It's been a few years

You've seen it, and hopefully read about it once or twice.   My love for the Blue Jays on this blog is no secret.  Yet, I haven't been to a Jays game live since 2008.  Every summer I found reasons not to go.   Even though Cleveland is less than a 2 hour drive from my house, I never took time out to make the trip to see the boys in blue.

But when I found out during the winter that Toronto was going to be visiting PNC Park, I had no excuse.  I immediately starting making arrangements and calling friends.   Last night, I spent the evening in the upper level of PNC and watched quite an entertaining ball game.

One of the guys that I really wanted to watch was Jose Bautista...

Easily the most entertaining player that the Jays have had over the past few seasons, I wanted to see the presence he brought to the plate up close and personal.   Jose did not disappoint, rocketing a Vin Mazzaro 1-2 pitch into the left field bleachers in the 6th inning.  The Jays bullpen went on to blow a 6-2 lead and lost 8-6, but the game was great, and it was really fun watching the game with my wife and a few of our friends from back home.

Jose is also in the middle of a great streak to start the 2014 season.  His 2 walks today saw him reach base for the 31st consecutive game, which is a Blue Jays record.  I'll be keeping an eye out to see how far he can carry that streak, and the numbers that come with it. 

$14 million for this year and each of the next two years may still be quite a steal the way he's playing right now....

thanks for reading, Robert

2 more '64s added

Been a busy week here.  Between an up and down work schedule and doing a bit of spring cleaning around the house, the blog has taken a back seat.  However, I received an eBay purchase this week that knocked off two more of the high numbers that I needed for the '64T set.

Both of them are in really nice condition.  I was especially pleased with the Bennie Daniels, which is the final card in the set, #587.

I hadn't heard of either of these players before, so a little investigating was in order.

Leon Wagner had a decent 12 year career in the bigs, between 1958 and 1969.  1964 was one of his best seasons, playing in 163(!) games, hitting 31 HR and driving in 100.  Interesting that he was traded after the 1960 season by the Cardinals to Toronto (in the old international league), and then traded again by Toronto to the Angels at the start of the 1961 season.  I can't remember seeing a trade between a MLB club and a minor league club occur in my lifetime, which made this little tidbit even more interesting to me. 

Daniels didn't have quite the career that Wagner did, playing in 9 seasons with the Pirates and the Senators between 1957-1965.  Daniels was a swing man for most of his career, starting and relieving for both clubs.   He had only one season with double digit wins, 12 in 1961.  Bennie finished his career with 45 wins and an ERA of 4.44.

These two cards give me a total of 440 in the house for the set, or 75% complete.  I've got my eye on a Hank Aaron auction right now, and if I'm lucky enough to win it that will give me one of the few big pieces that I still need to finish the set.

Here's hoping!

thanks for reading, Robert

Commonality

Not a word I would use too often, commonality.  A shared feature or attribute.  The more I think, the more I believe that I've heard a commentator use the word on a telecast.   No matter, this is an attempt to show off another dozen cards I bought for the Jim Thome collection on Sportlots. I decided to divide them into groups of 4 based on commonality (now I'm using the word a little too much).

Let me know what you think...

First group of four:

Give up?  How about four things that baseball players do every game.   Throw, hit, run the bases, and drink water in the dugout. 

OK, maybe that was a little bit of a stretch.   How about group #2?

Simple again, 4 cards featuring Jim in a Phillie's uniform.  From four different sets no less.  One of them is even a dreaded "pictured in one team's uniform while shown as a member of another team" card.  Do I include cards like that in my Jays collection?  No.  It just doesn't make sense, right?  The blue foil on the '05 Opening Day card in the upper left scanned really well, and looks just as good in hand.

OK, final group for today.

If you said "poorly scanned horizontal cards", you'd be correct.  I don't have a whole lot of Thome cards from his brief stay with the Dodgers, so the '09 Heritage high numbers card was a cool pickup.  The Turkey Red instantly becomes one of my favorite cards.  The infamous bat extended pose that is probably more famous on the 2008 A&G card (#87) is a classic. I still have to get that A&G card....(note to self).  How about another fun fact.   The two Heritage cards in this post list Thome at 6'3".  The rest of the cards list him at 6'4".  I wonder if he shrank towards the end of his career...

There's 12 more cards to add to the collection...I'll be at 200 before I know it.

thanks for reading, Robert

I like where I am right now

I can honestly say this, I no longer feel the need to chase the latest and greatest that's on the shelves.  Shocking, yes I know.  I've spent a lot of time lately doing a little soul searching, trying to figure out what I really like in this hobby.

I mentioned the other day that I had gone two weeks without a card purchase, but still felt the itch.  For me, that's a good thing, because it means I'm not bored with card collecting.  There were times in the past where I would go full bore collecting cards, then get tired of it and drop the hobby for a while.  I think that writing about cards, and my experiences with them, has helped keep my interest strong.

Another thing that has helped me so far this year was setting clear and concise goals for 2014.   Goals that were aimed specifically at sets/PCs that I am very interested in continuing or completing.  They've certainly helped keep me on the right path. 

This past weekend also saw two things happen that reaffirmed the path I'm on.   Sunday's trip to Wal-Mart and the card aisle saw me return home empty handed.  In this case, that's a good thing, because I am really not interested in anything that's on the shelves right now.  2014 products for the most part have not done anything for me.

Saturday's purchase from Sportlots, however, was very focused.  Amazingly, I got the first envelope today from that order.  BTW, if anyone tells you that the USPS is slow, I received a bubble mailer today from California...in 2 days.   Fantastic!!  This envelope contained cards of one player....Jim Thome.

I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I wanted to have 200 Jim Thome cards in the PC by the end of the year, and this first purchase brought me 37 cards closer to that goal.

 A half dozen basic, no frills, 90's base cards.  18 cents apiece.  Easy enough.

Six more cards featuring Thome in various stages of swinging the bat.  I just love watching his swing; check out this video of one of the longest home runs in Jacobs Field history to see why. 

Jim Thome is just one of things I like about this hobby.   I plan on writing another post or two this week about other things that I like.  Why?  Because I like where I'm at right now.  I might occupy an insane corner of the collecting universe from where you're sitting, but for me, I think I've finally made a bit of peace with the hobby and what I want to do.

Finally....

thanks for reading, Robert

A little bit of shiny for your Saturday

Well, I've made it through two weeks with zero purchases.  I felt myself going through withdrawal last night and hunting through eBay to see what I could find.   Luckily, sleep wound up winning and I managed to go another day without any impulse purchases putting a dent in my wallet.

I decided to hunt through some recent additions to the collection to find some shiny cards to show off.  Shiny always makes the day a little bit brighter.

Now this is a loud card.  1998 Pinnacle Aurora Pennant Fever #23 of Jose Cruz Jr.  1998 was Jose's first full season as a Blue Jay, and I remember all the type when he came to Toronto mid-season in 1997.  When looking up his stats I was shocked at how much he moved around after he left Toronto following the 2002 season.  Cruz played for 7 teams during the 2003-2008 period, including 3 teams in 2005.  Makes you wonder what went on in his life during that time to end up moving all over the place.

 

2013 Topps Chrome orange refractor of Josh Johnson.  It appears that the Jays made the right decision by letting him go after the 2013 season.  Johnson is slated to have his 2nd Tommy John surgery soon, costing the Padres a cool $8 million in the process. 

Serial # 525

There's the first card from the 2014 Heritage set to make its way into the SNI project.  Orioles slugger Chris Davis found his way here via another PWE from the 48895 zip code.  The Orioles are finally past the halfway mark, since Davis' card represents the 26th Oriole card for the set.  The total for the set is 1123/1500, only 2 cards shy of 3/4 complete.

Pat also included a little less shiny, but still quite welcome, chrome parallel of Jose Bautista in the envelope.  I already have serial #660 for the insanity set, so this slides nicely into the Jays collection.

I think it's high time that I start getting something together to send out to Pat....

thanks for reading, Robert