History of Cleveland Professional Baseball Part VI, again !!

This is an updated remake of a previous post.Some of you who have been around a while may remember it.I kind of got side tracked by holidays and trades and this series fell into the vast crevasses of the blogosphere. That's partly why I created my Trading Post. To keep this blog more on track. I have created a side bar so anyone can easily access the first five parts of this story if they so desire. I hope you enjoy it!!

1887

The first Cleveland baseball cards ?

Cleveland makes it's way back to the Major Leagues.

After a two year hiatus Cleveland was able to move back into major league baseball as a replacement for the Pittsburgh team which defected to the National League. Of course, that made Cleveland a member of the American Association.

Cleveland did not fare well in their first year in the Association, finishing last in an eight team league, with a 39-92 record. Pete Hotaling,who played center field, finished with a .299 BA, 136 pts. behind the league leader Tip O'Neill at .435. Their team ERA of 4.99 barely beat out the New York club at 5.28 for last place in the league.Things are sure to better next year.

Jimmy Williams, the manager for the 1887 Blues is featured on the 1887-90 Old Judge (N-172) series card pictured above. Many Cleveland players were awarded cards in this very large and confusing set.Being issued over a four year period created cards with the same player on various teams and also,in some cases, many different poses.These are the oldest Cleveland cards I have been able to identify. I am now working on a list of all the Cleveland cards in this set. That will be my next post, along with photos of some of the Tribe cards.

If anyone knows of any older Cleveland cards, please let me know !
year !

Game-Used Trade Bait

At my Trading Post blog !! Check it out. Please!!
http://sportscardtradingpost.blogspot.com/2010/02/trade-bait-game-used-baseball-football.html

Toronto Tribe Trade

This may be the last trade post you see on this blog. OK, I hear the cheering,you can stop now!

I'm not not going to stop trading, and I won't stop posting the trades but they will be posted on my Trading Post blog. Earlier this year I said I wanted to make some changes and get back to more informative and, hopefully, more interesting posts. Well ,I'm snowed in today, so this seems like a good time to start. It all begins at the top with a new header, that Night Owl should love!!

Now, on to Toronto.

Dennis, over at Pictures of Men, needed some Bowman Heritage cards and I had some to get rid of. In return ,he sent me this huge stack of Tribe cards !

Here are some of the highlights.

2006 Bowman Chrome Cliff Lee
2009 Upper Deck OPC Travis Hafner insert

1993 Carlos Baerga Stadiun Club Member's Choice

2001 Topps Stars Travis Fryman

1992 Ultra Junior Ortiz

Very cool shot of Ortiz, and I love that uniform.

2004 Donruss Team Heroes C.C. Sabathia Showdown parallel

2009 Topps Tris Speaker Turkey Red insert
2009 Finest Cliff Lee

1983 Fleer team checklist

I had never seen these before.
I now know my set is complete!!

2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee checklist.

I now know my set is not complete.

I need :

61 V-Mart

86 Carmona

128 Perez

130 Wood

450 Lee

491 Garko

Sizemore is the only black-border I have

2009 Topps 206 Masterson mini Piedmont back

Now this is a card I can relate to very well !!

1963 Topps Pedro Ramos

This was from my boyhood era.I was 12 years old when this card was issued. Right in the thick of my baseball card collecting days. No computers. No cable or satellite TV. Every nice day in the summer we were outside playing ball, hiking through the woods or getting onto some sort of trouble!

Dennis, thank you very much for the great pictures of men !!

They're Baaaack : 2010 Topps Blaster w/ Historical Patch

I stopped at the local Meijers store tonight to check things out.They finally caught up with Target and have 2010 Topps!! Blasters, rack packs and individual packs.According to the box, our old friends , The Historical Patches are back.

Here's what this blaster had to offer.


Five of the 50 base cards. The only Tribe card in the whole box !! I love the Brewers "Franchise History card.



My first and only Gold parallel of 2010.




At first I wasn't sure what this card was. After checking the wrapper I'm thinking it must be "The Cards Your Mom Threw Out Original Backs". They are seeded 1:24 packs.

History of the Game I love these and want them all !!!!!! I love the historical side of baseball.

Legendary Lineage. Comparing legendary players to their modern counterparts There are some interesting facts here, but with the changes in rules and equipment, I'm not sure you can always make realistic comparisons.

Peak Performance. This would be another insert set that I want to collect. I'll be working on want lists this week-end.

Tales of the Game. Still another set I want!

The Cards Your Mom Threw Out. I thought I would want this set too, but I have a slight problem here. With Tim Lincecum.His card goes in the "What were they thinkin' ! " category.If you Mom (or wife) is throwing out your 2008 cards already, you better start picking them up off the floor. I just don't think a card this new belongs in this set.

2 of 10 Topps Town cards. The McCann is already promised to " McCann can Triple" and I'm thinking, if she doesn't already have it, "Covered in Wrappers" is salivating over the Puhols ! There was also a gold Man Ram.

Turkey Red. These are still nice looking cards, but they're getting a little old to me.

When They Were Young. This, I think, will be a fun and interesting set.





Now, there was one more pack in the box.

They did make the wrapper interesting this year.

The latest in the commemorative patches. MCP-9. Lou Gehrig from the 1937 World Series.At least it's a noteworthy player.

I was pretty happy with the box, except for the lack of Tribe cards.

The Meijer wrappers are the silver foil like you find in Walmart as opposed to the white vinyl that Target sells.

Priority Tribe Cards

Chris over at On Card Auto's saw a Nomar jersey card on on my trading post and quickly left a comment of interest.After a couple of emails we decided on a trade.The Nomar for an Asdrubal Cabrera jersey and maybe a few other Tribe cards as well. A few.

A couple days ago I came home to a small, USPS priority box from Chris.My first thought was " Well, he certainly uses sturdy packaging for a few cards".

This Topps jersey card was mostly what I was expecting. Much to my surprise, he also threw in the Dan Denham Bowman auto !! And a few extra Tribe cards.....

Just a few !! First of all, don't panic! He did not ship them loose in the box.They were tightly wrapped and sealed in cellophane in four individual packs.They all arrived perfectly.I didn't count but there has to be at least 200+ cards. And a very wide variety.I picked out a few favorites to share.

Wally Shaner, bottom center, got his first card 2 years after he died.1994 Conlon collection.It says he came up to Cleveland for a cup of coffee, common phrase for a short stint at the big league level, in 1923. He barely finished his coffee.3 games,1 for 4 with a run scored.Three years later he played in Boston for 2 years and finished his career with 13 games in Cincinnati in 1929.I love the Conlon Collection cards. I need to post my want list.

Slider !! Our colorful,fun loving mascot.Paul Shuey and his chorus line kick.Mark Whiten drops the bat and watches as the ball soars far away.

Boy I miss Omar.We all miss Omar.At least we'll see a lot of him this year if he makes it up with the White Sox (I believe I read they signed him). 1994, Eddie Murray's first year with the Tribe.

I don't know what to say Chris, except thank you very, very much for all the great Tribe cards!!

Be patient with me, your Nomar will be on it's way as soon as I can get some Cubbies together!!

O-H-I-O Thank you OSU !!

The Rose Bowl

OSU-26

O-17

Why, you ask, is this important on my Cleveland Indians sports card blog ? Well, Madding, over at Cards on Cards was rooting for the Ducks.He had a great post about the Ducks and seemed to be very knowledgeable on that subject.At the end he mentioned something about watching the game so I put up a comment saying I'd be watching but rooting for the Bucks.I also suggested a friendly little wager of 50 Cards cards to 50 Tribe cards that OSU would win! Being a blogger of good faith,Madding came through with the terrific assortment of cards shown below.

First a little college basketball and football.

Then down to the Tribe !!

These are some great cards from the 1995 Bazooka set.

Next a lot of shiny.

2000 Topps Chrome - Eat your heart out Motherscratcher !!

If you look close, Robbie is blowing a bubble while stealing a base.

I love this this Albert Belle card from 1995 Stadium Club.
They don't make them like this anymore!

Dave's expression is priceless.

"You don't know,I just might bunt." Riiiiight.

Ryan Garko's card looks like a posed shot from the early 1900's.

There was a little bit of everything in this package.

Ah, sigh......

I'm not sure if Keith Foulke ever had an Indian uniform but he had a Tribe card.

Well Madding, I'm sorry about your Ducks, but thank you very much for the great Tribe cards.

I just might be able to find a few Red Birds to send your way!!

Thorzul's Budget Break

Thorzul had a budget box break a couple weeks ago and this was some of the Tribe loot I ended up with.

First some 1997 Circa.

I like this set because there are several different background colors and

designs, even within the same team.

Player names are a little tough to read in some cases,but I still like them.

I even needed a couple of these cards.

The top Dennis Martinez is from 1996 Score and is the

"Dugout Collection" parallel.

These were nice looking cards with the copper colored border.

Below is Albie Lopez in the regular, white bordered basecard.

Albie was known for his bubble gum bubbles as shown in the 1995 Pinnacle set.

The only trouble with older box breaks is most of the players are no longer on the team!!

But, that's all part of the system and why I no longer have any favorite players.

I will always root for the Tribe, but it's hard to get too excited about

individual players when you know they probably won't be there that long.

Lastly , we have 1999 Upper Deck MVP.
I was never overwhelmed by this set but the Omar silver script is nice.

Too bad one of the Colon duplicates wasn't!

There was also a nice selection of Astros cards

that went to my oldest son Josh.

Thanks Thorzul, for this break.

I added a few more cards too my ever growing collection!