#SABR47 – SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee

SABR47 Sabermetics Panel: 2014 Topps #273 Mark DeRosa.

One of the many highlights of SABR47 in New York was the “MLB Now: The Changing State of Sabermetrics” panel. The discussion was conducted by a good cross section of of panelists which included MLB Network host Brian Kenny as moderator, journalists Joel Sherman and Mike Petriello, and SABR president Vince Gennaro.

The former player on the panel was Mark DeRosa. While he never played for the Phillies DeRosa is notable in Philadelphia for being a Penn alum. While at the university he led the Quakers to Ivy League championships in BOTH baseball and football.

This brings us to DeRosa’s 2014 Topps card.

2014 Topps #273 Mark DeRosa

Mark DeRosa’s final card as an active player tied his MLB career back to his college years at Penn.

You may notice that the card is signed — Mark DeRosa was gracious enough to take the time to autograph memorabilia after the SABR panel. While signing the card he had a funny story related to the photograph.

He took a football with him to each and every one of the eight stops in his major league career. He would bring out the pigskin occasionally during batting practice – sort of a bonding activity with teammates who were interested in tossing a little football.

None of the teams had a problem with the activity until 2013 when the Toronto Blue Jays (led by Manager John Gibbons) confiscated the football. DeRosa said the only time he got to play football as a member of the Blue Jays was the day the picture was taken.

Speaking of the Picture

I found the original image on Getty Images. The photo is credited to Tom Szczerbowski who is also responsible for the photo that is on the 2016 Topps card of Jose Bautista – the Bat flip card.

Topps did one significant piece of photoshopping on the photo before immortalizing it on cardboard….

Mark DeRosa 2013 SEP 01

Topps edited the NFL logo off of the ball. Not sure why, as Topps still had an NFL license in 2014. Perhaps the Topps/NFL agreement was still being developed when the Topps baseball went to print.

There is one other fun fact within the Getty photo info: it tells us that the pass was thrown by teammate Anthony Gose.

Royals @ Blue Jays

Perhaps Gibbons was right to confiscate the football. The Blue Jays lost that days game 5-0 to the Kansas City Royals. Mark DeRosa did not get involved in the game, while Gose went 0-3 with a pair of strikeouts.

Sources and Links

SABR

Sports Collectors Daily

Twitter @Topps

Getty Images

Baseball-Ref

SABR47 Gets Its Own Baseball Card

When I returned to collecting a decade ago I quickly learned that there are several different types of card collectors. To the outside world I guess we are all Just Baseball Card Collectors, but within the community there are several sub-types.

I think of myself as a Team Collector (Phillies), Set Builder (1959T, 1954T, 1971T maybe 1964T Jumbo), a bit of a Player Collector (Utley, Rollins, Thome, Garry Maddox, Ozzie, Matt Adams, Jamie Moyer, Mike Mussina, and many Others), and a Type Card Collector.

Mrs Phungo has another word for the type of hybrid-collector I am: “Hoarder”.

There is one other collection I have that is a purely narcissistic pursuit. I collect cards that represent games that I have been lucky enough to attend. The easiest to find are those cards which are related to noteworthy games: Opening Day, Postseason, or All-Star games. Sometimes it involves trying to find the photo on the card within Getty Images and tying that to a game. The collection includes cards that reference games on the back, perhaps a milestone home run or superlative pitching performance.

Thanks to #SABR47 in New York I was able to add a new card to the Phungo Games Checklist.

Topps issued a card dedicated to the game that SABR members attended during this years convention. Jacob deGrom had a great night no-hitting the Phillies for the first several innings. The Mets won the contest 2-1, illustrating a point mentioned in a Dave Smith’s SABR presentation: the one run margin is the most common outcome in baseball.

Topps Now is basically a line of instant cards produced the day after a game and sold for just 24 hours. SABR Weekend was so busy that I never checked for the card the day after the game. However on Sunday I was checking Twitter while on the train back home from NYC and a Mets fan in my feed mentioned the card. The Topps Sale was over, but I was able to find the card on the secondary market.

The 24 hour window for Topps Now means the cards have a limited print run which Topps is happy to publicize. For deGrom the Print Run was 342 cards.

The photo on the card can be found in Getty Images. According to the information accompanying the photo it was taken in the first inning by Mike Stobe who is the team photographer for the New York Islanders.

42 over 92

2017 ToppsNow #331 Jacob deGrom (b-side)

The back of the card summarizes deGrom’s start followed by noting an accomplishment that revolves around some not so round numbers. In deGrom’s first 92 starts he gave up 1 run or less 42 times. The 42 successful starts matched a record held byDwight Gooden, a Met pitching star from the 1980s.

I took a deeper look at the 92 starts of the two pitchers and as you can imagine there were some big differences, much of which has to do with the changes in the game.

The big differences are in the Complete Game and Shutout categories. These differences are further reflected in the fact that Gooden averaged 1+ inning more per start than deGrom.

Sources and Links
ToppsNow

SABR47 David Smith

Retrosheet David Smith

SABR47 Game
Phungo Game Dated Cards Index
Baseball-Ref
Getty Images
LinkedIn

SABR 47 Checklist: Jean Afterman / 1991 Q-Card Hideo Nomo

The first panel I saw at SABR47 was a fine interview of Jean Afterman by recent JT Spink Award winner (and former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter) Claire Smith. I was a bit worn out from a combination of travel and enjoying a night out in the big apple when Afterman recalled that she was working as a lawyer when she had the opportunity to work on a copyright dispute over Japanese Baseball Cards.

Baseball Cards!! I was jolted awake.

The case led Afterman to become acquainted with the card creator Don Nomura. The litigation led her to Japan where Afterman went to local ball games and found the competitive level of the players to be comparable with American baseball. The ensuing realization was that Japanese players were restricted from participation in MLB because of an agreement made following Masanori Murakami’s stint with the San Francisco Giants (1964-65). The Murakami case was the subject of a very interesting panel at SABR 45 in Chicago. The audio from that panel can be found here while my fan highlights from that day can be found at my web site.

Jean Afterman and Don Nomura did their homework and eventually found a way to get Hideo Nomo a Major League Baseball contract, with the Dodgers. This was followed by Alfonso Soriano (a Cuban that came to the US via Japan), Hideki Irabu and several other Japanese players. Eventually this led Afterman to a position in the Yankees front office.

One could therefore argue that a dispute over baseball cards in the early 1990s eventually led to Japanese players getting a chance to play baseball in the United States. Here we find ourselves a quarter century later and Ichiro Suzuki has become the MLB all-time hit king among all foreign born players.

1991 Q Cards

1991 Q Card All-Star Hideo Nomo (RC)

Ok back to the baseball cards. Naturally I wanted to find out what baseball card set began this chain of events.

An LA Times article dated April 21, 1991 discusses Don Nomura and Nomura Trading Cards. The article also contains some key info about the cards. Most notably the cards were made of plastic rather than cardboard – more of a credit card material. Perhaps due to the upgraded material a pack contained only two cards. The packs sold for 500 yen in 1991 which was estimated to be $3.68 US at the time.

I was unable to find anything online about Nomura trading cards but the info from the LA Times made it easy to find these cards on the fun and informative Japanese Baseball Cards blog.

The above Hideo Nomo card is an All-Star card from a 62 card supplemental set of the original 120 card series. The design appears largely similar to the base with an all-star logo in the middle center rather than a team logo.

1991 Q Card Takeshi Nakamura with 1991 Q Card Wrapper

Above we have one of the base cards with the original wrapper. As pointed out by Japanese Baseball Cards there is a window in the wrapper that allows the buyer to know the team of one of the two cards in the pack.

Sources and Links

Japanese Baseball Cards / NPB Card Guy