One Last Etopps Delivery

I've been meaning to take one last delivery of eTopps cards from my portfolio- at least some select cards- before I'm done here.  Delivery is damn expensive ($12 first card, $1.75 each additional), but I'm getting worried that soon Topps is just going to pull the plug on the site (they stopped making new cards back in 2011, and recently took down the message boards) and my cards will be lost forever.  So I figured I'd bite the bullet and get the cards I really wanted and hope for the best on the rest.  I have a couple of complete sets that would be painful to ship, but I'm hopeful that someday there will be a special offer to clear out one's portfolio.

Anyway, my cards arrived the other day:

Four bubble wrapped blocks of shiny eTopps cards.  Aren't you excited to see them all?

Here they are out of the bubble wrap:

Sorry, I know that's a strange angle.  All the cards come in their own little zip-loc baggie.  So we'll take the next step and look at them all lined up out of the wrap and out of the baggies:

These are the T-206 cards.  They are every bit as beautiful as you think they are.  I still need about 8 cards to finish the set, but they are getting really hard to trade for on the site.

I didn't take an individual shot of the Matt Weiters card in the bottom left of the photo above.  But I managed to trade for one and took it in hand.  Why?  It's Weiter's only Topps card.  I learned that from a comment by a guy named Stubby on a previous eTopps post I wrote.  Thanks for the tip Stubby!

So the challenge of taking pictures of eTopps cards is that not only are they in hard plastic cases, the cards are shiny too.  So my picture styles aren't consistent.  Because I just kept snapping away until I got images that didn't have ridiculous glare.

As much as it ticked me off to pay that much for shipping, I absolutely love these cards.  Especially the T206s.  Here are a few up close for ye:

At some point, I plan to have this Willie Keeler card in it's original T206 form too.  For now, this will work.

I took a bunch of standard eTopps cards too:

 It's neat to have a couple of cards of Christian Colon, who has been mentioned on my blog many times before.

 I got this Mauer just because I thought it would be a nice looking card in hand.  I was right!

 See what I mean by shiny?  Isn't that Maddux gorgeous? 

I took all my Derek Jeters for delivery.  No way I'm leaving those at risk with the website.

These two are from the 2004 set.  As far as eTopps sets go, 2004 is considered one of weaker offerings, and the cards are very cheap to obtain up front before delivery.  But I have to say they are very striking in hand, and a great value in comparison to the other sets.  If I decide to take more cards in the future, I'm loading up on stars from the 2004 set.

I could probably get 2 or 3 more posts out of this haul, but you get the idea.  I will say that I'm not especially interested in trading these just because I wouldn't know what would be fair for them.  On the one hand, the degree of difficulty getting these in a portfolio, coupled with expense of shipping means I'd want something good for them, but on the other hand the initial "cost" per card doesn't warrant getting something good for them.  Mostly, I don't want to go to the effort to replace anything I trade out.

COMC Black Friday Parade: NW Arkansas Naturals

Last weekend, the Naturals release their upcoming promotional calendar.  There was some great stuff (Wil Myers Bobblehead!) and it started getting my juices going for the upcoming season.  I also picked up a few cool cards of former Naturals on COMC.com's Black Friday sale that I will now show you:

I really, really hope Christian Colon gets a shot with the Royals this year.  He, at least in my limited dealings with him, was a super nice guy and was awesome to my 8 year old.

I think this may be the year Hosmer turns into the beast many thought he could be.

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!

Sterling Naturals

 I've finally collected enough cards of current/former NWA Naturals that they get their own binder.  It's becoming one of my favorite binders to flip through, which makes me want to keep adding to it.  I picked up a couple of very nice Bowman Sterling cards to add this week:

Christian Colon is a guy I've written about a few times, and is a personal favorite of our family.  This auto was only a few bucks with shipping.

Wil Myers is a name most of you are probably familiar with.  One of the hottest prospects in baseball, Myers is a good bet to join the Royals this September.  My boy got a few autographs from him in person, which is good because his certified auto cards are expensive.  This also gives me a good excuse to show the picture of him laughing as my son and his teammates were running off the field before a game a few months ago.

A New Favorite Player In The Doon Household Part 2

I mentioned yesterday that my little boy and his little league teammates were going to be guests of the Naturals for Sunday’s game.  When they arrived, they were treated to a tour of the press box, a luxury suite and the PA announcer room.  I’m not sure how impressed the kids were with this stuff, but I thought it was pretty cool.  

 Views from the suites

 Inside the suite

Lining up pre-game

Next the kids (and accompanying adults, yours truly included) got to go down below to the indoor batting cages and walked the tunnel leading out to the field.  They didn’t get to go in the dugout or locker room, but who’s complaining?

Once out on the field they assigned the kids a position so when the Naturals took the field before the National Anthem, the kids would run out there with the players to their spots on the field.  I had my fingers crossed that my boy would either get centerfield and run out with Wil Myers, or shortstop and run out with Christian Colon, who he met the day before.

 Colon warming up pre-game

An aside- Wil Myers is a big dude.  He’s thin, but not frail looking at all.  I’m glad we’ve got to watch him play a few times, because I think his AA time will soon be ending.  

Turns out my boy was given shortstop!  Actually, he was given second base, but I may or may not have convinced the kid that got shortstop to switch with my boy when no one could hear me…

Oh, what?  Like any of you Dad’s wouldn’t have done the same thing!  It was totally harmless, and trust me, the kid that switched had absolutely zero interest in anything that was going on.  Don’t look at me like that!

So, the players started getting announced and running to the field, and when Colon was announced and took the field, my boy took off and followed after him to the infield.  I had my video camera and was soaking up every minute of it.  The best part was when Colon saw my boy.  He did a double take and squatted down to my son’s eye level and said “Hey, I remember you.”  I couldn’t hear this of course from where I was in foul territory, but could tell by Colon’s body language and the huge smile on my son’s face that Colon recognized him.  My son later confirmed the conversation to me.  Then Colon shook my son’s hand and had him stand right next to him during the National Anthem.

Once the anthem was over, kids zipped off the field.  It was insanely cute.   Take a look at the expression on Wil Myers’s face on the below pic.  Even he got a kick out of it. 

So that was our weekend.  I'm not going to get sentimental and make sweeping statements about sports and their impact on our lives.  It's just really nice when nice moments like this happen even on a minor league level.  And the athletes that take a few minutes and do simple things to make kids happy deserve appreciation and credit.

Saturday Night With The Naturals and My Boy

Despite a moderately windy evening, my boy and I decided to take in our first Naturals game of the season Saturday night.  I was a little surprised by his insistence on going, since he's not a much of baseball fan.   I suspected he just wanted to go because he wanted ice cream, so I told him if we stayed in, I would just take him to Orange Leaf and he could get as much ice cream he wanted.

"I want to go to the game so I can learn to play better by watching the Naturals."  That was a direct quote.  This is his second year of playing organized baseball, and his reasoning was very mature and compelling...  and it was a total con job and the lovely wife and I knew it the moment that lie oozed out of his little lying mouth.  He wanted snacks, he wanted to play on the giant inflatable slide and he wanted an excuse to stay up past his bedtime.  And I was thrilled to give him all of that, even though he didn't want to admit that was what he was after.  We packed up and headed for the park. 

Sure enough, before we even found our seats he asked for a hot dog.  Before the first pitch, the hot dog was gone and he wanted ice cream.  Before the bottom of the first inning, the ice cream was gone and he wanted some popcorn and his notebook and crayons. Do I know my son, or do I know my son?  

I have to give him credit though, about the 4th inning, he put his notebook down and decided to watch a little.  I wish my phone took better pictures, because this scene is priceless to me:

(An aside-  behind home plate there is a section of picnic tables that is typically reserved for big group parties.  If the section does not get reserved, they open it to anyone who wants to sit there.  They are fantastic seats and perfect if you have kids.)


Anyway, the game was fun, with the Naturals (Royals) taking on The Corpus Christie Hooks (Astros).  There was a pretty good lot of prospects playing that night:

Wil Myers was the highest rated prospect on the field, and it showed.  He smashed a 3 run homer in the first and added a couple of singles and a double and had a 5 RBI night.   I suspect he will be up to AAA by mid season and gearing to go to KC for 2013.   Carlo Testa and Christian Colon both homered as well.  I don't know much about Testa, but he looked pretty good.

Two of the Astros top prospects were playing as well.  Jonathan Singleton didn't do much (he came to the Astros in the Hunter Pence trade and is considered the Astros top prospect), but Jonathan Villar had a nice single and stolen base. 

That was a great way to kick off the season, and I can't wait for more!

Oh baby are those Naturals?

They're Naturals, and they're spectacular! (Seinfeld)

I didn't think much of the Topps Heritage Minor League set that was recently released, but I was surfing around on eBay and saw that there were a handful of relic cards from Northwest Arkansas Naturals (KC Royals AA) prospects.  I still won't do much with this set, but I really wanted these and got them all for under $10 shipped. These cards are especially fun because my boy and I were able to meet all of these guys at a pre-season autograph session this past year.

I still remember how nice guy John Lamb was to my boy.  He was a top 50 prospect according to Baseball America (#18), but had Tommy John surgery and won't be available until late next season.  He seems like a really decent guy and I hope he gets back on track and has a long career in the bigs.

Christina Colon seemed like a typical college kid.  He was late to the autograph session and was pretty sheepish about it as the other players ragged him.  #51 on the prospect list,  he will probably start the season in AAA next year.

And finally, the prospect that many have said has as bright or brighter future than Eric Hosmer or Mike Moustakas is Wil Myers #10 on the list.  He's really young, and didn't exactly tear it up this year in Arkansas, but had his moments.  I'm hoping we get to see him one more year before he heads to AAA.

Getting relics of Naturals jerseys was fun, and I hope Topps keeps this set going.  The best part?  I can pretend the blurry guy in the seats in the background of the Myers card is me.

Cheap Card Collector, But Not a Cheap Trader!

I have been out of town for a few days if anyone has noticed a lack of posts for a few days.  One of my favorite things about coming back from a trip, besides of course seeing the lovely wife and kids, is ripping open any packages that have come my way, even though I know what is in them already.  One of the packages that came in this weekend had more than I expected though, and it made my day!

Cheap Card Collecting is the kind of blog I aspire to run.  It has a point of view (how to collect on a budget) and looks great too!  Anthony from CCC contacted me about a couple of Bowman Platinums I pulled, and we worked out what I thought was a 2 for 2 trade.  This is what I knew I was getting:

2 Bowman Platinum Christian Colon (Base and Purple Parallel).  Colon is a top prospect for the Royals and plays for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals who are nearby the Doon household.  My hope is to get one or both of these autographed. 

But not only did I get the cards I wanted, Anthony also added some very cool Felix Jones cards:

The Certified card on the left is numbered to 250!    And the Topps Magic card is very, very slick. My eyes may or may not have welled up when I saw these.

And to top it off, he added a card of my man D-Mac, and a Topps Diamond Duos card of Josh Hamilton.  Bullseyes all around!

I assume if you are a serious card collector, you are aware of Cheap Card Collecting.  If not, do yourself a favor and check it out! 

Naturals Night

Last night at the Fayetteville Mall, the entire NW Arkansas Naturals team was signing autographs, so I packed up the family and we headed out.  As a father, it was exciting to see my son getting a baseball and a few cards signed.  He’s five, so I don’t think he was all that stoked about it to begin with, but as we went around the table, and he was more comfortable talking to the players, he really began to enjoy himself.  When we were done and his ball was completely covered with signatures, he was very excited!  I was too, thinking, “This is the year he really becomes a baseball fan, and we can really enjoy the game and the cards together.”   Then he saw the Cookie Co., handed his ball off to his mother and didn’t mention the Naturals the rest of the evening while he savored every bite of his true prize of the evening.   

Overall, the players were very pleasant and gracious.  Most took a moment to look my boy in the eye and say hello. A few just took the ball, signed it and passed it down without looking up, which as a father kind of ticked me off.  But I imagine this kind of event kind of gets to be a grind for a player, especially with how pushy and obnoxious some fans can be.  But come on, talk to my boy just a bit.  He is, after all, the cutest 5 year old on the planet.

I would like to mention John Lamb in particular as someone who was very gracious with my son.  He is considered a top 100 Major League prospect, and a good bet to be on the Royals roster in the next year or two.  As a card hobby enthusiast, I was thrilled that he signed a couple of cards that will mean more to my son over time, and I wish him the best.  I also found cards of Derrick Robinson and Christian Colon who were very nice as well.  One player I could not find a card of was Wil Myers, who is a top hitting prospect, and supposed to be on par with Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer.  I know I have his Bowman 2010 card somewhere, but couldn’t locate it.  At least we got his signature on the ball and poster.

Here are some of the fruits of our evening: