5 more boxes. I'm coming to get you Bernie...

This can't end well....

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 Box 1 (8 total) Results

Regular sets

Set 1
163/165 (missing 66, 142)

Set 2
115/165

Set 3
8/165

Set 4
1/165

1 Jose Lima #143 wrong back error

Diamond Star sets

Set 1
35/165 (including a Tony Pena with a damaged Lime Rock stamp)

Set 2
1/165


NO BERNIE BRITO DIAMOND STAR!

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Box 2 (9 total) Results

    Collation in this box seems a bit different.  In several packs, I've run across consecutively numbered cards next to each other.

Set 1
159/165 (missing 27, 51, 79, 109, 142, 161)

Set 2
108/165

Set 3
7/165

Set 4
2/165

2 Jose Lima #143 wrong back errors

Diamond Star sets

Set 1
34/165

1 Jose Lima #143 wrong back error

NO BERNIE BRITO DIAMOND STAR!

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Box 3 (10 total) Results

Set 1
164/165 (missing 142)

Set 2
118/165

Set 3
5/165

2 Jose Lima #143 wrong back errors

Set 1
35/165 (including a Jose Cano with a damaged Lime Rock stamp)

Set 2
1/165

NO BERNIE BRITO DIAMOND STAR!

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Box 4 (10 total) Results

      Eleven packs into box #4 (11 total) and we have Bernie!  To add insult to injury, not only did it take me some 4+ years, and 10 1/2 boxes, to find this card after I started searching for it, when I finally get one, not only is it off center, but after scanning and attempting to crop and straighten the image, I find that it's even slightly diamond cut!  Is that some sort of cruel irony?

     My more modern scanners just don't scan reflective surfaces well, so I had to go old school and do a bit of deep closet archaeology.  To capture the glory and the sheer, devastating awesomeness that is this card, I actually had to find all the cables, download antiquated drivers and software to hook up this museum display of equipment:

    That is a UMAX Vista S-12, complete with PCMCIA SCSI adapter, next to an IBM ThinkPad iSeries 1500, running Windows 98 (not even Second Edition, just plain old Win98).  The scanner is probably from 1997-98 and the laptop is from 1999 or so. 

---

    These cards fall one per pack.  There are 36 packs per box.  I had to go through 371 packs to find this card.  Holy crap!  Actually seeing the number is the slightest bit disturbing.  At 9 cards per pack, that's 3339 total 1993 Lime Rock Dominican Winter Baseball cards I've waded through and 371 Diamond Stars (potentially two complete sets, if not for duplicates).  I've only managed to sell 403 of these in the past 4 years, and trade a handful more.  Discarding the cards that were found damaged, that leaves me with some 2900 or so cards left, plus one unopened box (though the shrink wrap is gone and the Lime Rock seal is no longer intact) and 15 stray packs.

     Overall, pack collation was pretty good for this set.  I never got the same card twice in a pack.  I never got two identical packs.  Being fairly glossy cards, on both front and back, there is a tendency for cards to stick together.  A little flexing and crackling and they do come apart.  Rarely is there any paper loss due to the sticking.  Unfortunately, the cards were not very evenly cut, so there is a tendancy for bent corners on cards that, being stuck to the cards around them, might protrude a little beyond the end of the stack.  As the cards are black all the way to the edges, there is also a tendacy for a little white to show whenever there is a ding or the occasional peeled corner.  So if anyone was ever to grade any of these, there would be very little chance of ever getting a perfect PSA 10 or SCG 100.  The three most difficult cards in these boxes seem to be the corrected version of #142, the Raul Mondesi rookie prospect card, the Diamond Star version of #142 and the Diamond Star Bernie Brito.

    At least my search is over.  Never again will I be tempted to buy another box, open another pack.  I'm left with only one remaining card to complete the Bernardo Brito Baseball Card Experience...assuming that card even exists.  

---

     Each pack contains an offer card between the last card and the rest of the cards.  For some reason, despite these not being part of the set, Beckett list the offer card in their system.  These are the two offer cards, one for magazine subscriptions and one for a 1994 Raiderettes calendar and video:

Oh Bernie, Where Art Thou? (update)

My three new boxes of 1993 Lime Rock Winter Baseball arrived today, so I rushed home at lunch to rip into a box. Wouldn't you know it? I'm now 0 for 4 on picking up that Bernie Brito Diamond Star!

Interestingly, there are a couple of errors I've now seen repeated in the set. Of course, there's card #3 of Victor Silverio which is actually a photo of Miguel Batista, but there is also at least one consistent wrong-back error with Jose Lima on front and Raul Mondesi on the back. In this box, I actually got the Diamond Star version of that same misprint! I think there's at least one more wrong-back, which may also be Mondesi/Lima, but I'll have to double check. I also encountered one Diamond Star with what appears to be a sort of inverse version of the Lime Rock logo with the gold in the exact opposite of how it was normally applied to the card. I'll get a scan up later.


In any case, expect to see my stock of these cards replenished on Sportlots this evening.

---------UPDATE---------

Ok, make that 0 for 5! (but I picked up three more of those Lima/Mondesi errors and even another Diamond Star of the same error! AAARRRHHHHH!!)

********UPDATE - 2*********

The way these packs are collated, from the bottom, there is a base card, the offer card (there are offers for magazine subscriptions for Inside Sports, Card Collector's Price Guide, Sports Card Trader and Baseball Digest or the a 1994 Raiderettes calendar) and then the Diamond Star insert. Just to add insult to injury, every so often, that last card (the one I see first as I rip open the foil pack from the seam on the back) is a base card of Bernie Brito. Mocking me. Because you KNOW, if I get a base card of Brito, I won't be getting a Diamond Star of Brito in the same pack. These Lime Rock monsters were diabolical.

/////////UPDATE - 3\\\\\\\\\\

Found yet another misprint....a Diamond Star with no gold foil at all. The impression of the logo is clearly visible where it was stamped, there's just no foil over it. Halfway through box 6. Still no Golden Bernie.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ UPDATE 4 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Well, as it turns out, there are two version of the box:

However, all the packs and cards are still the same.

But, as is my curse, box #7 refused to yield  the much sought after Bernie Brito Diamond Star. In the next week or so, if all goes well, I should have another 5 boxes arriving. The adventure continues!

Do not abandon home!  The Bernie Hunt continues in Part 3: I'm Coming to Get You Bernie

Baseball of Winters Past

     Now that the Giants have wrapped up their season, while some get to go home, others just get to go back to work, albeit in warmer climes.  While Burrell and Rowland rest their creaky bones, and Renteria goes home to stare at his new trophy, coaches Hensley Meulens and Roberto Kelly will both have to pack their bags and board a plane to Venezuela to pick up their winter jobs, already in progress.  Meulens and Kelly both signed on as coaches of the Bravos de Margarita.  Last year, Meulens just barely had enough time to report to the team and put on his uniform before being hired away by the Giants and sent to Arizona to monitor the progress of their talents in the Arizona Fall League. 

     For a couple of years now, I've been attempting to reconstruct a complete record of Hensley Meulens playing days, to include his time in affiliated and independent minor league baseball, MLB, Nippon Professional Baseball, Liga Mexicana de Béisbol, the Korea Baseball Organization and even the winter leagues.  All of that has been rolled into a neat (if less than aesthetically pleasing) GoogleDocs spreadsheet:

Hensley Meulens (Mostly) Complete Professional Career Statistics

     At one point, according to the biographical page of his Dutch Antilles Baseball Academy website, Meulens held the distinction of being the only player to have played in all four of the Caribbean's winter leagues, Liga de Beisbol Dominicano, Liga de Béisbol Profesional de Puerto Rico, Liga Mexicana del Pacifico and Liga Venezolana de Béisbol Profesional.  It's a real shame no one is making baseball cards for winter league teams anymore.  But while I may not be able to hold a card of Bam Bam in driving one over the fence in Estadio Gral Ángel Flores, I have been able to dig out most of his numbers from those seasons.

     During his playing days, Meulens spent his winters touring the Caribbean.  He spend the 1988-89 through 1991-92 seasons (and probably the 92-93 season) in the Dominican, playing for the Azucareros del Este.  This is the only stop that provided a baseball card, thanks to Lime Rock's one-off series of Dominican Winter Baseball from 1993.

     After returning from Japan (incidentally, with the Giants winning the World Series this year, Hensley Meulens joins what is likely a very small club to have championship rings in both the U.S. and Japan, having helped the Tokyo Yakult Swallows to a Nippon Series victory in 1995.  I'll have to see if I can construct that list), there was a brief stop for part of the 1997-98 season with the Pastora de Los Llanos in Venezuela.  Following the expiration of his contract with the Expos and pick up by the Diamondbacks (and subsequent trade to the White Sox), the 1998-99 winter season was spent in Puerto Rico, playing for the Cangrejeros de Santurce  (I've not found any stats for that season, yet).

     Getting no bites from the Majors after the 1999 winter, Meulens took a stab at independent baseball with the Newark Bears, and while having a decent year, he wasn't ready to hang it up.  The 1999-00 winter was spent in Mexico, splitting time between the Algodoneros de Guasave and the Yaquis de Obregon of the Mexican Pacific League.  Mexico is where he would spend most of the remainder of his professional playing career (after a brief stab at Korea, where he hit a meager .196 in 14 games for the SK Wyverns...and in Korea, foreigners don't get a chance to adjust, they either perform, or they hit the road).

     The 2000-01 winter season proved to be the last for Meulens, splitting time, back in Mexico, between the Aguilas de Mexicali and the Tomateros de Culiacan.  After hanging up the cleats and throwing his towel in the coaching arena, Meulens went on to participate in two more winter leagues, in 2005 with the Peoria Saguaros of the Arizona Fall League, and then in 2006 with the Honolulu Sharks of Hawaii Winter Baseball.

     That vest he's wearing has turned up on eBay a couple of times, but unfortunately for a lowly Hensley Meulens collector, #31 was also worn by Austin Jackson when he played for Honolulu, effectively doubling the sale price.

Oh Bernie, Where Art Thou?

 

1993 Lime Rock Dominican Winter Baseball

In 1993, Lime Rock, a company known mostly for it's non-sports and cheerleader cards, issued this set of 165 cards featuring 20-something cards per team for the 1993-94 Dominican Winter League season. As with any set of the winter leagues, it was littered with local Dominican talent, up-and-coming minor leaguers as well as a smattering of major leaguers who either just couldn't sit still over the winter or needed to refine something in preparation for the upcoming season (does that ever actually work?). In any case, the set happened to contain cards of two players I collect, Hensley Meulens and Bernardo Brito (seen here with the Licey Tigres), so naturally, I had to go dig them up!

In addition to the regular set, inserted one per pack was one Diamond Star insert which was exactly the same as the base set cards, but with a gold foil "Lime Rock" logo stamped on the back. In my first box, I managed to pick up couple of Brito, a couple Meulens and a Diamond star insert of Meulens. That left me looking for the Brito Diamond Star. So I hunted around and picked up a second box. More Meulens, more Sosa and Polonias and all the Wilfredo Tejadas you could hope for, but no Brito Diamond Star.

So I did what any completely irrational player collector would do....I picked up a third box. One box later and STILL no Brito Diamond Star! In the meantime, I'd gotten in contact with minor league baseball card guru, Dave Weber, and learned that he dealt in the occasional oddball set, and just happened to have a stock of this set. But as it turns out, he had pretty much every single card EXCEPT the Brito Diamond Star! Flash forward 18 months later, and after making around $45 in Sportlots sales (which seemed to be mostly from selling Red Foleys, Panini stickers and random, no-name minor league singles....sorry Dave!) and one of the sellers I'd picked up two of my earlier boxes from has re-appeared on eBay with another 10 boxes! Keep in mind, I'm still only looking for a single insert card. 36 packs in a box, so 36 chances. I just dropped the PayPal for three more boxes. For one card. Of Bernardo Brito!

And what's really weird about this set is, though I'd seen him called Bernie in magazine and newspaper articles, this little oddball set targeted at the Latino market is the ONLY one where he is listed as Bernie Brito on card. Yet in the same set, they list Sammy Sosa as Samuel, and Sil Campusano as Silvestre and one of the Mota boys (it looks like Jose) as Manolo. Weird.

You can view most of the set over at The Trading Card Database. I'll probably be able to finish filling out the scans once my new boxes show up.

At the moment, the want list for my Bernardo Brito collection is comprised of exactly two cards:

1987 Team Issue Cleveland Indians b&w photo card (3-1/2"x5-1/2")
1993 Lime Rock Dominican Winter Baseball Diamond Star #79

Continue the adventure in Bernie Hunt Part 2: Oh Bernie, Where Art Thou?