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.