My late, great cards from COMC

 I've begun an annual tradition of buying cards of all shapes and sizes on COMC with store credit over a period of months, and getting them all shipped after Black Friday. I can snatch good deals as they come up while not having to pay a dozen shipping charges: it sounds great in theory and it's worked just as well in practice.

But this time there was a complication in getting my cards. I requested that my cards be shipped on November 27th. After a typical COMC month-long wait, they shipped them. But there was a slight problem: they were supposed to arrive on January 2nd, the day I was flying to New York with my family to see my grandparents. Disliking the idea of a box of valuable cards sitting in my mailbox for a week, I had my mail held. That would have been fine - except that on January 4th the post office decided to send my cards back to COMC in Washington!!!! 

It took a few emails to get that cleared up and my cards sent back, but they finally reached my greedy hands two weeks later.

And they did not disappoint. 

First we see some sweet 1959s:

It's been a long time since I've been posting much, and the last time I shared my progress on 1959 Topps was December 31st, 2021. At the time I was at 268/572. I've made unspectacular but steady progress since then to get to 361/572. 

I got the Wally Moon even though it was a duplicate for three reasons: 1) It's in awesome shape and is an upgrade; 2) At $1.25 for a high-number I couldn't pass it up; and 3) I've always had a soft spot for Wally Moon since having met him at a card show in 2015; he was very nice, and autographed a random Beckett magazine I had just bought for me.  (At least it had a Dodger on the cover.) RIP Wally Moon. 

It's not in the best shape, but it's Spahn, it was $5.24 and I don't think it looks that bad. I take my all-time greats in what ever way I can get them. 

Stats of Grandeur: From 1957 to 1961 Spahn topped the NL every year with either 21 or 22 wins each season. And let us never forget that Warren Spahn won 363 games and got 363 hits...

It's taken me forever to find a Ford Frick at a price I've wanted to buy. The card suffers from the infamous and irrational 1st-card-in-the-set premium, and I've never felt like paying that much for a commissioner. This one was $4.25 - still more than I really want to spend for a Ford Frick card, but cheap enough to get me to finally fill the hole at the beginning of my set. 

I got seven of the reasonably-tough 1963 semi-high and high-numbers, and all but one cost between $1.15 and $1.82. 

Larry "Bobo" Osborne is one of those confounded guys who were terrible players and always ended up in the high number series. 1963 was Bobo's first and last season as a regular - in fact, after hitting .212, it was his last major league season at all. Three of his six Topps cards were high-numbers: 1959, 1962, and 1963. 

I love the classic "cupped hands and silent yelling" pose given to us on this card by Harry Craft, manager of the wonderfully Texan Colt .45s.  I think if the Astros were still named after guns, they'd be a lot more popular here in Texas. (Not cheating and not losing to the Rangers would also help.)

When my mom saw the Harry Craft she thought he looked like he was wiping away a tear.

Dale Long was my splurge of the 63s, at $2.62. For a Yankee high-number, I'm fine with that. Dale had two separate stints with the Yankees: in 1960 the Yankees got him from the San Francisco Giants to pinch-hit down the stretch, and he rewarded them with a .366 batting average and 3 home runs in 26 games. They traded him to the Washington Senators in 1961 but re-acquired him in the middle of 1962. He again delivered, hitting .298 with 4 home runs, 17 RBIs, and 18 walks in 94 at-bats in 1962. Alas, fine as the performance was, it was his swan song as a Yankee. After going just 3-for-15 in 1963 the Yankees released him, and his major league career was over at 37. 

Gus Triandos came up with the Yankees in 1953, but he wasn't Yogi so they traded him to the Orioles. Gus gave the Orioles seven good seasons from 1955 to 1961, but he was near the end of the line by 1963. After hitting .159 in 1962 the Orioles traded him along with Whitey Herzog to the Tigers, who  traded him to the Phillies, who traded him to the Astros... 

The indignities of the decaying athlete.

Vic Davalillo died on December 6th, 2023, seven days after I requested my COMC shipment. In his thirty-year baseball career he accumulated over 4,000 hits when you add together his time in the majors, minors, Mexican League, and miscellaneous winter leagues.

The card on the left is a 1965 O-Pee-Chee, and the card on the right is his 1987-88 Venezuelan Winter League card. He was 48 by then but looks 25 years older. He had only retired the previous season. 

                                           
1966 to 1968 were particularly rare years for O-Pee-Chee, from what I've heard and experienced. These were my first from 1967 and 1968; I now have O-Pee-Chees from every year except 1976, 1980, and 1981. 

I really miss Brett Gardner. He played hard, he cared (A LOT), and he was reasonably durable. All traits the current Yankees could use. 

The black-border on the left has a print run of 50, and I think it looks sharp. These two cards were the only modern cards in my 175-card order. 

The younger brothers of my friend Damien are fascinated by Brett Gardner - particularly because of his bald pate. I've told them time and again that if they make too many comments about his baldness they'll be eaten by bears, like the children who mocked the prophet Elisha, but do they listen to me? 

Speaking of Damien's younger brothers, his brother Dominic, AKA Ginko-5, has recently started a card blog called "Don Cardwell Loves this Blog." He's done a good job with letting people know of his existence, so he has WAY more readers than I did when I started out. I doubt he needs my endorsement, but I thought I'd mention it. 

These were for my dad's 1970 Topps set, which is now at 702/720. He still has left Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, and Johnny Bench - all costly high numbers. 

I love getting Venezuelan Winter League stickers. They're rare, reasonably cheap, and feature players that often don't have many or even any other cards. 

I'll close this post out with my biggest purchase of the order: a 1929 Zeenut of Herman "Old Folks" Pillette, which set me back $10.25. 

Pillette pitched in the Pacific Coast League until 1945, when he was 49, and in 1936 and 1937 he was a teammate of Ted Williams with the San Diego Padres. Over his entire pro career he won 298 games and lost 296.

Oddly, he was arguably more successful in the majors than in the minors. In 1921, his first year in the high minors, he had a 13-30 record for the Portland Beavers, but the Detroit Tigers traded for him anyway. He won 19 games for them in 1922 with an excellent 2.85 ERA, but declined in 1923, leading the league in losses with 19 against his 14 wins, though his 3.85 ERA was league-average. 

In 1924 he got a sore arm, was consigned to the Tigers' bullpen, and was sent back to the PCL in 1925. There, back with Portland, he won 11 games - and lost 26. In the two years bookending his decent major league career, Pillette was 24-56. But Pillette started winning games in the Coast League after that, and was consistently effective for the next fifteen years.

Up next: Japanese cards!

(Also, I just reached a mini-milestone of 50,000 views. I'm happy to have reached a round number - on to 100,000!)