Blow Out the Candles July 28

Swingin A's pitcher Vida Blue is celebrating his 63rd birthday today.

 1974 Topps #290

Career record of 209-161,  3.27 ERA, 2,175 SO

Career highlights and awards
6× All-Star (1971, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981)
3× World Series champion (1972, 1973, 1974)
1971 AL MVP
1971 AL Cy Young Award
Pitched a no-hitter on September 21, 1970

Autographed Baseball Cards A-Z

When I got back into collecting five or so years ago one of the things that excited me was the availability of autographed cards.  Perhaps I went a little overboard but I think I picked up some nice cards.  This will be an A-Z series of posts with varying numbers of cards.

2002 Team Topps Legends #TT-PB

Paul was a must have for my 60's -70's era Orioles collection.

I bought the next two Yankee cards from the same Ebay seller one night in a bit of a bidding frenzy.  

2003 #PN-BL

The late Johnny Blanchard appeared in 5 World Series.  He called the pitch that Mazeroski hit out of the park to end the 1960 tilt against the Pirates.  He hit .455 in that series and .400 in the following year's rout of the Reds including 2 home runs.  Great signature on this card.

2003 #PN-RB

A member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, Ron became the first designated hitter in baseball when he stepped to the plate on April 6, 1973.

1999 Fleer SI

Vida Blue is part of my Swingin A's autograph collection.  I also love the SI Covers series

2005 UD Past Time Pennants #BB

Finally a  member of the Hall of Fame!

Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Favorites A-B

Topps put out 150 card sets of retired players in 2003-2004-2005. Players are pictured on card designs from their playing days but with different photos than were in the originals. Here are my favorites, alphabetically.

2004 #50

Nice Hank Aaron in a classic Milwaukee Braves uniform. This looks like it may be a "colorized" black & white shot. The cap, instead of being blue with a red brim, is all blue. Correct me if I'm wrong.

2004 #21

An intense Luis Aparicio. I'm partial to the later cartoon Oriole but I like this earlier one that's on the right sleeve too.

2005 #47

This card rivals the original 1954 Banks. How about the inset picture of Ernie sliding into home!

2005 #60

Not sure what's going on here. Are these fans asking Johnny to sign all that stuff? What's the little yellow box? Still, I like the '75 design. The yellow and red border seems to work well with all the red in the picture.

2004 #137

Sy Berger, the "Father of Modern Baseball Cards". An Allen & Ginter-ish beauty.

2003 #80

Who doesn't like Yogi? He sponsored Yoo-hoo! "It's a fine product."

2003 #58

I don't have any real 1971's in this condition. The Swingin' A's of the 70's are one of my favorite teams. In 1971 Vida Blue won 24 games and both the Cy Young and MVP.

2003 #146

An early shot of the outspoken Dutchman. He should be in the Hall of Fame.

2003 #20

This is an alternate version of Brett's rookie card. I think I like this one better. The background is livelier and George is sort of smiling.

2005 #22

Another 1965 design. A relaxed former Cub happy he's a "former" Cub.

2004 #48

Brett Butler flashing his Hollywood smile. Dodgers often look like this.