Swamilee's Sportscards & Collectibles www.swamileecards.com

For Jim Wynn, I have broken my own rule and used a custom card from the Internet as there are no cards of The Toy Cannon as a Milwaukee Brewer. He played very briefly with the Brewers before retiring so he didn't make much of an impact. I honestly never knew he played there when he was active. But I always loved him as a player. Starting with his nickname, "The Toy Cannon." What a great nickname. Plus his baseball cards were always cool. If I hadn't used this card, I would ha

Who didn’t love The Cobra back in the 70s and 80s? I certainly did. Not only was he a great power hitter, but he had a great nickname! If he hadn’t have substance abuse problems, maybe he would have squeezed into Cooperstown. His .290 average and 339 homeruns may not look crazy, but for his era, they were good numbers. Were they Hall of Fame numbers? Nope. Was The Cobra one of the most feared hitters of his era? Yep! My best memory of Dave Parker happened in 1988 while he pla

Way back when in 1983, I would put the Topps baseball set together each year. I was young and on a budget, so it wasn't always easy. In 1983, I was doing a pretty good job until it came to the Bo Diaz card. The Phillies' catcher eluded me pack after pack. Who knows why there are certain cards you just can't get? I finally did get this card at a local carnival, but it amazed me how difficult it was. Bo was a really good player who made a tragic mistake. In his home in Venezuel

We lost another one this week. Former Pirates, Angels and Red Sox hurler Bruce Kison lost his battle with cancer. I don't claim to be a huge Bruce Kison fan and I really haven't thought of him for quite a while. But that didn't stop the memories flowing from my youth when I heard about his unfortunate passing. In the 70s, the Pirates and Phillies were rivals, battling for the National League East and one team or the other would win that division nearly every year of the decad

I'm going to start by telling you that 1987 is vintage so this is a legitimate Baseball Card Memory. If you're old like me, you may not want to believe that this card is more than 30 years old. But alas, it is the truth. So deal with it! BJ Surhoff was the first and only overall number one draft pick the Brewers even had. At the time, I was an obsessive Brewers' fan living in New Jersey. This was exciting to me to finally follow a team with the overall number one pick. Surho

I don't even know where to start when it comes to David Clyde. I was way too young to remember him actually pitching so I can't tell you stories of more than 5,000 people in the stands in Arlington just a year or two after the Senators moved there from Washington. Most of my knowledge comes from "Seasons In Hell" written by Mike Shropshire. Who would have thought there would be a book written about the 1973-1975 Texas Rangers? Not me, but it was one of the best baseball books

My guess is, unless you are old school, you are asking yourself, "What's an Enzo and why is he on this site right now?" Well, I'm sorry to say, the reason he is our Memory of the Week is, Enzo Hernandez committed suicide in his native Venezuela a few years back at the age of 63. Why Enzo, why? According to the article I read, he had suffered from depression for some time. That's always sad to hear. Was it connected to the back problem that ended his career prematurely? We'll

Oh How I miss the 'fro! Oh how I miss "The 'Fro." Without a doubt, the afro is and will always be the greatest hairstyle in the history of mankind. Even though Oscar Gamble has the greatest afro ever, Tommy Davis has a pretty nice one himself. Meahwhile, he played for 10 teams and had more than 2000 hits. He was a bit before my time, but looking at his numbers, I find it incredible that lifetime .294 hitter played for that many teams. Meanwhile, my only true memory of Tommy D

The Showboat... Anyone that remembers Willie remembers him catching the ball and flipping it in one quick motion. He was my favorite player when I was six years old. I was not a happy camper when the Phillies decided to ship him off to San Francisco. Of course years later I realized that the Phillies got the better end of the deal landing "The Secretary of Defense," Garry Maddox in the deal. But back in 1975, I wanted Willie. Looking back, I wish I had been old enough to appr

Too bad he had arm problems... The one thing I remember about Bob Apodaca is the low ERA on the back of his baseball card. In 1975, he had a 1.49 ERA which was pretty impressive. Then, he just disappeared. Back in those days, there was no internet or any way for a 10 year-old to find out what happened to players from other teams. But in 1979, my new family doctor was a Mets fan. The first thing I asked him was, "do you know what happened to Bob Apodaca?" He told me arm proble