Congrats to Terry Collins and Thanks to Others

I originally intended this post to be about the Mets' new manager, Terry Collins, who has brought the list of CMC set members in the major league managerial ranks back to three.

But then I got a cool e-mail yesterday from a reader and a package from a fellow blogger, both lending themselves to recignition and their own CMC-related lists, want lists.

So, I guess you can think of this as a list-related post.

I'll start with the ever-changing list of CMC set members currently managing in the majors. Last year, that number started at four, but dwindled to one - a big one, Ron Washington - by season's end. It increased a couple weeks ago with the Mariners hiring Eric Wedge as their new skipper. That exclusive list increases back to three today as the Mets officially name Terry Collins their new manager.

So congratulations to Terry Collins, 1990 manager of the Buffalo Bisons. Buffalo was then the Pirates' AAA team, but is now coincidentally the Mets' AAA club.

Collins is being introduced today as the Mets' new manager. MLB.com had a great quote from Collins after he lost out on the Mets job a few years ago.

"Everyone wants to be in the big leagues," Collins said at the time, according to MLB.com. "That's the place you want to be."

Incidentially, Collins was chosen out of a small pool of candidates. Among the finalists was this guy, Chip Hale.

The other list is also CMC-centric. It's the list of 11 cards that Larry over at Emerald City Diamond Gems sent along as part of a trade. Each of the cards is a different CMC set member in another set. Larry pulled them in my open-ended request for CMC set member cards.

In return, I sent him a Dale Murphy he wanted, and threw in a bunch of other actual CMC set cards, my doubles of all the Mariners farm hands in the set.

The coolest thing is Larry pulled the CMC set members without me having a set want list. He got some of the better known set members, but he also got some of the lesser-known ones, too. I'll go into them in depth in another post.

Back to my actual want list, the list of cards I need to finally finish my CMC set. Since August, that list has sat at three: 6 Scott Medvin; 471 Rick Adair; and 798 Rob Maurer.

But, thanks to reader Todd, that list has changed. Todd searched his CMC cards and found Adair. The problem was, his Adair was numbered 476, not 471. In the master checklist I'm working from, Adair is 471, but the checklist also notes the card has an uncorrected error. But the checklist didn't say what that error was.

Todd's e-mail made it apparent: The Adair card was misnumbered, the fourth such card in the set. That means that there are four numbers in the set that have two cards assigned to them, and four numbers that have none. I'd known of three others, now Adair is the fourth.

Anyway, I checked my set box and there, at No. 476, was Adair. Did I have the actual, intended, 476 in my doubles? No, I did not. According to the master checklist, that card is 476- Steve McInerney, the Colorado Springs Sky Sox trainer.
So, my list stays at three, but it's changed. Here it is, the list of the final three cards I need to complete the CMC set:

• 6 - Scott Medvin
• 476 - Steve McInerney, Trainer
• 798 Rob Maurer