Completed Angels Team Set - 1998 Circa Thunder

Nauseatingly colorful, my head is spinning, technicolor yawn, vertigo-ish.

The ten top Angels players from the 1997 (or early 1998 - these were released in Summer of 1998) season featured on spin-art cards.

Not sure what's going on with the shadowing but it does break up the stark white background.

NOTE: Card #40 Troy Percival, though I have it I neglected to include it with the set before I scanned the pages.  I also forgot to scan the back of Darin Erstads card.  Epic failure for this team set post.  I really made a mess of it.

The Littlist Joyner

I've been focusing on my Kellogg and Hostess Angels teams sets lately, picking up the cards I need to get those team sets completed.  The Kelloggs sets are done and scanned I just need to get around to writing about them.  We'll see who gets there first: me or Night Owl.

For the Hostess issues I picked up a Wally Joyner card for the 1987 Angels team set.  This is the only card in the Angels team set, and this was the last set issued by Hostess until the crappy and boring 1993 issue.

The 1987 set were actually produced as stickers and not cards.  They were issued by Hostess of Canada and came in specially marked bags of potato chips.  One card to a bag of chips, the card enveloped in a plastic bag to protect it from the greasy chips.

When I received this card in the mail I was very surprised at it's size:

Here it is compared to Joyners 1987 Major League Leaders MINI card.

Teeeeeeeneeeeee.

Just for kicks here's the three card comparison with a standard sized baseball card:

Minuscule.  Now you really get the idea of how small this little sticker is.  Bet these little guys were pretty hard to find in a bag of chips.  Bet many of them got chewed accidentally. Not really worth sticking on anything except maybe a Micro Machines vehicle.

A little creature holds the card number.

Anyone know who this little guy is?

I Got The Play At The Plate All Out Of Order

A got a big box of Angels baseball cards From Brian of Play At The Plate. If you recall he had obtained several 5000 count boxes of cards and I think maybe he had offered teams to bloggers and that I had claimed the Angels.  But I wasn't sure about that, so when the box arrived I was surprised to get it and blown away that he had sent so many cards.

When the box arrived in the mail I was in the midst of sorting and binderizing a small accumulation of Angels cards I already had, so in my excitement about all the new stuff I naturally went right into sort and binderize mode.  By the time I realized I hadn't pulled out and scanned any of them for a post it was too late: I only had a handful of Salmons left still to be put in the Salmon binder.

Here's my token sample.

But man you wouldn't believe the good stuff I found in the box.  A ton of Angels cards but particularly from the late 90's, a span of years I'm probably most lacking in my team sets.  And there were at least a half dozen team sets, or cards that enabled me to complete team sets, in the box.

All good stuff Man, all good stuff.

Next time I'll try to slow down and smell the Angels before I put them in their places.

Thank you.

Look Who Came To The Game

Angel Great Troy Glaus on a 2014 Goodwin Champions baseball card batting in a very obscure uniform, the way Goodwin Champions wanted it.  No resemblance whatsoever to UCLA, the Angels, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Cardinals, or Braves

But take a closer look at the stars in the stands watching Troy's at-bat in his non-descript uni:

I wanted a photo of Sidney Poitier but couldn't find one close enough.

I think I nailed it on Mel though.

Well, that killed all of 15 minutes before bedtime last night.

Numbers And Swatches From Bob Walk The Plank

Nice package containing three insert cards, and an encouraging word stickie, from Bob Walk The Plank. The note had to do with my recent (and now over) period of unemployment.  Glad that's over with.

2012 Topps Triple Threads #72 13/50

Nice looking card and a nice low number.  Interesting that the chevrons on the lower left and right are uneven.  Is this the intended design of the card?

2005 Upper Deck Origins Old Judge #9 19/50

Blue background with a sepia photo.  I like it.  Another nice low numbered card.  I never seem to be able to pull low numbered cards.  Finley was only with the Angels for a single season.

2003 Playoff Prestige Connections C-1 358/400

Oooh, dual jersey bat relic with 2 Angels greats.  What makes this card even greater is that it shows two on the Angels superstars from the World Series winnning team the year before.

Hey, I wonder if the jersey and the bat used for the relics had been worn in the World Series!

Somethings Wrong With This Picture (#1)

2001 Fleer Focus #10 of 2581

All of the cards in this set picture the player in front of the Wrigley Field scoreboard, but I'm gonna pick on Darin Erstads card since this is an Angels blog.

First of all I don't know what the "of 2581" numbering on the back refers to.  Not serial numbered, just numbered.  If that's the size of the set then that's just crazy.  Crazy like Yankee Stadium Legacy crazy.

Okay.  Erstad is pictured in front of the Cubs scoreboard that's at Wrigley Field, obviously photo-shopped. In case you didn't know, The Cubs are in the National League, the Angels the American.

So let's ask some questions:

Q. Was there Interlegue play in 2000?
A. Yes, Interleague started in 1997.

Q. Did the Angels play the Cubs at Wrigley in 2000?
A. No.

Q. How about early in 2001 (in case this was a late release set)?
A. Nope.

Q. 2000 All Star Game played at Wrigley in 2000 or 2001?
A. No.

So why did Fleer select the players they did for the Big Innings set and why are they all in front of the Wrigley Field scoreboard?

Somethings wrong with this picture.

Who Are My Finley/Edmonds/Erstad Collectors?

Someone out there has player collections for Chuck Finley, Jim Edmonds, and Darin Erstad, I know because I've seen you out there in the blogosphere, I just can't remember who you are.

I have bags of each ready to go.

If you're the blogger that collects any or all of these guys and you'd like these, then leave me a comment.

Completed Angels Team Set - 1975 Topps Mini

My local card shop finally got the mini sleeves in that Night Owl has had such a dilemma over, allowing me to finally put this set in a decent format.  Actually it was only about a month ago that I acquired the final pieces to this team set pushing me to completion.

Of course the last cards I needed were the Nolan Ryans, the most expensive ones to obtain.

And Ryan has 4 cards in the set.  1974 was a good year for him.

I got his #500 card relatively cheap, mainly because is is defaced with a nice red ink ballpoint checkmark.

Indicating what I can't figure out.

"Yep got this one!" check.

My only complaint about this team set would be when cards with the same color combination align consecutively:

Ugh! With so many combinations what are the chances two of the same color combo line up numerically in a team set?  And (not counting the highlight cards because that's the theme color) this happens in the Angels team set three times!

Singer-Chalk green/purple

Hassler-Rodriguez brown/tan

Heise-Figueroa green/purple (would had been a trifecta with Doherty had Nolan Ryan not gotten in the way). 

All-in-all a beautiful team set.  I'm very happy to put this one to rest.

Bagby Sends All Kinds Of Different Angels Cards

A while ago I got a package of Angels cards from blogging pal Howard Bagby.

Howard sends me a bunch of Angels cards every couple months it seems.

It's always a great day when I get one of those packages.

Here's a few of the cards that were included.

Ooh, Mike Trout mini of the blackage variety.

Gold parallel Fleer Ultras.

A very well done parallel set I might add.  I just love the gold background.

Cool cards with the little windows that show the players face and when you flip it over shows the players other face and not the back of his head, kinda freaky.  Hold them up to the light and it looks like the sun is shining through.  So bitchen.

When I saw the stack of Looney Tunes card with the Angels Jim Abbott on each card, I thought to myself, "No way am I about to collect every Looney Tunes card with Jim Abbott in an Angels uniform on it, or Nolan Ryan, or Reggie Jackson for that matter.  Super glad to have them but no way does that qualify towards a team set, no way because then I'll have to get basically the whole sets."

But when I turned one of those Jim Abbott cards over I saw this:

Oh.

Now a Jim Abbott 9-card puzzle....THATS another story.

It will take some serious research to figure out which 9 cards make up the puzzle but I think the result would be worth it.

This one goes on my Someday List.

Wally Joyner cards.

I love the Select '95 series.

This might be a set I'd consider collecting.

More Jim Abbot cards.

There's another Select '95.

Tim Salmon...Select '95.

I'm getting more and more convinced.

Sweepstakes and Code Cards.

Love 'em.

I had a subscription to Topps Magazine when it first came out.  Somewhere along the way I got rid of them.

I regret that.  I think I still have a Nolan Ryan issue though.

Lot's of O-Pee-Chee Angels cards.

I used to hate O-Pee-Chee until I started concentrating on my Angels team sets.

It just stinks to have to get a whole 'nother set of basically the same cards.

Speaking of "nother"  I just had a conversation with my wife about the use of the phrase "a whole nother one".  We both chuckled realizing how often educated folks use the phrase. 

Contest At Chavez Ravining - Last Chance

Go HERE to enter.

1987 Bobby Grich Night Commemorative Sheet

In 1987 the Angels did a give-away featuring the great Bobby Grich.

The give-away was a perforated sheet of  five rows of Topps Bobby Grich cards from 1971-1987.

The sponsor was Sheriton Hotels and KLAC 57 AM, which played classic country music and broadcast Lakers games at the time.

Pictured above is a sheet I bought many years ago off of ebay.

As you can see the sheet had been folded up and had been loved on.  The ebay description mentioned, if I recall, that the sheet was in a couple pieces, some of the rows had separated.

No problem for me, I just wanted to have one and this was the only one on ebay at the time.

Someday I'll replace it I guess with a full, never folded, all-in-one-piece sheet.
The card backs are exactly the same as the regular issued cards.

If you noticed, Bobby's 1972 card is missing, completely torn out from sheet where it sat just before the 1973 card.  The reason it's missing is because at some point I decided I wanted to get it signed.

I figured since the sheet was already in pieces, I'd just separate the 1972 card even further and send it out for a sure-thing autograph.  The 1972 was my favorite Bobby Grich card on the sheet, that's why it got de-perforated.  And Grich was still a reliable, and free,  TTMer at that time (he requests $10 now).

Here's the bottom 3 rows folded up.  You can see a lot of the "gently used-ness", especially in the 1987 Topps.

Yeah, now that I think about it, a full sheet in better condition would be an awesome framed piece to have.

So now, if you come across a Bobby Grich Topps card with perforations, you'll know where it came from.

Teams just don't do cool giveaways like this anymore.

Bobbleheads are nice, but I'd take a sweet perforated sheet of player cards like this any day.

A Mike Scioscia Traded-For Autograph

And there you have it.

Came in today's mail.

My simplest post ever.

Couple More To Add To The 1984 Topps Master Set

I forgot that I had this.  It was in my "Good Cards" box.  You know, the box with the relics, certified autographs and such that are in top-loaders.  If you look close you'll see that Mr Green is lacking the black ink on the card.  I love finding cards like this, it's a total score when I do.

I've had the photos in this post without any text for at least a couple months now, so I don't recall why I wanted to show you the back of the card.

Here's the normal 1984 Topps next to the misprint.

Not a lot of black ink to be missing but enough to make you take a second closer look.

This is a card I pulled out of a junk box at the LCS a couple months ago.

This is the 1984 Nestle Wade Boggs Black and White variation.

The more popular is the Don Mattingley card, and there is also a Darryl Strawberry version.

Sometimes these are call "proofs", "test proofs" and even "unauthorized copy".  By all accounts though most consider them fakes.

Cool little card to add to the 1984 master set though. 

Here is the back for kicks.

There are some blank-back variations as well.

Anyone with 1984 Topps miscuts and variations they want to part with?