Catching up on my Mets opening day project

As I finished up this post I heard about the RGIII signing. I'll have to comment on that and the rest of the Browns off-season at a later time. I had already started this post on baseball.

I ordered some Browns cards from a seller on Sportlots a little while ago and wanted to find some inexpensive cards to add to my shipment to make it a little more cost effective. I thought to myself that this would be a good time to look for some Mets cards to add to my Opening Day Starting Lineup Project.

Since it is my favorite position, I decided to look for some of the catcher cards that I needed.


(l-r) 1965 Topps #61; 1970 Topps #488; 1973 Topps #493

Each of these catchers only caught one opening day for the Mets.

The cards for Cannizzaro and Dyer match the years that they started.

J.C. Martin started in 1968. He has a Mets cards in 1968 and 1969 but this card is nicer so I decided to use it instead.

I also added some Jerry Grote cards.



Top (l-r): 1970 Topps #183; 1971 Topps #278; 1974 Topps #311
Bottom (l-r): 1975 Topps #158; 1976 Topps #143

Jerry Grote started nine season openers for the Mets, starting in 1966 after Cannizzaro, and through to 1976, except for the two years for J.C. Martin and Duff Dyer above.

I already had a 1973 OPC Jerry Grote card filling in for 1972, so I now have six of the nine Jerry Grote slots filled.

After his last start in 1976, he was succeeded as opening day catcher by John Stearns.

John Stearns started five season openers for the Mets, from 1977-1980, and then again in 1982.

I already had slots filled for the last two seasons so the three cards below fill out the John Stearns cards that I need.



Top (l-r): 1977 Topps #119; 1978 Topps #334; 1979 Topps #545
Bottom: 1990 Upper Deck #473

 Barry Lyons had one opening day start for the Mets, in 1990, following Gary Carter's five years with the team. I ordered this card to fill into the collection even though I know I have a copy of it somewhere in a box will all the baseball cards I collected in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

And since I'm posting about catchers, I would be remiss if I didn't salute a former catcher and broadcaster that passed away yesterday.




1990 Pacific Legends #24

RIP, Joe Garagiola. Thanks for making baseball broadcasts more enjoyable.


I'll be leaving tomorrow morning for Arizona. (Hopefully I get there with all the ice coming down here now.) I have one trade post all ready to go and will post that at some point. Hopefully I'll manage to post more than that while I'm gone.