Cubs from Sox

As promised, at the end of the previous post, here be the Cubbies from Steve of White Sox Cards:

Cubs from my early days...

The Topps magazine cards I received have some pretty crazy borders.  Wait till you see the Andre Dawson below.

Mark Grace practicing the yo-yo trick and one from his little league days.  I’m pretty sure prospects that young actually get their own licensed cards nowadays.

In the middle we have pitchers in unintentionally perfect order of delivery.  How did I manage to do that? o.O

When I was little I had a giant (like 3ft tall, it was giant at the time) stuffed bear that I named after Jerome Walton.

Finally a couple of Shawon Dunstons.  My Shawon-O-Meter is looking good this morning at .334 and rising.

I desperately want a Shawon-O-Meter hit counter for my blog, btw.

Cubs Sluggers '80s/'90s

The first of three Hawks in the lot, an old school Upper Deck insert of one of, if not THE single greatest player of the 1980s.

I cannot bring myself to even mildly dislike Sammy Sosa.  The reasons why could probably take up an entire post of their own.  Don’t hold your breath on me ever getting around to it, but it would be a fun one, and an interesting look at how I see the world in the general.

More Andre Dawson, please and thank you!

Does that Topps Magazine card not have the single wrongest border for an Andre Dawson card ever?  Check the card beside it (?), that man can burn a hole in your very soul with his intense gaze, and you put him on a card with brightly colored birthday streamers for a border?  Even the bright yellow border is pushing it, only acceptable because Wolverine can get away with it, and in his prime, The Hawk could take ol’ Logan.

'91 Studio & Stadium Club George Bell

Is George Bell not the coolest looking dude this side of Billy Dee Williams?  Just give Bell a spiffy blue cloak, a blaster, and a case of Colt 45, and. It’s. On. (Please drink responsibly, btw.  Seriously.)

I’m not sure if it’s because of my Wrestlecrap-tastic nature of finding joy in the cheesy and ridiculous, or if it’s because I think they are genuinely awesome, but for some reason, I loves me some old school Studio.

Oh happy f***ing day, now we’re gonna have to fight with this thing so I can get the next couple of pictures up.  F***ing joybiscuits!

Anyway, below are a pair of early ’90s Greg Maddux cards.  I like the picture of him covering the base, because he accumulated numerous Gold Gloves in his career.

Anecdote time.  When Maddux went to Atlanta back in the day, I was so upset that I quit being a Cubs fan for awhile.  It took half a season before I stopped hating them, and a good year and a half before I finally got over it completely.  In the meantime, I became a Braves fan.  What can I say, I was  an angry and hurt 8 year old.  Fortunately, sanity eventually (and purely allegedly) prevailed, and I realized my heart was with the Cubs.  And here it remains…

Vintage Greg Maddux~! /Michael Cole

Now for some swatchy goodness:

2007 Turkey Red Rich Hill Jersey

Former Cub, current Oriole Rich Hill.  Never really got the hype about him, but the card is hella sweet.  This is the first ’07 Turkey Red hit of any kind I’ve seen in person, and I like ’em a lot.  Very classy.  I said it before and I’ll say it again, this was the only worthwhile year of Turkey Red as a full set.  Don’t like the gray bordered ones at all, and can take ’em or leave ’em as an insert this year too, though I seem to be the only one who thinks that.

Much as I like this though, and thankful as I am for it, I’m not sure if it is a keeper or not.  If I can send it along to a Cubs or Orioles fan with more appreciation for the subject, I am willing to do so.

You can’t have this next card though!  It ain’t gonna be leaving my collection anytime soon.

2007 Allen & Ginter Derrek Lee Bat!

Speaking of classy cards, Allen & Ginter!  This here’s a Derrek Lee bat card, as you can see, and it is AWESOME.  Is there anything cooler than an Allen & Ginter hit?  Even higher end stuff often pales in comparison to the fun, yet classy framed and encapsulated mini.  And Derrek Lee himself is sort of the player equivalent of Allen & Ginter, a class act himself.  A perfect match.

I know I’m leaving some cards out here, because I am flaky as all get out, and didn’t write out a complete list.  I’ll try to be better about that in the future, but no guarantees.

Once again, if I didn’t say it enough before, a thousand times thank you, Steve.  I will do my best to send some nice new Sox your way soon.

Stay thirsty, my friends…

The Oddball Lot #1

Though I swore off all of Topps offerings in blaster form, I still have a few loose packs worth of A&G to add to the want/for trade list after I get some sleep soon, including a suh-weet Mantle Ginter Back Mini, a couple of which came after the blaster debacle.  I guess I can’t fully resist the Allen & Ginter goodness, though no more blasters EVAR~!  I’m pretty much done with it till whenever as of now though.  My focus has very nearly completely drifted away from baseball cards to non-sport offerings.  I am awaiting some as I speak, and the rest of the near future’s boxy offerings are of the entertainment variety.

Anyway, I STILL owe some A&G trade-related emails to the following people (Yes, I do fail, thanks for asking):

Nachos Grande– Send me an email with what you want if you still require anything you inquired about and your address, and I will just send them and some Reds along with no specific strings attached other than my vague wantlists (aka The Lonestarr Special~!), because I’m not completely sure what my nice haul from the A&G group break does to my A&G wantlist.

More on the later group break later, btw…

Box Opener I’m not sure there was anything specific mentioned, so I don’t know where to even begin.

Night Owl– I have a Blake DeWitt ’09 A&G bat card if you need it still.  Also plenty of assorted Dodgers of note, including a couple other “hits”, if lil’ Blakey isn’t enough.  Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, I always send team stuff anyway, so I’m sure I can make giving  up the Fukudome jersey worthwhile.  I can get more specific via email if you wish.

Beardy– I’m not sure if my comparably paltry number of A&G cards can help you out any, but I’ve got a decentish-sized stack of Orioles with probably something to get ahold of that No Number Aramis Ramirez Mini.

Cat Osterman remains a dream that only achievable via a pipe of some kind though. *sigh*

Sharpe Since ’92– I can hook you up with some minis for the cards you offered.  I’ll need to thoroughly go over the A&G group break stuff to know specifics again though.  I know it knocked a few off, but my attention span hasn’t let me get there yet to see what’s what.

And regular trade emails to:

Sac Bunt‘s Chris– One of these years I will get to it.

Wicked Ortega– I haz Marlins cards & stuff.  Will trade.

Marie of Cardboard Problem and Upper Deck Blog– Just need to find out about the Canos & such.  The Pujols sketch card will be done once I get some sleep. New markers FTW.

And now for a couple of different, yet equally faily of me things:

Sooz of A Cardboard Problem– Did I reply to the Ichiro list email?  I thought I did, but it isn’t in the sent or trade folders, so I’m not sure what the deal is.

David, the king of the Generosity Tribe… I totally flaked and forgot about the money order until I actually saw the box break happened.  I have the money order, but I don’t have your address.  On the Packs of Random Kindness bubble mailer, it is partially ripped away, and the Seattle Mariners pack of kindness bubble mailer one is long gone it appears, so if you get this message, please email me please.  Once I have it, I will send along a small (because I’m fairly severely lacking in your team) selection of Cleveland Indians cards as a thank you for your packs of kindness and hopeful tolerance of my forgetfulness.

If there is anyone I missed, and I’m sure there was, please get in touch.  If my email addy isn’t available through my WordPress blog somewhere (I honestly don’t know), then check my Google profile please.  It’s also Lonestarr, but with a Walt Bellamy card as the avatar.  Can’t miss it probably.

Finally, a quick newsbite for Shot Not Taken.  I’m looking at picking up the TNA iMPACT! box in early-mid September (only have about 2 1/2 packs worth of base cards right now).  Trading will hopefully commence shortly thereafter. 😀

That’s all for this one sports fans.  Tune in next time for the Northside half of White Sox Cards‘ exceedingly great packet from not long ago.

After that look for a three-parter to get my poor Gint-A-Cuffs showing officially posted and out of the way.  Let’s just say I’m near the bottom of the pack in that one. Bleh.

I’m failing bad at the being social and card trading things.  Sorry. 😦

Renovation and Business Picking Up

Wow, things are starting to get busy at BTHE HQ.  My eyes are buggin’ out like Jeremy Borash just thinking about it all.  Let me check my schedule…

• It looks like I’ve got no less than three(!) packages currently headed my way to prepare for.  The cards I have to send back are set aside (and in one case, pretty much ready to send) at least.

• I’m also in the process of trades with both Marie and Sooz of A Cardboard Problem, as well as Shot Not Taken.  All three trades continue to expand exponential-ish from very humble beginnings.

• I’m also in the beginningest of stages of trades with Dayf (doing my trading specialty, aka the “Lonestarr Classic”: send random cards attuned to a person’s liking and hope there aren’t many dupes and then see what comes back) & Ginter Code co-cracker JD’s Wild Cardz (because I’m apparently the only card blogger that ♥’s them some World Baseball Classic).

A public thank you for the assistance with the bubble mailer SASE btw, Dayf.  Can I post the guide on it’s own page here on my blog?

• My specific ’09 Allen & Ginter wantlist has been requested by Chris of Nachos Grande and a certain Box Opener, so there may yet be more trades soon.  I will post it sometime Wednesday afternoon I think

• I’ve still got my googly eyes on Chris from Sac Bunt‘s available for trade list, and intend to deal with that soon as well.  I wonder how far into the list of what I want from him a ’98 Stephen Davis Skybox Autographics auto, a Clinton Portis UD Graded rookie jersey (not actually graded, btw; #ed to /350 though), a Carlos Rogers jersey, and few other Redskins will get me.

• I’ve still got Gint-A-Cuffs scans to edit and blog (totally forgot to scan the backs of the Ginter Back Minis, so it’ll be a bit longer before I get to it still).  The rest of the package from White Sox Cards needs edited and posted too.

• Finally, I seem to be heating up artistically, busting out with some somewhat successful sketch cards.  I’m starting to think that, even though I’m a total rookie artistically… maybe I don’t suck, and can make something of it.

How do y’all with actual lives & jobs & families & stuff keep your bloggin’s & trades rollin’?  I’m getting totally consumed by this without much of that other stuff to worry about… Am I just that immature & disorganized & inefficient? @_@

~~~~

Now for the renovation part.  My linkies are back! I dunno why that widget deserted me, but it’s back. I’ll put some more people’s up there once I get a little more organized. I tossed a couple other widgets up there too.

My heart is all in on my blog for the first time, so I’m tryin’ to class it up a bit. I’ve made a conscious effort to include more pretty pictures and shamelessly self-promote the blog on twitter.  It’s even payed off a bit too. My daily hits have more than doubled (to around 30, but still) as of late.  If I ever figure out gimp someday and make myself a banner or something, watch out! 😛

My Joey Votto auto, just because...

And there ain’t no more to say…

White Sox Cards Contest Winnings & Stuff

Recently, Steve of White Sox Cards held a contest on his blog for some of his White Sox duplicates, that I was lucky enough to catch early via being addicted to twitter.  After about a half hour of going into full-on internet research mode, the answer hit me out of nowhere, and I was able to answer before anyone else.  Saturday evening when I checked my mail on the way out to do some scanning, I found the package had arrived.  And what a package it was. *immature giggle over last sentence goes here*

Not only were there White Sox, but also some Cubbies to make up for his end of this (I totally need to make that pic my avatar, btw) trade never making it to me (which I totally forgot about till skimming over old links recently), presumably being lost to whatever mythical place the stuff that the USPS loses goes to.  Denver is probably a safe guess.

Anyway, here are some scans of most of the cards from this ridiculously cool and varied lot for your viewing pleasure:

First some Sox…

Nine 2009 Topps White Sox to show off the much-improved photograghy.

Alexei Ramirez is a keeper, and I gave a few of Sox to my dad.  He doesn’t really collect, but he’s a big, long-time White Sox fan.  Gotta love the airborne Quentin and Konerko.

2006 Fleer Tradition, 2009 Walmart Variation, 1993 Fleer

I think Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye are easily two of the most underrated players of the last 20 years.

I have a blaster’s worth of Target retro, but the Griffey is the first black Walmart variation in my collection.  I likey.

The Lance Johnson card is a great shot.  It looks like he’s about to lose the ball though.

1986 Topps, 1991 Fleer Ultra, 1992 Donruss Studio

I had no idea how long Steve Lyons was around.  This may be because I was a year old in ’86, I dunno.

Fleer Ultra had pretty humble beginnings, eh?  Robin Ventura is another underrated Sox star.  Is anyone but Frank Thomas not?

I love Studio.  I’m keeping that card.

1991 Topps, 2008 Upper Deck First Edition

Is that not a classic Frank Thomas card?  A thing of beauty.  Why can I not get ’91 Topps in my craptacular repack boxes instead of ’89 Topps?

I know nothing about Lance Broadway other than he has an awesome name.  I hope he gets to play for the Mets or Yankees at some point it his career, I’m just sayin’.

2007 Turkey Red

Now that is art.  2007 was the one year Turkey Red looked GOOD and was worthy of being a set of it’s own.

I think I’m gonna break this up into two posts.  Watching the Mets & Braves and really wanting to draw, so I’m not all here.  So I will leave you with this:

Vintage Baby~!!

1959 Topps Sam Esposito.  Wow, you know you’re a hardcore collector when you start getting dupes of cards from the ’50s!  What a cool card.  Thank you so much, Steve.  As soon as I get ahold of some good stuff, I’ll make sure to return the favor.

.::~Outtro~::.

Shoutouts #4

This was supposed to go up before I crashed in the Wii hours of Sunday morning, but it didn’t happen.  I slept all day Sunday and went out almost immediately after I woke up, and forgot about it until now.  Hopefully I’m not responding too late for anybody’s liking, and apologies if I am.  Now hit me with them shoutouts.

A shoutout to anyone who can help… My WordPress internal clock issue still isn’t resolved, even though I’ve tried to change the timezone multiple times.  Why won’t it work?

Shoutout to TheKSwiss… While book value doesn’t concern me, if you can come up with something comparable hit-wise or something, you’ve got dibs on the ones you want.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Brad Lincoln got a dinged corner and Joaquin Arias I’m not sure if I want to trade just yet.  Everything else should still be in the condition I received them in.

Shoutout to one John Arnold, if you’ve still got your Cubbies, I’m still interested in a trade.  Is my e-mail address anywhere to be found here?  You’d think I’d know about that, but nope… ANYWAY, if it’s not there, just drop a comment with a little sampling of what you have and an approximate total number, who/what you collect, and an email address where I can contact you.  I will copy everything down and block the comment, and get in touch with you shortly thereafter.

Shoutout to Steve of White Sox Cards, who is due several White Sox cards from me, and will be the first to benefit from my junk hit streak from not so long ago.  Hopefully I will get your cards along with those going to Dinged Corners sent out by midweek.

Speaking of… SPEAKING of Dinged Corners, this shoutout to the lovely ladies that make that blog happen. (/RD Reynolds impression)  I found the bubble mailer with your address on it, so finally, mercifully, your cards will be sent very very soon.  And there are a LOT of them.

Shoutout to the person who designed 2008 Upper Deck Timeline.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  I’ve heard plenty of Upper Deck X bashing, but it at least fits the theme.  Timeline is easily the worst looking base set of 2008.  It just looks incredibly half-hearted, and that makes me a sad panda. 😦

Shoutout to Boxbusters… One day I will remember your name, but that’s not the shoutout!  I’m feeling extremely lazy, so I will drop the trade thanks and make a request (pending shipping and safe arrival of trades with Dinged Corners and White Sox Cards) to be on the Trading Buddies page.

Here is what came in the return package, btw.  Sorry again about sammiching your end of the trade in here.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter-

David Ortiz, Aramis Ramirez, Rich Hill, Felix Pie

2008 Topps Chrome-

Rich Hill

2008 Upper Deck X-

David Ortiz, Vlad Guerrero, Hanley Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr., Big Z (x2), D-Lee (x2), Kerry Wood, Aramis Ramirez, Geovany Soto (the finest facial hair in baseball :P), and KOSUKE!!!!

2008 Upper Deck Goudey

David Ortiz (lovable but vaguely menacing), Big Z, D-Lee, Aramis Ramirez

2008 Upper Deck Heroes

Ryan Theriot, Rich Hill, KOSUKE!!!!

Thanks again.

Finally a shoutout to whom it may concern.  This is an incomplete list who and what I collect: Chicago Cubs (especially Fergie Jenkins, Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, Carlos Zambrano, Geovany Soto and Kosuke Fukudome), Vlad Guerrero, Ichiro Suzuki, David Ortiz, Fred Lewis, assorted legends, vintage (pre-1980), players in throwback jerseys, and 2006 Upper Deck Special F/X.

I will try to get everything sorted out in my head and put up an official page soon.

That’s all for now.

See you, Space Cowboy…

Shoutout!