Panic in the Year 6-4-5
October 11th, 2010 by slangon

It’s been quite a spell since I made my way over to the old card shop to peruse the 6 for $5 bin. I think that was mostly from being busy and distracted by life, but also a little bit was because the last few times I dug through it there were no new cards and all the ones in there were ones had didn’t really want. I happened to be over that way last week so I decided to swing in and take a look. I guess they’ve restocked it in the meantime because it was chock full of awesome stuff. Unfortunately for me, the whole reason I was over that way was because I was on my way to the bank to get some cash and I only had exactly $5 in my pocket. oh well, lets see what we got.

1965 Topps #208 Tommy John

A funny thing about baseball. You have guys like Babe Ruth, or Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson and all those other dominating pitchers of the 60’s, who literally changed the way the game is played simply by being awesome. Tommy John had some pretty nice career numbers. His 288 career wins are good enough to land him 7th on the all-time wins by lefties list. I would not, however say that he was so dominant that he changed the game. He has however, thanks to getting surgery on a damaged ligament in his pitching arm, very much changed the game by extending the life-span of countless pitchers. Just think about how common it is for  players to get Tommy John surgery these days. Now imagine if instead of getting surgery all those guys were forced to retire. Now think of all the sub-par pitchers that would most likely be called up to replace all those guys.

1973 Topps #193 Carlton Fisk

Here’s yet another star player from the 1973 that I’ve pulled out of the 6 for 5 bin. In hind sight, maybe I should’ve tried to collect the ’73 set rather than the ’60 but I can’t go back in time, can I? I like how pissed off Pudge looks on this card. By the way, is every catcher nicknamed Pudge, of just one’s who are heading to the Hall of Fame? Should I also start referring to Piazza as Pudge?

1962 Topps #306 Redbird Rippers

Although there usually is a pretty good mix of different years in the 6-4-5 bin, anything from before 1963 is pretty few and far between. Because of that, anytime I do see cards from 1962 or earlier in there I snatch them up without much thought. This card however I probably would’ve grabbed anyway just because I like multi-player cards. And there’s a nerd on there.

We see on the back that Larry Jackson broke his jaw during a 1961 spring training game. Apparently he was hit with a flying piece of broken bat from none other than Duke Snider. Ouch. I guess when all is said and done, if you got hit in the face with a piece of broken bat, a lot worse could’ve happened than just a broken jaw.

1971 Topps #65 American League Home Run Leaders

How can you not buy a card with The Capitol Punisher, Yaz and Harmon Killebrew? It had to be done.

1967 Topps #216 Bengal Belters

One of my favorite things about these multi-player cards is the cheese-ball names that they give to the cards, like “Bengal Belters” or “Redbird Rippers”. They still give them these kind of goofy names these days, which makes me happy. I always get a little bummed when I see one of these and the title is something lame, like “2 Detroit Players Who Hit Many Home Runs”.

1971 Topps #188 Bob Valentine / Mike Strahler RC

One thing I love about collecting and reading about other people’s collections is hearing all the personal reasons why you love certain cards in your collection over others. Everyone would love a ’56 Willie Mays, but I love hearing why someone loves that 1992 Fleer Doug Drabek card. Out of all 6, this is probably my favorite just because it’s Bobby Valentines rookie card. He was one of my all-time favorite Mets managers both because of success and him being a character. Out of all the people I’ve heard about the Mets having interesting in for managing next year, I would love to see them bring him back. Both because I think he would help guide the team towards success, as well as if the team itself isn’t going to be interesting or entertaining, at least the manager should be.

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