The 1K/2K club: Wade Redden

I've been wanting to start this series of posts for about 6 months now.  Sometimes I find it difficult to take an idea and formulate how I want to write about the player/card that I want to feature.  I finally just decided to wing it, and when I get a card I like that depicts that player, write the post.  Simple as that.

What inspired this?  I've long enjoyed how NHL teams celebrate the accomplishment of playing 1000 games in the league.  I saw the Hal Gill ceremony last season and was very impressed at how the Canadiens celebrated his milestone.

So I figured, I could do the same thing with cards.  But, I didn't want to limit it to just hockey.  I collect baseball cards after all.  So a little rough math was done, and since baseball players seasons are roughly twice as long as hockey players (162 games vs 82), I figured that anyone who played 2000 games in MLB should be worthy of being "honored".

Without further adieu, here's my first player in the series.  Wade Redden, currently playing for the St. Louis Blues.

2000-01 UD Exclusives parallel #'d 7/100

What's good about Redden's story?  The fact that Wade was banished to the minors for the past 2 years because the New York Rangers needed to "bury" his contract, it looked as if he may never get another shot at playing in the NHL. 

Thankfully, the most recent CBA allowed amnesty buyouts before this season started, and Redden was able to sign with the St. Louis Blues.  Redden has now played in 1004 games, and at age 35 hopefully has a few years left in him to add to that total.

There will be many more posts such as this as this series continues.  Have a player you would like featured in the 1K/2K club?  Send me an email or a comment.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Sandy Koufax for $10 please

I could sit and post all day about the great haul I scored today at the card show.

But this one card just says it all for me:

1964 Sandy Koufax #200:

Yes, it has creases and soft corners, but like it or not for $10, this was coming home with me. 

One of the '64 white whales......GONE.....

Thanks for reading, Robert

I guess this card has been sitting on my desk for a reason

I'll be looking for Don Cherry's "Coach's Corner" segment on Saturday night to see what he has to say about this guy...

Because after the game Nazem Kadri had this evening, Cherry will have a blast poking fun at the old regime.

Yes, I know not much of a post, but at least it included some kind of card!! 

Thanks for reading, Robert

Coming soon to an American League ball park near you

Call me crazy, but I would like to see these uniforms back full time, not just as a retro uniform worn for special occasions.

While you're at it, bring back Terry Puhl, Enos Cabell, Jose Cruz Sr., Nolan Ryan, Mike Scott, Alan Ashby, Bob Watson, and everyone else from those early to mid 80's teams. 

I don't think having the DH is going to help these guys out a whole lot this year. 

thanks for reading, Robert

Moving faster than the speed of sound

I'm not exactly sure why, but I somehow got a thought in my head (yep, it does happen once in a while) that putting the '75 Topps set together was going to be a difficult proposition.  I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the Yount and Brett RCs were both very pricey cards and probably would take me some time to pickup a copy.

Well, my good fortune with pulling the Tony Gwynn autograph and turning the proceeds of that sale into both of those RCs has changed my thought process quite a bit.

I still have quite a few cards that are going to cost a pretty penny from the '75 set still to pickup, such as the Hank Aaron's (#'s 1 & 660), Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, and the RCs of Jim Rice and Gary Carter.  The fact that I'm only 95 cards from completing one of the best sets of the 70's (or the best one if you ask a certain Owl) has really surprised me.

I was able to visit a card store that I'd never been to previously last weekend, and I will say this, I was impressed with the customer service.  One of the reasons I went in was to try and knock off a few cards from my want lists.  The '75 set took a nice hit, I was able to knock 35 cards off of my want list, including the following...

How about a trio of first basemen...

Love Hargrove's nickname  "the human rain delay".  Bill Buckner, for all the years he played, never struck out more than 39 times in a season.   With two seasons over 700 plate appearances to his credit, the fact that he struck out so rarely is even more amazing.  Dan Driessen was 3rd in Rookie of the year voting in 1973, finishing behind Gary Matthews and Steve Rogers.  I found it interesting that he's listed as a third baseman on his '75 card, until I looked up his '74 stats and found out that he played 125 games at the hot corner.  Pete Rose was moved to 3rd base in '75 for the Big Red Machine, and Driessen was a utility player for the next two seasons before finally claiming the 1st base job in '77 from Tony Perez(who had been traded to the Expos). 

How about a couple of airbrushed cards for your entertainment?

I was aware that Billy Williams had played with the A's at the end of his career, but I had no idea that Jim Northrup was a member of the Orioles.  It's funny to look at the Northrup card, because you can tell right away that he's wearing a Tigers jersey.  The Orioles cap, well it just doesn't look quite right. 

Now I was fortunate enough to knock one other Hall of Famer off of my want list, and that just happened to be the human vacuum cleaner, Brooks Robinson

So far, this is easily one of my favorite cards from the 1975 set, even though it looks as if someone stole the bill off of Brooks' batting helmet. 

This set will be one of the big hitters at the monthly card show this weekend.  I know for sure that I will not complete it, but if I can knock off a good portion of the commons that I need (probably about 50), then all that will remain will be the HOFers and RCs....

Those cards should slow down the process for sure.

Thanks for reading, Robert

799

799.  That's how many cards out of the 1500 I have towards completing the SNI set.  It has definitely been a fun project since I started working on it 17 months ago.  I've had quite a few people set aside cards, buy cards at shows, and overall just enjoy the fact that they are helping me become a little more insane each day.

Brian at Play at the Plate is one of those who has taken the time to send me some great stuff for this set.  Brian is actually responsible for 21 of the 799 cards that I have, going back as far as 2002 Topps for a couple of them.  Brian's most recent envelope contained the 799th card for the set...some guy named Buster Posey

I don't have a pocket full of these

I've actually made a dent in the pile of serial #'d cards I need to post on the other blog.  Buster is now on the top of that pile.  If you have serial #'d parallels of Orioles, Astros or the Rockies, those are the 3 teams that are lagging behind and are wanted desperately.  Let me know!

Brian didn't want Buster to be lonely in that envelope he sent me, so he included some blue Blue Jays:

The blue, well it just works very well for these cards.  But for some reason, I believe the emerald green is more appealing.

They don't scan quite as well as they look in person, at least for me.  But I think in a 9 pocket sheet, these emerald parallels will look fantastic.  Maybe green should have been the official color of the "sea turtle set", what do you think?

I hope to have my Blue Jays want list completed by the end of this weekend, only 11 more years to list!!

Brian, thank you for the great envelope, it really was appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert

OK, 5 days is long enough

I admit it, I've really been a slacker the past few days. There's been other things in my life that have been more important than posting.  Things such as:

• Sleep.  Ever since I went out of town early on Friday morning (I was up at 4 am), my inner clock was messed up.  I went to bed on Friday and Saturday nights before 10pm.  Man I'm getting old.
• Trying to get Comcast to figure out how to get me the Center Ice package.  I finally grew weak and resolved to follow my blue and white for the rest of the season.  Problem was, Comcast couldn't figure out how to bill me for the package.   Really.  It took them 3 days to figure out how to do it.  Oh, and by the way, when a Comcast phone representative tells you they are going to phone you back, don't believe them.  They are full of shit.

To be honest, I wasn't going to sit back down at the keyboard and write for another few days.  I'm off of work now until next Monday, and I was going to use the time to clean up the disaster area, get the Blue Jays want list up to date and generally recharge myself and my thoughts.  I have cards to scan, stories to tell and thoughts about cards in general to share, but I've been in such a blah mood over the past week that I just didn't care to share anything.

It's funny how one sentence can change things. 

I've never thought of myself as one who inspires.  In the card collecting blogosphere, I consider myself just one of the cogs.  Nobody special, just a guy who likes to write and bullshit a little bit about the hobby we all love. 

I decided to get off of my ass today and write a thank you email to Trevor over at the Supporting the Minnow blog for the cards he sent me last week.  Here was his one sentence response.

No problem. It was your blog and white whale that inspired me.

I've actually inspired someone.  It may be sad to you, but that made me feel pretty damn good.  Good enough to get me off of my ass and start writing this post.  Now, I just have one question for Trevor.  Which white whale??  (I figure I have enough white whales I need right now that they could be called a school)

Well, enough of the schmaltzy stuff, here's a few cards for you.  I decided to chase down the 2008 Upper Deck X die cuts set, largely because I like how the cards look, and at just 100 cards, it should be relatively easy to put together.

I won a lot of 15 of them on eBay last week for a whopping 99 cents plus shipping, so what the hell, I'll show them off to you...

 I already have one fifth of the set.  Can't beat that with a stick.

I'm toying with the idea of making some cosmetic changes to the blog, because just like everything else in my life, every year or two I crave a change.  At least with the blog, it doesn't cost me anything.

After 5 days, I'm back.  I'm sure that nobody noticed I was gone anyhow...

Thanks for reading, Robert