The wife was able to have some fun at my expense today...(but in the end I had the most fun)

I've had the luxury this week of working the early shift at work, meaning I get to be home every day at 530 pm instead of 900 pm.  With all that's been going on with my blog since the beginning of the month, I've been very fortunate lately to have completed quite a few trades, and ultimately receive lots of bubble envelopes in the mail.  My wife, bless her heart, has noticed this and been very supportive.  Today was her opportunity to have some fun at my expense though.  One of my habits when I get home is to check the mailbox, partly because of the trades, and partly because she forgets to check.  So, today when I arrive home, no bubble mailers coming out of the mailbox, and only some letters inside.  I think to myself, oh well maybe tomorrow.  I walk inside the house, and she's already grabbed the good packages...actually in this case, 2 boxes!!  The boxes were full of Jays/Autos/Lineage Group Break cards from both Eric at Manupatches and Chrome Scratches and Chris over at Nachos Grande.  Did I ever have fun breaking these two boxes open!!

Anyone who has followed my blog knows that my Long Term Project (LTP) has been to build up my Jays collection (Leafs LTP coming this fall...kind of a pun), and my initial goal was to hit 250 unique cards by the end of the year.  Well, scratch that...the guys today sent me a huge stack, and I should be close to 300 cards by the time I'm done sorting them all.  I'll show you a few of the highlights of the two boxes.

What's got me chasing the diamond parallels??

Two more diamond anniversary parallels from Topps '11, plus an Andre Dawson diamond parallel from Lineage, I like that card because I always liked watching the Hawk play.

Lineage group break pulls

Some cool pulls from the Lineage group break, I'm lacking in autos for trade bait, even though it's only David DeJesus, it's still an auto.  I was glad to see the Strasburg mini, I don't have much of him at all, and the 3D Mauer looks pretty cool as well (I will forever link Mauer with the Play Station commercial..."well played Mauer").

Jays cards from the Lineage group break

Some great cards for the Jays collection as well from the group break, and I will admit right now, that I was VERY wrong about Jose Bautista.  When he signed his big contract a while back, I spoke up on the Tao of Stieb blog and said that the Jays overpaid for him, and he wouldn't hit more than 25 HR's this year (ha....he's got 37 now and counting...). 

The best outfield in baseball in the first half of the 80's

I still can remember Barfield gunning down base runners with his cannon of an arm...I remember George Bell hitting 3 HR's on opening day in KC...I remember Shaker Moseby running down fly balls in the old Exhibition Stadium (TO's version of a mistake by the lake) and stealing 30+ bases a yr for 5 yrs in a row.  By the way, for my readers out there, any of your teams have a dynamic outfield trio for 7-8 years like we had in Toronto?  Post in the comments please, it definitely will be educational for me, and likely the subject of a post or 3 in the future. 

Three other cards that I really like

Eric sent me a couple of autos, and I know that these players are not household names, but the cards really popped for me.  (I guess what they say about small minds liking shiny things is true....lol)  In addition, I've always liked Dick Perez's artwork, and this sketch of Halladay I really liked, even though it's not the greatest representation of Roy. 

One thing I learned as well today, the Lineage cards are growing on me.  Honestly, they are overpriced, but the design is simple and not cluttering up the whole front of the card.  If the price point on this was more around the $2.50 mark per pack, then I might be tempted to go after the set. 

Thanks again to Eric and Chris for the great trades...be sure to check out their blogs, both of them have some very entertaining reading...

Thanks for reading, Robert