2005 TOPPS HERITAGE BRETT HARPER So who's your favorite Harper? Perhaps you melt for Atticus Finch, have preordered your copy of Go Set a Watchman, and can think only of Harper Lee. Or maybe you're a publishing nerd with a soft spot for John and James Harper, 19th century forebears of the Harper & Brothers/Harper [...]
2015 TOPPS HERITAGE TERRY COLLINS Nostalgia is a distorting lens. Ralph the ice-cream man used to stop in front of my house every day from late spring to early fall, ringing his bells in four-beat measures that made me dash out my front door and sail over the concrete porch steps. I'd scrape together my [...]
2015 TOPPS LUCAS DUDA You can't spell “mea culpa” without “Lucas Duda.” Well, maybe you can. Hell, I'm not exactly Cicero when it comes to Latin. But I did give Duda all the respect of a dead language several years back, projecting a career path parallel to Dave Schneck, he of the minor-league muscle and [...]
1991 NOBODY BEATS THE WIZ RICHIE HEBNER With another Opening Day having come and gone, your intrepid blogger went stat spelunking in search of the Mets best individual game-one offensive performances to date. The trip turned up some expected gems. For example, it should come as no surprise that the 1988 squad, with all the [...]
1980 DONRUSS REGGIE JACKSON I am excited and honored to be charged by our webmaster with the task of sharing some big news with our readers! In an effort to encompass the whole of New York baseball, we will be relaunching this site to include more and more coverage of the Yankees, with the ultimate [...]
2005 PLAYOFF ABSOLUTE TOOLS OF THE TRADE DAVID CONE Everyone knows a real patch when they see one. There's Patch Adams, the treacly doctor/clown portrayed by Robin Williams in the treacly doctor/clown movie of the same name. There are Sour Patch Kids, those tasty tartaric-acid-coated gummy candies. There's the soul patch, as worn by your [...]
So here we are in the 21st century, and ain't the future a wonderful thing? We carry tiny computers in our pockets that have more technological muscle than the mainframes that helped put men on the moon. At home we play video games with graphic palettes that would be nearly unfathomable to our primitive ancestors, [...]
1992 DONRUSS ELITE HOWARD JOHNSON Howard Johnson was once elite. And no, I'm not talking about the orange-roofed motor-lodge chain that paid me to wash their dishes, lo those many years ago. The elite HoJo was our own number 20, obtained in late 1984 in exchange for thoroughly serviceable right-hander Walt Terrell. (Side note: Johnson [...]
1977-79 SPORTSCASTER RUNDOWN Sometimes you just have to go down the rabbit hole... This particular quest started innocently enough. I was searching for oddball Mets cards and I came across a late '70s Sportscaster card titled “Rundown.” Now, if you were a sentient being during the days of Jimmy Carter and disco, you will be [...]
2015 TOPPS DANIEL MURPHY A few weeks back I bowed out of an online auction for this card when the price hit $10. By the time the virtual hammer fell, the price stood at just over $25 with shipping. So why is a 2015 Daniel Murphy card going for the price of a well-worn T206 [...]
Here at Card of the Week central, we're soaking our shoulders from having shoveled six inches of new-fallen powder this morning. But winter be damned, the calendar is telling us that pitchers and catchers report to Port St. Lucie tomorrow, so what better way to kick off the season than with a new Mystery Met [...]
2015 TOPPS DILSON HERRERA Spring Training is just around the corner-- look beyond that looming snowbank, northeasterners-- so last week Topps released its first series of 2015 baseball cards. Your intrepid reporter dropped $50 on a box, and I'm here to report that the results were pretty positive. The front border design incorporates some team-coded [...]