Throwback Thursday - 10.11.12

Every Thursday, I post a card showing a ballplayer wearing a throwback uniform from my collection. Hopefully, he will be wearing it well, with proper pants height. I'll try not to duplicate a uniform. The picture may be from the front of the card, or the back. Enjoy the uniforms from years past.

Mike Jackson - 1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice - SF Seals throwback

Topps Update - an observation

So Update is out. If you follow more than blogs, or even if you don't, you may have see chatter about this and that with the set - the photo variations, SPs, All Star cards, etc. I'd link to some of the stuff I read, but to be honest, the hell if I remember where I read any of it. But I have picked up a rack pack and one of those 72 count half blasters (?), so let's have a gander at some things I have scanned, discuss some other things, and do my best to be objective. And by "objective", I mean snarky. ONWARD!

First things first - I commented about Series 2 about the poor quality control in some cards. Well, something still ain't right. At least on the 100 cards I have, the fronts look fine. But tell me, what is the deal with the backs?

The only manipulation is cropping and putting those two scans together (mad Photoshop skillz!). Why is Topps using two different sized fonts? It's pretty obvious the size difference - I know I did not double dose on my medication. These are the backs of two sequential base cards. Com'on Topps - get it together.

Speaking of base, it's nice to see card UP1 is a White Sox. Even after the Sox won it all in 2005, the following year's Topps set took until card #13 to have a White Sox player depicted. The Cubs, celebrating their 98th year of nothing in '06, had a player in the set before the Sox.

The photo variation cards are not short prints, from what I have read. I did pull one, and interesting enough, both the base and variation cards came out of the same Target rack pack I purchased. The font is the same on the back of both cards, in case you were wondering.

Photo variation on the left. He holding a hat in his hands in the variation. Took me a while to realize he wasn't playing Call of Duty. How does one scream "F***ing noob camper!" in Japanese anyway?

I like that the minis have the Future Star logo on a few of the cards - that is a nice touch. And lastly, I pulled one of the Presidential Predictors redemption cards. It's the President for the state of Oklahoma. Yeah, I don't see that state going blue this election. The really strange thing is the back of the card. It gives the code, but no website to enter it. If you go to Topps, there isn't a single article I could find that talks about where to redeem the code. The regular redemption area of Topps.com does not accept it. Sigh.....

Trade #17: sort of a trade

Three trade posts in a row. Wow!!! For starters, if you don't know the Collective Troll, you should. Really. He's a great guy and a bunch of fun. You can tell Troll just has passion for things in life. The dude hobbies in roller derby - COM'ON! How awesome is that? Well, this is the second trade between the Troll and I. Though, as I subjected, this really isn't a designed trade. Troll's the kind of guy you just like to drop cards on cuz it's fun to do. I know I dropped him an envelope a few months back (and I have a 2nd group of cards I am building for him), so Troll, being Troll, just sent me back a nice stack of cards. Far too many to scan, but let's look at some of the highlights.

VINTAGE! That '66 Lamabe on the left is autographed, so double bonus on that. The '65 Stephens on the right is in really nice condition. And yeah, that is a pseudo-vintage in the middle, serialed #284/1959.

Night Owl talked the other day about Starting Lineup cards, so interesting Troll has an Albert Belle card in the pack. I do remember collecting SLU back in the day, and still own a loose Jordan vs. Thomas (with the cards). Speaking of Jordan, there is his Airness on a blue bordered insert for UD. Lastly, while I do not collect football, who can pass up a card of Butt-head? Note the complete lack of logo creep on Butler's uniform. Pretty.

Lastly, Troll sent the ultimate Ray Durham collection. Got to be over 30 cards of the former second baseman. Here's my vote for the three best.

Always love Fleer Ultra action shots. They took the time to really pick out quality images, and the fronts of the cards are fairly clean. Remember laser cut cards? There is something enjoyable about them now. Five years ago, they sucked. Now, they have a quirky joy about them. Flair - always seemed so high end in their look. Jeff like!

Thanks again, Troll. Watch your mailbox

Throwback Thursday - 10.04.12

Every Thursday, I post a card showing a ballplayer wearing a throwback uniform from my collection. Hopefully, he will be wearing it well, with proper pants height. I'll try not to duplicate a uniform. The picture may be from the front of the card, or the back. Enjoy the uniforms from years past.

Mike Felder - 1993 Upper Deck - NY Giants throwback

Trade #16: West side!

Let's get another trade post up, shall we? Greg with PTSIA (that's Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle) had a want list. I had cards that were just taking up space. Isn't that how most trades get started? Now, I took part in Greg's card draft #2, and along with my winnings he dropped me a nice stack of White Sox. Bonus, right there. But that isn't what prompted me to give his Ginter needs a dent. It was more a "holy crap, I have too many Ginter cards" revelation, so it was time to thin the herd.

I said no pack searching!

Greg sent along a great group of cards,  and cleared 3 from my A&G mini want list. Highlights?

Holy HELL do I love that Robinson sparkle. The color is great with the Oriole colors, and I do love that uniform. Need that Big Hurt for the Ginter sub set of sketches. And a very young Black Jack McDowell minor league card. Is it me, or does that uniform look like a beer commercial? And the three mini knocks...

 

Two Giants and a doggie. Slow go, but I will complete those and the Bible subset. You really should check out my needs for those and help me out. I'm nice men. 

Trade #15: too long in coming

Trade number 15 too way took long, and I mean that in a few ways. First, it's basically just been too long since I got a trade completed. Not paying enough attention to needs lists and trade bait lists and the like. That would be my fault. Also, and here is the bigger reason, it took too long because of my end. Summers can suck around my house, mainly for financial reasons. And the blame goes to the dingbat I see looking back at me in the mirror. My wife is a contract worker in a school. Oh, she's an awesome speech pathologist, but not district. So when she doesn't work, she doesn't get paid. Her surgery didn't have anything to do with the lack of pay over this summer. It's the same crap I deal with year after year, and I only have to deal with it because I fail to plan ahead. I want to be ready for the loss of over half our income, but I just don't do right, and by the end of the summer, we are struggling to stay afloat. Gotta ration what we have, and by the end of August, I have to do some create bank work. So there is little money for fun things, like postage. Poor planning is one of my many character defects, or "features" as we like to say in the computer program world.

Click here to leave your underwear on the floor

 But let's get to the nice trade I was glad to make. Dan from the great "It's like having my own card shop" jumped all over my post about Ginter relics and inquired about the Young jersey. Have to be honest - I was a bit of a jag in that post, not knowing who Chris Young was.

Just a bit of a jag?

But Dan was all over that card, and shot me a link to some White Sox he was offering.

No.

Brainer.

I received the cards a while back, but as I said at the top, I didn't get my return package out until yesterday, so only now will I show the spoils. That link has all the cards, but here are three of my favs.

Gold Crede #1712/2004, Starquest Thome in a throwback and Konerko #171/2003. Bing, bang, BOOM! Thanks Dan for the great trade, and your package will be there very soon (I hope).

Sunday SIL: you can't tell the players...

First off - yes. I know it's Monday. This post was intended to go up yesterday, but we got quite busy and I finally had a chance to start typing it up close to midnight. I really, REALLY like the subject of this week's SIL, and didn't want it to get too buried in case some of my readers come from a link or a blog roll. All 4 of you. Ok - 5.

This is a bit of an instant SIL, cuz I acquired it yesterday. See, I have this shed in the backyard. Shed needs a door. Doors can be pretty expensive. I recall this house nearby that has a garage sale going every so often, and he always has old doors available. Well, my wife and I saw the sign out, so we stopped by. And no doors. But, he's a picker, so he had a ton of nice things to check out. There were two binders of baseball cards, but those just held junk wax. Roamed a few more of the tables and he had a stack of mid 70's Wrigley score cards. Great designs on the front, but you know my Cubs rule. However, there was another group with a bunch of minor league scorecards, so I started digging. And boy did digging pay off. I found 3 scorecards that I purchased. They were all scored, and that's the love of them in my mind, because now I have a piece of history with a star player on it. Two of the scorecards are from the late 60's - a 1967 game between the Braves and the Astros, and a 1969 tilt with the Padres versus the Cardinals. But the gem of the three has these partially completed score cards to view.

I mean - holy hell - do you see some of the names on there??? This is a 1957 game, the 2nd of a doubleheader, between the NY Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The top image has Willie Mays in the 2nd slot with Bobby Thompson hitting 5th. Going to the Pirates starting lineup, we see Dick Groat batting 3rd, and then check out 6th and 7th in the lineup - Bill Mazaroski and Roberto Clemente. This is a freaking rookie card in my book. And it set me back $7.50. All three scorecards together were for the cost a blaster with tax - $21.50. And I got tons of hits in this "blaster". If you want to check out the scans, you can view them with these links:

Pirates vs Giants
Padres vs Cardinals
Astros vs Braves

The scans are in page order, so flip through like you were enjoying the program in your hand. The Padres/Cardinals game has Lou Brock, Curt Flood and this young starting pitcher named Steve Carlton. And the Astros/Braves? Oh, just this kid named Aaron (who went 0-3 with a walk).

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.