Starting Lineup Sundays

Before I started this silly little blog a year ago I spent a fair amount of time deciding if I had enough topics to write about to keep my blog churning.  I didn’t want to write a handful of posts and then run out of things to talk about and fade away.   I knew I had a couple of safety nets to fall back on if I got desperate for material.  One was eTopps, and the other was my Starting Lineup Collection.  eTopps was a great material source because they had new card offerings almost every week.  I’ve also managed to find enough other things to talk about that I was able to keep my Starting Lineups on the bench.

    

However, with eTopps basically shutting down and becoming a non-source of material for me it might be time to call on my SLUs.  And why not?  These things are so cool.  I don’t understand why there isn’t a greater demand for them anymore.  That used to not be the case.  In fact, there used to be conventions centered on Starting Lineup figures.   

They’ve been out of production for years now, and replaced by the larger, more detailed McFarlane figures.  I find the SLUs a far superior collectible.  Maybe it’s because they are similar in size and function to the Star Wars figures that shaped my childhood.   Anyway, my SLUs are all in boxes at the moment.  I tried to get the lovely wife to let me “wallpaper” one of our bedroom walls with the ones I kept in the blister packs, but shockingly she didn’t go for it.  I guess pictures of our children and paintings are OK, but beautiful blister packs of toy baseball players don’t meet some arbitrary standard of taste.   Oh well, she can’t stop me from showing them off on my blog:

 Daarryyyllll...... Daaarrryyyllll..... Daaaaarryyyylllll...

This was the first figure I bought.  The first issue of Starting Lineups came out in 1988 and was mostly regionally distributed.  Some players had a national distribution, and luckily for me I was able to find all of the Mets that were made in 1988 (I can't find my the Howard Johnson, but I have it somewhere).  That was my team back then.    

I had no interest in keeping these in the blister pack, and wanted to display them out of the package in my room.  I had about 20 of these things lined up along my dresser.    I also had a huge cardboard stand up movie poster of “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3” in my room as well.  Man, I was a loser. 

A Spooky Story For Halloween...

Unlike many of my posts, this is entirely true....

It was a cool October evening, much like tonight.  The lovely wife and I were newlyweds and were excitedly getting into bed.... to watch game 4 of the 2004 World Series, you pervs.  As I'm sure you all know, the Red Sox were about to sweep the Cardinals and win their first World Series in 86 years, erasing the Curse of the Bambino. 
Let me take a step back and say that I was also a huge Mets fan in the 80's and 90's before giving all my loyalty to the Rangers in the 2000's.  The 1986 World Series against the Red Sox was my first experience with the agony and ecstasy that I think only baseball can deliver, and after what happened to the Rangers last week, I now have a greater appreciation for how tough 1986 had to be for Red Sox fans.  I bring this up because early in our relationship, the Lovely Wife bought me this really cool, framed picture of Ray Knight crossing the plate after the ball went through Buckner's legs in game 6.  I had this picture, and about a dozen other baseball pictures, hanging on the wall in our guest room/office. 

 This picture now kind of gives me the creeps...

Anyway, we were lying in bed watching the Red Sox finish off the Cardinals.  The game ended and the celebration began on the field. We watched a bit of it before deciding to call it a night.  As I was turning off the TV, the announcer said something along the lines of the "curse being broken" or "ghosts being exorcised" for the Red Sox or something like that.  I turned off the TV.  Literally a second later, we heard a crash in the guest room.  I ran down the hall to see what happened and turned on the light.  There, in a pile of broken glass was the Ray Knight picture.  There was no wind that night at all, or thunder or lightning or anything that should have knocked that picture off the wall.  What I still to this day don't understand is how none of the pictures hanging below it on the wall were disturbed.  I would think if it just fell straight down, it would have knocked other pictures off too.  It was almost like it leaped off the wall.   I'm not a jittery person by nature, and other than some sports superstitions, I'm not at all a believer in ghosts or crap like that.  But thinking about that night still gives me the willies.

Trade Posts: BA Benny and Steve D

Last week I received my end of a couple of trades:

1st:  A big trade with BA Benny.  He sent a whole mess of cards of my favorite players:  Tony Gwynn, Darryl Strawberry, Ian Kinsler, Keith Hernandez, Michael Young, Josh Hamilton, and the list goes on.  He also sent two really cool Michael Young Ticket to Stardom cards that include a game used jersey and a ticket from a Rangers game.  That seems like a cool hit gimmick that should be continued in other sets.  Here are just a few of the highlights from the trade:

Thanks for the trade Mike! 

I also had a small trade with Steve D, who does not have a blog as far as I know.  We did a swap of jersey cards of NY catchers.  I sent him a Jorge Posada 2005 Zenith, and he sent a Piazza T206 jersey, along with an extra Piazza Ionix card (which is very cool in hand BTW):

Thank you Steve, I appreciate it!

Wax Wednesday:

I’ve been trying to think of some consistent topics for regular posting.  To me, one of the more entertaining aspects of reading some of the baseball card blogs out there is seeing results of a pack or box break.  I don’t know why I think it’s interesting and I’ll spare you any hypothesis on the matter.  So I’ll create “Wax Wednesday” and open up something each week.  This will help justify my purchases to the Mrs.  “Honey, I have to do it… for the readers.”

So I started humbly and bought a rack pack of 2011 Topps.  Eh...  Here are the highlights.  No Diamond Giveaway card, but a nice Gehrig reprint.   Being a Rangers fan (more on my switch from the Mets to the Rangers another time), I was happy with the Felix 60 Card and the Andrus/Kinsler Card...

I was excited about the diamond parallel Jeter.  Until I noticed….

Notice the mis-printed Topps Logo in the upper corner.  &*$#(@!  I don’t want to keep it, and I don’t want to sell it.  First one to comment gets it if they want it.  Just send me your address via PM.. Hey, my first giveaway!