Hidden Gems 8: Going down

Baseball is filled with exciting plays. Sure, sometimes it's just the pitcher and the catcher tossing the ball back and forth, but when that ball goes into play, anything can happen. A diving stop from an infielder followed with a throw from the knees. A rip down the line and into the corner, the runner stretching a double into a triple. Reaching into the stands to snag a foul or take away a home run. The runner barreling down the line on a short fly to the outfield. The excitement is there each and every pitch, like a huge boulder at the top of the hill just waiting to get pushed forward a foot.

For cardboard, to get a diving catch, you will need to go horizontal, and even them it seems part of the players body falls prey to the crop gods. Brett Gardner, though, is nice and compact. Eyes on the ball, which pops out on the green wall. An exciting play, captured perfectly. 2010 Topps was not a great look, but they started doing a better job with the photography, with less posed and more action. Even this bad card design can't ruin a gorgeous image like this.

Bob Mould is a musical genius. Whether with Hüsker Dü, Sugar or on his own, there had better be a call soon for him from Cleveland. There is so much out there you may not know was Bob Mould. Like this. I know you have heard of this. "Needle Hits E" is the lead song of the last Sugar album Besides, a play on words as the album is made up of B-sides to single releases. "Needle Hits E" was the B side of the song "Helpless" from their first studio album. And it straight jams.

And there is still time to get your custom in. If you need time, let me know in the comments.

What is wrong with me?

First off - shut up, alright. It's a blog title. Only I get to answer it.

Awww, I had a great comeback too.

If you saw the post that showed off my card room, you may remember this image:

There is a little bit of junk in the front, but that is the spare bookshelf in me room. It has anout 20 binders on it, most are 3" rings and only 2 binders have anything in them. One has 88-89 & 89-90 Topps hockey sets. The other is a small 1" binder holding my White Sox minis. All the rest are empty. I have space for tons of card, if I had the 9 pocket pages and got around to organizing sets into the binders.

With that being said, why in the world do I keep going out looking for more 99 cent binders at the Goodwill? Sure, some people will call collecting a sickness. But when I have soooo much space available, why would I be looking to bring in MORE space to go unused? First fill up what you have, and then get more.

Fortunately Jim from FrankenDodger (GCRL is dead to me! As is FrankenDodger technically, but I am getting off track) sent me over his latest trade package, that I need to get on my horse and return favor for. I can count on Jim for binder fillers.

Lots of bunts, and so many of them new. The OPC Kirby is in my ebay watchlist, and soon to be removed when I make my bi monthly track to update the list. The Bernard at the bottom looks like he is just about to make contact. And if so, there is NO WAY that thing is going to lay down as a drag bunt. Not unless the bat barrel dropped a good 18 inches within a half second of that picture.

Plenty of other binders saw page files as well. I'm sure I need a lot of 2014 binder cards because that is an ugly set. Not sure if I would rank it above or below 2016 though. One of the Alou family caught on a mini miscut. JT in sweet throwbacks. I'm not sure who is behind Snow, but shame on the pajama pants. Minnie was a need for the 1960 set. Lastly, I am slowly building the Golden Age mini sets. Just a frankenset of the backs. I have only a want list for 2013, mainly because of the amount of minis from that year's Golden Age, but I'd take any 2012 or 2014 minis if you need to rid them from your house.

I can get a binder from the store to put them in.

LAWIG: just one card

Quick update on the contest: Looks like two entries so far, and interest from a couple others. Com'on guys (and girls) - have some fun!!!! I may have made the rules a little strict, so let me loosen then a bit. Maybe I was the only one of this ragtag group of dorks that played a lot of baseball as a kid. And I mean a LOT. I played the hell out of the sport from age 6 until my final year or organized ball at 15. That was the first year I rode the bench for most of the season (age, I guess). And the game looked boring while soccer looked exciting.

Pictured: Exciting

So there are plenty of pictures with me in uniform. Maybe I am just lucky. Maybe you all played as much but don't have access to images. So here's an idea: how about a baseball card baby announcement of yourself like Sooz and Dan did? Try and use a design that's the year from your birth. Commishbob, I know that would probably be a T206, but go with it. If you are interested in taking part, leave a comment on that post and I'll wait until you post your design.

Ok - how about a single card?
 

 

Topps did an online exclusive all blue sapphire Chrome set. The full series 1 and 2 sets. That's how I have a Chrome Eaton from 2016, as he & most of the Sox got kicked from the hobby/retail Chrome set. For $5.75 total with shipping, I could have bought a pack of Chrome and not pulled ANY Eaton cards, so this is a win in my book. And the scan does these cards zero justice. These are gorgeous in hand. 

GO ENTER MY CONTEST! WIN CARDS! DO IT!

A contest, if you dare!

Last week, my company moved offices. And with that move, I lost my cubicle. If I ever have to go into the offices, I'll have some temp desk to work at. With the change, my work PC is now my home machine. I no longer remote into my machine at my desk. With the change, though, I've had to get this work machine setup with enough items so it can function as a personal machine as well. Which means I had to dig around and find the disk for my graphics program. Yes, it's old, but I tried GIMP, and it's too robust for me. And I'm not dropping cash on Photoshop. Fortunately, the disk was still in decent shape to install.

I can just ignore all those files, right?

I don't do a lot with my graphics program. Minor changes, resizing - nothing great. I've dabbled with customs, but dabble at best. Nothing along the lines of the work by Gavin, Matt or Jordan. In fact, you don't need graphic skills, you can go through Topps and get customs made, just like how Sooz and Dan announced their newborn.

It was a little of the first and some of the 2nd that made me decide on a little contest. Because if custom Topps were around when my kids were born, I would have been buying them. And if Topps customs were around when I was a kid, I would have made my own baseball card. So it's time to correct that, as embarrassing and pathetic at it might be.

Back in the 70's, MLB didn't license out their logos to Little League baseball, so technically, I was on the "Cards". Close enough, though. Dig that real wooden bat, too. Screw the ping!  So that is my first official custom. They only get better from this point, right?

So the contest? I challenge you to make your own custom. Replicate a Topps design like I did, or use COMC like Jordan does and do a little shopping to put yourself in the card. But it has to be you. But not current you. I'm going to make the age break at 16. You may only use an image of yourself below the age of 16. Com'on - if we collect cards, we had to play the sport at least one season, right. Or you have a photo of yourself is a ball cap, football uniform, basketball uniform, etc.... Dig enough and you have a photo of younger you that would work on a trading card. I'm 13 here.

Get to shopping yourself into a Topps design and show it off to the rest of us. You can either post it to your blog, or upload it to an online image storage/file storage. Just post a link in the comments. I'll let the masses decide the winner from a poll.

And yes, there is a prize for first place.

Six prizes to be exact. The Johnson is # to 50 and Springer is the camo variation. Let's have some fun. show off our computer skills and have a good laugh at our awkward younger selves. You have a week to submit your entry.

Hidden Gems 7: Everybody starts somewhere

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

This is a famous quote from the Tao Te Ching, text for the philisophical and religious concepts of Taoism. The literal translation is "A journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one's feet" - 千里之行，始於足下 (I grabbed that Chinese text from Wikipedia, Zippy, so if it's wrong, yell at them). I don't remember the first time I heard it - it might have been from the book "The Tao of Pooh". Yet, the statement is so accurate in it's simplicity. You can break down any activity, no matter the size, to it's smallest component.

It's true about collecting. No matter the number of cards we have in numerous binders and numerous boxes in numerous rooms, it all started with that very first card that sparked our passion to collect. And like any journey that make last a thousand miles, how we look at the start can be different than how we are at any later point of the trip.

This Clayton Richard is the start of many cards in the Hidden Gem binder of similar images - the pitcher in release of the ball, the focus on the hurler while the rest of the photo has appropriate blurred views of the rest of the participants. There's probably one or two cards with this style released each year, I bet, and I think there is only one I ever came across that didn't make the cut for a slot. Your eyes are drawn to the player in focus immediately, but almost as fast, you begin to scan the rest of the card, finding first the ball, then the batter and the catcher. Next the second base umpire, and finally, the player in center. Your brain is able to take those out of focus elements and put them back into some bit of focus. You can almost make out the catcher's nameplate, the home plate umpire's number, the ad on the left field wall. But not completely. And you come back to the player in focus.

Before running on treadmills, building complex Rube Goldberg machines, riding single wheeled vehicles in sync or flying on the Vomit Comet, OK GO was just a Chicago band making music and releasing "normal" videos. No huge gimmicks in this video. Simple music with a couple goofy. subtle jokes sprinkled here and there. Released a full 4 years before they made exercise equipment cool, if you look hard enough, you can see their potential to grow video into a fun form of art.

Of Hoyles and Hawks

After I published yesterday, I realized it had been a week since my last post. I won't bore you with details, but I will reiterate that I suck and I'm sorry. If you care to read this drivel, that is. If not, then I suck and I am sorry for showing up in your reading lists two days in a row.

In related news, the sky is blue and water is wet. Film at 11.

A quick one highlighting two mailings. I think my recent Hoyle-ing from Mark Hoyle would have been a PWE if not for...you'll see.

Two for the White Sox Archives team set. The Eaton would have gone to the Eaton PC, but I already snagged a card for there. And a BIG Topps Big of mid 80's closer extraordinaire Thigpen highlight a small stack of cards for other years in the Sox box.

I have received a couple of these Sox playing cards, and Mark set most of a complete deck. Now I will have to buy the whole deck myself, which means I can break up what I received for current and future player collections. Here's the best, in my opinion, from each suit that was in what I received. Crede and Lollar went to their respective binders, and Appling is a soon to be binder starter. I love the fraction of bat you see on the Kittle card. Thanks for the mailing, Mark.

DJ, in the frozen tundra of the Great White North (well, what's left of frozen from climate change) and of Sportscards From The Dollar Store, finally gave the go ahead for mailings. Canada Post showed it can be just as dysfunctional a government entity as it's southern neighbors. He sent out a mailer to me with a ton of Hawks cards. New Champs? Yes please. Love the relic of Calder winner Panarin. Shame to see Shawzer go. He's going to get lost and forgotten in Carolina, just as Saad is forgotten in Toronto. So forgotten, in fact, that he is actually forgotten as a Blue Jacket, but you didn't even notice I named the wrong team.

I do love my Canadian trade partners, and those close to the border, cuz down here, there is not a lot of O-Pee-Chee to be found. Not vintage, at least. Sutter is one of the 4 brothers of the 6 Sutter NHL'ers  to wear the Indian head. He put in 6 years as a player and 3 as the head coach, finally getting his name on the Cup twice as the current coach of the Kings. Keith Brown (or "back up Brown" as some fans call him) played 14 years with the Hawks. He would have been a Bruin if the Hawks didn't draft Brown one pick before Boston. Beantown had to settle for Ray Bourque. A decent d-man, he got the sarcastic moniker of back-up Brown because he gave attacking forwards too much room as they crossed the blue line, instead of meeting them as they entered the zone. DJ - thanks as always.

Will I post tomorrow? I have some plans for a possible contest, so you may want to come back if I do.

One page

Hopefully, we have all experienced the joy of receiving a PWE and the cards were packages in a piece from a 9 pocket page. I have been buying the cheap 35 page packs from Walmart and cutting them up to use in many of my mailing.

Please. It's not like I threw away a few '87 Topps. Or closer to 500.

I have received many, and recently Bob from The Five Tool Collector folded an entire page into an envelope, with each slot containing one card. To save trouble, let's scan the whole page and see what we have.

VINTAGE!!! Nine slots of vintage. Let's work are way done top to bottom, left to right:

2016 Gold Stadium Club Sale. Jeff, you say. This is not vintage, you say. I reply that 1997 Fleer is almost 20 years old. For the sake of this post, I'm labeling this card "vintage".

2016 Archives Todd Frazier. Homage to 1991 Topps. See Chris Sale above.

1962 Topps Civil War. Now, as wars go, I'm partial to watching the snot out of any and all things World War 2. Not to say I haven't watch the Ken Burns special a few times and have some WW1 shows in my Netflix list. Bob has been working on the Civil War set and was kind enough to send my what I assume is a dupe, just to get me jacked for it and to start considering building it. So thanks, but you suck at the same time, Bob.

1958 Ron Jackson. I currently have this card in my Sox team set, so I am going to try a TTM request on this one. Let's see if I can luck out.

1960 Billy Goodman. Technically, this is also a dupe, but the quality of this card is much better than the 3 creased copy I have, so this is an upgrade. My. Goodman passed away 30 years ago, so no TTM on the old card. I'll keep it for a future player collection.

1967 Don Buford. Three dupes in a row for the Sox team sets, but another upgrade. And Mr. Buford is a great TTM returner. I've actually been meaning to send one to him, I just haven't had the card to mail. I do now.

1975 Dick Allen. NEED! Allen cards are expensive enough, so you can imagine what I would spend to try and add this card to my collection in this town. Check!

1962 Post Sherm Lollar. Upgrade. My current Sherm is a bit mangled from the 9 year old's safety scissors, so this is a fine replacement.

1961 Al's Aces. NEED!! For my team sets, quality is never a concern, so this is a beautiful addition to the 1961 set and gets me to the halfway point of the set.

Nine cards. Two quarters of postage. And a page I can use to send to someone else.