You ever have one of those trades....

It starts out simple.  A fellow blogger sends you an email.   Hey Robert, I've got such and such for you.  I take a look at a nicely detailed want list and email back that I have a bunch for that person.

And it snowballed.  4 or 5 emails later, Matt from the 26 cent summer blog (his trade post linked here) and I had a deal done. 

The initial email Matt sent told me that I had a bunch of '73 Topps coming my way, 2 pages worth in total.

I'll show off 3 players you might know about:

How about Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager?

Yep, it's slightly miscut, but still a great card of Yeager.  Turns out this is Yeager's rookie card.  I never knew that Yeager once finished a game in 1969 after breaking his leg in a first inning plate collision. 

Now that's tough. 

We started with a very good catcher, let's move on to one that many would consider to be great...Johnny Bench.

Yes, you could say that this card has a crease or 3, but to be honest, it's still a great card.  It appears that Johnny is getting no love at all from the Giants (?) bench while attempting to catch a foul pop fly.

I don't think I've had the opportunity in the past to look at Bench's career stats.  The first thing that jumped out at me was his durability.  During Johnny's first seven years in the majors, the lowest number of games he appeared in was 147.  Incredible numbers for a catcher!

How about we move on to a legendary outfielder, some guy named Reggie...

It just seems a little strange to see Reggie without the usual #44 that we saw later in his career.  Anyone remember Reggie as a free swinger?  How about this stat...

9 straight seasons between 1972-1980, Reggie had more hits than strikeouts in each of those seasons.  But starting in the strike shortened 1981 season, his last 7 seasons he had more strikeouts than hits.  For his career, 2597 K's, 2584 hits.  In case you were wondering, Adam Dunn is the current threat to Reggie's all time K's mark as a hitter, he's only 465 behind.

Let's fast forward to 2011, and a set that has long been on the want list here, that's the '11 Heritage set.  Matt was kind enough to send a couple of SPs this way...

What's a trade package to the habit without a couple of Jays in it??  How about one each of the red/blue parallels from '13 Topps

Finally, Matt sent a couple of cards for the insanity project, including one that is going to present a little bit of a dilemma...

Got my choice of 3 teams on this card...just gotta decide which one to use.

Matt, thank you for the trade, the cards are very much appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert