Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez

Photos: from my own collection

A little side note before we begin: Bagwell signed one of the most player-friendly contracts ever. In 2005, he had 100 at-bats and 25 hits, and for this he got paid $18,000,000. Yes, that's 18 million bucks. That's $720,000 per base hit. Yes. What most professionals get paid in 10 years, he got per base hit, just in 2005. But it gets better. In 2006, he got paid over $19,000,000. Yes, 19 million bucks. That was #1 for all of baseball that year. He got paid more than anybody. For how many hits? 0. That's right, 0. He was injured and couldn't play, but that money was guaranteed. Like Pablo Sandoval last year for the Sox, he got paid $19M in 2006 not to play. For his career, he made over $128,000,000. Today, because of 10 years of inflation, that would be worth $169,000,000--an increase in 10 years of $41 million. And all he had to do was sit down and watch it happen. $41 million for doing nothing more than counting his money. If I ever hit it big doing anything, I want his agent.

And a little side note about Ivan Rodriguez: He's the 2nd catcher I've ever heard of nicknamed Pudge, and both guys are in the HOF. You should be ashamed of yourself if you don't know the name of the other guy.

See Bagwell's stats here.

See Rodriguez's stats here.

The Cards

Anyway, these two cards--both from the 1991 Topps Traded Set--are in PSA Gem Mint 10 Condition and can be had at decent prices.

My Rodriguez card cost $22.67 total, including shipping. This was a decent buy, as I saw some for about $2 to $5 less, but I also saw it go for a heckuva lot more than that. Some of those bought prices were crazy--up to $40+ for a card worth about $20. Craziness. There were a few who paid overall a couple of bucks less, and a couple of bucks more, than I did. I got this one from a Woonsocket place, not too far from my neck in the woods, and it was delivered the next day. I might drive up there sometime and check out his store. His ebay handle is rwm8218, and it was at a good price at next-day delivery, so if you're in New England and you're looking for cards, and you want it fast, give him a look on ebay. I was the only one who bid on this one, and the bidding started at $20--which is about average for the card--so his store on ebay is still small enough that you're not bidding against a ton of people. This is a highly sort after card, since Rodriguez just made the Hall of Fame, so the fact that it's been selling for more, but that I was the only one to bid on it at the asking price, tells you something. Sure, by pressing Sold Listings on ebay you can see that the top one sold for $20 +$2.67 shipping--that's me--and then the next one says it sold for $39.99 + shipping--that's the crazy one. Others sold for about $15 + shipping, so they paid a little less than I did, but that's followed by some $22 to $27 buys, all of whom paid more. So mine was about average, discarding the crazy high one and a crazy low one. As Rodriguez is just in the HOF, I expect this card to go up a little, so this will prove to be a slightly better than average buy.

The Bagwell card cost me $29.01 from someone in California. In all honesty, I made a rookie mistake here: I didn't look at the shipping before I bid. Had I done so, and seen that it was $4, I wouldn't have bought this. Overall I paid about $5 more than many, and about $5 less than a few. Overall, an average buy, not a steal, because of the shipping. I had first seen it at rwm8218, where it sold for $20, and someone else was the only bidder. That was a helluva price, a nice steal, better than the deal I got on his Rodriguez card and a helluva better deal than I got here. I'm still happy with the buy, and as Bagwell is just in the HOF as well, this will go up, so it'll prove to be an average buy, probably. But the lesson, again: If you want a deal, it's usually in the shipping, not in the price. Grrrrrrrrrrr...

So, the players...

Bagwell--if you're old enough, you already know this--was infamously traded by the Red Sox to Houston in 1990 for Larry Anderson, an average relief pitcher who'd had a helluva year in 1989, which overinflated his value. The Sox were constant losers in the playoffs--usually to the Oakland A's at the time--and were trying to get over the hump and advance further in the playoffs. They also had a 1st baseman at the time named Mo Vaughn, who was a consistent home run threat until he ate himself into an Angels uniform and then his career quickly ended. (All the Lady visits didn't help.) Anyway, Bagwell was a 1st baseman / DH type, which the Sox had a lot of, so they dealt him.

Bagwell was brought up immediately and won the Rookie of the Year Award, and then an MVP a few years later, and played 15 years--a short career derailed due to a bad back and shoulder--for Houston. He and Biggio made Houston legit for a few years, really put them on the map. They've been mostly legit since, with a few hiccup years in there. The bottom line about Bagwell--and you should see his stats here--is that he played the vast percentage of his team's games over the years, hitting more homers and drawing more walks than any 1st baseman, consistently, in the National League. His on-base %, RBIs, walks and his homerun totals are amongst the best ever, and baseball-reference.com's JAWS shows him to be the 6th best 1st baseman ever, after the likes of Gehrig, Foxx, Pujols and Cap Anson (and Roger Conor, and look at that guy's stats, please, because I know you've never heard of him), and higher than Miguel Cabrera (after 14 years) and Frank Thomas--which is damn impressive. If you're younger, you may not have ever heard of Bagwell because he played in Houston and because he was very, very quiet and shy to the media. Had he been a Yankee or Red Sox, he'd be a household name today. There is the steroid taint on him, of course, and he did balloon from a stick to King Kong, but don't get me started about how HOF writers shouldn't moralize, because I can show you that probably 85% or more of the best players of his era used. I don't condone it, of course, and it is extremely unhealthy for you...His election, and Piazza's, means that the writers are officially ready to open the door for players of this era who probably used. Bagwell was never accused officially, nor officially caught, using steroids, ever. Those whispers means he made it to the HOF on his 7th try when he should've made it on his first. JAWS says he was a better player in his career than Miguel Cabrera is now. Think about that for a second. He was the best quiet player I ever saw. If he and Biggio, who had over 3,000 hits and got on base almost as frequently, had had any quality players in the lineup with them at all consistently over the years, the Astros would've been a playoff powerhouse. Alas, not the case, and they rarely had the pitching as well. I've been making the Bagwell for the HOF case for a few years, as you know if you've read this blog, so I'm glad he's in.

Ivan Rodriguez--Pudge--also had the steroid whispers follow him around, mostly because of his remarkable durability at the toughest baseball position. People my age remember him as the only guy we've ever seen who crouched behind the plate with his right leg stretched out all the way, his left knee on the ground. From this truly unique position--without moving from it--he could throw out runners trying to steal second with a career-long consistency over 46%. Most years he was over 50% and 60%. For those of you who don't know, today 35% is fair and 40% is good. Most years he was between 50% to 60%. He won 13 Gold Gloves as a catcher, including 10 straight. Take that defense--by far the best all-time at that position--and throw in almost 3,000 hits. He finished with over 2,800 hits, but would have had well over 3,000 had he played any other position. He was so good defensively that he was maybe the best hitting catcher never moved away from the position, because you would waste all that ability putting him anywhere else, including DH. Even Yogi Berra played a ton of games in left field, and Piazza played some at first. In 21 years, Rodriguez played just 57 games at DH and just 8 at 1st base. He played 2,427 games behind the plate, the most ever. That, from a guy who had almost 3,000 hits, is remarkable. Rodriguez always--and I mean every day--played the game with a huge Cheshire Cat smile, and a lot of happiness and energy. He never complained about anything--as well he shouldn't, also having made more than $122,000,000 for his career, or over $156M with inflation since his retirement. You should see his stats here, and you can see the money at the end of the page. All stats and dollar figures for this entry via baseball-reference.com. That website has him as the #3 catcher of all-time, behind Bench and Carter. We remember him from the Texas Rangers, of course, but in his spare time in 2003 he helped the Marlins win the World Series, which I actually remember. He had the NLCS of his life that year, and won its MVP, mostly with his bat.

Both guys were quiet, though Pudge's defense made him look flashy. I watched the careers of both guys, who both started in 1991, and I'm happy as hell to see them in the Hall, especially Pudge.

By the way, Pudge #1 was Carlton Fisk. You knew that, right?

Picking A 1933 Goudey HOF Jim Bottomley

Here's a before and after story about being a baseball card picker--the purchase, grading and valuation of a good baseball card.

I bought an ungraded 1933 HOF Jim Bottomley on Ebay in a screwdown case. Here's a picture of it from the listing after I bought it:

I spent $36.51 and paid $3.50 shipping, for a total of $40.01. (Notice the penny extra on the bid.)

I took a chance here--not something I typically do with money in general. But the Goudeys are one of the Big Three sets. The 1909-1911 T206s (which I've written about many times), the 1952 Topps and the 1933 Goudeys are the most-collected and sought-after sets. Any card from these sets will sell for more than average; HOF cards from these sets will be worth a premium value. And highly-graded HOF cards from these sets will be worth good money. A card in decent condition (even, in most cases, in poor condition) from these sets will re-sell, no problem. So if you want to collect a card and try to make a good profit at the same time, these are the cards to get. (I would throw the 1888 Old Judges and the T205s in this category as well. And any card, really, between 1900 to 1933.)  The trick is to buy one at a low price--ungraded cards can be bought for even cheaper--and then to send them away to SGC, PSA or Beckett to get them graded.

But doing so is taking a chance. No matter what you guess a card will be graded, it sometimes seems these guys grade the cards almost at whim, defying any reasonable explanation. (I have proof of this.) But if you want to increase a card's value, you have to get it graded. Out of all the companies, I think Beckett is the best for cards after 2000. PSA is best for cards 1960-1999. And SGC is best for all cards prior to 1960. It seems that overall card values back me up with this.

So what to buy? I've bought ungraded T206s and written about those before. But I'd never done so for a Goudey and I wanted to try. So if you're going to do that, you need to buy a popular player or a HOFer. But many of those are out of my price range. (Ruths and Gehrigs are worth hundreds or thousands of dollars.) I decided upon a HOFer nobody but serious fans know (and who shouldn't be in the HOF but for Veterans Committee shenanigans) and to get it raw, which means ungraded. The ones available during the limited time I allowed myself (because I could so easily go overboard with this and there goes the mortgage) were scant, and I settled on this guy.

Anyway, I sent it to SGC during its December Goudey/Play Ball/Diamond Star Special of $8 per card. (I also sent a HOF Rabbit Maranville Goudey, which I knew was in terrible condition; I was lucky to get that graded in Poor condition.) Because this venture is all about value and profit, you wait until the grading company has a sale on its grading. By chance, this sale came up right when I bought the card. Normally SGC charges $10 per card from this era.

So a few days ago (the website publishes your results when they're done, even before you get it in the mail) it was graded a 5 Excellent--which is really good for a 1933 Goudey, as they were handled a lot, and they're old, and they fray and literally disintegrate, and the corners round easily. The card, now graded, looks like this:

My Beckett Graded book shows the highest graded 1933 Goudey Jim Bottomley to be an 8, and I've got a 5. Not bad for $40! Book value? $150!!! Because you often can't get book value on cards, I looked up recently sold SGC 5 graded 1933 Jim Bottomley Goudeys on ebay. (I checked off the "sold listings" box; just because someone's asking $300 for the card on ebay, that doesn't mean it's worth $300. People ask insane prices via "Buy It Now" on ebay. But if a card has sold recently at a consistent price, that card is worth that price.) A PSA 5 (same exact grade and conditions, and PSA and SGC are equally respected) sold on January 10th, 2016 for $159.99, which shows the book value of $150 to not only be accurate, but maybe even a little low.

So I spent $40 on it, and paid $8 to get it graded, plus a couple bucks for shipping and insurance, for a total of $10 more. In summary, I paid $50 and it's worth at least $150---three times what I paid. Not bad! Even if I sent it to a 3rd party (an ebay company I do business with) and got the 87% he gives, and spent maybe $5 to send it to him, my profit is around $75-$80. Not bad for one card! It all took just minutes of my time, mostly sitting on my butt at my computer, and my post office doesn't usually have any lines, either. I could seriously make some part-time income doing this.

Derek Jeter

I know I'm a little behind on my HOF posts, and on my posts in general for this site.  Having said that, a few words about Derek Jeter, after his last game today at Fenway Park:

--Obvious HOF because of his lifetime stats, most obvious his 3,464 hits, 6th most all-time.

--Also top-10 all-time in ABs, PAs, Runs Scored and Singles.  Considering he batted 1st or 2nd the vast majority of the time, these are excellent things for him to be amongst the greatest of all-time.  Probably the greatest second-in-the-order hitter ever.

--Some surprises (all this is courtesy of baseball-reference.com):

-12th all-time in Times-on-Base.  If you consider the all-time greats of Ted Williams (okay, shorter career), Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, etc., all those you'd think of as all-time super-stars, the fact that Jeter got on base via a hit, walk or HBP 12th amongst all these guys is very impressive.

-His Offensive Winning % is 45th-best, ever.  That includes everybody--pitchers and position players.  That's Clemens, Grove, Cy Young, Pete Rose, people better defensively than he was...everyone.  This is very high.

-His 1,909 Runs Created is 27th-best, all-time.  This is runs scored, runs batted in and everything in between.

-13th-most strikeouts ever.  I know he batted a ton of times, but this is still surprising to me.

-21st-most total bases, ever.  Again, considering all the big boys--Williams, Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, etc.--being 21st is very high.  Especially when you consider that those guys hit homers and Jeter hit singles and doubles.  That's a lot of singles and doubles to party with those guys in TBs.

-Player of the Week just 3 times--and Player of the Month just once!

-Never won MVP, though he did finish 2nd and 3rd a few times.  But, Pedroia excepted, American League MVPs usually go to the home run guys.

-5 Gold Gloves.  Granted, GGs are given just as much for offensive performance as it is for defensive excellence (though of course it shouldn't be that way), but, still, 5 Gold Gloves is a lot for a guy who's often ridiculed for his defense.

-Having said that, baseball-reference says he owes the Yanks 9.7 games over his career for his defense.

-But he's won them 95.3 games over his career due to his offense.  Divided by 17 or 18 full years, that's about 5 1/2 games a year, just him.  That's a lot.

-He's had 650 post-season ABs.  That's another full season.

-He had a .308 batting average and a .374 OBP during that "extra season."  Keep in mind, this is the playoffs, so this would be against the better pitching staffs in all of baseball.  The .374 OBP is more impressive than the .308 BA considering this.

-The same website has compared him to the HOF shortstops already enshrined, and had this to say:

JAWS	Shortstop (12th), 71.7 career WAR/42.2 7yr-peak WAR/57.0 JAWS Average HOF SS (out of 21) = 66.7 career WAR/42.8 7yr-peak WAR/54.7 JAWS

In other words, he's a little to quite-a-bit better than the average HOF shortstop.  In short, he's a HOFer.

The two things I'll remember most about Jeter:

1) The infamous 2004 game, weeks before Nomar got traded, in a game that Nomar refused to play, Jeter jumped into the stands to catch a foul ball--and got a bloody chin and cheek for it.  At Fenway.  Later in the game, Nomar refused to pinch-hit--for Cesar Crespo, if I'm not mistaken.  I know Salad will correct me if I am wrong about this.  :-)

The story goes that this so angered Red Sox brass that it was the last straw, and they were intent on trading Nomar after this.  In other words, if Jeter hadn't played all-out that game (as he admittedly did for all his games), then the Sox front office wouldn't have shopped Nomar--and the Sox don't win the 2004 World Series.

2.  In a 2001 playoff game against the A's, a throw gets away from the cut-off man and Jeremy Giambi (surely one of MLB's all-time bad baserunners) tries to score.  Jeter, who was roaming the infield, runs about 100 feet out of his shortstop position, grabs the ball that's trickling on the 1st-base line about 15 feet from home, and throws a shovel-pass to the catcher, Jorge Posada, who tags Giambi out.  (Giambi looks back in shock, though the real surprise is his refusal to slide, as he's tagged on his foot.)

This is ballgame with-it-ness that can't be taught.  Not too many guys have his head in the game so much to make that play.  (I played awhile, and I can honestly say that I would've watched with my mouth agape as the ball rolled away and the run scored.)  The Yanks win this playoff game 1-0, too.  Neither of these two plays show up in Jeter's defensive stats, and he was not a particularly gifted defensive shortstop like Alex Gonzalez or many others.  But Jeter has to be one of the headiest ballplayers of all-time, a player for whom the stats will not do total justice.  This says a lot, since he has Hall-of-Fame stats.

More than anything else, worthy of the Hall for his Hall-of-Fame consistency.  Offensively and defensively.  And for just the intangibles, which is usually a BS word, but not in his case.

And, finally, it's oversaid, but it's not wrong: Jeter's a guy who respected the game and the people in it.  He wouldn't have slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's hand, for example.  Or put pine tar on his wrist, and then on his neck, as did the pitcher who started and won Jeter's last game.  He played the game right, and he has the $600+ million dollars and--soon--the HOF plaque to prove it.

A great player--even if he never made an appearance in my last Fenway game of this season, this past Friday, the day after his You-can't-make-it-up last game at Yankee Stadium.  Still, a great player.

Luke Sewell--1933 Goudey

Photos: Luke Sewell's 1933 Goudey, front and back, from my collection

Important recent card in my collection because a) my better half bought it for me for Christmas, and b) I love Goudeys.  The 1933 set is an iconic set to begin with; it was one of the few sets since the early Cracker Jack cards, the famous T205 and T206 cards, or the ones made in triptych in the late 1800s, to be considered art.  The 1933 Goudeys are smaller than today's cards, almost square, with a painting likeness of the player (sometimes accurate, sometimes not) against a solid color background.  The likeness of the player was often outlined very sharply against this background, as Sewell's is.  The cards, individually and as a set, are of high aesthetic value: the colors hold together well; the cardboard is thick and sustains (except around the corners, notoriously for this set); the printing conditions were very high; and, most importantly, all of the major players of the day are there, including 3 or 4 Ruths and Gehrigs.  A rarity in this set is that many of the players have duplicate cards, and not always because they changed teams, retired, etc.

Family lore has it that my father probably had a ton of these when he was a kid growing up in the 40s or early 50s.  He didn't remember which ones.  One day his mother came in and cleaned up his room, which involved throwing many of them away.  He had maybe three or four left over, which he either demolished by attaching them to his bike spokes, or lost by playing betting games with them--usually by flicking them against brick walls; he who had his card land face-up took the lot.  If this is accurate, he lost some HOF players, and maybe a few grand worth of cards.  But nobody thought of collecting and making money from these things back in the day.

This card:

This one is probably in G-VG condition.  It's not professionally graded, but since I'm holding on to it forever, I'm not going to bother.  It has slight creases of wear in the upper portion, noticeable only in a slanted light, and even slighter ones in the upper left corner, beneath the name, and in the direct center.  The corners are very rounded; this is notoriously common for this set.  Someone had to have the mindset of a collector in 1933 to somehow protect the card (probably in a book, or maybe a cheese box, back then) and its corners.  (There's a set of 114 cards of this condition on ebay right now, going for just over eight grand.)  That just wasn't the case most of the time back then.  Schoolboys played with them, folded them, flipped them, put them in their bike spokes, etc.  Some kid definitely played with this one back in the day; the creases tell me that it's been flipped on its head or tail quite a bit; it's probably seen its share of walls.  That means more to me, somehow.  It's got more character, more story, behind it, then if some guy just put it between the pages of a hardcover book in 1933 and didn't often look at it.  Mine's been used and abused.  It's got patina, as a picker would say.  (Though if someone wants to give me a 1933 Goudey of any player in great condition, please feel free.)

The player:

Some interesting tidbits from his Wikipedia page: He came up fast, after just 17 minor league games, and was probably signed by the Cleveland Indians to begin with because his brother was already an infielder for them.  He was part of a righty/lefty platoon; he never hit in League Park, the home park, which had a right field fence only 290 feet from home plate.  Known for his defense, he threw out 71 runners one year, 60 another, and so on, which tells me that not only did he have a very good throwing arm--but, apparently, everyone ran, all the time, once they got to first.  (Babe Ruth famously ended a World Series by getting thrown out at second base.  The old sped-up clips show his spindly legs moving quicker than you would think, but that's not enough to convince me that he had any business stealing bases, at any time.)

His defense was so good, and maybe his handling of the pitching staff so well-respected, that he did very well in MVP voting at a time when hitters stats were comparable to the steroid era.  For example, he finished fifth in the MVP voting in 1937, and was an all-star.  The league average, batting, that year was .281, and the average OBP was .355.  That means that your average ballplayer, who nobody's ever heard of before, could be a good to decent leadoff or number-two hitter today.  (A slightly below average year for Pedroia would be .281/.355 right now.)  The #10 hitter in the league hit .331 with a .407 OBP and a .546 slugging %, with 111 runs scored, 25 homers and 110 RBIs.  Sewell, as I mentioned, finished 5th in MVP voting, way ahead of all the guys whose stats are mentioned above; Sewell had 111 hits, with 1 homerun, 61 RBIs and a .269 batting average--all very, very, very below the league average.  More than five guys finishing in the top-25 behind him had over 25 homers and 100 RBIs each.  The guys in front of him were your DiMaggios, Greenbergs and Gehrigs, with over 37 homers and 159 RBIs apiece (those were Gehrig's stats, whose numbers were lower than the guys in front of him on the MVP list).  Guys in front of him hit .371, .346, .337, .351, and .332., with RBI totals of 167, 183, 159 and 133.  Then Sewell, hitting .269, with 1 homer and 61 RBIs.

Now that's respect.  Or else, he had pictures.  I don't know.  I'm guessing respect.  He must've been some defensive catcher and handler of pitchers.  The equivalent today would've been Jason Varitek finishing #5 in the MVP voting between 2000 and 2007.  Not happenin'.  Sewell finished 9th, 12th and 15th in the MVP voting in other years.  You can find these stats at baseball-reference.com, here.  He threw out 53% of the baserunners for two straight years, and was annually in the mid- to upper-40s.  That's incredible, for any era.  For his career, he struck out just 307 times in over 6,000 plate appearances; this averages to just 30 strikeouts per 600 plate appearances, per season.  In 1933, he had 24 strikeouts in 536 plate appearances.  Of course, he walked about as often, too.  In those 536 PAs in 1933, he walked just 48 times--though this is, of course, double his strikeout total.  With his good MVP standing, I'll bet he made the most of all those outs--moving the runners along, hitting to the right side, bunting, sacrifice flies.  All that.  He still holds the American League record for most consecutive seasons as an active catcher, with 20.  This also speaks to his defensive prowess.  Something else that also does is that he caught three no-hitters from three no-name pitchers.  Varitek, who also caught three no-hitters, probably caught them from pitchers of higher caliber.

His brother, Joe Sewell, is a Hall of Fame shortstop.  As I've barely heard of him, I'll bet it's because of his defense, as well.  Let's look 'em up...Woops!  I'm wrong.  Clearly one of the better hitting shortstops of the 20s, if not the best, and his strikeout ratios are even better than his brother's, to the point of silliness.  He struck out 114 times in just over 8,300 plate appearances for his career.  (By comparison, many of the best hitters today K well over 114 times in about 600 plate appearances in just one season.)  On average, per season, he would K just 10 times in over 700 plate appearances, with 72 walks, 189 hits, 90+ RBIs, a .312 batting average and a .391 on-base percentage.  He once had 115 consecutive games between strikeouts.  He still holds the MLB record for fewest strikeouts per AB, averaging just one K per 63 at-bats for his career.

Pappa Sewell taught his boys to make contact.

Though this was a great time to be a hitter, the juiced-up ball and smaller ballparks didn't lead to Joe Sewell walking as much, getting as many hits, and K'ing so rarely.  His D was good, too.  Overlooked player by the HOF and voted in by the Veterans Committee in 1977 in one of their rare good moves.  He died in 1990, aged 91, so he saw himself inducted into the Hall, which is rare for an overlooked ballplayer from a bygone era.

In an odd coincidence, Luke Sewell (back to him; sorry for the brother sidetrack) was traded by the Washington Senators, with cash, to the St. Louis Browns for Bump Hadley--whose 1933 Goudey I had just bought at a flea market a few weeks before.  (Hadley, a pitcher, had hit him in the head and knocked him unconscious in 1934, ending his season.)  Until Christmas, Hadley's was only one of the two Goudeys I owned.  (I got his card, and Bing Miller's--both in Good condition--for $20 total at that flea market.)  Weird.  He won two awards for Manager of the Year (one in the majors, one in the minors) but never seemed content anywhere and stepped down all the time.  Just kept moving around.  (He had a .622 record over two seasons for one team as manager, but stepped down and re-signed elsewhere anyway.)  In 1944, he led the St. Louis Browns to its only World Series in its 52-year existence, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals.