Superstitious

This past weekend I began the semi-annual process of updating my closets for work.  Out went the short sleeved shirts, in went the long sleeves.  While doing that I came across my Maple Leafs jersey.  11 games into the season, and I hadn't even brought it out of the closet.  Shame on me.

So, with the Leafs battling the Penguins on Saturday night, on it went.  And after a slow start, the Leafs won 4-1.  Tuesday night, the Leafs were in Edmonton, and even though I wasn't able to watch the game, I listened to it while donning the same Leafs jersey.  A 4-0 win over the Oilers.

I felt a pattern was starting to develop, so I wore the jersey again yesterday while listening to the Leafs play in Calgary.  A 4-2 win over the Flames, and I'm starting to wonder if I should ever remove the jersey on game days.

Now you may think I'm becoming a bit superstitious, but that's far from the case.  I just want my team to win, and I'm doing what I think is necessary in order to aid that purpose.  I've never been one to believe in superstitions.  I have no qualms walking underneath ladders. I'll chase black cats that walk in my path. I stepped on all the cracks in the sidewalk when I was a kid. I have never worried about opening an umbrella indoors.  Break a mirror?  A necessary evil if you've ever seen this bloggers ugly mug...

I've never been afraid of the #13 either.  What's the big deal about the number anyways?  So what if there's 13 steps that lead up to the gallows?  Friday the 13th is just another day of the month on the calendar.  Yes, I know of the religious tones surrounding the #13, but I will not go there...

People worry too much about superstitions.  I wonder if Mats Sundin wore 13 just to spite everyone...

Look at the guy, defiantly wearing the number that many North American people are afraid of.  Look where it got him, 564 career goals, and probably one of the top 5 players to wear the blue and white (IMO).

Why did I show this particular card you may ask?  It is from the 1999-2000 MVP silver signature parallel set, a set that I am going to try and finish off next weekend when I hit the Expo in Toronto.  I've had a bit of trouble locating the last 6 cards I need to finish off the set recently, and I'm hoping that I'll get lucky up there.

Who knows?  Maybe one of you non-superstitious bloggers out there may have cards #'d 8,48,131,133,161,210, or any combination thereof to help a fellow blogger out.  Even if I'm not able to finish the set while I'm there, just the mere ability to walk around for 2 days surrounded by the incredible number of hockey cards, and collectors, will give me chills. 

Only 8 days to go....I can't wait.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Serial Insanity cards 1001-1005

67% complete.  Only 495 cards to go.  It still blows my mind each step that the set takes towards the 1500 card finish. 

I have 3 bloggers to thank for the cards in this post, one of them being Kevin at The Diamond King blog, who sent quite a few cards that will be featured in the next 3 posts.

Enjoy the next 5...

Card # 1001:  Sean Rodriguez

Serial Number:   1188
38th card out of 50 for the Rays

The 2010 season for Sean gave him his career bests in hits (86), runs batted in (40) and positions played (7).  Yep, he played every position in the field except for pitcher and catcher.  Sean hasn't played a lot of games over his career, but he hasn't made an error in any of the 3 outfield positions, or at first base.  For me, that's impressive...

Card # 1002:  Adam Wainwright

Serial Number:  1361
39th card out of 50 for the Cardinals

Numbers may not lie, but sometimes they don't always tell the true story.  Wainwright's postseason career numbers are as follows:  2.53 ERA, WHIP of 0.990, 10.1 K/9, 7.7 hits/9 and 6 HR in 67.2 innings.  Damn good numbers for a guy whose record in the postseason is 4-3.  That's what happens I guess when you face the best of the best....

Card # 1003:  Jose Castillo

Serial Number:  1144
34th card out of 50 for the Pirates

Another guy who plays multiple positions.  Has spent the past 4 seasons in Japan (2010-2011), and Mexico (2011-2013).    The Mexican league is agreeing with him for sure, his average has been well over .300 each of the 3 seasons he's played there, and he's hit 50 homers in 279 games.  At 32, maybe he'll get another shot at the bigs someday...

Card # 1004:  Jhonny Peralta

Serial Number:  1136
35th card out of 50 for the Indians

Interesting card, we don't even get to see Jhonny's face while sliding into home plate.  Did you know that there are seven other players that are property of big league clubs that spell their first name Jhonny?  Yes, just another piece of useless information that you can impress your friends with....OK maybe not.

Card # 1005:  Carlos Silva

Serial Number:  1127
30th card out of 50 for the Twins

I'm sure that Carlos was looking forward to the 2007 season, the year that this card is from, because 2006 was very forgettable.  11-15, 5.94 ERA, 1.542 WHIP and 38 HRs allowed.  Carlos finished his career with a .500 record at 70-70.

thanks for reading, Robert

An eclectic group of cards

When I pored over a great padded envelope of cards that came in to my mailbox yesterday from Nick over at the Dime Boxes blog, the word eclectic came to mind.

     eclectic:  adj.  deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Now anyone that hunts through dime boxes to find his treasures certainly could be called eclectic, because the fodder for dime box hunts comes from a period where the card companies released a wide assortment of cards, some pleasing to the eye and some.....well.....

Let's have a little fun and look over some of that diversity, shall we?

Sorry Dave, no matter how badly this may go, we're going to go through with it anyhow....

Now here we have Devon White doing an advertisement for pine tar on the left.  On the right, we have Devon White doing an advertisement for a product that is nowhere near similar to pine tar.

The only non Blue Jay in the envelope was this card...

How could you not like a card featuring a play at the plate with the Kid?  Unlike hockey where the red white and blue is hated, the Expos were a team I found easy to cheer for when I was younger.  The team could hit, could run, and was young during the early 80's.  I can still hear Dave Van Horne and Duke Snider calling games on CBC on the weekend...

I was able to knock off one of the emerald cards from the Blue Jays team set for this year....

How about a Classic spelling error (a sign of the times in the junk wax era)

I before E applies in Dave's name as well.

Nick sent some shiny to appeal to the kid in me...

I actually read about a week or so ago an article online about what the Jays should get in return for Jose Reyes.  If the Jays trade him, it might be time for me to jump ship.  They haven't had a decent leadoff hitter in quite some time, and trading this guy would just set them back 10 years...

Finally, at least there was one Canadian in the envelope amidst all the Blue Jays

This is probably the only card that could feature Dave McKay exclusively as a 2nd baseman.  Dave played 140 games in '78 at 2nd, every other year of his career he split time between 2nd, short and 3rd.

Nick, thank you very much for the envelope, very much appreciated.

Note to self:  Find a word to describe cards in the future that is easier to type than eclectic.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Three

This post is the tale of two PWE's that I received in the mail today.  Why is the post called "three" you ask? Three cards were in those two envelopes.

One of the envelopes I was expecting to arrive, and it contained one card.  The other envelope was a pleasant surprise from a fellow blogger, and it contained two cards.

The first envelope was an eBay auction that I won last week for one of the remaining '75 Topps cards to complete my set, # 180 Joe Morgan.

I paid $3.99 + $1.99 shipping for the card.  For that price, the card arrived on my doorstep in a PWE, in a top loader with the front of the top loader taped to a piece of cardboard.  There wasn't a penny sleeve used, and everyone knows what happens to a card when it is placed in a top loader without a penny sleeve.  Tip it over, and it falls out.  The card was sticking about a quarter of the way out of the top loader when I opened the envelope.

Wonderful.

This is what I get for impulse buying.  Two of the five cards I bought on last Monday's buy-a-thon were minis, the third was the Morgan you see above, and the other two were actually in good shape when they arrived.  Not only did I learn my lesson about impulse buying, but I've also learned to look a lot more closely when I buy cards from eBay and make sure that shippers use bubble envelopes.  I understand that people are looking to save a buck wherever they can, but I'm sure that sellers that do well on eBay (and any other selling forum for that matter) do so because of repeat business.  I will not be a repeat customer for that seller.

Bitch fest over.  By the way, I'm down to three cards to complete the '75 set.  I hope to obtain those this weekend.

The other two cards that arrived in a PWE came from Pat over at the Hot Corner blog.  A pair of gold birds were found inside this unexpected pleasure...

I haven't heard anything regarding Ricky Romero and what his status will be for 2014 and beyond.  I imagine that the Jays are going to have to eat his salary for the next 2 years and buy him out after 2015 unless a miraculous turnaround occurs.

The Adam Wainwright on the right is another piece of the serial insanity puzzle.  One is better than none!
Thank you very much Pat for the unexpected PWE!!

I also received another dose of generosity today from another blogger, and that will get its own post tomorrow (hopefully).

Thanks for reading, Robert

1000 is a lot farther than I thought I would ever reach with the SNI project

Today's the day.  2 years ago I started this mission to find 1500 unique serial numbered cards, 50 for each major league franchise.

So far, I have 1000 of them listed on a spreadsheet.  It's been great having people hunt for cards to contribute to this set.  I think that's what makes me appreciate this project even more, the fact that it's been so well received (for the most part).

So without further adieu, here are cards 996-1000.

Card # 996:  Salvador Perez

Serial Number:  176
31st card out of 50 for the Royals

The Royals have got this guy locked up long term, and if he keeps progressing the way he has over his first 3 seasons, the $3.75M, $5M and $6M options for 2017-2019 are going to look like a steal for Kansas City. The blue Chrome refractors really do scan well, and it looks even better with the KC colors...

Card # 997:  Bobby Jenks

Serial Number:  1139
30th card out of 50 for the White Sox

Did a little digging to find out what happened with Jenks, only to find out that he's had a rough go of it since the end of his 2011 season.  Physical ailments (back surgery) and a DUI in March 2012 are the only notes I could find about him.  I hope that his life has improved over the past 18 months...

Card # 998:  Juan Gutierrez

Serial Number:  1163
32nd card out of 50 for the Diamondbacks

Half of the 26 HRs that JC has given up in his career were during the 2010 season.  2.1 HRs per 9 innings during that year is not a stat that anyone would want to have...

Card # 999:  Thomari Story-Harden

Serial Number:  1326
30th card out of 50 for the Dodgers

This is about as obscure a player as you're going to see in the SNI set.   Thomari never played above high A ball in the minors, and was out of the game by the age of 26.

Card # 1000:  Todd Wellemeyer

Serial Number:  1246
33rd card out of 50 for the Cubs

Now at least I've heard of Todd, who spent 8 seasons with 5 different clubs.  Todd had an interesting 2007 season.  He started on the western side of Missouri as a reliever with the Royals, and had an ERA over 10. The Cardinals picked him up off of waivers in May, turned him into a hybrid starter/reliever, and he pitched quite well in the eastern half of the state, with an ERA slightly above 3.

Just 500 more to go...the fun has only just begun with this insanity.

Thanks for reading, Robert

So I decided to go and buy some inserts...

Well, no not really.  I decided to buy some Topps Update today, and we all know that the packs are "insert driven".  There was a lot of the standard stuff in the packs, blue/green/gold parallels, chasing history inserts and the like.

There was however some new stuff inside.   The '71 minis would have been worth it if they had been inserted in the 1st and 2nd series instead of just in update.

Night and day I like these better than the '72s.  It would have been outside of the box for me to collect these if they had been released in series 1/2, due to my overall aversion to anything mini.  These 5 cards will be made available to the masses.

Another new insert is the Franchise Forerunners, a kind of "then and now" insert set.

I wonder if the Mets card could have featured someone a little bit older than David Wright as the forerunner. There were a few decent players in the Mets past as I recall.  But I don't get paid the big bucks to make those decisions, so oh well.   These are also available to the masses...

Any card with a knee to the side of the head/shoulder automatically becomes part of the top 5.  Didi Gregorius has got it going on with this card...

I wonder how Brandon Crawford felt after this...

Gregorius was one of 4 emeralds that I pulled.  I also snagged 2 golds, but neither of them fit into the SNI set, so they'll be offered as trade bait as well.

I also pulled a blue parallel of some guy who wears Mario Lemieux's number 66.  I've heard rumors that this guy is OK...

I'm sure that I'll need the base card of this guy as one of the final cards to put the Update set together.  Kind of like I needed the Buster Posey RC as the final card to finish my 2010 set.  So you Dodger bloggers out there, before you buy the 25th copy of this card for your collection, remember that this poor set collector is going to need one....

The manupatch paid homage to the 1965 All-Star game in the twin cities...

The Twins were well represented in the game, they had 5 position players + Mudcat Grant on the mound.  It was interesting to look at the rosters and see that only 8 pitchers were chosen for each league, a far cry from the bloated rosters that attend today's contests.

Standard stuff...you may now return to your regularly scheduled sporting event...

Thanks for reading, Robert

I thought I bought the Blue Jays in the group break

I participated recently in a great group break by Chris over at the Nachos Grande blog.  I was excited late last week to receive a big envelope full of cards, many of which I didn't own already (a good thing).

While I struck out on any "hits", I did get some interesting cards.  Four of these cards actually picture Jays players in other team's uniforms, something I know that a lot of people don't particularly care for.

At least the first player, Raul Mondesi, is wearing a uniform that has the same colors as the Jays.

Mondesi spent 2.5 seasons in Toronto, fairing reasonably well with 66 HRs.  It was interesting to go through his career stats and see that he had stops in Anaheim (8 games) and Atlanta (41 games) to finish up his career.   I still think that the Dodgers got the better end of the deal (Shawn Green) that sent Mondesi to the Jays.

These two cards represent two players that were at different points of their career.  Ted Lilly came to the Jays in a deal with the Oakland A's for outfielder Bobby Kielty (another player I don't remember as a Jay).  Lilly had 3 decent seasons in Toronto, winning 37 games with a combined ERA of 4.52.  Pat Hentgen was at the end of his career when he returned to Toronto in 2004, and the numbers showed it.  Pat's ERA was almost 7 in 16 starts that year, and with only 2 wins by July 15th, Pat didn't pitch another game after that.  There are rumors floating that Hentgen may become the Jays pitching coach some time in the near future. 

This last card I need a little bit of help with...

This 2002 Fleer Maximum card features Carlos Delgado in a vintage uniform that I don't recognize.  I'm guessing that they wore these uniforms sometime during 2001, but I can't find anything that describes what they represent.  Raul Mondesi also sported this type of uniform on his 2002 Fleer Maximum card.  If anyone has any information about these retro duds, please feel free to comment.  I would love to know what era they are from.


These 4 cards are just a small part of a great stack of Blue Jays that will be added to the collection.   Thanks for the group break Chris!

thanks for reading, Robert

Reading for comprehension helps

One thing that I have no problem doing is poking fun at myself.  I enjoy finding humor in some of the stupid things that I do.

This is one of those times.

On Monday night, I was feeling a little bit low, and not having spent a lot of money on cards since the show at the beginning of the month, I decided to hit eBay and try and find the final few cards to finish off the '75 Topps set.

Some pretty notable names on my list of remaining cards.  Joe Morgan, Carlton Fisk, the Mantle/Newcombe '56 MVP card, and this card below...

A pretty fair specimen of card #260, probably the best catcher that I'll see in my lifetime, Johnny Bench.

Just so you can see what I saw in the auction listing, take a look at it for yourself here.  I will say that the seller described the card very accurately, the centering and the corner were described correctly.

Anyone figure out what I missed?  If not, here's the one line description...

1975 Topps mini #260 Johnny bench.

It would have helped if I had looked at that one particular word.   I know why I missed it though.

After 2+ years in the blogosphere, I have come to understand the word is actually spelled

MMMMMMMMMMMMIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

See that my friends?  I do pay attention.  Sometimes to a fault....

Oh well, I guess I'll have to see if there are any bloggers out there putting together a '75 Topps mini set that are in need of a Johnny Bench. 

At least the seller accepted my offer price.  LOL

Thanks for reading, Robert

Serial Insanity cards 991-995

Getting close to the 1000 card mark for the SNI set.  That card will be shown this weekend. 

Meanwhile, enjoy the next 5...

Card 991:  Brian Fuentes

Serial Number:  501
38th card out of 50 for the Cardinals

Ahhh, the life of a reliever.  Over a 12 year major league career, Fuentes had a grand total of 1 AB.  Brian went 0 for 1 against a fellow named Nate Bump.  Yea, I never heard of Nate either.  At least Fuentes didn't strike out...

Card # 992:  Chris Perez

Serial Number:  894
33rd card out of 50 for the Indians

Gee, what a coincidence, Perez also only has 1 AB in his career.  Anyone remember Joe Nelson?   I'm sure Perez does, because he struck out against Joe...

Card # 993:  Endy Chavez

Serial Number:  1138
28th card out of 50 for the Mariners

Endy's had more than 1 AB in his career, so that story line is out of the question.  Endy had some success north of the border. Not for the Jays, but in Montreal during the last 3 years of the Expos existence.  By the way, helluva grab by Chavez in this photo.

Card # 994:  Carlos Santana

Serial Number:  1093
34th card out of 50 for the Indians

Great looking card of Carlos in full catchers gear.  Is it just me, or does it seem that Carlos has been around longer than 4 seasons.  I've mentioned this before when posting about Santana, but the Indians are doing right by him and using him in other spots to rest his legs.  Carlos had his best fielding pct of his career in 2013, with a combined .995 at catcher and 1B. 

Card # 995:  Chris Narveson

Serial Number:  942 (as you can plainly see)
28th card out of 50 for the Brewers

It has been quite a while since I've shown a card back for a SNI post.  Since I have shown Narveson before on the blog, I don't feel so guilty.  Take a look at the ride that Narveson took before finally hitting the Brewers in 2009.    The card has eighteen lines of stats on it before his debut with the Brewers in 2009, and only one line was with a MLB team (Cards in 2006).  God  bless him for that amount of dedication.

Thanks for reading, Robert

ImPrizmed

I avoided Panini Prizm baseball like it had the plague.  I prefer fully licensed products, and with Panini lacking a MLB license, the logo less cards looked less than desirable to me.

On a trip to the 'Mart on the weekend, I spied on the shelves a three pack of Panini Prizm hockey.  Seeing as I hadn't purchased any packs of cards in a few weeks, and wanting to sample something new (the store didn't have any Update), I figured what the heck.

I like them.  I know that I'm not going to chase this set, with the price point being similar to Topps Chrome (the 3 pack of Prizm cost $9.99), it's a little too much if you ask me.  Yes, that coming from the guy who is chasing down a '64 Topps set...call me whatever you like...

I did pull one base rookie out of the 3 packs, it wasn't a Galchenyuk, Huberdeau or Yakupov, but having the last name of Staal isn't too bad in today's NHL.

The pack also came with a mini pack of three blue pulsar cards.  Nice looking sure, but just another colorful temptation that I need to avoid...

If price wasn't an object, yes I would chase this set.  But a 4 pack of cards costs a little over $3, and with a 300 card set which includes 100 rookie cards, I think for sanity's sake that I'll have to pass.  I'm sure that the Maple Leaf blue parallels are something that I would really enjoy having though, so I may have to keep an eye out for them.  Only two and half weeks more until the Expo, maybe they'll have one or two of them there..

Thanks for reading, Robert

Serial Insanity cards 986-990

A little different take on the serial insanity set in this post. 

It consists of 5 team cards.  No players, just 5 team group shots from the 2011 Topps set.  No blurbs underneath each card.   Just a quick post for you to look over the cards.

One quick note, the Baltimore Orioles team card in this post makes them the last team to hit the 20 card mark.  I need Orioles!!! (never thought I would hear myself type that...)

Enjoy.

Card #986:  New York Mets

Serial Number:  1330
40th card out of 50 for the Mets

Card # 987:  Los Angeles Angels

Serial Number:  1096
42nd card out of 50 for the Angels

Card #988:  San Diego Padres

Serial Number:  1411
39th card out of 50 for the Padres

Card # 989:  Baltimore Orioles

Serial Number:  1167
20th card out of 50 for the O's

Card #990:  Chicago White Sox

Serial Number:  614
29th card out of 50 for the Pale Hose

thanks for looking, Robert

The joy of a completed SNI page, part 12

I prefer to do 2 or 3 posts worth of insanity cards before putting them into the binders/pages.  I decided to do the latest batch this afternoon. I put the last card in and what did I discover,another complete page!!

Here is page #14 in the set, cards numbered 118-126:

Unlike some of the pages that I've posted recently for the insanity set, barely half of this page was due to the generosity of the blogosphere.

Card 118:  Johnny Cueto from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders
Card 119:  Mark Teahen
Card 120:  Tony Armas Jr. from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders
Card 121:  Max Sapp from Max at Starting Nine
Card 122:  Angelys Nina
Card 123:  Jayson Werth was an eBay purchase
Card 124:  Troy Tulowitzki from Max at Starting Nine
Card 125:  Dan Uggla/Hanley Ramirez
Card 126:  Brian Schmitt from reader Brandon L.

Thank you to those who contributed to this page, and a big thank you to everyone out there who continues to hunt and feed my insane tendencies. 

Thanks for reading, Robert

Some PC from the DK

You have to love the emails you get that ask for your address and say "I've got free cards for you".

Free is good.  I know this because I've received free stuff in the past. 

This envelope I received yesterday from Kevin at The Diamond King blog was a great one to see.  Kevin sent me a very nice lot of cards for the SNI project. 17 of them as a matter of fact, and lots of serial numbered cards that size that fit the project have been few and far between.  That's to be expected because as the want list dwindles down, the groups will be smaller.   It'll be even more fun to find the cards as some of the teams start to fill up and get crossed off the list.  There's a few teams that are close to that threshold now, so keep an eye out for that.

The other part of the envelope contained the PC cards that entitled this post.  The Jim Thome PC jumped by 10 yesterday!

Lots of shiny stuff as well...

I especially like the '97 Score card on the bottom, I thought I might have to do a little digging to find out what kind of parallel it is, but the scripted writing on the back states that it is a "Showcase Series" card.  Score may not have been the greatest brand of cards in the 90's, but for parallel nuts such as myself, they sure made it easy to figure out what parallel you owned, because they usually identified it on the back.  The Metal card on the upper right didn't scan too well, but it's a great card when held to the light.

Die cuts?  Yes, a couple of them are in there as well, including one that I'd never seen anywhere before...

The Cheap Seat Treats insert on the left is a very interesting concept,.  You actually have to fold the seat down in order to see the entire picture of Thome (or whatever player you may have).  Not sure if I would have liked this concept when it came out in the 90's,   The Platinum Power card on the right got me thinking, mostly about the color of Platinum.  I never thought that platinum had a brownish tinge.  I guess the right color for this card would have made it more striking (for lack of a better word).  None the less, still a great card to have in the collection.

 How about a Star Rookie card of Thome holding a couple of bats and tossing a baseball.  Yes please!
The New Age performers insert card reminds me of the Big Bang Theory show with the spinning atoms.  The Team 2000 cards I remembered from Score hockey in the early 90's, and it appears that the concept worked quite well with baseball as well (at least in this case).

A fantastic envelope of cards, totally out of the blue.   Thank you very much Kevin, the cards are greatly appreciated!!

Blogger generosity strikes again...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Duane Ward will agree

This card blows....

What's even worse, I think I'm seeing double now...

More cool stuff from the Nachos Grande group break to come.

Sorry I didn't give you a better post today, it just wasn't a good day for me.

Thanks for looking, Robert

A post that's full of bull

I've mentioned here and there during my ramblings that I enjoy nicknames.  I could probably even start writing posts just about the great nicknames that have been given to players over the years.  (Chicken man is one of my favorites...)

I'm sure that there are a lot of you that probably can think of other instances, but the only nickname that I can ever remember having been given to two different players is "Bull".

I may be reaching just a bit, since the current version of the nickname is owned by Pedro Alvarez, who is commonly referred to by the Spanish version of the name, El Toro.

Those of you out there who are my age (or near), may remember the other bull that tore the cover off of the ball back in the 70's and early 80's, Greg Luzinski.

I figured, what the hell, let's do a comparison between the bulls, and see how the modern version stacks up to the 70's version.

Alvarez has 4 full seasons in the bigs to date, so I'll use that for comparison purposes.  (NOTE:  I did not use the '70 & '71 seasons for Luzinski, as he was only on the Phillies for limited periods of time.)

                             Alvarez               Luzinski
Games                    470                     557
Average                .235                    .286
Doubles                   77                      108
Triples                       5                       13
HR                           86                       88
RBI                         268                     333
Strikeouts             565                     476
Walks                     166                     211
Slugging Pct.      .443                  .479

Alvarez's 2011 season was dampened by injuries, but the numbers are noticeably in favor of Luzinski, both in batting average (50 point difference), and strikeouts (Alvarez with 80 more in 400 fewer ABs)

Alvarez does have 2 consecutive 30+ HR seasons to his credit, while Luzinski has a season of 34 and one of 29.

Luzinski's 4th season garnered him enough votes to finish 2nd in the MVP race (behind Joe Morgan).  Both Luzinski and Alvarez had all star game appearances in their 4th season.

Alvarez appeared in the post season first (4th season), while Luzinski's Phillies appeared in the NLCS in his 5th season.

In another 4 years, it will be interesting to revisit this comparison, as Luzinski had a couple of great power seasons in his 6th and 7th years.  The way Alvarez's numbers have progressed the past two years, we just may see a 40+ HR season.  Pedro's batting average needs to increase and the strikeouts to decrease in order for the gap between these two bulls to decrease.

In my opinion, the 70's "Bull" is ahead so far.  It should be fun to watch El Toro over the next few years and I think over time the comparison between these two should even out some more.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Toning it down, or gearing it up?

Ever since the monthly card show 9 days ago, I haven't bought anything.  I've avoided hitting the big box stores for a quick fix.  What's on the shelves right now just doesn't interest me, and even when the Update series comes out later this week, I don't think I'm going to chase that right away.

I tried adding cards to my cart at Sportlots, but for some reason I didn't pull the trigger.  There are sets that I'm close to finishing, but I just couldn't be bothered chasing them.

I even signed up for the COMC.com website (finally) on the weekend, and started a cart.  But for some reason, I didn't bother checking out (bad play on words...). 

I guess after my splurge from the end of September to the card show, maybe I'm feeling a little guilty about my bout of overspending.  I really haven't kept to the "$30 a week" moniker for the last little while, and I'm wondering if that is weighing on me.

Whatever the case may be, acquiring new cards is not in the cards (again, bad play on words), at least for the foreseeable future.  I do know that come the 2nd weekend in November, I will be heading back home for my trek to Canada's largest hockey card show.

So for the next 3 to 4 weeks, my task will be cleaning up my desk (like I always say it is) and writing about the cards I currently have in my possession.  What that means is unless you, the great and the good of the blogosphere, send me some cardboard goodness, I will be relying on 2 things alone for posts.

1.  The Serial Insanity set (which goes without saying)
2.  My brains

Holy shit am I in trouble...

With only about 3-4 posts worth of cards remaining on my desk for the SNI set, I've got to rely on my brains for the remaining 20 + posts over the next 26 days.  And no, this is not me begging everyone out there to send me a crazy mass of brown envelopes or PWE's.

Although I would not be adverse to seeing a few more cards from this set land in my mailbox...

Beautiful, even with the CH on it.

Jim over at the GCRL blog sent me a couple of Leafs from the 71-72 OPC set a few weeks back, and I must say that I'm hooked on this set.  This Rejean Houle card came as part of a 17 card lot I won on eBay in September for less than $10 (including shipping), which included names such as Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Norm Ullman. It appears that the card has spent some time in somebody's bike spokes...

The 71-72 OPC set is going to be somewhat similar to the '64 Topps baseball set that I'm putting together, expensive but attainable.  There are some expensive RCs in the set (Ken Dryden, Guy Lafleur and Marcel Dionne), the checklist cards go for a boatload of $$, and there are plenty of other HOFers that will command a pretty penny. 

With that in mind, it appears that I'm going to do my best to take it easy for the next few weeks, and save a little bit of cash so I am able to do some damage at the Expo.

Hard to say if I'm toning down my overspending from September, or just saving my money and getting geared up for November. 

LOL, let's see how long I can keep myself from reaching into my wallet.

Thanks for reading, Robert