A Baseball Card and a Baseball Glove

What do you think about when you look at the player on this card?

 

 

 

If you grew up a baseball fan in the '70s or '80s, you might think of a slick-fielding shortstop whose dad was also Major League ballplayer. If you've been a Minnesota Twins fan at any point over the past 20 years, you might think of an insightful analyst for the team during television broadcasts.

For me, it's something else.

I think of my very first baseball glove: A MacGregor Roy Smalley signature model. 

 

For my first couple of years of Little League ball, that was my special piece of equipment. It's the classic story. Dad teaches you to take care of it. Keep it clean. Put a softball in the pocket and wrap some rubber bands around the outside to maintain the shape. Make sure you oil it every so often. The whole nine yards.

I only wish I still had that glove. But thanks to the internet, at least I've got this:

After a little searching, that image came up. And I was certain it was the same model as mine. One hundred percent certain. Those diamond cuts in the webbing. The red MacGregor tag stitched onto the wrist strap. The shape. No doubt about it. 

 

And this next image just helped confirm it.

 

 

 

 

The script MacGregor logo on the heel. The Roy Smalley facsimile signature. All the other branding.

 

Yep. That was my mitt, alright. I had it from about 1984 through 1986.

It took me right back to the cluster of Little League fields in my town. We mostly played on the smallest field during my first season. Jeez, I can smell the grass and feel the sun, and see our St. Louis Cardinals uniforms. (Back then, each team in our league was given a uniform that resembled an actual Major League team.) I was a pitcher and a shortstop. 

 

And it's funny what you remember just by looking at a piece of equipment like this. My very first season, I remember picking a grounder on a short hop with that Roy Smalley mitt, hearing the parents yell in excitement and surprise, and then throwing the ball from the hole at short all the way over to our first baseman, who scooped up my throw on a bounce to make the out. His scoop made the parents cheer even louder. I also remember turning a triple play with that glove.

I miss those days. But that's part of nostalgia. In fact, it's right there in the etymology of the word. (Greek: nostos = return home, algos = pain or longing.) And I've still got at least a few pictures from those Little League years, which is nice.

But let's get to Mr. Smalley for a moment.

He played from 1975 through 1987, and suited up for the Rangers, Twins, Yankees, White Sox, and finally the Twins again, winning a World Series with the team in '87 before retiring.

1979 was his best year. He played in all 162 games, was an all-star, and led the A.L. in plate appearances (729). he also set career-highs in runs (94), hits (168), doubles (28), home runs (24), and RBI (95). 

 

On the defensive side that year, Smalley led the majors in putouts (296), assists (572), and double plays (144), but was edged out for the A.L. Gold Glove by Boston's Rick Burleson, who had almost 90 fewer chances, but a higher fielding percentage. Smalley had similarly impressive (and league-leading) defensive numbers in 1977 and 1978, but was edged out of the award both years by Baltimore's Mark Belanger, who'd already won 6 Gold Gloves in his career, including 1973 through 1976. Smalley took on many more chances than Belanger those years—a whopping 237 more in 1978, in fact—but had a lower fielding percentage. Smalley's was .970, while Belanger led the league at .985.

 

Here's a quick video of his early days with Texas.

 

 

 

Post playing career, as mentioned a little earlier, Smalley was a baseball analyst for the Twins for 22 years. He just announced his retirement a few months ago. 

 

Congratulations to Mr. Smalley for a great career!

And now a question for you readers:

 

If you played Little League ball, do you remember the first "signature model" baseball glove you had? 

 

Share in the comment section—or create a blog post of your own.

The Importance of Bunting: A Trading Card Pictorial

A couple of summers ago, I shared a list of some big hitters who were shown bunting on one of their baseball cards. 

 

It was a fun exercise, and a few of the names were rather surprising. Bo Jackson? Sammy Sosa? Albert Belle??

 

But the photographs didn't lie. I even shared some stats to back them up.

 

Some of you readers shared similar feelings to the ones I had, lamenting how unpopular and scarce the bunt has become in the modern game. After all, there was a time not so long ago when bunting held a much larger value, and was a skill that practically every single player would practice. So I thought about that for a while. I thought about it as a collector:

 

Was bunting also more popular on baseball cards back then?

 

Well, since then I've done some research. And it turns out that yes, bunting did show up quite a bit on cards back then—so much so that some players chose to forego the standard "batting stance" pose and opted for a "bunting stance" instead.

 

You can find a few examples of players taking a bunting pose even way back in the 1950s. But as far as I can tell, it wasn't until the mid-60s that the bunt pose started showing up on at least one card in each consecutive Topps flagship set. So let's start off there, and choose one card per set all the way through 1990 (i.e., the "bubblegum" era). For fun, I've added each player's career sacrifice bunt totals in parentheses, after his name.

 

 

Zoilo Versalles (50) is almost bashful in getting his bat into the frame, Bernie Allen (24) gives us a better look from a side angle, and Glenn Beckert (58) asks the photographer, "Stand like this?"

 

 

 

Davey Johnson (26) gives us a serious pose behind the All-Star Rookie trophy, Ray Oyler (29) looks less enthused about the whole thing, and Jim Fregosi (79) makes up for it with a nice smile next to the batting cage.

 

 

Paul Blair (108, led AL in 1969) is happy to show you his bunting stance, Chico Ruiz (33) takes on a more studious pose, and Jackie Hernandez (22) looks like he's ready to actually tap the next pitch down the line. 

 

 

 

Jose Cardenal (37) gets a little more up-close and personal, while Pete Rose (56) gives us our first image of bunting in action. Bud Harrelson (94) looks a little weary of the bunt with his pose.

 

 

 

 

Dave Chalk (63) is pretty serious about bunting, Robin Yount (104) might have just executed one nicely, and Ivan de Jesus (87) shows us the batting-glove-on-right-hand-only method.

 

 

 

 

Mick Kelleher (35) is eager to bunt, Alan Trammel (124, led AL in 1981 and 1983) practices his craft in the batting cages, and Fred Lynn (25) is about to lay one down in a game. 

 

 

 

Rick Dempsey (63), Alex Trevino (27), and Alan Ashby (55) are all catchers, and they're all getting the job done on a sunny afternoon at the ballpark.

 

 

 

 

Kevin Bass (28) looks like he's squared around very early, letting everyone in the park know that he's going to bunt. Dick Schofield's (109) technique is not recommended, and Rick Burleson (84) is grinding hard to lay one down.

 

 

 

 

Pat Sheridan (25) just pushed one along the third base line, Randy Velarde (38) is about to try his luck at Yankee Stadium, and if you look closely at the Vince Coleman (48) card, you'll see that the ball has just left his bat and it seems to be headed in a good direction. I wonder if the speedster beat it out for a bunt single.

 

That's two and a half decades of bunting on cards. It's worth noting that other brands that got their start in the 1980s like Bowman, Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck all featured some bunting players as well. And it's even nicer to know that they didn't stop there. You'll find players bunting on cards throughout the '90s, too, and even all the way to modern times!

 

"But the numbers and analytics show that bunting doesn't pay off." you say. "Why would modern cards show players bunting? It doesn't even happen in games anymore." you scoff.

 

Oh no? 

 

Take a look at these three. 

 

 

There's 2022 Yonathan Daza (8), 2023 Leody Taveras (9), and 2024 Nick Madrigal (8) showing that they can square around when needed.

 

And I do think bunting has been making a little bit of a comeback over the past couple of years. It's certainly an art and a skill. And a little bit of risk can lend excitement to the game. Look here. 

 

 

 

So how about you readers? 

 

Are you fans of bunting? Do you think the game could use more of it? Do you think it's been making a bit of a comeback lately? 

 

Leave some thoughts in the comment section. And thanks for reading!

 

A Cereal Box Prize Leads to a Card Purchase

 

A few months ago, this image—taken from the back of a 1980's cereal box—came up on a social media feed.

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia factor 10. 

 

I don't even think I had one of these bike reflectors when I was a kid. Doesn't matter. For some reason that image brought me straight back to the 1980s, and the cereal aisle at the supermarket. It also reminded me of riding bikes with my buddies. No helmets. No pads. No parental supervision. No questions asked on where we were going. Just be back before the street lights come on.

 

Imagine that? Just riding around with your friends. Pedaling fast for a few hundred feet, slamming on the brakes and skidding out, and looking back to see the skid-out you left on the asphalt. Stopping at the corner store for some baseball cards or candy. Riding down to the Little League fields with your mitt and a bat, and leaving your bike unlocked next to the backstop while you played baseball. Didn't have bases? No problem. You'd just use the end of your bat and scratch a square shape in the dirt at first, second, and third.

All those memories came straight to the front of my mind, thanks to a simple image on the back of a 1980s cereal box. The good feelings were so strong that I figured I'd do a quick eBay search to see if any of those bike reflectors were listed for sale.

Oh, they were. Quite a few of them. And because some of the prices were so good, I decided to purchase one that was still in the original, sealed wrapper. Here it is.

It turns out the reflectors were issued in specially marked boxes of Kellogg's cereals like Froot Loops, Corn Pops, and Raisin Bran. Here's a TV commercial with a promo for the bike reflectors at the end:

I don't like how those kids shirked their tent-pitching responsibilities to go back for another bowl of Raisin Bran, but I guess that's how marketing is done.

In any case, because this is a trading card blog, let's link some cards to the whole thing. After all, Garfield is a popular cat, and has been for quite some time. So I ran a quick search on Trading Card Database to see if any sets of Garfield cards existed.

And they do! More than one set, in fact. Skybox released a set in 1992, a company called Krome followed in 1995, and Pacific threw their hat in the ring in 2004. I looked through the checklists to see if any specific cards caught my eye. Soon enough, I found a few from the Pacific set and purchased them.

Here they are, front and back:

 

All three cards are from a little subset called "Then and Now". They highlight how the animation style of artist Jim Davis has changed over the years. (The Garfield franchise turned 25 years old in 2004, so the set was a nice little tribute.)

The characters I'm familiar with are the ones on the right. But I have to say, the 1978 versions of Garfield, Jon, and Odie are pretty great—Jon in particular. Just scroll back up and compare the two versions. 1978 Jon looks a lot less like a doofus.

Here's one more card I picked up.

 

I think most of us can relate.

Here are a few other memorable Garfield quotes that appear on cards in the set:

• I need less week and more weekend

• A diet is too little of a good thing

• One good meal deserves another

Classic Garfield. And it's really something—as collectors we never know what roads we'll travel during our collecting journey. Did I think I'd be buying a Garfield bike reflector? No. Did I think that reflector would lead to me purchase a few Garfield trading cards? No. But here we are. And the dose of nostalgia all this has given me was well worth it.

So let's go back to the bike reflectors, and not overlook how cool it was to find them in a box of cereal. It leads to a couple of questions for you readers and collectors:

 

What prizes do you remember getting from cereal boxes back in the good ol' days?

Are you a Garfield fan?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading.

2023 Series Custom Cards: PRINTED (Plus a Giveaway)

The title above does not contain a typo.

 

This post is indeed about the custom cards that I created and printed in 2023. Normally I'd have showcased each of the 2023 cards here on the blog throughout that calendar year, and then had a summary and giveaway at the beginning of 2024. But here we are, four months into 2025, and I'm just now getting around to it. I guess you can say things have been busy in a good way.

And 2023 was a pretty good year for custom cards at Nine Pockets Headquarters. Let's look at the list:

 

1956 Elaine Benes

Thundercats Team

Mumm-Ra Team

Stevie Ray Vaughan In Action

Red Hot Chili Peppers

1973 George Costanza

1973 Elaine Benes

1973 Seinfeld Comedy Stars v1

1973 Seinfeld Comedy Stars v2 

New York Jets Superbowl III Champions

D-Generation X Future Stars

 

Classic Film Subset

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Breakfast Club

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

 

   

That makes 14 cards total, which is exactly the same number of customs I created the previous year. I'm happy with that.

 

Here's a closer look at a card front and a card back:

 

To keep the brand going, I used the same template that was used for the card backs from previous years, changing just the ink color. 

 

2019 = dark gray

2020 = indigo blue

2021 = maroon

2022 = green 

2023 = dark gray

 

I figured four colors was enough, so for 2023 I looped back to the dark gray color. (Spoiler alert: The 2024 custom cards continue the pattern, and they're indigo blue.)

Some of the cards, like the classic film subset, received special card backs that more closely resembled the style of the original set, like this one.

 

 

 

Those are always fun to do.

The 2023 cards are available for sale in my eBay store, but just as always, I'd like to get some of them into the hands of you fellow collectors, free of charge. So let's do a giveaway for the first five commenters.

Here's what to do:

(1) Find one card you'd like from 2023 list above. (Click on the links to visit the original blog post for each card.)

 

(2) Leave a comment that includes your card choice, plus one consolation choice just in case I'm very low on stock.

 

(3) If you haven't sent me your mailing address during a previous giveaway, or if your address has changed recently, please email me with that information. A link to my email address appears on my blogger profile page. You can also contact me on TCDB.

 

And that's all you have to do. 

 

Thanks so much to all you readers, fellow collectors, and fellow bloggers for spending some time here at Nine Pockets. You guys continue to provide great inspiration and entertainment, and I look forward to getting these custom cards out to you.