanimous MVP, Orlando Cepeda collected all 20 MVP first place votes in the NL Balloting. Cepeda had a very good year, but not historic. His 6.80 WAR was 5th among vote getters - Ron Santo led the league at 9.77. Cepada led the league in RBI (111) and finished 3rd in OBP (.399)

MLB 1967
Finally it should be noted that in 1967 the Cardinals and Red Sox met in the World Series. Yaz hit 3 Homers and batted .400 in the Series.  Cepeda collected 3 hits total and batted .103.  But baseball is a cruel game Yaz and the Red Sox lost to the Cardinals - Bob Gibson won 3 complete games giving up 3 ER across those starts.   

Other Voices
Night Owl Cards - 2010 posting from the NOC 75 Topps retrospective. Contains some interesting observation on 67T and notes that Orlando Cepeda's MVP season was his first with the Cardinals.   

2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
Phungo HOF Orlando Cepeda Index
Phungo HOF Carl Yastrzemski Index 
baseball Card Database
baseball-ref.com 

2011 Topps Heritage NOT Hot Box

As usual, I am a little behind - everybody is checking out Gypsy Queen and I am busting Topps Heritage, but at least I am busting a box from the current year.

Backstory

I was initially on the fence about building 2011 Topps Heritage - A recent Posting by A Cardboard Problem speculated on the rumour that the Hot Boxes (containing green tint chrome cards) were packaged differently.  At the CSA show in Oaks PA a few weeks back I found one of these Potential Hot Boxes.  In the name of Trading Card Research I was compelled to break the box.

Unfortunately, The Box was not a Hot Box but remained a fun box to open and I am happy to be building 2011 Topps Heritage.  It is the first Topps Baseball Set I have elected to build since 2008 Heritage.  I am pretty sure that at some point I will look into 2009 Goodwin Champions, but right now that project is still in the thinking about stage.

Box Toppers

The Box had two toppers - A 50th anniversary of Don Clendennon and a David Price Baseball Fiver. 

Not sure how I feel about Topps QC on this one, The Clendennon card is in reasonable shape if I was picking it up at a show as a 50 cent common, but this card is in fair shape and horribly cut.

Don't get me wrong the Anniversary cards are my favorite box topper, I just think that at 1 in every other box Topps could do a little better on the buyback end.  I was also hoping for a baseball buck and Price is a nice one to get.

Base Set

Low Numbers 194/425 (45%)

Phillies 7/17 (41%) 0/2 Hi Number

Hi Numbers 8/75 (10%)

Babe Ruth 5/10

checklist 3/6

Hits

CCR-JJ - Josh Johnson Clubhouse Collection

#143b - Jackie Robinson Story SP

Chrome

C12 Batting Leaders (Refractor 212/562) 

C27 Omar Infante (1941/1962)

C35 Casey Blake (1690/1960)

I don't get including the leaders cards in Chrome.  It is only a 100/200 card set why bother with duping a couple of floating heads on a single card.
 

Baseball Flashbacks

BF-4 Robin Roberts - would of liked him more in a Phils Uni for this one. 

BF-5 Yaz

New Age Performers

NAP-2 Jim Thome

NAP-7 Joey Votto

I love Thome, but I don't think of him as a New Age Performer at this point in his career.  Votto might be my favorite non-Phil young player of the moment.

News Flashbacks

NF-4 JFK/Cuban Embargo

NF-9 Jamaican Indepence

gotta love any card that celebrate Ganga and Reggae Music

 

Then and Now

TN-5 Mantle & Prince (this is a dupe of a retail I already pulled)

TN-7 Killebrew & Bautista 

every year this is my least favorite insert in heritage - although they are the easiest to make fun of. for example I refer to the Mantle/Fielder card as a celebration of Drunk Vegetarians - which reminds me of every "art student" I knew in college.

 
Phungo Says

 
Yes I was disappointed this was not a Hot Box, but I am happy with my decision to build 2011 Heritage.  I remain a fan of heritage,  and have always enjoyed the 1962 Topps set.  For the most part the inserts are interesting and the 50 or so Heritage cards I already picked up had enough unique cards to get me over the half way point in the set.         

 

The Original 1961 Topps - All Star Cards

Similar to the new Topps Heritage cards, the All-Star cards for 1961 Topps were found among the High Numbers. Consequently they hard pretty hard to find. In my opinion they are more scarce then the cards issued in the previous three sets (58-60).

There is only one Phillies cards among the 1961 All-Star set and that is card #569 of Frank Herrera. Unfortunately I do not have that card in the Phungo Collection. However, I do have this very nice 1961 All-Star card:



1961 Topps #579 Willie Mays All-Star


The 2010 Heritage cards mimic the 61 design well:
2010 Topps Heritage #498 Johan Santana

The cutout is the same right down to the headlines on the paper. "The Sporting News" has been replaced by "Topps News"


2010 Topps Heritage #498 Johan Santana (b-side)
1961 Topps #579 Willie Mays All-Star(b-side)
click to enlarge

The Flip sides of the 1961 and 2010 Heritage All-Star cards are similar and feature a good paragraph on the featured player. I am particularly impressed with the Heritage cards as most of today's cards are relatively short on copy. One note on the Heritage cards, the All-Star cards have the backs reversed - similar to the base cards which were mentioned previously.

Clones
1970 Topps #461 Carl Yastrzemski All-Star

Topps re-used the paper shredding design for their 1970 All-Star Cards. It is a design I like and I wouldn't mind seeing them bring it back every 10 years or so.

For a look back at some previous Phungo articles on the original 1961 Topps check out these links:

The Phillies
Topps Inserts

STS Profile - Billy Butler: Swag from Saints Case Break

2007 UD Ultimate Collection Rookie Signature #108 Billy Butler (#d 146/299)

As I feared, this weeks auto turned out to be a tough one. For the first time in STS! history we had to go to a HINT to get for the Autograph to be Identified.

This auto came from a group break run by Dan over at Saints of the Cheap Seats. Prior to this break the only breaks I entered were budget breaks that were run by Thorzul and others. The bounty from the break came in this week and included a Carl Yastrzemski jersey card and a Ryan Freel base card.

2007 UD Ultimate Collection #13 Ryan Freel
2007 UD Ultimate Collection Star Materials #SM-CY Carl Yastrzemski

I am pretty happy with the cards I received in the break. Billy Butler is a good young player for the Royals, who would be more widely known if he played in a higher proifle city. He has seen increased playing time each of his 3 major league seasons and finished 2009 with 21 homers and a .301 BA. His OPS+ for 2009 was 124.

I knew this would be a tough auto for several reasons

1) It is a particularly bad auto perhaps in the HoF of bad autos - and once we started running down the K names that was definitely trouble.

2) Butler is a young player that is really not well known - and he runs below the top tier of prospects.

3) The card gives a slightly misleading hint - Butler is a first baseman as a major leaguer. He played a variety of positions on his way through the Royals system, including outfield.
4) He plays for the Kansas City Royals who many of us don't think about.

I initially thought that Butler had written the ""B"'s in his name off of the sticker, but that is not the case. The sticker is clearly large enough on both the top and bottom to contain the full letter. Butler simply doesn't always close the top and bottom of his B's. I checked a handful of his other autos and this seems to be as bad as it gets for him - His signatures vary greatly in readability, although you can see a pattern where the clear UD sticker autos that are significantly worse.

Bonus

If you went right down the middle you were good. There were 3 base cards of active players and a Then and Now insert of Herb Score and Kerry Wood (who was active in 09). Our Mathematician over at Nachos Grande correctly calculated that 4 cards would emerge from the pack, as did Wax Ripper - each will receive a single as their bonus.

Later this week I plan on posting the contents of 4 other packs of the 04 Heritage as part of a Faux Blaster report.


Spot the Sig! standings after four innings.

We have a rookie in the game, Brian from Play at the Plate lines a double for figuring out this tough auto after the hint. We are almost half way through the game and it remains anybody's game.

Paul's Random Stuff - Mets: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Autographed Cards - Royals: one run scored. Men at 2nd and 3rd.
Night Owl - Dodgers: Men on First and 2nd
Nachos Grande - Reds: Bases Loaded
The Wax Ripper - Yankees: Men on first and 2nd.
Play at the Plate - Rangers: Elvis Andrus hits a Double into the game to put a man in scoring position for our newest STS entry.
In Search of Pat the Bat - PHILLIES: Man on First
Thought and Sox - Boston Red Sox: Man on First
Beardy - Orioles: On Deck
Indians Baseball Cards Always - Indians: On Deck
Padrographs - Padres: On Deck
Cardboard Junkie - Braves: On Deck

Thanks all for participating in this particularly challenging installment of Spot the Sig!

A new Spot the Sig! autograph will be presented for the contest on Sunday Night, All are welcome to join the game at anytime. If you need more Spot the Sig! details click here.

Hall of Fame Thursday - Carl Yastrzemski

1972 Topps #38 Carl Yastrzemski In Action

20 years ago today the Boston Red Sox retired Carl Yastrzemski's #8.

Carl Yastrzemski played 23 seasons for the Boston Red Sox. His 3308 games played is 2nd on the all-time list behind only Pete Rose. Yaz played more games with one team than anyone in the history of the game. During those 3000+ games he racked up 3419 hits (6th all time), 452 Homers (33rd), 1816 runs (16th), 1844 RBIs 12th, 5539 total bases (8th).

In 1967 Yaz was the last player to win the triple crown. He batted .326 with 44 homers and 121 RBIs (OPS+ of 193). This year Albert Pujols is positioned to make a run at the rare accomplishment. After Wednesday's games Pujols led the league in Homers(36) and RBIs(97) and was 5th in BA at .324. He is behind Hanley Ramirez who is batting .340 and a few others.

In the age of Sabermatic stats is the Triple Crown important? or is it a novelty like hitting for the cycle? With all the new stats avaiable to us clearly Batting Average and RBIs are not held as highly as they were 40 years ago. At a bare minimum I think Batting Average should be replaced by On-Base Percentage. RBIs is always panned by Sabermaticians, but it is a stat I am fond of, to me very few player stats are so easily translated as contributions to the team.

If Pujols wins the triple crown, will Topps create a whole line of cards to commemorate the event, or will they just do a single seasons highlight card? I would love to see a subset featuring Pujols and pair it with another subset of the past triple crown winners.

For the Collector

There is an official Carl Yastrzemski Web Page. It features autographed items as low as $100 but most items are much higher.

Carl Yastrzemski's rookie card is the 1960 Topps #148 which has gone for $44.22 recently. Graded versions have sold for $50.95. Roughly a dozen Yaz rookie cards sold for $56 to $75 over the last few weeks. Mint Condition cards sold for $3000-$5000.

As far as Autograph cards, A Fading 07 Sweet Spot Classic #d to 35 went for $20. There were a handful of other autos out there, (mostly stickers) ranging from $31 to $100.

Card Show - Corcorde Mall, Wilmington, Delaware

Checked out a local card show at the Concorde Mall in Wilmington Delaware. Best part of the show was meeting PTBNL/Patsearcher-Greg, the author of In Search of Pat the Bat. Greg was the winner of the 2009 version of the Spot the Sig! contest and announced that he will be back to defend his title this fall. It was good to meet a fellow Phils collector and blogger. We batted around a couple of collecting and blogging topics, and of course discussed the Phils past and Present. We were also able to take in part of Saturday's Cards v Phils game on TV and got to see Jimmy Rollins' Grand Slam!

Greg is much more in touch with the cards from the years prior to my return to collecting and it was good to get some insight on those sets, inserts, and the all the related parallel variations.

I think we both did pretty well at the show, He was able to pick up a handful of Burrell cards for his want list and was busy filling out some sets he has been building. On my end I found a couple of cards from some set I am building. 1 from 08 Spectrum and 2 form 07 Bowman Heriitage. I found these cards among three dime boxes I searched. Most of the cards I picked up were to build my Phils teams sets from 1980-Present. I also took home my usual boatload of Heritage/Retros, HOFs, and Chromey superstars. I picked out a handful of slightly higher priced cards in the 7/$5 bin and also picked up about a dozen junk autos going for about $2.50 each

Here are some of he Highlights:


(Click To Enlarge)
1972 Topps #38 Carl Yastrzemski In Action
2009 Topps #428 Jamie Moyer Gold #d 1188/2009
1974 Topps #342 Jim Longborg
1970 Topps Scratch Off Juan Marichal
2009 OPC #220 Ryan Howard Black Border
1984 Topps #397 Eddie Murray All-Star
1991 Topps Archive 1953 #318 Curt Simmons
2008 UD Documentary #4233 PHI142 Joe Blanton September 7, 2008 Phils 6 Mets 2

The Yaz, Moyer, Marichal, and Howard cards came out of the insert box. The rest of the cards were out of dime boxes.

Quick Summary: It is always good to get cards of vintage HOFs especially pre-1974. The 72 In Action set is a fun set too. The #d Gold card will be a nice addition to my emerging Jamie Moyer collection. The Longborg was one of many Phillies that I picked up as I try and build the entire Topps run of Phils cards. I didn't have any of the Topps Scratch Off cards. I am not sure if I will be collecting O-Pee-Chee this year but the Black Border was to nice to pass on. Eddie Murray is for the HOF collection. Curt Simmons is an underappreciated Pitcher from Phils past and finally the Documentary will go into the Phungo Games collection.

The Concorde Mall Show consisted of about 20 maybe 25 tables. The few dealers that I talked to felt Saturday was down, but they seemed to think they had done well on Friday Night.