Top 5 Cards; Joe Morgan

As today's game becomes more focused on high-velocity home runs and puts less emphasis on batting average, multi-tool players are becoming scarcer.

Guys like Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve, and Mike Trout are still some of the best players in the game, but it's become acceptable for players to bat around .230-.240 so long as they rectify that batting average by hitting 30 or more home runs.

2017 and 2018 were historic years for homers, and 2019 is shaping up to be the same. Each year, the total number of dingers rises along with the number of strikeouts. In exchange, there have been fewer hits (singles, doubles, and triples), and players' batting averages have, overall, gotten worse.

I won't get into whether I believe the obsession with home runs is beneficial for the game or not. However, there was a time when the contact hitters outnumbered the power hitters, and there were far more multi-tool players in the game.

One of the most talented of these players was Joe Morgan, an essential part of the Big Red Machine during the mid-1970s. Morgan made the All-Star team for 8 consecutive seasons with the Reds from 1972-1979.

Throughout his 8 years in Cincinnati, he hit .288 with 152 home runs, 612 RBI, and 406 stolen bases. Besides the Reds, Morgan played for the Astros, Giants, Athletics, and Phillies, though the best seasons by far of his 22-year career were with Cincinnati.

I've been collecting cards of Joe Morgan as well as other essential members of the Big Red Machine (Bench, Rose, Perez, Concepcion, and Foster) for several years.

At 92 cards, the Joe Morgan PC is almost at gold tier (100 cards) status, so I figured this was the perfect time to write this top 5 cards list.

#5 2013 Panini Golden Age

This is one of my only cards from the 2013 Panini Golden Age set, a product that's virtually non-existent in the dime boxes at the shows I attend. Similar to Upper Deck Goodwin Champions, Panini Golden Age combines sports figures with pop culture icons. 

One of the athletes that they chose for the '13 release happened to be Joe Morgan. Panini, likely in an attempt to hide the logoless helmet, chose a sensational photo of the 2-time NL MVP award winner and paired it with a gorgeous vintage design. 

A revive of the Golden Age brand is highly unlikely, though it would be interesting to see what Panini could make of this set if it was a part of the Chronicles product.

#4 1985 Fleer

Morgan spent just 1 year of his career with the Oakland Athletics, so it stands to reason that there aren't many cards of him on the A's out there. The only one in my collection is this beauty from 1985 Fleer, my favorite design in the brand's history.

Truth be told, there's not a single color in the '85 Fleer set that doesn't pair beautifully with the silver borders. I absolutely love the combination of light green with grey along with the simple shot of Morgan at the plate in an Athletics away jersey.

I don't know how expensive is it to purchase this set online, but I might just go for it when my birthday or the holidays come along to have a complete version of this gorgeous release.

#3 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces

Oftentimes, I find that Topps dominates the majority of my frankenset and top 5 cards posts, so it's refreshing to see other brands represented.

So far, Panini, Fleer, and Upper Deck have appeared on my top 5 cards list for Joe Morgan, the latter of which is a gorgeous painted card from 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces. This set went the same route as most art sets (Gallery, T206, National Chicle, and Turkey Red) and disappeared after a couple of years.

Thankfully, the dime bins, particularly those at my LCS, helped me to appreciate this fine product and all of its stellar cards.

#2 1970 Kellogg's

The newest addition to the Joe Morgan PC came my way via The National. One of a few cards that I have of the 5-time Gold Glove award winner on the Houston Astros, this beauty from the 1970 Kellogg's set was a bargain back when I bought it in Chicago.

Virtually everything about this card, from the Astros cap to the blue sky background and even the facsimile signature, is so cohesive together. The '70 Kellogg's design is incredibly simple, and that's exactly what makes this card such a standout.

#1 1966 Topps

I keep my relics/autographs and graded cards in separate boxes than my player collections, so I don't count the Joe Morgan rookie card that I have as a part of his PC. This allows me to focus on the other cards when it comes to making the top 5 cards list, like the 1966 Topps card above.

I absolutely love the old-school Topps All-Star rookie trophies from the 60s, and it's a shame that they won't be replicated in Heritage for much longer. In addition to the rookie cup, the Astros uniform and Morgan's pose elevate this card to the #1 spot.

I'm Back (With Baseball Cards)

Hello viewers, it sure has been a while. I got back from my vacation yesterday and even though I thoroughly enjoyed my time away, it was odd to be absent from the blog for 2 weeks. 

Before this vacation, the longest I'd gone between blog posts is 2 full days which happened twice in November of 2017 when I had just begun blogging. As a result, it was strange to take such a prolonged break away from blogging and commenting.

Even now, I find myself struggling to find the proper wording for what I'm trying to say. It's been 2 weeks since I've written a post, so I'm going to be a little rusty at first.

Anyways, I'm back home for around 10 days before I head to Chicago for The National, but I fully expect to get back into my typical posting schedule immediately. 

While I was away, some new releases, most notably Allen & Ginter, hit the market. I'll likely be holding off on buying any more cards until the end of the month, but I won't rule out a 1 or 2-pack overview of the recently released A&G set.

Throughout the month or so leading up to the 2018 National, I refrained from purchasing Baseball cards, for the most part, as I wanted to save funds for the show. I've done a reasonable job with that so far this July, but I made one exception while browsing through an antique store in Asheville, NC.

There weren't any sports card shops near where I was staying in North Carolina, so my best bet for Baseball cards turned out to be one of the antique stores situated in the city. It didn't take much time for me to find one of these stores, and the same goes for the Baseball card bin located by checkout.

While the majority of the 2/$1 cards were Hockey or junk wax, I was able to find some true gems scattered throughout the box. This was my very first time shopping for Baseball cards at an antique store, so I really didn't know what to expect.

With that being said, I'm certain that I didn't expect to find 4 vintage cards of Hall of Famers who I collect, including Jim Palmer's 1973 Topps card which I hadn't seen before this trip. I initially expected to find some over-priced 90s cards, not vintage legends for only 2 quarters apiece.

The HOF cards didn't stop there, however, as I stumbled upon a couple of league leaders cards from 1969 and 1970 Topps respectively. Per my rules, the cards above will go to Willie McCovey and Harmon Killebrew so long as those 2 PCs don't already have that particular card.

At this point, this mere trip to an Asheville antique store had become a massive success. Even some Baseball card shows don't have this caliber of vintage cards for 50 cents each. While the condition of the cards is far from perfect, I don't consider that overly important given the caliber of the cards.

For 50 cents, I'm not going to let the condition (especially the upper left corner) of Joe Morgan's 1976 Topps card bother me considering that I need it to complete the '76 set. After all, I can always purchase an upgraded version if I feel it's necessary, but that's far from my #1 priority.

Out of all the cards that I purchased from this store for 50 cents apiece, the Morgan card will go down as my favorite solely because of how symbolic it is of the 1970s. Along with Johnny Bench and Dennis Eckersley, Morgan's '76 card ranks among the best from this classic Topps set, in my opinion.

While I was impressed with the sheer number of vintage cards scattered throughout the box, my purchase consisted of more than just cards from the 1970s. There were a ton of 90s cards throughout the box, and I was able to narrow them down to a select few for my player collections.

One of my newest player collections, the Tony Gwynn PC is hovering around the 15-20 card mark as I speak, and I was able to further boost that total thanks to 2 cards from the antique store. 1 of them is a colorful card from (I believe) the 1994 Topps Finest set while the other is an oddball Collect-A-Book.

Despite the negative feelings that often surround Baseball cards from the 90s, I found some awesome oddballs for my player collections. In addition to the Tony Gwynn cards, there were 2 cards from Upper Deck HoloGrFX, a criminally underrated product, featuring players that I collect.

As much as I love the Glavine card, the Griffey Jr, especially with the Seattle Mariners uniform, symbolizes the 90s just as the Joe Morgan card is a fabulous representation of 1970s Baseball.

That didn't spell the end of my Griffey Jr oddballs, however, as I found 2 more awesome cards for my 3rd largest PC (behind Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux). The Tetley oddball on the left was a last-minute pickup to bring my total number of cards to 16 and is from the 1990 season.

Conversely, the card on the right is from 1995 Pinnacle and shows The Kid blowing an enormous bubble of gum while making crazy facial expressions, because why shouldn't a photo like this end up on a Baseball card?

Suffice to say, my first ever Baseball card purchase at an antique shop was a successful endeavor. I got to add some epic cards to a few of my player collections, and that's something that I strive to accomplish almost every time I purchase cards.

So yeah, it's great to be back, especially when I've got new Baseball cards.

A Few Vintage Cards and Relics; Card Show Recap #13 Part 2

While the dime boxes from yesterday's card show were definitely something special, I knew I wanted to spread out a little bit and not come home from the show knowing each card cost me just 10 cents.

After reeling in a 200-card dime box haul, I began to look around at what else this vendor had, knowing he was the one I bought my 1958 Topps Ernie Banks card from at a card show a couple of weeks ago. Aside from dime boxes, this particular dealer has 2 other bins that are always worth checking out; bargain vintage and relic cards/autographs, both of which I took him up on.

In terms of bargain vintage cards, we might as well begin with the Ty Cobb all-time hits leader card from 1973 Topps. I assume there is a small portion of the checklist dedicated to these all-time leaders cards, though I had never seen any of them from 1973 set prior to Sunday's show. 

For a very fair price of $3, this became my first all-time leaders' card from '73 Topps so far.

Continuing on with the vintage theme, I picked up this 1970 Topps Harmon Killebrew card for the same price as the Ty Cobb card, another terrific deal if you ask me. For one reason or another, there seem to be quite a few cards from 1970 Topps that feature players in front of the bat rack. Instantly, Tony Taylor and Andy Etchebaran come to mind, but it's nice to finally see one in-person of a player that I collect, and even better to add it to my collection.

Of the trio of vintage cards I picked up, Willie McCovey's 1960 Topps All-Star card is the oldest by a decade, yet cost me less money than the previous 2 cards combined. One of my Topps Flagship sets ever made, 1960 Topps features an All-Star card design equally as intriguing as the base set with McCovey's card not being my first from the set as I also have a card of Ernie Banks and I believe 1 other player in this very design.

With half the money remaining after the dime box haul still set aside, I decided these 3 cards were perfect for vintage. Therefore, I decided to look through the relic and autograph bin knowing very well that if something caught my eye, it would likely be a relic card since they are typically more fairly priced. Indeed, that was the case as 2 relics, in particular, peeked my interest.

1 day after the Dominican Dandy, Juan Marichal, turned 81 years old back on Saturday, I picked up this relic card of his numbered 14/99 that also happens to include a very large relic swatch, especially for an old-time player. Even nowadays, the standard relics in Topps Heritage or Allen & Ginter are barely half the size of this relic, not to mention Marichal played over half a century ago.

And although their relic swatches don't have the standout size as Marichal's, picking up this dual relic of 2 respective legends from the 1975 World Series, the greatest Fall Classic ever played, was equally as special as the Marichal relic above. For the same price, this dual relic of Joe Morgan and Carlton Fisk is numbered to 250 on the back of the card and is now one of a select few dual relic cards in my collection. 

Typically, most every relic card I pick up is a single relic and only a couple out of my hundreds of relics/autographs have more than 1 swatch from more than one player. That's part of what makes this relic so special with the other part being that these 2 helped put baseball back on the map in 1975 with Morgan's MVP season and Carlton Fisk's iconic World Series home run.