Three years in big leagues Then shot and killed a woman Four years in prison   1991 Topps #434 Julio Machado   After the 1991 season, Machado was involved in an automobile accident in his native Venezuela. He fatally shot a woman at the scene, claiming self defense from a fear he was being robbed. He served 4 years of a 12 year sentence ..read more

Every blogger has there own fun thing they do. Johnny (Johnny's Trading Spot) has an impressive collection of cards and players for each of the major holidays that he shows off each year. For Halloween, he showed off a large collection of players born on October 31st. He made a little contest asking readers to comment with any missing players born on that date, and offering a prize for any correct additions. I happened to read his post shortly after it went online, and had the opportunity to be the first comment. I remembered a bit of trivia I had heard before, double checked and made sure the ..read more

  Everybody have a good Thanksgiving? I hope so. In the spirit of being thankful, today seemed like a good day for another post of random thank you's, thoughts and whatnot.    ********** I'm going to start things off with a much-overdue thank you. Way back in May, I did a Time Travel Trade with the wonderful Mark Z. He included a bonus card with that trade, and it was fully my intent to properly showcase that act of generosity, I just kept putting it off until now. This Tim Wakefield was the last Red Sox card I needed from the 2006 base set. Thanks Mark!     ..read more

Total home runs hit By Puig and Dietrich less than Total by Suarez    2019 Topps Update #US71 Queen City Kings (VC)   An odd choice for a card if you ask me. Dietrich hit a career high 19 home runs in 2019. Puig hit 22 that year for Cincinati, and was actually traded to Cleveland at the trade deadline. The real King of Queen City that year was Eugenio Suarez, who placed second in the N.L. with 49 home runs - more than both of these teammates combined ..read more

Won 17 games Despite leading the N.L. In earned runs allowed   1990 Topps #237 Kevin Ritz (RC)   How does a guy with a 5.28 ERA and a league-leading 125 earned runs allowed end up winning 17 games? It helps if you play in Colorado with the Blake Street Bombers providing the offense. Seriously check out the run support he got in 1996:   via baseball-reference.com Unreal ..read more

It's time for another installment ("aka filler post") of 6 Degrees Of Raffy, where I connect a beloved card from my collection and connect the player depicted on it to current Red Sox superstar Rafael Devers.    We start with a randomly generated card from my collection: Random TCDB Card:  1990 Topps  #171 Russ Nixon (MGR, TL)    Poor Russ Nixon. He was fired as manager of the Braves midway through the 1990 season. The General Manager who fired him (booby Cox) took over manager duties himself and relinquished GM duties to someone else after the season. In 1991 ..read more

Another round of cards on the chopping block! Since the next two trades on the list only had one card apiece, I decided to once again include a third trade. In doing so, I inadvertently did something I never would have guessed. You'll have to read on to find out what!   Trade #106 Jim (Cards As I See Them) Traded 06/23/21:  1956 Topps #274 Frank Baumholtz   Received 07/02/21: 1953 Topps #101 Ted Wilks (VAR) Baseball is obviously the focus on this blog, and in that regard 1953 represents the oldest Topps year I've ever been able to acquire. Not bad for something that st ..read more

Officer Walters Died from injuries received During a shootout   1993 Topps #273 Dan Walters (RC)   Walters joined the San Diego Police Department after his career in the Majors was cut short by injury. In 2003, Walters was shot in the neck and then hit by a car, resulting in paralysis from the neck down. As a result of complications related to these injuries, Officer Walters passed away in 2020. It is considered a line-of-duty fatality ..read more

It's a relatively light post this month, with only two trades completed since last time. Regular readers of this series can probably guess who my two trade partners were. Next month should be better, as I already have one trade in progress.   Brendan (The View From The Third Floor) starts us off with a page of cards, including yet another 1930's film star. (I'm always amazed how well these kinds of cards hold up after almost 90 years. The colors are so vibrant!)   Our second trade comes from Bo (Baseball Cards Come To Life!), who picked up a couple of Score inserts ..read more

He once missed a start Driving around Atlanta Couldn't find exit   1989 Fleer #390 Pascual Perez   In his first year with the Braves, Perez missed a start because he spent two hours driving on the freeway around Fulton County Stadium, unable to find the exit ramp ..read more