The Ultimate All-Sport Checklist

Now that I'm officially a four-sport card collector again, I've been wondering which legendary players are missing from my collection. The All-Time Teams series and its frankenset companion created a checklist of baseball greats whose cards were (and were not) in my binder. That got me curious about the other major sports - and all sports in general.

Let's start with The Greatest:

I do not have a Muhammad Ali card. I've never really seen boxing cards nor known anyone who collects them, so I was surprised to learn that Ali has 1,567 different cards. Based on his status as an icon, an activist, and arguably the greatest athlete ever, I should probably try to add one of his cards to my collection at some point.

There are a handful of soccer/futbol cards in my collection, though none of the players depicted would be considered all-time legends of the "beautiful game." That means I'm missing the greatest athlete of the 20th century, at least according to Natalie:

 

I did search for Pele cards on COMC a couple years back, but didn't see anything I liked for the meager amount of money I was willing to spend. (btw, I do have a Jim Thorpe card.)

Olympic sports have produced scores of legendary athletes, and I have a handful of Olympic cards in my collection. However none of them are all-time legends like Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis, Michael Phelps, and Usain Bolt. Bolt would be the toughest to track down; he has just nine cards.

Tennis, anyone? I have a Serena Williams Sports Illustrated For Kids card, and an Arthur Ashe Flashbacks insert from the 2017 Topps Heritage baseball set. Someday I might endeavor to add Roger Federer, Martina Navratilova, or Chris Evert cards (I'm almost certain I had this one as a kid.) Pete Sampras is perhaps the greatest modern athlete with an August 12 birthday so I'd put him at the top of my tennis wantlist.

Golf, auto racing, and fight sports do not interest me at all. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon are not represented in my collection but I wouldn't say they're "missing". I have no idea who the big MMA stars are - other than Connor McGregor and I think he's more of a showman than a superstar. Does Bruce Lee have any cards?

Obviously the "big four" North American team sports rule the roost 'round here, and since Topps, Panini, and Upper Deck often include Hall of Famers in their current sets there shouldn't be a long list of all-time greats missing from my baseball, football, or hockey card collection. There are probably a few basketball legends I'm missing since I wasn't buying NBA cards for about 20 years. 

To find out which Hall of Famers I need to add to my wantlist I consulted each sports reference page and cross-checked it with TCDB. Here are the top five NBA players I'm missing, listed with their ranking on the all-time Win Shares list:

28. Dolph Schayes
31. Bob Pettit
37. Walt Bellamy
49. Chet Walker
52. Bailey Howell

I'm not sure how well this works (I've never even heard of Bailey Howell) so I consulted ESPN's recent ranking of the top 74 players of all-time. The players I'm missing are:

38. Bob Pettit
60. Willis Reed (181st in WS)
64. Earl Monroe (164th in WS)

That doesn't help much, but it tells me I need to add a Bob Pettit card to my collection.

Football-reference uses Approximate Value to determine the greatest players across all positions - which comes in handy since it's tough for me to assess the impact of offensive linemen. Based on this metric, the top five NFL players missing from my collection are:

15. Paul Krause
21. Jim Otto
27. Mick Tingelhoff
28. Gene Upshaw
31. Carl Eller

Again, I don't know how reliable this is. Phillip Rivers is 13th all-time in AV; Lawrence Taylor is tied for 26th. Let's just go with this list published by USA Today in February.

22. Sammy Baugh (NR)
29. Jack Lambert (t-116th in AV)
31. Bob Lilly (76th in AV)
35. Gino Marchetti (NR)
39. Mel Blount (46th in AV)

Btw, LT is ranked third on this list. I've been kicking the tires on his rookie card lately, which is a bargain compared to other players in the NFL's all-time top ten. Probably because of his off-the-field troubles (one reason why I haven't yet bought his RC.) 

I'll have to dig deeper into the NFL's all-time greats at some point. 

My hockey card collection is nearly twice the size of any other sport (though much of it belongs to my wife) and thanks in no small part to the 2004-05 In The Game Franchises set I've got at least one card of just about every significant NHL great - including the league's first scoring champ, Joe Malone.

Which brings us to baseball. The All-Time Teams project helped me identify Hall of Famers that were missing from my boxes and binders, such as Hank Greenberg and Billy Williams. They've since been added to my collection, leaving a few pre-war HOFers left to acquire. 

My baseball bias led me to believe that WAR was more accurate than the catch-all stats used for other sports. Now that I've found oddities in the football and basketball lists I'm looking at WAR a little differently. For example, the top five players missing from my collection are:

13. Eddie Collins
17. Kid Nichols
44. Eddie Plank
52. George Davis
53. Roger Connor

A casual baseball fan would see this list of pre-war players and wonder how Kid Nichols could rank higher than Lou Gehrig (18th), Mickey Mantle (21st), and Greg Maddux (27th.) The 19th-century ace of the Boston Beaneaters is now the highest-ranked player missing from my collection - because my Beckett Marketplace order contained an Eddie Collins card:

Technically I already had a Collins card, but this Perez-Steele Great Moments issue is the size of about four standard singles. This Conlon Collection card, along with the Urban Shocker underneath, are the latest additions to my All-Time Teams binder.



Which great athletes are missing from your collection? Do you have cards of transcendent sports stars even though they play sports that you don't follow?



Thanks for reading!



~

Post 360

I spent the past week compiling a checklist for my All-Time teams Frankenset. It has been completed, updated, and posted to the pages tab. You can click here for the list. 

Here are some of the newest candidates for the Frankenset, courtesy of 7th Inning Stretch. I call this "Wave One." (Wave two is a trade with TCDB user Randylaw; wave three is my order from baseballcardstore.ca.)

New York aces Tom Seaver and Whitey Ford were among the few cards in this order that cost more than fifty cents. This 2003 Topps Retired Seaver single was $0.64 while the Whitey Ford from 2005 set me back just $0.97 - not bad for a Gold Parallel #d/500.

I had exactly one Don Drysdale card in my collection - and it's graded - so why not add one where he's sporting a Brooklyn cap? 1991 Topps Archives '53 won't help my cause as much as I had expected, though this single enables me to cross Clem Labine off my list. All-Time Fan Favorites singles will be scattered all over the Frankenset and Pristine is a personal favorite. This pair of Ron Cey cards gives me an idea... 

Would anyone be interested in a Frankenset Sunday feature where I post multiple cards of one player and you can vote for which one to include in the Frankenset binder? It would be almost exactly like Nick's Dime Box bracket.

Here are some sets you'll see in the binder pages - Pacific Legends, Conlon Collection (including a colorized Red Faber that I found for 50 cents) and SP Legendary Cuts. Hank Greenberg was completely absent from my collection before this order.
 

I've now got two Greenberg cards, and a third one on the way. The 1964 Topps Jim Landis is the oldest card in this order by far and one of the most expensive at $0.84.

As you can see, Quiz is a Tiffany parallel and Landis has had his back scratched.

I went a little crazy on 2004 UD Timeless Teams singles. Bill Russell and Ray Knight aren't even part of this project but I tossed them in the cart anyhow.

This trio of O's will help. I also picked up a 1963 Topps Oriole on COMC but who knows when I'll be able to have it shipped to me.

Some Red Sox for my Boston binder. The '84 Allenson is another Tiffany single. 

I really like these 1999 Fleer/SI Greats of the Game cards. 2000 Fleer Greats was more "high-end" because of the autographs (which I love) but the base cards are bland compared to these.

Here are the three Billy Williams cards I bought - which somehow earned me a free rookie card of the Cubs legend. Williams was another HOFer that wasn't in my collection. My next project will be to make a list of the top five baseball greats I'm still missing.

If I'm going to add cards of every all-time great I'll need to rely on reprints such as these. My aunt told me about Monty Stratton when I was a kid and I completely forgot about him until seeing this card. The Babe Ruth Dodgers card ($2.61) and the Addie Joss Turkey Red at the top left ($2) were the only cards in this order that cost more than a dollar.

The rest of the baseball legends including my first ungraded George Sisler single and the return of a Billy Herman card that was in my collection many years ago. 

Not all of the cards from 7th Inning Stretch were for my All-Time Teams project. This Pete Bauer was somehow missing from the 2003 Ravens team set I bought at the ballpark. Gary Sanchez brings my 2018 Stadium Club set build down to 21 needs. (A John Smoltz single is supposedly headed my way..)

When I got back into collecting basketball cards the late '80s Fleer sets appealed to me more than ever. I'm dreading any attempt at completing 1988-89 or 1989-90 (thanks, MJ) but I'm still picking up cheap singles when I can.

You'll see more of these when Wave Two hits. Also, how is Tom Chambers not a Hall of Famer? I nearly wrote a blog post about his Springfield-worthy career. Maybe someday.

We often discuss which players will or should be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. I'd like to hear from basketball (or football or hockey) fans who likely know more than I would about Hall-worthy players. Do you think Tom Chambers belongs in the Hall? How about Chris Webber? Tim Hardaway? Who else is missing?

For the football and hockey fans - are there players who you feel have waited far too long for the call to Canton or Toronto? Let me know in comments.

Thanks for reading!


 
~

Christmas Cards from Billy and Mark

'Tis the season for giving, and the blogosphere has been busy spreading cardboard cheer. Billy (Cardboard History) mailed out a mountain of goodies recently, and I was on his "nice" list:

Getting a Christmas card from a card blogger reminds me of the first giveaway I did. :)

Of course this card had smaller cards tucked inside it, including an Alex English for my 1988-89 Fleer set build, and an Aaron Rodgers Panini Certified Cuts card I didn't have. Some local flavor here too: the Knicks, the Nets, and the UConn Huskies are represented.

Billy wrote a very nice message inside, and made it clear that he was not my Secret Santa - which would have been weird because he was already my S.S. two years ago!

My Secret Santa is not a blogger, but he is a veteran blog reader and commenter (and a Red Sox fan) Mark Hoyle sent me a stuffed bubble mailer on Monday. There were some old Sox inside:

Oooh a non-card item. Is it me, or does Yaz look like he's posing at a camp site?

Tony C! Nice little run here. Unfortunately I bought a copy of the '69 at the Milford card show in March. Anyone collecting vintage Sox or building the 1969 Topps set? I'd be willing to trade my extra copy.

Mark included some sealed packs. You can't find these on the shelves at Target. (I wonder if he has a pack stash?) The '89 Topps baseball yielded three more Red Sox..

..but the non-Sox selection was bleak. Van Slyke and Wells were the closest thing to 'stars' I could find. At least the Skybox basketball pack had a Hall of Famer..

Wes Unseld was one of four Bullets in the pack. My favorite card here has to be the Nuggets logo. I like this design more than the 1990-91 Fleer set...

..but there was a lot more star power in that one. Is there a better card I could have pulled than this Michael Jordan? I think not. 

Jordan and David Robinson were far from the only NBA legends I received: 

 

Vintage hoop! Every time I see Dennis Johnson I think of that famous steal by Bird.

 

These 1979-80 Topps cards would make a nice 9-pocket page. The Alex English Rookie Card and Rick Barry are my favorites here. The Gail Goodrich is my first New Orleans Jazz card.

ABA cards, including Kentucky Colonels. Seattle just got an NHL expansion team and it's only a matter of time before the NBA returns. Is Louisville a viable option for a 32nd NBA franchise?

Bing! More stars from 1975-76 Topps, on the NBA side. I've never seen a Pat Riley card from his playing days. These are all fantastic cards but one of these two dozen singles really stood out to me:

Boom! Two all-time greats on the same card and two different poses for each player. This Kareem/Oscar card is in fantastic shape, too. It would have been perfect for the Milwaukee stop on my Sports Card Tour. 


Mark, Billy..thank you both for your generosity! I am very pleased with my cardboard gifts :)


I'm going to try and wrap up my Nostalgia post this weekend so that I can get my 200th post in before Christmas. Hope your Secret Santa has been good to you all!


~