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Direct from the Twitterverse


As you might know, I used to be on Twitter. But like salmon swimming upstream, I got out of there while everyone else in the world was getting in.

I'm still active on Twitter on a professional level. Dispensing information, receiving information. It's invaluable. It works for me on that level. But not on the personal level. I guess I prefer my facts in short snippets, while I want my opinions in long, meandering blog posts.

When I left Twitter, I left a number of card collectors who also have blogs but prefer Twitter. They're still there now, and most don't update their blogs very much anymore. That's OK, I guess, but I miss them.

Trading with those folks has dwindled down to zero. Another unfortunate bi-product of being a blog-only collector (I don't do the forums either).

But just the other day, a card package arrived from one of the more active collector twitterers that I know.

Greg/@grogg sent me some cards that he claimed were long overdue. I don't consider any card packages overdue -- they get here when they get here. But the contents did feel like Christmas had arrived and I had waited 10 months for it. That's how much I liked the cards.

Mel Queen was one of them, right up top. He is a high-number short-print in the 1971 set. I know Queen more for his status as a legendary pitching coach with the Blue Jays -- and the fact he was born in Johnson City, N.Y., which is where I worked as a teenager. His pitching career is a mystery to me.


More 1971 men of mystery. This is another high-numbered card. You can tell by the way Topps haphazardly threw prospects together from different teams, as opposed to packaging rookies by team, which it did earlier in the set.

This card has the feel that it was set filler because none of these guys did a lot in the majors. Bernie Williams -- not the guitar playing Yankee (did you know he plays guitar? I think I might've heard about that, oh, eleventy trillion times) -- played the most of the three, just over 100 games in four years.

But you're not here to learn about the stats of prospects who went nowhere. You're here to find out how close I am to finishing off the 1971 set!

Well, with these two cards, I am down to needing just SIX cards to finish it off. SIX! Of course, one of those is Clemente, but I'm setting up a special day when I can focus exclusively on him.

Meanwhile, let's have the percentage figure on the '71 set.

752 cards in the set. 746 cards collected for:

99.2%

That's 99.2 percentage points dudes!!!!!!

I am so close to completing a set that I never thought I'd complete that I am already taunting in my head the friend that I had back when I was around 10, who showed me one of the first '71 cards that I ever saw and lorded it over me in that way that he did (he liked to feel superior). I'm pretty sure I have that card now,  bud.

Greg didn't stop with those two key cards. He went in a completely different -- yet welcome -- direction with two others.


Here is a fine-looking Paul Lo Duca relic card from Bazooka. Piece of Americana takes on a bit of new meaning knowing what we know about Lo Duca's once-proud career. But I'm very happy to own the card anyway.


This is a handsome-looking bat relic card of ex-Dodger slugger Shawn Green. I'm convinced he has more relic cards than any other Dodger. I have a dozen of them. Which means there are only 1,409 more to obtain.

And that is a great quartet of cards from Greg.

I'll probably never revive the old night owl Twitter account or start another one. But it's good to know that Twitter hasn't forgotten about me -- a wretched, old-fashioned blogger.

Comments

Andy said…
I have developed a decent following on Twitter (@HighHeatStats) and actually link to your blog fairly often. Incidentally I am in the process of giving away a 1-year B-R Play Index on Twitter right now so sign up and give it a shot!
MCT said…
"I know Queen more for his status as a legendary pitching coach with the Blue Jays -- and the fact he was born in Johnson City, N.Y., which is where I worked as a teenager. His pitching career is a mystery to me."

Queen had a really interesting career. For one thing, he reached the majors as a position player, then converted to pitching on the fly.

Queen began his pro career in the Reds' system in 1960 as a position player -- initially a third baseman, later an outfielder. In that capacity, he spent the entire 1964 season in the majors, was mostly back in the minors in '65, then back in the majors in 1966. Over the second half of the 1966 season the Reds began using him as a pitcher, and he switched to the mound full-time the next season, going 14-8 with a 2.76 ERA and 154 strikeouts.

Queen then promptly got hurt, missed most of '68, and spent most of '69 in the minors. Following the 1969 season, the Angels bought his contract from the Reds. He would spend all of the 1970 and 1971 seasons in the majors with the Angels, then split '72 between the majors and minors, concluding his pro career.
Commishbob said…
Keith Lampard... I remember him well from when I first moved here to Houston. He kept showing up on Rookie Star cards. Three years in a row I think. And he was born in England.
steelehere said…
This Bernie Williams claim to fame is probably that he's on the Penguins' 1972 Topps Rookie Card with Ben Oglivie.
beefman said…
I'm on Twitter to write jokes - and it's netted me more than 13000 followers.

It makes no sense to me either.
night owl said…
I've since returned. I have a "paltry" 1,200.