Card of the Week: Fractal Materials Part III - Leather

1998 Fractal Materials #94
Edgardo Alfonzo
Materials: Leather and Cardstock

The Player:  For those of you that have followed my blog or my collecting interests, you probably already know Alfonzo is my all-time favorite player (that is why I have all these cards).  So what is there to say about him that I haven't already said?  Well since this is a leather card I thought it would make sense to talk about Fonzie's prowess with the glove.  Alfonzo played four positions during his 12 years in the big leagues.  He spent 889 games at second base, 549 at third base, 34 at shortstop, and 2 at first base.  Fielding is notoriously difficult to capture in a statistic, so I'll talk about his statistics in relation to the league averages.  His fielding percentage was incredibly consistent: while playing several positions he always kept his fielding percentage above the league average.  This shows how well he made the plays on balls he was able to get to.  His range seems to have been less stellar and slightly below average with the exceptions of 1996, 1997, and 2002 (his last year with the Mets) when his range was above the league average.  It seems, then, that he was a consistency-over-range player who had several years of very good defensive play over his career.

However, it was good enough to earn him a spot on one of my favorite Sports Illustrated covers ever (which is also depicted as a mural on one of the walls in Citi Field's new Mets Hall of Fame).

The Card:  The leather cards from the Fractal Materials parallel set were numbered to 1000 and again have the image printed on a textured leather card front with a normal cardstock back.  It is a bit thinner than the wood or nylon cards and I have to admit that it is not obviously leather.  The front could easily be confused with a 2007 Turkey Red Card front because of the similar textures.

The Material: Leather is sort of a sibling to the previously discussed suede. Leather is made from an animal "[h]ide or skin with its original fibrous structure more or less intact, tanned to be imputrescible. The hair or wool may, or may not, have been removed. It is also made from a hide or skin that has been split into layers or segmented either before or after tanning."  Now, I have no idea whether this card is made from real leather or some sort of imitation leather.  I do know that this card contains no hair or wool.  If you are interested in learning more about leather and the differences between real and imitation leather check out this site, from which I got the above quotation.

Group Break Over at the Sandbox!

Hey check it out.  2 boxes of 2009 Topps Unique and one box of 2010 Topps Chrome!  There are LOTS of teams left.

New Multi-Sport Card Blog on the Block

So if you enjoy collecting multiple different sports cards (including baseball), I suggest you check out the Sports Cards Pack Rat's new blog here.  Enjoy!

Card of the Week: Fractal Materials Part II

1998 Leaf Fractal Materials #50
Moises Alou
Materials: Nylon and Cardstock

The Player:
Moises Alou, son of Felipe who both played and managed, batted .303 with an on-base percentage of .369 and an OPS of .885 in 17 years in the majors, about 15 of which he played in most of the games.  Alou had probably his best year in 1998 by batting .312 and hitting 38 HRs driving in 124 and scoring 104 runs himself.  He even stole 11 bases that year, only getting caught 3 times!  He got MVP votes in seven different seasons.

He also did well well for the Mets when healthy, but injuries prevented him from contributing as much as he or Mets fans would have liked.


The Card: As mentioned in my previous post on this subset nylon was one of four alternate materials used by leaf in their Fractal Materials parallel of their anniversary set.  Nylon was the second least common material with cards being numbered to 500 rather than 250 as with the wood one.  Again, the image on the front is printed directly on the nylon which is glued to a traditional cardstock back.


The Material: "Nylon is a polymer obtained by the condensation of diamines with bicarboxylic organic acids, or from omega-amino acids. In more specific terms, it is a polyamide, i.e. one of a class of polymers whose molecular chains are formed by regularly spaced -CONH- amide groups.

The story of the birth of nylon is inevitably intermingled with the duPont de Nemours family and the E. I. DuPont de Nemours Company and its inventor, Wallace Hume Carothers. "



The story starts during the Reign of Terror portion of the French revolution and involves an inventor who would commit suicide in Philadelphia in 1937 before the patents for nylon were granted.  There are actually two stories about nylon's development, and if you are interested I would suggest you visit: http://www.caimateriali.org/index.php?id=32 which is where I got the quote above.

Wait Until The Year 2020?

Now that the World Series is over, most of us get to thinking about next year.  Clearly I'd be happy if the Mets turned it around next season and became serious playoff contenders, and I do think it is possible.  However, realistically I realize it might take more than next season for the Mets to get things straightened out, especially if Santana is not able to pitch like himself for almost the entire season.

So, courtesy of a card I got in a recent trade with reader Jimmy Le, I am going to make my expectations a bit more modest and hope the Mets win at least one more World Championship by 2020!

Jimmy does have a relatively new blog so check it out! He is a great trader with broad collecting goals, so there is a good chance you have some cards he'd like and can work out a deal with him.  He sent me a bunch of other David Wright and Jose Reyes cards that I needed for my player collections in addition to the above beauty.

Congratulations to the World Series Champions!

For the first time in a while I can say I am genuinely happy about the World Series Champs!  I love good pitching, and that epitomizes the Giants these last few years.  I also was lucky enough to pick up Aubrey Huff during my fantasy season this year and benefited from his resurgence.  So here is my little tribute to the team based on cards I own.

The Resurgent Veteran

The Ace

The Second Ace

The Newest Ace