- I like this picture. Jim preparing for an underhand toss to the pitcher. It also looks as if he's floating off the ground because of the design.
- Bio on the back: "El 1999 marca la cuarta temporada consecutiva en qu Jim conecto al menos 30 cuadrangulares." My Spanish is improving somewhat down here in the deep south, as I didn't need a translator to figure out that this said that 1999 was Jim's 4th straight 30 plus HR season.
- One copy of this card currently on COMC. $2.75. Similar to this morning's post, this card will also sit for a very long time on the site.
- Career home run #291 was hit 5/8/2002 off of Baltimore's Scott Erickson. It was another 3 run bomb (both of his 3 run HRs scored the same 2 players), and pushed the Indians to a 5-0 lead. The Indians would go on to win 6-2, once again evening their record at 17-17.
- Robert
- Sometimes, a good photo is a nice relaxed pose at the plate during spring training.
- Haven't posted many cards from UD Victory sets on this blog (maybe a couple?)
- 1 copy of this card currently on COMC. $2.75. I imagine it's going to sit in that owners in-box for a very long time.
- Career home run #290 came off of Baltimore's Sean Douglass. It was a 3 run shot that broke a scoreless tie (the 3rd of his last 4 HRs to do so) and propelled the Indians to a 9-4 win on the road. Both teams finished the game with a 16-16 record.
- Robert
- Must be the scanner: The purple is much more vibrant in hand than on the scan. Still looks great either way.
- If these purple refractors were numbered, I'd be in trouble. I'd want to chase them all down.
- COMC price range: 55 cents (cheap) at the low end, $2.25 at the high end (not too bad). I'm just glad to have it in my hands.
- Andrew is just 59 hits shy of 1500. 29 more extra base hits will give him 600 for his career. There's a chance that he hits both milestones this season.
- Robert
- I will be so glad to get a new scanner within the next week or 2. This one I have now has just about had it...
- I'm not actively seeking out new Cutch cards, but I do find one every now and then. I picked this up on Twitter for a buck.
- Panini didn't have to do a lot of airbrushing on this card. The 3rd jersey only has the gold P and the players number on the front. Quick and easy.
- As of this writing, Andrew is just 64 hits to 1600. Staying healthy and with reasonable production, he should hit #2000 sometime in 2021.
- Robert
- This card was part of a big lot of LFitz cards sent to me by Wes of Area 40 fame. There must have been a dozen cards from his first or 2nd year, which made the lot even more tremendous.
- There's no doubt that this is a rookie card. Big, bold letters right on the front.
- I'm not sure what the print runs were back in 2004, but I'm surprised that this card can be found on COMC for $1.75. Even the most expensive card of the 6 copies is just at $4.25. Maybe it's the lack of interest in Larry, I don't know, but that seems quite cheap for an RC of the guy that's 3rd all time in catches.
- Catch #5 was the first of 5 he had in his 2nd career game, which was against the Patriots. It wound up being the longest catch of the day, 14 yards.
- Robert
- I like the design of the card, as it shows who the power corps were right on the front. The bronze border didn't scan as well as it looks in hand though.
- Bio on the back: " Thome recorded an at-bats-to-HR ratio of 12.4, 2nd best in the AL." I don't know for sure, but I'll guess that Griffey was 1st.
- 3 copies of this card on COMC, anywhere from $2.69 to $4.25. Pricey to say the least.
- Career home run #289 came on 4/30/02 against Ramon Ortiz of the Angels. It tied the game at 1, but it really was an afterthought as the Indians gave up 3 touchdowns to the halos, losing 21-2. Ouch
- Robert
- I like the green on the border. I think Topps had a green border a year or 2 previous that looked good as well.
- 3 years, 662 hits. I don't think we'll see anyone achieve that feat again, at least in my lifetime.
- 44 cents for the cheapest copy of this card on COMC is a pretty good deal for an Ichiro card.
- Game #35 in Toronto sees Ichiro go 2 for 5 to bring his average back to .340 Ichiro's hit streak is now 17 games and the M's have gone 12-5 during the streak. Oh, and they beat the Jays 7-2 in the first of a 3 game set.
- Robert
- This card probably would have been better if the QB featured was Kurt Warner instead of Josh McCown.
- Love how the card scanned here, almost like a refractor.
- Serial #'d 150/1000. Right up my alley.
- Career catch #4 was the final catch of Larry's first game. It was an 8 yard pass from Josh McCown; Larry wound up with 4 catches for 70 yards. Rams won 17-10
- Robert
- Even in hand, this card for me is difficult to see. Joe's name and team is on the left hand side and in small lettering. I get the shiny part is nice, but the rest is just OK for me.
- Gotta love mid-season releases, as the bio on the back mentions that Joe led the Avs in goals and shorthanded goals as 1998 came to an end.
- There are 20 copies of this card currently on COMC, from 95 cents to $3.25. That's a pretty broad range for a base card.
- Goal #302 came on 3/3/97 against the Vancouver Canucks. Joe scored just 1:28 into the game, and the Avs wouldn't look back as they beat Vancouver 5-1. Kirk McLean was that night's victim.
- Robert
- I'll always love cards that pay homage to older sets. Love the picture they used for Jim, eye black and his trademark high socks. Doesn't get much more vintage than that.
- Still getting caught up on posting the 10 Sportlots cards of Jim I bought a few weeks back. Will finish those first before heading back to the 2002 cards.
- I think I paid a quarter for this card, the 3 on COMC currently run anywhere from $1.65 to $3.25. Yikes!
- Career home run #288 was the 2nd straight that broke a scoreless tie. He hit it 4/23/02 off of the White Sox' Todd Ritchie, but it was the only run that Cleveland would see that day, losing 5-1.
- Robert
- Love the look of this card. The blue in the design works well with the blue on the Mariners uniforms.
- Bio on the back: "...drove in two runs and hit the event's first ever inside the park HR." I've never been much for watching all star games, but I think I'm going to have to find that piece of footage on you tube. Here you go Inside the park
- Shows how much I know. I thought the blue version was the base. Nope, that's the purple version. Blue and green are the parallels (green #'d to 99 copies).
- Game #34: He increases his hit streak to 16 games, but his average over the past 2 days has dropped 11 points from .349 to .338. Ichiro goes 1 for 5 and drives in a run as the M's win the series with a 5-2 victory over the Red Sox. Off to Toronto for the next 3 games...
- Robert
- Man that is a lot of white on the card. Might have been better to find a card of Fitz in his red jersey instead.
- Bio on the back: "He's the type of player that when you take him out of the box, it says no assembly required." Very high praise. 14 years later, he's still rolling.
- Unbelievably, there are no copies of this card on COMC right now. There are black and gold parallels available, but no base.
- Catch #3: 3rd quarter of his first NFL game against the Rams. 10 yard completion from Josh McCown. Larry has now caught a pass in each of his first 3 quarters as a pro.
- Robert
- It's amazing what downloading some new scanner drivers will do to improve scan quality. I had a new printer in my cart on the weekend, but changed my mind.
- Not a bad design. Not great, but not bad. There's a red parallel out there, but I'm in no hurry to grab it.
- This card on COMC is as cheap as 64 cents, and one copy is listed for $2.25.
- Career goal #301 was scored against the Oilers on 2/21/97. It was scored with 1 second to go in the game to tie it at 3. Joe would get an assist on the winning goal in OT scored by Mike Ricci. Curtis Joseph would be the victim on this night.
- Robert
- Love the black bordered 2009 OPC's. Still have a bunch them listed on my trade list at TCDB.
- Bio on the back: "the only player in MLB history to record over 200 hits in each of his first 8 years in the big leagues". Incredible.
- Cheap. Only one of these listed on COMC right now, and at 99 cents I think that's pretty cheap.
- Game #33 sees Ichiro's average drop 7 points to .342. He goes 1 for 6 to improve his hit streak to 15 games as the M's double up the Red Sox 10-5. The Mariner's are now 24-9 in Ichiro's rookie season.
- Robert
- While I applaud Upper Deck for its uniqueness in creating a lottery type scratcher with this card, it's kind of disappointing to never know if it would have won without defacing the card.
- Just noticed in the background, the on-deck circles feature the Tigers and the Red Sox. Maybe they could have included a game with Thome's Indians in the picture? Just a thought...
- Another cheap pickup from the Sportlots lot from a few weeks back. Still a few more Thome cards to show off before I get back to the 2002 portion of the PC.
- Career HR #287: Jim hit this homer on 4/21/2002, off of Rick Reed of the Twins. The 2-run shot broke a scoreless tie in the 4th, but it would be all the Indians get on that day as the Twins would win 4-2. It would be the Tribe's 6th straight loss and drop them to 11-7.
- Robert
- Take a guess at how many MLB hits are on this card. If you guessed 8253, you would be correct.
- Serial #'d 146/499. Right up my alley picking up a serial numbered card for cheap. I still have a few more to show in the coming weeks.
- This is the first card in 839 posts on this blog that has featured a card from 2008.
- Too bad that Manny's PED suspensions will likely deter HOF voters. It would be great to say someday that there are 3 HOF'ers on this card.
- Game #32: After a travel day, the Mariners hit the east coast against the Red Sox and get hammered 12-4. Ichiro extends his hitting streak to 14 games with a 2 for 5 performance. During the 14 games, Ichiro hasn't drawn a base on balls, and struck out just 5 times in 69 ABs.
- Robert
- OK, I hadn't heard of Isao Harimoto before looking at this card, but it appears that Harimoto is the only Japanese player to have reached 3000 hits in his Japanese career. Pretty outstanding seeing as the Japanese only play 80% of the games in a season that MLB plays.
- Love the photo on the card, it appears as if Ichiro is hitting another ball to left field.
- Currently, if you count his Japanese hits, Ichiro is ahead of Pete Rose all time by 111.
- Thought it was funny that Baseball Reference dot com lists Ichiro's positions as "Rightfielder and Relief Pitcher"
- Career game #31: Ichiro goes 1 for 4 to increase his hit streak to 13 games, but the Mariners lose to their expansion cousins 11-3. The Jays Darren Fletcher hits 2 HRs to power the Jays victory.
- Robert
- Premium stock? Nope, don't think so. It's just the regular card stock of the mid 90's with a fancy border and stamp.
- Would love to know who that Red was diving back into first base that has his face obscured. Maybe Reggie Sanders?
- Part of the Sportlots order I picked up a short time ago. I think I paid a quarter for this. Not bad compared to some other sites.
- Career homer #286 was hit 4/13/2002 off of KC's Darrell May. It was the 4th straight day that Jim had homered. It was a solo shot to pull the Indians to within 5-2. The Indians would go on to score 5 in the 8th and 1 in the 9th to win 8-7, raising their record to 11-1.
- Robert
- I love how this card scanned. Reminds me a bit of Topps' refractors. The colors that the scan brought out you really don't see on the card.
- Serial #'d 281/500. Right up my alley. You're going to see a lot of serial numbered cards of Fitzgerald on this blog over time. (Thanks Wes)
- I never really was a big football collector to begin with, but seeing the variety of sets and products that I've received so far of Fitzgerald, I'm a bit excited about learning more of these...
- Career catch #2: 2nd quarter of his first game against the Rams, he caught a 15 yard pass to get the Cards down to the Rams 14; they'd settle for a field goal. Larry's first 2 catches he's averaging 27 yards per grab. Not a bad start to a pro career.
- Robert
- I'm kind of excited to start collecting Larry Fitzgerald, I've followed him since back at his days at Pitt. The QB that threw to him, Tyler Palko, was the starting QB for the high school district that I lived in when I first moved to the US, so it was kind of cool for me to follow them along.
- Got this card as part of a 35 card lot on ebay. $7 shipped. Nice
- What really got me interested in learning more about Fitz is watching the Amazon Prime show All or Nothing. I was impressed with how hard Larry trains and how upset he was when they lost the conference final to the Panthers a few years back.
- Larry has 1234 catches to date in his career. I'm going to try and get each one here on the blog.
- Catch #1: talk about no delay. 1st game, 9/12/04 against the Rams, Larry catches a 37 yard pass on his very first play from Josh McCown.
- Robert
- Easily one of the best jersey cards in my collection. Nice big piece, red and the card is serial #'d 19 which is Joe's jersey number.
- Only one copy if this card currently on COMC, it's listed at $11.25. I don't remember what I paid for mine...
- For all the years that Joe spent in the NHL, he managed only two 50 goal seasons, 1995-96 (51 goals) and 2000-01 (54). It's interesting that the 2 Stanley Cups that the Avalanche won came during those 2 seasons.
- Robert
- This is a great looking card in my opinion and I was quite happy to pull it out of a pack of Donruss this year.
- Speaking of 2018, this is the first '18 card that I've added to any of my PC's. Outside of Larry Fitzgerald, I don't have any PC's that are current players so the influx of new cards isn't heavy.
- 3 copies of this card on COMC, very tightly priced between $2.19 & $2.24. Another reason I was happy to get this from a pack.
- Scary: there are 13 cards/variations from Donruss available right now. Some nice looking cards, but it's a little overkill if you ask me.
- Robert
- Found this while searching through some boxes for cards. Great add, even though I didn't have to buy it.
- I'm curious to find out where Topps got the 8.2 WAR they show for Andrew in 2003. Baseball Reference shows his WAR at 7.9 and Fangraphs shows 8.1.
- Kind of curious to see why the range of prices on COMC for this card are so wide. Cheapest is 95 cents, the most expensive is $4. BTW, the $4 was reduced by 25% when I did the search, so the original price was $5.25. Crazy.
- Robert
- I'm assuming that's a practice swing, because if it isn't, then Jim just hit a foul ball into the first base seats.
- This is the 5th different set from 1997 Donruss that I've featured on the blog. Those were the days.
- Another 18 cent PC add. Gotta love it. I need to try and find more of these...
- Career home run #285 was hit 4/12/02, the 3rd consecutive day he went yard. This time he hit it off of KC's Jeff Suppan, a 2 run shot in the 4th to put the Indians ahead 2-1. That would be all the Indians needed as they went on to win 3-1, to go 10 and 1 start the season. CC Sabathia would strike out 9 over 6 innings for his 2nd win of the season.
- Robert
