I loved watching this guy play. I also went to school with his twin nieces. This saddens me tremendously. This is his 1982 Topps rookie card.
Archive for Oakland A’s
In Memoriam: Dave Henderson (July 21, 1958- Dec. 27, 2015)
Posted in In Memoriam with tags baseball, baseball cards, Boston Red Rox, Dave Henderson, Oakland A's, rookie cards on December 27, 2015 by Cardboard IconsIcon-O-Clasm: Six Swatches of Separation — Rickey Henderson game-used cards
Posted in Icon-O-Clasm with tags baseball, baseball cards, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Oakland A's, Rickey Henderson, San Diego Padres on November 17, 2015 by Cardboard Icons 
I recently paid $8 for a Barry Zito rookie card and it wasn’t autographed …
Posted in Rookie Card Showcase with tags Barry Zito, baseball, baseball cards, graded cards, Oakland A's, rookie card, San Francisco Giants, Upper Deck on August 18, 2014 by Cardboard IconsI must be crazy, right? Who pays $8 for a Barry Zito rookie card, especially one that doesn’t bear his signature?
Well, when the serial number on the card matches his jersey number, sometimes collectors do funny things.
Barry Zito used to be a big deal. He was a big-time pitcher for the Oakland A’s in the early part of the 2000s — even winning a Cy Young Award in 2002 — and then signed a massive contract with the San Francisco Giants who play just across the San Francisco Bay (or estuary for you science types) from the A’s. He sucked for the most part, constantly ripped on sports talk radio and even relegated to a spectator in 2010 when the Giants won their first World Series. And then he came back in 2011 and 2012, even becoming a key contributor for the Giants down the stretch as they won their second title in three years.
Alas Zito played again in 2013 and finished his mammoth contract with the Giants by posting the second-highest ERA of his career. He hasn’t played in 2014 and it appears that his career may in fact be over.
Zito hasn’t been relevant in the hobby in almost a decade and prices on his cards plummeted over the years. His key rookie is still the 200o SPX set, a card that features a serial number and autograph. His second best? Quite possibly this 2000 SP Authentic, which is limited to 1,700 copies. Believe me, this was a big deal in 2000. I located this one — in it’s glorious PRO graded case — at a local card shop in a bargain graded card bin. Every card priced $8 each, all of them were graded by either PSA or BGS, except for this one. This company — which has zero traction in the hobby — graded this card at 9.8 “N-Gem,” which I’ll have to believe means Near Gem Mint. I’m not aware of any company who uses that lingo. Go figure. I’ll leave it in here for now, but might send it eventually to BGS for continuity purposes.
Thrift Treasures 63: Topps Sticker Packs!!!
Posted in Thrift Treasures with tags baseball, baseball cards, Bernie Brewer, Nolan Ryan, Oakland A's, San Francisco Giants, stickers, Thrift Treasures, Topps, Topps Stickers, Yoenis Cespedes on February 26, 2014 by Cardboard Icons
One of the first sections I hit in most thrift stores is the toy section. Why? Because many times I find little baggies containing baseball cards … or in this case stickers. Unopened packs of stickers to be exact.
In 2012 Topps brought back an oldie but goodie in the sticker album collection. The album cost roughly $2.99 if memory serves me right and each pack containing eight stickers cost 99 cents. I bought an album. I bought some packs and let me kids get after it. But I always felt like I never got my fill. Topps brought the set back again in 2013, but I never really got into it. That is until this this nice little baggie.
As you can see from this picture, this baggie cost $2.99. And a quick count from the outside of the package revealed that there were 16 unopened packs of Topps Stickers within. At roughly 18 cents a pack, it was a no-brainer purchase.
So, without further adieu, here’s what the packs contained:
To see more Thrift Treasures posts, click HERE
cardboardicons.com 
My first Topps Now card of 2019… and it’s a Walk Off Winner from my birthday
Posted in Commentary with tags baseball, birthday, Boston Red Sox, Matt Chapman, Oakland A's, Pedro Martinez on May 22, 2019 by Cardboard IconsWhen I was a kid, my parents always asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I was never a party kind of person. All I needed was family and baseball, so in my teens I started asking my mother and father if we could go to an A’s game.
We didn’t go every year, but one of my favorite baseball birthday memories was when I was about to turn 19. My father took me and two friends to a May 1, 1999, contest between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s. As it turned out, Pedro Martinez was on the mound for the BoSox and he wound up dominating Oakland to the tune of 13 strikeouts over just 7 innings en route to his career 89th career victory. Needless to say I, being a Red Sox fan, was happy. And in the context of baseball history, that dominating start really summed up 1999 Pedro, damn near untouchable.
I’ve gone to many other games around my birthday, and as it turned out, this year, my 39th birthday, wound up probably being my second favorite, even eclipsing that one from a half a lifetime ago. (My top favorite is still this trip to Fenway in 2010.)
This year my son’s Little League participated in three different “Youth Sports League” days/night in the area. The league participated in San Francisco Giants and San Jose Giants events, as well as one of the several hosted by the Oakland A’s. This year, the League chose the night that happened to be Friday Fireworks Night, which just so happened to be my birthday.
We tailgated with the League President and other families. The kids played Wiffle Ball, I played catch with my kids, and I tweeted out a picture of my son wearing my personal Mark McGwire jersey, the one I wore during my high school days.
The tweet received a lot of attention, including an epic comment from the Oakland A’s organization itself. The response from the team was a gif of McGwire bashing elbows at home plate following a walk-off home run in Game 3 of the 1988 World Series — the gif really hit home because I remember staying up late to watch that game with my mom, who lovingly bashed elbows with be after the homer.
As for this day, my kids, their mother, and I sat in the left field bleachers, which is not a typical spot for me. I sat here on this day because I didn’t want the sun to be in anyone’s face. As it turned out, it was fate.
My daughter wore a Matt Chapman jersey I got as a stadium giveaway last year, just as she has done every time we’ve gone to a game since I acquired the garment. And every time he comes to the plate or makes a play in the field, I point him out so that she and my son can draw a connection to Chapman, who is the face of the franchise.
On this night we watched Chapman smash a single into left field past shortstop Francisco Lindor’s glove, and later make it to second base on a following play. This turned out to be significant for me because I managed to purchase the ball that Chapman struck for the single, and later photo-matched it thanks to a bobble by Jose Ramirez, which was captured by a photograph. In the photo you can see the mud that exists on the ball which was authenticated and sold by the ball club.
And then several innings and hours later, as fans who were there for fireworks grew restless, sat Chapman in the 12th inning slugged his first career walk-off homerun, which happened to land in the general area where we were sitting. If you look closely at the television broadcast you can see my family just a few rows away,
The walk-off homer wound of being chronicled by Topps the very next day on a Topps Now card, which of course I had to purchase. And that card of course just arrived this week to act as a keepsake for what has to be one of my top best baseball-related birthday memories I have had to date.
Leave a comment »