My First Al Kaline Vintage

Vintage Tigers have been on my mind lately, due to some excellent trades, and to some upcoming Coot Veal amazingness. Yes, Coot Veal will be appearing to jam out with the Vealtones very soon. You'll have to keep checking back to find out what I'm hinting at.

In the meantime, let's get to this Kaline business. Drew from Drewscards sent me a nice pile of cards, and the highlight of the trade marked my first vintage Mr. Tiger card.

This card is in surprisingly great shape, decent centering and corners. I would've been happy with a beat-up Kaline. This card commemorates Kaline's initiation into the 3000 hit club, but really he's in the 3007 hit club, which is 7 hits more special. He was one home run shy of 400 at the end of his career and had a career .297 batting average. That's one hell of a Tiger.

But that's not all! Drew also sent over some 2011 Topps Town goodies for my player collections:

Wow, those are some dark-blue shinies.

Rounding out the trade, Drew sent a 2011 Topps Heritage Boesch, who is one of the few Tigers swinging a bat right now. Next, a 2010 Vintage Legends Ty Cobb, and below, another Cobb from 2011. This is my first Kimball mini, and I have to say that these cards are as cool as they come, one of Topps' best inserts in a long time. Oh, sorry, Raburn Diamond shiny. You're cool, too, but I like mini retro better than blinding bedazzlement. The 1977 Topps Fidrych is much appreciated. Who says curly locks and one good season doesn't make a career? Maybe best of this bunch is the 1971 Topps Mike Kilkenny, which just makes me think of this:

You bastard.