Orel Hershiser TTM Success!!!!!!!!

Went to the mailbox this morning: satellite bill, insurance bill, junk mail, envelope with my handwriting, Barnes & Noble coupon... wait a minute. Envelope with my handwriting?

I looked at the post mark... Las Vegas. Wait, wait, don't get too excited, sometime they don't sign and just send the cards back.

Still, I was like a little kid being told not to open that christmas present that he knows is the Super Death Ray Blaster 7000 and is going to wet himself if he can't tear into it within in the next eight seconds.

So I stood in the driveway, ripped the envelope open and these fell out...


What better cards to send than from his amazing, Cy Young year of 1988?

Aside from Steve Avery, this is the one that I was really hoping to get back. Hershiser is a big reason that I became a baseball fan, and a fan of pitching.

After just over a month (I sent them out April 25), the cards are back home with the autograph of my childhood baseball hero.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hershiser.

Mailday 5/28 Part 2

Here's a sampling of the second part of the package I got today from Dayf.

Let's start with the greatest uniform in the history of baseball:


In 1978, White was involved in an interested deal. The Expos sent a player to be named later to the Cubs for a player to be named later and Woodie Fryman. The deal was originally made on June 9 with White being sent on June 23. In December of the same year, White was traded back to the Expos for Sam Mejias.

The deal worked out best for Montreal in the end, as White played well enough as a part time player for the Expos until 1983, and Woodie Fryman pitched well out of the pen.


Here's a nice shot of Phil Garner.

This is going to sound strange, but when I think of Phil Garner I think of the Dodgers. I know very well that he only played half a season in LA, but I still think Dodgers when I hear his name. I'll have to look, but I can only assume that he's in a Dodger uniform on most 1988 baseball cards.


It's a Yankee, but it's a nice looking card. Mr. Jones was a two time All Star.

And finally... Who's idea was it for the White Sox to wear this?




I'm trying to figure out what it says under the bill of his cap. It doesn't look like a uniform number... he wore number 12 in 1980.

Well, there you have it. I'm now 181 cards into the set, right at 25%.

Thanks again Dayf.

Mailday 5/28 - Trade with Cardboard Junkie: Part 1

A package came in today from Dayf at the venerable Cardboard Junkie. Once again, the generosity of this community astounds me. I'm sending Dayf three 2000 Topps series 1 that he needs, and in return he sent 21 1981 Topps and 3 1989 Bowmans that I need.

We're gonna look at the Bowman first, and when I get a chance to look through the 81s I'll put up some of those.


Here's a relatively young Roger Clemens in a spring training shot. In 1989, Clemens was coming off a 18-11 season where he threw 14 complete games with eight shutouts. He also struck out 291, and finished sixth in Cy Young voting.


Looks like Schmidt has connected for something down the left field line. I wonder if this is a spring training shot becuase of the alternate jersey.

I am very much on the fence about all the alternate jerseys in baseball these days. What ever happened to just good old fashioned white at home and grey on the road? Some of the alternates look ok, and admittedly I do like the Braves' Sunday red uniforms, but that's about it. These days it almost seems like the regular white jersey is the alternate.

And then there's that camouflage thing at the Padres wore last year. I turned on the TV, flipped to a baseball game and said outloud to no one "what the fuck..."

Alternate hats get me too...


When I think about the Atlanta Braves, a team I've followed for 20 years now, the hat on the left comes to mind. I've had that hat for probably 15 years, it doesn't even fit anymore, but I keep it around for the memories. Now, I admit the black one is pretty spiffy (it was a freebie at Turner Field about ten years ago) but it's not a game hat. Seems like the Braves rarely wear that navy blue and red cap these days.

Aye, but this is a tangent for another post on another day.


And finally we have this. This is the final father/son card that I needed and it prooves one thing to me. Topps knew how to take good pictures of the Orioles, they just chose not to.

There you have part one. I want to thank Dayf for his help with this set. Just 60 more to go. And be sure to come back later to see some wonderful old 1981 Topps.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe... cards?

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, and I thought about slapping these up on APTBNL, but this place needs some love too. So let's take a trip down memory lane...

I bought this a few years ago purely out of nostalgia and never watched anything more than the behind the scenes documentary included as a special feature.


But a few days ago I was thinking about it, got it off the shelf and started from the beginning to watch it all, and look what I found hiding in the box:




The cards, if you want to call them that, are about post card sized and seem to be from a 16 card set.

These are recent interpretations of the characters, but I have to say the Skeletor/Evil-Lynn card is pretty badass looking.

Looks like I may have to get my hands on the other three volumes.

And there you have my first foray into non-sports cards.

I HAVE THE POWER!

50,000

No, not dollars, cards or hits to the site. But miles.

Tomorrow morning around 4:30am I'm hitting the road to Atlanta to take a friend to the airport for a 7:45am flight. No big deal, but I looked down this morning and saw this:


My beloved 2006 Subaru Impreza is about to 50,000 miles. I don't know if I should be a proud papa, or upset about it. Imprezas have been known to run for more than 200,000 miles, so I'm not concerned at all... but it's a bit of a milestone.

Several years ago I was driving along and just happened to look down and my '97 Ford Thunderbird was just rolling to 100,001 and I was upset that I missed that milestone.


I'm hoping I can make this trip on one tank of gas.

Unfortunately, I won't be in Atlanta long enough to do anything tomorrow, and the Braves aren't playing, so there's no point in hanging around.

EDIT: That's strange. My Hella Supertones didn't show up at all in that picture.... I looked back at it and thought "something's missing." I immediately ran out to the car to make sure someone hadn't managed to steal them...

Here's a really bad, old picture of what the front of my car really looks like...

Mail Day: 5/11/09 Pack 2

Part two comes by way of Rob from who now reads I Heart Halos (d'oh... lack of sleep is really screwing with me). I sent him some 1991 Topps and he sent 42 of the remaining 1989 Bowman cards I needed.

First, since I'm only missing a few Orioles, I think it's safe to say that THEY ALL LOOK EXACTLY THE FREAKIN' SAME!!!


I love this set. I really do, so don't take this the wrong way. While the photography is good, certainly better quality than base Topps, it's still bland and uninspired for the most part. I realize that they were probably trying to model the set on old Bowman, but the style of photography, to me at least, seems more akin to 1960s and early 70s baseball card photography.

And for anyone who's curious, the sticker under the monitor in the background is from a Raleigh, NC based doom metal band called Soulpreacher. They're along the lines of old My Dying Bride with maybe a bit of Anathema mixed in with some prog elements. Good stuff.

Anyhoo.

I wonder what El Presidente is laughing at. I really like this card, and as we all know, I'm a sucker for the old school Expos uniform.


He had a pretty good career, bordering on great. Not Hall of Fame material, but certainly a career to be proud of.


Ozzie Smith looks very uncomfortable.

And now, that rookie that I mentioned.


Ty Griffin was drafted as the 9th over all pick in the June 1988 draft by the Cubs out of Georgia Tech. He split the 1989 season between Single-A Peoria and Double-A Charlotte, and then bounced back and forth between High-A Winston-Salem and Charlotte in 1990 and 1991. He was picked up by the Reds and spent '92 at Double-A Chattanooga.

In 1993 and '94, Ty played in the independant Northern League, first for the Thunder Bay Whiskey Jacks and then for the Sioux City Explorers.

1995 saw him back in affiliated baseball with the Arkansas Travelers (Cardinals) where he played 94 games. He then spent '96 and '97 with the Grand Forks Varmints of the independant Prairie League.

In five minor league seasons, he hit .241/39/241. His numbers in four independant seasons were somewhat better: .287 with 43 home runs.

So there you have it. With Rob's help I'm now 63 cards away. The updated want list can be found here

Thanks a lot Rob.

Mail Day: 5/11/09 Part 1

Seems like it's been a while since I've posted a mail day. I haven't been trading much lately. Not sure why. Oh well. Two packages came in today from trades that went out last week.

The first is from reader Dave who I helped complete one set of '87 Topps and get close to a second set. He's also been nice enough to decide to build 1988 Score, so I'm sending him a good sized stack of doubles tomorrow. It's going to work out well for both of us, because now he's a little close to a complete set, and I finally have room for my growing stack of 1981 Topps.

Which is what he sent me in return for the '87s. So let's have a look, shall we?


I love this card! That's all I can say about it. It's wonderful! This is my first Rollie Fingers card, and his last in a Padres uniform. For now, until I see more of this set, this is officially my favorite card (although, Gorman Thomas is a pretty close second).


Here we see the 1980 Atlanta Braves with a much younger Bobby Cox, a 40 year old Bobby Cox in fact.

Aside from this, the oldest card of Bobby I have is his 1986 Topps card, his last as the Blue Jays manager. I wonder how hard it would be to put together a player/manager collection of Bobby Cox cards...

And finally, this card confuses me just a bit...


Is there a reason the Cubs team card isn't a full team photo? Is it just because they couldn't find the time to do one, or is there some historical context? Are there any other team cards in '81 Topps that are like this?

The vast majority of my collection is from the dreaded era of over production. There's not a lot I can do about it, I was seven years old in 1988 when I started buying cards. I'm certainly interested in older cards and have plans in the future to work my way back as far as I can, but I have very few cards from before the mid-80s, so these older cards are still very new to me (and I realize 1981 doesn't qualify as old, yet).

With these 15 cards from Dave, I'm now up to 22.8% of the set.

So I'd like to thank Dave for his help with this '81 Topps project (hopefully I can complete it before the set and I turn 30 years old... I've got two years to do it).

Thanks again, Dave!

Steve Avery TTM attempt: Success!!!!!!!

I'm no autograph hound and I've never asked for an autograph in person. So I really didn't know what to expect when I sent out these TTM attempts. When an envelope from me showed up in the mailbox today, I got pretty excited.

Honestly, I expected the Marquis Grissom cards to come back first. But when I ripped into the envelope, these fell out:



Now there are two autographs in my player collection! I want to thank Mr. Avery for returning these in only 12 days.

This was also sitting on my front porch this morning (why don't delivery people knock on the door?).



Head on over to 1988 Fleer for daily pack breaks.

Happy day.

A Pack to be Named Later

If you haven't seen A Pack to be Named Later go check it out. There's not much there yet, but soon there will be. It's an ambitious project started by Matt at Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius and I've signed on to post a few packs here and there.

When my in coming box of '88 Fleer arrives, A Pack to be Named Later will get exclusive rights to the first pack. I also plan to rip boxes of 88 Topps and 88 Donruss before the end of the summer.

So keep an eye out for it, it should be a lot of fun.

And now I'm off to have a nice evening out for my birthday.