2010 Topps Baseball Revealed

I like the team brand script on the bottom.. should look real nice.

My First Custom Card, Darryl Strawberry

This is my first try at making my own custom card and I'm pretty happy with it. It took me 2 long nights with my limited knowledge of the GIMP application, but I'm getting faster with it. Any suggestions on the next player and also suggestions on the best way to print these out? I don't have a working printer right now so either a 1 hour photo place or a web lab would be best I think.

What do you think?

2009 Baseball Card of the Year: 5th Nomination

I would have nominated this one already had I owned it. I picked it up, along with the entire Rangers set off of eBay for a cheap way to knock some cards off of my checklist and also to feed the need to acquire my first Topps Wal-Mart Dark parallels, which I'm glad I got out of my system.

Rangers Ballpark in Arlington really looks like a great ballpark. It's hard to believe it's already 15 years old! The stadium in the background plus Murphy and Hamilton celebrating what looks to be a Rangers run.. all put together, this card just might be the best of the year.

Noms thus far:

1. Topps #559 Esteban German
2. Topps # 124 Reed Johnson
3. Topps # 7 Mickey Mantle
4. Topps Allen & Ginter # 18 Clyde Parris
5. Topps #614 David Murphy
   

My Rules:

1. Base cards only.
2. I will only pick from cards I own. Any cards I do not own are automatically DISqualified!
3. Focus will mostly be on photography. Design only plays a small part since this is base cards only.
4. I'll pick as many noms as I want.
5. You can suggest noms, but, see rule 2.
6. I don't know yet how the best card will be selected. (contest?)
7. The card subject must be about baseball and not the Milky Way or something like that.

Action Packed Braille Cards

I just spotted these on eBay and just had to share them here. Apparently, Action Packed released a few braille-backed parallel sets in their early 90's football releases. I am soooo tempted to pick one up for the oddball lover in me!

Here's a link to the Jim Plunkett. The seller also has several more ranging from 6 to 9 dollars each or sets of 6 for $25.

Card of the Day: 1993 Donruss Long Ball Leaders #LL11 Darryl Strawberry

I dug this out of one of my 5,000 count boxes the other day while I was scanning a few more Strawberry cards from my collection. I think I got this from the freebies Stats on the Back was giving away.

I'd never heard of this little 18 card set until I looked it up today. Beckett.com says the cards were "randomly inserted in 26-card magazine distributor packs". I don't even know what that means, really.

The back shows us a nice aerial shot of Dodger Stadium, which oddly is not the park where he hit the 460 ft. home run on which this card is based. Yeah, it would look funny to have Candlestick park on the back of a Dodger's Darryl Strawberry card, but the Dodger Stadium shot doesn't really make sense to me on this one. Hmm.. and why does it show him singling to right instead of long-balling?

Virgil "Fire" Trucks Contest Win from Carl Crawford Cards

A little while ago, the Carl Crawford Cards blog was holding an impressive giveaway of 9 different Virgil Trucks autographed cards ranging from a 1950 Bowman (!) to a business card, all to 9 different winners. They were all recently received TTM specifically meant for a giveaway. I entered along with 24 other people and I came away with the #4 spot, a 1959 Topps!

What an awesome prize! I was thrilled when this arrived in the mail. For those of you who are asking themselves "Who is Virgil Trucks"?, don't fret, I asked myself the same thing before I saw the contest. This guy pitched in the majors from 1941 to 1958, mostly for the Tigers, but also for the Browns, White Sox, Athletics and Yankees. He won a World Series in '45 while with the Tigers, and in '52 he pitched 2 no hitters in the same season, also with the Tigers. Yes, this was his final base card with Topps. He had quite the career and I'm sure his new book is a good read.

Goodwin Hobby Pack Times 3

Last weekend I found myself with a rare opportunity to not only get into the nearest hobby shop, but also have enough after stocking up on supplies to actually buy some cards! This is great because I strongly believe in hobby packs over retail, and yet I'm stuck at buying 95% retail because it's too damn convenient and money in this budget does not get budgeted, only spent until broke.

So anyways I picked up a few of my first Goodwins and a few Topps Series 2 along with a few singles out of the dollar trays that caught my eye. Oh, and a 1992-93 Upper Deck Trail Blazers team set. I already covered the Bill Walton singles I picked up, and I also came up with a $2 EX condition '84 Topps Darryl Strawberry and a $1 1969 Topps "Ted Williams Shows How" card which I'll probably scan for my '69 Topps blog eventually. I did well with the Series 2 Topps and pulled my first ever redemption card, Red Hot Rookie #5. But Series 2 Topps is so last month right? So onto Goodwin Champions!

Pack 1. Nice looking card. I find myself rooting for the Giants to catch Colorado and.. it looks like Atlanta too now. They've got some great young stars. Fun to watch, but inconsistent.

Sweet! My first MMA or UFC card ever! I tell you, I was really excited for Topps UFC Round 1 earlier this year but it sold out before it barely, if at all, hit the shelves. So here comes Round 2 and I'm stuck without a pre-order (never pre-ordered anything before) and will probably be left out again with my only option being a single pack off of eBay for 15 bucks!

The minis look great. End of pack 1. Also pulled #3 Jon Lester and # 29 Carlos Quentin.

Pack 2. Hit! Cory Wade. Heard his name before but not too familiar with him. Cheers to Upper Deck for the on card autos in this set. Stickers just look bad, especially on vintage style sets!

Oh yes, I love retired player cards! Fisk is a big plus, cool old-style Red Sox logo, big plus, and it's a mini! Plus. This might be my favorite card from all 3 packs.

Despite my best efforts to collect all things trading cards, I am lost on Hockey cards. Don't get me wrong, I like hockey, but I don't follow it enough to know more than 5% of the names in a small hockey card set. I do keep any names I know (Gordie I know), but I'll eventually trade off any other hockey I've accumulated.

3 packs is pretty good odds to pull one of these dreaded Anniversary cards. I think they're 1:4 packs. I actually enjoy them when they're sports related but I do not need cards on gas prices and Dick Cheney taking up space in my packs! Upper deck really messed up a golden opportunity to do something right with great success with this insert set. If they simply went with sports events, I would have been a happy collector. Even some trading card history and a few Olympic highlights would have been nice. Olympic cards probably require another license though. End pack 2. Also pulled #188 Fausto Carmona which is available for trade.

Pack 3. Fukudome with a vintage Cubbies logo. Very nice.

Pettitte. Eh. This might be the Yankees year.

Curtis Granderson mini. Very cool. Glad I saw the Tigers play this year in Seattle. Might be their year too if they can beat the Yankees. End of pack 3. Also pulled #59 Evan Longoria and #113 Jose Reyes.

To sum it up after my first Goodwin packs, I love this set! But, after mulling over wether or not to try and complete the whole set, I don't think I will. It would take a LOT of packs to complete this set with only 2 to 4 base cards per pack. I will definitely sample some more though whenever I see them.

Card of the Day: 1991-92 Skybox #326 Dominique Wilkins / Kevin Willis GQ

Nothing says 1991 like 1991-92 Skybox Basketball. Here's Dominique Wilkins and Kevin Willis showing off their rad stylin' skills. Kevin must know what he's doing because the suit he's wearing was made by his own clothing company, Willis and Walker, which he is focusing on now after his retirement.

Bill Walton Trifecta

Here's a few Bill Walton cards I picked out of the dollar cards at Hoopla Sports Cards in SW Portland. I don't particularly like Bill Walton. In fact I'd prefer muting the TV when he's commentating an NBA game. But his cards just draw me in because he represents the 1970's for the local favorite sports club in these parts. My Blazer collection has to be close to 300 cards now, and I only have 5 Waltons.

Random Packs of Kindness via Tribecards

One of the first things I learned about the online trading card community, when I getting into it almost 2 years ago, was the immense generousity between other bloggers and collectors. It amazes me that someone would spend 9 bucks on postage to mail a complete stranger a bunch of free stuff and expect nothing in return. David over at "Indians, Baseball Cards, and Random Wax" (AKA Tribecards?) was, and I think still is, giving away some "Random Packs of Kindness" to anyone who wanted them. Seeing the many, many happy people with their thankful responses, I asked for a couple of packs myself. I was only expecting a small package with 2 or 3 packs, but what arrived was a large bubble mailer filled with 5 good sized packs of cards, several oversized cards and even one of those old Topps folders I had when I was in the 4th grade! Each pack had roughly 50 cards per pack, mostly baseball with a tad randomness too. Each pack seemed to have 1 "hit" too, which was was either a serial numbered, auto or memorabilia card! Some of the randomness included 1an old 1991 WCW card feauturing a very hairy Dutch Manetell. I also found a 1985 Goonies movie sticker card, a T2 movie card, a Simpsons CCG card and a ZatchBell CCGcard.Here's a couple of scans of my favorites. I'm trying to complete the American Heritage set, but unfortunatly I already have that one.

The Tony Armas (Jr.) card is an autograph. The '87 Topps Steve Fireovid card is cool because I recently decided I wanted to collect cards featuring Mariners wearing the old trident M logo uniforms worn from 1977 to 1986. I decided this after drooling over the vintage style hats and t-shirts at Safeco Field this summer. Very cool! What's wierd is I used to think they were ugly as heck! I hope the M's uniforms from 1987 to 1992 don't start looking nice because those were really ugly!

The Pujols was a nice surprise because it was on my needs list.. *scratch*!

Anyways, thanks very much Mr. Tribecards! I will try and go through my stack of Indians cards and match them up to your needs list to see if I can mail you a brick or two myself.

As for fellow collector's generousity, my next post will probably be on my other blog, 1969 Topps, showcasing some more free cards!

Card of the Day: 1991 Score #568 Bob Welch

A few months ago, I was going through the 15-20 sandwich bags full of 20 year old cards my dad picked up for me at one of the thrift shops around here. When I saw this card I immediately set it aside for my blog. Why? I've never seen anything like it before or after it was made in 1991. This card doesn't feature a shot of Bob Welch's face or back.. it feature's his split-fingered grip, which helped him earn his AL Cy Young award in 1990 while winning 27 games that year! Wow! Not done since Steve Carlton in '72 won 27 and it hasn't been done since Welch. It would have been even cooler if it was his base card for '91 Score.

Hiatus

My life has begun a new era. Until it is sorted out and settled down, I don't see blogging as a high priority right now. I will, however, continue to update my want and trade lists frequently, and would love to trade with anyone who would like to. Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll get to wherever I'm going sooner than later.