Frankly Friday: All Star 1968 Style

1968 All-Star Frank Robinson

I'm in too much of a rush and a little tired to do any big explanation for this one. I think this was an Ebay purchase. I'm not sure and don't really mind that. It is one of the cards on the Frankly Friday Logo Key I posted last episode. It already has a thumbnail on that post so it needs its own full post and this is it.

1968 Topps Baseball 373 Frank Robinson All-Star Orioles

(Front and Back)

Frankly Friday: A Great Hall O Fame Souvenir

2005 Donruss Greats Frank Robinson HOF Souvenir

OK so what can be said? I'll let the card do all the talkin'.

2005 Donruss Greats: Hall of Fame Souvenirs:

HOFS-15 Frank Robinson Orioles

(Front and Back)

Frankly Friday: Score The Triple Crown

1993 Score Select Triple Crown: Frank Robinson

For this Frankly Friday installment I have this beauty that I think I got from a purchase on one of the card forums Sports Card Forum maybe. I am not sure it could have been some random collector who contacted my from my regular blog. So if I did purchase it I don't recall how much I got it for. I might have even bought it with a couple of other cards. Enough of my babbling you came here to see the card:

As you can see the front has a glittery/chrome/foil print on it. Dufex it is called, whatever that is. That is why the scan looks so Chromy/Blurry. I am not a fan of this type of stuff. Back in the 80s and 90s yeah sure but now not so much. Anyway this is card 2 of a 3 card insert set to the 1993 Score Select set. The other two cards (which I am thinking of getting) are Mickey Mantle 1 and Carl Yastzemski 3.

 1993 Score Select Triple Crown - 2 Frank Robinson Orioles

(Front and Back)

Curly Clinch 2014 Edition

CONGRATULATIONS WASHINGTON NATIONALS

Clinch NL East PLAYOFFS BOUND!

The Nationals clinched 1st place in the NL East insuring a playoff birth by beating the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta by a score of 3-0. Step one complete clinching a playoff birth. Getting the Division Lead helps make it easier but we know is not necessary to get there. There will be two teams that squeak into the playoffs and duke it out in the wild-card play-in game. The team is now on the Playoffs Parkway. Heading the opposite direction is the Baltimore Orioles from the AL East on-ramp.

There are many people in the organization that have contributed to this. One man who has played a big role is skipper Matt Williams

CONGRATS AND GO NATS!

When Coach Was A Rookie

Well we all gotta start somewhere, managers don't appear out of thin air, well maybe the first few dozen when baseball was in its infancy. Most of them did some time in the trenches way back when. The Nats current skipper Davey Johnson began his major league career as a player starting with the Baltimore Orioles. He played from 1965-1978, then in 1984 began his managing career starting with the New York Mets. It has been announced that the 2013 season will be his last, he is the current oldest active manager at age 70, but not the oldest ever.

Anyway here is how he looked 47/48 years ago when he was a Rookie.

1966 Topps 579 Orioles 1966 Rookie Stars:

Frank Bertaina, Gene  Brabender and Dave Johnson

(Front and Back)

For those who like to hear about these things I got the card form Ebay for $7.99 + $1.95 shipping, actually this card has an interesting story of how I got it. First the Seller didn't mark it as shipped so I didn't know it was in the mail yet and wasn't sure when it would come. It came as part of a 3 package day (well 1 box, 1 package, 1 typical sportslot PWE but whatever) this came in a small 100ct card box. I didn't recognize the address and it felt real light so I knew it wasn't from one of my recent group breaks I was in (the package was some group break cards). Of course the box had tons of clear postal tape around it at first I tried just pulling it, but got a little tired and cut some of the tape away. I open the box, I really hate those small 100ct boxes because I think the opening should be on the wide side not the narrow side. Anyway there is a bunch of wadded up newspaper Sunday Comics actually and off to the left side one lone card in its penny sleeve. With a business card advertising some baseball related book from I guess the seller.

I am timing the publishing of this post to appear at noon eastern time on the day of the final game of the regular season, which is a late Sunday afternoon game in Arizona. At the time I write this the Nats are still under .500 by two games, 14 games behind Atlanta and about 8 games back in the wild card race. I'm just hoping they can finish the season at or slightly above .500. at 82-71 YAY a WINNING SEASON. They are about 8 games back of Atlanta and 5 back in the Wild Card for the second WC. They most likely will not be in the playoffs. And they didn't make the Playoffs thanks to their loss to St. Louis with 5 more games to go in the season. So much for pre-season expectations. At 84-73 (+5 more games to play) at least they have their second consecutive Winning Season.

Frankly Friday: Classic Counterparts

CLASSIC COUNTERPARTS

OK so I missed last week and this week is only a one card Frankly Friday. Not much to tell about how I got the card, it came from Ebay (Buy It Now I think not auction) $1.30 plus $2.99 shipping. I forget what it was delivered in I didn't note that in my Forums blogs (where I try to keep up with my maildays). This card is one of those two players from different teams type of card. The common thread for this one, besides sort of being local area rivals would be both players were sluggers who lead their teams in Home Runs and RBIs and were regular All-Stars for about 4 straight years. The Duo featured on the card Frank Howard and Boog Powell (Orioles).

2005 Upper Deck Classics: Classic Counterparts - CC-PH

Boog Powell Orioles and Frank Howard Senators #d 1696/1999

(Front and Back)

The lines on the front are not a weird scanner glitch the design of the card I think was going for a wood grain effect sort of. The areas where the team logos are on the front are where the "materials" version of these cards puts the silly "Game Used" jerseys or socks or whatever, apparently there are also signatures versions.

Frankly Friday: 1970 Mini Posters

1970 Wall Decorations

During the 1960s and 1970s Topps seemed to love oddball inserts much like they love to overdo today. One of those inserts for 1970 was a 24 set of "mini" posters that measure 8-11/16" x 9-5/8" and were inserted in the regular wax packs. Since they are just thin newsprint thickness paper and folded to fit the packs they tend to tear at the folds. So far I am fortunate in the two I have with little or no rips, my standard two Washington Franks, Howard and Robinson which are featured in this post. Mr. Robinson of course represents the Orioles. It seems the only other Senators past, present or future in this 24 "poster" set were Denny McLain (Tigers), and Don Mincher (Pilots).

I seem to recall as a kid my brother had a copy of the Frank Howard poster pinned to the bedroom wall of our childhood home. At the time we were sharing the bedroom that I would eventually be the sole occupant of when my brother decided to move to the basement . I have no idea where that copy of the poster went. Anyway here are images of the posters for the two Flagship Franks of this post series.

1970 Topps Baseball Mini Pin-Up Poster Insert

22 Frank Howard Senators

(Front and back)

1970 Topps Baseball Mini Pin-Up Poster Insert

12 Frank Robinson Orioles

(Front and Back)

These mini posters are just a  fraction too large for my scanner to capture the complete width of them. This image of the Frank Robinson poster I moved over slightly so that the copyright line can be seen on the right side, the Frank Howard poster has that info under the "card" number on the lower left side.

Washington Franks mentioned this post:

Frank Howard

Frank Robinson

Other SeNators mentioned in this post:
Denny McLain
Don Mincher

Frankly Friday: 1952 Topps Reprints

 1952 TOPPS Reprints

Many baseball card collectors consider the 1952 Topps Baseball set to be the Crème de la crème set of baseball cards. Nobody seems to know exactly what it is that has made this one of the most sought after sets in the hobby. This popularity and its scarcity makes the prices for the individual cards insane. So I will probably never have a complete original set, and probably won't even have a complete Original Senators Team set from 1952, but I did manage to get a reprint set of the Senators (and a reprint set of the St. Louis Browns who would become the Orioles in 1954). I have one original 1952 Topps cards of a Red Sox player. I don't have any original 1952 Senators yet. The Senators had two Franks playing for them in 1952; Frank Campos and Frank Shea. Both had 1952 Topps cards, however Frank Shea's card has him as a Yankee as he was traded to Washington in May of 52 and apparently Topps had already printed their cards, where as Bowman seems to have him as a Senator. So right now I only have the Campos '52 reprint so that is the only one I can show right now. When I get some of the originals I can do a side by side, until then I will only have reprints to show from time to time. The 1952 set was reprinted in 1983.

 1983 Topps 1952 Reprint - 307 Frank Campos Senators

(Front and Back)

Washington Franks mentioned in this post:
Frank Campos
Frank Shea

The Amazing Schneider-Man: Brian Schneider

BRIAN SCHNEIDER - (39) 23

Expos to Nationals transition catcher
Expos 2000 - 2004 / Nationals 2005 - 2007

photo by Getty Images - 29 April 2004 Expos in San Diego.

I'm trying to get this semi-regular player scheme going again. The biggest problem I've had with it is deciding which 5 (or 6 maybe) cards of an individual SeNator to feature, make sure I have the backs scanned (I didn't use to scan card backs for the longest time) and to hunt for photos to decide which if any to show along with the cards, and then to plan who will be featured next. The basic criteria for me to feature a player is for me to hopefully have more than just one or two of a player's cards; the player must have been on one of the DC Club incarnations so guys like Gary Carter and Vladimir Guerrero will not be mentioned in this series. I may blog about them from time to time since they were Expos, but neither actually played in DC on the home team. The closest Vlad got was playing in Baltimore for the Orioles.

OK so onto this post's Curly W Player Brian "Schneider-man" Schneider. Brian was the Expos main catcher when the team moved over to DC to become The Nationals. He caught the inaugural first pitch President Bush tossed in 2005. At the time he was my fave currently playing catcher. During his tenure as a National, Brian was an Amazing catcher (at least to me) and had a pretty decent arm for catching base stealers. He was one of the "take the lead" team mentors for younger players and worked well with the pitchers as their "quarterback".

Photo by Getty Images?

During the off season in the winter of 2007 News of him being traded to the New York Mets along with Outfielder Ryan Church (another fave Nat) for Lastings Milledge really ticked me. Probably because it was the first trade I recall that involved some of my faves that I heard about when it happened. I blogged my Gut Reaction to it on my regular blog in a post titled Nats + Mets Trade = UH OH. At the time I didn't have a card blog yet so all my card posts and sports-news posts were made there. It took me a couple of years to get over the trade, by that time Lastings Milledge was traded to the Pirates and Brian was still with the Mets about to move to the Phillies. Brian's last playing season was 2012 with the Phillies he announced his retirement on 29 January 2013 a day after, fellow Expo to National, Nick Johnson (last with the Orioles) announced his retirement.

Lookie what I found. "Final?" Play at the Plate between Ex-Teammates.

Photo via Associated Press from 09 June 2012 Game Phillies at Baltimore

Baseball Historian fans may recall that Brian was the Catcher at the plate in the 2007 "Chasing the Record" Circus game vs. The Giants in San Fran. where Barry Bonds hit homer number 756 off of Mike Bacsik -  freezing the game for an hour or two.

photo via Getty Images - 7 August 2007 Bonds his #756 at home vs. Nationals.

OK it was only about 35-45 minutes but it seemed about an hour too long. Yes I know it was baseball history and it was a big thing at the time, but halting the game for more than 10 minutes was uncalled for. 15 minutes tops would be acceptable for anything of this nature. 

Now lets get on with the Card Show:

 2002 Fleer Baseball 84 Brian Schneider Expos

 2004 MLB Showdown Card Game 014 Brian Schneider Expos

(Front and Back)

 

 2005 Topps Total Baseball 17 (WAS7) Brian Schneider Nationals

(Front and Back)

 2006 Topps Heritage Baseball 357 Brian Schneider Nationals

(Front and Back)

 2007 Topps Heritage Baseball 114 Brian Schneider Nationals

(Front and Back)

 2008 Topps Heritage Baseball 616 Brian Schneider Mets

(Front and Back)

Oddly Brian sort of bears a slight resemblance to this 1960s Senators Catcher. I noticed the resemblance when I first got this card from sportlots (I think).

1963 Topps Baseball 94 Bob Schmidt Senators

Senators/Nationals mentioned in this post:
Mike Bacsik
Ryan Church
Nick Johnson
Lastings Milledge
Bob Schmidt
Brian Schneider

Other Noteable "Franchise" players mentioned in this post:
Gary Carter
Vladimir Guerrero

Brian Schneider Baseball Reference

On Deck: Ed Brinkman - (2, 38) 11

In The Hole: Ryan Church - (38), 19

Frankly Friday: Breakfast Cereal In 3-D

1970 Breakfast Cereal In 3-D (Sort of)

Starting in 1970 until 1983 kids who went Bonkers for Baseball cards could get some real cool cards out of a box of their favorite Kellogg's brand breakfast cereal. OK maybe not all the Kellogg's cereals had the cards but several of them did, or had some kind of promo/giveaway for kids to send for a free card. I think for $xx.xx and some boxtops/proof of purchase you could get a full set. They did this for football also probably the same years I didn't check the FB years.

The cards are an early 3-D effect produced by a company or process known as Xograph which is what some people mistakenly call these cards since Kellogg's is not mentioned anywhere on the cards, but they were the distribution source. The cards have a tendency to bend or bow like 1990s Chrome and Bowman cards. One down side to this type of card is instead of getting creases when they are bent or folded the front plastic cracks and frosts up ruining the 3-D effect and often destroying the image as well.

Anyway on to the Washington Franks that appear on cards in this set, Of course our former Inaugural Nationals Skipper Frank Robinson wasn't a Washington Frank yet he was a B'more Frank.

So without saying too much "I had a bunch of these cards back then and ate tons of Sugar Pops to get to them" (I probably did but it was probably Cap't Crunch or Quisp) I'll just jump to showing the two Frankly cards this week.

1970 Kellogg's 3-D Baseball 6 Frank Howard Senators
(Front and Back)

1970 Kellogg's 3-D Baseball 15 Frank Robinson Orioles

(Front and Back)

There are 75 cards in this set and I have 15 of them. Most of mine are in decent shape with little or no cracking but there are a few that are in bad shape.

Washington Franks Mentioned in this post:

Frank Howard

Frank Robinson