E-APBay

Okay... It's a bit of a goofy title for this post, but I think you all know where I am going with this. So the wife and I recently got back our federal taxes, and we are taking care of business with payments to places that we NEED to pay off. But that doesn't mean we can not maybe buy ourselves a little prize or not. I already bought a $10 box of 2013 Topps Baseball Cards, some top holders for my cards & a Fantasy Baseball Magazine (The only reason to love February, right?!).

I've been window shopping on E-Bay for APBA Baseball Cards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it must have been some time since I've looked for cards on E-Bay, because now there seems to be an abundance of APBA Cards on the site, compared to nil a long time back. So now I'm like a kid in a candy store, and I've got my Baseball Reference.com up with the E-Bay site, $2.00?! Oh they only won 62 games, yeah that makes more sense.

Chili Davis of the 89' Angels.

There is teams that you forget about like the 1989 California Angels, they were a pretty good team with great hitting, good rotation & bullpen -- My friend Sgt. Dan will probably agree with me on that, I completely forgot about this team, and when I brought them up on Baseball Reference, I found out they won 91 games actually (really good for a third place team), remember the Oakland Athletics went on to win the division and World Series in the unfortunate sad news 1989 season (Rose, Giamatti & the quake). They did finish 8 back, and one game behind 2nd-place Kansas City. Their team OPS is not quite something to brag about, but they had really good defense and feisty hitters. Their team leader in HRs was Chili Davis with only 22, but they had 7 players in the lineup in double-figures in that category: Jack Howell had 20 HRs (with 90 RBI), Lance Parrish added 17 HRs (despite a .238 average), Johnny Ray added 16 HRs (I loved watching this guy play, an underrated star for a few years there), Brian Downing (14), Claudell Washington (13) and a young Devon White adding 12 HRs -- which White added 44 steals and great defense. The team also had Tony Armas on the bench with 11 HRs.

The rotation was anchored by 38 year-old (Hall of Famer) Bert Blyleven (17-5, 2.73 ERA), followed by Mike Witt (a off-year of 9-15, 4.54 ERA), Kirk McCaskill (15-10, 2.93 ERA), Chuck Finley (16-9, 2.57 ERA & 156 K's in 199.2 IP) & fresh-faced Michigan star Jim Abbott at 12-12, 3.92 ERA in just over 181 innings. If this team had Witt pitching to his best potential, this team could have made a really good run; their bullpen also had Bryan Harvey (25 Saves, 3.44 ERA), Willie Fraser (3.24 ERA in 92 IP), Greg Minton (a real dependable, consistent reliever in the 80's) with a 2.20 ERA in 90 Innings, Bob McClure pitched excellent with a 1.55 ERA in 52.1 Innings, while Rich Monteleone added a 3.18 ERA in 40 innings.

Lynn on the cover of SI during 1975.

Sorry about the history lesson, and getting a bit off-track there... but there was teams such as this on E-Bay that can be interesting little buys or additions to doing league tournaments or teams of the past replays. Then I found a more recognizable team such as the 1975 Boston Red Sox (Yes, Carlton wave that ball fair!), are you kidding me?! I need to make a bid on this. This team is not among any of the Greatest Teams volumes (which personally i think is a shame, because the 75' series is considered one of the best & most dramatic World Series), but I understand APBA wants to sell the 1975 APBA Season as well, and they already have the 1975 Cincinnati Reds in Greatest Teams of the Past.

So I made a bid on the 1975 Boston Red Sox, always loved this team and how can you not? There is Fred Lynn who literally splashed onto the scene with his MVP/Rookie of the Year season, with Bostonians starting to whisper his name as the next Williams or Yastrzemski -- he would never be either of those two studs, but he would be a pretty darn good player for a little while at least. Then there is aging Carl Yastrzemski himself, with stars Jim Rice & Dwight Evans. Luis Tiant, love this guy, love the way he talks, love his herky-jerky deliverance of the ball ('Is he throwing it to third?!'), and another colorful character in Bill "The Spaceman" Lee. I was looking good for awhile on the bid, entering the last 6-8 hours people starting out-bidding me, my bid was for $5.50 and $2.00 for shipping & handling. It's now (with 30 minutes left) at $10.50 (plus the $2), $12.50 for one team (even though it would be a nice addition to the collection) is a bit more than I would like to pay.

But back to some of the absurd E-Bay listings, and the fact people are actually making bids on it as well. We return to the 1975 Reds, remember it's part of one of the Greatest Teams of the Past volumes -- the team (and only the team) is going for $26.00! Say what?! The Greatest Team volume, you can get for $40, along with 19 other great teams.

Another E-Bay listing had me scratch my head with a posting for 20 blank APBA cards for $20.00, I'm sorry, but you can buy like 100 blank cards for something like $4-$6 on the APBA site.

Cool Dodgers' infield bobbleheads of Cey, Russell, Lopes & Garvey.

Another posted the 1976 American League Los Angeles Dodgers, last I checked they are in the National League buddy, I guess it could have been worse... they could have said the 1976 American League Brooklyn Dodgers, LOL!

Another Dodger posting on E-Bay had the 76-78 Brooklyn Robins of 1922 (Dodgers) for Buy it now (or best offer) at $24.84?! Not sure why it had to be a weird price on top of the fact that it's over-priced! Here's my best offer $1.00 -- Sure it has Zack Wheat & Dazzy Vance, but that's what BATS is for. A better deal would be for the 1901 Brooklyn Superbas, 3rd place at 79-57 (81-55 Pythagorean record) with Willie Keeler & Bill Donovan for $2.99 ($1.50 S&H).

I got really excited when I saw that someone was posting 108 Seasons on APBA for Windows for $125 (Buy It Now) -- I would have tried to go in on it with my brothers, went to sleep thinking about how cool would it to own 108 seasons of what 112?! Endless possibilities! Woke up, to realize my crusty eyes must have read that wrong (Choose 20 seasons) from 108 Seasons.

Ohhhhh.... that makes more sense, bummer.