Happy Birthday - Johnny Bench

Johnny was born on this day in 1947, making him 74 today.

MLB Debut - August 28th, 1967 (Reds)

Years active - 

• 1967-1983 (Reds)

1973 (Reds)

This is the oldest card of just him. I have some leaders cards that are older that you'll see later.

Cards on TCDB - 8,396 cards

Cards I have - 117 cards

Some 1980's stickers that we all know I enjoy.

Where they came from -

• Ebay (42 cards)
• Unknown (17 cards)
• Sluggo (14 cards)
• 2x3 Heroes (7 cards)
• Just Commons/Card Barrel (7 cards)
• the Diamond King (6 cards)
• Too Many Verlanders (6 cards)
• Sportlots (5 cards)
• Card Show-Kalamazoo (2 cards)
• COMC (2 cards)
• Media Madhouse (2 cards)
• Packs (2 cards)
• Baseball Card Exchange (1 card)
• Card Show-Concord Mall (1 card)
• Card Show-Fort Wayne (1 card)
• Just a Bit Outside (1 card)
• Manupatches & Mustaches (1 card)
• North Carolina (1 card)

Johnny shares a lot of cards with other players in my player collections.

Happy Birthday Johnny!

*All cards shown are in my collection but the photos/scans are from TCDB.

Tier 3 Collections

Today's random features some Tier 3 collections. We haven't seen those in awhile because I haven't gotten to them in my Sportlots searching yet.

I picked up both of these at the card show. The Chrome I thought was just a cool looking card and the 1971 was mixed in those Vintage lots that I mentioned before. I though I had it but I have one like it. That card is also a Billy Williams collection as well. These 2 give me 108 of Johnny Bench.

I picked this up at the card show as well. I only paid $3 for this at the LCS my cousin and I checked out. I didn't have any relics of the lefty, plus it's numbered to /100 so why not. It is my 124th card of Steve Carlton.

I picked this one up on Sportlots. I said I haven't gotten to my Tier 3 players yet and I haven't. I came across this because Fisk is a Tier 2 collection but both players are collections. I was surprised I didn't have this being as it's an 80's base card but there you go. It is my 141st card of the Kid.

I picked up this shiny Bowman's Best at the card show of Cal. I'm pretty sure it came from the same table as the shiny Bench at the top.

This was an 80 card set from Star of Ripken's career. $5 for 80 Ripken cards, hell yeah! The top pic is the box, the other 3 are just random cards I grabbed to scan. These 81 cards boosted that collection up to 620 cards. He is my 2nd highest player collection behind Konerko.

I also grabbed this 2021 Archives at the card show. It was in the $.50/box that I picked up the Sox cards in a previous post. It is my 73rd card of Yaz.

Tier 1 Card Show Pick Ups

The Sox looked better last night. Mr. MVP had the first grand slam of the season and one of our rookies went 5-5 and it wasn't even one of the big names. Yermin Mercedes, who's a 28 year old rookie who bounced around for years finally got a chance to start and he made the best of it. It was pretty awesome to see. I'm a little worried about Moncada though as he had an 0fer with 5 strikeouts. They just started tonights game so we'll see if they can get above .500.

Today's post isn't the new guys though, more old schoolers. These are all Tier 1 Collections and we're all picked up at the card show I went to a couple of weekends ago.

I thought this was a great find, it's a 1981 MSA Mini Disc. I only paid $.50 for it so regardless of what it was, an oddball for $.50 is a great find. Apparently my scan cropped it, it is a full circle in real life.

This Tom Seaver/Nolan Ryan rookie was also $.50. Okay, so it's not real, but a promo but for half a buck, I still picked it up. It must be around some though because it is on TCDB. Here's the back.

Lastly for the Seavers, this was a postcard but it was only a buck. I like that it shows him with the 3 teams he's most know for. This wasn't on TCDB, but like I said, it's a postcard.

These cards give me 511 of Tom Terrific.

I mentioned in my last post that I had another 1971 card but it was a PC, here it is. There were 2 different leaders cards with Billy Williams but I had the other one so I gave it to Fred. Technically, this is also a Johnny Bench collection card so you may see it again. This is my 104th card of Billy. I'm in 2nd place on TCDB but a long ways away from fellow blogger Wrigley Wax (I assume it's the same guy anyways).

This was my favorite find of the card show. It was also $.50, I assume because it's a little beat up but I don't care. I have a bunch of his playing days cards but I didn't have this one yet. This makes 113 cards of Little Louie.

Sox are down 1 at the start of the 4th. We've got the talent to come back, let's hope they do.

2 Number 5's

Today, I got a couple of vastly different cards from the same seller, all in one envelope. Both great players in their day, one Hall of Famer but pretty different. Let's take a look.

I picked up this 1982 Topps of Tony Perez for the Vintage Collection. Oddly enough, this card doesn't look familiar at all and that is rare, especially for an 80's card. I grabbed this for a quarter/shipped.

I also grabbed this 1995 Classic Images Four Sport of Jalen Rose for the Michigan Collection. The background is very shiny and looks like it does in the picture, only shinier. I picked this up for $.22/shipped.

Are you trying to figure out the title of this post? Tony Perez was #24 wasn't he? He was, for most of his career but he was #5 in Boston. I didn't know either, I don't know why but Jalen's number stuck out to me and I took a chance on baseball-reference.com and sure enough, Perez was that year as well.

New Player Additions - Johnny Bench and Steve Carlton

*For those new to the blog, all purchases were made on Ebay (unless otherwise said) and all were under $.50/shipped.

*Since I made a huge purchase (147 cards) from JustCommons.com, I'm going to combine them with my Ebay purchases for the next couple of weeks.  I bought the cheapest cards of my player collections. I spent $2 on my tier 1 collections and $1 on the rest. I also picked up one relic card to make my purchase an even $25.

1971 Topps (HR Leaders)

1990 Topps (Turn Back the Clock)

1988 Pacific Baseball Legends

2014 Topps Gypsy Queen

1982 Topps (highlights)

2014 Topps World Series Highlights

1987 Fleer Glossy

1986 Topps (team leaders)

1987 Topps Traded

1986 Donruss Highlights

In case you haven't noticed, there's 2 players up there (it's also says in the title.) I managed to pick up 4 Johnny Bench cards and 6 Steve Carlton cards. I'm pretty sure 2 of the Steve Carlton cards came from Ebay (2014 and 1986) so I picked up 4 cards each from JustCommons.com.