Blaster Break 2015 Topps Stadium Club

Some highlights from a recent Blaster purchase of 2015T Stadium Club. I think I may have picked up a single loosey as well, can't remember.

The Sole Phillie in the 40 card bounty was or retired centerfielder - convicted criminal Lenny Dykstra.

As with most Stadium Club cards we have a nice shot - full bleed. The TSC design is minimal - showing of the photo more, but unremarkable. Dykstra is bundled up here, wonder if this is from a road opener somewhere. I am a fan of the Liberty Bell flair whenever it shows up on Phillies attire on a card - you can see it here on Dykstra's turtleneck.

Blaster All-Stars

I like to post Breaks in the form of an all-star team of the cards drawn. Sometimes it is the best players, but often it is the most interesting photo or card design/shot combo

Battery

David Cone
Tim Hudson
Hisashi Iwakuma
Ivan Rodriguez

I think we were pitching light which is how Iwakuma got the nod, but the rest of these shots are great.  I may return to the Cone card as part of our Year of the No-Hitter Series. The Pudge card needs to rank among the best in the set - I want this shot on a Carlos Ruiz card.


Infield

Chipper Jones
Orlado Cepeda
Hanley Ramirez
Bip Roberts

I like the Ramirez card as it is a nice nod to both his changing teams and changing positions. It is a card that pays off on the viewers baseball knowledge. Note I moved Hanley back to Shortstop for this posting as the position was left vacant by our 40 card blaster.

Including a handful of Black n White hots is a nice touch in the set. The entirety of Orlando Cepeda's career was probably in the color photography era, but it is nice to see the B/W shot here.



 Outfield

Bo Jackson
Joe DiMaggio
Deion Sanders
Dusty Baker

Lots of stuff going on here, The Bo Jackson card gives us an interesting candid shot -
Something that is hard to capture. I typically dislike any shot from behind the player but the Deion Sanders card is ok, there is action and it is with one of the premier basestealers of the era. Dusty Baker is getting a lead from 2nd or 3rd, which you don't see on many cards - also it is hard to pick up but this is a Gold insert.

The Joe DiMaggio B/W is apparently noting his reach 45 games in his hit streak. At the time this tied Wee Willie Keeler for the major league record - this is another card I would like to return to at some point.


The Bench (Inserts)

Ken Griffey/Ken Griffey Jr
Contact Sheet Miguel Cabrera
Luminous Trumvirate Starling Marte

The Griffeys card is a fun one, will probably see this one a lot in the next year especially come Father's day. Here I have presented the base and Gold for side/side comparison.

The two bottom cards are inserts that I don't understand.

Sources and Links
Baseball-ref
Baseball Almanac
Ken Griffey Jr HoF Index
Orlando Cepeda HoF Index
Joe DiMaggio HoF Index
Ivan Rodriguez HoF Index

Hall of Fame Thursday - Nellie Fox

1957 Topps #37 Nellie Fox

50 years ago today the 1959 season began. The 59 season was great success for the Chicago White Sox, they won 94 games and the American League Pennant. The Chisox also had the top 3 finishers in the MVP voting. I didn't have the patience to look it up, but I cannot imagine one team having the top 3 MVP candidates. The Three players were Fox, Luis Aparicio, and Pitcher Early Wynn. Wynn also took the Cy Young Award that year. Additionally that same year the Cubs had the NL MVP in Ernie Banks. Two teams in the same city winning both MVP awards has happened several times, especially back when New York had three teams. Most recently it happened in 2002 when Team Balco swept the awards with Barry Bonds winning the NL and Miguel Tejada capturing the AL Award while with the A's.

During his 19 year career Nellie Fox spent 14 seasons with the White Sox. He was originally signed by Philadelphia's other team, the A's, in 1944, but was traded for Joe Tipton. Fox racked up 2663 career hits and never struck out more than 20 times in a season. The 13 time All-Star led the league in hits 4 times and was know as a old school palyer (even in 1950s they had old school players) who fielded his position well - He set the consecutive game record for 2nd basemen at 798.

Fox was not elected to the HOF by the BBWAA - he was denied in his final year of eligibility (1985), falling just short with 74.6% of the vote. In 1997 the Veteran's Committee Made Nellie Fox a Hall of Famer.

For the Collectors

Nellie Fox's rookie card is 1951 Bowman #232. In recent auctions it has sold for $47.50 in pretty good condition and $18.50 in rough condition.

I don't think he shows up on a Topps card until 1956 (#118) - This cards has sold for as low as $9.49. The 1957 card above I picked up as part of a lot - $3.50 of which went towards Nellie's Card.

Nellie Fox died in 1975 and his autographs are pretty scarce. The "certified" autos I found generally ran between $200 and $300.

Phungo Readers Hall of Fame - Tommy John - REJECTED. How about David Cone?

1979 Topps #255 Tommy John

A few weeks back I ran a poll to see what my readers opinions were on Tommy John as a Hall of Famer. This was the 2nd Phungo HOF poll. In the first Jim Rice recieved a thumbs down. Once again the Phungo readers have spoken and Tommy John was also rejected, and by a larger margin. His 288 wins (294 including post season) were not enough to persuade Phungo readers of that John is Hall-worthy.

There were 4 "Yes" votes and 9 "No" votes for John. I had one other voting category not present for BBWAA writers, and that is to Defer a vote - one person chose this option. I based my Yes vote on a few things. 288 career wins, He pitched for 5 playoff teams in the pre-wild card era (note 1 NLDS in 1981 strike season), and in 3 World Series. He may have come up short in all 3 of those series but I think getting to them is also important. And lastly I believe that he deserves at least a minor bump for being the first athlete to successfully pitch after receiving the surgery that now bears his name.

This small Phungo vote (30.7% for) was remarkably close to the final Hall vote (31.7%). The Tommy John vote also generated less interest than the Rice vote (14 cumulative votes down from 26 for the Rice Vote). There were no reader comments regarding the Tommy John vote either.

If Phungo is still alive a year from now I will try and bring up the vote again. It will be interesting to see what happens to Tommy John in these limbo years between the writers ballot and the Veteran's ballot.

As far as card collecting goes, recent sales of Tommy John's 1964 Rookie Card (Topps #146) were in the $6 to $6.50 range for ungraded cards. Completed auctions for low-end Tommy John autograph cards are in the $5.50 to $6.00 range.

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Phungo HOF Poll - David Cone

I am going a totally different route with a new HOF poll. We are examining the career of David Cone. Cone has nearly 100 fewer regular season Win then Tommy John, but has a pretty solid post season resume 8 wins, 3 losses, 3.80 ERA. (2.12 in 6 World Series Games) and hist teams were 12-3 in 15 Post Season Series including 5-0 in the World Series.

Cone was flat out rejected on the writers ballot, receiving less than the 5% minimum to qualify for future votes. I am not sure that he is HOF material, but I think it is a pretty weak that he did not get the requisite 5% to keep him on the ballot.

The House That Ruth Built - Perfect Games

My first visit to "the Stadium" was on June 30 1998, The Phillies were playing the Yankees that night. 1998 was the second year of interleague play and this was the Phillies first trip to Yankee Stadium since the 1950 World Series.

Things didn’t go that well for the Phils, Yankee starter David Cone was on his game and the Phils were outmanned. Cone was perfect until 2 outs into the fifth and was an out away from pitching a shutout when Jon Zuber hit a 2 run homer, which was not nearly enough as the Bronx Bombers scored 9 runs including a Homer by Darryl Strawberry. The Yankees won 9-2.

A year later Cone did pitch a perfect game at Yankee Stadium. The Stadium was the site of two other Perfect games, one by David Wells and one by Don Larsen, the only Perfect Game in World Series History.