Serial Insanity cards 906-910

I've decided to wait a day before writing about my card show experience from today.  Instead, you'll see the next 5 cards in the serial insanity set, which brings the set to 60.67% complete.


Card #906:  Alex Rodriguez

Serial Number:  1126
Team:  New York Yankees, card # 41 out of 50

As much as everyone loves to hate this man, did Bud Selig overstep his bounds by slapping a 200+ game suspension on this guy?  Personally, I'd say yes, but I'm no lawyer, and I'd love to see how this will play out in court when the dust finally settles on his case.


Card #907: Trevor Plouffe

Serial Number:  1014
Team:  Minnesota Twins, card # 27 out of 50

After being a super sub for the past two seasons, Trevor's talents have remained strictly at the infield corners.  Kind of makes sense, since he displayed corner infielder power last season with 24 HR in 422 AB's.  


Card #908:  Martin Maldonado

Serial Number:  1250
Team:  Milwaukee Brewers, card # 27 out of 50

Really struggling with the bat this year, only hitting .180 in 150 AB's.  Wonder if that's due to Ryan....oh, never mind.


Card #909:  Philip Humber

Serial Number:  1153
Team:  Houston Astros, card # 21 out of 50

A former first rounder of the Mets in 2004, it just hasn't been there for Philip, and it appears that the 2013 season may have been his last opportunity (but what do I know).  Seven starts with a 9.59 ERA and a 2.019 WHIP for the Astros just may be his undoing.  You just never know though, do you??


Card #910:  Ian Stewart

Serial Number:  976
Team:  Chicago Cubs, card # 32 out of 50

Another 1st rounder, this time the 10th pick of the 2003 draft by the Rockies, Ian has also struggled to find his way in the bigs.  Ian did show some pop in 2009, hitting 25 HR's with the Rox, however it hasn't gone well since then.  The Dodgers recently signed him as a free agent, and who knows?  Maybe  if Juan Uribe falls victim to the hidden ball trick again, maybe they'll add him to the 40 man roster?  (yes, I'm well aware that my team is in the basement and I shouldn't be picking on a player from a first place club.)

Thanks for reading, Robert

When in Canada...

Instead of boring you to tears this week with an endless stream of Serial Insanity posts (there will be a few of those...), I'm going to try and post some of the cards I pick up during the week with the help of my iPhone.  No one has ever accused me of being a fantastic picture taker, but we'll see how it goes.

I was ready to start putting together another hockey set, and Captain Canuck's review of the recently released 2013-14 O-Pee-Chee hockey set only piqued my interest more.  So what's the first thing I do when I hit the northern side of the border?  Head to the nearest Wally world and pick up a blaster.

I've always enjoyed OPC hockey products.  I'm sure that there are very few Canadian lads who don't enjoy the annual release.  While writing this post I took a moment to reread the Just a Bit Offside post, and sure enough the cards I received in the blaster box followed a similar kind of pattern to the Captain's.

I received the standard 2 stickers (here we go with the photos....don't hate the cards, hate the photo taker...)

I guess Jimmy Howard's sticker is pretty common.

I also pulled 2 of the foil parallels, nobody exciting:

But the retro parallels that I pulled were interesting to say the least.  All 7 of them were #'d above 500 (the rookie group)

Easily the worst picture of the three, need a little more practice

Outside of Cory Conacher, I really haven't heard of any of these players. 

I also didn't pull any of the other insert sets, such as the rings or any patches/signatures.   What was most interesting is that the numbering pattern that the Captain mentioned in his post occurred in my box as well.  Where his hobby box was heavy in the 400-500 range, my blaster was very light in that group with only 3 cards.

1-100:  9 cards
101-200:  11 cards
201-300:  24 cards
301-400:  19 cards
401-500:  3 cards (including one of the 5 checklists)
501-600:  7 cards (including Jonathan Huberdeau)

The numbering of the cards I pulled also went in 5's as well.  The 1-100's held perfectly true to the numbering, as I pulled card #'s 4,9,14,19,24,29,34,39,44. 

This is definitely another set that I will put together, with great joy I might add.   But it would be nice to get a little closer to finishing a couple of the sets from the past 5 years that I haven't finished. 

Hopefully tomorrow's card show will help with that.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Heading home

Sometime tomorrow, I'll be in the truck, heading towards the great white north for a long overdue visit with my mom and one of my sisters.  I'll actually be taking this trip without my better half, so I'll have a bit of free time on my hands.

Sunday is the one day I'm already looking forward to.  I plan on hitting a card show in Toronto that day, but I'm not sure what to expect.  I don't know if I'm going to get a bunch of dealers that just specialize in the high end stuff, or will I be able to find tables that will help me finish out some sets.

I do have a couple of things that I intend on coming home with.   First, some of the new 2013-14 OPC.

Not the greatest image that I could pull off of the internet, but you get the idea.  I look forward to getting a few of these in hand (maybe a box worth if I'm feeling adventurous). 

With some extra money to play with thanks to a nice expense check, I plan on making a nice addition to the Joe Sakic PC as well.  It's been quite a while since I put anything really nice into either of my PC's, so I'm really hoping to find something nice to bring home.

While the Authentic Fabrics card above is nice, I'm looking to see if I can find something even better at a decent price.

Of course I'll be bringing my want lists, including the serial numbered insanity list, but without knowing what to expect, I'm hesitant to say what set I will try and focus on.  I also plan on avoiding cards of my hometown teams, as they'll surely be given the hometown markup.

Who knows?  Maybe I'll end up hitting a couple of card shops in TO as well.  I've got a week to play with, hopefully I can make the best of it.

Thanks for reading, Robert

The son is certainly making the father proud

While searching through cards in one of the many piles on my desk (you may remember me mentioning that yesterday), hunting for an idea for a post, I came across this '73 Topps card.

I'm sure that there may be one or two of you out there wondering who Tom Walker is.  Tom enjoyed a brief but reasonably successful 6 year major league career during the 70's with 4 teams, the majority of which he spent with the Expos. 

You may be a little more aware of his currently successful son....

3 for 3 with 2 RBI's today.  Batting average finally starting to creep back up to where's he been the past 3 seasons (low .270s to .296 in 2010).  His 2 stints on the DL this season certainly didn't help with his consistency, but he's finally starting to get in gear.  Another hot bat in August for the Pirates will help to break the 20 season streak of sub .500 seasons, which I'm sure the Pirate franchise will be all too happy to see.

I know you're probably wondering what this post is really all about.   Well, I'll tell you.   The first thing that I see when I look at the Walker father-son combo is the striking resemblance between the two.

Duh you say, of course they look like each other.  Yes, I know.  But what they remind me of is the resemblance I have with my son.  My son Daniel is 15, and lives with his mother (my first wife).  My son is cursed because he looks like his father...(I'm a homely dog you know!!)

It's tough when you have a teenage son that has no desire to see you, or even talk to you.  Yes, unfortunately I have one of those relationships with my son, and while I've come to grips with it for the most part, there are times such as this when I'm writing a post about a father and son and I think back at the mistakes I made. 

To those of you out there who read this far, and have kids of your own, go give them a hug.

You'll be glad you did.

Thanks for reading, Robert

The great clean up has begun

Procrastinator.  That should be one of my names. 

Leaning tower of Pisa. 

You may know of it.  I had piles of cards on my desk that were starting to look like this.   Leaning to one side.  Definitely not a good thing. 

So I sat down last Saturday, and started sorting.  Putting cards into plastic sheets.   Moving stuff that should have been into boxes several weeks ago.

You may remember a 300 count lot of 1974 Topps that I purchased at a card show back in May (see the linked post if you don't).  I spent a portion of Saturday starting an Excel checklist.   It was only one week shy of 3 months.  I also decided to put my 1973 Topps cards into sheets finally.   I spent so much time between straightening up the crazy amount of piles and doing stuff around the house that I didn't bother posting.   Blasphemy.

There were cards in piles that had been long forgotten about, such as this...

Or this:

I really like this insert, I may have to look for more

Even a pile of these had been pushed to the side:

Even Pops went MIA for a time.

I'm sure that there's more where this came from.  There's only about 18 more piles to go through.  Maybe if I get a dozen or so of those piles of the desk I'll have room to start some trade piles.

Here's hoping....

Thanks for reading, Robert