Monthly Archives: October 2010

by

A Post? For Realz? ~~ Thoughts and Sox WBC

First, let me start by saying I’d like to post more often.  It’s not like I don’t have endless amounts of free time to post, because quite frankly, I do.  As you may know, I am Bipolar to a pretty serious degree.  As such, actual pressing responsibilities are pretty few & far between.  I don’t have a lot I have to do, though I have slowly been taking over more and more of my life the last 18 months or so.  The problem is, I just don’t have any useful discourse very often.  I don’t trade a ton because I’m so slow about it (again, no real excuse for the slowness, my baseball cards aren’t even horribly disorganized anymore) and my ability to scan stuff is limited to how often I go over to my parents’ place and actually leave myself enough time to scan between other stuff, since I’ve never gotten around to getting myself a scanner (not that I have room for one right now anyway).  And I’m not focused enough to stay fully up on the latest news, so I can’t really comment on the state of the Hobby that much, or whatever other pretty shiny piques my interest any given hour.  My funds are so limited that there’s no point in keeping that close of a watch on things anyway, since I’m not gonna be able to experience a lot of what the hobby has to offer, in pack/box form at least.

That all said, I do have a growing backlog of trade packages scanned and ready for posting.  So I’ll start with World Baseball Classic half of the still somewhat recent trade with Thoughts and Sox.  There were some great football cards too, but we’ll get to those another time.  Otherwise it’ll be daybreak before I finish this post, and I’m trying hard to not do that so much anymore.  So enough jibba-jabba, let’s get into it.

These are from 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars. Two or three cards shy of the 25 card base set, and I think one dupe.

These cards are super shiny and like Spuctrum, and are almost exactly as thin. They look ten times better though, with the solid colored world map in the background to even things out. The flags class things up a bit too.

Now we're getting to the parallels. The greens are #'ed to /499 and the red to /299.

The purples are numbered /1799 and are presumably the easiest parallel pull. Apparently there are three more levels of parallel as well, according to Upper Deck's checklist.

Not to be outdone, here is topps' chromed out 2009 Bowman version of World Baseball Classic subset/insert overkill. I love it though. The WBC is a fun event.

Last scan and then we're in the clear. Lots of shiny good stuff. Thanks again to Thoughts and Sox, and remember, if you want to dump your unwanted World Baseball Classic stuff, you can send it riiiight here.

.::~Outtro~::.

by

Miami Mega Powers?

This post is inspired by a tweet by Steve of White Sox Cards fame.


LeBron James


Dwyane Wade

Chris Bosh

The Miami Heat have gotten three of the top 10 players in the league together (and two of the top five), and a collection of inexpensive but pretty talented also-rans and young’uns to back them up.  The expectations are enormous, and there’s no reason to think they can’t run roughshod over the league once they manage get on the same page.  But this reminds me of another seemingly unstoppable force that got together back in the late ’80s.

The Mega Powers: Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Miss Elizabeth

Yes, back in the latter half of 1987, when the Miami Heat franchise was just preparing to come into being, the two biggest stars in the World Wrestling Federation, Hulk Hogan and the “Macho Man” Randy Savage, along with Savage’s universally beloved valet, Miss Elizabeth, joined forces to become The Mega Powers.

For awhile, all was well.  Savage became World Heavyweight Champion with an assist from Hogan in the tournament final after the whole Andre/Million Dollar Man/evil twin Hebner referee shenanigans.  And they eventually beat the so-called Mega Bucks in tag team action to end the feud.  The alliance was an uneasy one, however, as one would expect with the egos and personalities involved.  Savage was always pretty unstable, and Hogan… well, he tended to be oblivious to his closest allies to extreme degree, making him come off as a pretty big jerk in some instances, and making his former friends look fairly sympathetic when they turned on him.

Such was the case here, with the Hulkster being a little too friendly with Savage’s lady, likely being too dumb to realize it, as well as accidentally knocking Savage out of the Royal Rumble.  It would take an unlikely tag team of misfit toys to ultimately bring down their house of cards though.  Enter: The Twin Towers…

The Twin Towers: The Big Bossman, "The Doctor of Style" Slick, and Akeem The African Dream (aka One Man Gang; don't ask)

So yeah, these three oddly mismatched guys would be the final straw that destroyed the greatest team up in the history of professional wrestling.  But what does all of this have to do with the Miami Heat?  Well, let’s break it down:

The Mega Powers, two of the biggest stars in the history of professional wrestling, as well as the most beloved valet/manager ever.  Let’s start with Hulk Hogan, who had proven almost invincible in the ring and was front & center in the whole Rock & Wrestling thing.  He had a reputation for being immature though.  Hulkster’s obliviousness caused Orndorff to turn on him, his kinda-sorta glory hounding making it easy for Heenan to get in Andre The Giant’s ear helped that turn along, and overstepping his bounds with Elizabeth caused Savage to turn on him.

Now on to Savage.  He was always the better worker (by a long shot), and every bit as charismatic, but never quite got the respect he deserved, and was in Hogan’s shadow his entire career, despite arguably being an overall better talent.

True, Hogan would have done something to make him flip out eventually anyway, but they wouldn’t have lasted a week without Miss Elizabeth keeping the peace, which is of hugely underrated importance.

And then there’s the Miami Heat, three of the brightest stars in the NBA, at least two of which are well on their way to becoming all-time greats, and third is not far behind.  LeBron James is embattled a bit now, but he was pretty well loved by the fans until this past summer, and his skill is unquestionable, like Scottie Pippen and Magic Johnson combined.  He too had a rep as being immature (and perhaps a little mentally soft) behind the scenes/under the radar, though it wasn’t until “The Decision” where it came to a head, and those who questioned him appeared to be right.

Dwyane Wade is arguably LeBron’s equal, for what he lacks in distribution skills, he makes up for in being a go-to guy late in the game, the one thing LeBron has proven not to be that great at.  As well, he is the guy that brought in James and Bosh to HIS team, but he is still overshadowed by LeBron, and likely will continue to be no matter what he does.  Wade seems to be a pretty humble guy, but how will that work out over the long haul?

Bosh is almost forgotten in all of this, but his success is essential to the team, being the only proven power forward or center that is still young enough to play serious minutes.

~~~~

Now let’s have a closer look at The Twin Towers.  They were comprised of former prison guard-turned pro wrestler The Big Bossman, a big random goof that never really got to do a whole lot in his time in the WWF in Akeem/One Man Gang, and Slick, their second-tier manager mostly known for being comedy relief of the stereotypical type.  Though OMG would have his moments, and Slick might have if he hung around the business past 1992, only Bossman would go on to be a significant mainstream star.

How is this important?  Well, there’s a certain team out east that has a very similar dynamic going for them on their team.  And that team is the defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics.  On their second unit is a certain super-heavyweight reserve officer of the law by the name of Shaquille O’Neal, a megastar making one last run at glory.  He is flanked by a random big guy that’s been known to have his occasional moments in Glen “Big Baby” Davis, and tiny hilarious (though not stereotypically, unless we’re talking stereotypical college student or 3rd grader) prankster Nate Robinson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Davis_(basketball)

Shrekeem, The Bostonian Dream


The Shaq Bossman

“The Doctor of Style” Nate Robinson

Twin Towers 2.0?

So you had better get your act together, Miami.  Get everyone healthy and on the same page in a hurry, lest you repeat the unfortunate history of wrestling’s Mega Powers.  You never know when a mish-mashed team of 2nd-stringers will come along and brutally exploit the cracks in your seemingly indestructible juggernaut and tear all your grand plans asunder.

Then again, with all the money they’re making, maybe Miami’s Big 3 are really the Mega Bucks, which would make head coach Erik Spoelstra evil twin referee Earl Hebner and Pat Riley WWF President Jack Tunney!  Oww, my brain…

♫ Money Money Money Money Moneyyyyy ♫

I’ll shut up now…

by

I Had An Idea…

So there’s this Score factory set I wanna get, mainly because I want the bonus Matt Forte prime jersey card in it.  Of course I can’t really justify/afford the $50 price tag, especially for just one card (and maybe the Bears team set).  So, I have a proposition.  Does anyone want team some sets?  $3-$5, depending on RCs/overall team star power.  And I’ll throw in a bonus with each set to sweeten the pot a little.  Random hits I’ve got laying around, some of my old sketch cards, more cards from the same team (if available) or another you collect, that kinda thing.  Just let me know what you’d like.

In the name of efficiency, I may need most people to send SASEs.  I don’t really want to do it like that, but knowing of my legendary disorganization/slowness, it’s probably just easier that way, even with a relatively simple thing like this.  And anyone already due a trade package, I’ll just include your lot with the trade.

I can justify going through with this if I get half or more of the teams committed to.  Teams will be first come, first serve, and you can claim as many as you’d like I guess.  Paypal or money order please, and the Bears team set will be available.  I’ll only keep it if it’s left unclaimed.

This also makes for a handy small scale test run for the Old School Breaks-style group break I’ve been wanting to do for ages now.  If this goes well, maybe that can actually happen someday.

I think that about covers it.  Now then, is anyone interested?

by

Trade Packages- Outbound

My cards are becoming somewhat more organized, and my end of trades are starting to get done!  So here’s an update:

• Four trade packages have been packaged up and are ready to go.  They are for Marie, Heartbreaking Cards, Community Gum, JD’s Wild Cardz, The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame, no one’s going to read this blog, and I believe Carl Crawford Cards.

• Packages for Too Many Grandersons, Hey That’s Mine, Shoebox Legends, Indians Cards, Play at the Plate, Dayf and Mojo are organized and almost ready to be mailer’d up.

• Sooz, Baseball Card Stuff, and the First Day Issue I just need to sort… Yes, I’m still at the sorting stage on these, my three oldest trades still left hanging.  Sooz and BCS’s were ready long ago, but their Jeters got mixed up again somehow… 😦

• Wicked Ortega, Offy, All Your Base Cards, The Real DFG, anyone who wants Cardinals cards, Dinged Corners, and Drew also have very disorganized piles of cards picked out for them.

• I have also found some stuff for My Cardboard Mistress and Drinking the Orange Kool-Aid and could almost put them up with the almost ready to be mailer’d up bunch.

• Thoughts and Sox, I believe your cards were sent at the beginning of this week.

• Who else, if anyone, do I owe stuff after all this?

• Man, October’s gonna be a busy month for the post office.

• Finally, does anyone want a really big stack of 2008 and 2010 MLS soccer cards?  Or a much smaller stack of hockey cards?  Or a pile of random wrestling and/or non-sports “entertainment” cards?

• That is all.  Seeyas. 😉