It's Officially Goose Season!

Years ago I lived close to Goose Gossage Park in Colorado Springs.  Everywhere I'd go in town I'd see pictures of him in restaurants.  He seemed to do a lot for the town.

Bummer, it actually isn't currently goose season in Illinois.  I want revenge for the goose that managed to crap on my while I was running on the Chicago Lakefront yesterday.  I'm still not recovered.

Questions About Unopened Kellogg's Packs

Do you collect Kellogg's cards in the wrapper?  If you read this blog you know that I do.  What are your thoughts on the wrappers?

Does the wrapper need to be without and cuts or tears?

What about cereal stains? 

Have you seen many unopened packs that have curled cards?

Still Working on My Unopened Set From 1977

I'm finally getting closer to completing the 1977 Kellogg's unopened set.  I'm down to 10 cards now.  Does anyone want to trade me these cards for comparable cards from 1977 or 1978?

Here is the updated list -

05 Montefusco
06 Brett
16 Bostock
18 Cey
20 Rose
21 Garland
26 Fidrych
27 Lezcano
28 Winfield
29 Koosman


I should really get an entire want list on my blog, but that might need to be a Spring Break project.

1975 Kellogg's Baseball Card Backs #01 - 03

Finally done with this set.  I just picked up a few of each of these cards.  I finally got a few Roy Whites without cracks. 

03 - Reggie Smith

Reggie's hobby is working with plastics.  Maybe he should have worked on some of these 1975s so they wouldn't have cracked.  

His first year in St. Louis went well.  He had 100 RBIs for the first time and he hit over .300 again.

Not on the card - he played eight more years and moved his career average up to .287.

02 - Ross Grimsley

Orioles Manager Earl Weaver is quoted on the back of the card.  Grimsley's father pitched for the White Sox in 1951.

Not on the card - dad pitched in seven games that year.  Son pitched in 345 career games.

He was 2-1 in the World Series for the Reds.

Not on the card - he had only played one year with Baltimore, but a trade from the Reds isn't mentioned.  The Reds got Junior Kennedy and Merv Rettenmund.

01 - Roy White

This is a great card back. It mentions that the Yankees played their home games in Shea Stadium, home of the Mets, in 1974.  The card mentions that White prefers to play in left field, "even over being a Designated Hitter".

Not on the card - White ended up playing all 15 of his seasons with the Yankees.  

1975 Kellogg's Card Backs #04 - 06

I just picked up a few of these cards today.  Some weren't even cracked. 


06 - Bob Watson

He didn't have a great year in 1974 or as Kellogg's put it "didn't present statistics as classy as in some of his more recent seasons".  

His glasses are even mentioned since not many players wore them during the 1970s.  His nickname, the Bull, is also mentioned.  Only Greg Gross had a higher average than Watson did for Houston in 1974.

Not on the card - "Bull" is not quite a unique nickname.

05 - Greg Gross

Is there anyone else in a Kellogg's set that in mentioned on the next card in the set as Gross is on Watson's card?

Gross got his card after just one full season in the majors.  He was signed immediately after his high school graduation.  

Kellogg's mentioned that he's "not a power hitter".  Well, he hit 0 homers, so maybe they didn't need to highlight that twice as it is also in the statistics. 

Not on the card - he finished second to Bake McBride for Rookie of the Year honors. 

Not on the card - he hit seven career homers in 3745 official at-bats.  That's one in every 535 at-bats or basically an entire season.

04 - Bobby Grich

Baltimore had to outbid college football teams to sign Grich.  Were the colleges offering cash way back then?

He only made five errors in 1974 while playing second base.  That led to four Gold Gloves.

Not on the card - any mention of Greg Gross, who hit 19 less homers than Grich in 1974.

1975 Kellogg's Baseball Card Backs #07 - 09

Almost done with the 1975 Kellogg's Baseball card backs.  What is going to be next?  I will need to check which sets I've already gone through.

#09 - Elliott Maddox

Can anyone name another player with three double letters in their name?  Larry Biittner comes to mind, but he didn't have a Kellogg's card.  

Elliott listed his hobbies as basketball and photography.  Wow, three teams in five years so far.

Not on the card - he played for five teams in 11 years.  He never lasted more than three years with any team.

He graduated from Michigan's pre-law program while leading the Big Ten in hitting.  He was traded from Detroit to Washington with Denny McLain.  

He played two "unspectacular seasons" with Texas before having a great season with the Yankees.

Not on the card - he finished 8th in the MVP voting in 1974.

#08 - Jeff Burroughs

He led the AL in RBIs on his way to the MVP Award in 1974.  Kellogg's sees him as the "ALs top power guy".  

Not on the card - he only exceeded 20 homers in five of his 16 seasons.

Burroughs is an accomplished golfer having won a Celebrity Tournament in 1974.

#07 - Johnny Bench

Johnny Bench lists some good hobbies.  I remember him being a good golfer and I recall him being a singer at some point.  Are there videos of that singing?

He is averaging 30 homers a year in his seven seasons. 

Not on the card - in his seven seasons he has won Rookie of the Year and two MVP Awards.  He also was an All-Star and a Gold Glove winner in all seven years.  He was a 14-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner in his career. 

1975 Kellogg's Baseball Card Backs # 10 - 12

Let's see if the lower numbered cards in the set continue to be interesting. 

#12 - Leroy Stanton

When I got this card in 1975 I said "who is this guy?".  At this point he never had played more than 127 games in a season.

 Stanton came to the Angels with Nolan Ryan from the Mets.  He led the Angels in RBIs, so maybe I should have known more about him.  Wait, that's 62 RBIs.  To lead the team?

Not on the card - the 1974 Angels

Not on the card - Stanton ended up with seasons of 82 and 90 RBIs later in his career.

When mentioning his stats the card says "Leroy's arithmetic".  ??? 

Nolan Ryan is mentioned twice on the back of the card.   Check that out Ryan collectors.

#11 - Pete Rose

The card is another well-loved beauty.  Rose failed to defend his batting title and he failed to hit .300 for the first time in nine years.  He's one of the games most exciting players.  

The card calls him "Charlie Hustle" which I like.  The sentence that includes that moniker is one of my favorite on a Kellogg's card.  Here it is ' 

"Don't bet "Charlie Hustle" won't regain his form in 1975."  If you don't believe me, check it out.

#10 - Jon Matlack

Matlack led the NL in shutouts.  He was a #1 draft choice fo the mets.  Even though his record hasn't been great the past few years, Kellogg's mentions that he's one of the most sought-after pitcher in the game.  

He threw eight no-hitters in his 22 high school wins.

Anyone Want to Trade Some 1972 Kellogg's All-Time Greats?

I picked up a few of these lots last week.   Maybe some of you did as well.  I could certainly part with a handful of each of these players in exchange for the other lesser priced cards that I didn't purchase.  Did any of you grab the other lots?

All of these cards are in great condition and they have a slight curl to them.  If you have similar ones and want to trade about five of each card let me know.  As shown above, I have Pie Traynor, Eddie Collins, Tris Speaker and Walter Johnson.

I think that these cards are great so I don't mind having extras.

One Step Closer With 1979s

I picked up another card that I needed in my search for all of the variations in the 1979 Kellogg's baseball card set.  For the second time in a row it was a Davey Lopes card.  This time I picked up the one from print run #2. 

Yes, for those of you who pay attention, this is the same picture that I posted of Lopes last time.  I already added the card to my binder and I'm off to work today so I decided that this would have to be good enough.

The second print run has the registered trademark under the scarf and it still doesn't have it under the team logo. 

I think that I now need 15 from the second print run along with two from the first print run.  Then I need to confirm team logo variations for these print runs. 

1975 Kellogg's Baseball Card Backs #13 - 15

Back to the 1975 card backs.  It seems like they spent a good amount of time on these cards near the beginning of the set.  Are the later card backs boring because they were running short on time?

15 - Al Oliver

He was an All-State basketball player in high school.

Tom Seaver considered him to be one of the toughest outs in baseball.  He did bat .321 in 1974.

The card mentions that he now lives in Pittsburgh and he works with the Big Brothers organization.

Not on the card - he amassed over 2,700 career hits and he ended his career with a .303 average.  Wow!

Here is an interesting article on the end of Oliver's career.  I didn't remember this - Al Oliver's Career Ending

14 - Jorge Orta

Lots to say on this card since Orta has only played three seasons for the White Sox.  Manager Chuck Tanner predicted that he'd be the best hitting second baseman in the AL.  It is mentioned that he was second to Rod Carew among second basemen. 

Not on the card - he hit .304 the next year but never surpassed .300 again in his 16-year career.

He played basketball in Mexico and he turned down a scholarship to UCLA.  FYI - Simone Biles also turned down an athletic scholarship to UCLA.

Kellogg's mentions that with his speed he will soon steal many more bases.  He did improve to 16 and 24 during the next two seasons, but then he never reach double-digits again.

Times were different - the card referred to him as "the young Mexican".

13 - Bake McBride

I like the old Cardinals logo on this card.  With only two years, he's got lots of text too.

He hit over .300 and was named Rookie of the Year in 1974.  He's considered the "heir apparent to Lou Brock's stolen base crown".

He played football in high school.

He is currently attending Westminster College during the off-season,  

Not on the card - that's great to read about when the guy is 26 years old.

Before joining the Cardinals, he was a college track star.  

Not on the card - yeah a track star.  Do you always believe stuff like this when it is on the back of the card?  I checked out the school website and sure enough Arnold McBride held the 220-yard school record with a time of 20.90.   

The 220y is actually longer than the current distance run of 200 meters.  The school's 200-meter record is over 23 seconds.  

I didn't find him listed in the NCAA Finals, but a time of 20.9 was run by Mel Gray (football player - St. Louis Cardinals receiver).  Gray finished fifth. 

McBride was quite a team player, competing in jumps as well as the relays.

Not on the card - he was close to 75% successful on stolen base attempts, but he only got 183 in 11 years.  

I Love This Card!

It's fun to spend $1.36 and get three different Kellogg's cards.  What makes it even better is when one of them looks like this -

The card is much worse that this image shows.  Really.  If you look closely at the top you will see that the plastic is peeling off across most of the card.  It is so cracked and damaged that I love it.

I have yet to get the nerve to even look at the back yet.  I'll be right back after I check that.  It is a 1972 and other than one big crease across the middle horizontally, it certainly looks better than the front of the card.

Why do I like this card?  These cracks and other issues didn't happen because the card was stored in the wrong climate.  No, this card was loved and carried around like a treasure.  Thanks to whoever did that and created a great card. 

Does Anyone Collect These Kellogg's Boxes?

I have a few of these boxes, but I prefer my cards in the box and in a wrapper.  Do you collect these?  How many are there?

Track season is on this week - two indoor meets.  For those of you who live in warm winter weather, I don't.  We run on indoor tracks through the end of March because our outdoor track is covered with snow. 

Most of the cards shown on the box depict great weather.  I'm already ready for that.

...and it's Valentine's Day.

1991 Kellogg's Corn Flakes All-Star Cut-Outs

I bought a few of these a long time ago.  When organized my stuff over the weekend, I decided to see which ones I need to complete the set. 

These 1991 Corn Flakes boxes had six different players on both the small and large boxes.  It turns out that I have all of the larger boxes.  I know that I have a few of the smaller boxes, but I haven't finished organized the room.  FYI - I've never finished cleaning it so I don't know when I will find the smaller boxes.

Here are the backs of the boxes.  I guess I should have added one view of the front.  Maybe I will add that later.

Cleaning Up Today

Time to get rid of junk from my room.  I also need to organize things better.  I'm trying to collect Hostess card panels from the 1970s.  I prefer the entire box like this one.  I'm mostly interested in 1975s and 1976s.  

I'm training hard for a few races, so I need to resist buying an entire box of Ding Dongs and putting them in the freezer.  That is the best way to eat them.  Growing up with a big family, they'd never get fully frozen before they were all eaten.  

My friends and I collected Hostess and Kellogg's cards in the 1970s because it was just them and Topps during most years.  We found it fairly easy to get the Topps set so then we'd spend time of the other sets.

Here is one of my favorite items that I plan to display.  Do you recognize it?

How about now?

Here's the last picture.  Does it help?

These items are all about 11 x 17 so they should display quite well.  

Hint #1 - That's not fair giving a guy a shot down there. 

Hint #2 - I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.

Hint #3 - Hurray, I'm for the other team.

1975 Kellogg's Baseball Card Backs #16 - 18

Back to read more 1975 Kellogg's baseball card backs.

#18 - Brooks Robinson

The Robinson card back features a different format so that they can add some text on the right.  That's what happens when the guy already has played 20 years.  No columns were harmed, but the text is even smaller and closer together than on most of the other cards.

Kellogg's predicts that Robinson will get into the Hall of Fame.  They were correct.

He's compared to "ol' man river".

Not on the card - 16 Gold Gloves, an All-Star every year from 1960 - 1974, and MVP Award and four other top-four finishes certainly made the Hall of Fame an easy prediction.

#17 - Steve Garvey

Two cards in a row with a unique start.  Garvey is mentioned as a regular candidate for the "good guy" award.  He won the All-Star MVP and the 1974 NL MVP Award.  

Garvey played for Michigan State in the famous 10-10 tie against Notre Dame in 1967.  That's what I want to read on the back of a baseball card!

He won his All-Star Game spot as a write-in candidate.  

Not on the card - I don't care.  This is one of the first cards in the set that actually had lots of good stuff.  

#16 - John Briggs

Not on the card - there was another Johnny Briggs who played in the late 1950s,

The card mentions that he had "speed" power and 26 stolen bases in over three seasons with the Brewers. 

Not on the card - he only stole 64 bases in his career.