Signature Saturday

 It's Saturday. Its's October. I think today's a good day for a Space Signature Saturday

Of course, I refer to the Spaceman, Bill Lee.. 

I bought this from First Row Collectibles. 

We have Lee in Wrigley Field wearing an Expos uni. I love the fact that Lee includes the planet we're on, just in case you forget...

1992 Triple Play

 Another set I'm looking to complete, 1992 Triple Play. I remember collecting it when I was first getting into collecting. It wasn't a bad set, though I think I like the sets that came out afterwards more, even if I couldn't find them. 

Being a small set, 264 cards, it seemed like it would be easy to finish... As I'm writing this saying I'm still trying to, well.... Yeah....

The first card in the set shows the SkyDome.. I wanted to show the write up on the back for that card. 

Some of the cards have trivia and other player information.

It shows one year of stats, which annoys many collectors. This one also has an uncorrected error in it, as Erickson didn't win the Cy Young Award in 1991, but finished second. 

Here's the front of the SkyDome card. Generally not too bad. In a way it almost looks like a magazine insert or a scrapbook style set, if that makes sense. 

The Chicken! Likely not Pete Rose in there. Considering Kane isn't around, it's safe to say it's not.. 

Wrigley at night is also featured. There are three stadium cards in this set. The Dome, Wrigley, and...

Oriole Park. I do like this photo. Being a collector of  stadium cards, I need second copies of both this and Wrigley. 

One of the things in the set are Awesome Action cards. Here we see a poor Blue Jay getting picked off at first base. It also has cards with photos of major leaguers as little leaguers. 

Of course, being a Donruss product, they need something similar to Diamond Kings. Since they're not going to use that name here, they went with Gallery of Stars. This insert has 12 cards in it.. I have the first 6. I need the second 6. 

Overall, I am just under 80% complete on this set. I hope to complete it sometime soonish.  

Signature Saturday

 In the blink of an eye, it's Saturday again. 

Time to show another autographed card in my collection.

Claude Raymond! The happiness on this one is twofold. 1. Expo. 2. Canadian.

He played for the White Sox, Braves, Colt .45/Astros, and Expos. 

After his playing days, he spent years with the Expos as a broadcaster and a team ambassador. He spoke to the fans at the final Expos game at the Big Owe. 

He also did the Public Address announcements for baseball at the Atlanta Olympics. There was/is a requirement that announcements are made in English and French. Who better than a guy who speaks both and pitched for the Braves at one time?

1987 OPC

 I know. 1987 has been done to death, resurrected, done to death again, buried, unearthed, resurrected again and flogged to death a third time.. 

But O Pee Chee...

Obviously there's not much anyone can say about the cards, especially about the design, that hasn't been said already. Who knows? I may have shown and talked about these cards previously..

ANYWAY...

I'm 90% done the set. I want to complete the set. So I'm just showing off some cards and I'll show what cards I need here

Ed apparently isn't  too impressed with my progress.. 

The Now with... Makes an appearance. 

Another one. For some reason, I get Dempsey and Ray Fosse confused in my head. Or is it Fosse and Hassey?? The three headed catching monster....

Dempsey is also Gregg Zaun's uncle. 

Did you know Ron Darling was an Expo? Obviously he isn't in this photo, but in 1991 he pitched three games for the Expos between the Mets and the Athletics. 

He cost the Expos Tim Burke and he netted them Matt Grott, a guy who played in 1995 for the Reds, and Russ Cormier, a minor leaguer than spent his entire career with the A's aside from the 5 starts for West Palm Beach. 

This is an interesting card. Listed as a Royal throughout, but in the corner says "Now with Braves" I believe the Topps card did the same thing. 

Motley was traded near the end of September 1986 to the Braves. He played 6 games in the majors for the Braves in 1987. 

1988 and 1989 he spent time in the Expos farm system in Indianapolis. 1990 was split between Oklahoma City and Nashville, in the Rangers and Reds systems respectively. 

Any transaction past 1987 for Motley is pretty vague on Baseball Reference. 

So.. Nieto was a Cardinal before he was an Expo. He was traded to the Expos at the end of March 1986. I guess it was too late for pictures. So we get the airbrush. February of 1987, he's traded to the Twins. 

Easler's rather interesting too.. He went from the Yankees to the Phillies in a trade in December of 1986 only to return to the Yankees in a trade in June of 1987.. So depending on printing and release dates, they could have skipped the Now with and Phillies logo altogether. Though I have a feeling the OPC cards were released around the same time as Topps, if not a little later. 

Ron didn't pitch in the Majors for the Yankees.. Instead, he was shuffled off to Columbus. 

Wardo!

Airbrush job due to him coming over from the Braves.

He was traded to the Jays from the Braves in July 1986 for Doyle Alexander. 

Finally, Barry Bonds. Just wanted to show one of the big names from the set that I own. 

Signature Saturday

It's Saturday.. You know what that means...

This week is another one that I'm not too keen on keeping but it's also one that I don't know who would want it...

We have an umpire, Laz Diaz. This was in the Archives Fan Favorites 

I mean Laz is probably better than Angel Hernandez or some of the other Umpshow guys..

Elliptical Man. Elliptical Man....

 *I had that going through my head to the tune of Particle Man* 

Anyway. I got a PWE from Elliptical Man today. We made a small PWE trade, him getting the Gorman Thomas auto I showed here a couple weekends ago and I got some cards in return..

Some early Donruss Expos. Raines and Rogers

1986 Topps Traded Galarraga and 93 DeShields. 

And a couple 1992 Triple Play to get closer to complete the set. 

It's funny.. I love the 1993 and 1994 Triple Play sets, but I barely have them.. I almost finished the 1992 set.

Anyway.. Thank you for the trade, Elliptical Man!

1983 OPC

 Today I want to talk about a set I'm working on that should be fairly easy to complete, but at the same time, will have some difficulties. 

As the title suggests, it's 1983 OPC. 

As it stands right now, I have 315/396 or almost 80% completed. Unlike the 83 Topps, the "Big Three" is reduced to two.. Sandberg and Gwynn. Boggs had a sticker in the sticker set, but not a card in the OPC release. 

I have the Sandberg. Oddly enough, I have the Gwynn Topps from when I was thinking of getting "Iconic" rookies from the 80s. You know.. Boggs, Gwynn, Sandberg.. Before I smartened up on this, Henderson.. 

But one thing I was looking at while I was putting some cards into the set.. There are 26 cards out of 396 that have the OPC transaction notification text on the card front. 

Randy Jones. Never actually played for the Pirates. He was released near the end of Spring Training and from what I can gather, retired. 

Nordhagen has a very unique transaction record in 1982. 

April 2, 1982 he was traded to Toronto from Chicago for Aurelio Rodriguez

June 15, he was traded to Philadelphia for Dick Davis.

Same day, Philly traded him to Pittsburgh for Bill Robinson

June 22, he was traded back to Toronto for Dick Davis.. 

He then signed as a Free Agent with the Cubs in the offseason... 

Fun Fact.. Al Woods was traded to the Athletics for Cliff Johnson.

He was released by the Athletics in March 1983.

In July, he signed with the Jays and was in Syracuse for 83 and 84. 

Good Ol' Five-For-One. 

He was traded to the Phillies for Jay Baller, Julio Franco, George Vuckovich, Manny Trillo and Jerry Willard. 

The early 80s seems to me to have been a Retirement Home setting in Philly. Kind of how the late 80s and early 90s Angels felt.. 

I wonder if this is a card Night Owl would have in his collection. 

Finally, Joel Youngblood.. Love those Expos unis. Miss them. Do NOT want to see them on the Nationals again though..

There are a few in the want lists that have the transaction text, but since I don't have them I didn't show them.