Week 37 begins with a trip to the LCS

I love Saturdays.  It's that simple.  Saturday is the one day of the week where I really do get to do what I want to do.  That of course includes a trip to the LCS.  Aside from some supplies that I needed, I also picked up a few packs of fun.

First was three packs of Heritage.  I hadn't bought any hobby packs as of yet, and of course there really isn't much difference between the hobby and retail packs that you can pick up anywhere.

I did catch one SP (485, Mike Napoli), and I now have a couple of stickers to trade:

These are cool to look at, but I will not be collecting them, so if you're interested at all, just let me know.

I also bought some Opening Day as well, which is a purchase that I have never made before.  I found a couple of different inserts in the 1/2 dozen packs that I bought that I hadn't seen on blogs before...

Lind=X-fractor

I don't recall seeing the Fantasy Squad inserts before, but they are good looking cards.  The borders blend in with the background of the card, which is kind of cool.  The blue bordered Victorino is a numbered parallel, alas the number is too high for me to use for my insanity set, so it goes into the trade pile for a Phillies fan out there.  The Jered Weaver card in the top center is reminiscent of the Topps 2020 insert set from a couple of years back.  The card has that same kind of feel and look, and if there's an Angels collector that is interested, again let me know.

The only two cards from the scan that I will be keeping are the Jays cards (of course), anything else is available.

I also stopped a K-Mart and picked up a 3 pack of '11 Chrome, hoping to get lucky and pull either of the final 2 cards I need to complete the set (#'s are 20 & 170 in case you're wondering).  No luck there, but I did land some other decent cards.

The purple Matt Garza does fit into the insanity collection, so that's one more number I can strike off of the list.  The 3 orange bordered refractors are up for grabs, just let me know about those as well. 

I also have plenty of '12 Heritage base for trade, if you're looking for any specific numbers, or if you are interested in any of the cards I've mentioned above, send an email to rmitchell6700 AT yahoo dot com

Guess you could call this a trade post, without the trades....yet

Thanks for reading, Robert

I have the Jays to cheer on, now that the Leafs are gone

Here on the final night of the Leafs season at home (they have one more game Saturday night on the road), I am thankful.  Thankful that the last two months are almost over, and one of the most miserable slides a team can endure is almost over. 

I'm also thankful because I now have another team to cheer on...

Love these stickers

Yes indeed, the boys of summer have arrived!!  What a great start to the season it was as well, coming back from an early 4-0 deficit to defeat the Indians in 16 innings 7-4.

1st place, at least for a day.  I really am hoping that the great pre-season that the Jays had carries with it some confidence going into the regular season. 

To celebrate a win on opening day, in an oddball sort of way, I have a few non-traditional cards that I've received to share.

To preface these, I will tell you that I know very little about these "oddball" cards, so forgive me for the lack of information that I provide.

One of the Jays first sluggers is featured on this 1981 Drake's "Big Hitters" card, which was produced by Topps in 1981.  John Mayberry was actually purchased by the Jays from the Royals before the 1978 season, and went on to hit 92 HR's during his 5 seasons with the Jays, including becoming the first Jay to have a 30 HR season in 1980. 

Another slugging 1st baseman, Fred McGriff is featured on this 1990 K Mart superstars card.  Fred had just finished his 2nd consecutive 30+ HR season with the Jays in 1989, in which he finished 6th in MVP voting.
This card was also produced by Topps, the front of which was very glossy and the back had brighter colors than most normal Topps card backs.

Next up we have Joe Carter, featured on a card from the Metz Baking Company, which I had never heard of until I saw a post that dayf over at the cardboard junkie blog recently that featured a Howard Johnson card from this same set.  An interesting thing that I've never seen on a baseball card back is that the number of strikeouts that the player had is in the column right after the number of hits.  Oddball for sure.

Finally, we have the guy who hit the winning homer in the 16th inning today, JP Arencibia.  1 for 7 on the day?  Who cares, we're 1-0 now because of him.  This card is a 2010 Multi Ad sports from his time in the PCL with the Las Vegas 51s.  I'm hoping that there's no sophomore slump for JP this year, because even though his average was only .219 last year, the 23 HR and 76 RBI's were an important part of the Jays offense last season.  Here's hoping he can improve on all those numbers this year!

1-0.   1st place.   At least I get to savor that for a couple of days.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Colts and Angels and eBay misfires

Well, it's Wednesday evening, and I have finally got my body back on the early shift after working a month of closing shifts at my office.  The result of the two days it took me to get back into a more normal schedule was me drifting off sitting in front of my computer last night at 930, thus the reason you saw no post from me yesterday.  What also sucks is that I can't get to the post office during the day now, because I'm working between 830-530.  There are a few people waiting on a package from me, and for that I do apologize, but they are sure to go out Saturday this week!

Now that I'm back up and running, let's have a look at some of my eBay wins from last week.  I've enjoyed scouring for cheapo '64 Topps lots, so cheap that I've bid $1.99 as my maximum, and if I don't win them, oh well!!

The first auction I won was for a lot of 6 Angels cards, for $1.99, and this is easily the best lot of cards that I have ever picked up...I've scanned 4 for your viewing pleasure:

No creases, no dinged corners, the backs are in great shape...love it!  These cards may be the closest to NRMT that I see for this set without scouring the 4 corners of the earth. 

I'm more used to lots such as this:

Check out the Joe Koppe card, top center.  That top right corner looks like the dog got hold of it!  The best of this lot is probably the Jim Fregosi card in the lower right.  The most interesting card for me turned out to be the Dean Chance card.  With a last name like Chance, I had to look up his history.  Turns out he won the Cy Young award in 64!  Won 20 games, 1.65 ERA, 15 complete games and 11 shutouts!!  Dean also finished 5th in the MVP voting, behind some guys named Brooks Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Elston Howard and Tony Oliva.  Some great company he's keeping there!!

This last lot was also $1.99, and is more along the lines of cards I expect to pickup as I go.

The bottom row is especially indicative of a lot of 50 year old cards.  The Johnny Weekly card has a new eyebrow fashioned for him, and the Harry Craft has the letters "GU" written between the C and O in Colts.  Don't think that the GU stands for Game Used. 

What about the eBay misfire you ask?  Well I'm glad to relay this little story, which demonstrates the mistrust I have in people some times.  I won another auction...64 Topps lot of Senators...el cheapo $1.99 + shipping.  I paid the guy within a day as is my custom, and a few hours later I was refunded my money.  Here's the note I was sent by the seller.

Message from merchant: I am sorry but I apparently mailed the wrong cards out to another buyer which actually was the cards you won so I am giving you a full refund... Norm.

This kind of stuff is where I have mixed emotions.  The hot tempered Scotsman in me says screw it, I don't believe it for a second, and should leave negative feedback because I won an auction for cards that I really wanted and all I wound up doing is wasting my time.  Also, the seller probably didn't get the price he wanted for the cards and wanted to relist them.

The rational thinking person on the other hand thinks, well, the guy left me positive feedback quickly, refunded the entire amount quickly (it was within a day), and he may be telling the truth and had mailed the cards off to the wrong person. 

In the end, I just decided to let it slide, because the guy does have 100% feedback, and the hassle over an auction for $1.99 isn't worth it.  No cards, no feedback...easy enough??!!

Not bad so far anyways, 53 cards picked up so far out of the 587 card set, mostly commons (save for the Duke Snider).  It has been fun searching for cheapo lots on eBay as well, hopefully more success comes my way in the future.

thanks for reading, Robert

I'm ready for the season to start!

Got a bunch more Blue Jays in the mail from Max over at the Starting Nine blog on the weekend, and I will say they helped get the motor revved up for what could be a damn good season if the starting pitching holds up.

I figured I'd show off a few of them for you, have a little bit of fun and share a little info as well.

First, a little proof that Topps has been obsessed with Gold for going on 15 years now...(at least)

Next, how many of you can tell me the name of the Who song I think of every time I see a card of this guy?

Nothing witty to say about this next card, I just wanted to say that I like the colored parallels from '06 Opening Day, they just seem to stand out better than a lot of other parallels I've seen over the years.

Do any of you think MLB Network would have hired Al Leiter if they had seen this picture as an 8x10 glossy?

The Jays plucked this next guy from the Phillies as a Rule 5 draftee in 1980.  I love the box bottom colors on the top border of the card...they really stand out as well.

OK, all of you raise your hands if you knew that this next guy had his career high in HRs during his one and only season in Toronto in 1998 (he had 46 that year).  OK now put your hands down cause you are all lying if you knew that....

Finally, I'm sure that you all remember the uproar that happened last summer when the Yankees accused the Blue Jays of having a guy in the outfield stands in Toronto "stealing signs". 

Hell, we've been stealing signs for 20 years now!!!!  We just weren't as subtle about it back in the day...

It's gonna be a fastball Cito!!!

Max, thank you for the cards...as always they are most appreciated!

Thanks for reading, Robert

57 days

Blogging has made me a spoiled brat.  At the beginning of February, it even got me a little bitchy.  In the end though, it has allowed me to accomplish a lot of things.

One of those accomplishments being completing a set in 57 days.  Yep, 2012 Topps Series 1...done...57 days.

In the past few years, 57 days might have been the length of time between buying my first few packs, and then the second few. 

A big thank you goes out to Nick over at Dime Boxes who out of the blue sent me a quick email asking for my address so he could send me the last 2 cards I needed to finish series one...these two cards came in Friday.

The set completion racket has been a bit slow for me to start the year; my goal was to hit 25 completed sets by the end of the year, and I'm only at 13.  Hopefully that should be rectified in the next few weeks as I work towards finishing the sets that I am down to less than 50 cards remaining.

I'm sure that a lot of others out there are saying "57 days, that's nothing", but when you're lifetime average is about 4 years, give or take a year, 57 days is like "Warp Speed Mr. Sulu!"

Thanks for reading, Robert