Collector's Log: Stardate 198210.13

Still in the midst of the 1982 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers.

I'll do the second day first.  Had to look it up, but those new player collections would have been these guys.  A couple of them didn't last.  A lot of them were Orioles, and I didn't want to player collect most of the team.

Don Baylor, Bobby Grich, Doug DeCinces, Enos Cabell, Mark Belanger, Sparky Lyle, Bob Bailor.  

They all played in the minors in Bluefield, WV at some point.  My father's family is from there.  Who can name a current superstar that also had a stint in Bluefield?

Not sure what I was going by, but Game 2 wasn't actually 4-0 at any point.  It was 3-0 and then 4-4 for a couple innings...

Brewers had a lead until the Cards tied it in the 6th.  The tie lasted for a couple innings until pinch hitter Steve Braun takes the second walk in the inning, this time with the bases loaded, to score George Hendrick - not to be confused with my friend Mike Hernick...

 Man, I'm glad I just collect cards, because I'd have failed at sports reporting.  McGee robbed Gorman Thomas, not Cecil Cooper.  Guess I just defaulted to my favorite Brewer.

 Not a bad haul for a buck sixty:

I left Kessinger out because my original card turned into this many years later at a National.  Really nice dude.

The "other" Mike's brother, Brian, had a medium sized HO train layout in their basement.  He went over to N scale later.  I reaped the benefits of some choice pieces for my own HO setup in the form of a cool diesel switcher (that I can't remember enough about to produce a suitable image) and an engine house that, except for darker doors, was similar to this:

A few days later:

Here's a little video I found in my research by a guy that helped create the opening animations to the Series broadcast.  Must have been a collector too!

Ten days later, the shop visits continued.  (You've seen this one before.)

One of the few cards I ever got for Christmas.  Thanks Grandma & Mom!

Collector's Log: Stardate 198210.05

It's October 1982, time for postseason baseball!

My buddy Mike had a nice workbench setup in his basement, and we did a lot of models there.  This particular one was for my stepfather at the time.  Not sure if this is the exact kit or not, but it looked something like this:

I remember the wheels distinctly.  This was when Knight Rider was popular, so it had something to do with that.  Don didn't end up owning the real thing.  He got one of the first year Fieros later, and stashed it away for a long time.  I might have painted the Trans Am black, with a little red tint on the middle between the headlights...

Here are the lineups for the Brewers Angels ALCS Game 1.  I left after the fourth inning, when it was 7-3 Angels.  They added a run in the 5th and that was it.

Tommy John pitched a complete game.  You don't see that in the postseason much any more.  Baseball Reference doesn't even mention the pitch counts.  Hadn't noticed the subtle difference between the photos in his '83 Topps cards until just now.

Both of these guys did the same thing the next day.  Angels win again.  Vuckovich pitched 8 in the loss.  Must be why he looks grumpy.

Over in the NL, the other Championship Series was starting after a rainout.

Bob Forsch, who looks a bit like Carlton Fisk in some of his cards, also pitched a complete game shutout with six strikeouts, and had two hits, a run, and an RBI.  These days, a pitcher would be out of the lineup the rest of the week after a performance like that.

I was apparently rooting for the Angels, which is no surprise, since Mike was an Angels fan full time.  Plus, they had Don Baylor, Doug DeCinces, and Bobby Grich, three of my player collection guys.

There's that guy in the Trans Am again...

Remington Steele was one of my favorite shows at the time.  You can see why Pierce Brosnan got the role of James Bond a little while after this.

A psychic moment on my part.  Pitch #136 went over the wall in center off the bat of my guy Baylor.

Gretchen was the German Shepherd that I grew up with.  She didn't have the typical color markings of an average shepherd.  She was light tan all over and just a streak of black on her tail (and the nose, of course).

This one's probably from about 1974 or so

We were both raised together from pups.  She was a great family dog.  I remember one time we couldn't find her until we heard her collar tags clinking against the bath faucet ~ she had climbed into the tub to hide from a thunderstorm.

I don't believe this was an instance in which we used ammo of any kind.  More like we ran around yelling "pew pew pew" and "bang bang".  I liked putting the gear on, but the game was never my favorite in any form.

Now we knew who was playing in the Series...

And it didn't start well for the Cardinals.  I was still rooting against Milwaukee.  I collect Cecil Cooper, but again, the Cards had more guys than that.  Keith Hernandez, Bruce Sutter, and Gene Tenace off the bench have their own sections in one of my binders here.

I still have a wooden sorting tray I made with 30 card-sized compartments and a hole for your finger to pull the stack from within each one.  But I don't recall what the "lineup tray" was except that I know I used to lay out the batting orders in cards when watching games at home back in the day.

Next time: Who wins the series? and Mom puts one over on me!

Collector's Log: Stardate 198209.16

We pick up in 1982 in mid-September.  School is back in session, as is after school neighborhood baseball, and card trading.

I mentioned before that "3 hits" was just our rotating game of a pitcher and a couple fielders at the backstop in front of my townhouse rotating postitions after each batter hit three.

The evolution of my timepieces:

 

  

Those were the days when most people wore a watch instead of carrying a multipurpose device in their pockets.  I slowly migrated to a pocket watch in the late 90's, and didn't have a cell phone until years after they became popular.  At least my pesky stepsister couldn't get a hold of that!
Picture of pocket watches are my actual items.  My old wristwatch looks almost exactly the same too, and they're all still in my top dresser drawer.  My current phone is the Samsung Galaxy 7 as shown.  The flip phone is as close as I can remember.  How quickly we move on, eh?

 

I paged through my '81 set and still have no idea who the last two cards were, so here are the Mike-Mayer brothers instead.  (Pronounced MIK-ka-my-er)  Trademarks were a bitch back then, even though there wasn't anyone else who could show logos.  Every team except the Rams are in full blank helmet glory.

Not sure what Billy did in Baltimore that day, but it probably involved his dad taking him to a card shop or something.  Though the one Mr. H used to frequent was north of DC, not Baltimore.

Lisa didn't come around to trade much, and I guess that's why.  1969 Topps were ANCIENT to us back then, I'm sure.

This was a heck of a deal though.  I had several Brocks available when I got that lot of 1970 from my stepfather's relative, so this was a no-brainer.  That "$5" may have been current Beckett value.  Somehow, I still need a Palmer single scratchoff today, though.  Must have traded it before I started collecting him in earnest.  Which makes sense since I just got his rookie the previous Christmas.

Not a card thing, but an interesting exploration of the composition of a baseball.  Something like this:

And then the next day...  Well, some kids did social things, and I did stuff like that.

Next time: The MLB post season!

Collector's Log: Stardate 198208.26

Resuming the series on my collecting exploits back in 1982.  Except for Christmas, I've been slacking for about six months on these.

Let's pick up the log entries from late in August....

Gaithersburg is about a half hour south towards DC.  I'm trying to recall what shop this might have been.  Might think of it later...

Picked up this fine '56 for my EH player collection.  I have most of my EH cards scanned, but can't find a post showing them all off.  Maybe I never did it....?

Nice to have the original and the Archives copies.  Bonus Yankee box set card at the bottom.  These were joined later by the '55 Bowman and corresponding Archives copy.

I ended up with the entire ROM series - 75 issues.  Not that they're worth much of anything.  There was another series produced later by IDW that I've never seen.  Based on a toy, the comic outlasted the toy by a large margin.

Only have a few Star Wars comics from the 70's.  Now they would have been worth something.  Ah well, story of my (collecting) life.

 

Hard to tell which Kessingers I got this time.  It's not the '68, since that one was obtained just back on the 24th of June.   Must have been a couple somewhere between these two.

I can also only guess as to the Angels I got for my buddy Mike.   Probably from the new crop in 1982, but it couldn't be that many for a lucky buck.

Not a bad daily schedule.  Start and end with creative classes.  In case you can't translate, here's what it means:

1st period - Drawing & Painting - learned from an established local artist. 
2nd - French - My accent was decent, but my vocabulary has all but faded away.
3rd - Algebra II - Mrs. Thomas was a trip.  Did well in math (as far as I went).
4th - Contemporary Issues - My least favorite classes were history and social studies type things.
Lunch - Usually bought what they were serving - which was only one or two choices.  Nowhere near all the options and packaged add-ons they have today.  Probably had those milks in a plastic bag that you stabbed with the pointed straws.

5th - English
6th - Chemistry - with Mrs. Vaughn.  Beehive hairdo and glasses, but she was really cool.
7th - Filmmaking - (8mm and VHS video.  I had this class from 9th grade on, but never became the next Stephen Speilberg.)

"3 Hits" was a game we used to play at the backstop.  You would get up to bat and after three hits, you would rotate out to pitcher or outfield.  Some of us would get our three in ten pitches or less, but sometimes someone would take forever.  Easier than playing a game with only three or four people.

The last note is about an episode of the detective series starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers called Hart To Hart.  The show was about two millionaire jet-setters who always managed to find mysteries wherever they went.  Their exploits ran for five seasons, and then eight tv movies.  They still run on the Hallmark channel according to Wikipedia.
The blog 1207 Consecutive Games has a post all about the episode.