- I never understood the whole Row 3, Row 2, Row 1, Row 0 concept. What in the world is Row 0 anyways, sitting on the field?
- Never mind my blathering, this really is a nice looking card. The Fleer Flair concept was well done over the years, would love to have seen it continue on to the present.
- Stats on the back: Flair showed Jim's career stats vs. each AL team. Until the end of the '97 season, Jim hit more HRs vs. the White Sox (18) than any other squad. His career average vs. the Twins was a solid .353 (67/190), but he struggled against the Blue Jays hitting only .236 (47/199).
- Robert
- This bat knob is far less interesting than Billy Ripken's. Come on, no white out, or black box or shall I say it?? No, I'll keep it PG here..
- The scan made the card look a bit like a pair of corduroy pants. I can hear the swishing now.
- Career home run #139 was hit 5/6/98 vs. Scott Erickson of the Orioles. It was Jim's 6th homer of the season, 5 of which came with at least one man on base. That would be the last pitch of Erickson's day, and the Indians would go on to win the game 14-5.
- Robert
- Heavy Metal=Heavy Foil. The Fleer Metal logo in the upper right corner is all but invisible.
- The back? A picture of Joe, his last name in giant letter, and Heavy Metal below his name. No write up, no explanation of the insert them whatsoever. About as boring as boring can get.
- Second straight Fleer Metal card I was fortunate enough to add to the Trading Card Database. This will be the 20th Sakic card I've added...
- Robert
- Horizontal Heaven: This card is fantastic, what a great shot of Jim appearing to try and check his swing at a ball in the dirt.
- I just happened to notice that Jim was drafted in the 13th round of the 1989 draft. 333rd overall. Not a bad career for a guy drafted that far down. Drafted #1 overall in '89? Ben McDonald. 23 of the 30 players drafted in the first round that year played in the majors.
- Card lists for 75 cents in Beckett (Unlisted Star). There are still quite a lot of cards from that set that list for a $1 or more. I'm sure that you can find them if you look for a lot cheaper than that.
- Robert
- For as much foil as there is on the front of this card, it did not scan as bad as I thought it would. The blue box just to the left of Sakic's name is actually very difficult to read in hand, as the lettering is blue on blue. So for me, this scan is a win.
- Surprisingly this card wasn't scanned and added to the Trading Card Database. That situation has been corrected.
- Ten copies of the card are currently on COMC. I was curious to see if the price range may have been skewed because of the black Friday sales. Not this time, range still stands at 90 cents to $2.75.
- Robert
- OK, I get it now. Opening Day is its own thing for Topps. I fully expected this to be card #13, same as the base set and the multitude of parallels that accompanied it. Nope, similar to the Jim Thome posts of 1998 Topps cards earlier, the Opening Day card is also numbered differently.
- Career home run #40 for Brett came off of one of the best baseball names ever, Al Alburquerque. It was hit in the 9th inning on 6/3/14, and capped off a 5 run ninth inning for the Jays. The Tigers came back and scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th. The final score? 5-3 Toronto.
- Opening Day for the Jays in 2012 was a long 16 inning affair in Cleveland. The Jays scored 3 in the top of the 16th for a 7-4 win. Brett went 0 for 6 that day with 2 K's and a walk.
- Robert
- Of the 3 Thome cards from today, this is the only one that didn't hvae the Indians logo in the background. Wonder why that is?
- Also interesting, Topps Chrome card number mirrors the base set. Wonder why Opening Day didn't do the same?
- Looking ahead: This is post #360 on the blog, and I'm pretty positive that I'll hit 400 by years end. With the amount of cards I have in my 5 PC's, and at the pace I'm going, I should be fully "caught up" sometime in late 2018 or early 2019. That should keep me out of trouble for a while...
- Robert
- Continuing with the duplicates them on the blog today, I decided to get in a couple of posts for Brett Lawrie, as I really haven't posted much of his stuff in the past 2 months.
- Love, love, love these emerald green parallels. I don't know if it's the color green, or if it's because of the two different shades on the card and how they're mixed together. None the less, for me it really works. To me, it also makes Brett stand out more on the card...
- Bio on the back: Topps did the "With 73 RBI, Lawrie is 2,154 away from Hank Aaron's all time record of 2,227." Now, Brett less than 2000 away, because his career RBI total is at 253. Brett would have to average 100 RBI a season until he turns 46 in order to give Hank a run for his money....
- Robert
- I never realized that Topps produced Opening Day sets as far back as '98. Formula still the same then as it is now, pump out the flagship with a different border and a stamp/logo on the front and voila! something new...
- Bio on the back: "Although Hal Trosky strung together six straight 100-RBI seasons for the Indians in the 30's, Jim says he's never heard of him". Don't feel bad Jim, I never heard of Trosky until I started this blog myself...
- Career Homer #136 came early in the '98 season; it was a 2 run shot off of the White Sox Mike Sirotka on 4/22/98. Sadly, the Indians were behind at the time 14-5, and lost the game 14-7. Jim actually helped save Charles Nagy's ERA that day, because of the 12 runs that Nagy allowed, only 4 were earned due to 5 Cleveland errors, 2 of which Jim made. Tough day indeed...
- Robert
- Because I'm a slacker I'm punishing everyone with multiple versions of the same card today. Kind of playing catch up really....
- Winner winner chicken dinner!! Joe scored on the 9th of December against the Ottawa Senators. He had a goal and an assist in a 7-3 win in Canada's capital. Peter Forsberg was the big gun that night, with 5 points (2g, 3a)
- I believe that this will be the last card featuring Joe in a Nordiques uniform for quite a while, unless I manage to pick up some older cards of his during Black Friday weekend on COMC. There's quite a lot of cards I want to pick up, so I need to prioritize and try not to stray too far over my budget over the next few days.
- Robert
- I've taken a few days off in November, so I decided to make up for them by posting a few times today. Try and give the masses something to look at while they're eating turkey.
- Haven't had too many horizontal cards of Thome so far, but this one and the next two will all be the same pose, with only the set name and some minor details differentiating them.
- 1998 Topps? Not bad if you ask me. The gold border is something different and have kept in varying forms over the past 2 decades. The Indians logo in behind Thome's name is a neat idea as well.
- Robert
- Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog friends here in the United States. To my blog friends north of the border, tomorrow is Friday!!
- No you're not seeing double, I have shown this card before, but a slightly different version. The February 3rd version can be seen here.
- If you were wondering if this card was a winner, sorry to disappoint but Joe didn't score opening night of the 95-96 season versus the Red Wings. The Avalanche did win 3-2 though on the strength of 2 goals from Valeri Kamensky.
- Robert
- Super excited to add this to my Sakic collection today, as it arrived in the mail from Trevor at the Supporting the Minnow blog.
- Just the 2nd card that I own of Sakic with a picture featuring him wearing the #88 from his rookie season. Rare indeed!
- Feeling the texture and thickness of the card, I find it hard to believe that it's listed as a sticker. Rest assured, I'm not going to try and find out if it is....
- Robert
- I love this card. I really do. The Goin' Jake line at the bottom does it for me, because it refers to the actual name of the stadium, Jacobs Field. This renaming stadiums/arenas every few years to me is a load of bullshit; the Sabres new rink has already had 3 sponsors in a decade.
- Another reason I like this card? The red American League All Star uniform that Jim is wearing. It's great to see something a little different than the Indians logo.
- I also love the shot of ball park in the background, and I think to myself when looking at it "is there any part of the park that Jim didn't hit a ball to?"
- Jim went 0 for 1 in the '97 ASG, grounding out to short off of Shawn Estes of the Giants. Estes would give up a 2 run homer to Jim's teammate Sandy Alomar Jr. That would be the deciding blow in a 3-1 AL win.
- Robert
- Blog milestone pt. 2: reached the 5000 page hits mark last night. I know that's nothing for a blog that's been going about 11 months now, but for something that was started on a lark and meant to show the cards for my PCs as a way of creating a checklist, I'll take it.
- This is actually the redeemed version of the Predictor card. Joe finished 3rd in points during the 95-96 season, behind Lemieux and Jagr. The rest of the top 10 reads like a who's who of hockey in the 90's. Francis, Forsberg, Lindros, Kariya, Selanne, Fedorov and Mogilny. Wow
- I had to look up versions of the predictor cards on eBay, and they are selling anywhere from $1.50 to $3. Sounds about right...
- Robert
- Mini-milestone. This is post #350 for the blog. Averaging 1 post a day for the entire year is almost achieved. It will be a bit of a push to hit 400 by December 31st, but I'm going to try to get there....
- Jim was the 11th of an 11 card insert set featuring players that won a minor league MVP award. Jim's MVP award was won in 1993, when he hit .332 and drove in 102 runs for AAA Charlotte. The Knights won 86 games and the western division of the IL that year.
- This insert set features a whos who of '90s MLB stars, Manny Ramirez, Tino Martinez, Tony Gwynn, Derek Jeter, and Vladimir Guerrero to name a few.
- Robert
- I don't know whether to praise this card for being so inventive or to pan it for being so damn difficult to store. Let's just say it's not my favorite card in the Jim Thome collection.
- Bio on the back: "First base seemed to agree with this Cleveland clout machine." It goes on to say that his HR:AB ratio was 1:12.4. 600 AB's, close to 50 HR's, I'd take that every year...
- Jim finished the 1997 season hitting his last 4 homers off the White Sox, including 2 off of Doug Drabek. Career HR #132 was hit 9/12/97, broke a scoreless tie and propelled the Indians to a 9-0 whitewash.
- Robert
- Whoops! Forgot to hit publish on last night's post, so it's going to look like you got double dipped today.
- One of the best silver background cards to scan so far, I really like how this card came out. The Avalanche logo in the background looks really sharp in silver.
- Bio on the back: "The Nordiques made the playoffs for only the second time in Joe's career in 1995, and he promptly celebrated by scoring a hat trick in Game 1 on May 6th as Quebec opened the ECQF with a 5-4 victory."
- Unfortunately the Nordiques wound up losing that series 4 games to 2 against the Rangers. The following season is where the Nordiques/Avalanche won the Cup.
- Robert
- Wonder what that couple in the front row could be discussing while the game is going on? The woman to their left doesn't look too impressed as well...
- Bio on the back: "One of the NHL's most gifted and creative playmakers, Joe's quietly effective style enabled him to lead the team in assists and points five times in the past 6 seasons." What about the great wrist shot that he possessed?
- Career goal #131 was scored 11/30/1991 against the Buffalo Sabres at Le Colisee. Clint Malarchuk was the victim that night, as the Nordiques beat the Sabres 4-3.
- Robert
- I need to start looking closer at my cards. I thought that behind Joe in the picture was some kind of weird chicken wire fence. It's actually a net. Yes, go ahead and shake your head at me.
- The back of this card is quite boring, no bio or write up. It's a summation of his previous year's stats, divided into home and away inside of oval "bubbles".
- 95-96 Zenith is another set that went to the land of forgotten sets as far as Beckett is concerned. So, for people who are concerned about prices of cards such as this, we turn to COMC, where the range for the 13 copies of this card are from 45 cents (cheap) to $1.75. I would say that $1 would be a fair price for this...
- Robert
- Might be time to break out my old scanner. This scan does absolutely no justice to the card, which looks fantastic in hand. The border is actually silver, not black.
- This might be the first time I really took notice of the registered trademark symbol after the Indians name. Maybe it just stood out for me more than on other cards.
- Jim hit his 131st career homer on the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It was hit in Chicago off of Keith Foulke, but it wasn't enough as the Tribe lost 7-5. In other action on that day, the Yankees put up a 9 spot on the Orioles in the 6th inning on their way to a 14-2 route.
- Robert
- 2nd straight day that I've shown the back of a card, but this time it's on purpose. Panini brought back the dual sided Team Pinnacle cards, with Cutch gracing the back of the card featuring Matt Kemp.
- First time that I can remember posting cards of McCutchen on back to back days. Wanted to shake things up a bit, so I figured why not?
- 33 was the number of stolen bases Andrew had in his first full season in the majors, 2010. He played over 100 games in 2009, but only after he was called up early in June.
- Cutch has either been first or second in the National League in games played as a CF over the past 5 years. That's an awful lot of running....
- Robert
- I'm going to do something that I will not do very often on this blog. I'm going to show the back of this card at the bottom of the post. Have a chuckle at the commentary...
- A very baby faced Gerrit Cole wearing a style of Pirate hat that I don't think I've ever seen. Wonder if Pirate fans are ready to lose him when he becomes a free agent, because the Bucs won't be able to afford him.
- Prediction: After his worst season out of 4 in the majors, Cole comes back in 2017 and wins 18 games and top 5 in Cy Young balloting.
- Robert
- Had to really lighten the brightness on the scan in order to show the card as well as I could. You still can't see the Donruss Preferred lettering just above the Donruss logo in the bottom center.
- Bio on the back: "He also became the first AL lefty since Carl Yastrzemski in 1970 with 40 HRs and 100 Runs, RBIs and walks." No Cecil Cooper, no George Brett, Freddie Lynn or any of those other great lefties from the 70's and 80's were able to hit all those numbers. Surprising...
- Career homer #130 came off of Doug Drabek, and was hit 9/7/97. That broke a 2 week homer drought for Jim, and helped the Indians beat the White Sox 5-2. If I'm also reading that box score correctly, Bip Roberts of the Indians was hit by pitch 3 times by Drabek during that game. I can almost imagine the stares...
- Robert
- Instead of watching election results (Yes, I did vote in case you were wondering) I'm watching a hockey game and posting a hockey card on the blog. Hard to tell I'm Canadian, huh?
- Interesting that the base card for Sakic in the 95-96 Ultra set featured him in a Nordiques jersey, but the Ultra Cool card later in the set features him in the new Avalanche sweater.
- Career goal #129 for Joe came on 2/26/1992 versus the equally poor San Jose Sharks. The game was played in the old Cow Palace, with the Sharks winning 7-4. Jeff Hackett was the goalie for San Jose, and Pat Falloon (remember him?) had a goal and 3 helpers.
- Robert
- Just 5 versions of this card to chase, compared to Topps Tek from the same year, that's nothing. This is serial #'d 442/9799.
- The design seems as if Thome hit the ball and it exploded, giving off kind of a shimmering light effect. Interesting...
- Bio on the back: "Who is the only other AL third baseman since 1954 other than Jim - who did it in 1996 - to hit .300 with 30 HRs and 100 RBI in a season?" Interesting that the answer is on card #133 of the set. I had to go to COMC to look up the answer. It was George Brett in 1985.
- Robert
- I don't know much about this set, but the back of this card shows 30 players and their batting average in 1997. Jim was number 26 on the list at .286.
- Like the dual logo that they used on the card for the hit list, the background logo doesn't really take too much away from the picture.
- Career home run #128 came off of Oakland's Brad Rigby (don't remember that name at all...) 8/23/97. It was the first of 2 homers that night, as the Indians won 7-4. Orel Hershiser won his 12th game for the Indians that night.
- Robert
- A little bit of blog maintenance today. All the player lists have been updated up to today, so if you're looking to send something my way you should be OK to compare.
- A quick check of the trading card database shows that there are already 14 cards for Joe Sakic in 2016-17 products, including 4 printing plate 1 of 1s. It's seems likely that I'll be chasing Sakic cards for the rest of my life, and then some...
- If that wasn't bad enough, there are 156 cards from 2016 itself, including a boat load from a product I hadn't heard of until today, Leaf Genesis. A lot of those are serial #'d to 1, so that's just a bunch more cards I won't be acquiring for my Sakic collection.
- Robert
- You ever have one of those old black and white tube TV's back in the 70's where the picture is kind of shadowy? That's what the background of this card reminds me of. No offense to Adam Deadmarsh, of course.
- I'm kind of excited to finally be starting the Avalanche portion of my Sakic collection (I still have two Nordique Crash the Game cards, they'll be coming up shortly). There's a lot of variety coming up, which I'm really looking forward to showing off.
- Bio on the back: "Smokin" Joe Sakic..... I can't say that I've ever heard that nickname for Joe. Super Joe and Burnaby Joe yes, but Smokin is one that can honestly say is new to me.
- Career goal #127 for Joe was scored 1/9/92 against the Boston Bruins. It ended a 12 game drought, however it wasn't enough as the Nordiques lost 5-4, with Andy Moog the goaltender responsible for giving up the goal.
- Robert
- 26. That's how many cards there are in the 2013 Topps Museum Collection set that feature Andrew McCutchen. I own 1. I think I'm happy with that number...
- Bio on the back: "He led the NL in his, stood as one of just three 30HR/20SB men in baseball and was named the loop's top CF defender." Ryan Braun was one of the other 2 30/20 guys. Mike Trout was the other.
- Maybe a little more photo and a little less border would make Museum Collection a little more appealing. Otherwise, it's a nice card for anyone's collection.
- Robert
