Diamond Giveaway Winnings, Part I

Here's a nice orderly view of 18 of the cards I won in the 2011 Topps Diamond Giveaway, ordered from oldest to newest. There's no overarching theme to these, except that they are the leftovers after picking 7 for my next post.

1958 Topps #222 Bud Daley
1958 Topps #422 Norm Zauchin
1964 Topps #323 John Buzhardt
1972 Topps #57 Bob Oliver
1973 Topps #129 Terry Forster
1975 Topps #644 Bill Fahey
1976 Topps #221 Jim Todd
1976 Topps #576 Maximino Leon
1976 Topps #647 Ramon Hernandez

These were mostly guys I haven't even heard of, despite being a baseball history nerd. But, cards older than me are always cool to get. Also, these are apparently the first 1976 Topps cards in my collection.

1978 Topps #280 Buddy Bell
1978 Topps #590 Bobby Murcer
1979 Topps #139 Luis Pujols
1979 Topps #683 Dan Meyer
1981 Topps #229 Rollie Fingers
1983 Topps #305 Larry Bowa
1983 Topps #533 Luis Salazar
1984 Topps #434 Harold Baines
1984 Topps #454 Joe Beckwith

This group definitely had more guys I know. I learned of Buddy Bell originally because the announcers would incessantly talk about the 3 generations of the Bell family in baseball when David Bell was on the Cardinals. Rollie Fingers is well known of course, and his signature facial hair is featured on this card. The Larry Bowa may be headed TTM to try to get a signature for a big Cubs-fan friend of mine, who idolized Bowa as a kid. Harold Baines, of course, played for many years, and in multiple stints with the White Sox and Orioles. I'll bet he's one of the few guys to have his number retired by a team, then play for them again 12 years later.

My Favorite Vintage Card

Once again, Fuji gives me a good idea for a blog post. He needs to run these contests more often. This time he asks, What is your favorite vintage card and/or 90's insert card in your collection? Why? How did you acquire it?

At first I thought, I don't have very many cards I'd consider vintage, and the ones I do I mostly came across accidentally or just bought them because they were old. But, I gave my collection a glance starting from the oldest cards and found the obvious answer staring me in the face:

1964 Topps #244 Tony La Russa

When I was a kid in 1994 or so, I really wanted this rookie card, but the only card shop near me had it at a price that was too high. It was probably semi-reasonable as card shops go, but it was over my budget. For awhile I went to that card shop almost every week, and usually peeked at the card. In 1996, La Russa came to St. Louis to manage, and the card got even more expensive. I quit collecting cards sometime in 1999, still not having the card.

When I returned to collecting in late 2010, Topps was doing  a little thing called the Million Card Giveaway. I bought a ton of rack packs of 2010 Update, and through entering codes and completing trades, worked my way up to around 80 mediocre cards and a few gems. Then, I noticed how much shipping was going to be, and knew I needed to try to trade a big lot for a good old card. I decided to offer a huge pile of cards for the La Russa, and someone accepted the trade. I traded for a 1968 Dave Duncan that year as well, though that's not his rookie card. I think I can definitely say this is now my favorite vintage card.

And thanks again to Fuji for dragging a good post out of me.