Mr. Tiger

Tigers legend Al Kaline passed away today at age 85. I'll leave it to Dennis or another Tigers fan to discuss the details of his Hall of Fame career. My Kaline stories are all related to my late father in-law Bob, who we all called 'Pop'. 

"Mr. Tiger" was Pop's favorite player, and he often told me stories about watching Tigers games on TV or listening to the World Series while he was fixing helicopters during the Vietnam War. Pop didn't have any baseball fans in his family, so he shared his appreciation for Al Kaline with me. He told me about Kaline going straight to the majors at age 18, without playing any minor league ball, and he knew that Al won a batting title at age 20.

Pop collected cards as a kid; he completed the entire 1957 Topps set and saved it in a toy box (wrapped in rubber bands of course) until one day his mother threw out all the toys he hadn't cleaned up - including all of his cards!

My wife collected hockey cards but her brothers hadn't collected baseball cards after about 1992. Pop took an interest in my collection and decided he wanted to collect Tigers again. Specifically Al Kaline cards. I was thrilled to have another collector around, so I gave him a 1965 Topps Kaline card.

Not his card; I don't have access to his collection.

When we went to the East Coast National in 2009 Pop was on the hunt for two cards: a high-grade copy of Kaline's 1968 Topps card for his Tigers team set, and an affordable copy of his rookie card. Pop finished his '68 Tigers team set (and later a 1984 Tigers set) but didn't find a 1954 Topps Kaline RC in his budget. 


I started to pick up some Kaline cards on my own, initially for my father in-law. After he passed away I kept collecting Kaline as a way to remember him. Here are my six favorite cards of #6:

I doubt I'll ever finish the 1964 Topps Giants set but It's a joy to have a jumbo-sized Kaline card in mint condition. 

I had no idea that there was an Al Kaline card set until a couple years ago. Pop would have appreciated this for sure.

Pop's pursuit of the 1968 Topps Tigers team set in high-grade influenced me to pick up as many mid-to-high grade copies of 1956 Topps singles as I could find. Naturally, I had to have a clean copy of Kaline.

This '53 Bowman style card was a VIP promo at the 2015 National. I came across this gem at the card show in Connecticut a couple years ago. After picking out a relic and an auto I skimmed through another box and picked this out. The dealer gave it to me as a freebie for my $10 purchase.

 

I've shown this on the blog before; this was back when I busted multiple boxes of Sweet Spot. Pulled a Bobby Richardson auto out of a retail tin and a Chien-Ming Wang auto out of a hobby box. A couple years later I ordered a discounted box on Dave & Adam's, which yielded this beauty. It's one of my all-time favorite pack-pulled autographed cards.

This card is on its way to me, but I'm not going to wait until it's in-hand to count it among my favorite Kaline cards. The image on this card can be seen at the conclusion of the video on ESPN. 



Thank you, Mr. Kaline. Rest in peace.





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