Modern Hall of Famers in the Hundreds Slots A-M

Yesterday I looked at the vintage Hall of Famers and how many hundred slots they were given. (I skipped the Cubs since I covered them in this post)

Today I turn my attention to the modern players.  PSA uses 1970 and beyond as the dividing line.  Because there are so many players, I'm just going to do those with last names A - M today.  Tomorrow I'll cover the rest.

Roberto Alomar - never

Jeff Bagwell - never - we start with two guys that didn't play in major media markets, and they get no recognition from Topps.

Johnny Bench -  six times - 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982   Bench went on a pretty good run in the late '70s and early '80s.  I'm surprised he didn't get the hundreds in the early '70s when he was dominating the league and winning MVPs.

Craig Biggio - never - no respect for another Astro

Bert Blyleven - never - another small market guy. 

Barry Bonds - six times - 1994, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2005, 2006  While six times is pretty good, I think Topps shied away from him since he was such a polarizing figure.

George Brett - nine times - 1981 thru 1989 The guy was a hit machine during this span and that was hard to ignore.

Lou Brock - one time - 1972  The guy was a stolen base machine and that was ignored!

Rod Carew - ten times - 1975, 1976, 1979 thru 1986.  See George Brett

Steve Carlton - one time - 1973 His one and  only time was the season after he won 27 games for a last place team

Gary Carter - never - Surprised me, especially since he played in New York

Dennis Eckersley - one time - 1998 - An end of the career number

Rollie Fingers - never - No love for bullpen guys

Carlton Fisk - never - Bench got six but Carter and Fisk get nothing.  Very odd

Rich Gossage - never - see Rollie Fingers

Ken Griffey - four times - 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000  Four seems low for a guy of his stature 

Tony Gwynn - never The guy was a hitting machine like Brett and Carew.  How was he overlooked?

Ricky Henderson - one time - 1986 Looks like Topps limits the stolen base guys to just once

Trevor Hoffman - never - see Rollie Fingers and Rich Gossage

Catfish Hunter - one time - 1976 He gets his hundred after he signs with the Yankees

Reggie Jackson - twelve times - 1975, 1976, 1978 thru 1987 He is the big leader at this point, with a dozen times.  He leads not only in appearances, but consecutive appearances (ten).

Derek Jeter - five times - 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2014 Figured he'd have had a bunch more.

Randy Johnson - one time - 2002

Chipper Jones - one  time - 2008

Barry Larkin - never

Greg Maddux - never He wins three Cy Youngs but never gets a hundred

Pedro Martinez - one time - 2007 - He wins three Cy Youngs and gets just one hundred, and it comes when he is with a New York team

Paul Molitor - two times - 1981 and 1992

Joe Morgan - two times - 1977, 1978 Two MVPs, two hundreds

Jack Morris - none -

Eddie Murray - one time - 1985

Hall of Famers in the Hundreds Slots

A couple weeks ago I was lamenting the lack of Cubs HOFers with cards in the hundreds slots.

I did some further digging to see how other Hall of Famers fared.  I used the PSA master player lists site as my source.  They have their list divided  between vintage players (pre-1970) and modern.  Today I've got the vintage players.

My list doesn't cover all the Hall of Famers.  I limited it to those who had significant parts of their playing career in the 1960s.  It looks like it wasn't until 1960 that Topps really started reserving the hundreds slots for the  big names.

Hank Aaron - 8 times - 1960, 1964, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973.  Aaron also has the first or last card a couple times, which was often another place of honor.

Yogi Berra - never!  His career was winding down in the '60s, so that would probably explain his exlcusion.

Roberto Clemente - 2 times - 1966 and 1967.

Bob Gibson - 2 times - 1968 and 1969 - His 1968 minuscule 1968 ERA was worthy of the hundreds

Al Kaline - 1 time - 1972 - he got his in the twilight of his career

Harmon Killebrew - 3 times - 1963, 1965, 1974 - twice while he was a star, once at the tail end

Sandy Koufax - 3 times - 1664, 1965, 1966 - he was getting the slots as he became the best pitcher in baseball.

Mickey Mantle - 4 times - 1961, 1962, 1963, 1969 - this is a lot fewer than I would have suspected. 

Juan Marichal - 1 time - 1967

Eddie Mathews - 2 times - 1965, 1966 - another honored at the end of the line

Willie Mays - 6 times - 1960, 1962, 1963, 1967, 1970, 1971 -  and there would have been more if this was something Topps did in the '50s

Willie McCovey - none - no love for Stretch; all the Giants slots went to Mays

Brooks Robinson - 2 times - 1967, 1971 - both times for him were years following an Oriole appearance in the World Series

Frank Robinson - 5 times - 1963, 1967, 1668, 1970, 1972 - he had more than I would have thought.

Warren Spahn - 3 times - 1961, 1962, and 1964 - Like Mays, he would have had more if this was a '50 Topps thing.

So Long Tommy LaStella

On Friday the Cubs traded Tommy LaStella to the Angels.  LaStella spent the past four years with the Cubs in a back-up role.  This year he turned into the best pinch-hitter on the team.  But he was due for a big salary bump if the Cubs kept him, to he was moved.

LaStella seemed like he was well-liked in the clubhouse.  He was not well-liked by Topps, however.  His four years netted just four cards from Topps.  There was also an autographed Prizm card which bring my Tommy total to a mere five cards.

That is a pretty meager total. Jen-Ho Tseng had five cards this year and he pitched just two inning for the Cubs.  Drew Smyly didn't pitch a single inning and had three cards.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 16,134 Cubs cards from 135 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1971 Kelloggs #61 Billy Williams  Kelloggs did a nice job with this one.

1980s: 1981 Donruss #482 Bill Buckner  I was in college in 1981.  I knew that the first Topps set, 1952, was worth a lot of money.  I figured that if I bought the first Donruss set, in 30 years I'd be sitting on a fortune.  I am not sitting on a fortune today.  When adjusted for inflation, a 1981 Donruss set is worth less now than in 1981.  But I do have cards like this one, showing Bill Buckner's neck hair.

1990s: 1994 Bowman #26 Mike Morgan In 1994 Mike Morgan was paid $3.375 million by the Cubs.  He won two games and lost ten.  I think that paying nearly $2 million per win was overpaying.

2000s: 2009 Topps Factory Set Bonus #CHI5 Kosuke Fukudome .... and speaking of overpaying!

2010s: 2013 Topps #561 Josh Vitters  No overpaying here, just over-rating.  Remember when Josh Vitters and Brett Jackson were going to come up from the minors and lead the Cubs to greatness?  After hitting just .121 over 36 games in 2012, he never made it back to the majors.  I think Theo rushed both Vitters and Jackson to the majors to show the fans just how bad the minor league system was.  That bought his rebuild program some time.

A Barney Rainbow Grows

Its been years since I've had one of these posts.

I was a big-time Darwin Barney collector.  I chased after each on of his cards and as many of the parallels as I could find.  Most of that ended in 2014 when he was traded to the Dodgers.

Every now and then, though, a card pops up that fills a hole.  That's what I've got today.

Barney was on the 2012-13 Panini Prizm checklist.  Along with the base card came a bunch of parallels.  I picked up most of them - refractor, green, red, cracked ice, and National cracked ice.  I was missing two, the gold (/10) and finite black (1/1).

Well, now I'm missing just one.  This gold showed up in an auction on Ebay.  I was the only bidder, so I got it at the opening price.

Here's a look at the updated Barney Prizm Rainbow:

A Plea for Next Year's Gallery

I'm finishing up with Gallery posts today and I have one request of Topps.

The set typically includes some retired players along with current ones. Last year there were two retired Cubs,

 

Ernie and Ryno.

This year there were two retired Cubs, Ernie and Ryno.

Got a guess where this is going??

A simple request... in 2019 Gallery please use some new retired players.  Billy, Fergie, Ron, Andre, Greg.... any of these would be fine choices!

Is Anthony Rizzo the Love Child of Ron Darling?

The title of the post asks an odd question, is Anthony Rizzo the Love Child of Ron Darling?

Where on earth does that question come from??

 

It didn't come from me.  It came from the brush of artist Kevin Graham.  He made Rizzo look more like Ron Darling that Anthony Rizzo.

This is the second year in a row that Rizzo's artwork didn't do much for him.

Last year he was wearing lipstick.  This year he is Ron Darling.  Hopefully, next year he will be Anthony Rizzo.