an ebay find

as a 1970's set collector (as in the "boring gray border" set from 1970) I could not pass up the opportunity to purchase the 1992 Baseball Card Magazine full panel cards portraying the 1970 design.

Finding these cards is difficult, let alone finding the panels in tact. I found a guy selling six of the eleven panels (the set has 8 cards per panel and is only an 88 card set) and I could not resist. I am still not sure if I am going to cut them (carefully) and store them as singles of keep the panels in tact.

For now I have cards numbered 25 thru 30, 39 thru 64, 73 thru 80 and 81 to 88 (uncut).

Here is my favorite panel because it showcases the only two Chicago Cubs in the set; Andre Dawson # 44 and Ryne Sandberg# 47. Pretty nice to have 7 HOF'rs and two future candidates on one panel.
The backs are equally interesting with "The Investment Advisor" (remember these were printed in 1992, back in the glut of the marketplace).

I like these cards and would like to complete the set if anyone knows of anyone with any of these cards . . . . I will keep on looking on ebay . . . because you never know what you may find there.

Bicentennial George Brett

Twenty-one (21) seasons in small market Kansas City, thirteen (13) times an all-star (consecutive years), three silver slugger awards, one AL MVP (1980) and one World Championship ring (1985). Career statistics that earned Brett a first ballot (98.2%) election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 and he was the first player to have his number (#5) retired by the Royals.

The notorious "Pine Tar Incident" (1983); 3,154 career hits and according to historian Bill James; George Howard Brett is the second-best third baseman ever to play the game (behind Mike Schmidt).

I present his 1977 Topps All-Star card # 580 (with the stats on the back obviously depicting the year 1976). In 1976, Brett was elected to his first of thirteen consecutive all-star teams, led the league in hits (215, the most in his career with 160 singles), BA (.333) and total bases (298) and came in 2nd in MVP voting (behind Thurman Munson).

All that may be well and good but Brett was also very patriotic (even if he had not planned on being so). At the conclusion of the 1976 campaign, Brett had exactly 1776 hits ! (something I refer to as a "Clemente-ism", a statistical quirk occurring at the end of a year and depicted on ones card). Nice way to celebrate the Bicentennial !