Dimwit December Group Break Goodies

After cleaning up with 4 relics in the November break, this one was a little more sparse. While I picked up some nice parallels, there weren't any hits this time. Still, for the value I grabbed some great base cards.

Just like in November, I picked the Mets and got randomed the Brewers.

Off to the haul!

Masterpieces! These are always welcome cards.

Goudey scored my favourite parallel card of the break - a blue backed Johan Santana mini:

And Gypsy Queen scored me a plethora of minis. Just the main ones for the Mets, but the Brew Crew brought me a variety of backs.

Some nice framed cards also ended up in my bubble envelope of goodness:

But the GQ highlight for me was a highlight reel moment for the Mets:

Beautiful.

Joe Average Card Collector December break Goodies

Just when my poor mail carrier recovered from the load of cards that came in on Monday, another hunchback-creating pile of cards arrived two days later, continuing the pain. Let's look through the first envelope of goodies.

There was a nice mix of minor league cards, as well as some recent stuff from Topps. My favourite card comes from the latter category:

Even though the jerseys don't match, I've finally got a card to go alongside my bobblehead of Ace.

I also picked up a few new candidates for the ol' names binder. Rookie Davis really speaks for itself. I think Forrest Snow sounds like a name a 13-year old girl would give to her poetry. Although I had the Mets, Jays and Angels in the break, doubles were randomized, which explains how I ended up with a Yanks and a Mariners pitcher.

My one hit though, was a Blue Jays autograph card:

Chris is a mid-range prospect in the Jays system. He was ranked #24 last year, but that will probably change with all the trades in the off-season.

I also for randomed this card of a future Met. Nice stuff!

Team Best's cards got me a few nice minor league cards. The Wells and Chen are nice, but Donzell McDonald's is my favourite, solely for the Norwich Navigators logo.

Here are some of the rest of the cards.

Nice to add a new Arencibia card to my collection, and I'll never tire of that Rated Rookie logo.

Great break with some nice cards! Thanks!

Trade w/ Nick @ Dime Boxes

Just before the holidays, I sent a few of my dime box finds off to the guru of dime boxes. The return package arrived on Monday. Let's dig right in:

It is always nice to add a new card into my Delgado collection. And boy, doesn't that back photo look so much better than the photo on the front? Although I'd guess whichever player that was that the former catcher barreled over might disagree with me.

I'd mentioned my birthday binder in the trade. Sure enough, there were some more additions to that:

Every time I come across one of his cards, I'm always puzzled why Dravecky doesn't show up in the retro themed sets. He's got an interesting story, so why not include him? At least it would acknowledge that somebody other than Tony Gwynn played for the Padres in the past.

You know I'm feeling kind when my favourite card for the new binder is a Yankee. With that great photo, it is hard to refuse. Plus, my love for goalie masks extends into baseball when there's somewhat of a design on the side of it. Although any catcher not named Charlie O'Brien will likely always be on the inside looking out when it comes to my goalie masks binder.

Even though he'd often break my heart when I'd travel to the Stade to cheer on the visiting Mets, you can't go wrong with sending me some Vlad.

That Dugout Axxess card might be among the spring trainiest cards ever.

Wrapping up the cards, some random Mets:

and random Blue Jays.

I'd completely forgotten about Greg Myers' second go around with the Jays.

Thanks for the great cards! If I hadn't had some group break stuff arrive today, I might be able to resume some sort of regular posting schedule.

Shoebox Legends Draft goodies

I'd highlighted the bonus cards yesterday. Today, the meat of the draft.

1st round - 2007-08 Upper Deck SPX Winning Combos Phaneuf/MacInnis Dual Relic. I've always been a fan of Al Macinnis, so this was an easy first pick. I've loved Al since he played OHL hockey in Kitchener. He helped bring home a Memorial Cup in 1982 on a team that also included fellow future Hall of Famer Scott Stevens, as well as future veteran NHLers in Brian Bellows, John Tucker, Mike Hough and Wendell Young. Fun fact via wikipedia - Wendell is the only player to win a Memorial, Turner, Calder and Stanley Cup. As for Al, I even got to see him put home 5 goals in a single OHL game - still a record for blueliners across the CHL.

2nd round - 2010-11 Panini Threads Avery Bradley RC Jersey #'d/399. Probably a bit high, but I like the Celtics and am really glad to see him back on the court again. I'd love to know why the Celtics green scans so blandly.

3rd round - 2008 Upper Deck Heroes Scott Rolen Light Blue Jersey #'d/200. I really couldn't go too wrong adding a Blue Jays relic to my collection. Although Rolen didn't have a memorable run in Toronto, it's nice that it is still one of a fairly good player.

4th round - 2004 Bowman Heritage Tim Welke Official Umpire Autograph/ Since I really love offbeat cards, it was time to pick up one of the more unique items in the draft. I'm probably one of a handful of people that would be happier pulling a card like this from a pack than many players outside of those on my favourite teams.

5th round - 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee Jonas Hiller Retro Rainbow Parallel #'d/100. Again, probably a bit higher than it should be, but it is a nice card for the mask binder if I ever decide that I'm going to put all the hits in the front of it.

6th round - 2008-09 Upper Deck Matt D'Agostini Young Guns RC. The only Young Gun card I came away with in the draft. And a decent enough player as well.

7th round - 1953 Bowman Color Solly Hemus. At this point, I noted that the Daily Dimwit was drafting all the 52 Bowmans in the draft. So, I altered my list to be sure I ended up with at least one, someone who would go on to be a rare player/manager in future years.

8th round - 2008-09 Upper Deck Artifacts Silver Spectrum Nathan Horton #'d/10. It's really hard to pass on any card /10, even if I'd rather he be in a Bruins uniform on the card as opposed to a Panthers one.

9th round - 2008 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Callix Crabbe Auto. I'd miss out on a Young Guns of Ilya Zubov later in the draft - I wasn't going to miss out on the other candidate for the 2-14 binder. This one can join the hits on the first page of the binder and it is my first autograph on it, surrounded by 7 relics (with a Viktor Kozlov on the way from COMC).

10th round - 1974-75 Topps Penalty Minute Leaders. THE HAMMER!

11th round - 1979-80 Topps Bobby Smith RC. This is the third time one of the cards with some variant of that design has appeared in this recap. Not the last time either. A nice rookie card for a veteran NHLer.

12th round - 2009-10 Fleer Ultra Ultra Uniformity Rick DiPietro Relic. I believe this is my first swatch of orange in my relic binders. Or this could go in the mask binder due to a decent view of DiPietro's POW-MIA mask. Neither binder really cares about insane contracts.

Edit: My second orange swatch - I've got one of Keith Primeau.

13th round - Pinnacle Be a Player Joel Otto Autograph. A nice autograph of a veteran player.

14th round - 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee Retro Blank Back Martin Straka. I didn't have any blank back cards in my binders, so I picked up this one in a late round. It's also among the last cards for another veteran.

15th round - 2000 Topps Michael Young RC. I'd grabbed one of two Michael Young Jays cards in the Diamond King draft. This was the one I missed out on, so it was a perfect late round pick.

16th round - 2009-10 Upper Deck Rookie Materials Ivan Vishnevskiy Relic. A relic card of a guy who only played 5 NHL games. Why not?

17th and final round - #1 - Press Pass Legends Robert Parish. Wrapping things up with a card of the Chief. It's hard for a Celts fan to pass on this one when it is still sitting there.

Whew.

Thanks for the fun draft, and for the addition of several unique cards to my binders!

Continuing with the mailbag

Firstly, let's start with a pair of cards from 2X3 Heroes' Tis the Season event.

This might not have been the most spectacular pick, but it was one that I needed for my Platinum set. Baby steps, people. Baby steps. The second was a little more interesting of a pick:

A sweet Cooperstown Cal Ripken Jr. insert. Thanks for the cards, and it was a reminder that I promised to look in the attic boxes for some of those hockey cards from your wantlist. 6 unsorted boxes shouldn't be that hard to search through!

Since I still want to get through these by the weekend, when I can return to the dime box goodies, I'll also cover the bonus cards I picked up through Shoebox Legends' bonus rounds.

Not the most interesting pick for a Mets & Jays fan, but things got better. Plus, Righetti's time with the Yankees was during the down years, so it wasn't a totally painful choice.

Although I'm not a Leafs fan, the Wendel was the type of player you really had a hard time hating.

There was a vintage bonus round as well. I elected on this card of Bubba Church. Why? The guy is named Bubba Church. Even his moniker is vintage!

As the draft's last round ticked away, the second last bonus round was to grab a final card of your choice from the remaining cards. I'd already picked up one of these in an early round, so this one seemed like a logical pick to go alongside it. It's also /100. Not bad for a retro.

I got the third pick of the final round. There were a couple of nice vintage cards, but those went in the first two picks. I was leaning towards a Carlton Fisk relic, but I elected on this instead.

Mainly due to Gio's great signature. Great loops. If I believed in graphology, I'd have fun psychoanalyzing it.

And, as a bonus leftover from a previous trade, there was also some sweet additions to my goalie mask binder.

I like that the back of Lehtonen's as it tells the story of the design (Western films, specifically Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven). But the Tim Thomas mask from the Winter Classic is my favourite of the bunch. I love ones that reference the history of the specific team or the game.

I'll work my way through the entire draft tomorrow, in order.

A busy mail day

Lots of goodies came in the mail today. Goodies from a trades came in. Two in fact. One from Nick from the Dime Box, in exchange for some dime box finds of my own. Another one came in from Doc's Closet, in return for making his wantlist for 1990 Donruss less pathetic. Also, a nice two pack of cards from 2*3 Heroes' Tis the Season came in a PWE, as well as the cards from Shoebox Legends' Draft.

Plus a Upper Deck Hockey Masterpieces base set from ebay.

As Bobby Heenan was wont to say, my mailman is hunchbacked from carrying my (fan) mail.

I'll start with the cards from Uncle Doc. Simply for the reason that all of them were the closest to me. Since I was sending 1990 set filler, I really didn't want anything major in return. I simply said that random Mets from the 00s would be fine. Random Mets ended up giving me some really nice cards.

I think this Al Leiter card might be my favourite of the grouping. It is just a fun, different shot, and I always love coming across those. The best thing about is the back. Specifically, the little factoid at the bottom of the card.

I was in attendance for that game in Montreal. It is really a pleasant surprise to see something I saw in person mentioned on a card. I don't really have a binder for that (and if I did, the only things in it would be the Wrestlemania 18 mat relic and the card that mentions Verlander's no-hitter in Toronto), but maybe it can reach page status in one of my misc. binders.

If not for that mention of the 4-18-02 game, I'm thinking that nice, shiny Alfonzo Fleer card would have taken first place. It is a nice, thick card that features one of my favourite Mets.

Another contender was this Hernandez card. Can't go wrong with any flashback to the '86 team!

It is going to be really nice to be cheering for Jose again when he rolls into Toronto this season.

Every time I come across a Michael Young card, I lament Esteban Loaiza. Victor Zambrano came close to doing that for Scott Kazmir. When Victor made his debut with the Blue Jays coming out of the bullpen, some of the fans in my seating area were excited. Until I pointed out that it wasn't Carlos, and that his performance during his Mets years was sketchy at best.

Why wrap this up with Bruce Chen? I'm not sure, but the fact that wikipedia tells me that he's only 35 years old blew my mind. It just seems like he's been playing forever. Must be all the teams he's played for. I'd completely forgotten he'd made a stop with the Jays farm system at one point until wiki reminded me.

So, that's one envelope down. 1 box, and 3 more to go! Plus some group break stuff that has yet to arrive.