Autographs.

It is amazing how many cards show players signing autographs. This is just a small example of the them.

Baseball Cameramen.

Multiple Images.

They don't do the multiple image cards much anymore. I think it's a shame because they do make the cards very interesting.

Take Your Children To Work.

Each Saturday I'm going to scan a few of my baseball cards and will try and have a theme for them. Today's theme is obviously cards of players with their children.

The Tony Womack card is one of my all-time favorite cards.

Baseball Card Tuesday.

Now that I have the Dragon program, I'm trying to get back into a routine with this blog. As I have mentioned before, my weekend is Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday is usually a fairly busy day for me so I want something that is easy to do, and quick to post. Therefore, this will be a day where I will post pictures of baseball cards using different themes each week. This weeks theme is my five favorite cards from the 2011 Topps series 2 set. The first card that I selected was Jason Heyward of the Atlanta Braves. I like the nonchalant attitude that he seems to have catching that ball.


Next up is José Valverde of the Detroit Tigers. That is an unusual position that he is in and it made me smile.


I enjoy shots of guys leaping and jumping so this card of Nyger Morgan of the Milwaukee Brewers made the cut.


A jumping shot, this time Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies, avoiding a member of the Kansas City Royals and looking like he is having a great time on the field.


Another jumping card, Darwin Barney of the Chicago Cubs is getting out of the way of Geoff Blum of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I love the look on Barney's face.


I will be going through the sets that I have completed and will select five cards from the each of those and will be putting those here on Tuesdays.


I did have a prank call last night. I'm beginning to believe there is a small group who are getting together doing these. The call last night started out innocently enough as somebody asking about purchasing alcohol. Local regulations here make purchasing alcohol from 11 PM to 6 AM illegal. The caller was trying to get me to come up with a way to get around that for them. After I told him there was nothing that I could do since it was the law, the person then said that they were in the bathroom without toilet paper. I simply said, nice try, and hung up.

Baseball Card Tuesday.

I have been getting more active with trading baseball cards and making some new friends. One of those new friends is Tom who has a blog The Angels, In Order. He had some kind words about me in this post, and his post today he talked about one of the cards that I sent him, Todd Greene, who was a catcher for, surprisingly enough, the Angels. The card was from Fleers 1998 Sports Illustrated set. In that set they had a subset of their award winners, such as best power, Mark McGwire, best control, Greg Maddux, etc. They also had two strange awards, Greene was given one for best art on a catchers mask and as you can see, Mike Piazza got one for best hair. I'll take their word on Mike for 1998, but the all-time best hair belongs to Oscar Gamble.

Oscar began his major league career in 1969 with the Cubs. He traveled around a lot playing for the Phillies, Indians, Yankees, White Sox, Padres, Rangers, Back to the Yankees, and finishing up with a second stint with the White Sox in 1985. These days Oscar doesn't quite have as much hair, you can see for yourself here. His spirit lives on this year, being channeled through Coco Crisp of the Oakland A's.

Baseball Card Tuesday.

Last week I showed you the Mickey Mantle uniform card that I got in a box of 2011 Topps series One. ( I goofed last week and said it was a 2010 box. I have corrected that.) The eBay auctions that I mentioned have ended. The card selling for $299.99 did not sell. It has been relisted for $249.99. The other card sold for $174.5o. Now I have an idea of its worth. I am considering putting mine up for auction but I haven't decided yet. The box I bought was guaranteed I autograph and 2 relic cards. The autograph was Jeff Francis of the Colorado Rockies. Francis is no longer with the Rockies, having signed as a free agent with Kansas City. I no longer have this card. It really did not mean much to me and I traded it along with some other cards to a Rockies fan. I will be getting a lot of cards that I need to come closer to finishing some sets. That makes me happy and the guy who is getting the card will enjoy it much more that I did.


The second relic card was this Leather Nameplate of Ichiro. The purpose of those cards escapes me. It was kind of cool, but I have also traded this card away. The person getting it is a Mariners fan, and again it will mean more to him than to me.

Topps also had an offer for people who bought their cards in Hobby stores. For the 10 wrappers that my cards came in I received a special 5 card pack. They have produced a special 40 card set for this redemption. Randomly inserted into the packs are an autograph card. A person is not guaranteed an autograph and I did not expect one. I got my five card pack and much to my surprise was this card.


So since I am a die-hard Cubs fan will I be getting rid of this card? No, this one is a keeper. First of all, Red is a Hall Of Fame member, and even though he was the Cardinals manager there was always something about him I have always liked. His player stats can be found here and his manager stats here.

Baseball Card Tuesday.

The other day I showed a Starlin Castro autograph card and I said it was the second best card that I had got this year. You can see what topped it. I bought a box of 2011 Topps Jumbo packs. There were 10 packs in the box and 50 cards in each pack. I got a full set plus the Mickey Mantle uniform card that you see here. The card is numbered 54 out of 64. There are currently 2 of them listed on eBay. One is selling for $299.99 or best offer, the other is being auctioned off. The auction ends in 5 days and the current bid is $78.77. I am going to watch it and see where it ends.

My favorite part of the card is the pinstripe through the 4. The two on eBay also have stripes but they are through the 6. Next week I'll show you the best card that I got last year.

Play Ball!

Here we go again. The baseball season kicks off today with the Cubs playing the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Most teams would relish opening against the Pirates. After all last year the Pirates finished 57-105, the worst record in baseball. However when they played the Cubs they acted like world champions, winning 10 of the 15 games the two played. Hopefully this year the Cubs will be better against them and the rest of the league. As big a Cubs fan as I am I don't see them winning the division. They have some promising young players and I see good things in the future. As for this year, let the fun begin.

The card you see pictured is the second best card that I have got this year. I'll show the best next Tuesday. The card is a Starlin Castro autograph card from the Topps Heritage set. The card is based on the 1962 set. There are two grades of autograph cards. One is signed in black ink. If you notice, this card is signed in red. Castro only signed 62 cards in red. This one is numbered 18/62. There are no guidebooks on the price of it, but one sold on eBay for around$100. Of course to me, it is priceless.

Baseball Card Tuesday.

Tuesdays are normally my busiest days. It is the start of my weekend and almost every Tuesday I go to Dalton and pick up my comic books. From now on I will use this day to post a few of my favorite baseball cards. Today's theme is down on the farm. Above you see Rex Hudler demonstrating his milking skills. Nice to have something to rely on after your baseball days are over.


It looks like Orel Hershiser is getting ready to feed the cows. Actually I am not sure what he is doing, but I like this picture.

Coming Clean, Maybe.

Last October I started to blog about the St Louis Cardinals decision to hire Mark McGwire as their batting coach. The main point was going to be how before spring training began he needed to address the steroid issue. I had most of the post worked out in my head, but then I decided to wait and comment on it either on the first day of spring training or when Mark addressed it himself. Yesterday Mark revealed he had used steroids for almost 10 years, including the 1998 season where he hit 70 home runs. When I heard that I was glad he was finally showing some remorse for his actions. I was going to praise him for that. Then I read about his explanations for taking them.

He claims that steroids did not help him hit any home runs. He did hit 49 home runs as a rookie in 1987, but his totals were dropping. He was injured and didn't play much in 1993 and 1994, then his home run binge really took off. I have the same problem with his statements that I do with Barry Bonds. I have an excellent bovine excrement detector and when I read his claims it went off so loud I still have a headache from it. If you want to read more about his claims and the rebuttals to them click here, here, and here. I know there will be some who disagree with me, but I feel that any of those who are tainted by steroids do not deserve to be put in Baseball's Hall Of Fame. Obviously the voters seem to agree. To get in a player needs 75% of the vote. Mark has only recieved 25% the four years he has been eligible.

While I was working on this I recieved a phone call from My Buddy In Illinois. We were talking about this. He is a Cardinals fan but is not too enthused about Mark. I told him that originally I was going to call this post Coming Clean, but then I decided to call it Coming Clean Partway. He suggested using maybe, so I told him I would give him credit. He never reads my blog. Of course the fact that he doesn't have a computer has a little to do with that.

400.

I was going to do this post Monday, but I got hit by the flu bug. It was just a minor case but I didn't feel like doing anything. I even missed a day of work which I don't like to do. This is my 400th post. In good comic book tradition, every 100 is something a little special. Sometimes I am amazed that I have actually made it this far. I have a few new friends so I am going to post a few links to old posts. If that doesn't scare them away, nothing will. First of all, I have finally found a video which delivers the line that I use as a title. It is not the full scene but it does deliver the line. If you don't want to watch the entire video, watch at least the first 45 seconds.




To give a little background on me, I was married for almost 22 years. My wife died suddenly from a blood clot on June 5, 2000. Three years later I started living with a woman who was 23 years younger than me. That lasted 4 years until she moved out on me in the middle of the night. Two months after that My Lady invited me over to her house for Christmas. Because of what I had been through I was not going to get into another relationship so soon. That plan lasted about 3 months. We are going together but have no marriage plans or any plan to live together. We work together and see each other several times a week away from work. She has a skin condition and I talked about that here. That gives you some background on me. When I started this blog my intention was to talk mainly about baseball cards and comic books. That plan worked real well, didn't it? I want to thank everyone who reads this and comments on it. If you are a lurker and haven't said hi yet, please do so. I read the blogs of those who do and have found several interesting blogs from it. I have also been lurking on a few and I am going to take my own advice and say hello.



I found this ad in Sunday's paper. It was in the coupon section. This is one of those ads that leads to two questions, what were they thinking when they decided on this ad, and what were they thinking when they approved it. The ad is for Farm Rich, which makes some really good mozzarella sticks. In fact, there is a bag in my freezer now. But to say since you can't return your kids you might as well feed them is ludicrous. Evidently the writer of this is a fan of W.C. Fields.

I have a message for Al Penwasser. I once again am not able to post comments on your blog. (I use Firefox and on a few blogs that happens. I had been able to open the page in Internet Explorer but now IE isn't working.) Al made a post similar to my Random Thoughts post on Sunday. Well done, Al. I have a feeling that if you and I ever meet it needs to be at a secret location. If we met publicly we would soon be greeted by those gentlemen with the fancy white coats and we probably would never be seen again.



It has been awhile since I posted a baseball card. This card is from the 2009 Topps Updates And Highlights set. Throughout the 2009 sets, Series one and two, they have been doing cards of the past stars. This is a very unusual Babe Ruth card. Note the uniform. It is Babe in his last year with the Boston Braves. I have several cards of Babe, but this one is now my favorite.

Flea Market Find 2.

Writers block has struck again so Here are a couple more of the cards I got from the flea market. The first is another Neal Adams card, this time of Eric Montross. Montross was the 9th overall pick in the 1994 draft. His rookie season was fairly good, but after that not so well. He retired due to a foot injury after the 2002 season. These are the only Adams cards I have sound so far. I did find two more of the Charlie Ward cards which I posted here. If anyone would like to have one email me with your address and I will mail it to you.




The second is from the 1989 Bowman set. My friend Ben is blogging about this set. It is a father and sons cards featuring Cal Ripken,Sr and his sons Cal Jr and Billy. There were 3 other father/son cards featuring Ken Griffey, Sandy Alomar, and Mel Stottlemyre. You can see Mel's card here. I did not get too many 89 Bowman cards, which was actually a good thing. Those cards are slightly larger than regular cards and the way they were packed most of them were damaged. Fortunately the Ripken card wasn't.No guesses on yesterday's question. Only female kangaroos have pouches.

Today's question is Grade 4/Cultural Studies.

True or false? The Taj Mahal is an example of Gothic architecture.

I knew this one. 58-13.

Quick Cards.

Instead of a quick post with a fast super-hero I am doing a quick post with an interesting baseball card. When I am either short on time or lacking good ideas I will be alternating between the two. Since I have started the Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader questions I am going to post every day. This card is part of the Upper Deck Yankee Stadium Legacy set. Considering this entire set consists of 6100 cards, I will not be getting a full one. However I like the ones that I have. This card is from game 1771, August 26,1945. The Yankees beat the Washington Nationals 3-2 that day. In case you are wondering why the card says Nationals instead of Senators the team was referred to by both nicknames. Technically they were the Nationals and not until 1959 was the word Senators put on the team uniforms, and they were called that from then on.

The answer to yesterdays question, as any fan of the Hunchback From Notre Dame will tell you, was of course France. Today's question is a Grade 1/U.S. Geography question.

What state borders South Dakota to the North?

Bonus points if you name the capital of that state. I got it and now stand 6-5 on this.

Will The Real John Smoltz Please Stand Up?

This is kind of like the old show To Tell The Truth. Donruss printed these cards as part of their 1990 set. These cards are bonus cards, which are not part of the regular set. They designated one player from each team as the team MVP and a card was printed and placed randomly in packs. Was this done intentionally to sell more packs? It probably was. The card companies will claim that is not the case, but most collectors don't believe them. Personally I don't go out of my way to get the error cards. I am not going to pay a premium price for any card. Of course since these cards are from a set was overprinted, they are not worth much. The true Smoltz card is worth all of a quarter, and the impostor is worth a whopping dime, and that is provided you can find a collector willing to get that. Of course, if I found a Braves fan I might get a little more for them, but I definitely couldn't retire from the proceeds. In case you don't know, the true Smoltz card is on top. The impostor is a legitimate MVP on his own, Tom Glavine.

Goodbye Kerry.

Yesterday the Cubs traded minor league pitcher Jose Ceda to the Florida Marlins for pitcher Kevin Gregg. Gregg will become the Cubs closer which means that Kerry Wood became expendable. The Cubs will not resign him. Kerry has been with the Cubs since 1997. He became a phenom when in his fifth start he tied the major league record by striking out 20 batters in one game. Unfortunately he has been plagued by injuries and has been on the disabled list 12 times.

Gregg is somewhat of a question mark because he needs knee surgery, but should be fine by spring training. He currently is the highest paid player on the Marlins, and since he is eligible for arbitration the Marlins let him go. When healthy he is a great closer, so hopefully his health problems will be taken care of and he will pitch up to his ability.

I will follow Kerry next year. I hope he has a good season and I hope he stays a relief pitcher. He just gets hurt too easily when he starts.