May Card Show Pickups: Leader of the Pack

You can cause change! Your vote matters! Vote today! The poll is on the left side of this page!

Pop culture references can be tough to make. A few of these cards are available, so as you quickly scan through the post, if you see something you want, read the text.

What goodies do I have to show in this post? The cards I pulled that will hopefully knock down my needs for the Awards/Leaders collection. All these cards cost me less than a quarter each!

 First, three Russell Martins. They're off to Greg. Just thought I'd show them. Hey, is that a rookie card I see?

 Ryne Sandberg, six times over! All of them are the same - his "Rookie of the Week" from 2006. Even with these six, I still need five more to finish off his Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards (these six go to the Slugger awards).

 Three more Rookie of the Week reprints, this time of Mike Schmidt. This finishes his needs, for his Gold Gloves. Those are pretty plain cards - I've never liked the reprints where they cut additional players off.

 Tom Lasorda wasn't needed (oops), but Tony LaRussa is for a manager of the year award. Both of these are the "rare" ToppsGold cards - not the Winner*s. I still need two more cards of LaRussa. And Mark Langston drops into the Gold Glove file.

 Three Reds, I didn't realize I did that. The Larkin on the left is for trade (another oops), the middle Larkin goes to the Glove, and Dave Parker is another Glover.

 Oops. I just got three cards of his. And I could have picked up some Mike Piazza instead.

 Respect the Don. Godfather 1, 2, and 3 all go into the Gloves.

 Joe Morgan, with the A's? Glove. Maury Wills '72 vintage, with a dinged corner and pretty bad centering, he'll go into the career stolen bases category. And 3D Cecil Cooper is a Slugger.

 Rose, the man, the legend, the Golden Glove winner. Ron Guidry double-time is also in the Glove category.

 I like some of these legends sets because they help fill needs in my Awards/Leaders collection. Yaz is going to the Gloves, and this Wills is right behind him.

 One of these days I'd like an autograph of Bob Gibson. I might already have one. This card goes to Gloves. Parker and Bench also head that way. And there's another half-card reprint.

 Dave Parker in hologram awesomeness. At this point I only need one of these '91 Dennys cards for the Gloves, so the other is for trade. The last Ron Guidry also goes to the Golden Gloves.

 A triple dose of Dwight. I'm now done with him, as he heads to the Golden Gloves.

 Everybody's favorite citizen, Roberto Alomar, heads to the Hall of Fame this year. This card heads to the Hall of Fame collection. Steve Garvey has two places to go. One will head to the All-Star MVP section, and the other to the Golden Gloves.

 Mariano Rivera heads to the season saves leader. I still need three more of his cards. Dan Quisenberry goes into the Rolaids Relief Man category (need 2 more), and Johnny Bench joins himself in the Gloves.

 A trio of '96 Leaf Preferred. The two Wade Boggs cards aren't needed. Another oops. Ozzie is done too! Oh well. Trade bait?

 Time for the Braves to shine. Chipper /999 and Martin /999 were picked up as trade bait. The McCann gold  /539 is trade bait too.

 But these three McCanns are headed to the Silver Sluggers.

 I thought I'd need the Hawk. I guess not. Cecil Cooper goes to the Silver Sluggers.

 Last, this shiny sparkly Pujols is headed to no-man's land, as is this '05 Halladay Chrome.

By the way, I posted about these three cards earlier, and I now have scans. These are from the '07 Upper Deck All Star FanFest set. Tradeable!

The list of cards I need for the Awards/Leaders collection is down to 1188. Of those, 151 are World Series teams, and I can tell significant progress is being made on these lists - I have about 1500-2000 cards sitting here in a box sorted by award, ready to be binderized at some point. I think I've made more progress on this collection in the past six months than the past six years. It would be nice to finish it off sometime this calendar year! It's going to be difficult for some of the names - Bill Veeck (Hall of Fame) hasn't had a card other than cut signatures since 1984. John (Bid) McPhee (HOF) has had only 4 cards issued ever - two in the past 100 years (Hall of Fame postcard and 1994 Origins of Baseball). Pat (Red) Donahue (no-hitter) has not had a card issued since 1910. Hugh Daily (another no-hitter) has never had a card issued. Perhaps some custom card making is in order?