Wall of Fame...finally done (for now)

[jason.1969]

I posted a few times in the past about a major project I was working on, at various times called my "Top 100" or "Wall of Fame." Will err on the side of too long a backstory, but you can certainly skip to the pics if you like.

My college roommate and I used to pin our best 50 cards onto bulletin boards in our room. Don't worry, the pin went though the sleeves only. Our goal when we went to shows was to find cards we could use to upgrade our Boards. The mother lode came when we went to a show around San Jose and brought a couple hundred bucks each to the table of a dealer who went by the name of "Big John." I got my first Mantle (54B) and Musial (53B) cards, and my roommate scored a Joe D. These purchases pretty much took us into the big time, as the typical Board card before that show would have been a 1969 Luis Tiant.

Well, some 25 years ago we moved away and the cards were packed into a small box to survive my move. As I moved a dozen more times over the years that box followed, only occasionally being opened to show a visiting baseball fan. (And one time, the box was literally rescued from a collapsing building by my sister, despite everyone's pleas to the contrary. Okay, my pleas were the softest.)

Fast forward to three years ago when I divorced my ex and found the most effective form of self-help to be cardboard therapy. One of the first things I did was put my Board back together, and it made me instantly happy. Of course, it also instantly reminded me that I was an adult now and had money! Not a lot of money, but way more than I had in college. EBay, the internet, and N54 sure helped also.

An early upgrade was to shift from a corkboard and pins to a Pennzoni case. A later and more exciting upgrade was to increase from 50 to 100 cards. An early order of business was to put together a Top 100 selection that would include all the best players from the 1930s to the 1980s (basically post-tobacco, pre-steroids), cover a lot of different sets, include some sentimental favorites, and--for display purposes--sit vertically in standard holders. This advance planning definitely saved me from buying a bunch of cards that would have been demoted eventually.

The toughest and final (for now) "real' add came last summer when I paid way more than I wanted to for a 1936 Canadian Goudey card of Gabby Hartnett. (I could have had his 1933 for much less, but I liked this pose--kind of a precursor to the 1976 Bench.) Other tough ones on my budget were the 1939 Play Ball DiMaggio, the DeLongs of Simmons and Klein, and the 1934 Goudey Dizzy Dean. And much more recently I swapped out some filler cards for reprints of Lou Gehrig and the Babe. With luck I will add real Ruth/Gehrig cards in the next few years.

My guess is that 80+ of the players I chose would make everyone's Top 100 for the era. Some iffy guys I went with, either because I already had the cards or just really liked them, were Hack Wilson, Steve Garvey, and J.R. Richard. Had there been a few more slots free, I would have loved to add Dave Parker, George Foster, and Dale Murphy too.

So with apologies for the glare in the pics, here is the Wall of Fame. I took special pride in not having a single year/issue break across rows.

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