A Few Gems from Amongst the New Cards

Hey folks - no real "theme" to today's post, outside of, "check out these new cards that hit the collection in the past week that I'm pretty psyched to have around".

For years I've heard of the legend of Stu Miller being blown off the mound at Candlestick Park during the 1961 All-Star Game. I love that there's a card that commemorates it, albeit without any evidence that it actually happened. There is debate about whether it's even true. 

What is true, and I say this as someone who attended many, many games there, is that Candlestick Park was indeed, in the immortal words of Tommy Lasorda, "a toilet with the lid up". Totally fine for football, and often great for baseball during a rare warm afternoon game, but mostly terrible for baseball, particularly at night. This lovely photo shows the park before it was closed in completely. I just finished reading Lincoln Mitchell's excellent "The Giants and Their City: Major League Baseball in San Francisco 1976-1992". The park comes in for much consternation, and the struggle of the team to stay in San Francisco - which they nearly left multiple times due to the hatred of Candlestick Park and the inability to build a new local ballpark - is the core theme of the book. Otherwise known as "my childhood and young adult years". So naturally I had to order this 2010 Topps Heritage baseball card!

Next up, my two newest Jo Adell cards - one of the two prospects that I collect everything of - both courtesy of Kevin, the Diamond King. What a great American...!

I had found that this 1974 Topps Rookie Pitchers card was kind of eluding me, and everytime I wanted to spring for these 4 nobodies - I only wanted it because of the Giants dude, to complete my '74 team set - it was always like $6 or something. For these guys? Anyway, I gave in. The lure of completion was just too great.

Also burnished the Tim Lincecum player collection a tiny bit this week, thanks to the arrival of my Card Barrel order on Saturday. Alas, the Allen and Ginter "N43" card with the flowers and "field of dreams" imagery is an odd-sized card, something I didn't know when I ordered it. I hate odd-sized cards!

But here's some good news - with the acquisition of this Bryan Harvey card, I've completed the 1994 Tombstone Pizza set that Dave S was so kind to start for me in early February, sending me 29 of the 30 cards! 

Finally, this outstanding Zellers Gary Carter card was immediately placed into my COMC basket a month or two ago when I saw it on Nick's Dime Boxes blog. "Les Secrets du Baseball". Instantly a Top 200 favorite card in the collection. That's all for now folks - more to come later this week!