Slicin' up a box for Dayf...

Well, looks like Dayf wants to see me hack up my 1988 Fleer box with a machete. Well, here you go.

In three parts.





I had to switch to a smaller knife to cut out the cards because I like my fingers. The knives used are: Ontario RTAK and a Spyderco Centofante 4.

The end result wasn't as clean as possible because the RTAK is a good quarter inch thick (and seventeen inches long) and it kept hanging up in the soft cardboard, and I did manage to slice off the corner of Kirby Puckett, but that's ok. The little Spyderco slid right through the cardboard though.

I realize it's more of a slice than a hack... but I've spent too much money on guitars to risk losing a finger.

So, there you have it.

HUGE, combined 1988 Fleer mail day...

I didn't get around to posting the stack of 88 Fleer that Jeff from Card Junkie sent yesterday, and maybe it's a good thing. Becuase in the mail box today were two more packages. One from Fat Rat with more 1988 Fleer.

Before going to the mail box on Saturday, I had 509 of the 660 cards of 1988 FLeer. After going through both packages from Jeff and John, I'm down to needing less than 40!

So, any extra Phillies I get are going to John and I'm looking through my '09 Series 2 extras for Card Junkie.

I really don't know where to begin on these, so I'll just highlight a few of my favorite cards from the stacks.

Let's just look at a random sampling, shall we?


A very young Matt Williams. I always liked him despite the steroid allegations.


1980's glasses goodness.


"rrrrrrrrrrrrr... Zomberto Kelly eat braaaaaaaainssss..."


Like Bob Walk, Eric Plunk is a guy that I think, based solely on last name, should have chosen another career path.

In fourteen seasons, Eric only plunked 32 batters though.


Looks like Fleer stole a page out of the Topps Big Book of Bad Baseball Card Poses. I'm pretty sure there's no ball in that glove.


I have no memory of this guy playing for the Braves... or anyone else for that matter. Looks like his big league career consisted of 31 games with an 4-11 record and an ERA of over 6.


Here's a guy I really didn't want to see leave Atlanta. I like Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson (when he remembers how to hit) up the middle, but I miss Blauser and the Lemmer.

When I saw the 32 on his bat knob, I thought he was holding someone else's bat because I remember Blauser wearing number 4. But it looks like he had number 32 until Gary Eave was called up in 1989, at which point Blauser switched to number 4.

Well... that's it.

I want to send a huge thanks to both Jeff and John. I'm less than 40 cards from the end thanks to their generosity.

My want list will be updated pretty soon.

And check out A Pack to be Named Later sometime this afternoon for the first pack of 1988 Donruss.

Thanks again.

Another box of Series Two Cereal...

Series Two O's.

Are all the series 2 boxes Lou Gherig? This'll be the third one I've bought and all three have been Lou.

So with two cereal boxes, five packs and a blaster, I'm 51% through the set. So let's see how I do with this one. I've only pulled a handful of Braves too. Only one from the first cereal box, and I think Chipper was the only one in the second... maybe this one'll be a bit better.

Before I begin, I should preface this by adding that I am substantially drunk, so any typos, I'll try to fix in the morning.

Again, I won't list all the cards because that would be boring...


I don't like Derek Jeter. I'm sorry, but I don't. I hate the Yankees, and I really just don't like Jeter. I do like him a lot more than Alex Rodriguez, who I disliked long before he was a Yankee, but sorry Jeter fans... he's just not for me.

But this is a great looking card. I can't get over how well Topps did with their photography this year. It's not as good all the way around as 1988 Score, but it's pretty damn close.


This is a nice action shot. But what I really want to point out here is the guy talking on his cellphone at a baseball game.

I have a cellphone, and I probably couldn't live without it since I don't have a landline. But I hate being around people who can't get off the damn things no matter where they are. If you're walking around downtown or in a store you don't need to be talking on the phone. People don't want to hear your conversations and it doesn't make you look cool to strut along with a phone in your ear. It didn't look cool 15 years ago when very few people had cellphones and it sure as hell doesn't look cool now that everyone has one.

And guess what, guy on a phone at a Rockies game? Now you're going to be the jackass that everyone who collects baseball cards will remember as the guy on the phone.

Hang the fucking thing up and watch the game. He's probably one of those assholes who sits on his phone the entire game talking to someone who's watching the game on TV.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...


I'm not sure if I like this card or not. There's a lot of great action going on, and I really like how the ball is almost in perfect focus. But it's just a strange position to find a pitcher in at any time during a game. I'm guessing he's fielding a bunt and throwing off balance to first... or jumping a hurdle as he runs across the field.

It would be a great shot if the ball was the focal point of the photo, instead of the strained look on his face.

And now, the best card in the box (assuming the refractor isn't Ripken)...


Maddux in an awesome throwback jersey. You can't ask for much better.

This wasn't a bad box at all, very few doubles. But there was one damaged card and fortunately I already had it, so I can't complain about that.

Now the refractor...


Pretty spiffy. I've got Bob Gibson, Ty Cobb and now Cy Young.

Any doubles that I got out of the box will be up on my for trade list in the morning.

Mailday from Montana

In the mail box this afternoon were two small bubble mailers. One from Jeff at Card Junkie, and one from reader Mike, out in Bozeman, Montana.

I've never been to Montana, but a great deal of one of my favorite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is set in Bozeman. It, along with its sequel Lila, is one that I go back and read every year or two. In fact, I'll probably have to buy a new copy after another reading.

But I digress. Let's look at some cards.



Top row:
131 Juan Nieves
273 Gerald Perry
337 Fernando Valenzuela

Bottom row:
341 Orel Hershiser
432 Joe Magrane
452 Pat Clements

Since we all know most of these players, I'm going to do a group scan and then talk a bit.

There's a good chance that this is the best combination of six cards you could possibly find in this set.

With the exception of Gerald Perry, there's not a boring shot in the group. And Perry's a Brave, so I don't mind the boring shot too much.

My favorite of the group is, as you probably guessed, Orel Hershiser. Comparing his Topps signature to the TTMs I got a few weeks ago, it doesn't look like his signature has changed much in the past 20 years.

I assume these are all spring training shots, and I noticed that only Magrane and Clements aren't wearing long sleeves under their jersey shirt. So maybe they're from early spring training.

Once again, I'd like to thank Mike, and I'm now five cards from the end. I made a little booboo on my want list and missed two cards that I actually needed, so that list is now correct.

Check in tomorrow afternoon as we go through a large (41 cards) chunk of 1988 Fleer that Jeff from Card Junkie sent over.

Thanks again to Mike and Jeff. And be sure to keep a look out early next week for 1988 Donruss to take over the old '88 Fleer blog.

Series Two Cereal anyone?

I was in Wal Mart, and I said I wasn't going to buy any more retail packs, and I didn't. But I did pick two boxes of Lou Gherig O's. $10 and unsearchable, it's a good deal.


Looks tasty. Let's hope so.

I won't list every card because that would be boring.


On first glance this is a pretty cool looking card. But then you notice that Carlos is just as worried about his hat coming off as he is about catching the ball.


The ONLY Brave in the box and a sweet, sweet looking swing. I just wish he was using that sweet swing to actually hit the a little more than he's doing.


This DOES NOT look real. It looks like a screencap from a video game.


Any Rockies fans out there want this? Let me know.

So nothing spectacular, but I only got seven doubles. So I'm a lot happier than those retail packs.

So let's take a look at the EXCLUSIVE LEGENDS CHROME REFRACTOR!


Hey hey... this is nice. I'm pleased. THat smudge is from the scanner... I realy need to Windex my scanner bed.

So if anything else interesting pops up in the second box, I'll do a little post.

1989 Bowman Livin' the High Life... or

Mail Day from Fat Rat

I'm a beer snob. I love beer, good beer. Keep Budweiser away from me, and bring me something dark, heavy or microbrewed. In fact, I just cracked open a bottle of Magic Hat No. 9, and fittingly, the cap says "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?"

But I have a dirty little secret. I like Miller High Life. I don't drink it much anymore, but when money was tight in college I could always scrounge up enough change for a 40.

In the mailbox today was a heavy envelop from John, aka. Fat Rat Phillies Fan. I sent a few '09 Heritage Phillies his way and a couple other things. When I opened the envelope, this fell out:


Beer! Of course, there were some baseball cards attached to the other side.


Let's see what we got, and following 1989 Bowman tradition, we'll look at the rookies...

270 Jody Davis


340 Bill Bene - First round flop?

Bene was the fifth overall pick of the 1988 draft and pitched in relative futility for nine seasons, retiring after 1997.

366 Otis Nixon
209 Scott Bradley


245 Alex Sanchez - Alex Sanchez is not to be confused with the Alex Sanchez who played for the Brewers, Tigers, Devil Rays and Giants a few years ago (that Alex Sanchez was the first player to be suspended under the new drug policy). This Alex Sanchez pitched a grand total of four games in the Majors and left with a 10.03 ERA. Here's what Andy had to say about him over at Traded Sets, and it sums up his career pretty well.

He stuck around in the minors until 1995 and had a minor league record of 59-54/4.15 ERA in 209 games.

269 Pete Smith


75 Kevin Wickander - He was a short reliever his entire career and posted a 5-1 record, but recorded only two saves in six seasons. In 150 games, he pitched 132.2 innings, walked 85 and struck out 101.

81 Jessee Orosco
191 Eric Plunk - Another name like Bob Walk... probably should have considered another career with a name like that.

I'm now 11 away with another trade in the works that should put me even closer.

Thanks a lot John! Almost time to put this one to bed, and I almost wish it was a bigger set, I really love these cards.

Mail Day - 1981 Topps from Card Junkie

I sent out a few trades yesterday, and this one was in the mail box when I got home.


I've never heard of this guy, but he's got a pretty nice looking card. He does look a bit unsavory, but he's a catcher. They're supposed to look rough around the edges.

I think this officially puts me at 25% on 1981 Topps, so thanks a lot Jeff!

For anyone curious, 1988 Fleer will be back tomorrow... real life got kinda hectic and needed attention. So we'll finish up the box starting tomorrow.

Thanks again Jeff, and anyone who has a trade in the works with me, they went out yesterday so keep an eye on the mail box.

1989 Bowman from Night Owl...

As promised, here's a large surprise mail day from Greg at Night Owl Cards.

Here's a small sampling of the 41 cards he sent. I'm now 19 cards away and nine more of them should be on their way to me pretty soon, so I'm nearing the end of a set that I thought would be pretty difficult to complete.


This seems like a good place to start. It's not exactly a night card, but it's an early evening card. I've mentioned before that all of the Orioles cards look the same, but they should have put them in order based on the time of day they were taken.

hmmmm...


Old school Expos uniform.


Run Ryno Run! This is about as exciting as 1989 Bowman gets.


This is the typical treatment that the Padres got in this set.


I love this card! For some reason I feel like he needs to be standing on top of the Empire State building swatting planes out of the sky.


And finally this.

I really like this card, there's a lot of nice forward motion going on and the strips on the uniform just add to it.

Once again, I'd like to thank the Night Owl for his help with this set.

Two more TTM attempts going out on Monday...

These two may seems pretty off the wall, but they'll make sense in the end.




Reed and Tolleson are two of seven players who attended my alma mater, Western Carolina University. According to the back of the '87 Topps card, Jerry Reed pitched the first no-hitter in WCU history.

Looks like the Cincinnati Reds' Jared Burton is the only current player who went to WCU.

I guess we'll see if I have success.

2009 Topps Series 2... what the f***

So I posted a few days ago about how I got my hands on a blaster of Series 2. Well, tonight I finally found some retail packs and bought five.

When you take out all the inserts and Topps Town cards from the blaster, I got 63 total base cards. No doubles. Over all, a pretty successful blaster, though I wish the Topps Town cards weren't one of the eight in the blaster packs.

Tonight out of five packs, which is a total of 55 possible cards (taking out the five Topps Town cards), I got sixteen doubles from five packs. SIXTEEN FUCKING DOUBLES. What the hell is up with that? I got my fair share of doubles from Series 1, but not like this. The first pack I ripped had six doubles alone.

One of the 16 I'm holding on to one for a certain Phillies fan, but the others are up on my 2009 Topps for trade list. First come first serve... I'd prefer if you email me, rather than post a comment. My email is in my profile.

I'm looking for '89 Bowman, '09 Heritage or Turkey Red Braves or '81 Topps.

All was not lost though, I got some pretty nice inserts...


I really like Turkey Red, but I just don't see myself being able to complete this set. So this one is up on the trading block too, if any Orioles fan wants it, let me know.


These Wal Mart exclusives are beautiful.


Very nice.


Very, very nice.

Ok, so yeah, I'm pissed off. Did I just get lucky with Series 1 and is this just an example of '09 collation? Or is series 2 particularly bad?

But, tomorrow or Saturday (probably Saturday) you're going to see a nice surprise package from Night Owl, so thanks a lot Greg! Just wait, it's a nice one.

Bobby Wins 2,000

It took fifteen innings, but Bobby Cox won his 2,000th Atlanta Braves game tonight, 7-6 against the Pirates.





Congratulations Bobby. I hope he can make it back to the World Series one more time.

Also, I know this was his 2,000 Braves win, so why did I post a Blue Jays card? Well, I couldn't find another one of him in a Braves uniform.

2009 Topps Series 2 blaster

YAY, finally found series 2. Now I know blasters aren't as economical as retail packs, but there were five packs left and every one of them had been opened and searched. So this time, I'll settle for less cards just to know they haven't been searched.

I wonder what the patch will be. With my luck it'll be fuckin' Alex Rodriguez or Manny. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Christy Mathewson, Lou Gherig, Jackie Robinson or Tony Gwynn. If it has to be one of the current players, maybe it'll be Chipper.

Let's see what we've got:

Pack 1


352 Gregor Blanco - YAY Brave.

443 Gavin Floyd
471 Kerry Wood
BCS15 Chris Denorfia
TTT30 Ryan Braun
551 Tim Redding
509 Lou Montanez
603 Jose Reyes

Pack 2
480 Prince Fielder
562 Cecil Cooper
628 Desert Power (Justin Upton, Chris Young)
351 Chris Snyder


582 Yunel Escobar - Gold Parallel 491/2009, I like the card, but the photograph is a bit blurry. And I would have chosen one where, I assume, Kelly Johnson isn't stepping on Yunel's foot.

TTT47 Carlos Beltran
625 Jim Thome
595 Vernon Wells

Pack 3
579 Adam Kennedy
618 Brandon Backe
410 Lou Piniella


LG-BR Brooks Robinson - We've all seen these, and I've posted a few of them, but I think these are beautiful cards.

TTT39 Carlos Zambrano
383 Everth Cabrea
557 Jayson Werth
513 Bronson Arroyo

Pack 4
517 Kevin Frandsen
417 Jason Marquis


431 Ramon Hernandez - Here's one that I think everyone who's written about Series 2 has posted, so I wanna get in on the action too! I think it's been a while since we've seen a truly iconic baseball card, but I think this will be on that endures the test of time. In twenty years when you think of 2009 Topps, this will probably be the card you think of first.

TTT31 Vladimir Guerrero
419 Braden Looper


479 Jose Molina - It's a Yankee and it's a bit over exposed, but I still like it.

444 Jody Gerut
344 J.R. Towels

Pack 5
464 Bobby Crosby
426 Pablo Sandoval
386 Jonathan Papelbon
430 Francisco Rodriguez


TR91 Matt Kemp - I wish Turkey Red had been a standalone set, or half the size and inserted more regularly. I only pulled three from series 1. I'd like to put together a complete set because they're really nice cards, but there's just too many of them.

TTT36 Ian Kinsler
596 Radhames Liz
541 Jason Bay

Pack 6
340 Joe Mauer


354 Mike Aviles - Oops. Everyone's shown this one too, but I just want to say one thing. I have absolutey no training in PhotoShop, but even I know how to avoid this little problem. I wonder if it'll be corrected in future printings and if it'll become a treasured error card... probably not. Hell, Topps probably meant to do it.

338 Daniel Cabrera


LGCB-LG Lou Gherig - This card is just beautiful. It's not overly shiny or refractory, it's just simple and perfect and beautiful. And any Lou Gherig card is a good one.
TTT42 Kevin Youkilis


468 Derek Lowe
457 John Maine
405 Todd Helton

Pack 7
472 Bill Hall
518 Chris Perez
542 Chris Ray
TTT26 Joe Mauer
633 David Patton
597 Randy Wolk
343 Ian Snell
380 Aramis Ramirez

Pack 8
569 Ted Lilly
617 Shaun Marcum
657 Aaron Heilman
414 Cha Seung Baek
TTT45 Alex Rios
536 Khalil Greene
428 Jamie Moyer
547 Jack Cust

Pack 9
655 Bengie Molina
512 Steve Pearce
458 Jeremy Bonderman
649 LUke Hochevar - Gold Parallel 463/2009
TTT42 Kevin Youkilis - gold
403 Trevor Cahill
602 Carlos Gomez
620 Ryan Zimmerman

Pack 10
435 Carlos Lee
466 Wilson Betemit


LG-FT Frank Thomas - The Big Hurt. The Big Hall of Famer? I think so.

TTT35 Prince Fielder
637 Donald Veal
346 Mike Cameron
654 Brian Schneider
608 Christian Guzman


Patch time. I almost thought video-ing this. But I don't want to hear everyone hear my say "fuck" a whole lot when A-Rod or Manny comes out of this package. So let's have a look...

Hey not bad. I know it's manufactured and not worth a damn, but it's very nice, and it's not a cheater!



Now I've gotta go put these cards in order and see if I got any doubles. If I did, I'll throw them up on my '09 Topps doubles list for anyone who's interested.