Jonny Gomes collectors' thread

[r2d2]

Thanks a lot for sharing. Amazing find more than 20 years later.

For Arturo's benefit, here's the Cantu from the 2004 Theo Davis Sons International League Champions Card Set (post #73).

Behind Cantu in the photo is the number 18, along the outfield wall. This is Joe Morgan's number, which for a long time was the only number retired by the Bulls. He played there in 1963.

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[nosterbor]

Fantastic collection. Keep updating us on your pick-ups.

 

[LWMM]

Thanks, guys!

This is from set issued by the Durham bulls in 2007 to commemorate their 10th year as a AAA team. Despite being a decade old, and containing two players I collect (Gomes and Matt Diaz), I didn't have any idea it existed until it appeared on eBay a few weeks ago. The set has 20 cards, including players (and a manager) from a variety of years. The full list:

Delmon Young
Brooks Badeaux
Randy Winn
Mickey Callaway
Lee Gardner
Jonny Gomes
Jason Standridge
Carl Crawford
Jeff Niemann
Lance Carter
Aubrey Huff
Matt Diaz
Steve Cox
Kevin Witt
Toby Hall
Bill Evers
B. J. Upton
Jason Smith
Rocco Baldelli
Ryan Jackson

I thought I'd take another look at this set, after (finally) digging into the 2004 Theo Davis Sons International League Champions Card Set (see post #73), an SGA which appears to have been issued in a similar manner to this one. Given how much information was available about the 2004 set on an archived Bulls set, I hoped the same might be true here. It was.

It looks like this is known as the 2007 10 Years at Triple-A Baseball set, and was given out on July 26, 2007, to mini-plan holders with that game in their schedule. Per the team's archived 2007 promotions schedule, that date was "Law Enforcement Appreciation Night," sponsored by LoJack—appropriately enough, as the company advertises what it calls a "stolen vehicle recovery system integrated with law enforcement." The schedule continues, stating "Show your appreciation for the men and women of law enforcement tonight with Lojack and your Durham Bulls. Come to the ballpark hungry because hot dogs, french fries and popcorn are all $1.00 each." And then it concludes with a "Mini Plan Giveaway: 10 Years at Triple-A Baseball Cards."

Meanwhile, an archived page on the team's 2007 mini plans shows that the Bulls offered 7 such plans that year, for between 5 and 20 games. July 26, 2007, is included in only one of those plans—a 13-game all-Thursday plan, which an earlier version of the page (released before the season, and which includes some errors and different dates) calls the "Family Feast Plan." (This is presumably because, as the promotions page shows, on Thursdays, "hot dogs, french fries and popcorn are all $1.00 each.") Further confirming that this set was linked to that game and to that mini plan in particular, the mini-plan page states "GIVEAWAY — 10 Years at Triple-A Baseball Cards."

The last part gives an indication of why this set is so rare—the one I bought in 2016 is still the only one I've seen. As a minor-league team, the Bulls can't have had that many mini-plan holders to begin with; then, only one of the seven mini plans available that year offered this as a giveaway. It's somewhat surprising that the Bulls would go to the effort of making a full set of cards for such a small offering, but that's what appears to have happened.

 

[LWMM]

Update on Gomes goal #6 for the year (see post #68). Got a few in from a SportLots box order, and a few more (the bottom two rows in the below photo) from the same eBay seller who sold the lot from post #70; nothing particularly rare in the lot this time, although I'm a fan of the 2002 Topps Total with contemporaneous IP auto. The remaining cards were mostly isolated pickups. Other highlights are a 2006 A&G auto, and, also from the SportLots order, a 2003 Topps Pristine R Gold Refractor 57/69 of Gomes's brother Joey.

Weeks 7–9: February 9–March 1
Progress: 17 serial-numbered cards (141 total for the year)

The cards (links to example scans):

• 2002 Topps Pristine U 199/1999
• 2002 Topps Pristine C Refractor /1999 (3): 645, 1169 (COMC), 1275
• 2003 Upper Deck Finite T1 482/1299
• 2004 Skybox Autographics Prospects /1500 (2): 625, 906 (SportLots)
• 2005 Topps Rookie Cup Green 146/199
• 2006 Bowman Blue 326/500 (SportLots)
• 2006 Bowman Originals 2004 Bowman 92/175
• 2006 Upper Deck Artifacts AL Artifacts Red 163/250 (SportLots)
• 2008 Topps Heritage Chrome /1950 (2): 50 (SportLots), 401 (COMC)
• 2010 Topps Update Series Gold 1116/2010 (SportLots)
• 2011 Topps Heritage Chrome 731/1962
• 2014 Topps Update Gold 1570/2014
• 2019 Topps Archives Fan Favorite Autograph Purple 18/150

The cards themselves (larger photo here):

 

[LWMM]

On the topic of SGAs, here's a card from a 2011 playing-card set, sponsored by Walgreens, that the Reds gave to the first 20,000 fans on August 27, 2011. Gomes actually has two cards in the set—the other is the 7 of spades (scan)—but they contain identical images and text. At the time, I purchased two sealed packs on eBay, and a loose card from a set that someone broke; I only recently realized that Gomes has two cards, and so purchased another sealed pack that I'll likely open and (after removing the two Gomes cards) part out.

The bottom of the packs names a company called Diamond Promos, and poking around online, I came across http://diamond-promos.com. According to the website, Diamond Promos is "the company that makes those cool playing card decks you got for free when you went into the ballgame." The entire content of the website, most pages of which are accessible in only archived form (such as here), is about promotional playing-card decks; the Reds deck is the only example it gives. (An archived copy of the home page from February 2011 also displays an XM Radio-sponsored Indy 500 playing-card deck, although it's unclear if this was actually made and I don't see any online.) Further digging shows that the company registered as an Ohio LLC in August 2010. The same name and address are also behind a number of other LLCs (e.g., Atomic Dog Publishing and AvR4Ed), most or all of which seem to have some nexus to publishing.

All in all, it seems as if the company was put together as something of a single-purpose side hustle, with the hope that other companies would follow suit and order sponsored playing cards. But the Reds deck seems to have been one of the only products it created.

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As mentioned, I recently purchased another pack of these from eBay, thinking I would open it, take out the two Gomes cards—most importantly, the one that I only recently realized existed—and part out the others. Almost as soon as the pack arrived, however, someone else apparently had the same idea: For the first time in years, individual Gomes cards from the set turned up on eBay. And so, here is Gomes as the 7 of Spades.

Note sure what I'll do with the pack at this point. I already had two sealed packs—might just keep it as a third.

 

[LWMM]

Update on Gomes goal #6 for the year (see post #68). Six cards this week, the highlight being the Topps Archives 1/150; the Bowman Chrome Blue Refractor /150 is also nice, as those don't turn up frequently anymore. On the non-serial-numbered front, the 2006 Fleer Autographics is quite difficult to find, and there are also the SGA playing cards discussed in the above post.

I also picked up a few rarer Matt Diaz cards, both duplicates. He was a teammate of Gomes with the Durham Bulls and I collect his cards too, although there are far fewer. The 2003 Fleer Mystique Gold is hand numbered 11/25. It should be stamped, so is presumably an unnumbered factory replacement that made it out post-bankruptcy and ran into someone with a Sharpie. The seller didn't include a scan of the back, but at $3, no harm done.

Week 10: March 2–8
Progress: 6 serial-numbered cards (147 total for the year)

The cards (links to example scans):

• 2002 Topps Pristine U Refractor 168/799
• 2003 Topps Traded Gold /2003 (2): 730, 795 (both COMC)
• 2006 Bowman Chrome Blue Refractor 95/150
• 2006 Upper Deck Artifacts MLB Apparel Gold 88/150
• 2019 Topps Archives Fan Favorite Autograph Purple 1/150

The cards themselves (larger photo here):

 

[banjar]

I'm curious - why Jonny Gomes?

 

[LWMM]

I'm curious - why Jonny Gomes?

I watched him play for the Durham Bulls while when I was growing up. There were a couple players I liked there (particularly Matt Diaz and Jorge Cantu), but Gomes in particular had a scrappy, all-out style of play that I enjoyed watching and respected, and perhaps related to—be it hustling down to first on every groundout, quickly whipping his bat back whenever he swung and missed as if he'd made a mistake (he lost that habit once he became more of a slugger), or angling his elbow out on an inside pitch, taking the plunk, and jogging down to first. (One of my favorite items is Gomes's 75th HBP ball.) He also clearly had a ton of energy and was a team player, leading to his later reputation as a clubhouse leader. And it didn't hurt that he made some great plays; I still remember a no-doubt walk-off double off the "Blue Monster" in left, when the left fielder took one look at the ball leaving the bat, put his head down, and started walking back to the dugout. It was then fun to follow his career after the Bulls, which had its own share of highlights.

As someone to collect, choosing Gomes was largely serendipitous. He ended up being good enough, and having a long enough career, that he had a decent amount of cards issued, including some premier ones (logo and letter patches; superfractors; laundry tag; etc.). But the most cards he ever had in a year was 212, and they remained affordable; that meant that I could truly go after all of them, and expand into other areas like game-used items.

On that note, here's his first Durham Bulls card, from 2004:

 

[banjar]

Hey, those are pretty good reasons.

And it was definitely fortuitous that he was not a HOF player. They'd still be pumping out hundreds of cards a year for him. But he was fairly well known, so it's more likely that people will post his cards than those of a total nobody. Kind of the sweet spot in terms of PC'ing.