Baltimore Orioles Victory #20: 15-4 over the Seattle Mariners
With the sporting world on hold due to the novel coronavirus shutting down the world for a few months we here at The Hopeful Chase are going to our rain delay programming. For the last two seasons we've posted a baseball card following every Baltimore Orioles victory (I know, talk about the minimum commitment required). It's fun and keeps us writing about baseball and collecting. Rather than sit back and stare forlornly at the outside world we've decided to continue the series with a season from the past. The season of choice - 1987. Please enjoy.
I am not great at keeping to a schedule. Just when I was caught back up with this series I abandoned it for a few days right in the middle of another Orioles winning streak. For the record, the Orioles 20th victory of 1987 happened on May 19th. I'm writing this on May 26th, so I'm only a week behind, which is better than I thought. I'm not going to lie, dates are a little hazy for me right now. That's a side effect from not working for almost two months.
We also decided on an impromptu trip down south this weekend. The walls of the apartment were closing in a bit and with travel restrictions easing up out west we decided to hit a state park during the holiday. The state just happened to be in Nevada. Hotel rates (I still get a discount despite being furloughed) were pretty outstanding so we hopped in the car and drove to Las Vegas.
It was kind of sad to be in the town and not have the chance to gamble (the casinos were still closed), but at the same time it was nice and relaxed. We wandered around Valley of Fire State Park for the better part of the day and enjoyed being in a different town for roughly 48 hours.
I'm not sure we could have socially distanced more if we tried. Aside from a few lizards we had the entire 8 mile trail to ourselves. I guess people didn't feel like wandering around in a canyon for four hours during their holiday weekend.
Making the trip even better was that upon our return, I had a couple of non-machinable envelopes waiting in the mail. The trade machine is in full working order and I've been averaging two or three trades a week.
In this case I worked out a deal with user rsemu in order to bump up my Eddie Murray collection by one. In exchange for a potpourri of base cards (including a couple of checklists), he sent back the wonderful Ralston Purina card above along with some other needs.
Whenever I see a Ralston Purina card it makes me think of Cookie Crisp cereal. I believe as a little kid that would have been the delicious, nutritious breakfast of choice when I wanted to pull some cards out of a box of sugar. I really wish Topps would get back into the cereal / baseball card partnership game again. It's been ages since I've seen a baseball card in a box (although I know there are some MLS cards on the back of certain boxes).
As for the Murray card, that marks the 301st different Eddie Murray card I have recorded. According to TCDB that ranks me 8th among Murray collectors. Not bad, but moving up the list from here will take some time. I need another 45 different cards to get to 7th, and over 100 to get 5th. The top collector has 1,148 of the 4,540 cards in the database so I don't think I'm catching him this year.
Personally, Murray is the player I have the most different cards of, which is good because I do label myself a Murray collector. In second place, at no surprise, Cal Ripken, Jr. What may be a surprise is that I've put no real effort into picking up his cards and I have 289 different Ripken cards.
This sweet Joe Orsulak 1989 Upper Deck was also part of the deal. Nothing beats seeing Joe standing around the batting cage waiting his turn. I only have about 55 of the inaugural Upper Deck cards in my collection (almost half of those are Orioles cards) at this point so it's always fun to see a new one come into my life. It really is a perfectly designed card.
Most importantly he finished off my 1991 Upper Deck needs. The best card of the lost?
Upper Deck loved throwing these triple-exposure cards in their base sets and it broke up the routine of normal exposure cards.
Now, I see it completed my set, but according to my records I have 799/800 of the base set. The one "missing" card - the Chipper Jones rookie card. Which really pisses me off because I know I have that card somewhere. I also know it's not where the bulk of my collection is because every time I stumble across it I think, "Wow, I should really put that with my other cards."
Such is the joy of moving twice in two years. Things get jumbled up in different boxes. I have a vague idea of where it may be and I'll dig through the box tomorrow to see if it's there. I really hope it is because I know if I trade or buy another copy I'll immediately find the original.
All in all, not a bad weekend considering the circumstances.
1 comment:
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