Baseball Cards Come to Life!

I have two cards of Jeremy Barfield. This one is from 2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects.

Playing career: Outfielder Jeremy Barfield, son of former Yankee star Jesse Barfield, was drafted by the A's in 2008 and has moved steadily through their system, reaching double figures in home runs in each of the last four seasons.

Where he is now: He started the season at AA Midland, and after hitting 8 HR in 99 at bats was promoted to AAA Sacramento. In 16 games at AAA he is hitting .241 with 3 HR and 11 RBI.

My memories: He kindly shared his thoughts on baseball cards with this blog in 2011.

Google Autocomplete results: He is third when you type Jeremy Ba, between Jeremy Bailey, a new media artist, and Jeremy Barbour, an architect. There do not appear to be any other prominent Jeremy Barfields.

Coming up next: The next profile will be Jesse Barfield.

Got a whole bunch of cool cards in a trade with Nick of Dime Boxes. He writes one of the best baseball card blogs out there. Here are a sample of the awesome variety of cards he sent me.

Not too often you see the number 97 on a baseball uniform.
 Shiny John Olerud.
 Here's an interesting photo, plus a bit of shininess.
 This at first looks like a simple play at the plate card, but check out the background. Not too often you see a wind-blown plastic bag in play on a baseball card.

I recently completed another epic trade with Scott Crawford. About 2,500 cards changed hands in this one, and I don't think it's even the biggest we've ever done. Here are just a few of the tons of awesome cards I got in this deal.

Baby Johnny Damon. I wonder if he could even grow a beard at this point?
 Maybe the best use of shadow I've seen on a card.
 This picture makes me thirsty.
Wouldn't you love to hear this conversation?
 Nice Yankee Stadium dugout shot.
 A great card of under-appreciated Yankee Matt Nokes.
 Super-shiny!
 A shiny purple Giambi!
 I've seen baseball cards that were supposed to look like credit cards before, but never one designed to look like a frequent-flyer card.
 The back even has a "magnetic strip".
 Nice father-son card.
 Here's weird, wacky card. The funniest part might be the dirt stain on Martinez's shorts.

When Topps recently issued a card of Dodgers rookie Hyun-Jin Ryu and couldn’t tell the difference between Japan and Korea, I thought it would be interesting to look at the issue of race and baseball cards.

It turns out this is a legitimate area of scholarly research.

Because baseball cards have one player with an easily identifiable race, and also have well-publicized prices that are driven by the consumer market, they have been a fruitful hunting ground for economists looking at the impact of race on consumer behavior.

There are even at least two scholarly articles on race and the placement of star players with "hero numbers" (100, 200, 300 etc) in Topps sets through the decades.

Check out my piece at the Hall of Very Good where I examine the existing research on race and baseball cards.

Infielder Hugh Quattlebaum played four seasons in the Tigers and Orioles organizations. His best season was 2000, when he hit .301 at Oneonta. Now a youth baseball coach in California, he kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.


Thanks!

Tommy John pitched for 26 seasons in the major leagues, winning 288 games. A four-time all-star, he was twice a runner-up in the Cy Young Award voting, and was the inaugural inductee into the Hall of Very Good in 2012. Now the owner of the Tommy John Pitching Academy and the Let's Do It Foundation, which aims to prevent youth sports injuries, he kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.


Thanks! Here is a card of him from my collection, from 1982 Fleer.

Got so many terrific cards in a recent trade with Kyle of Nolan's Dugout. We connected through Night Owl's very helpful One-Card Challenge. He is a Yankee fan and also collects parallel sets like Topps Gold and Leaf Black Gold. He not only completed two sets for me but sent me a whole bunch of other terrific cards.

1992 Upper Deck - completed!
 2007 Topps - completed!
 Great shot of Carlos Perez acknowledging the cameraman.
 Don Mattingly batting righty? Nope, it's a reverse negative.
 Sad-faced Alvaro Espinoza.
 Mark McLemore - peace sign or V for Victory?
 Bernie Williams showing off the guns.
 Napping John Kruk - I think this is one of my favorite cards ever.
 Hi, my name is Joe Girardi.
 The lighter side of Randy Johnson.
 This is a great card capturing a great moment from my favorite Yankee year, 1996. It's largely forgotten now just how much excitement Darryl Strawberry brought to the team. I would guess this is from his 3-HR game against the White Sox.
 Any ideas where this photo was taken? I assume some Toronto landmark?

Catcher Donnie Scott played thirteen years of professional baseball, including four years in the major leagues with the Rangers, Mariners and Reds. He then had a long minor league managerial career and is now a youth baseball coach in Florida. He kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.


Thanks!

Had a fun day at Yankee Stadium today. The Yankees made fairly easy work of the overhyped Blue Jays, 7-2. Robinson Cano was the big hero with two home runs.

It was interesting to see a lot of unfamiliar players on the Yankees. Instead of Teixiera, Jeter and A-Rod, they Yankees now have Overbay, Nix, and David Adams. They're playing pretty well though. And another new guy, Travis Hafner, found himself facing a unique shift - the Blue Jays would send their third baseman to right field to overload that side of the field. In the eighth inning Hafner figured out how to beat that shift, hitting the ball into the seats for a two-run homer.

Rob Hicks pitched five seasons in the Phillies and Brewers, going 24-24 with 23 saves and a 3.75 ERA. Now a math teacher and pitching coach at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.

- Do you collect baseball cards?

I do not.........though I do wish I had the cards I had as a kid, they ended up being worth a fortune in the early 90's....I was the kid who used to memorize the stats on back, and could recite them at will.  Baseball cards are truly pretty cool as they give a ton of info (the old ones) and also are a snapshot into styles of the years!! 
Thanks! I don't have that card, but here is one from my collection.