The purpose of this channel is to share anything and everything about baseball! The game of baseball has been my passion for as long as I can remember, and I want to be able to share my love of baseball with newbies learning for the first time, casual fans that want to learn more, collectors that want to talk baseball cards and memorabilia, and super fans (like me) that want to an opportunity to keep talking baseball. In my videos I'll cover a wide range of topics, including instructional videos explaining the basics of baseball and how the game is played, trips into baseball's past and how the game got to be what it is today, information and advice on collecting, and deeper dives into the details of the game and great moments in baseball that are important to never forget! Above all I want to spread my passion for baseball, so I'm looking for lots of comments, feedback and interactions that can help lift up the game even more and pass the torch to the next generation of fans.
Thanks for taking the time to check out some of my cards I just brought home from the @Fanatics vault! Do me a favor and like, comment and subscribe to support this channel :)
If it's a widely recognized and collected error card, then I would treat it like and other. If you prefer to grade your cards, then go for it. If it's not one of those things, then probably not as it may not be worth the grading fee.
@@midcityvipersbasketball8012 if you think it's in great condition the yes. It's a very popular card right now with how much collectors are focusing on 90s stuff. Some versions are worth more than others but they're all fairly collectible
Bob Gibson was the ultimate in competitive intensity. The Harlem Globetrotters, though very skilled, evolved into more of a comedy act than a basketball team. Just can't see Gibson being funny (at least not in that way, he did exhibit kind of a dry wit in some post-career interviews). The one positive of Tony Gwynn not playing baseball is that basketball players don't chew tobacco. Maybe he lives longer. Of course, none of us would have ever heard of him.
Very true, I'm sure most of us are happy that Gwynn chose baseball, but in a weirdly almost direct cause and effect it also led to his tragic end. I'm sure those closest to him might prefer a forgettable basketball career instead.
I have a question for you I have a 1988 Topps Kurt Stillwell card with a blurred front, which I have seen on line but the card I have also has a blank back. Until now I have not found any pictures or references to this card, do you know anything about it? Thank you
No I don't have any specific knowledge of this card. This is an example of a printing defect, albeit a fairly rare one with both a blurry front and blank back. The issue here is that they're considered to be printing defects rather than true error cards. The difference is with printing defects the issue occurred on a specific day with a specific printer and got fixed, while some cards did get released into the wild. Error cards are when there was an actual mistake by the card company that was regular enough to make the same error pervasive, and then at some point that error got noticed and fixed. Cards with printing defects don't typically have much of a market, but they sometimes can for set collectors or big star player collectors. You just need to find someone interested in the specific thing you have, which isn't always easy to do.
Thanks for your educational experience and resources and support on the true value of each baseball card, especially the cards with the wrong baseball player left uncaught. God-bless.
Mike Cuellar comes to mind in the pitcher category….Dave McNally was a good memory….i lived across the street from Memorial Park, on Greenmount Avenue…we watched games from our roof. The houses were like the Brooklyn brownstones….up on the 4 th floor roof, was a good view of the games way back in the day.yeah, I’m an oldhead….
@@brutusonbaseball I am a former Montreal Expos fan. Everytime the Cards came to town, the games were exciting. I remember in the the late 70s, Cards often had 4 batters in the top 10 batters list: Hernandez, Reitz, Simmons and Templeton. Devastating offense! Mid eighties, Darrell Porter hit a grand slam home run walloping the Expos...
@@merc340sr Nice, it's always so refreshing to hear from anyone Expos fan. Just not enough of them around anymore! Would love to see them back in some way in the future
@@brutusonbaseball You bet. The problem here is that the public is uneasy about using public funds to build a new stadium. Secondly, Toronto is a much larger market and attracts most of the advertising and tv contracts. Difficult for the Expos to raise enough revenue to pay their players. That said, the Expos were brilliant at drafting and developing talent. Maybe someday they'll be back. I hope.
Personally, I've always been partial to the 1960 TV show format, one on one matchup, players take turns based on "innings", three "outs" per inning. This is never going to happen, but what I'd like to see is 64 players at the start of the season meeting in pre-game head to head matchups as the season goes along, narrowing it down to a final four for the All-Star festivities. This wouldn't be a pure bracket, matchups would have to be set up around what the MLB schedule permits, and therefore, with homefield advantages, may not even necessarily be "fair", but it would be an added attraction to early season MLB games and, if done right, would build up hype for the All-Star contest. Time constraints may mean we'd have to have five inning "games" instead of nine, but they did always manage to get the nine inning games into a half-hour TV show. Maybe all games through the two All-Star semifinals could be five innings, then the final could be nine, this would take about an hour for the All-Star show. Alternately, we could use the tournament to narrow it down to two, and automatically invite the top two regular season home run hitters for the four man All-Star show. Fun to think about. Totally agree with you about the clock, but clocks seem to be a Manfred obsession.
I remember watching those reruns as a kid, that format was a ton of fun. Great ideas, fun to think about...but you'd never get buy-in from the players and MLB during the regular season. I would be curious about an idea sort of like this for the offseason though, perhaps that would be a fun attraction during the winter to keep interest alive a bit. A lot of Latin players do winter ball where they participate in their own home run derbies, but perhaps guys would be interested to earn a few extra bucks during their offseason workouts? MLB tried that traveling home run derby in recent years...maybe there's some synergy there.
@@brutusonbaseball You might be right, but to be clear, we wouldn't be asking any player to go anywhere that he wouldn't be going anyway, there are no brackets, if two players who are still alive in the tournament happen to be playing against each other on a given day, we can set up a matchup. All it would amount to is an extra 15-30 minutes of BP. Maybe they'd say no anyway, if they're that slavish to a routine, but we're not setting up extra side trips. While I like your winter idea, that situation would actually be asking players to go somewhere that they wouldn't be going otherwise. So I don't know which would be easier to talk guys into participating in.
Yeah, I like your thinking but it's the routine that would be broken up, and there's been complaints in the past about how the derby can mess with your swing. I doubt they'd want to do that before games. I would enjoy it though, which is what matters. The offseason idea would definitely have to recruit and pay players, but if it's a big draw that might pay dividends in the end. You know anyone at MLB we could approach with our great ideas??
Thanks for checking out another story! What do you think about Yaz in the Pinstripes??? Be sure to check out my other videos in this series about Gehrig, Mays, Hank Aaron, and Clemente!
Lisa' husband, Andy here. Great show as usual. Do you do requests? I wondered if you could do a show on the Big Red Machine of the 1970s. They were before my time but looked a really exciting, hard, controversial and talented team that was loved and hated by the pundits. With, Rose, Morgan, Bench, Griffey, Concepcion, Sparky etc. I would have loved to have seen them. They remind me of the famous 1970s Leeds United team in English football. All the best. 👍
@@lisaw1525 Absolutely, I love taking requests because I know there's at least one person out there interested in the subject! And where there's one, there's bound to be more. I haven't done a history of the Cincinnati Reds yet...but that would be about a lot more than just the Big Red Machine of the 1970s. Let me think about what kind of video I could make, but I'll add it to the list.
1961-64: Yankees won 4 pennants without Yaz. To break into the lineup as a left fielder, he would have had to put up numbers to justify taking playing time away from the beloved Yogi Berra, which isn't impossible (Elston Howard managed to do it at catcher), but it is an uphill climb. Second base never would have been an option, Bobby Richardson made 5 straight All-Star teams from 1962-66. Best case scenario: no pennants added, maybe Yaz does something heroic to turn the 1964 WS from a loss to a win. 1965-1972: Yaz' peak years, but the Yankees SUCK. Yaz might add as many as 10 wins to the Yankees in a couple of seasons, but the Yankees were finishing over 20 games out. Knowing the New York media, if Yaz has his Triple Crown season in this environment, he gets criticized for putting personal stats above team success, (total BS, I know, but they love generating controversy). 1973-1983: George Steinbrenner buys the Yankees, creates a lot of turmoil, but the team starts winning again. Yaz, in his thirties, wasn't the player he was in his twenties, in real life, the Yankees had Roy White, Yaz honestly wouldn't have been much of an improvement, if in fact, Steinbrenner had even chosen to keep him around. Best we can hope for is that he's a stabilizing influence on the "Bronx Zoo." So overall, I don't see Yaz having a big impact on the Yankees, if anything, fans would probably remember the "Horace Clarke era" as the "Yaz era", not too fondly. The far more interesting scenario is the one you just touched upon briefly (and I was unaware of until you did), what if Yaz took the highest offer from the Cincinnati Reds? Fast forward to 1975-76, Yaz at that point might actually be a mild downgrade, George Foster was a beast, but since the Reds were winning by 20 games, that doesn't matter, the upside is that the Big Red Machine era starts way sooner, which far outweighs the downside. Yaz and Pete Rose essentially come up together. Yaz probably only plays sparingly for the 1961 pennant winners, but he'd replace Wally Post in left field in 1962, which might be enough to make up their 3.5 game deficit that year. 1964, the Reds only finished one game out, so that easily could be another pennant, so there might be good enough feelings around the organization that they don't trade Frank Robinson after a 1965 season in which they finish a little closer but still fall short. With both Robinson and Yaz, in addition to Rose and Tony Perez, the Reds don't experience the down years from 1966-68, (Frank won the Triple Crown in '66, Yaz in '67 imagine back to back Triple Crowns by two teammates), while they might not win (they were double digits behind) they'd definitely still be in the running (adding two top tier HOFers will do that.) But, even if we go ahead with the Robinson trade, what happens is that Pete Rose never plays left field, instead, he makes the move from right to third base a lot sooner (at the same time Perez moves to first to replace Lee May), so in the early 70's, Yaz is replacing guys like Denis Menke and Dan Driessen. That's a trade I'll make every time. So I see additional divisional titles in 1969 and 1974, and possible postseason turnarounds in the 1972 World Series and 1973 NLCS, both decided by one game in real life. Then, of course, they kicked it to the next level with one of the all time great teams in 1975-76. After that, the Reds began to dismantle, and Yaz was on the decline, so I don't see him extending the Reds dynasty, but 6 division titles, 4 pennants and 3 World Series in 7 years isn't bad, added to another 3 pennants from the 60s. Yaz and Johnny Bench would then go into Cooperstown in the same HOF class as teammates. The only downside here is that Sparky Anderson might not get a chance to manage the club, he took the helm in 1970. As for the Red Sox, they definitely don't win the 1967 pennant, you're taking away a 12.5 WAR player from a team that won the pennant by one game, good luck with that. They might still win in 1975, Yaz wasn't the same impact player at that point, but what you're taking away from the Boston fans are a lot of fond memories.
You might be right about the Yankees, I always wondered why Richardson made so many All Star fans. The Reds scenario is a lot more intriguing, but I didn't explore it much because it didn't feel as "sexy" as the Yankees/Red Sox thing. The impact though is the one you pointed out, much more heartache for Red Sox nation and much fewer good memories.
@@brutusonbaseball World Series winning manager manages the All-Star team and picks the reserves, and there weren't a lot of great AL second basemen between the end of Nellie Fox and the beginning of Rod Carew. Also, Richardson had World Series MVP hardware. But that just speaks to the point, if Yankee managers pick him for the All-Star team, they're surely going to pick him for the regular lineup. Totally get why you went with the beloved Red Sox star going to the Evil Empire theme. Other alternatives is why I'm here. 😉
The 1994 set was particularly nice for me. I've considered making a video about my top 10 single year insert sets, and the 94 would definitely make that!
@brutusonbaseball I had doubles of the whole set,unfortunately I hit some hard times had to have back surgery and a hip replacement back to back,sold what little of my childhood collection and got dick for all my cards,none graded but I still had some nice stuff I think they are undervalued,I bought tons of boxes and never pulled mattingly, Maddux or bonds I had to buy them,I miss them
@DamonTul sorry to hear that, definitely some great cards there. I have the whole set except the Bonds card...no idea why that one is so tough for me to get a hold of!
@brutusonbaseball I seen the bonds on ebay pretty cheap ya know because of the steroid scandal,if I had it I'd give it to you for nothing but I don't anymore
Joe Cronin was a top-notch shortstop for the first half of his career with the Senators, but by the time he hit Boston, he could still hit, but was a terrible defensive player. Moving to first base wasn't an option because he had Jimmie Foxx, but he definitely could have and probably should have moved to third base, and even if he's bad there, it still improves the team. If that happens, I think the Cronin-Pesky line of succession also remains intact, only it's at third base (where Pesky played close to half his games in real life). While Pee-Wee is only a slight improvement over Pesky at shortstop, Pesky is a major improvement over whoever's at third. As far as additional pennants, I was skeptical because the Red Sox only had three additional seasons where they were within 10 games of first place, and in all three of those years, they had an All-Star shortstop in Vern Stephens. But, looking at the numbers, Pee-Wee was about 1 WAR better than Stephens, and in two of those three years (1948 & 1949), one game was all the Red Sox needed. So maybe they take those two pennants, and if we stretch the imagination with "intangibles", they also have a shot at 1950. Do they break the "Curse of the Bambino"? Postseason is a crapshoot, so who's to say, but they do royally screw up Casey Stengel's legacy. What could have been another plot twist was the fact that, in 1946, the Red Sox were pressured by the press to give black players a tryout. So the tried out three of them, one of whom (you can't make this stuff up) was none other than Jackie Robinson. This was strictly for show, the Red Sox had no intention of actually signing anyone, and in fact, would be the last team to integrate, holding out until the late '50s. But, if they didn't keep shooting themselves in the foot (which was the real curse), Pee Wee and Jackie could have both been Red Sox instead of Dodgers. In this case, instead of Pee Wee, it would have been Ted Williams smoothing Robinson's path. This would have been a great infield, Pesky at third, Pee Wee at short, Doerr at second and Robinson at first. Boston might have been a little rougher on the black player than Brooklyn was, but Jackie would have gotten through it, and the biggest beneficiary of that would have been in another sport, as given a decade to get used to having a star black athlete, Boston would have treated the Celtics' Bill Russell a lot better (at least theoretically.) But, leaving that aside, how does Jackie (as a Dodger) fare in all of this? Jackie was a strong enough person that I think he was going to be a success no matter what, but 1947 would have been even more hellish than it actually was. He did have the full backing of Branch Rickey, but Reese was the one who really set the tone that there was not going to be a player revolt, without Reese, it's possible that Rickey might have had to trade the whole team, which he was willing to do. Anyway, while I do think Robinson has a good year in 1947, the team might crash and burn and Robinson might end up taking the blame for it. But there's light at the end of the tunnel, because in 1948, the Dodgers bring in Campy, Newk, Duke, Gil, and a bunch of other young talent which would have enabled them to bounce back and give Robinson some help in winning ballgames. They still need help at shortstop, but the aforementioned Vern Stephens is available, and the Dodgers could probably give the Browns a better deal than the Red Sox did. Still, the Dodgers won a lot of close races. 1955 (the eventual World Championship year) had some breathing room, but it's possible the Dodgers lose the rest of their postwar pennants in Brooklyn without Pee Wee.
Love the analysis once again, I agree with you that the Red Sox were not likely to sign a black player any time soon (they were the last to integrate), and that Jackie likely would have had more bumps in the road, but ultimately would have brought a good team together. The most fascinating scenario for this one though would be getting Ted Williams and the Red Sox a ring earlier...
That's a really great one, and surprisingly one that no one seems to have commented on with all the views this video has received! Especially since it's a Hall of Fame player. I find a couple things really interesting about this one. First is that it's almost exclusively referred to as the "Reverse Cubs Logo" error version, where the logo is pretty clearly upside down, not reversed. Semantics I know, but in a hobby where so many collectors love the details, I'm always surprised about this one. Second is that there's not a huge disparity between prices on the error and corrected versions. If you look at the PSA pop reports, there appears to be a higher population of the corrected version, but the error version only goes for about 50% more, if that. I would have expected it to be higher, especially after Smith got into the Hall of Fame, but maybe there's just not enough people that know about it...?
I was so ready to jump on here and start correcting you. You did your homework and I enjoyed the video. It's Col-bert. Nate the great! Haha got one in. Subscribed
Great stuff! Congrats on the Sheffield PSA 10. The Yaz Diamond Kings card is awesome. Making a DK run does sound fun. Looking forward to seeing more pickups.
My favorite back then was easily the Fleer Ultra inserts. The colors, holos, foils, etc that they applied blew my mind. I know everyone loves the 93 Finest Refractor, but that one never really caught my eye like The Elite Series and Power Plus cards. The 90s were a magical time. If I'm being candid, I have no clue what to make of any Panini brand card nowadays.
Ultra really did a put a lot more effort into their inserts game in the early to mid 90s that really separated them from the rest of the pack. The 90s are mostly remembered as the height of the junk wax era, but I agree that if you focus after 1992-3, the 90s really were a magical time. And I'm sure that you're not alone having no idea what the current companies are doing in terms of how many versions of each card are out there
Interesting perspective, not the first time someone has noticed that mistake, but the first time someone has questioned the whole video from one "botch" in the script. Would be easier if I had a research team, editor, and producer, but it's just me...so there will be some mistakes. It's been cut and fixed now, hope you come back to check out more!
Not sure that would have worked. When the Dodgers built Dodger Stadium, there was an entire Latino community that was displaced because of it, and I don't think there's any way Clemente could have remained silent about that. Rather than dealing with the headache, I can picture the Dodgers trading him. The logical trade, if the parties could put aside the rivalry, would be the Giants, who had two Hall of Fame first basemen, one awkwardly playing the outfield. I could almost see it happening, Clemente was a very good player, but didn't hit the next level until later in the decade, maybe the Dodgers think they're getting the better end of the deal with either Orlando Cepeda or Willie McCovey, while the Giants make the puzzle fit together a lot better. So Clemente and Willie Mays could be teammates in San Francisco (and maybe throw in Hank Aaron from the last video).
I'm not sure I would buy that Clemente would be so outspoken, especially against a team like the Dodgers, so early in his career. But this alternative scenario to the alternative scenario would have been quite interesting too...it seems most roads in these videos lead to a Giants dynasty that never was!
@@brutusonbaseball Ground broke on Dodger Stadium in 1959, so you're right that he would have been late to the party in terms of trying to stop the project. But Clemente would have been a participant in the 1959 World Series, and probably in 1961 as well. The stadium opened in 1962, which, with Clemente, would have been another pennant for the Dodgers, and sometime in there, I would think he would have established a platform to speak out on maybe getting some compensation for those who were displaced. Of course, I could be wrong about the Dodgers trading him, maybe he becomes so popular that the organization decides to do right by those people (although that may have been more of a city problem than a team problem.) Let's address the more positive scenario. Dodgers won the World Series in 1963, were a sub-.500 team in '64, went to back to back World Series in '65 and '66, winning one, getting swept in the other. After Koufax retired, the Dodgers were a sub-.500 team for 2 years, Clemente puts them over .500 but no pennant. 1969 is interesting, the Dodgers finished 8 out, Clemente's WAR was 7.5, but he would be replacing a literal "replacement-player" in right field (Andy Kosco, 0.1 WAR). I think the intangible of Clemente's leadership improves somebody else's WAR enough to put the Dodgers over the top. Not sure they're beating the Mets. Dodgers also probably win the division in 1971, where they maybe (I doubt it) meet the Clemente-less Pirates in the playoffs. So we can add 2 more pennants and 2 more division titles which could be pennants to the four pennants the Dodgers did win in that time frame. Clemente still would have made the trip to Nicaragua, whether he would have had access to a better airplane, we'll never know. If we add Mays, we can probably throw in 1960 and 1964 to the pennant mix, they were still too far gone in '67 and '68, and Mays was still good, but not Willie Mays-level good in 1970, so I don't think he gets that one. So Mays-Clemente Dodgers could be 8-10 time pennant winners, with maybe 5-6 rings. As for the Pirates, they won in 1960 by 7 games, Clemente's WAR was 4, so they probably still win that one, but I don't think the early 70s (3 straight division titles, one World Championship) are nearly as successful, given the impact of Clemente's leadership. Then you also have to wonder about whether Willie Stargell would have become the leader he was in 1979.
@@big8dog887 I'm with you. Everything I know about Clemente, the man, tells me he would have spoken up. By the 1959-1960 period he was already speaking up in his real life. He did speak up about how low he placed in MVP voting after the 1960 season for example, and included points about respect for Latino players. Assuming his alternate timeline season of 1960 with the Dodgers was as strong as with the Pirates, he'd have spoken up on this issue I think and he'd have his platform. A case can be made that by 1960 he was one of the top stars in the game, more deserving of the MVP than Dick Groat. I wonder how Dodgers management would have reacted. Place him in a different location and he may have been an even bigger civil rights figure of the era as well as bigger star. The alternate history with Clemente that I turn to is his role in civil rights. As for the Jackie Robinson rumor mentioned in the video, I see it stems from GM Buzzie Bavasi, cited in 2006 by Stew Thornley. I find the claim highly implausible. I don't question Thornley as a journalist. I question either Bavasi's memory (he was 90 at the time of an interview with Thornley) or motivation. He is widely praised for his role with Robinson, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe, but the displacement of people in the Latino community while he was GM is a stain on his record. I can picture questions being raised by Robinson perhaps about Clemente's readiness, after all Clemente did struggle offensively when he first made it to Pittsburgh. Clemente was very young and there's no shame about a bit of time in the minors. Nor would there be any shame if Robinson and Bavasi may have discussed some time for Clemente in the minors. But the way the rumor has evolved makes it seem like Robinson was appeasing systemic racism, and that goes against everything Robinson's legacy has come to stand for; it also goes against the theological interpretation of the scripture that informed him (long story related to the AME Church and to the Great Awakening of the era). In the end, this simply seems like moral cowardice on the part of Bavasi. The decision rested with Bavasi as a GM, not with the players. If Clemente was considered not quite ready, no shame on Bavasi at all. But to shift things onto Robinson is as far as I'm concerned an act of moral turpitude (though the real moral turpitude is what happened in Los Angeles with the Latino community). In the end Robinson and Clemente are on the moral side of history, Bavasi is not.
@@billkerns9258 I'd never heard the Robinson story before so I did a little digging. According to an article on the ESPN website, apparently, in 2005, Buzzie Bavasi, the Dodgers GM at the time who was 90 years old recalling a story from over 50 years before, was the one who told it. Of course, Bavasi painted himself as the good guy, he was arguing for promoting Clemente against Walter O'Malley and the board, they decided to call in Robinson, who allegedly advised not to demote a more popular white player (fellow by the name of George Shuba). I agree that doesn't sound like Robinson, and the story does seem a little self-serving on Bavasi's part, nobody else in the room was still alive to either back or refute the story. If it wasn't true, I can't say whether to blame racism, CYA, senility, or some combination. As for blocking the channel, you've got to do what you feel is right, of course, but I think it's a little harsh to judge a guy based on one sentence in one video that may not have had proper context assigned to it. As a longtime viewer, I'll vouch that this guy stands for the right things.
I would agree with you, but I just don't see that happening with the lack of support that Grich has gotten. I think the committee will see Jeff Kent's home run totals for a second baseman and put him in pretty quickly.
@@brutusonbaseball Connor wong mosaic pink parallel rookie card has silver numbers on back saying 01/10 in silver card number 210 people have same card on eBay but there’s don’t say 01/10 like mine ?
@tristancreasey9539 sounds like you got the limited fluorescent pink version, similar to other versions in the set but that aren't numbered to only 10. Great pull! Check out this link below to get more info: baseballcardpedia.com/index.php/2022_Panini_Mosaic
Interesting choice, what about him do you find to make such a glaring omission? He won almost 300 games and had a decent ERA by today's standards, but he also lost over 250 games and his ERA+ compared to his peers was just above average. He played the field and hit too, but didn't really do either well enough to add much value. Would love to hear more about your perspective!
@@brutusonbaseball pitch innovator as well. Candy Cummings got in and has much lesser numbers. Bobby was an innovator for the spitball and break away pitch
For sure, I mentioned there were a total of 38 players in the Hall that had played for the Orioles or Browns, but I didn't take the time to mention them specifically unless they wore the team cap. Only five of those four the Orioles, but lots more players that spent at least a season with the team.
Yes, someone else noticed that mistake when it first came out. RU-vid has gotten better with their editing capabilities, so I'll take a look and see if it's something I can fix
