My first completed set!

 A couple of weeks ago, with the arrival of #33, Willie Mays, my 1969 Topps Deckle Edge set was finally finished. And the quest all started with an Ebay order that never came.

It was probably back in 2017. I had ordered a small lot of Deckle Edge cards, but they were lost in the mail. I was very disappointed, and to console me my parents bought me a lot of Deckle Edge cards for around $20. Actually, I just decided to dive into the Ebay feedback history to get the details. It had 26 of the cards, for $16.60. Which was just an unbelievable deal. The lot had Roberto Clemente, Rod Carew, Pete Rose, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, all those guys. It even had the two short prints, Joe Foy and Jim Wynn. 

That was a huge part of the set, leaving just 9 cards, but I didn't add any more until last year. I got about four in my COMC order,  one or two from my dad, one from a card show, and suddenly I only had one card left. Willie Mays. 

At the card show I went to in the spring, I had the chance to get Mays for $10, but passed it up, remembering that I had seen it for cheaper online. A decision which I cursed for a while, until I found a copy on Ebay for $6.95 + shipping/tax. Finally the set was complete. I still think I should have gotten it at the card show, but it's okay.

Mays is the last card in the set. As you can see, it's numbered to 33, but it's actually a 35 card set because both of the short prints share numbers with another player. Jim Wynn and Hoyt Wilhelm are both #11, and Joe Foy and Rusty Staub are both #22. 

1969 Deckle Edge isn't the best set ever, but it's a fun little set with plenty of star-power. The checklist is a little weird. Felipe Alou is the representative player for the Braves, instead of Hank Aaron. Being black and white makes it distinctive, and it's just a nice clean set.

It feels good to have a complete set. There's a couple cards I want to upgrade, but they're both commons so it won't be too hard. 

Worst set candidate: 2001 Fleer Tradition

 We all know 1990 Donruss, and 1991 Donruss, and 1965 Topps Embossed; almost the icons of ugly sets. But a lot of disasters have slipped through the cracks, so I'm thinking about doing a little series to highlight those lesser-known wonders. Hope no one has done this before.

In the early 2000s, there were a lot of sets like UD Vintage and Fleer Tradition, which were basically devoted to tweaking old Topps designs a tiny bit to avoid a lawsuit, and then passing it off as their own. So you can't really call any of those sets good, when they were glorified rip-offs. It makes you feel that Topps deserves to be the only MLB-licensed baseball card company if that's what the other companies did. 

But the worst of those sets was 2001 Fleer Tradition. The problem, in my eyes, with a lot of retro sets is that they use a photo filter to make the pictures look older. I get why they do it, but I think it always looks terrible. But the worst use of it comes in 2001 Fleer Tradition, hands down. The action shots have the filter, and it's the worst I've ever seen. Here's an example:

I mean, look at that. Mo's face is a blur, you can barely read "New York," and everything else looks weird. And it's not the scan (from TCDB), as I have this card and it's just as bad in hand.

Some more atrocities:

What could they have been thinking?

The set could be worse. The layout is okay, and it really might be a nice front if it weren't for the stupendously bad action shots.

The backs are fairly innocuous. One thing I don't like about them is the cartoons. They're boring, and not even player specific. 

The statistics are meager, for 2001, and there really isn't anything to make up for that. Look at all that space at the top! 

And after awhile they wimp out, and don't even include the pitiful cartoons, so there's an ocean of blankness. All that space could be used for stats.

I'm not sure what to do next, so I'd be interested in hearing about worst set "favorites" of yours.

My first time at Yankee Stadium

 I've been on vacation in New York for the last couple weeks, and yesterday I got to see the Yankees at Yankee Stadium for the first time! I saw them playing the Rangers in Texas back in 2019, but seeing them at home was incredible.  Me and my sister were both really, really excited. When we walked into Yankee Stadium, my sister had such a huge grin on her face. I was a little more subdued, but it was really cool. 

It turned out to be the perfect game to go to. But it didn't seem like it at first. I was really excited because Gerrit Cole was scheduled to pitch, but then he tested positive for COVID and was scratched, which was a real bummer.

But the actual game turned out to be awesome. The starter, Luis Gil, was making his big league debut. He is the Yankees' 6th-ranked prospect, and he pitched great, throwing 6 shutout innings. And Yankee runs and hits fell in torrents.

In the 1st the Yanks were pretty quiet, but then they scored 1 in the 2nd, and scored 5 in the 3rd! It was kind of magical, with hit after hit falling in the outfield. And in the 4th Giancarlo Stanton broke his slump with a 3-run homer. They quieted down for a bit after that. 

Giancarlo at the plate, with Rizzo on 3rd

It was cool to see the new additions, Rizzo and Gallo. Rizzo is now my 2nd-favorite player in the game, at least for now. I've heard nothing but good things about him from mournful Cubs fans, plus he's just been crushing the ball so far. (While I've been writing this post, first he had a 13-pitch walk, and then he hit a solo homer.) And I like how he has a chance at the career hit by pitch record. The record, held by Hughie Jennings from the 19th century, is 287, and right now Rizzo has 171.

After Gil was taken out, another pitcher, Stephen Ridings, made his debut in the 7th. He had been dominant in AA and AAA, with a 1.24 ERA, 42 strikeouts, and 4 walks in 29 innings. He was very impressive. After striking out the first two batters, he got to an 0-2 count on Maikel Franco before Maikel hit a double down the left field line. And then he struck out the next batter. He looked very good, consistently throwing at 98, 99 and hitting 101. And his breaking stuff was also very effective, getting the Orioles to swing at pitches in the dirt consistently.

The Orioles had some embarrassing and hilarious moments. Once, on a easy fly ball, two Orioles stood 5 feet apart and watched it drop right between them for a double. It was a double because you can't give an error to two different people for one mistake, and how are you going to say one was responsible and the other innocent? And in the 5-run 3rd, the centerfielder was throwing home on a single when the ball hit second base and rolled to first as a second runner easily scored. 

We had to leave after the 7th, which I was very disappointed at. In the 8th a third Yankee pitcher debuted, Brady Koerner. He didn't do as well, though, allowing one run over two innings. He's 27, and unlike the other two, I don't think he has much a chance of sticking with the big club. I think it's pretty crazy that the whole game was pitched by pitchers who had never pitched before in the majors. I seem to have a small streak of Yankee pitchers debuting when I see them, as Michael King debuted the time I saw them in 2019.

Aaron Judge, my favorite current player, was sitting out the day I saw the Yanks in Texas, but he was playing yesterday. He hit a home run in the 9th, after I left. 🤷

Reverse negative! Oh well. Mom's hair was kind of in my face, but that's the best picture we took that included me. As you can tell, my dad does not like smiling for the camera

The Yankees ended up winning 13-1, and we all had a great time. Thanks mom and dad for taking me!