Goodies from Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams Day 1

A nice bubble envelope arrived at Chez Me yesterday, filled with the return portion that sent a pile of Michigan alum, a couple Jack Johnson relics and a handful of Tigers/Wings stateside. It was full of enough goodies that I can spread the posting out over a couple of days. Tomorrow, the hits, but today the base cards and inserts.

The first of three cards to disappear from my top 10 wantlist was this Cheevers Between the Pipes card, which will be on its way into the mask binder. I've already for a few cards of his mask, and the salute to the mask via Steve Shields, but I wanted this one for the fact that the back of the card tells the story of the mask. Namely, a stitch was painted on the mask for every place he was hit by a puck.

Also disappearing from the wantlist - this 1982 George Bell rookie card. This was the only one I needed of his 3 1982 cards. And it is my favourite photo of the 3.

I haven't counted player-by-player in the ol' mask binder. But if I did, I'm certain Rick DiPietro would be up there with the leaders. I'm not the biggest fan of his, but his star-spangled theme masks are always detailed and stand out. Here's another one for the collection.

Also making its way into the binder, this coin card of Cujo.

If only the coin had the mask as well. That's it for the players who only made one appearance. However, there were two players from my personal collections who made multiple appearances in the package. Firstly, lots of Vlad!

The shiny Blast Master card is really nice, but my I defer to my preferences for my favourite, and select a Diamond King.

Although it is kinda depressing that there isn't a home uniform to be found anywhere among his Expos cards.

Also in the batch was a nice handful of Delgado cards, all of which were on my way to the binder.

Much as I loved the ones with the Dome/CN Tower in the background, my favourite was the third to come off my top 10 list.

A card commemorating his mammoth home run to the upper reaches of the Dome. Sweet.

But now I have to rebuild my list. And it makes me certainly the only person on the planet to have a  Bill Risley card among his 10 most wanted.

Cheers for the great trade, TMM/TMV, but only partial cheers with the rest coming tomorrow as I get to the hits.

Masked Mondays - Week #6

One of the things I like about the mask binder is the variety of players contained within. I've got Hall of Famers. I've got Between the Pipes cards of guys who never even played a game in the NHL. Sometimes even on the same page. Today, three cards of players who have had very short-lived NHL careers to date.

It's a nice mask that uses the royal designs that are appropriate for someone with the Kings. Danny played a grand total of 1 game for the Kings, and then has spent the past few years on a nomadic journey around the game. Including a stop with the awesomely-named Hamburg Freezers. However, he's made his way back to the NHL, and will make the start tonight for the Flames against the Coyotes. If I hadn't thrown in this card with a COMC order, since I had just "0.xx" remaining on credit, I probably wouldn't have paid enough attention to the transaction ticker to note that he was being called up from Abbotsford. My reaction when I saw that: "It couldn't be that guy. The one with a grand total of 1 game in 07-08 to his credit. It is? Cool!" That's why I included the "to date" in the opening paragraph.

Another guy with 1 NHL game under his credit, but, much like Taylor, might return to the NHL sometime soon. He returned to Finland, but was brought back to this side of the pond where he's now playing in Syracuse. The lightning is obligatory for a Tampa mask, but what might be best is what is on the other side of the mask. He had the Superman 'S' there.

Mike Mole was a contestant on the reality show "Making the Cut", and it earned a contract with the Sens. He then moved on to the Islanders, where his total NHL experience consisted of being a backup and not seeing any ice time at all. Either he's now working as a representative for Reebok, or someone with the same name has a twitter account that implies that. Sadly, this paragraph about him is longer than his entire wikipedia page. It is still a great mask though. The Isles colours actually work well for the creature motif that is seen on many masks.

Then and Now

Back then, if you came across a card like this, it would just be tossed out, or at best thrown into a nickel or dime bin.

Now if you came across this card, you'd call it a super short print die-cut rhombus edition card, and you'd put it up on ebay as a 1/1 and want three figures to part with it.

Jaybarkerfan's draft goodies and more!

A bubble envelope came into the mailbox at Chez buckstore cards earlier in the week. It contained goodies picked up in a draft from a few weeks back. At $8.00 a slot, I picked 2 entries, and was quite happy with the cards I picked up. Of the 20 cards I got, the lowest I went on my draft list was 32nd pick, and I was able to grab all of my top 5 cards.

Like any other card would be number one on my list. This was a relic I'd had my eye on for a time now, since there only appear to be a couple of Mookie relic cards out there. Note that although he's pictured as a Met, the jersey is actually from his days in Toronto. Could the card combine my favourite teams any better?

As my Expo collection slowly but surely expands, this card will make a nice addition to an eventual binder. A great autograph of someone who pitched every pitch for Montreal.

O-Dog was very popular during his time in Toronto - even warranting a bobble head. It's nice to add this bat relic of his.

And another card sure to make it in the Expos binder.

I think that this was the only hockey card available. Another relic for the ol' goalie binder, even through 'Terrific 200' sounds so unbelievably corny. The rest of the way home, I really went for the most interesting cards available. If not necessarily the best or most valuable.

On-card signatures are always nice.

Even sticker signatures are fine. Although I had this in 10th place on my list, it probably should have been higher. I'd wanted something like this of Sanchez ever since he threw a clothesline on Nyjer Morgan. Sadly. the version with audio from a Japanese Stan Hansen match overdubbed isn't on youtube anymore. Still, I can always watch it and hear LARIAT-OOOOOOO in my mind.

Not too sure why I picked this one so high. I guess it was a 'when in doubt, pick a relic' thing.

I picked this one up because of a group break I was in with Daily Dimwit back in the fall. We ended up with what seemed to be a Rocco Baldelli hotbox. I think two of the relics in the break of the 20 promised with were Rocco. It became a little gag as we got to the final box of the break. I didn't ended up with the Rays on the break, so I figured, "Why not get a Rocco relic"?

Your obligatory non-sports Ginter card.

A nice swatch of a player who has a no-hitter to his credit.

I guess this was the best card available at this point.

Why a Blue Jay relic card wasn't higher, even for a backup type like Kevin Cash, puzzles me in retrospect. It still was in 18th on my list.

The greatest Boston Celtic ever.

Part of one of the greatest Mets moments ever.

Bosetti was a regular in the early days of the Blue Jays. Why not add one of his rookie cards?

You can never go wrong with Masterpieces. I don't think any of my cards, from any of the sets are a dud. OK. Maybe the Lester Pearson card from the hockey set is a bit of a stretch.

And why not wrap this draft up with a Canadian kid?

Now, after the draft, I came across a 5 for a dollar box at a card show that contained 8 autographed Gary Redus cards. Knowing that Gary Redus is high on JBF's wantlist, I picked them all up, and sent them his way. It was just meant to be a thank you for the draft, but there were extra cards in here.

Firstly, a random autographed hockey card of a career Dallas Star.

But that was an appetizer. For this:

Awesome! An auto of a member of the '92 Jays. But there was still more.

A trio of early 80s Dawson cards. The middle one was actually on my top 10 want list, since I liked the batting practice shot of Stade Olympique.

Thanks for the draft, and the bonus cards. All are great, and happy in their new home.

Happy Birthday to me, and these fine folk!

I guess today (It is 2/14 in Newfoundland when I post this, that's enough form me) is as good a day as any to go through my 2/14 binder and highlight some of my favourite pieces of cardboard within. If not for the connection, it would be the most random sportscard binder in the world. No two cards of the same player on the same page. I only allow for two cards from the same set if the players are teammates. Of which I've found two. Jim Kelly & Lonnie Johnson with the Bills, and Scott Scudder and Keith Brown with the Reds.

I've yet to line up two of the former, but two of the latter will show up later.

Firstly, my favourite photograph of the bunch. Who would believe it is actually a card from the junk wax era?

This spotlight photo from New Jersey takes it narrowly over a Kelly Stinnett that I picked up in a trade w/ Nick @ Dime Boxes.

A great action shot of an Indian getting a face full of glove in spring training. It's close, but the Walt card gets it for being a unique shot for the time.

The oldest card in the binder is this one that I picked up from sportlots, with the mail arriving just in time, about a week ago.

I've got a page of relics so far in the binder. It was nice to pick up the Kozlov for under $2 on COMC, and I grabbed the Gaborik (my pick for the best hockey player from 2/14) this past weekend for a toonie. At least in a hockey nation, it's good that I don't match up with the major names.

And I decided to celebrate a little early, picking up this beauty from ebay. Hopefully on its way from Latvia as I write this. I guess my desire for this card, and to pay shipping on the card, makes me more obsessed with cards of Viktor Kozlov than any reasonable person should be.

When I looked through the list of football players, it was this guy who came up with the most games played. Sadly, since he was an OL, he doesn't even strike double digits in terms of different cards. At least he does have a Super Bowl ring.

Fortunately, the era makes acquiring his cards an easy proposition. But, it is football that brings me my only Hall of Famer in the bunch. Looking through the list brought a pretty decent array of quarterbacks to back him up. I'd feel comfortable with this threesome on the bench in their respective primes.

I could even have David Garrard or Patrick Ramsey backing up this group.

My basketball collection is the most threadbare of the album, but my resolution is to change that. At least I have a good selection of cards to pick from for these folks, especially Richard Hamilton.

Needless to say, hockey is the biggest part of the box. I had trouble narrowing the remaining unscanned cards down to just 3. I narrowed it down to a great mullet, the oldest hockey card in the binder, and a player I was looking for, until I finally found a card of his staring at me from the front of a repack. Woo-hoo! Come to me!

These are the only two cards that are from the same set that share a page in the binder. A pair of Reds in beight yellow.

And to wrap it up,  3 more baseball. The guy who is probably the most famous of the 2/14 baseball players, the second guy, alongside Viktor Kozlov that blow out the same # of candles as me on 2/14, and one from this year's flagship.

And now, with all this scanning, posting and typing, I'm taking my birthday proper off from blogging. With my mailbag the past two days bringing in draft and group break cards, I'll have plenty of goodies to show off.

His position is WHAT?!

Last year, I added the 1975 Herb Washington card with the position of "Pinch Runner" into my collection. It's the only card ever issued with that designation.

Over the weekend, I was looking through drawers and I came across this card.

Yup. That's a position of pinch hitter listed on this 1992 Donruss Jose Tolentino.  As best as my googling can tell me, there isn't any other card with that position listed. The closest I could find was a card that proclaimed Candy Maldonado as the Pinch Hitter of the year, but that's it.

When one looks at Jose's baseball reference page, he's also listed as a pinch hitter there, as well as a first baseman. His 1991 debut (his only season) was as a 30 year old rookie. His only big league cards were this one and his 1992 Topps ones. And he's still in baseball as a broadcaster.

I'm probably the only person on the planet that considers this card worthy of a hard toploader, but it will go nicely beside the Herb Washington in the box.

What vintage lurks in the hearts of repacks?

At the Sunday show, there were several team bags of baseball repacks. $1.00 each? There were random team sets. I grabbed an O-Pee-Chee Cardinals set to send off. I also picked up a Philly team set for some reason. Any Phillies fans out there want a team set with 1991 Topps fronts and bilingual backs?

Enough of that. There were also bags with random cards from 1981-1985 sets in the bin. I scanned through the bags, and picked up a couple of them. Both had visible cards that would fit in my various collections.

Oddball uniforms! I was kinda hoping for a team set, but these were the only 2 there that featured yet another gem in the history of the White Sox uniforms. Luzinski looks more like a beer league player than a major leaguer, but that's the charm of this card.

The other one had a pair of hall of Famers visible.

I'm not sure which one I like more. Fisk is the better photo, but Sutter is the more interesting uniform of the bunch. Still, both will go into my misc. binder. There was a nice variety among the cards within the repacks. I'm particularly fond of the Tiant and the Nettles.

But I'm not the type to make a post out random 80s cards. Am I? OK. I probably would. But the title indicates otherwise. Since hidden in these repacks were these two cards.

Sweet 1961 vintage! These two cards instantly became the third and fourth oldest cards in my collection. Do I care that they're commons? Nope! These two instantly got put into sleeves and into hard top loaders. I don't care that I can pick them up for less than a buck on COMC. They appeared where I didn't expect them, and they're awesome additions for that reason.