Mid-Week Show and Tell

Today we shall be looking at scans of baseball cards - how does that sounds, folks? Just like every other post! This time it's new arrivals at Card Hemorrhage headquarters. Sources are varied; prices paid ranged from $7 for the Johnny Antonelli card you see to your left, to small amounts of shekels to nothing at all (aka trades). 

Antonelli is a player I collect because he was my father's favorite player when he was growing up, particularly when Antonelli pitched for the New York, later San Francisco, Giants. He's not too difficult to collect given his lack of fame, despite his excellent career - and because he played in a era in which he'd get one, maybe two cards a year, and then a few sprinkled regional/food-issued cards. This one is a 1953 Johnston Cookies Card from when Antonelli was on the Milwaukee Braves. Johnston Cookies made a 25-card set of that year's Braves. One of them is a Warren Spahn. The following year, Johnston made another Braves set - this time with a Hank Aaron. 

I recently gathered that there's something called a "Topps Living" set that's an online-only order thing that Topps does. They do a bunch of this kind of malarky these days, and why not, right? People like me are ready and willing to plunk down a few dollars for our guys, like this new Jo Adell card that just arrived in the mail yesterday.

I executed a trade with a great American named Bert this past week. He runs Swing and a Pop-Up blog - bookmark it! He sent me some of the coolest regional and/or food-issued cards I've ever seen: oddballs all the way through. There's this TCMA "The 1960s" Boston Red Sox set I didn't have the energy to scan, but I will one of these days. But check out some of these goofballs:

The Mickey Rivers card is a 1978 SSPC, which is a set I need to learn some more about. I watched those 1977 playoffs and World Series as a kid, and remember Rivers' heroics. I was out doing some door-to-door thing with my Cub Scout troop the night Reggie Jackson hit those three homers in the '77 Series, but every dad in our Sacramento neighborhood had the TV on, so I got to see two of them live.

One of my most regular trading partners is Ken in Missouri. He sent me some great 1974 KC Royals. Fernando Gonzalez looks like he's just been whapped over the head with a 2x4, or he just got the news he was traded to the '74 Kansas City Royals, who would go 77-85 that year. And check out the form on "Sweet" Lou Piniella!

A new trading partner, Oren, was kind enough to send me a ton of prospect cards - the kids who didn't pan out, like Brian Stavisky, whose autograph I now have. Thank you, Oren!

I also went out and bid on a Seth Corry signed prospect card on eBay, in anticipation of him pitching like Cy Young when he gets called up to my San Francisco Giants in a couple of years:

Here are the remainder of our show and tell items for this Wednesday. I shall let the cards themselves do the talking and will keep my yap shut for a change.