Lifes Balancing Act

Many of us, especially in my age bracket (going to be 50 next year), have experienced (or suffered through in some cases) the challenge of balancing family, work, home and community into ones life.

This balancing act of such has taken turns and shifts through the years and as I sit here in my quiet home (no wife, no child, no pets) fumbling through (actually the never ending task of sorting, organizing and storing of) my baseball cards I came across this 1991 Topps #659 of Oscar Azocar card that seemed pertinent to this balancing act of life.

While his career lasted all but 202 game, 439 at bats, a .226 BA over three seasons and two teams Yankees (1990) and the Padres (1991, 92), Azocars' skill of balancing seems remarkable.

Here's to lifes balancing act.

An interview on cardboard

As I was putting the finishing touches on the 1991 binder for my daughter I came across this card which caught my attention at first and after a bit of research warranted this post.

This 1991 UpperDeck of Dave Smith #704, depicts him sitting casually on a folding chair doing an interview for WBBM NewsRadio. He has a half smile, his shoes are untied, has a cup of water (I am guessing) and just seems to be his normal "likable" self.

The interviewer has his finger pointing at Smith, as if he might have just said "good answer", is wearing argyle socks and what look like velcro shoes (or slippers).

The back of this card can be deemed fair at best. Only five of his eleven years of stats appear and the horizontal photo of his almost release shows a good two finger grip and grimace on his face but UD 1991 was not known for their card backs (nor the fronts for that matter either).

This card intrigued me because I remember Smith as a "bust-out" for the Cubs in 1991 and 1992 (going 0 - 6 with 17 saves while earning over $ 2 million a year) and was amused at the "interview" being portrayed on the card.

Smith did have several "great" years as a member of the Houston Astro's from 1980 - 1990. A two-time All-Star ('86 and '90) Smith is number two on the Astro all-time save list with 199 career saves. His change-up was once unhittable and he was voted onto the All Astro Dome team in 1999 upon the closing of that stadium. Smith had then gone on to coach for the San Diego Padres for several years.

The sad part about this is that Dave Smith passed away from a sudden heart attack in December 2008 at the very young age of 53. I still like this unique card and wonder what questions would have been asked if one only knew how short his life would be.

Two returns in one week

I start this post warning everyone that it has little to do with baseball cards and much to do about "nothing" (I say "nothing" sarcastically). It has been quite a week . . . for me.

It all started last Sunday, May 25 when my daughter returned to the USA from her almost one year in Finland. She left August 2, 2008 participating in the Rotary Youth Exchange program for high school students and after ten months of emails, IM's, Skype and old fashioned letter writing the HUGS we got at the airport at 6:25 pm last Sunday will be cherished forever. As our only child, we missed her terribly.

Jennifer, endured the cold and dark yet remarkable country of Finland. She attend the local University in Kuopio, stayed with four different families, traveled to Amsterdam, Paris, Sweden, Lapland and the Canary Islands and you all can read about her adventure if you so choose Jenny's Journal from Finland If any of you have children in high school, I highly recommend contacting your local Rotary club to get more information about this extraordinary program for your teenager.

This week has been a wonderful "reunion" with family and friends who all want to see Jennifer and more importantly for my wife and I getting to know our worldly and beautiful daughter all over again.

Monday was Memorial Day. We "celebrated and honored" our veterans which culminated with a red, white and blue food fest at our home with friends.

On Tuesday, after a day of rest and unpacking I gave my daughter her binder of 1991 baseball cards (thank you to the many bloggers who sent cards) and she was quite impressed. Her favorite color is yellow so naturally the 1991 Fleer is her "favorite" and she wants the complete set now. Though I acquired only about 100 cards, I may just have to spend $5 (or less) to buy the complete set for her. She also loves the "inappropriate" 1991 Score Dream Team and the 1991 Studio cards. She will never really be into collecting or really interested in baseball but she does like the color yellow and "cute guys".

Wednesday and Thursday were your non-descript regular weekdays though we are continuing to learn all about Jennifers year in Kuopio (the small town she lived in for ten months, five hours north of Helsinki).

Friday, my daughters bestest girlfriends threw her a party and all these teenagers had a wonderful get together; swimming, hot tub, food galore, silly string and laughter. A real nice reunion for my daughter who got to see so many she had missed.
Today is Saturday and my favorite teenager (besides my daughter) is graduating high school. She is a cancer survivor and my hero. I am so proud of her and is my motivation to continue participating in the ACS's Relay for Life for the rest of my life. Kimberly is a Harry Potter and now Twilight groupie, a lego, rubik cube and jigsaw puzzle genius, a superb photographer and has graduated with honors. Kimmy you are my hero !


and finally tomorrow, Sunday, will be here soon and I just heard that the re-broadcast of Ken Burns' Baseball will be on tv again. I remember watching this 18 1/2 hour historical and emotional mini-series in 1994 when it first premiered and highly recommend to any and all of you. It is not a highlight film of all the greatest moments in baseball; however it is the story of how our favorite game became our national pastime and is all about the personalities and "life" of baseball from the beginning.

So, for me, what a week it is: from my daughters return to the return of a Baseball classic . . .

Happy Mom's Day

An official Happy Mothers Day greeting to all the Mom's out there including my own Mom, step-mom and wife.

In honor of Mom's Day I thought I would write a post about children (more specifically two daughters) because without these two girls today would be very different.

To begin with, I present my own daughter, who for those of you who read my blog may remember that my Jennifer, graduated high school in May of 2008 and was accepted into the long-term Rotary Youth Exchange of Florida program that has sent her to Finland for this past year. If you want to read about her adventures please go here: Jenny's Journal from Finland Thankfully she gets her writing skills from her Mother.

"an american in Paris"

petting a real reindeer in Lapland Finland, in the arctic circle, during Christmas time

Jennifer will be returning to the USA on May 24th, it has been a looooong year without her and I do miss her terribly. She will be attending Flagler college (St Augustine Florida) in the fall to begin her "new" life as a college student. As Jenny has reminded me in many emails and IM's "Daddy, I am so much more grown up and independent now and so ready for college . . . but I will always be your little girl".

Jennifer was born in 1991 and as some of you may know (even have helped out) I am still putting together a binder of cards from 1991 as a surprise for her. She is still my little girl who hopefully will always be my little baseball partner. Thanks to my wife who is Jennifer's Mommy . . . today is for both of you.

While my daughter went off to Finland last summer, my wife and I "adopted" an exchange student as a replacement (that is one of the unwritten rules of the program) . We were blessed to be able to call Vivian our daughter this past fall. Vivian is from Taiwan and we now have two new countries we "must" visit. Today, I thank her Mom for allowing us to be "parents" to Vivian this past year. Of course I had to take her to a Rays game !

Today is a day to thank some very special Moms; especially Jennifers and Vivians.

Happy Mothers Day to all !

A Goliath package from David

Yes it has taken me a little bit (too long and I apologize for that) to THANK YOU David from Indian Baseball Cards and then some . . . for the most generous of shipments I received last week.

Somehow he heard of my "want" of Cubs cards and satisfied that "want" with a load (over 100 cards spanning 47 years !)

Some of my favorites are:

Top Row: a 1962 Topps Jim Brewer # 191 (upper left corner); a great pose by Mitch Williams (top center) and my first Razor: Andrew Cashner.

Middle Row: three Alfonso Soriano's; 2007 Turkey Red, 2008 UD in black and white and 2008 UD Timeline. I hope you can notice the great eyeliner Soriano has.

Bottom Row: a 1991 Fleer Greg Maddux bunting and the 1993 Fleer League Leader with the Maddux powerful face pre-release, to my first O-Pee-Chee, 1991, of George Bell watching a lazy fly ball reach the Wrigley basket (or at least I think so).

Also included in the package were several Studio 1992's, Donruss 1992's, Donruss 1987's, several Topps Stadium cards of various years and many other cards including this 1985 Father-Son card of Dizzy and Steve Trout (got to love that hair !)

I will be posting another entry with more of my favorites from David, including some Tampa Bay Rays (Devil Rays) he sent along (living in Sarasota one must cheer for the Rays, sometimes).

Thank you David !

Duplicate Initials: D.D.

In my ongoing "irregular special feature" that is called Duplicate Initials I am up to D.D.

There are many players with D.D. as their initials like: Doug Dascenzo, Darren Daulton, Doug DeCinces and Delino DeSheilds. There are old-timers Dizzy Dean and Dom Dimaggio. And I could not forget to mention Doug Drabek, Dan Driessen or Dave Duncan.

But D.D. is more complicated than that. I sort of wanted to present, Dave DeBusschere but . . . . . . he is more of a NBA star. One of only eleven (11) other players to play in both the MLB and the NBA, DeBusschere did pitch for the Chicago White Sox in 1962 and 1963, going 3-4 with a .290 ERA. DeBusschere really made his mark as an NBA star for twelve (12) years playing and coaching for the Detroit Pistons and N Y Knickerbockers. An eight (8) time NBA all-star and elected to the NBA Hall of Fame in 1983 Debusschere would certainly have been a good choice.

But D.D. is a struggle for me because there is also Dodger (Brooklyn and Los Angeles) great Don Drysdale.
The 1962 Cy Young winner, played 14 years going 209-166, Drysdale was one of the greatest pitchers of his day. I will leave it at that, since there are so many Dodger bloggers out there I could not do Drysdale justice.

But those two aside my pick as my "favorite" D.D. is . . . . Dave Dravecky !

For those of you who remember, Dravecky was a solid starting pitcher for the Padres and Giants for the better part of eight years (1982-89) having a career record of 64-57. However, Dravecky's career will always be remembered for that one day in July of 1989, pitching for the Giants, in the sixth inning facing Tim Raines . . . when his arm and body went forward to pitch and his humerus bone broke - right there on the mound, his arm breaks and he is writhing on the mound in excruciating pain. This was after a tremendous fight and successful return from cancer in October of 1988 and bouncing back to pitch in the majors in less than a year.

The Giants went on to win the pennant in 1989 and in the post-game celebration Dravecky would break his arm again and during the examination doctors would notice the cancer had returned. Just three weeks later Dravecky would retire from baseball. That year he would earn the Willie Mac award for courageous spirit and leadership.

What makes Dravecky a personal choice for me is two things: one he is a cancer survivor and a battler (need I say more) yet secondly is that on July 18, 1991, after two more surgeries, his arm and shoulder were amputated -the exact same day (almost to the minute) as my daughter was born.

Dravecky has gone on to be an author and motivational speaker as well as my favorite D.D.

The 30-40-50-100 Man

For those of you who are new to baseball (under 21 years of age) or dont bleed Cubbie Blue there once was a 2nd baseman who was pretty darn good.

He was elected to ten (10) all-star games, won nine (9) gold glove and seven (7) silver slugger awards. He has one NL MVP (1984) award in his pocket and his uniform number (#23) is hanging on a foul pole at Wrigley Field. His two game-tying clutch homeruns in a June 23rd, 1984 game has been "officially" named after him . . .

Ok . . . no big secret here . . .the "pretty darn good" 2nd baseman is Ryne Sandberg, Duh !

While 1984 is his MVP year, I will take note of his 1990 year (coming in fourth in MVP ballots): What is so special about 1990 ?

Sandberg hit .306, had a .559 slugging average and . . . . hit 30 doubles, 40 HR's, had 50 walks and drove in 100 RBI's (exactly); a 30-40-50-100 Man ! As an aside, he is one of only threee players ever to hit 40 HR's (1990) and steal 50 bases (1985) in ones career (joining Brady Anderson and Barry Bonds).

Score appropriately named Sandberg "Man of the Year" for 1990 ! I still call him the 30-40-50-100 Man !

Whats on your shoulder ?

The first group of cards I am highlighting from my card show purchases are the 1991 Leaf subset called Studio 91. I could not pass up these cards for a couple of reasons; first 1991 is the year my daughter was born and secondly . . . . take a look at Steve Lakes card - he has a parrot on his shoulder. How could I resist ! ? The back of this card says Steve Lake raises birds and this one is named Ruffles.

All Bill Landrum could put on his shoulder is a ball and Paul Molitor and Pedro Guerrero just put a bat on their shoulder. Way to go Lake (yes he is a former Cubbie too).

I also liked "Oil Can" Boyd pictured with all his necklaces and especially like the use of his nickname (note a previous post of mine about nicknames); and Ivan Calderon, nice ear ring # 22 ! On the back of Calderons card lists his interests as "basketball and . . . cockfighting". You just have to wonder if he knows Michael Vick.

Anyways, I like these cards, and will be looking to find more of them via trades or the next card show I attend. I only picked up 25 cards so I have plenty more to find. Maybe my next batch will show other objects on players shoulders ? ! Whats on your shoulder ?

My first card show in 2009

. . . to be perfectly honest, I went to my first card show since 1991 (yes that is right, 17, seventeen years ago). I had been itching to find a local show since I started this blog and finally found one fifteen minutes away in a small hotel.

I did the smart thing and printed out my "needs" list, added a few notes and ventured out. Promising myself to stick to a budget, keep my "needs" in mind and not succumb to buying the latest and greatest. I think I did ok . . .

here is a summary of what I picked up:
a) 5 Topps All-Star Rookie cards from the mid 1970's (all "needs" and set me back just $ 1.00)

b) a starter set of 25 cards from 1991 called Studio 91 of Fleer; not sure how many are in the set but I am looking for 1991's so this was a good find ( $ 2.00 for all 25)

c) in my quest to complete my 1970 set, I found a nice guy who had quite a collection of "vintage" cards - I picked up 17 cards, including a Juan Marichel, Brooks Robinson and the "Seaver Wins Opener" from the NL Playoffs (all for $ 15.00)

d) I saw a box marked 20 cards for $ 1.00 all sorted by team. How could I resist ? ! I picked up 40 Chicago Cubs; including two Andre Dawson ('92 Leaf, '90 UD), a '83 Ferguson Jenkins, a 1995 Flair Sammy Sosa (never heard of Flair before today and really like this card), a 1978 George Mitterwald, a 1979 Dave Rader and a few Maddux's, Sandbergs, Zambrano's, Lee's, Soriano's, and even a Vintage 1963 Mark Grace (1998 Fleer) . . . a great pick up of 40 cards for only $ 2.00 !

I will be scanning several of these finds and sharing more with you but for now I just wanted to let everyone know that I survived my first card show in seventeen years, stuck to my budget and found some real good deals (I think). It is now time for me to put away my "needs" list and tend to the "honey do" list . . .

"Not suitable" ? for whom ?

Dear Night Owl

Thank you very much for the package you sent my husband / daughter. My husband really appreciates the "vintage" cards (before 19975) and will post a blog about "his cards" soon.
My daughter, who is in Finland will certainly appreciate the start of the two 1991 Score subsets (Dream Team and All Stars) you sent . . . and as for me . . . I truly appreicate the cards you alluded to as "bare chested" and possibly "not suitable".
I am now beginning my own collection of cards and need everyones help . . . are there other "not suitable" cards for this wife to admire ?

Sincerely

the wife of "wait-til-next-year" (my friends call me Karen)

P.S. My husband Steve gave me this Bo Jackson card to add to the other three.

Thanks again Night Owl . . . the cards are very "suitable" !

Bubble Mailer # 2 - "I am getting into the '90s"

I received a bubble mailer in the mail on Friday, culminating a trade with Kevin at The Great 1965 Topps Project .

I had sent him about 25, 1965 Topps cards, last week and in return he sent me an assortment of 91 cards (that is right 91) from 1991. From the various sets including a Topps Stadium Club and Fleer Ultra, he has gotten me kick started in my quest to complete a "real" 1991 set before my daughter returns from her year in Finland (scheduled to return sometime in July of this year). If anybody else can help . . .I am open to many ideas of trades.

Thank you Kevin for getting me started.

A sample of what he sent me includes the following:

an unremarkable Cubbie and a Hall of Famer

he really looks like a caveman

a most unflattering action photo

Ryno . . . record breaker and Hall of Famer

My wife says it is about time I "got into the nineties" as I have been stuck in the late sixties and early seventies "forever". She thought I understood that to mean my "state of mind" and not with collecting cards . . . just another difficulty in communication between the sexes.