Going for Broke

In addition to the recently updated theme and some infrastructure-type tweaking, I decided to finally just throw everyone I like on the Single Page Sensations page and see what sticks.  Here are all the new additions, and re-additions, so let’s trade!

Cubs– Arismendy Alcantera, CJ Edwards, Derrick May, Miguel Montero, Tuffy Rhodes, Rock Shoulders, Dan Vogelbach, Kerry Wood, Julio Zuleta

Other Baseball– Mookie Betts, Carlos Delgado, Ray Durham, Jermaine Dye, , Jose Fernandez, Charlie Hayes, Tadahito Iguchi, Paul Konerko, Hunter Pence, Yangervis Solarte, Yordano Ventura, Taijuan Walker, Dave Winfield

Bears– Marty Booker, Curtis Conway, Bobby Engram, Muhsin Muhammed, Marcus Robinson

Other Football– Jamal Anderson, Anquan Boldin, Marques Colston, Terrell Davis, Keenan McCardell, Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Jimmy Smith, Fred Taylor

Basketball– LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol, Artis Gilmore, Danny Granger, Kirk Hinrich, Eddie Jones, Kerry Kittles, Scottie Pippen, Chris Webber

Soccer– Jermaine Jones

Wrestling– Daniel Bryan

In addition, a few older Single Pages and full player collections are going to be reorganized.  Once I know what I’m keeping, the stuff I don’t want will be moved to the Trade Bait page.

I don’t know if burning through all of this in my 30th year of being will be my last great collecting hurrah or something else entirely, but I know I’m going to have lots of fun along the way.

I leave you with this rad Blue Prizm of Jorge Soler #’ed /199, just cuz..

Thanks for stopping by!

Into the fire…

A Trade Post You Say?

Yep, and I think I’ve about got a return package ready for this one finally.  It comes to me from Baseball Card Stuff, and it is awesome as can be, so let’s get right into it and check out the majority of what was sent!

That 20-10 topps card isn't part of the trade, for some reason I combined them with scans of this trade (twice as you will see). Poor planning on my part.

Why does Opening Day get so much crap for being the same as the base set when almost every year, the little tweaks actually make it BETTER looking than the original??  The blue foil is better (or at least more interesting) than the regular silver on the ’06s, and the white border completely and utterly destroys the black-bordered design of the ’07 set.  I’m not normally all about the white borders (if you’re going plain white borders, just make it full-bleed, cuz that’s much less boring), but it actually makes the ’07 design look nice.

Also, Derrick May!  And a nice Upper Deck design, which brings me to my next rant.  To the people that dislike Upper Deck’s general lack of base set design, I strongly disagree with you (and they change it up enough to tell the difference from year-to-year, so come off that BS).  An analogy: I watch my wrestling for THE WRESTLING, not the silly skits & promos and crap.  The extracurricular crap only works to raise the interest in a match when it’s good, and quite frankly, it usually isn’t.  This is the same reason I generally prefer Upper Deck’s flagship base sets over topps’, they tend to be free of the frequently not very good design clutter of topps and let the great photography do the talking.

To each their own I guess, and it’s not like I’m a set collector anyway, but topps, ehh… I can take ’em or leave ’em.  They may have the history, the tradition, but I think tradition is overrated, especially when it comes to baseball.  I may catch heat for that, but I’m not saying it all willy-nilly.  There are reasons for it.

Rant mode off.

For now.

Maybe.

No rants here, just some good ol' quality Mark Grace action. This is the other one I foolishly combined with 20-10 topps scans that I'll probably never use, though I managed to put a keeper up in the same row as the trade cards this time.

I guess the lack of mid-’90s baseball card collecting (I was all about the basketball back then when I was first starting out) is why I have so few Mark Grace cards in my collection, so these are all greatly appreciated.  The ghostly Graceface on the Pinnacle card is foilboard I think.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have sudden urge to go grab a bottle of RC.  Dunno why… 😛

Now we're gettin' to the nitty gritty. Griffey, Dawson, Bell, that Fukudome I have about a half dozen of now...

Yeah, I have a lot of that UDX Fukudome.  If anyone has a spare Heritage or Goudey Kosuke Rookie, I’d gladly send a UDX (or two!) for it.

I’m planning to pare down my Griffey collection, but the Profiles and Record Breakers will be staying.

I think I might have to make a player collection for George Bell, since I’ve been keeping the few pre and post-Cubbies I have of him too.  He’s just cool.

Speaking of cool, Andre Dawson, ladies & gentlemen.  I think that Hawk is my first very first Leaf card of that year.  I don’t even recognize the design, though I’m sure I’ve seen it before.

And wow, I never realized this, but ’84 topps is like the unholy offspring of ’83 and ’86 topps, lol.

This scan is so full of win!

A Kosuke parallel #ed /99 flanked by two different ’83 Fergie Jenkins’!! ~ Win x3

My first ever ’80s Sportflics! ~ Win

The total mindblowage that is Eck & Lee Smith being on the same team at the same time combined with the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen an ’85 Donruss card before! ~ Win x2

And as my dad noted when he saw the card, not only the is mustache above Buckner’s lip impressive, but the mustaches above his eyes are pretty amazing too! ~ Win for my dad’s sense of humor.

And that’s not even getting to the fact that I need both the Hawk & the Ryno. ~ Yet more win.

See?  Full of win.  Thank you very much, Jake.  Awesome cards.  I will get stuff sent as soon as I can.

Oh, I almost forgot.  Jake also sent this lil guy along:

Andre Dawson Coin! I was pretty geeked up to find this in the package. 🙂

Now then, though the interest has been better than I was really expecting, we’ve still got 9 or so more spots still to fill to make the Opening Day Group Break happen.  It will be a max of $25 for two random teams and the boxes busted will most likely look pretty similar to the rough draft from a couple posts ago.

Next time, Gadget…

Wicked Ortega: The First Trade

Ya know what’s funny?  Due to the distraction of coloring sketch cards, that last post actually took at least five hours to do, lol. 😛

Anyway, here’s a selection of cards from my first trade with the Don hisself, Wicked Ortega.  And remember, this is less than half of what he sent.  He sent so much, there were even multiples of a few cards.

Sweet Lou

Start it off with the manager.

Aramis and KOSUKE~!

Why do Sweet Spot’s base cards have to come from hit-a-pack packs that cost $20??  The three years I have some from (2005, 2008, and 2009) are about the nicest looking sets from each of those years.  If set builders could get just the base cards in the standard 8 pack, 5 cards per pack, $20 blaster version with an outside chance at a hit (instead of those horrible ripoff $30 tins), they’d be all over it, or at least far more likely than with retail versions of more expensive sets like the always hugely uninspired SP.  Hell, you could even guarantee the jersey in the $20 blaster, because the Sweet Spot jerseys look like utter crap this year.

Wait, what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, the trade.  Umm, the infield power insert is hella tight, and the O-Pee-Chee subsets, inserts, and black border parallels have grown on me a lot.

Big Z!

I want to get all the versions of the Fukudome and Zambrano topps cards.  I think I have four of Z, the three above, and a Chrome refractor, and I think I have three Fukudomes, though I’d have to check.

Then we have Zambrano’s no-no.  Umm, no-hitter.  Is anyone still bitter about that?

OPC would’ve been so awesome if Upper Deck wasn’t so stingy with the amount of cards per pack.  This is a recurring problem I have with them.  It seems like they are as clueless with low end cards as topps is with the high end stuff (UD flaship very aside, though I’m very hesitant to even call it low end).  It really is a shame, because OPC mostly kicked ass otherwise.  It really nailed the fun, colorful ’70s retro feel without resorting to using a past design (yes topps, that jab was at you).  I just couldn’t bring myself to buy more than a couple packs when there were so few cards per pack and I knew there was no chance at anything special.  At 8 cards for the same price, I can guarantee I would’ve bought at least another half-dozen packs.

Goodwin Champions suffered from this too, maybe worse than any other, though SP and Icons aren’t good for making retail versions, and need a couple more cards per pack just to mitigate the suck, like topps did with Ticket to Stardom.  8 cards per pack is pretty much the cutoff point where crap retail versions of higher end than flagship stuff to starts to become tolerable.  It is also where I stop caring so much that stuff like OPC is the cute chick that has nothing else to offer.

Hmm… I seem to be mode-locked in rant mode.  More cards!

Yes!

I love the arty old arty checklist cards.  Was so glad they brought them back in ’09 Upper Deck Heroes football (even though I pulled a Packer).

All kinds of good stuff!

We got vintage!  We got minis!  We got more proof that blue makes any design they throw on card look better (the Derrek Lee Timeline)!  We got Shawon Dunston Rookies!  My Shawon-o-Meter is at .298 and rising.  How about you?

A Turk Wendell rookie, Dwight Smith cuz I can, a Randy Myers Silver Signature parallel, and... a scandalous pic of the mayor of Souvenir City poopin' in a bucket of baseballs.

Yeah, I went there.  Deal with it. 😛

Lots of groovy random stuff here.

You can never, ever go wrong with sending me Pinnacle cards. And is Ted Lilly playing up to that fat contract or what?

I wonder if these came from the same play...

Lee, Soto, some Sorianos, and Derrick May, my secret shame...

I thought Derrick May was gonna be a superstar when I was little.  I was wrong, and I guess… I’m just gonna have to put it behind me. *sigh* 😥

Yay Rynos!

Okay, I feel a little better now.

These are several thousand year old cave drawings...

But seriously though, Moyer’s been around since I was about two years old.  I dunno how I’m gonna handle it when he retires.  It’s like… he’s been there as long as I can remember.  What am I supposed to do if he’s not around, man?

The fun just doesn't stop!

I know Big Z is a great power hitting pitcher, and if quit pitching to focus entirely on hitting, he could probably go .265-25-80 or better on a yearly basis, but this isn’t Micah Owings we’re talking about here people.  Zambrano is actually a really good pitcher too, he even has a no-hitter.  You don’t have to show him hitting all the time.

Have we got time for one more?… Okay, here ya go:

Fergie!

Good stuff, good stuff.  Give it up for Wicked Ortega everybody!  I gotta sleep some more now.

I still want a Shawon-O-Meter hit counter…