Random Frank Thomas Cards

The Big Hurt

I took a half-day of vacation the day before Thanksgiving and decided to visit the card shop near where I work before heading home. I picked up these Frank Thomas cards, 4 of the 5 are retro cards.
2003 Upper Deck Play Ball #18. This is a nice set, based on a pre-World War II set of the same name.
2004 Donruss Kings #38. As I've probably mentioned before, this is one of my all-time favorite sets.
2007 Topps Turkey Red #26 regular back. All of the Turkey Red sets are good but the 2007 issue is probably my least favorite.
2007 Allen & Ginter #160. The 2007 set was virtually identical to the 2006 set but still a great set. Is it just me or does Frank Thomas look out of place in something other than a White Sox uniform?
2004 SP Authentic #59. I don't have many cards from this set, probably because I don't like it very much.

Song of the Week - Der Kommisar by After The Fire

I have 8,312 songs on iTunes. This is one of them.

Nothing says 1980s to me more than New Wave music videos. This was back in the days when MTV actually existed to play music videos. When I was looking for this song on YouTube I also found the Falco version in German. I was aware of this version of the song but am more familiar with the After The Fire version. So I decided to post them both for your enjoyment, or angst, whatever.

The After the Fire version catches the whole twilight of the Cold War thing while the Flaco version doesn't do anything for me. If you're late to New Wave, you might want to check out this post here for a list of the top 150 New Wave songs. Let the arguments begin.

1989 Donruss

I'm still working my way through the box of baseball related stuff I bought at the church bazaar a few weeks ago. One of the things in there was a box of 1989 Donruss cards. This box had 24 39-card packs. That's 936 cards. I already had about 325 cards of the 658-card set. So I thought I had a good shot at completing the set. Think again. I'm still about 150 cards short. Many, many duplicates. I'm not really interested in completing the set but more interested in getting the cards of the players I collect from the set. There I did pretty well. I already had all the Phillies from the set. Now I have nearly all of the players I collect. The key card in this set is the Griffey rookie card which I already had. Now I have 3 more. In each pack were two of the Warren Spahn puzzle cards. I was able to complete the puzzle. When and if I can get my act together it will be the focus of a later post. Here are the cards of the players that I picked up that I collect, in alphabetical order.Robert Alomar in his second season, bunting. You don't see a lot of cards with players bunting.
I may now have every 1980's George Bell card and I don't even know why.
One of my favorite players.
Joe Carter in his pre-Phillie killer days.
Coleman stole 65 bases in 1989. There is a regular card of him in the set which is one of the few cards I'm missing.

I picked up Cone's regular card and Diamond King card. In those days, the Diamond Kings were a subset of the regular set, the first 25 cards or so.
The Hawk.
In 1989, I wasn't much interested in Lenny Dykstra until he was traded to the Phillies in June. I think I have most of his cards as a Met now.
Evans was in his 18th season in 1989. He hit 20 home runs and knocked in 100 rbis.
Glavine was in his 3rd season. He was 14-8.
This was Doc's least productive season so far in his career. He was only 9-4 in 19 games. But he's rebound in 1990 with a 19-7 record.
Goose was in his 18th season and fading fast, his glory days long behind him.
Tony lead the league in hits and batting average in 1989.
Rickey was hitting .247 with only 25 steals when the Yankees traded him to the A's in June. He responded by hitting .294 with 55 steals for Oakland.

Orel finished the season with 59 consecutive scoreless innings, a new record. baseball-reference.com doesn't keep this stat so I don't know if he extended it in 1990 or if he still holds the record.
I wasn't a Pete Incaviglia fan in 1989 but he will eventually play for both the Phillies and the Astros so I started collecting his earlier cards.
Randy Johnson's rookie card.
Another player I wasn't too interested in back in 1989 until he was traded to the Phillies in June. In June of 1989, the Phillies made two key trades which got them to the World Series in 1993, Kruk and Dykstra.
I think I got interested in McGee in the 1987 World Series when he hit .370 in a losing cause against the Twins.
Mark McGwire when he still more or less looked like a normal human being.
I hardly ever saw him play because he was in the American career but I always like Molitor. And I guess with good reason. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2004.
Tony was in his 3rd year with the Cardinals and thinks he looks really cool in red.
The Rock.
Another key pickup from this set.
Potential future HOFer. He retired in 2006 so too soon to know.
In his second season, Smoltz was 12-11.
In his 7th season, Strawberry was still a formidable force but 1989 was not his best year. His next two years will be good and then 1992 happens.
Another player I collect whose regular card from this set I do not have. And another future HOFer.

Song of the Week -

I have 8,206 songs on iTunes. This is one of them.

Cryin' jag
There are a lot of pop and rock tunes which have to do with crying. Here are the ones I have:

Cry - Dan Wilson
Cry Baby - Janis Joplin
Cry Baby Cry - The Beatles
Cry Freedom - Dave Matthews Band
Cry Like an Angel - Shawn Colvin
Cry Me A River - Joe Cocker
The Cry of Eugene - The Nice
Cryin' Smoke - Ganglians
Crying In the Chapel - Sonny Til and The Orioles
Crying Lightning - Artic Monkees
Don't Cry - Asia
Don't Cry - Neil Young
Don't Cry - Olivia Broadfield
Don't Cry - Seal
Don't Cry Now - Neil Young
Don't Cry Sister - JJ Cale and Eric Clapton
Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying - Rickie Lee Jones
For Crying Out Loud - Meatloaf
Had To Cry Today - Blind Faith
(I'm A Man And) I Can't Cry - Neil Young and The Squires
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Cassandra Wilson
It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry - Bob Dylan
Never Make Me Cry - Fleetwood Mac
No Woman No Cry - Bob Marley
Reason To Cry - Lucinda Williams
Sister Cry - The Jayhawks
You Don't Have to Cry - Crosby, Stills, and Nash
You Won't Have to Cry - The Byrds.

Well, let's spin the wheel and see what we can find on YouTube. Ok, Joe Cocker it is. If this doesn't wake you up on Sunday morning, nothing will.

Thursday Night at the Movies - 2012

I've been dying to see this movie since I saw the first trailer, which must have been 18 months ago. It was worth the wait. The science (if you want to call it that) is pure hokum. Excessive neutrinos from the sun are heating the earth's core? What? And the Mayan calendar isn't given much more attention. But watching John Cusack and his family making one death defying escape after another? Priceless. If you're looking for great acting don't come here. Mostly it's about reacting to cracks opening in the earth and buildings falling down. In the end, some of the characters do make some redemption for their save themselves at all cost behavior, but mostly it's people running and screaming and stuff falling on them. Danny Glover makes a good president. Very dignified. If you want to be a real spoilsport go to IMDB.com and read all the factual errors. I was thinking about some of them while watching the movie (would John Cusack's character really be able to out race a volcanic cloud that was moving almost as fast as their airplane when they took off?), but the special effects just make you forget about all of that.

So even though the movie has just about the highest death toll of any movie I've ever seen (6 billion people?) it was a lot of fun and pretty exciting.

I would not take a child younger than 10 to this movie. Some of the scenes are very intense and there are two major characters who are younger than 10 which I think would make it even more frightening to little kids.

Players I Collect - Jim Abbott

This is the first in what will be a long series on players that I collect. My reasons for collecting a particular player are many and, on retrospect, don't always make complete sense. But once I start collecting a player I generally keep collecting, unless the player turns into a complete bust (Rick Ankiel comes to mind). My plan is to feature one card per year of the player's career. And I'm only going to cover non-Phillies and non-Astros in this series, or else it will never end. I'm going to do this in alphabetical order so we start with Jim Abbott.

I was always fascinated with Jim Abbott even though I'm not sure I actually ever saw him play.
1989 Topps #573. Jim was the Angels #1 Draft Pick in 1988. He is one of only a few players to go directly from college ball to the majors. In order for Topps to get him on a card in 1989, they had to show him in his University of Michigan uniform. Jim was 12-12 with an ERA of 3.92 in his rookie year.
1990 Classic Blue #40. Jim was 10-14 with the Angels in 1990 with an ERA of 3.84. This card came from a baseball game involving trivia questions on the back of the card and a game board with tokens and a spinner. I had bought the entire package new in 1990. I was only interested in the cards. Now I wish I had kept the whole package together.
1991 Ultra #43. 1991 would be Jim's best year with a 18-11 record. He finished 3rd in the American League Cy Young Award voting. It was the first year for Fleer Ultra, one of the several "ultra" premium brands (like Leaf and Stadium Club) to spring up in the early 1990s.
1992 Topp's McDonald's Best #20. After a great year in 1991, 1992 was a disappointing year. Jim finished with a 7-15 record but a not too bad 3.99 ERA. It should also be noted that the Angels were 72-90 in 1992 so wins were hard to come by. These cards were distributed in McDonald's restaurants in the PA-NJ area. I'm still trying to loose the weight I gained trying to complete this set. In December 1992, the Angels traded Abbott to the Yankees for J.T. Snow, Jerry Nielsen and Russ Springer.
1993 Bowman #131. Jim was 11-14 with an ERA of 4.25 in his first season as a Yankee. 1993 Bowman is one of my favorite sets of the 1990s.
1994 Upper Deck #310. Another of my favorite sets of the 1990s. Jim was 9-8 in 24 starts with the Yankees in 1994. The Yankees were 70-43 in a strike-shortened season, in which, if you remember (and how could you forget) there were no play-offs. Jim became a free agent in December 1994.
1995 Topps Traded #75. Jim was signed by the White Sox in April of 1995 and was 6-4 for them. He was traded in late July with Tim Fortugno to the Angles for McKay Christensen, John Snyder, Andrew Lorraine and Bill Simas. He was 5-4 for the Angels. I had no 1995 cards of Abbott in an Angles uniform. I'm not sure there were any, considering that his Topps Traded card is as a White Sox.
1996 Topps #372. Jim had, what can only be called a terrible year in 1996, going 2-18 in 23 starts for a terrible Angels team (71-91). He decided to retire at the end of the season and did not play in 1997. Jim came out of retirement in 1998, signing with the White Sox in May. In 5 starts he was 5-0. He became a free agent again in November.
1995 Upper Deck Victory #213. Jim was signed by the Brewers in January and posted a 2-8 record before the Brewers released in him July. It would be his last season. It was the first time he played in the National League. He was 2 for 21, getting the first hit of his career on June 15, 1999.

In his 10 year career, Abbott was 87-108 with an ERA of 4.25. He never won any major pitching awards. But considering that he only had one hand, his career was remarkable. There is a pretty good Wikipedia article on him here and you can find his career stats here.

According to Beckett.com, there are 513 Jim Abbott cards out there. I have 73 of them so I've got a long way to go.

Song of the Week - Jeepster by T. Rex

I have 8,206 songs on iTunes. This is one of them.

This is going to be just a short post. In the early 70s, Marc Bolan and T. Rex helped usher in the short-lived era of glam rock. I only own one of there albums electronically, Electric Warrior but had several of their LPs.



Marc Bolan died in a car crash in September 1977 just as his career seemed to be on an upswing after several years of decline.