I've got the Power!

Back when the Rays and Rangers were set to play the in the ALDS, the Collective Troll and I made a friendly wager. Some of my stuff for some of his stuff.

You may have heard by now, but I'll remind you that the Rangers won that series and boy did the Troll come through with the goods. Not only was he a good sport about the Rangers winning, he changed the name of his blog to Troll at the Plate which was very humbling for me. I thought that was pretty cool and the Troll is one of my top trading partners. I would even say we've become friends over the last year or so. Taking all that into account, I wanted to send him the stuff I had wagered so I did. You can check that post out here. As for my winnings, the Troll sent me one of the sweetest play at the plate cards I have ever seen, much less held in my hand.


I'll start off with the most "Power"ful card of the bunch.

That is one sweet play at the plate card. Very vintage and just beautiful. I've been trying to gather as many of the '56 Topps play at the plate cards as I can via the Topps MCG site and this is one I hadn't been able to obtain. Now I can stop trying. When I first saw this card, I thought it must be some sort of modern reprint because it is such good shape. It's the real deal though and I had to slide it out of the topholder so I could feel that authentic cardboard. They do not make them like that anymore. One disclaimer I have to add is that these images came from another site because of my lack of a scanner. The one Troll sent is in even better shape than the one pictured.

Vic Power played 12 seasons in the Major Leagues from 1954 to 1965. He hit 126 homers, drove in 658 RBIs and hit .284. His best season was the season before this card came out when he hit 19 homers and drove in 76 while hitting .319. He also won 7 straight Gold Gloves between 1958 and 1964. I found this great quote about Vic Power on baseball-almanac.com.

"I think Vic (Power) was one of the best-fielding first basemen of all-time. He'd catch balls on one hop, two hops, all sorts of ways. I remember once when he missed a popup over his head, down the right-field line. After the game, he took his glove into the clubhouse and cut it into little bitty pieces. He said he didn't need that glove anymore." - Cleveland Indians Teammate Mudcat Grant (AP Wire, 11/29/2005)

Now that is a player dedicated to playing good defense.

The Troll send two other great cards that I'll get to in the coming days. He is also going to give away some great vintage cards when his blog gets to 100,000 hits and when I was writing this he was less than 300 hits away. Go check him out and get that hit counter up over 100K!

Thanks for the amazing cards Marck!