Ready for the Rangers!

My boy got a sweet Nelson Cruz SGA jersey and the pitching rotation held up and we get to see Yu in action. So far a promising day. 

With Cruz knocking in 8 on Friday and Hamilton's walkoff HR yesterday, I hope they saved something good for us today too!

Hoopin It Up With Royals And Randoms

I'm not a huge basketball fan, especially with Razorback basketball being so pedestrian the past 10+ years.  Bu that didn't stop me from jumping on an offer for cards at Royals and Randoms a few weeks ago.  I claimed the Joe Johnson's Josh was offering because Johnson is a former Razorback, and I claimed the Michael Jordan's because it was Michael Jordan.  See here:

There are still other cards available.   If you guys don't pounce on them, I may go back for seconds.  There was somebody named Lebron that I would be happy to take.  Thanks for the cool stuff Josh, and I've got some Royals headed your way!

Making A Call

I’m pretty sure none of you have ever heard of Mario Lisson.  He’s been with the AA team here locally (Northwest Arkansas Naturals- KC Royals affiliate)  the past couple of years, and nowhere have I seen him ever listed as an upper tier prospect.  His stats aren’t that great, and they weren’t that great last year.  There is no evidence to suggest that he is anything more than a career minor leaguer.

But every time I happen to go to a Naturals game he absolutely crushes the ball.  I bet I’ve personally seen him hit 4 home runs in the 8-10 games I’ve been to since last year.    If I were just watching these guys play without knowing names or prospect reputation, I would point to him as a future star, just from what I see with my own eyes.  I’d say the same about Wil Myers, who just got called up to AAA, but many folks already know about him.

So five years from now, if I happen to be right and this guy puts together some sort of MLB career,  I want it on record that I called it first.  

I got this card cheap off eBay, and might get a few more in case I have any idea of what I’m talking about.  Which I don’t.

Topps Archives Purchase

We are heading down to Dallas this weekend to see my beloved All American Texas Rangers face the pinko-commie socialist Toronto Blue Jays.  If things hold up, I will get to see Yu Darvish pitch in person Sunday afternoon.  Tonight I took the van (yes I drive a van, what of it?) in to get the oil changed at Walmart before our trip.  The lovely wife should have been suspicious that I so eagerly volunteered to do this.

I was hoping that I might see some Topps Archives on the shelf.  Guess what?  I did, and helped myself to some.  At first, I was a little "meh" towards it.  But the set started growing on me.  I was lucky enough to get a couple of hits, and some of the cool inserts.

So here is an overview of what I got.  Let's start with base cards:

 Card numbers 1-50 of this 200 card base set are based on the 1954 Topps set.  I got a couple of great cards, with Jackie Robinson at the top of the heap.

Cards 51-100 are based on 1984 Topps and again, I was happy with the cards I got, especially the Hamilton and Hosmer.

Cards 101-150 are from the 1980 Topps set.

Finally, cards 151-200 are based on the 1971 Topps Set.

I also got a couple of SPs which are numbered 201- 240.  The Griffey is fantastic!
 

I'm not sure how many of these reprint cards or "Classic Combos" (the Kemp/Robinson card above as my example) there are in the set. 

Here were the inserts I got:  2 of the 1968 3D cards, 2 of the 1977 cloth stickers and 2 of the 1967 Stickers.  I didn't get any of the Deckle edges in my purchase.

I did manage two hits, and I have to say these are pretty sweet looking cards. 

Since I won't be purchasing Allen and Ginter out of protest (more later), I may take up a chase on this set since I'm already about 50% done with the base set.

Checklist Chipaway: Topps HD Image

This set has not been easy to finish off, but I am now one measly card from doing so.  I finally sniped this Ken Griffey Jr card from the Topps HD Image insert set last week, and now only need the A-Rod card.  

Wantlist Help From Another World

I received an awesome package in the mail today from Dan of "The Other World" blog, a great read, especially if you are a Phillies fan, which I am not, but I like his blog anyway.

He contacted me about helping out with my 2011 Gypsy Queen set and sent a huge group of cards for it, as well as an unexpected stack of 2011 Kimball Champions cards.

Here are some of the Gypsy Queen highlights:

These are awesome!  I'm going to start fining people who don't like Gypsy Queen, especially the 2011 set.  How could anyone not like that Bob Gibson card?  The Valencia card up top is a SP, too.  The Speaker "Great Ones" insert gets me to 93% done with that set, and thanks to Dan's shipment, I now only need 32 more of the base set (not including SPs).

My momentum on the Kimball Champions set had pretty much stalled out, but Dan gave it a nice kick start with these:

Yeah, these are pretty darn cool, and I'm going to have to jump back on building this set since I now can see the finish line.

Thanks for the great cards Dan!  For those of you looking for a different kind of box break, check out his high end offering that is filling up now.  Tell him Napkin sent you and you will get a $0 discount, and a "who is that?" response, but you should say it anyway.

Cleve’s Auction Night: Turning The Pages

I got a little bid happy last week when I went into Cleve’s to check out this week’s auction items.  There was just so much good stuff, and I’m in one of my dangerous “Baseball Card Fever” modes where I can’t seem to get enough of baseball cards.  

I put in a lot of write in bids at Cleve’s.  

A lot.  

There were several pages of 1965 and 1966 cards that were in supreme, mint condition.  I wanted them, and put in what I thought were reasonable bids…on…every…. single…. page.   I assumed, reasonably, that several other bidders would also want them so to increase the odds of one or two slipping to me I needed to bid on all of them.  I also understood for the condition these were in (they were so crisp that I had to look at the backs to see if they were part of some reprint set I didn’t know about) my modest bids had only about a 5-10% chance of winning at best.

Apparently, those other bidders I was counting on were all out of town this week.  I know this because when I called Cleve on Wednesday to see if I won anything, and he said, “Oh yeah, you won a bunch! The usual vintage buyers were all out of town.”   My heart skipped a beat, and I’m not sure if it was from excitement from winning this sweet loot, or fear of how I was going to explain this to the lovely wife. 

Don’t get me wrong.  She’s completely supportive of my hobby and is fine with whatever I buy.  Except she’s not fine with whatever I buy and she’s a little bit crazy and frankly I’m pretty frightened right now.  

But I won’t let that stop me from sharing my treasures with you.  And if this is the last post you see from me, please know that I have enjoyed working with all of you and wish you well in your future endeavors.

Here are the 1965s I picked up.  This is a beautiful set in my humble opinion, and my favorite from the 60's.  A few nice names are here including Hall of Famers Mazeroski, Santo, and Fox.   It's also neat to get a card of Jim Bouton, author of Ball Four.  

I think these are my first cards from 1966.  Not a bad design and these cards are in ridiculously good shape.  Not really a lot of big names, but the Curt Flood and Richie Allen cards are nice to have.  From the small amount of research I've done on Richie Allen, he sounds like an interesting person. 

 Finally, I picked up a page of 1968 cards of mostly commons.  All of this will be great filler for my sampler album.

I'll grade the purchases in groups by year since I don't feel like grading every page:

1965 18 Card Lot $20-  A   This probably is a little pricey, but the cards are in superb condition and there were 3 HOFers that I know of included. 

1966 27 Card Lot $20- A   NRMT cards from 1966 at least than $1 per card is pretty good I'd think.

1968 9 Card Lot $5-  B   No big names other than the Frank Robinson checklist, but still got them for less than $1 each.

A Feast From The Platter

I love trading with my pal Spiegel of Nomo's Sushi Platter, a splendid blog.  He's by far the person I've traded with the most since I started blogging, and it's always an enjoyable experience.  We typically do a blind 20 for 20 or 30 for 30 trade and he always sends great stuff.

For instance:

Ahhhhh, look at that awesome card!  This is the first base card from Topps Museum I've seen, and I really like it.  It is just a flat out good looking card.

He also sent some nice cards of current players I collect.  The Hamilton Lineage 3D card is very cool.

I love getting Pujols cards, but the reminder of his 3 Home Run game against my Rangers in the World Series was a little painful. 

Spiegel also sent several 90s Rangers and a nice lot of Mike Piazza cards.

Thanks for another great trade Spiegel!

Checklist Chipaway: 2003 Donruss Diamond Kings

I've added a couple of cards to my master 2003 Donruss Diamond Kings set this year, which ain't bad.  I recently picked up this Roy Oswalt jersey card:

I've now got 34 of the 50 jersey cards from this set, 68% done.

Gettin' Crinkly With It

A few weeks ago, I showed a nice Aaron Hill card I won auction.  I was hoping Ted from Crinkly Wrappers could use it because he is an awesome trader and an awesome blogger.  And he has an awesome Fred Merkle card that I am insanely jealous of.

Turns out, he did want the Hill card..  I said, “It’s yours,” and he said he would send me a scan of what he was going to offer for it. 

The next day, he sent a scan and said “How’s this for a start?”

 

A “start.”  

A "start" he says.

That’s the start, middle and end, and then twice more around the track.  Of course I said “hell yes” and the trade was set.  

Perhaps it’s from marrying into a Catholic family, but my conscious really started bothering me.  No way could I accept such an incredible card for (nothing against the card I had) something not as good.  So I sent Ted a note and said I couldn’t accept the Hamilton, as nice as the gesture was.  However, I was smart enough to wait a few days until after the trade was done and the odds were good that he had already mailed the card.  My plan worked.   Ted advised me the lopsided trade was no big deal and the card was already sent anyway.   Now I look like a good guy for “refusing” the card, but because it had already shipped, I still get to keep it.  I am a genius. 

Thank you for the great trade Ted!

Quick Cleve's Post

This week is going to be pretty busy for me, so posts will likely be even more half-assed than usual. 

I only picked up a few write-in wins at Cleve's this week, one great and one I don't even remember bidding on and don't know why I did it.  First the one I'm happy about:

Elvis Andrus just gets better and better and is one of the most fun players to watch in MLB.  I've been wanting an auto of him for a while now.  I'm not sure I see Elvis Andrus anywhere in that scribble on the card, but I'm not his penmanship teacher.

I also got this, although I don't faintly remember bidding on it:

This game used bat card of pitcher Early Wynn is fine and all, but I don't have any idea why I bid on it.  I know I did because I saw the bid card with my writing on it.  I've got another vintage card of Wynn so maybe I wanted to get something else of him.  It was only $3, so no harm no foul.

Grades:

GQ Elvis Andrus Auto  $5:  A    Now that I have an Andrus auto, I have autos of all of my favorite Rangers. 

UD Ovation Early Wynn Relic $3:  B   Can't complain about a relic of a HOFer for $3.  I just don't know why I needed this card.  It's up for trade if anyone is interested.  (Maybe I got it as trade bait?)

Happy Mother's Day

I know there is at least one mom that reads this blog, and that's the lovely wife.  Happy Mother's Day honey- I love you and appreciate all you do more than you could ever know!

Speaking of mothers, Wallace Spearmon is a bad mutha. The former Razorback track star was bad lucked out of the bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics, but is ready to make another run in 2012.  I've actually met Wallace a few times.  He lived down the street from my brother in law and used to spend quite a bit of time at his house playing World of Warcraft.  He's a nice guy, and a freak of nature athlete.  Jerry Jones told him to come try out for the Cowboys when his track career was done. 

So when the Topps Olympic set came out, I started scouring eBay for cool cards of Wallace, and made sure I got the coolest one of all:

Here's hoping for better luck for Wallace in 2012!  And here's hoping he someday can master walking on water: