Have you ever worn something made of wood?

It's not too often that my posts are centered around just one card, but after looking at this card a couple of times, I just had to poke some fun at it.

This card arrived in the mail today, courtesy of a win on eBay earlier this week.  This was one of those deals where you say to yourself  "I can't leave it there for that price".

2005 Topps Pristine Game Used bat card featuring Joe Carter.  99 cents plus shipping.  Card is in great shape, couldn't have asked for anything better.

Then I look again.

Title Threads, with a piece of bat.  Am I mistaken, or would threads suggest a jersey piece/swatch?  I'm sure that I've seen these kinds of errors before, but the wording still seems kind of odd. 

I love the whole idea of the card however.  The top of the card is great!  1993 World Series Champion Blue Jays in nice big lettering. 

The pic of Joe Carter reminds me of the endless number of ABs he had in a Jays jersey.  When Joe was at the plate, there was never a dull moment. 

The back of the card tells how his walk off HR in Game 6 of the '93 series was the 2nd in World Series history (I'm sure you're tired of me talking about that moment, so I will not go any further with it).

I can't for the life of me think of anything that would be considered "threads" that are made of wood.  I even tried to recall anything that I may have read from George R R Martin's series of books that would lead me to believe that people in medieval times wore anything of wood, no luck there as well.

Book 4 of the series, if you're into medieval fiction, I recommend highly

OK...I've picked on this card enough.  It's still a great add to my collection.  I would still like to add something to the Jays collection that says "20xx World Series Champions".

20 years since the last title is already too long a wait.

Thanks for reading, Robert

I love when cards remind me of home

I've been here in western PA a little over 14 years now, and despite all my grumblings, I'm very happy with my life here.  The cost of living is fairly low, and thankfully the key component of it all, my loving wife, puts up with my hobby. 

It's funny how things happen suddenly that give you a taste for your hometown.  A taste I really haven't had in a while, even though I love the city.

Within the past week, I found two cards, and one blog, that reminded me of Toronto.  (Trevor, if you're reading, check your email)

I got the first card at the card show I hit last Saturday, it's a jersey card of a young Leaf player that I hope very soon will make the lineup and start scoring goals as Leaf fans have wanted him to do since he was drafted a few years back.

#'d 31/499

Great City Lights jersey card featuring Nazem Kadri, and the best part of the card for me is how Panini incorporated the CN Tower (or the Bell Tower, or the Rogers Tower, goodness knows one of the corporate cronies may have bought the rights to it by now) into the "City"  The shot also features a great view of the skyline, including the Sky Dome on the left (screw it, I refuse to call it the Rogers Center). 

The 2nd card that reminded me of home is a card I received from Nick over at Dime Boxes as part of a group of Jays he sent my way:

Again the CN Tower is featured, this time on the Donruss Studio 2004 card of Alex Rios.  This card also has a nice view of the Toronto skyline, and the Sky Dome is there, although a little difficult to see.  I could be a sarcastic bastard here and say that the only thing really wrong with the card is the player featured on it....

Nope, didn't say it...

I have no intentions of going back to Canada to live.  The US of A is the best country on this planet, and one of the proudest days of my life was becoming an American citizen back in 2006.  However, no matter where I may end up here, these two cards that are part of my collection now will always remind me of why I bleed blue and white.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Stupid stuff

What I see more and more on posts is that guys (and gals) are just having fun with their posts.  We tend to forget after a while that collecting/blogging is not all about ripping on Topps (although that is a common theme for the '12 release), or some other great concern to come to mind at the current time.

It's about fun.  Once in a while, posting about nothing at all, and having fun with it.  Sometimes I have to remind myself of this when I'm sitting here watching the smoke rise from my skull as I try and think of something to write.

Sometimes, all I want to do is write stupid stuff on my blog, and laugh at myself while doing it.

That's right.   I said stupid stuff.

I wonder about stupid stuff I see on cards all the time, such as this one.

Did I miss something?

Please someone tell me when Manny appeared in an Oakland A's uniform?  Honestly, Manny wore the #1?  Maybe I'm not following as closely as I should be.

Or the pleasure I get when I see red parallels on my favorite blue and white teams.

Seeing Red...thank you Nick!!

Now from a company with a name like "Pacific", you'd think that I'd be able to dig up some blue parallels of my blue and white team....wrong again...

Red, white and blue, the hard way.  thank you Max!!

Sometimes my stupidity is pretty simple, I see a card and think that somebody may be getting high fived, or somebody may be getting slapped in the face.

Raise your hand, raise your hand.....if you're Sure!

I bet you all had no idea that when Joba Chamberlain went to Nebraska he was called "The Faceless Pitcher"?

Somebody tell me how this pic gets on a baseball card.

Can somebody tell me why every time I watch an Indians game and I hear this guys name I start singing "Oye Como Va".  (Or for you younger bloggers, Smooth)

The previous 3 cards were brought to you in part from a trade with PATP.  Thank you Brian!

Maybe it's wondering if Ryan Kalish is actually going to climb the other 29 feet (approximately) to get to the top of the Green Monster

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea thinking I could take a HR away"

Or wondering whether the sticker on a card received in the mail is the price someone paid for it, or if the sticker is actually an informal invoice.  The actual joke here is on me...I didn't notice the sparkle on the front of the card until I looked at this scan...seriously

PATP....autograph....what autograph??

Even piling on to another bloggers' posts could leave me "seeing red"

One of the many that Anthony sent me...thank you again!

Bet you're wishing you had the last 3 minutes of your life back don't you?

Or maybe I got lucky and some of my stupid stuff got a laugh out of you....

Thanks for reading, Robert

It's been over 25 years already?? Say it aint' so..

Bloggers my age will understand what I'm talking about here.  Have you ever opened a trade package in the mail, looked at the cards and said to yourself  "Oh my God I remember when..." then of course you can fill in the blank at the end of that sentence.

Well, a few days after receiving a great box of '86 Topps from Anthony at the Get the bat off your shoulder! blog, I took a good look at the cards today, and a flood of memories came to mind about a lot of the players in the box. 

I just couldn't believe it's been more than 25 years since:

Vince Coleman broke the rookie record for stolen bases in a season:

110 steals!!  Think we may ever see triple digits again?

It's been 25+ years since we had a guy by the name of Razor (and yes, Razor was his middle name)

Even better...his manager was Buck Rodgers (a character from science fiction for those of you who may not be familiar)

It's been 25+ years since Dave Kingman wore a porn mustache...

I can never recall Dave Kingman wearing a mustache...guess I was wrong

I wonder if Mookie Wilson knew that he was going to make history during the '86 World Series

I sure fire don't remember Tommy John pitching in the Bay Area....ever

LA, check.  Yankees, check.  Angels, check.  A's?? 

Finally, this guy 25+ years ago could have been considered Rickey Henderson's "wingman"

Fast, hit for power, and roamed center field in Oakland while Rickey was in left.  Why do I bring him up now?  Dwayne is the hitting coach in Toronto, and the team seems to resemble him quite a bit.  Can hit for power, strike out quite a bit, steal some bases and hit in the neighborhood of .250...

I could have easily scanned 50 of the cards and came up with little blurbs on a lot of them.  Names such as Charlie Leibrandt (Jays killer in '85), Nolan Ryan in an Astros uni, Lou Whitaker, Phil "Scrap Iron" Garner, Orel Hershiser, and the list goes on and on.

Oh, and the fact that I scanned three Oakland A's cards out of this massive pile is purely coincidental.

Anthony, thank you very much for the 86s!  They are much appreciated.

thanks for reading, Robert

My how the landscape has changed

I admit it, when it comes to cards, I am spoiled.  I grew up in a very large city, and the shows that I attended when I was younger were pretty damn good.  Mind you, when I was attending shows regularly, it was during the boom period between 1989-1993, when everybody and their brother was trying to make a buck selling cards. 

It was fun attending shows on a weekly basis, getting out and meeting people.  Looking for the latest and greatest cards amongst a group of 30-40 regular dealers. 

My how the landscape has changed.  I hit a mall show down in Pittsburgh yesterday, and if there were a total of 10 tables set up, I'd be surprised.  Even the mall show that was closer to my hometown here usually had about 20 tables up and running. 

Hopefully this is just an indicator of the time of year that we are in; summertime usually means more people outside, and card geeks like me having a harder time finding good card shows. 

I didn't fare too badly at the show however, I managed to pick up a few cards that were interesting.  First off, I always get a kick out of seeing a pitcher featured on a bat card, and this card here is no exception.

195 career hits..0 career HRs

It is a 2010 Topps Tribute card, #33/50 of Don Sutton.  The bat portion is kind of cool, it is so rough that you would think that you could get a splinter if you rubbed your finger the wrong way on the card!

I also snagged an auto of a 70's Dodger pitcher that is sure to make a Dodgers blogger happy.  (At least I hope it does, cause he's been waiting a while for my end of our trade)

My quest for the elusive 'dime box' came up empty again (do these things actually exist in the world?), the closest I could find was a 3/$1 box.  I was able to find a handful of vintage cards in there that were in decent shape, so in the pile they went...

The Dalton Jones card is actually in excellent shape, one of the best vintage cards I've ever got my grubby hands on.  The '64 Dick Williams is kind of rough, but still it's one more to check off the list. 

For those of you that follow hockey at all, one of the big themes of the weekend seemed to be the movement of brothers around the league.  Luke Schenn being reunited with brother Brayden in Philly, and Jordan Staal moving from Pittsburgh to Carolina to be with his brother Eric to name two. One of the best stories of the weekend was the brother of Montreal defenseman PK Subban, Malcolm, being drafted by the Bruins.  It was very cool the joy that PK expressed when his brothers' name was called; the rivalry that should develop between those two should be fun to watch for years to come.  I managed to snag a jersey card of big brother PK at the show...

Black Diamond has always been one of my favorite UD 'brands'

Maybe the lack of shows is another sign that I should be saving my money for the National at the beginning of August.  After all, 5 weeks isn't that long to wait, right??  Let's see if I can get there without the budget being dented too badly.

Thanks for reading, Robert

It's not often I take a couple of days off

You ever get that feeling when you're away for a couple of days from work/school because you're sick, or you decided to take a mini vacation, that you are behind the rest of the world?

That's how I feel today.  Like the blogosphere has passed me by.  I didn't write on Thursday because I was kind of wiped out by the time I sat down at the keyboard, and the inspiration just wasn't there.  I didn't write yesterday because we have friends in town and I wanted to spend some time with them.

Well, this evening is another matter.  I am at the keyboard and ready to go.

I could talk about lots of things.  One of them being my attendance at the 2nd day of the NHL draft today.  For me, that was quite the experience.  It showed me how the first round of the modern day drafts have become a shmaltz fest for the networks.  The first round took 4 hours last night, I was there for 1 hr and 45 minutes today and watched 3 full rounds and part of a 4th.  What a difference. 

The best part about the event, which was also unexpected, was a few tables of cards were set up!  I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at what was there, because I had a card show that I planned to attend later in the afternoon, but I did manage to find a couple of Leafs jersey cards for $2 apiece...can't leave them there at that price.

I was kind of Russian, so I grabbed these two really quick

The card show was a bit of a disappointment...not as many tables as I'd hoped for, but still there was some goodies to take home. 

Those I will show you tomorrow..

Thanks for reading, Robert