5 Baseball Cards that Don't Need the Internet

They'll get you from here to there -- and back -- even with no connection

I found out this week that you can send an email without having internet service, though you might have to change your plans a bit.

And you might have to jump through some hoops that include trained spiders, pumpkin rituals, hair-of-the-black-cat tea, and other concessions to October 1 and Halloween.

So, with the last day of the regular season upon us and the internet gods frowning upon me, I thought I’d at least share a short baseball word-association post.

Or, as the case may be, Post.

So here’s my first entry in this Post …

Wally Post

Wally Post hit 40 home runs as a 25-year-old for a lukewarm Reds team in 1955 that got lost in the glare of Dem Bums and had no real busines being mentioned in the same breath with Brooklyn’s only World Series winners, anyway.

He’s something of a Cincinnati legend, though, and looks a lot like a young Rob Schneider on his 1957 Topps card.

And yet, in my mind, I still can’t quite separate Post from…

Wally Moon

Yeah, Moon never played for my Reds.

Instead, he played for the dastardly Cardinals and Dodgers, just like Pedro Guerrero. So my conflating him with Post seems to fit nicely with my sick affinity for so many Dodgers cards over the years — 1957 Topps Jim Gilliam, 1984 Donruss Steve Sax, 1983 Topps Fernando Valenzuela.

It’s also probably a consequence of not seeing either post or Moon’s caterpillar actually play baseball.

But Moon is always a gateway thought to …

Blue Moon Odom

Odom had one of the great baseball nicknames, of course, and was also an All-Star righthander for the A’s when he was 23 and 24 years old.

He has some nifty baseball cards, too, including this 1971 Topps beauty.

And speaking of 1971 Topps beauties, is it any wonder at all that a mention of Odom always leads me to …

Vida Blue

Blue is the only guy on this list I did see play, but only on TV and very late in his could-have-been-Hall-of-Fame career.

But, man, he took Odom’s successful youth schtick and pumped it full of cheery adrenaline en route to an MVP and Cy Young award for Oakland in 1971 when he was just 21 years.

And Blue also appeared on one of the greatest baseball cards of all time (see above). If you were a kid in the early 1980s and saw this card and didn’t fall in love with baseball, baseball cards, and Vida Blue, your principal showed up at your house and immediately revoked your kid card.

Finally, of course, you can’t think of Vida Blue without thinking of ...

Vada Pinson

I only knew one “Vida” as a kid, and she was a stuffy antique dealer who never seemed to appreciate much about my kidness.

And I didn’t know any Vadas at all. (Except for that one Boston-bred friend’s dad who would talk about Vad-ah after watching Star Wars).

So Vida always led to Vada, and Vada always led to Vida, once I started following baseball.

The bonus for me was that Pinson was once a Cincinnati wunderkind who, like Blue, could have landed in the Hall with a little more luck. Or something.

The important thing is, Vada always brought me full-circle, back to my Reds. Some things never change.

—

I could obviously go on forever, but my dial-up modem is starting to howl and smoke, so I’d better call it a post.

Or Post, as the case may be.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam