Cards from GCRL

A lot of cards. I sent some Dodgers over to Garvey Cey Russell Lopes a few weeks ago as a part of what turned out to be a blockbuster trade. In yesterday’s mail, I got a big ol’ box back with a ton of Reds inside. Here are just a very few of the highlights…

Tom Seaver’s first Reds card! Score! There were a couple more Seavers in the box as well. I actually didn’t have very many Reds cards of Tom Terrific, as I didn’t start following baseball until after he was in the American League. I never got to see him pitch. But he will always be the guy who received 98.84% of the Hall of Fame vote for the highest percentage in history, only five votes shy of unanimity.

Eric the Red, who was once considered by many Cincinnatians as a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, before injuries struck and he started hopping teams. In addition to Eric the Red, I also got…

Eric the Orange! One of those teams he hopped to in the 1990s. Let’s see, the Reds traded him to the Dodgers, he also played for the Tigers, Orioles, Reds again, and the Cardinals. Oh, and he ended his career in 2001 with San Francisco. But in my eyes, he’ll always be the center fielder for the Cincinnati Redlegs.

Chris Sabo…but wait, he is wearing a White Sox uniform! I only had a couple of post-Reds Sabos in my collection already, and neither of them were White Sox cards. So I am more than happy to add this to my Sabo binder!

I will never ever ever complain about getting a Ted Kluszewski card, even if he is pictured with the Angels. The Big Klu has become one of my favorite all-time players in the past year. The more I read about him, the more he moves up the list. Did you know he played football for Indiana University, and the Reds just happened to see him hitting one day while they were training in Bloomington? They didn’t sign him on the spot because that would jeopardize his college career, but they struck a deal with the athletic director to call them if any other baseball teams expressed an interest in him. The Tigers were scheduled to come down one day, but the Reds beat them to the punch because of a phone call.

The 1982 Reds Leaders…OK, so 1982 was not a good year for the guys. But I didn’t have this card yet, and as luck would have it, there were two in this box…so one for the Reds collection, one for the Soto collection. How awesome is that?

Tom Hume rookie card! No way!

Eddie Milner “XRC”! Double no way!

OK, so neither Hume nor Milner were big names outside of Cincinnati, but while they donned the Reds uniform they were dependable and somewhat decent players. Milner had some personal problems later on in his career, while Hume went on to join the Reds’ coaching staff. A couple of solid additions to the collection.

As I said, this is only scratching the surface. There were loads of other good cards in this box, from Cesar Geronimo to George Foster to Joe Morgan to Pete Rose and on and on and on. A big thanks to GCRL, who definitely filled several holes in my ever-growing collection of Cincinnati Reds!

These cards really “Rock Me.”

2 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI