2013 Bowman Flag Cards

I'm pretty fond of Bowman sets, but I doubt I collect it this year.  At least, I won't be busting wax like I usually do.  There are some nice Ranger prospects in this year's set that I want, but not many Royals (who I can watch play in person here locally at the AA affiliate). 

Speaking of the Rangers prospects, if anyone has a Jairo Beras for trade, please let me know.

I might think about building a set of the nice State and Hometown Flag parallels.  Bowman does something like this every year, but I really like the looks of this year's version.  I bought a handful of these last week, and I think they look great:

A full set of these in an album would look very cool.  If I can score a good starter lot on eBay, I think I'll take this up as a project.

Wash

“That’s the way baseball go.”- Ron Washington

“I’m going to pull off my belt and throw him across my lap and give him a spanking,”- Washington on what he would do if Derek Holland had a second straight poor start.


I’m a big fan of Ron Washington.  He gets his share of abuse from Ranger fans (although I think he is beloved much more than maligned), and yes sometimes I don’t understand his moves, or his at times stubborn refusal to play young players over struggling veterans.  But I also know that he has more baseball knowledge in his little finger than I will accumulate in my lifetime, so I like to think I have proper perspective as a fan.
 
I like him because it seems like his players love playing for him, and that’s validation enough for me.  Elvis Andrus said one of the reasons he was excited to sign his extension with the Rangers is that he loved playing for (and learning from) Wash.  I like him because the Rangers are in the middle of a golden era of Ranger baseball  and Wash has been at the helm of it (although yes I definitely credit John Daniels with that as much, if not more, than anyone).

Mostly, I like Wash because it’s obvious he cares about the game, and seems to enjoy his job.

I picked up a handful of Wash cards from his playing days, all on the cheap at sportlots.com.  I saw his rookie card for $.18 and had to have it for my sampler album:

I also picked up a few more to fill out my Wash page in my Rangers album:

 

1985 Fleer is such a strong set.  Maybe I'm nostalgic for it because it was some of the first wax I ever bought.  Whatever it is, I like it.

These are actually all different cards:  Topps base, Topps Tiffany and O-Pee-Chee.  The Tiffany is a little glossier and the print is brighter on the back. 
 

The Lost Collector Strikes Back

I thought it was a bunch of big talk on AJ’s part.

I didn’t think he could top what I had sent him.

He did.   I think he has won.

First, some background as to what I’m talking about- although some of you already know.  A while back, I “won” a box of 1990 Topps wax at auction for a few bucks.  The top packs in the box were basically ruined, by water I suppose, and some of the cards in the packs were pretty disgusting.  I showed pictures of these cards.  AJ, the smartass proprietor of the blog “The Lost Collector,” made a smartass comment asking if the Rance Mulliniks card in one of the pictures was available for trade.

So, I packed up the Mulliniks card in a nice snap case and sent it to him.  I thought it was pretty funny.  AJ thought it was funny, and wrote a funny post about it, and vowed revenge.

Later he sent me a note, innocently asking if I was interested in a couple of Topps manu-rookie card patches.  Indeed I was!  He sent them, along with his revenge, which totally floored me.   First things first though,  lets take a moment to appreciate the manupatch cards: 

These are so cool!  Especially the Banks.  I'm making pretty good progress on completing this set, and these are a huge help!

But wait, there was more.  How about a Torii Hunter Relic:

 Nice!  And some Rangers:

 

The Incredible Shrinking Kinslers

 
And then, well, I thought this was very nice:

What he’s referring to is that Cleve's (the LCS) has a vending machine that my kid's love.  They get all sorts of cool, random cards from it when we visit.  Recently, Cleve placed a vintage Mickey Mantle card in the machine.  I don’t think it’s been pulled yet, so who knows, maybe my kids will get it!   So before I get to the last part of the package, let me thank AJ for the great cards and the kind gesture for my young ones. 

Now that that is out of the way, let’s get to the final piece of the package.  AJ's revenge.  It came in the form of this envelope, with an ominous warning, and a single, solitary card:

 
What was in the envelope?  I..... I.... I'm sorry, I can't reveal it.  This envelope will forever be the "Rosebud" of this blog.

But, I will tell you the first words out of my mouth were:  “Holy S*&t.  Check mate, AJ wins.” 

Then I laughed.  The lovely wife saw the contents and covered her mouth with her hands and stared at me in disbelief. 

Then I hung my head in defeat.

Then I "laughed" some more.  Congratulations, "AJ", you are the master.
 
Wait. 

On second thought:

 (Skip to the 1:40 mark to get to the point of this clip)

I'm Coming to Get You
Rambo: First Blood Part 2 — MOVIECLIPS.com

It's not over yet.

A Dimwit 1/1! It’s Mine, All Mine!

I love trade packages where the bonus card is even better than the card you were trading for.  I was fortunate enough to have that happen again recently with a small trade I executed with everyone’s favorite Dimwit, Sam, from The Daily Dimwit. 

He’s been busting some beautiful Topps Tribute lately, and pulled a Yu Darvish base card.  I was all up in that business, and luckily no one beat me to claiming it when Sam said it was available.  I sent a few things Sam’s way, and he sent the Darvish to me:

Man, that is a good looking baseball card, and I am not even the slightest bit gay.  Not even just a tiny bit.  Even when Yu Darvish is pitching and when the camera captures him staring in to the catcher for the signs and it looks like he is staring in at me.   I don’t imagine us playing catch at the Ballpark in Arlington.   I don’t think about us strolling down the beach talking about life and our hopes and dreams.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the other awesome card Sam sent.  Buckle up, because you need to be sitting down for this one:

That’s right ladies and germs, this is an official Allen and Ginter George Will 1/1!  You may recall that the Cardboard Junkie sent me into a tizzy a while back with his take on my wish for George Will to get an Allen and Ginter card.  Well,  Sam has taken this to a whole ‘nother level, with artistry and craftsmanship that defies reason.

Note the glasses, painstakingly drawn on A-Rod’s face to make him look exactly like George Will.  Yes, that’s right, I said A-Rod!  You likely were fooled by the glasses, but incredibly, the original artwork for this gem was an Alex Rodriguez card.  It’s hard to tell that now, what with “Rodriguez” lined out on the card, as well as the helpful note that this is “Not A-Roid.”

As you can imagine, this card has gone straight into a snap case, as well as straight into my heart.

Thank you for a good laugh Mr. Sam, and for continuing to prove that you are not, in fact, a Dimwit.

Card Show Loot- Two of My Favorite Players

I had planned to dedicate a full week's worth of posts about the card show I attended last Saturday, but those plans went to crap.  But better late than never, so here we go:

First up, I picked up several nifty Tony Gwynn cards I didn't have.  My Gwynn collecting has slowed somewhat, but I'm still happy to add cool cards of him when I see them.  And when they're cheap.  All of these came from dime boxes:

 

While we're at it, I'll knock off the Adrian Beltre's I found.  All of these came out of the dime boxes too.  I wish there had been some cards of him in a Rangers uniform, but whatever.

Notice that I was too lazy to scan these individually. 

Spiegel Takes Home The Lifetime Acheivement Award..

For trades with me.

I know I've traded with him more than anyone, in fact I've lost count on how many we've done.  However many it's been, I hope they keep coming because they are always top shelf.

Spiegel's been a little AWOL from his blog though lately, so I hope once summer gets here life gives him a little breathing room and we can get back some of that laid back California-Spiegel vibe that is lacking amongst the card blogs right now.  We need you Spiegel, more than ever.


This was the card that started the trade:

I've written about Christian Colon several times.  He's at AAA now, but he made a lasting impression on the Doon family when he was here with the AA Naturals last year.  Anyway, I was glad to get this on card auto.  I'm hoping he gets a shot at the Royals soon.   I'm hoping Rob Neyer is wrong:

Having seen Christian Colon play about seven innings at shortstop, I think one CAN use the eye test. You know, when it's this obvious.
— robneyer (@robneyer) March 16, 2013

I didn't have warm and fuzzies about Neyer's implication, but since I'm dense I decided to ask him to clarify, a small part of me hoping that he would say something like, "Obvious that he belongs in the Show and he's going to be a star!"

@napkindoon Not good enough to play shortstop unless there's an emergency.
— robneyer (@robneyer) March 16, 2013

Yikes.  Well, nobody knows everything, so I'm still hoping Colon finds success in the bigs someday soon, and at a minimum at least be the next Derek Jeter.

Speaking of Jeter, Spiegel included a few Jeter's in our trade if I may be so bold as to awkwardly shift back to our trade:

 And last but not least, two of my All Time Favorite Hogs:

 That Prizm McFadden is perhaps the greatest football card of all time.

Thanks again for the great trade Spiegel!  Look forward to another one soon!

Salvador Dolly

This past Saturday was one of those beautiful days of total baseball/baseball card immersion.  For starters, there was a good card show this weekend, with about a dozen dealers (great for around here).  I spent about two hours at the show, which is a loooonnnngggg time for me since I start missing the kids after about an hour.  Ok, ok-  I start feeling guilty that the lovely wife is having to watch the kids by herself after watching them all week while I'm at work.

But there was a dealer with several 5,000 count dime boxes that captured my attention and were a blast to dig through.  I was able to make headway on many of the mid '90s pages in my sampler album that are so light.  I've got about 5 posts worth of other stuff to show as well, and will subject anyone who cares to these posts in the next day or so.

After the cardshow, I had to run by Walmart for a few things and found retail packs of Panini Prizm that I had to have.  I haven't seen much of anything on this set on other blog posts, but I'm pretty fired up about the set, despite the lack of  MLB logos.  I'll do show and tell with those cards this week also.

Finally, my baseball overload day ended with a few innings at a Naturals game.  I say a few innings because it was freaking cold.   It's been stupid cold here all week.  In fact, we had snow here this week people.  Snow.  In May.  In Northwest Arkansas.  So why did I bother going to the game if it was so cold?  For this, suckas:

Speaking of suckas, I'm a total sucker for Stadium Giveaways, as I've mentioned in the past.  This is the first Bobblehead I've snagged though, and it's a cool one.  Perez is a budding star with the Royals, and I was fortunate enough to watch him play several times while he was with the Naturals. The Bobblehead made well, too.  It's heavy and has nice detail on it. 

Since I'm talking about Perez, I guess I should show the two cards I picked up of him at the show earlier that morning:

These weren't in the dime boxes, but they were pretty reasonable considering Perez is somewhat popular around here.  I haven't talked much about Perez on this blog, but if anyone has some cool cards of him, I'm interested!