Barter: Care of Night Owl Cards

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about my first packs of Goodwin and pulled a nice Cory Wade auto. It quickly caught the eye of Night Owl at Night Owl Cards and we worked out a quick trade. I ended up sending him a few more Dodgers on his needs list, and he knocked off a bunch of cards off my '09 Topps and '69 Topps needs lists. Thanks night owl! I'll just highlight a few of my favorites or cards of recent playoff significance. The first one here shows Brian Fuentes in his Rockies uni. He played for the Angels this year and did a pretty good job, racking up a career high 48 saves. He's got a pretty important role for the halos right about now.

Lincecum put on another outstanding show this year. This guy maintained a 2.48 ERA and struck out 261. About the same as last year with a 2.62 ERA and 265 K's. One stat that stuck out were the walks.. only 68 this year as opposed to 84 in '08. That's experience and even more control starting to show. It's just too bad he couldn't get some post season experience under his belt this year. Maybe his Giants can pull it together next year.

We'll probably be seeing a lot of this guy in the next few weeks. Let's see if he's got what it takes to be a Yankee in the post season.

Lou's Cubbies finished 7.5 games behind the Cardinals this year. Tough competition.

Adam had an incredible year posting a 19-8 record with only a 2.63 ERA. Adam, Chris and Albert might just be unstoppable this year.

Ryan only had a .241 AVG this year, pushing him down the Rockies depth chart to the bench.

Juan had a better year this time, staying healthy and consistent.

No playoffs for Rios again, but did you know he was acquired by the White Sox a couple of months ago?

No post season for these guys either. I honestly thought they were a sure thing before their slide into disappointment.

He also sent me 10 1969 Topps cards I needed for my set. Only 9 would fit on my scanner.

2009 Topps American Heritage American Heroes Edition - 2 Pack Break

I'm so glad Topps made a sequel to American Heritage! I love history in trading cards and the use of old Topps designs really adds to my love of these sets!

Pack 1. This one made me think as soon as I saw it. The sixth president in a "photograph"? Yes, it was what was called a "dagguereotype" which was taken in 1843. It has obviously had the color added to it since then. Very cool!

This floored me as soon as I saw it! I was super excited at the possibility of pulling a space relic from this set, but didn't have my hopes up, especially from only my second pack which was retail! Thanks to my lucky charm wife who pulled this pack out of a gravity feeder for me at the grocery store!

I love this insert set! Definitely a step up from the American Presidents inserts from the first set which are nice, but overdone and unnecessary. Also pulled #17 Charles Weltner, #99 Ralph Ellison and #111 Seneca Falls Convention. End pack 1.

While 1989 Topps wasn't the greatest looking set, it was one of the bigger sets of my childhood collection. So, these really hit home with me.

Another great insert set. I've seen this picture before though.. and it had the Yankees logo on the cap! Here it is. Now this photo is property of the Library of Congress and has no restrictions on it. Did Topps get this airbrushed photo from scanning some Post Cereal card from 1990 or something, or does Topps have to buy a licence for every set they put out and they just didn't feel like it for this set?

Another Medal of Honor insert. Also pulled #14 Claiborne Pell, #100 Carl Sagan and #120 Battle of the Bulge. End pack 2.

Looking forward to putting together the whole set with the insert sets too! Space cards rock!

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?