Player collections that make no sense: Dale Murphy edition

1984 Topps - Glossy All-Stars #19 Dale Murphy

I think anyone that's a player collector probably has at least a couple of players they collect for no particular reason. My main collections that fit this category are Minnie Minoso and Luis Tiant. Another player I've considered collecting in the past is Dale Murphy. I'm not entirely sure why. 

All of my player collections other than Minoso and Tiant have at least some rationale behind them. Here's a quick rundown:

Top Tier Collections

Ryne Sandberg (favorite Cubs player of all time; played during my childhood)

Mark Grace (second favorite Cubs player of all time; played during my childhood)

Kerry Wood (great Cubs player who played during my childhood)

Roger Maris (from my hometown - Fargo, ND, went to my high school, and still the legitimate home run king)

Dave Dravecky (met him, read his book, super nice guy and an inspiration)

Deacon Phillippe (great turn of the century player who played in Fargo)

Second Tier:

Maury Wills (met him, has been involved with our local independent baseball team)

Chris Coste (Fargo, ND native)

Jim "Mudcat" Grant (played in Fargo during his first minor league season with Roger Maris)

Minnie Minoso

Tony Campana (5'8" like me; Cub who played with lots of energy)

Darryl Motley (played for our local independent minor league team)

Jeff Bittiger (played for our local independent minor league team)

Darin Erstad (Jamestown, ND native)

Rick Helling (originally from Devils Lake, ND; moved to Fargo and went to same high school I did - graduated about 14 years ahead of me)

Satchel Paige (possibly the greatest pitcher of all time with ties to Bismarck, ND teams in the mid-1930s)

Third Tier 

Travis Hafner (ND native)

Jamie Moyer (played forever, was once a Cub)

Jay Johnstone (read his books and they were funny)

Julio Franco (played forever)

Michael Young (I became a fan of the Rangers after visiting Dallas in 2006; Michael Young could just flat out hit)

Jim Thorpe (one of the first multi-sport athletes; has an interesting story)

Luis Tiant

So back to Dale Murphy. Let's run him through some of the criteria above:

Cubs player? No.

Local guy? No.

Met him? No.

Played for our local independent team? No.

Read his book? No (although I probably would if a new bio came out)

Played forever? No - and darn it if that's pretty much the only reason he isn't in the Hall of Fame.

I think there are some parallels between him and Ryne Sandberg, which I think is where I feel a connection. That's really the only thing I can think of. But for now, I don't have a player collection of Murph. As you can see above, I have too many already!

Hope the card above helped you in your search today.

Goals and Milestones - Frankenset and Vintage Cubs Set Additions

 I've been a less frequent poster recently due to general busyness, but also because I have been focusing on a couple of my collections. The first is my Frankenset, which has become kind of a painful slog. I'm now trying to find cards to fit specific slots in the set, which is a lot of work. By some extensive trial and error, I have finally found a good way to find cards to fit a particular number. I go on COMC and type in the card number in the search box. Then I sort oldest to newest, click the category of Baseball, and scan through the pictures. Previously, I had started looking for some of the higher number sets, since the 661 to 792 range is where I have the most gaps to fill. But going set by set to see if there were cards to fit my particular needs was too much work. 

1984 Topps #754 Kent Tekulve, part of the Frankenset

So far, this new method is working much better, but I'm just ready to be done with it at this point. I want to be done so I can sit back and enjoy what I put together, then can casually replace cards as I find upgrades. I'm wondering if I can ever truly be done with the set, though, because there always might be a better card out there to fit a particular slot. It would be kind of cool to just have it be a fluid process, but there are a couple problems with that in my mind. First, I wanted to create checklists in part to fill in some of the card numbers I was missing. So I'd have to finalize the set at some point in order to do that. Second, I try not to repeat certain card themes. For example, no more than one card showing Kent Tekulve's awesome sunglasses, even if there are 10 out there. If I find another awesome one and forget that I had one in the set already, I would end up breaking the rule.

1988 Donruss #535, Kent Tekulve
This card got the boot from the Frankenset
 due to qualifying under the same criteria 
as the 1984 Topps Tekulve seen above.

I'm leaning toward setting a final goal of 780ish cards and filling in the rest with custom checklists, even if some of the slots could still use upgrades. Then down the road, maybe as I collect the upgrades, I could do a mass update to the set all at once every year or something. We'll see. 

The other collection I have been working on is my Cubs binder. I'm now up to over 790 different Cubs players for my all-time Cubs team.

The first set of cards came from a trade with Bo at Baseball Cards Come to Life, 

The next set of cards came in two separate acquisitions. I didn't own any 1956 Topps cards before the two you see below. I also recently traded with Matt at Diamond Jesters as part of his time travel trade program. I sent him a couple 1955 Bowman duplicates I had and got these 1957 Cubs in return.

I really like the backs of the 1956 Topps. Really detailed and unique. 

At this point, all Cubs players from the 80s and 90s are almost completely covered. My focus lately has been on the 60s and early 70s, since it's easier to find the exact cards I need without trying to track guys down in a million different sets. Take a look here if you think you can help me out. I have vintage cards from these years to trade in return for Cubs players. I also need cards of guys from the 2000s and 2010s, but that list is much more haphazard because of all the random places you have to look to see if the player was ever pictured on a card in a Cubs uniform.

As far as goals, I would say I hope to complete the Frankenset by the end of the year and think I might stop at 1,000 different Cubs cards. But that might take a while. 

Thanks for stopping by!