Twin Giants of the Wax Packs

Did they come with guitar picks instead of bubble gum?

Today’s Lineup…

• 🤠 Card(s) of the Day - Tears in your ears?

• 📝 An even 2 dozen

• 🎉 (Pack) party like it’s 1982

1979 Topps Gary Lavelle (#311) & Jim Dwyer (#236) - Card(s) of the Day

One of the dangers of hanging onto the side of this rock for a few decades is that you see a lot of faces. And after a certain point, you’ve sorta seen them all.

So when you see a new face, there is a tendency to relate that mug to ones you’ve already encountered. At least that’s how it goes for me.

All of which is to say that when I first encountered Jim Dwyer, when he was a member of the 1983 Baltimore Orioles, I thought he might be a long-lost relative of Johnny Cash.

Those steely eyes. That jaw.

And when I was perusing the rest of my 1983 cards that same summer and fall, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Gary Lavelle was a hard-guy country mashup of Jim Rockford and Jerry Reed.

Of course, I’d later learn that Lavelle hailed from Scranton and ended up being a really good relief pitcher over the course of a 13-year career.

Dwyer, meanwhile, is from the Chicago area and hit .250 for the O’s in the ALCS against the White Sox that fall, then cranked it up to .375 in the World Series against the Phillies.

That latter performance included a solo home run off John Denny in the bottom of the first inning in Game 1 to score (and drive in, obviously) the first run of the entire Fall Classic.

In all, Dwyer spent 18 years in the majors before becoming a coach.

As far as I can tell, neither Lavelle nor Dwyer have any country roots, and no real tie to each other, except for those 1979 Topps cards above and what led to them.

Dwyer played for seven different big league teams in his career. On June 15, 1978, it was the Giants’ turn when the Cardinals sent Dwyer to San Francisco to complete the October 1977 (!) trade that sent Frank Riccelli to St. Louis.

By then, Lavelle was a Giants fixture, having pitched in the Bay since 1974.

The Red Sox bought Dwyer’s rights from the Giants the next spring, but by that point, the two men were forever cardboard teammates thanks to Topps’ shiny new baseball card set.

Jim Dwyer turns 74 years old today. Happy birthday!

Oh … and Gary Lavelle turns 75. Happy birthday!

1974 “Chase” Cards - Fake Sigs

Modern card sets are sort of infamous for all the glitzy parallels and inserts that entice collectors to shell out big bucks and “rip” packs hoping to strike gold.

But inserts are nothing new, as evidenced by these 50-year-old team checklists. For the second year in a row, Topps inserted these facsimile-autograph-clad cards into specially marked packs.

As with most checklists, these haven’t been all that popular over the decades, but collector interest has picked up a bit in recent years.

It’s only mildly jarring to realize that 24 cards covered the entirety of MLB franchises at the time.

Wow! Wax Redux

One of the fun aspects of this hobby that I used to feature quite a bit in newsletters and on the website was unopened product available for sale — wax packs, rack packs, cello packs, boxes, cases, etc.

I call(ed) it “Wow! Wax” because there was always something out there that blew my socks off in some way or another, and because “wax” packs were the gateway buy for so many of us into this hobby.

Besides, wax is a state of mind.

So, in that spirit, here is a cool unopened rack pack I found while perusing eBay today (pic links to listing):

This isn’t my pack, so I can’t vouch for it, but it scores big on visual appeal and is just the sort of eye candy that would have stopped me cold at the grocery store 42 years ago.

Mike Schmidt, Eddie Murray, Pete Rose, and Spaceman Bill Lee all in one shot? Yes, please!

Check out the full listing on eBay.

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That’s all for this Hump Day edition, even though I’m not really sure Wednesday counts as a hump when the work week is just four days for most folks.

Such a philosophical quandary, right up there with how to make “White Sox” possessive.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam