Collecting Cleveland Indians Topps team sets from 1952-present, as well as post-war minor and major league autographs.
New Arrival: Randy Velarde, if, Oakland Athletics … Randy Velarde was a solid major league infielder. But at no point would you mistake him for Roberto Alomar. Mostly not. Maybe one time. But other than that, probably not. … He spent 16 seasons in the big leagues and retired with[…]
From the Collection: Bobby Bradley, 1b, Cleveland Guardians … Card: 2014 Bowman Chrome Printing Plate … An important lesson for anyone who follows minor league baseball: always take Arizona League stats with a grain of salt. … Bobby Bradley was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2014 draft. Assigned[…]
From the Collection: Gary Matthews, of, Los Angeles Angels … I am not sure if the Los Angeles Angels have had more bad free agent signings than your average team. But gosh, it feels like it. While it’s probably not the worst of the bunch, the one I remember the[…]
New Arrival: Maui Ahuna, ss, San Francisco Giants … Maui Ahuna is from Hilo, but I never got him while he was in high school since I was not paying too close attention to Hawaii prep players at the time. He is one of the big reasons I have started[…]
In July 2005 Beckett Baseball magazine published a All-Time Hot List, tracking the last nine years worth of Hot List cards and ranking then #1-#244. This card, 1995 Bowman Best Andruw Jones, was # 14 on that list.
I am not a Yankees fan by any stretch of the imagination. But in the late-1980s, Don Mattingly was one of the most well-known players in the game, so I was well aware of his career. And I was also from Cleveland, so it’s not like there was anyone on the Indians who were going to outshine him.
Sterling Hitchcock was the 9th-round pick of the New York Yankees in the 1989 draft. He would spend 13 seasons in the big leagues, his prime from 1995 to 1999 when he was in the Yankees and Padres rotation. During that period he would go 55-51 with a 4.65 ERA/1.391[…]
Milan Tolentino was Cleveland’s 4th-round pick in 2020 out of Santa Margarita Catholic in California. He opened the season in the back-half of the Guardian’s Top 30 prospect list but has been on fire in 2022 at Low-A Lynchburg, hitting .333/.436/.428 with one home run. Tolentino is quickly becoming another[…]
Bryan Lavastida (2018, 15th round) is one of my favorite prospects in the Cleveland system. This past season he hit .289/.380/.456 with 9 HR between across three levels, which included 19 at-bats in AAA. The Guards thought enough of his season to add him to the 40-man last month. Good[…]
When I first got into autograph collecting, Esteban German was one of the Athletics biggest prospects and a personal favorite of mine. In 2001 he was the Athletics MiLB player of the year and looked like he would turn into a prototypical leadoff hitter at the big league level. But[…]