Tuesday 23 July 2019

Some important additions to my Mets Opening Day Starting Lineup project

While trying to put together my collection of Mets' Opening Day starting lineups, I knew that there would be some difficult slots to fill.

There is actually one slot that can't be filled (2004 Ricky Gutierrez), and a second player that I don't believe has a card that will fit in a nine pocket page (2005 Eric Valent). I think I may be approaching Gavin to try to have a couple of custom cards made.

Along with these cards, there were a couple of players that I knew only had oddball issues as part of the New York Mets, and they didn't seem too easy to find, or at least at a decent price.

Part of the reason I knew that these players would have oddball cards is because there was a stadium giveaway set put out in parts during the 1991 season that was supposed to have every Mets player at that time in it. I don't know if it lived up to that claim, but I do know that it was the only way for me to get Mets cards for the following three players.

(L-R): 1991 Nobody Beats the Wiz New York Mets #86, #170, and #189

These perforated cards are smaller than standard size, which allows them to fit in the nine pocket pages for my binder.

Billy Cowan started in center field for the Mets in the 1965 season opener, and played in 82 games with the team before being traded to the Milwaukee Braves.

Ken Henderson started in right field for the Mets in the 1978 season opener, and played in 7 games with the team before being traded to the Cincinnati Reds.

If you want to read it, here is an interesting article about Mike Howard. He was a Rule V pick by the Mets from the Dodgers in 1978, and played 14 games for Mets in 1981, and 33 in 1982. He started in right field for the Mets in the 1983 season opener, and had the game winning RBI in the game. It was his last game in Major League Baseball.

Here are the backs of these cards.


(L-R): Billy Cowan; Ken Henderson; Mike Howard

These cards were on the For Sale / Trade list of Trading Card Database user NYMHall, who is selling his collection due to Parkinson's Disease. It is mostly a Mets collection, but there are a lot of other cards there as well.

If you want to see what he has available, you can click on the section you're looking at on his For Sale / Trade list that you're interested in, and follow the information there.

Since I was wanted to buy these cards from him, I also looked to see if I could find some other cards for my project.

1965 Topps #495

The condition of this card is fine for my project, although I don't think that I even noticed the writing of 'Cleon Jones' on Christopher's body before seeing this scan. The card is over 50 years old so I'm very forgiving.


(L-R): 1976 SSPC 1963 New York Mets Al Moran, and Dick Smith

I didn't see mainstream cards for these players among his cards but I do like these SSPC cards to fill holes in my binder.

Dick Smith only had one opening day start for the Mets, at 1st Base, in 1964. He played 20 games for the Mets in 1963, and 46 games for them in 1964.

Al Moran started opening day at SS for the Mets in 1963 and 1964. I still need to find a card to put fill the 1964 slot in my binder. Moran played 119 games for the Mets in 1963, and 16 for them in 1964.

Since people aren't always as familiar with the SSPC cards, here are the card backs:


With shipping, these six cards cost me $7.00, which I thought was very fair.

These cards effectively bring me to needing to find eight cards to complete my project. The number is actually twelve, but as I said in the beginning of the post, there are two cards that I will be unable to get, and to go with those, two of the cards that I need are for this year. They won't be hard to get. I just have to remember to look for them.

When I get the other eight slots filled,  the project won't end. There are quite a few slots that have cards in them that I'm sure I can find better cards to replace.


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