Throwback Thursday - 07.27.2017

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 blousing. The picture may be from the front of the card, or the back. Enjoy the uniforms from years past.

Ryan Braun - 2017 Topps Stadium Club - Milwaukee Brewers

2 blasters and a fat pack

All weekend, I was hitting my big box hoping to find someone that "accidentally" put A&G on the shelf early. So far, no luck, but I plan to head out after I schedule this post. But looking that close at the card aisles reminded me I completely forgot that Stadium Club just dropped. In three different stores, I made separate purchases. It was a reminder that you should avoid buying blasters from different stores, because half of the 2nd blaster was dupes of the first.

I blame myself.

I like Stadium Club, so let's look at a few cards, if you haven't already. And if you have, well, feel free to click over to another blog. There's always a chance I could post something better tomorrow.

Retail has exclusive sepia parallels. Not the best selection of players. At least the D-Backs unis look a 100 times better in this color.

Here is an advantage of dupes - binder needs. Then again, it's cheater Ryan Braun. Maybe you need to give back your award, jerkface.

Nice card for Porcello. Sports Illustrated shoot? And that Vogel-monster scan is so you can see what his card looks like, P-Town Tom.

Did Koufax ever take a bad picture?

Great card!!!! Love that Topps has forever chronicled the screwing around of Andrus and Beltre.

I ripped a box of SC last year (I'll probably do one this year), but in that box, I pulled a Crystal Ball card of Mike Trout. Well, sure enough, the first blaster Trout'd me again with a rare card.

Instavision is a case hit, so nice for this to drop out of a blaster. The inserted image is foil board, which is why is scanned so bright. I could make back the cost of the blaster on this card if I so desired. But that was not the only card from that blaster that was rare.

This is a gold Chrome Minted refractor, also a case hit. So one blaster - two case hits. I like when the odds fall in my favor. I could probably pay for the other blaster with this card.

And while I have a limited amount of base, I am going to say that the voting for card of the year ends with this year's Stadium Club. I have no idea how any other card released so far, or about to come out, will top this:

No idea if Topps shopped that one, and frankly, I don't care if they did. That is a great baseball image, and an amazing piece of cardboard. If it's fake, props to the guy that thought about it. If it's real, there is a photographer out there owed a Pulitzer.

26

Happy anniversary, honey.

Crazy little thing called love

Welcome to Independence Day, filled with all this hoopla and over the top patriotism showing love of this country. "World Leader" and "greatest country in the world" and all that other mumbo jumbo. It all sounds fine and dandy, but the truth is easy to find. But you gotta love that military, eh!

WE'RE NUMBER ONE (once in a great while, and usually not in something to be proud of)

Fortunately, there is plenty to love when it comes to those paper rectangles. When you get a mailer from the Night Owl, you know it's going to be good. Though, you don't really know what you will find. Greg must have found my want list.

The mailer started with 2017 White Sox team set. It scanned like crap, and I don't feel like taking a picture. You all know what they look like. Someone sent it to N.O. and he offered it up to me if I wanted it. Since I never buy the team sets, I did. I'm going to have to go back and pick up past years cuz I love this thing.

I mentioned Greg found my want list, and I am so thankful for that. I love 2008 Upper Deck, and I'm slowly trying to finish the huge set. But a half dozen from Greg helps. Also love Stadium Club. How great are those three cards out of the 10 or so I received? What's not to love about those images?

2010 Turkey Red Willie McCovey? LOVE IT! I am just 5 cards short of finishing the insert set. I have very few Obak cards, and I do love the 1919 Black Sox scandal (just finished reading The Betrayal), so any cards of the players from that team are welcome additions. And that AJ. Oh MAN I love that card! I really should work on the rainbow of it.

Love me some vintage. Egan and Beltin' Bill Melton are upgrades to the current cards I have. Night Owl asked if that Barber can be a filler on the '64 build. Hell - pen doesn't bother me, so I love I can clear another number from the want list.

My guess is Greg has gifted me at least a dozen pre 1960 Topps cards, and this Johnson is perfect, minus that paper loss of course. Otherwise, this card looks just pulled from a pack. Love his smiling face. Love how small he looks in that huge park in the background. Just plain love it.

There is a lot of love in this house.

LOVE THESE OUTFITS!

Hidden Gems: who are you?

The idea of this series is simple: special cards that are unique and interesting, if not entirely famous. Today's subject is a player with a lot of fairly boring cards, but in 2011, someone over at Topps either phoned it in, or decided to troll the player for whatever reason.

When I first saw this card from a pack, I figured it had to be another goofy fake player card, ala Kazuo Uzuki. If this was Seth Smith's only card, what a photo selection. No idea what his face looks like. Hell, in 2011 I could have picked up a Rockies uniform and posed as Smith and who would know without seeing my face on the card. In fact, all three folks pictured on the card could pass you on the street and you would have no idea who any of them was, or which was which person. Does this card have great framing? Yes. And that alone would make the binder. But the whole layout of the picture is what secured a slot in a 9 page.

Ok - if you dare, I would like to give you a little tour down the rabbit hole of my mind. I say that as a warning to get out now if you choose. This will get interesting, ugly, scary and quite a bit weird. But, It's how my mind works, and I have to deal with it ALL THE TIME!

Here we go!

So one site I visit on a regular basis is Deadspin, and the other sites attached to it. A while back, a post shared on a few of the sites talked about the video game Overwatch and an update that added some skins and little dances to the characters. Now, I don't play the game at all, but it does look cool. And click that link. How adorable is that animated gif at the top with Sombra doing some shuffling? A couple days later, somehow I came upon this video that a user put together that shows all the dancing emotes and a reference video of what the dance is. In the video I see the emote for Bastion (2:03) in the video, which shows that Bastion is doing the train, which the video maker synced with a video of some kids at a minor league ballgame doing the similar dance to "C'mon 'N Ride It" by the Quad City DJ's.

OH MAN - I haven't heard that song in a while!

So I searched the video on YouTube to get the whole song played. While listening, I remembered that hip hop samples the hell out of the music world, so what song or songs did Quad City DJs sample. Fortunately, Wikipedia will usually help you out, and on this page, I learn the sampled song was the theme song from a movie Together Brothers, the soundtrack written by Barry White. Yes - THAT Barry White. But the Quad City DJs didn't sample it. They straight ripped it off, adding a few lyrics, yelps and a louder beat. But otherwise, it is the exact same song. Let me post them both and you can see how identical they are.

How great of a funk song did Barry White pen? This song has been sampled in many other hip hop music, and is the hidden gem, a groovy jam that could not walk down the street and be recognized, mainly, because of Quad Ciry DJs.

Yup - I just linked Seth Smith's 2011 Topps card with the late, great Barry White. It's my blog.

So.....uhh.......yeah. Hi.

I have posted a grand total of once in the past 5 weeks. I'm not going to get into excuses or anything. It's what we all encounter - life. Nothing is horrible here in the 2x3 homestead. We are all healthy and safe. Roof over the head. Food in the stomach. Standard struggles everyone has from time to time. It just happens. But we are good and I need to make an effort to get back here. Writing gives me a sense of accomplishment, no matter the grammatical errors and poor spelling.

Let's do this!

Over the past month without posts (I do read and have commented my usual extremely important, life altering comments), a few envelopes have trickled in. Let's look at a couple. First up, Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown.

Love the Black Jack Illinois parallel from Hometown Heroes, but focus a bunch on the other two cards. In the middle, a serialed card of Frazier from last year's "Gold Label", which I use is quotes because that Paulie on the right is the real Gold Label. Look at the beauty! The way it shines, scans and curls like a true Chrome refractor. For those that liked the "Gold Label" from last year, get your hands on the real stuff. Not the pathetic foil board they are passing off on us. #Resist

Tasty vintage! It may be hard to tell, but the Rollie is a miscut. Just a little it at the top. And I hope not to spoil a certain dime boxer's future short term stops post, but if you have that 81 Fleer, there is an interesting tidbit I never knew about on the back.

As great as the cards were, to get card from Gavin is always a treat. Dig this custom mailer they were packaged within:

Seriously Gavin - you need help. Or better, a beer. Thanks man!

And the other mailer today came from north of the border, DJ at Sportscards From The Dollar Store. The land of hockey must mean hockey cards, right? You bet your bippy!

Toews is all chrome, so all crap on my scanner. I'm guessing the Clout was a dupe, or a reject, from his mask binder. And how about the back of Grampa's 92-93 UD. Decent Blues sweaters that year, and a view of the Blues 25 years patch. Then Doug went a did this....

Thought for sure we would lose Hartman in the Knights expansion draft, but we protected him wisely. Nice big swatch of red and his initials autograph. And then holy sh*t!!! DJ has already gifted me with an on card autograph of Patrick Kane. Now he follows it up with his sweet as hell auto-relic of the Big Hurt from Leaf's Sportkings.

There were two cards I figured would be really difficult for my Project 2005. One was Lee Man-soo, as he is in South Korea. I thought I found out he was involved with the KBO, but not so sure anymore. However, any Korean readers want to help me out, I am willing to work out a deal.

Second was the Big Hurt, for the sheer price I would have to pay. His autos are consistent in price, barring a purely lucky find here and there. This is a fine addition to the binder. And now I REALLY owe Doug. Dangit, but in a good way.

So there we have it. A post from little old me. You thought I was gone, but nope. I am like that cat from Zoom. I'm even typing up this post while wearing a stripped shirt and having oily, unkempt hair and dirty feet.

Throwback Thursday - 06.08.2017

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 blousing. The picture may be from the front of the card, or the back. Enjoy the uniforms from years past.

Josh Beckett - 2003 Upper Deck - Miami Marlins (International League)