Some Lower Tier People (Well Me) are Still Chasing Heritage

As I mentioned in my last post (has it been a week already?) I went on a bit of a card buying binge. I also managed to pull off two trades during that time. The first one happened just after I finished my order on CheckOutMyCards….you know that 20 second period of guilt you feel after you hit the “Submit Order” button?

It seems Marcus over at all the way to the backstop... had some spare Heritage cards on hand that he needed to get rid of.  Luckily for me, about 47 of them I needed.  Based on the ratio of doubles to cards I need I’ve been experiencing lately through retail buying, Marcus saved me from buying about 136 packs.

In exchange I sent him some extra Padres cards that I had lying about and a couple of cards he needed off of his want list.

A quick sample of some of the cards in the package.

Not a clue who Blake Beavan is.  There was a time when I knew every player that appeared in a set.  Now, not so much.

Not sure why I selected the Santana card.  Oh well, here it is.

Had to have at least one card rockin' the Orange and Black!  Vlad is currently surfing the free agent waters after getting released from the Toronto organization.  Perhaps it's time the best bad ball hitter of the last generation retired.  Borderline Hall of Famer? Definite member of the Hall of Guys You Didn't Want To Face When the Other Team Needed A Hit.

"Carl, imagine if you had signed with the Angels instead of the Red Sox"  Look, I was a CC collector back when he was with the Rays, I think he can still turn it around in Boston if his wrist heals correctly, but man was that the wrong place for him to sign.

Thanks, Marcus.  I'll be keeping an eye out for Padres cards at the Rosemont card show next week!

Mail Time! What Did the Postman Bring This Week?

The Super Bowl is over, Spring Training is still a week or two away, hockey is in its pre-trade deadline doldrums and basketball is well.....basketball.  So lets brighten the day with some new cards!  Today we have an eBay purchase and the results of my first ever group break. 

First up is the eBay purchase.  I strayed a little from my 2011-12 mandate of only picking up single cards of players in my personal collection.  Honestly, I was a bit bored with what I was seeing out there so I expanded my search a little. 

With another 4th or 5th place finish projected for the O's again this year I've turned my eye to the future for the club. That got me to looking into their cards on eBay and while Manny Machado is a little out of my range, there is one prospect that is still rather cheap to pick up, and could be just as important to the future of the ball team. 

 2011 Bowman Chrome Johnathan Schoop.  Less than $4.00 with free shipping?  Sure I'll take it.  Of course, the temptation is now to get all the versions of this card.

If my usual luck with prospects holds, Schoop will suffer at least 3 career-ending injuries in the next month and a half; and then get hit by a bus.  When that happens this card will join its spiritual brothers Ryan Anderson and Rick Asadoorian in the "Failed Prospects I Collected" Wing in my Sports Cards Hall of Fame.

For now Schoop is projected as the heir apparent to Brian Roberts at second base. The native of Wedge errr Netherlands Antilles projects to have a big league bat with average defense. He'll probably spend the season in the minors with a possible late season callup, but if he pans out the Orioles could have a very strong nucleus up the middle with him, Machado at short, Adam Jones in center and Matt Wieters behind the plate.

Despite all the hoopla surrounding the newest base set released by Topps I'm sticking by my stance of not buying any packs of it this year.  The only way I planned on picking up cards from this set was through trades and with one group break buy in.  Flywheels over at Cardboard Collections was putting together one of his "Affordable Group Breaks" and I was lucky enough to catch it early enough to secure the O's.

Each participant was able to choose a team and then had another team randomly assigned to him.  My random team - the Chicago Cubs.  Hey that worked out pretty nice.  In addition to the jumbo box of Topps he also ripped up a 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom box as well.  Here are the results.

The highlights of the Orioles base cards and some thoughts.
Hopefully Nick Markakis recovers from his off -eason surgery and rediscovers his power.
Best of luck to Jeremy Guthrie in Colorado.  O's fans will miss you. 
I like to think that this was taken after Nolan Reimold broke the Red Sox Nation on the last day of the season.
Luke Scott played defense?
Josh Bell getting ready to throw one into the stands.

The O's hits.
Frank Robinson Gold Standard.  I know this isn't a popular view, but I like the layout of the Gold Standard cards.  Sure, it looks like a card designed for a signature, but still over all it looks nice.  Nice photo of the player, no clutter and a nice gold medallion in the middle.  That being said, if I get a chance to have Frank Robinson sign a card, he's signing this one, baby.

Adam Jones. Gooooooollllllllllld.  Jones and Markakis celebrating as the ghost of Josh Bell heads to the plate for another strikeout. From what I've seen of 2012 Topps so far they're big on celebration, multiplayer cards - and not just for shortprints, either.  I guess that's cool.

The Cubs base cards:
Kosuke Fukudome.  Wow, did Cubs fans not like Kosuke. I guess when you think you're getting another Ichiro and you end up with Turner Ward you tend to boo the guy a bit.

Milton Bradley.  Yeah, that didn't work out either.

Two Starlin base cards in series one.  His highlight/checklist card (the horizontal one) celebrates his "Youngest Hits Leader" accomplishment. I like Castro, hopefully his off-field issues don't distract from his one field issues.

Reed Johnson.  As much as Cubs fans dislike Kosuke, they love Reed Johnson. Don't know why, but they do. Heck I loved Joe Orsulak as a kid so I've got no room to complain.

The Hits

Yes the 1987 mini-parallels are fantastic.  Yes I want to collect them all despite my disdain for the mini phenomena (does the fact that the Duchess and I own a Mini Cooper make that ironic?)

Timeless Talents - Eh, throwaway insert for me.  Take an old guy and a new guy and stick them together based on some handpicked stat. Ryne Sandberg and Dan Uggla are paired together because they "bring rare power to their position".

Alphonso Soriano Seasoned Veterans - If Soriano made $7 million less a year he would be beloved by Cubs fans.  Instead they want him gone on the next train out of Union Station.

Carlos Zambrano deckle edge - I'm going to miss "Big Z" as are the beat writers for the Cubs.  Along with the first 80 degree day game at Wrigley, the Zambrano melts down and breaks things are time honored traditions in the Windy City.

No big hits, but still a nice haul for what I paid. 

Mail Day! Cards Older Than Me! And I'm Old!

After successfully unloading some cards on the ‘bay the other day I figured it was time to invest my proceeds into some new cards for the ol’ personal collection. I wasn’t thrilled with the prices I was seeing on the Murrays and the Lecavaliers so I didn’t get to knock down those want lists (actually I did end up bidding on a Murray, but as usual I was sniped at the end).

With money burning a hole in my Paypal account I decided to take another approach. I put the iPad down and picked up the notebook. I fired up my Card Collector program and did a quick summary inventory. I quickly discovered that the oldest card I have in my collection is a 1957 Topps Stan Lopata, a card I believe I picked up at a flea market, or in a trade, or off the street, or at gunpoint. Actually, I have no idea how I got it come to think of it.

Anyway, I figured it was time to rectify the situation. Time to get some older cards into the house, at a reasonable cost, of course. So doing my due diligence (5 minutes of searching) I settled on a 3 card lot of 1956 Topps. The cards were a little beat up, but most importantly they were cheap. With shipping (and $.03 in eBay bucks!) I think my total was less than $5.00.

The three cards didn’t depict any stars so I’m not going to be able to flip them for a profit. As a matter of fact the only thing I knew about them (to paraphrase the great Cliff Claven) is that they are three men who have never been in my kitchen. So with the help of Wikipedia and Baseball Reference.com I decided to learn a little bit more about some former players.

I received the package in the mail on Wednesday - lets see the newest (oldest) members of the collection!




133 - Ray Narleski. A reliever for the Indians in the 50’s he was a two time all-star and named as one of the Indians top 100 players of all time.




45 - Gus Zernial - “Ozark Ike” what a fantastic nickname. Looks like he beat he throw, but the catcher is doing an excellent job of blocking the plate. According to the back of the card he won the home run and RBI crowns in 1951. According to Wikipedia he has the second most career home runs hit by a player whose last name starts with a “Z”. He finished his 10 year career with 237. Former Orioles Todd Zeile is the leader with 253. Victor Zambrano - 1834th on the list.




60 - Mayo Smith - The card that sold me on the auction. Smith only played a couple of seasons and wasn’t particularly outstanding. He turned to managing and coached in Philly, Cincinnati, and Detroit (where he took them to the World Series in 1968). But look at this card, what is he doing? Holding up a runner? Surrendering to unseen police officer? Playing defense for John Thompson?

There ya go. My latest mail day. Will I collect the rest of the cards in this set? Probably not, after all it’s taking me forever to finish the couple of sets that I’m working on right now (and they’re not even vintage!)

Still it’s always nice to own a couple of pieces of cardboard that are almost as old as my dad.

Please note that the photos posted are not of the actual cards. With no scanners I had to “borrow” some images.

Let's Dust This Keyboard Off With A Mail Day!

After another lengthy break I've returned to the web-o-spheres. It's nice to take some time off to recharge the batteries and gain some new perspective on things. We'll ease into things with a little mail call. Both of these came into my world a couple of months ago, but I never got around to taking the photos and posting them.

As always, sorry for the quality of photos (there might be a scanner in the near future!)

Let's start with a pack of cards from a reader.



Michel noticed I needed some UD Champs and was able to knock one off the list. That's Mr. Hawerchuk down in the corner. One more closer to completion. In exchange for just a couple of MVP cards he also tossed in some Lightning cards, most of which I didn't have.

Another Vinny for the collection. A Marc Denis to remind me of the glory days of Lightning goaltending. He even threw in a Hall of Famer - Dino Ciccarelli. Tampa Bay was a brief stop in a long and storied career for the right winger. He did have his last big year in the black and blue as he potted 35 goals in 1996-97.

Thanks Michel!


Next up is a card I forgot about.




I sent out a few TTM's early last year and hadn't really gotten to much of a response. Well in November one came back. It seems Mr. Hamilton handles most of his auto requests after the season. What a nice card to add to the collection. It seems a battle with pnemonia has waylaid the former Ray, here's hoping he rebounds and puts up another great season!

With no plans this weekend and some bad weather on the way look for me to get back into the swing of things. Many thanks to all the readers out there!

It's That Time Again

Is that live hockey I spy? Why yes it is. Thanks to my love of bad TV I'm not able to watch the Lightning/Blackhawks preseason tilt, but I can listen to the subdued Dave Mishkin over the Internet while I post about something totally un-hockey related.

It's Mailbag Monday! But Justin, you say, it's not Monday. I know, but I didn't get to it on Monday. So you get it on Wednesday. Which is better than Monday - 'cause it's closer to Friday.

First up. Fellow blogger and trader Nachos Grande added to my Carl Crawford collection (a collection I've neglected a bit this year). In exchange for some Reds cards and Allen & Ginter that I didn't need he sent over a care package highlighted by this card.



It's blue and shiny. I like blue and shiny.



Being the kind blogger he is, he threw in some assorted O's cards. Gosh darn I love me that Don Aase '88 Topps. It's the entire junk wax era wrapped up in one card. Posed shot, awesome mustache, curly afro poking out of the cap. I love it.

I also like the Markakis card. He's staring off into the distance contemplating something. What could it be? Perhaps his inexplicable loss of power? How many cheeseburgers he can buy with one paycheck? We'll never know.

Moving on

Ebay provided the first of the next two lots.




Like I mentioned I've been neglecting my Crawford collection so I figured I'd go for the best deal I could find. I actually needed four of these cards and they became mine for less than $3.00 so, yea me. I also like the fact that he is wearing 5 different uniforms.



This last one was more of an impulse buy. Not sure why, but I have very few Brooks Robinson cards in my collection. I decided to rectify that. The cards aren't in the best condition, but they're mine and they're older then I am which is cool.


So there ya go. More thoughts on hockey later, oh by the way Simon Gagne scored for the Lightning while I was typing this. The Bolts might be feisty this year.

Through The Mail Thursday!

It’s one of those days where work didn’t go horribly, I have food in the apartment to eat and I received some mail that didn’t require me to send them money. No Bills Thursday!!!! That’s right, thanks to the play of Antti Niemi and folks on the internet I had some extra funds in the PayPal account.

That meant I got to buy a card or two. While one is still on the way from Canada, I did get a card from California. I must apologize for the condition of the photos, one more paycheck and we might invest in a new printer/flatbed scanner. Until then, crappy photos are the way to go!



What you see is a 2008-09 FabFour fabrics card of highlighted by Paul Ranger and Jussi Jokinen! Oh wait I mean Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis. Nice two color piece of for St. Louis. It’s numbered 86/100 and adds yet another card to the Vinny collection.

In the offseason there are many questions still facing the Lightning and Paul Ranger’s status is one of them. After leaving the team for personal reasons about a month into last season not much has been said about the young defenseman who showed tremendous potential in his rookie season. Here’s hoping he fixed what needed to be fixed and is skating in the Black and Blue once again.

Item number two was actually sent to my old condo in Florida and I picked it up when I was visiting my better half in May.




It’s a signed promo photo of Vladimir Guerrero. I sent a 2008 Allen and Ginter to the Rangers facility back during spring training and received this back in May. He also included the original card in the envelope unsigned. Maybe he didn’t want to sign anything in an Angels’ uniform?

Vlad has been one of the best free agent signings of the offseason through the first few months of the season. So far in 2010 the free-swinging outfielder is hitting .336 with 13 homeruns and 51 RBI’s – all of that while playing in 57 games. Not bad for someone who signed for $5.5 million.

Last season it appeared that Vladdy was on the decline. He battled through injuries and only played in 100 games. Although he hit a respectable .295 he only had 15 home runs and knocked in 50 runs. So he’s already matched his power numbers and there are still 3 and ½ months to go!

With his free swinging style and wide smile Guerrero has always been a fan favorite. He has always been one of those players that you didn’t want to see come up with the game on the line. Part of the reason is because it’s really hard to pitch around him unless you intentionally walk him. And if you do try that he might swing at it anyway!

I’m not sure if it’s a manufactured signature or not, the “card” looks like it was a promotional giveaway as it has Dr Pepper written along the top right corner. Any Rangers fans know if this was part of set they gave away?

There ya go. Coming up sometime soon I review my box of Chicle!

Look Who Got Mail!

After a brief one day standoff the U.S Postal Service resumed delivering mail to our apartment building this week. While rain,sleet, nor snow or dead of night will deter them from delivering mail, apparently a broken buzzer will. So on Monday and again on Thursday I had a couple of treats waiting for me after a laborious day at work.

One from a fellow blogger and one from eBay.

 

First up - a dark blue sweater from Co-Richard Trophy winner Steven Stamkos. It's a really nice piece from Spicolli's jersey and I appreciate that it isn't white or black like most Lightning relics. The card came from hockey card enthusiast and sure to be nervous Bruin fan Shane over at Shoebox Legends.

It's funny how card karma works. Before I headed up north I saw a cheap Bruins patch card and sent his way. He didn't have anything in return which I didn't care about, but low and behold he busts a box of UD Champs and there is young master Stamkos sitting all alone. Thanks Shane!

Card number two is from the 'Bay. Bored at home due to a depleted checking account I went surfing for some card relief the other day. Lucky for me there is still a few bucks in the ol' Paypal fund so I swooped in on an auction that was ending and ended up with a pretty nice looking card.

It is a 2005-06 (I think) UD Artifacts Treasured Swatches of the Captain - Vincent Lecavalier. It's numbered to 275 to boot! Look at the hopeful, almost joyful expression on his face. It's nice to remember the good times, before the Matt Cooke hit, before the trade rumors, before the circus came to town.

How long till next season?

There ya go, a couple of cards for the collection.

The First of the Chicago Maildays

Earlier this week I got to see my first yellow envelope in the mail slot. What a joyous occasion. A little ebay shopping to congratulate my new endeavors in the city.



A 2009-10 SP Game Used Dual Fabrics of Vincent Lecavalier and Steven Stamkos. The drawfor me was Vinny, but it's not to shabby having co-Rocket Richard winner Stamkos along for the ride. Add to the fact that it's numbered to 100 and it makes for a pretty sweet card.

Sorry for the lack of quality on the photo. We're working on finding a printer cable for our multifunction device so hopefully I'll have a scanner soon.