SLU Showcase #5 - The Snider Cut

In my last SLU Showcase post, I showed a trio of Red Sox Starting Lineup figures. The Roger Clemens piece was included in a lot of eleven that I recently purchased. That lot also included another star of the Springfield Nuclear Plant Softball Team:

source: Baseball Card Breakdown

Steve Sax was a Yankee at the time of that episode, but he's a Dodger on this 1988 Starting Lineup figure:

He's got the same follow-through pose as several other pieces in my collection, but he doesn't stand up as well. The Sax figure seems a bit shorter than these guys. Did Kenner do that on purpose? It's not like he was noticeably shorter than most big leaguers at the time.

Because the base is a little less sturdy I've put Sax in the Dodgers section of my display rather than the hitters lineup:

You've seen the worn-out Fernando Valenzuela figure before. In between them is a Duke Snider figure from the 1997 Cooperstown Collection. These figures were slightly larger than the flagship SLUs. I remember seeing dozens of Cooperstown Collection pieces in retail stores in the mid-'90s and wondered if they were less popular because kids my age and younger weren't as familiar with the history of the game as I was.

When my aunt passed away in 2015, my mom and cousin organized her belongings and found this figure, sealed, with a price tag from a yard sale we had around the year 2000. Apparently I sold it to my aunt (who was a Dodgers fan in the '50s) for $5. Not sure what I needed the money for, but it was nice of her to keep this figure in the family.

My mother gave it back to me, I took it home to Jersey... and immediately dropped it. The packaging actually opened on one side from the force of the accident, so I finished the job.

Here's the card that was included:

I've never seen this image anywhere else, though I'm sure a true blue Dodger fan would recognize the source. Duke was always one of my favorite All-Time Greats. When our nearby LCS wasn't nearby and my wife and I didn't have kids, we participated in a Pack Wars event and won an autographed Duke Snider baseball:

Autographed baseballs aren't something I normally collect but I do have a few meaningful souvenirs.

Say... is that a Starting Lineup baseball? Topic for a future SLU Showcase, perhaps 😁

Thanks for reading!



~

Sports Card Tour 2018 - Brooklyn

The Collector's Sports Card Tour keeps on rolling. Today's tour stop takes us to Brooklyn.

Comment below if you've seen this sign before, and where you've seen it :)

Brooklyn is the first city on our tour that does not have a baseball team. The NBA's Nets and NHL's Islanders share the oddly-shaped Barclay's Center - for now.

Most of the Nets cards in my collection are from their 35 seasons in New Jersey (more on those in a future post) All of my Brooklyn-based base cards can fill a 9-pocket page. I do have one Nets relic in hand and one incoming, both from Panini Immaculate Collection:

 

This quad relic came from COMC as part of my 500-card order earlier this winter. These guys aren't exactly Steph, KD, Klay & Dray - which is probably why it only cost $2.25.

My most recent purchase helped me reach a hundred cards (to get the $5 shipping credit) and it only cost $1.35:

At that price I'd buy a dozen of these relics, but it's tough to find players I'm familiar with. Lopez is a Laker now, but he played four seasons in New Jersey. I think he was the last holdover from the NJ years. Basketball players change teams a lot.

The Islanders are temporary tenants in Brooklyn. Their four straight Stanley Cup victories and all but one of their playoff series wins were earned on Long Island.

I have at least one jersey relic for most NHL teams but the Isles aren't one of them. However I do have an autographed Trent Hunter card and a couple more in-person Islander autos. When my wife and I were dating, we went to an Islanders-Oilers game at the Coliseum. The team sent out a couple of players to sign autographs after every game and captain Kenny Jonsson was one of them. It was cold that day and the Isles lost, but he still signed my poster. (it's back home in Connecticut)

A few of my favorite Isles cards here- including a Roberto Luongo RC, a pair of Tommy Salo inserts and a rookie reprint of Glenn "Chico" Resch, who was the Devils' color commentator until a couple years ago. Doug Weight is now the Islanders' head coach; the 20th anniversary parallel set is one of my favorites. 

Islanders fans are worried that superstar center John Tavares will leave as a free agent this summer. It would be a tough loss for sure, but it might not be as devastating to the franchise as many would have thought. 

As of this posting, the team's leading scorer is.. not Tavares. Rookie Mathew Barzal has 66 points, tied with Taylor Hall for 12th in the NHL (and Hall is getting some MVP buzz.) The two Barzal cards were among the hoard of 30-cents or less cards courtesy of ePack; the Platinum Rainbow sells for ten times that price today.

 

I used to have two Tavares rookie cards in my collection, but since I sold the SP Authentic Future Watch auto and the Young Guns RC, my best Brooklyn cards are all Dodgers:

...except for this Superba

The Dodgers left Brooklyn 60 years ago (!!) but 'Dem Bums have a permanent place in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere. My aunt Cynthia was a Dodgers fan back then (my aunt Sylvia was a Yankees fan and my mom was probably too young to care) I've got nothing against the L.A. Dodgers but being a Red Sox fan, I feel a special connection to the Boys of Summer.

In high school I did a report on Jackie Robinson for Black History Month, shortly before the announcement that his #42 would be retired by all of major league baseball. My teacher initially discouraged us boys from picking sports subjects, but because Robinson transcended sports, she allowed it. I got a 98.

The first vintage Robinson card I ever owned came to me in a trade from Brian (Highly Subjective). It was a nice, well-loved copy, but when I got serious about collecting the '56 Topps set I made it a priority to upgrade.

The card that started my set was a Christmas gift from Mom - this second-year Sandy Koufax:

It was also part of my first PSA grading order.

The rest of my 1956 Dodgers include Ed Roebuck, Carl Erskine, Sandy Amoros, and a Karl Spooner incoming from COMC. A lot of my '56 Topps cards have come from that site, including this Carl Furillo that I probably overpaid for..

 ..and this Duke Snider card, which cost $135.55 in store credit.

I sold my Carlos Correa Heritage auto on COMC, which gave me more than enough to cover the cost of the Duke. Also, once I reached 135,000 points in COMC challenges I considered this a "free" card :)

There are lots of other Brooklyn Dodger items I could discuss, like the Billy Loes Bowman card I bought ungraded for $11.25...then sent it into PSA and got this back:

Or the Duke Snider autographed ball my wife and I won at Pack Wars. Or the Snider Starting Lineup figure my aunt bought from me in a yard sale, when I needed to make some cash (my mom found it after she died and gave it to me. I'd rather have my aunt back, obviously.)

All of these cards have a story, but I don't have enough space to tell them all, so I'll leave you with this 1951 Bowman Ralph Branca. You'll see his counterpart when we return to New York City.

Favorite Nets player: Jeremy Lin
Favorite Islanders player: Jordan Eberle

Nets card I'd like to own: This larger-than-life Julius Erving card, with the red, white, and blue ball and uniform. Very bicentennial.

Islanders card I'd like to own: A Chico Resch rookie card. The real one, not the Topps reprint.

Dodgers card I'd like to own: Any 1957 Topps card from Ebbets Field, with this Charley Neal at the top of the list.


Our next tour stop takes us to the other end of New York. See you back here for Buffalo!


~