Night Owl helps me with a decade old goal!

Like many of you, over the years I have set various collecting goals for myself. Back in 2010 I set 10 hobby goals. We are going on 12 years and in looking back at the goals from 2010, I've completed 8 out of the 10 goals.

One of those two goals that I still have outstanding is to collect the Rookie Card of every player that has won the Rookie of the Year Award. Here is what I wrote about this goal in 2010.

 

"This will be a daunting task because one player in 1947 and 1948 won and at least 2 players (1976 and 1979 3 players won) from 1949 on have won the award. It's surprizing but the majority of Rookie of the Year winners have not gone on to have stellar careers. Sure their have been a few Hall of Famers who have won the award (Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Tom Seaver, Rod Carew, and Johnny Bench to name a few) but honestly do you even know who Walt Dropo, Jack Sanford, Gary Peters, Stan Bahnsen, and John Castino are? I am working on a list and will get it on my blog soon so that I can enlist the help of the blogging world on this task. I currently only have a handful of these cards. My goal for 2010 will be to collect half of these cards. (I have to leave something for 2011)"

To be honest, I didn't even come close to my goals of half in 2010 or even in the decade plus since, but this past week I did add a card to this collection thanks to Night Owl. Not just any card, but one of the players that I mentioned in my 2010 post.

Stan Bahnsen won the 1968 American League Rookie of the Year award going 17-12, with a 2.05 ERA, striking out 162 batters for the Yankees. While he never had the same level of success after that first full season in 1968, Bahnsen would stay in the big leagues for over a decade changing even though he would spend that decade playing for 6 teams (Yankees, White Sox, Athletics, Expos, Angels, and Phillies).

Stan shares his rookie card with Bobby Murcer. This isn't Murcer's rookie card though as his rookie card appeared one year earlier. Murcer had a great career bookended by lengthy stints with the Yankees. He spent 2 seasons with the Giants and 3 with the Cubs. He was an All-Star 5 times and one a Gold Glove in 1972.

You can see that this 1967 card lists Murcer as as as a shortstop, but Murcer would spend most of his career patrolling centerfield as the heir to Mickey Mantle. In fact, in 1973 became just the third Yankee player to eclipse the $100,000 per year salary mark behind Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.

Night Owl also sent this 1968 Strikeout Leaders card and some Donruss cards for my Diamond Kings project and the 1984 set I am working on,

This 1969 card will go nicely in my Topps page a year binder.

Speaking of binders, here is my Donruss binder which currently houses my Donruss page-a-year cards and  Diamond Kings cards.

The Pedro is from 1984 and I need it for my 1984 Donruss set, so it goes with the other four 1984 Donruss cards that Night Owl sent.

With these 5 cards, I am down to just needing 80 cards for the 1984 Donruss set.

Thank you, Night Owl, for the cards for my set, but also for the Strikeout Leader and Banhsen rookie card for my rookie card of Rookie of the Year winners collection!

What hobby goals do you have that you've been working on for a decade or more?