NASCAR Encyclopedia: Mike Alexander

We come now the first driver to appear in this project.

Mike Alexander
Born: July 31st, 1957
Home: Franklin, Tennessee
Cards produced, according to the Trading Card Database: 6
Cards in my Collection: 5
NASCAR Winston Cup Career: 1980-1990

1991 Maxx Update #85

Mike Alexander is one of many drivers who have been adversely impacted by injury, in his case, it turned out to be career ending. He never ran a full Winston Cup season, although he was supposed to in both 1989 and 1990, injuries robbed him of all but one race in 1989, and the results of the injuries cost him his career after 7 races of 1990; he would never turn another lap in NASCAR. He is very well known in the Nashville area, known for being one of THE drivers to beat on the old Nashville track, in fact, it was his success there that got him noticed and into a Cup car in the first place, making his Cup debut at the track in 1980, at age 22, a rarity at that time to appear in a Cup race that young. His best career Cup finish was 3rd in the 1988 season finale, filling in for another driver whose career ended via injury, Bobby Allison.
Although I have not been able to find any records, he was a multi-time Champion in one of NASCAR's many divisions; while my focus is on the main division- Strictly Stock-Grand National-Winston Cup-Nextel Cup-Sprint Cup- (I usually just call it Cup) NASCAR has dozens of divisions which are almost never covered on cards and can be very hard to find information about...I've spent more than 20 years searching for information and still have large gaps where I have been able to find nothing. His 1989 Maxx card, his first, notes that he was 1983 Winston Touring Series National Champion and 1984 All-American series Champion.

Writer's Note: I wrote this up sometime in 2016, when I was planning to do the NASCAR Encyclopedia person-by-person. I've since decided to restructure it to be more like my NBA Encyclopedia, but instead of discarding or modifying what I had already done, I've chosen to just post it as is. I hope to relaunch the NBA Encyclopedia shortly and post more in the NASCAR Encyclopedia, but I just have not found the time to write any more yet, they are somewhat labor-intensive to create. 

The Greatest card ever made!

It's been quite a week for me card wise. I've finished a huge project, came up with a new goal for the year (to replace one I failed during February) and I've gotten a lot of great cards in the mail- both from purchases, trading and a couple of RAOK.

But right now I want to highlight just one card- the Greatest Card Ever Made!

After being in the hobby for 28 years this year, it isn't every day that a new all-time favorite card enters my collection...but yesterday, March 9th, 2016, it happened. (Which, coincidentally, is my Mom's birthday!)

Yes indeed, that IS a card of me!!

A couple of years back, I had a friend of mine whip up the front for me, and I used it for a while as my profile picture on Facebook and on my own website. The 1991 Maxx design has always been one of my favorites, and it's the definitive NASCAR set in my mind. So it was a natural choice.

Flash forward to sometime last week, Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown posted up his set of Simpsons customs that was available on a limited basis...I had to have it. I've been a Simpsons fan most of my life and I've seen every episode many times. Many, many times. Well into the triple digits for a large majority of episodes. There's not a day that goes by that I don't quote the Simpsons more than once, and I end every day with reading a portion of one of the Simpsons Library of Wisdom books.

So I asked Gavin if he would take on a commission to print my card, to send along with the Simpsons set, and he would. So...I delved into my files and had the front ready to go. The back was another story. I had never had a back of the card made up.

I decided to make it myself.  I wrote the text, lined it up, and did the stats, which were the hardest part to do in getting them lined up. Those are my actual stats, by the way, not just numbers made up randomly to look good. I even changed the photographer credit to reflect the fact that my mom took the picture.

Writing about myself in the third person was kind of strange, but I wanted to make this look professional, and cards don't talk, so Billy made the adjustment.

When the card arrived yesterday, I was thrilled to see how it turned out. Perfect! Exactly how I imagined it. The colors match an actual 1991 Maxx card perfectly. It now is my all-time favorite card, and I think it will be for a long time.

Thanks for making this a reality, Gavin!

In case you are interested, this was the card back I used to make my own. The only thing I could not match was the font used for the name. I just had an idea that I could have done to match it, but it would have significantly raised the amount of work for me, and of course, it didn't occur to me until right now.

Veteran's Day Profile: Bud Moore

With today being Veteran's Day, and the first one to happen in Cardboard History's existence, I thought I would profile a veteran who served his country and then went on to have a sports career, and trading cards, of course.

I figured where better to start than perhaps the most well-known in NASCAR, and that is Walter "Bud" Moore. Moore owned a NASCAR team (sometimes more than 1) from 1961 through 2000, winning 63 races and multiple championships; his cars were usually numbered 15. He also was a championship winning crew chief before he owned his own cars.

During World War II, Moore stormed Utah Beach on D-Day, and during the course of his service, he was awarded two Bronze Stars and five Purple Hearts. Purple Hearts are awarded to a soldier who was injured in battle, with each injury leading to another Purple Heart. He took part in several post-D-Day campaigns, notably being part of the force that liberated Bastogne, commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. (Note- My grandfather also took part in that battle). Bronze Stars are awarded based on meritorious service. An article on his website details how he and another man captured an entire German command post!

1991 Maxx Ford Motorsport #13

Bud Moore's first card was issued in 1989, and he had more than 120 cards issued up through 2014. I have more than 20 of them in my collection.

He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in it's second class in 2011. He celebrated his 90th birthday in May of this year.

Thank you for your service!

Month in Review - January 2015

I thought I would debut a new feature today, a look back at the previous month in my hobby. And of course, take a look at some cards that I have not posted yet.

January was an overall unpleasant month in real life, but the cards were great, of course. Not even counting the huge epic mailday I posted about yesterday, I had already gotten 699 new cards in the month- and more than half of them came from trades, which is always a good thing.

I have been constantly tinkering with Cardboard History itself, adding many new features in January, including a Blogroll, my Top 10 Wants, links to my tradelist and semi-complete wantlists, I figured out the Tagging feature, and I added several pages to the top, where you can follow along as I add new cards of my favorite player in the NBA, and view a listing, with links to the gallery, of all my completed sets. I have some more things I want to add, just need to make the time.

I returned to Ebay, for the first time since 2009. Back then they went to where you MUST pay with Paypal, which I do not have. Sometime recently they allowed you to pay without Paypal, so I made 4 purchases. One NBA card, two NASCAR cards and one Non-Sports card. The NBA card I chose is visible on my Elton Brand chart, #3 on the list.

I hit NBA card #77,000 on January 1st. I knew I was getting close, so I pulled from my stash of mixed boxes until I hit the exact mark, and stopped there, for that day. I'm actually doing better with adding to them than I thought I would, it's not like the peak years where I was adding 1000 new cards a week, but I think I appreciate the cards more now. I even take the time to read the backs, something I didn't do when I was getting that many new ones- I didn't have the time to do that back then, I could barely keep up with keeping my Excel chart up to date...which I ended up losing to a floppy disk corrupting. That happened sometime in 2005, and it still stings...but, I am working on (slowly) recreating it, and even better than it was before.

I added 8 new people to my collection in January, 6 NBA and 2 NASCAR. (I only keep track of these two sports- but I got hundreds, if not thousands, of new people in baseball, football and especially hockey yesterday) 3 of the NBA players are rookies who I got in Prizm, which came out in January. My brother treated me to a shopping bag full of Rack Packs, some of which I have not yet opened. Of the 6, 3 of them are One Hit Wonders! Besides Scott Meents, who got a post in One Hit Wonders, and Rex Hughes, who was detailed in "My Largest Trade Ever", the other is Mark Hendrickson, who played briefly with the 76ers in 1996-97. He only got one NBA card, although he does have college cards in my collection, those don't count towards the NBA collection. For NASCAR, I picked up a card of former Miss Sprint Cup/current broadcaster Monica Palumbo off Ebay, and then I found a website that was selling the 1991 Track Pack Yesterday's Heroes set for a great price, and added Jim Roper, who won the first ever NASCAR race- but only ever got one card.

I only added two sets, not counting the massive amount I got yesterday. That would be 2014-15 Prizm, and this one- now my oldest card in my collection, from 1909. This was the non-sport card I picked up off Ebay. Kind of amazing, but I was able to get this 106 year old card for under $6. And it's a squirrel, so you really can't go wrong!

It appears this card predates the concept of numbering cards.

I opened one box in January 2015. Press Pass Cup Chase. I don't usually like to spend that kind of money on myself, but being the last Press Pass set ever- and the last NASCAR set for the forseeable future- I had to. I loved it, and it got it's own post last month.

I also nabbed this relic parallel on Ebay. I was quite surprised but pleased to pay less than the serially numbered print run for this one. I should have taken a better photo without the glare, but I mainly wanted the show off the green foil and the 07/10 SN.

 

Here's the Jim Roper card I mentioned earlier and a really great looking insert from 2012-13 Crusade...also named Crusade. (I hate when card companies do that). Tim Hardaway Sr.'s not my favorite player, but I have always loved the refractor technology. This came out of the mixed boxes I love so much.

 

I found out this card existed during the month of January, and added it to my collection as well. It was exclusive to Club Maxx in 1991. They also did a handful of them in 1992, of which I have the Elliott from that year as well.
From the front it almost looks like a normal card...

But it's not, though!

I found a dealer that sells cards by the pound, so my mom treated me to 10 pounds of cards. It's been a little disappointing, though, as they are mostly all duplicates- and all but 2 cards have been from the 1989-90 through 1994-95 era, of which I have most of them already- and nearly every single card has been damaged. More than 90%. I've gotten more than 20 copies of the 1992-93 Hoops Chris Ford card, however. When I finish all the inner boxes, I will line them all up and take a photo. I have gotten a few new cards, but of the two inner boxes, of 6, I've gotten less than 30 new cards. I don't plan to buy any more from them. (If I could find newer cards, like 2005-06 and later, like this, I would do it, as I don't have many from that era, comparatively)
I did get this great error, though. I love error cards...you can somewhat see the kind of damage most of the cards have from the photo though. Scuffs, bad corners, dents throughout.

And then....there's this. I never have any luck with redemptions. I usually send them and get nothing back. (Fleer still owes me some) Not this time!

Only my second triple autograph in my collection. First NASCAR. Those are on-card, too, not stickers. That doesn't matter too much to me, but I know a lot of other collectors care.

And before anyone asks....it's not for sale! It's my third Newman autograph, but first for Tony and Danica.

As always, thanks for reading! I'll post the grand total of cards added in January when I finish going through all the new ones I got yesterday...but that's not going to be for a few days more!