TTMCast Preview
On this week’s show, longtime dealer Les Wolff joins us to talk about protecting your collection, plus Arron and Drew answer a few listener emails and cover upcoming shows (hopefully) near you. We also discuss our recent TTM successes and in-person outings.
You can listen to this week’s show here.
Please note: there will be no show for April 26. Starting in May, TTMCast will move to a monthly format.
TTM Successes
Shaking out the mailbox cobwebs with a few successes of my own this week.
Wayne Kirby
After spending eight years in the minors in the Dodgers organization, the speedy Kirby finally made it to the majors with the Indians in 1991 and played eight seasons. The speedy outfielder also coached for 12 seasons with the Orioles, Padres, and Mets. Sadly, a USPS sorting machine got a hold of the cards and envelope and destroyed them. But credit to Kirby, he signed them in three months via his Nevada home.
Wayne’s brother Terry was a running back for the Browns in 1999. They are among four pairs of brothers where one played for the Browns and one played for the Indians. Can you name the other three? The answer will come later…
Jiri Hudler
I was surprised to see an envelope with a Czech stamp come to my mailbox, addressed in writing that wasn’t mine. Hudler won a Cup with Detroit, the Lady Byng Trophy with Calgary, and spent a half a season each in Florida and Dallas. I’m still not sure what happened to my return envelope, but kudos to Jiri for going the extra mile.
These took two years to come back from his home in Prague.
Mel Gray
One of the greatest return specialists of all-time, the 5’9 Gray has NINE touchdowns to his credit and over 10,000 kickoff return yards. He’s a member of the Detroit Lions’ all-time team.
Back in November I saw a couple of scattered successes from him signed in ballpoint pen, so I figured I’d throw caution to the wind and mail one off since I needed him for a set. Lo and behold, not only did he sign, but he also found a Sharpie in the meantime!
Gray signed this in about four and a half months via his Houston area home.
A Quick IP Report
The AA level for the D-Backs isn’t quite as star-studded as the AAA level, where Reno is led by MLB #10 overall prospect Jordan Lawlar, or even the High-A level which carries the organization’s #2, 6, 7, and 9 prospects. But Amarillo still at least has a few guys with major release cards– their #8 prospect Tommy Troy, #10 Gino Groover, and #20 Dylan Ray all are in Bowman/Topps or Panini releases. Plus the unranked Jack Hurley, Landon Sims, Avery Short, Luke Albright, Christian Cerda, Kristian Robinson, and Caleb Roberts have cards and are willing to sign them.
Troy and Robinson are one-per-person signers, Ray can be tough to get, and Hurley will sign two-per person, but everyone else on the team is very willing to sling some ink. Between the Sod Poodles and the Roughriders, I got 60 cards signed on Sunday– putting me over 1,000 autographs for the year and vaulting me past my goal of 800 in-person sigs for the year.
Creative Options By Mail
TTMing can sometimes get bland. If you don’t have a set project to work on, it can be hard to decide on what to send to a player and you can only stare at so many boring base set commons before your head starts to spin. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten an autograph back from a player and when I go to catalog it, I find I already had that card signed.
I’m sure the players sometimes tire of it too. As much as I love the 1987 Topps baseball set, it feels sometimes like everyone collects it. And another favorite, the 1991 Topps baseball set, is said to have had over four million of each card produced. Not four million total: four million of each of the set’s 792 cards. Brett Hull once said he hates signing cards because they just never end.
So if you want to help make your cards stand out a bit from the norm, here are a few ideas of cards to pick out to send in your requests.
Milestone Commemoratives
Everyone wants to be remembered for something. So what better than a card that shows a big moment not just in the player’s career, but sometimes in baseball history? Take for instance cards showing major home runs: 1961 Topps #312 with Bill Mazeroski cruising into home plate after walking it off in the 1960 World Series. Or 1994 Score #625 with Joe Carter’s fist pump between second and third after his 1993 Series walkoff bomb.
In baseball alone, Topps had Highlights or Record Breakers cards from 1975 to 1992. While there are many big names among them, such as multiple cards of Nolan Ryan (who still signs for a fee as a charity endeavor), there are plenty of more affordable signers like Kevin Maas in the 1991 set and Dan Fouts in a few football sets.
Food Issues
I remember as a kid in 1992 going through the 12-packs of Coke that my grandmother stocked up on to get the Donruss packs inside. While the base cards were no different from the standard cards, there was a one-per-pack Nolan Ryan insert that is still a favorite of mine. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Topps-branded sets were put out by Burger King, Coke, and Nestle. Plenty of other products had their own stand-alone sets: Kellogg’s and Post cereals often had cards inserted in boxes, Mr. Turkey had cards in pack of their sandwich meat, Hostess put out a few sets.
In Canada, Kraft Dinner and Jell-o boxes hat cards on them. And who can forget cans of King B jerky chew and the round card in the bottom? I practically inhaled that stuff in the mid-90s; unfortunately I got very few cards of good and affordable TTM signers so I haven’t mailed any off but you can bet if you do get a few signed, you’ll be one of the few who owns an autographed copy.
Short Stays
Mark McLemore signed for me at a Rangers alumni event when I commented about one of his cards being tough to find– and he mentioned that the 1991 Leaf card with the Astros was the true tough one– he only spent 21 games with them. While Pete Rose is no longer around to sign his 1984 Expos cards, Reggie Jackson’s $100 fee might be a bit high for most to get on an Orioles card, and Mike Piazza doesn’t TTM at all thus making him hard to get on a Marlins card, it’s fun to break out cards of guys who didn’t stay with a team for long.
My current dream is to eventually get Christian Arroyo to sign his 2020 Topps Update card, showing him with Cleveland… where he played one whole inning.
Fun Photos
Headshots are boring. Even lots of action shots can be repetitive. But once in a while, a card will sneak through that keeps the fun going. Baseball card photography turned pretty serious after Gus Zernial’s 1952 Topps card with a bunch of balls stuck to his bat– so much so that I can’t think of an intentionally fun photo until 1984 when Fleer posed Glenn Hubbard with a python and caught Jay Johnstone in a Budweiser umbrella hat. And once those two hit, the flood gates didn’t exactly open, but companies did get looser and more fun.
Mark Grant is a great signer and has a pair of fun ones: 1988 Fleer where he appears to be playing goalie in a game of ball hockey, and 1989 Upper Deck where the righty is posed with a lefty glove.
Speaking of 1989 Upper Deck, they had a few fun ones with the Jim Abbott triple exposure, Nolan Ryan throwing a football, and some trick photography at work with Gary Pettis appearing to hold the very card he’s on. In hockey, you get the 1995-96 Pinnacle set with Olaf Kolzig enjoying a hot dog with his name spelled in mustard, while the 1998-99 UD Choice set shows Dino Ciccarelli feeding a rhinoceros.
Trivia Answer
Along with the Kirbys (running back Terry and outfielder Wayne), the Browns and Indians had the Kellys (running back Leroy and outfielder Pat), the Johnsons (running back Ron and outfielder Alex), the Pagels (quarterback Mike and first baseman Karl).
If you have any graphing questions, you can reach Drew via email at DFWGrapher@gmail.com
