Mail day: Outgoing and Incoming

I managed to get off the deck this morning and get 3 bubble mailers together.

26505
13601
75201

If you live in those zips, you've got something coming your way.

I also received a bubble mailer yesterday that had a lot of cool stuff in it from Matt at Bob Walk the Plank.   Matt seems to have an endless supply of fantastic stuff, and he was good enough to send me a bunch of it!

Here's the latest addition to the Jim Thome jersey card collection.

That brings the total Thome jersey count to 4.  Very sharp looking card with a nice gray swatch.

Thank you Matt!!  I'll show off the rest of the envelope sometime this week.

thanks for reading, Robert

Death by trouncing

You kind of had to expect that this 1st round match between the 1965 and 1978 Topps sets might become a little lopsided.  '65 is probably one of the best (if not the best) set of the past 45 years, while '78 doesn't have a great deal of star power to boast.

So, without further adieu, here is the winner of the 8 vs 9 seed match.

The unibrow of Mr. Moon moves on, with a 17-2 trouncing going into the books.

That margin may have already earned the '65 set the top seed going into the next round.  There are still 7 matches remaining in the round of 16, but that may be a tough score to beat.   Unless the contest attracts a lot more voters in the upcoming weeks, in my estimation there may be only 1 or 2 more matches that have the possibility of a lopsided score such as this.

The next match starts tomorrow with an interesting contest, as '59T faces '66T.

Thanks for reading, and voting, Robert

Let me explain

I took the time last night to add a new page to the top of the blog.   It's for the what's next? tournament, and I will use it to keep track of the tournament, and the number of entries each voter has so far.   The bold number in brackets beside your name is the number of entries you have so far, entries which are earned by commenting each week on that week's particular match up.  You don't have to write the great American novel when you comment, I promise...

There are a few people that have commented each week so far, thus the (3) beside their name.

Now unfortunately it's a little late for the first two weeks, but there is still time to vote on this week's massacre match.   If you wish to do so, please head over to this post and cast your ballot. 

Remember, guys like Luis Gomez need your love....

Hey, I had to sneak a Blue Jays card in somehow....

thanks for reading, and voting!  Robert

Cub, Cub, Cub, Cub, but no Pie

Another great and unexpected bubble mailer arrived today, this one from multi-blogger P-Town Tom, who was gracious enough to send me a handful of serial numbered cards.

Let's start with former Cub, Blue Jay, Dodger, Athletic, Yankee, and Expo (!) Ted Lilly.  I never thought much of Ted to be honest, but I learned that he reeled of 9 straight 10+ win seasons.  Ted is serial number 1459.

The Triple Threads line has been very beneficial to the SNI project.  The Derrek Lee card you see here is the 57th card from the TTT line, and as you can plainly see, this card is serial numbered 843.

Richie was a 4th round pick of the Cubs in 2003 out of FSU.  When this card was released in 2004, he'd only appeared for part of a season in A ball for the Lansing Lugnuts (love that name).  Tony progressed as high as AAA ball in 2008 before calling it a career.  This card is serial #'d 671 in case you were wondering.

Tom was more than gracious enough to spare this horizontal beauty of Marlon Byrd sliding into home plate.  If I'm guessing correctly, he is trying to take out John Buck at home plate.  Byrd is serial numbered 587, and these 4 cards bring the Cubs total up to an even 40.

This next card cost me about 15 minutes of my evening, and it wasn't to get some Pie either.

This card is serial numbered 875.  It also made me look like an idiot (like I needed any help with that...right??).  I go through the spreadsheet, and there's already a card in that spot.   I check the binder to make sure.   Yep, 875 is there.

Ugh.

The next 15 minutes are spent comparing the spreadsheet with the want list on the blog page.  I probably deleted about a dozen numbers, and actually had to add a couple back.

Hopefully the want list is up to date now.  I do know that I now have 1130 out of the 1500 cards needed, just 370 to go.  That is until I receive the next duplicate that is my fault because I don't know how to properly maintain a want list.

Tom, thank you for the cards, they are greatly appreciated!!  I am grateful that you paid Wes' hospitality forward.

thanks for reading, Robert

Seeing double

Taking an extra opportunity to go through the latest envelope I received from reader JT Steele, I came across a  couple of pairs of cards that made stop and do a double take.

Let's start with one of the best hitters of our generation, Paul Molitor.

On the left, 95 Bazooka card #102.   Needed it.  On the right, a red tinted parallel that I had no idea about.   I wasn't even aware that Bazooka did parallels.  Sure enough, on the right is the Red Hot insert card, #RH-19.  Need that one also.  There are two Blue Jays in the Red Hot insert set, with Roberto Alomar being the other.  Yes, I need the Alomar...

Chalk up another learning experience for me.

Next up, Alex Gonzalez.

First, let me just say that I'm glad to see how well the card on the right scanned, because I wanted the logo to stand out.   Perfect.

Now I see that both cards are from the 94 Bowman set, and when I see foil on one of the cards I immediately jump to the conclusion that the card on the right is some kind of parallel.

Wrong.  It's another part of the base set.  I had forgotten that Bowman in the early 90's was famous for including foil backed cards as part of the base set.   No matter, I needed them both and was able to knock two more cards off of the giant want list. 

The mid 90's consists of a lot of holes in my collecting knowledge (not that I'm any savant to begin with).   What's cool is packages like this from JT help me fill in some of the gaps.

It's too bad that my collecting knowledge has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. 

Thanks for reading, Robert