High season is here. Goodbye for now.

FYI

High season is about to kick in here at my job so I won't have enough time to keep posting. I won't cancelled the blog just to keep my hope alive of coming back again in a couple of months. Hopefully.

I'll keep visiting hobby blogs and forums.

Enjoy the holiday season and keep on blogging.

Rgds,

Joe playing Keanu

I'm not a Matrix or Keanu fan but I was quite impressed when the first movie of the trilogy came out. Since then I've seen it many times but never been patient enough to sit down and watch #2 or 3 in full.

Today I have the morning off and took some time to browse through my collection and found the only Joe Torre card in my PC:

Gotta give it to Joe because you gotta have some moves and patience if your coaching Manny...

Luis Aparicio: An affordable HOF'er

Luis Aparicio is the living proof that you can still purchase great HOF'ers, even graded, for less than $15 on ebay any given sunday.

During his 18 seasons MLb career, he achieved many distinctions:

• 1956 Al ROY
• 10 time All Star
• 1966 World Series champ with the O's
• 9 Gold Golves at SS (five of them in a row)
• He lead the AL in stolen bases 9 straight seasons and went back home with 506 in his career (34th all time leader)

Finally in 1984 he was elected to the HOF receiving the highest % of votes among his class that also included Harmon Killebrew, Don Drysdale, Pee Wee Reese and Rick Ferrell. He's also a proud member of the Venezuelan Baseball HOF in which he was inducted back in 2003.

The only Aparicio card I own so far is this 1963 Topps but in the next couple of weeks I'll be making a run after a graded copy (even if it's a PSA 1) of his 1956 RC. In the meantime, enjoy:

That guy could run... without getting caught often: Dave Lopez

You can steal many bases but..

How many times were you caught?

It's like baseketball stars (no offense): keep shooting and eventually you'll average more than 20pts a game. Some guys really suck so there's no rule of thumb.

The caught stealing "CS" data has been collected since the 1914 season. Many of the all time leaders played before that era so therefore we will never be able to quantify how effective they really were. Some of those guys are: Honus Wagner, Bobby Hamilton, Ty Cobb, Max Carey and many other greats.

Among the top 30 all time leaders, the best stolen bases / caught stealing ratios belong to:

1. Tim Raines 5.53 (#5 overall leader)
2. Willie Wilson 4.98 (#11 overall leader)
3. Dave Lopez 4.88 (#23 overall leader)
4. Rickey Henderson 4.28 (#1 overall leader)
5. Joe Jorgan 4.25 (#10 overall)
6. Vince Coleman 4.24 (#6 overall leader and the only one right were he belongs)
7. Ozzie Smith 3.91 (#20 overall)
8. Kenny Lofton 3.88 (#13 overall)
9. Barry Bonds 3.64 (#29 overall)
10. Otis Nixon 3.33 (#14 overall)
11. Bert Campaneris 3.26 (#12 overall. Sorry Bert)
12. Lou Brock 3.05 (#2 overall, wow that's not right)
13. Maury Wills 2.81 (#18 overall)
14. Bret Butler 2.17 (#22 overall)

Going vintage and showing off a card will take me to this Dave Lopes 1976 Topps card commemorating his 38 consecutive stolen bases record. It took 53 years for someone to break Max Carey old record of 32 stolen bags. If you think that's amazing, just try to imagine Mr. Vince Coleman, current record holder, stealing 50 in a row between the 1988 and '89 season. That's something else.

That guy could run: Bert Campaneris

The all time latino stolen base leader, Bert Campaneris is one of those guys who amazingly does not get much attention from the hobby. If you ebay his name you'll come up with less than 70 results and surprisingly none of them is a triple threads, sterling, etc, etc, used/symbolic piece.

When you look at his stats you'll see he ran away with 649 bases and lasted 19 seasons.

Great stealer and not from Pittsburgh, he's guilty of batting more than 279 only twice and having a whooping 259 all time batting average. Imagine Bert with at least a 280 average and therefore more opportunities to fly around the bases.

I'm proud to own...