If you'll indulge me one more "I'm sad about my awesome dog who recently died unexpectedly" post, I'll get it out of my system and don't plan on mentioning the unfortunate situation again. This is kind of a downer post (more of a eulogy, really) and I don't blame you if you skip it.
But yeah, it's been a rough couple of weeks for me and my wife. We had been thinking Annie just had a minor digestive issue to work through-- the vet originally suggested we try switching her to a different kind of dog food-- but nope, it turned out to be some serious shit and before we knew it we were kneeling on the floor tearfully telling her we loved her as the vet put her out of her suffering for good. Just devastating.
The fellow bloggers I've met in person can attest the fact that I'm not much for social graces. I'm an introverted homebody who'd rather spend a weekend watching movies and playing old school video games than going out and doing stuff with people. But if my wife said, "We're invited to a party this weekend.. and it's dog-friendly, so Annie can come too," then I'd be much more willing to go. Yeah, I'll admit I'm generally not a big fan of interacting humans, but dogs are more my speed.
Annie was great at making friends. And always a terrific buffer for awkward me when dealing with people. Hell, an argument could be made that she was my best friend. Loved hanging out with her. Something like going on a hike wouldn't hardly interest me at all, unless Annie was going too, in which case, yes. She was a happy pup and my mission in life was to keep her as happy as she could possibly be, as she was a sweetie who deserved that.
Man, she was so sweet. She had problems with her teeth and had to have several of them removed a couple years ago. To keep her remaining teeth healthy, we needed to brush her teeth on a near-daily basis. At first we used a doggie toothbrush, but it quickly became apparent that using our fingers was more efficient. And while Annie wasn't a big fan of it and could have chomped off our fingers in one bite if she wanted, she was a sweetie and reluctantly let us jam our fingers in her mouth and rub doggie toothpaste around her teeth. I'd often tell her, "I'm sorry, buddy-- I know this sucks, but it'll help keep your chompers working strong for ya when you're an elderly pooch." It's heartbreaking that she never got to that point (Hell, had I known she'd pass away at 7, I wouldn't have bothered with all the teeth-brushing and saved us both the unpleasantness!).
I hope you never had to have a pet make an extended stay at the emergency vet, as not only is it super stressful worrying about them, but it's also very expensive. She was at DoveLewis, Portland's only 24-hour emergency vet, for 5 days. The bill crept past 5 figures. And while we had pet insurance for her (which we got after our pervious dog, the saint Lucy, got cancer and left us far too soon-- and at an expense of several thousand dollars) that should hopefully cover about half of it, that's still a lot of money. Had Annie stuck it out for an extended period of time, we were ready to drain our savings if it meant there was a chance she'd possibly get back to her previous quality of life. I was all ready to give up buying new cards, even starting to think about selling off much of my collection, that's how much she meant to me. But thankfully (?) it didn't come to that and her health took a turn for the worse to where throwing more money at it to keep her zombified for hopefully another few days (and a one-in-a-million shot she'd recover) didn't make sense.
But still it was a lot of money, and so I've been trying to watch my spending. But then a few days after she passed, a card popped up on eBay I had to jump at. I love Topps Retired refractors and I search for them multiple times per day. This particular time I was at a low point and thinking how nice it would be if a Retired refractor I needed popped up at a reasonable price, and the Cardboard Gods showed sympathy for me and this one appeared with a very fair buy-it-now price...
This 2003 Topps Retired Joe Morgan refractor auto will always have special significance to me for being the first card I bought after Annie left us. I don't know if I can link her up to Joe Morgan much other than they're both kind souls who never gave much thought to advanced metrics. I never really collected Joe Morgan much, but always respected him as a player. And I always liked listening to him and Jon Miller back during their ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts in the 90s and 00s. And yeah, I think this is a beautiful card!
Check out the shoulder. I've seen this happen before. Looks like there was originally a Reds logo that got photoshopped out (why?), though the "holofoil lines" (or whatever you call them) must have been traced before that happened, as they've left a shadow that shows up when the light hits it. Sort of like how Annie is gone, though in a way she's still here with us in our hearts (--yeah yeah, I'm grasping at straws here trying to to link my dead dog to this baseball card I bought, but give me a break-- my dog died.)
A couple people shared this video with me on Twitter in their condolences, and it is pretty great for anyone who finds themselves in this sad situation.
I knew the first time I saw Miss Hailey that this was going to hurt. Because every relationship always does in one fashion or another. Every relationship you have with anyone or anything you love will eventually end in tears. But it is the deal we make, it is the agreement we accept, and it is the opportunity I would never turn down. You can avoid the pain and tears of losing a loved one....all you have to do is never love. I choose the pain and tears. But Dr. Seuss was right: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
That's a long, productive career. Wish Annie could have stuck around for even half of that timespan. I figured once she hit 10 years old, it'd be time to really spoil her and cherish every day with her, though we never even got that far. That'll haunt me, but I know we still gave her a wonderful life and even if she only made it to 7, I'm sure a lot of other dogs out there would happily trade places with her to get all the treats and fun adventures she got in those few years.
Oh hey, both Joe and Annie were born in September and they both took a lot of walks!
We'll take some time to mourn, but probably next Spring we'll get a new pup. But it's going to be a sad winter here, as my wife and I are still shellshocked over losing our sweet girl. Plus my wife's family cat died last year, so now we've got no cute fuzzy creatures to cuddle. :(
A live shot of Lucy Lou, our first dog, from doggie heaven.
Man, Lucy was the best. It was heartbreaking we got less than 2 years with her before cancer took her down. We really thought our karma would bounce back with the next dog, and while Annie was awesome, her career was cut short, to put it in sports terms. Both Hall of Famers, no doubt, but hopefully dog #3 comes through with longevity to rival the likes of Julio Franco and Bartolo Colon.
I'm a little worried though. Lucy and Annie were both very good girls who didn't chew what they weren't supposed to (--ok, once when Annie was a tiny pupper, she chewed up one of my plastic gloworm toys [guess she loved glow-in-the-dark stuff as much as me], but that's the only time I can think of that she chewed something that wasn't one of her own toys). Bringing a new dog into the house scares me for my card collection. Annie would often curiously sniff my cards, but never chew them. Such a good girl! I could trust her with a Trout rookie and not give it a second thought. I can only hope my next dog rocks at least somewhat close to that level.
Love you, Annie Lou!
Ok, I think I've now said all I needed to say about my dear departed dog. Thanks for letting me get that out. Regular baseball card content to resume going forward.
I'm a little late, but here's my Reminiscence Bump post, as popularized by Night Owl Cards. This is a rundown over the years of how I got into card collecting and some cards that are linked to specific memories for me. I'm also throwing in some tunes while I'm at it, documenting how I got into music. ♫
1985 - I'm a kid playing on a grassy field with my friend William. I give him like a piece of candy or something, and to return the favor, he gives me 4 or 5 baseball cards, all of which are Oakland A's cards from 1980 Topps (who knows why). I don't really care about baseball, preferring to watch cartoons and play with my G.I. Joes, but I happily toss the cards in with my inventory of toys.
♫ 1985 - I'm attending a friend's birthday party at a local roller rink (hell, it might have been William again, I don't remember). While skating around under the dim lighting of rays bouncing off the mirrorball, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" comes on over the soundsystem and hits me in a wonderful, unfamiliar way.. the first time music really connects with me.
1986 - As a kid in San Diego, I'm aware of big names such as Tony Gwynn and Steve Garvey of the Padres.. and I recall seeing those distinctive "black top" 1986 Topps cards owned by friends of mine, though I don't have any of mine own. I do somehow manage to acquire a few '86 Topps Football cards from a buddy somewhere along the line. Highlights are a Bernie Kosar rookie, Busta Rhymes, an Eric Dickerson "1000 Yard Club" insert, and a Rushing Leaders card with Marcus Allen and Gerald Riggs. I don't care about football, but am happy to expand my tiny sports card collection into another sport.
♫ 1986 - I watch a lot of The Monkees in syndication on weekday afternoons over summer break, being watched (babysat) by family friend Kit, hanging out with her three daughters, Missy, Kristy, and Cindy. Seems like those guys are having a lot of fun on tv. I start making it known that I'd like to be a musician when I grow up. My music collection begins by receiving cassettes of greatest hits albums for my birthday of the Monkees (Then & Now... the Best of The Monkees) and the Beach Boys (The Beach Boys – Do It Again!), the latter of whom I'm a fan of thanks mostly due to "I Get Around" being featured in the film Flight of the Navigator which I like a lot.
1987 - I still don't care much about baseball, but every so often I run across a new card for my tiny collection. My mom buys a loaf of bread that strangely has a baseball card in it and I'm mildly happy to get a card of one of the few ballplayers I know of, the legendary all-time great Steve Garvey. (Years later, I would be shocked to learn he wasn't in the Hall of Fame.)
♫ 1987 - I'm riding in a car in Chicago with some family members on our way to my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary party. Somebody asks me about the music I like and I mention I like that "I was standing, you were there" song, which I caught on the radio once or twice, and my cooler older cousin Siobhan perks up and seems to be impressed, "INXS?" Yeah, that one. In a rare moment, I kinda feel cool.
♫ 1988 - My card collection is stagnant for 1988. As for music, my favorite cassettes are Paula Abdul - Forever Your Girl and Roxette - Look Sharp.
♫ 1989 - My card collection still consists of just those few A's cards from William and an oddball or two I wound up with. Cards are totally off my radar, though in hindsight the "overproduction era" was ramping up like never before, so it's almost surprising it hasn't gotten to me yet. As for music, I've found my first official "favorite band" with Def Leppard, being a huge fan of their album Hysteria even though I know I'm a couple years late to it. I'm also into some popular rap, with Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock's It Takes Two getting a lot of play on my little boombox. This is the year I buy my first "explicit lyrics" cassette tapes-- Guns N' Roses Appetite For Destruction and Tone Lōc's debut album, Lōc-ed After Dark. My mom snatches them behind my back to give a listen as a concerned parent. She returns them without incident-- even says she kinda enjoys that "Take me down to the Paradise City" song-- though I am extremely mortified at this turn of events. Specifically, GNR's "Rocket Queen" is nearly impossible to listen to now, what with the naughty lady noises.
1990 - Baseball cards hadn't been very popular at my elementary school, but then here in this first year of middle school-- BOOM! Damn near everybody collects. I'm hesitant to jump on the bandwagon at first. My locker in P.E. is right next to a cool kid named Troy. He's a good dude, but not the sharpest tool in the shed. Troy is always having problems opening his locker. I help open it for him each day and he returns the favor by giving me a random baseball card. They're all '90 Topps and '90 Donruss. The name "Howard Johnson" sticks with me, perhaps due to the hotel/restaurant chain of the same name. I eventually amass a decent little stack of Troy's castoffs, and my life as a card collector has officially begun. I soon start buying packs myself, trying to get a sampling of all the options on the market, even the pricy Upper Deck. I begin watching all the televised baseball I can, plus read the sports section, pouring over the box scores to see who had a good game the day before, learning who the good players are. I may be a late bloomer to the sport/hobby, but I hit it hard and it basically consumes my 6th Grade.
♫ 1990 - My best friend Doug and I are nuts for the two big pop-rap albums ruling the charts, Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em and Vanilla Ice's To The Extreme. Nearly every day after school, I hang out at his place and we listen to a side of one of these tapes in his room while goofing off. When Christmas rolls around, my (cool) cousin Siobhan gives me a couple cassettes: New Order Substance and Fine Young Cannibals The Raw & The Cooked. Brilliant move by her taking my love for danceable pop, but guiding it a little further from the mainstream. These albums knock me for a loop and open my eyes to what would soon become known as "alternative" music.
1991 - I've got the pedal to the metal with my card collection. I make weekly trips to the local card shop, PB's Baseball Cards, to spend my allowance, which is conveniently just a couple blocks from my home. I buy at least one pack of any baseball card set that comes out on the shelves, though I mostly stick to the big boys: Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Upper Deck, and Score.
♫ 1991 - I've forsaken the "pop" radio stations I used to listen to (San Diego's Q106 and Z90), and now am a loyal listener of 91X "the cutting edge of rock" (San Diego's "alternative" station). I get a CD player for Christmas and the first two CDs I buy happen to both be from 8 years earlier, 1983: Yes - 90125 (love that "Owner of a Lonely Heart" song!) and my old favorite Def Leppard's Pyromania ("Photograph" might in in the running for my favorite song of all time).
1992 - I'm still balls-to-the-wall with collecting baseball cards, though I've also expanded into spending some allowance money on comic books, too.. with Spider-Man being my focus. My two best friends have chosen their favorites to collect: Doug: Tony Gwynn and Wolverine, Chris: Darryl Strawberry and Punisher, Me: Reggie Jackson and Spider-Man. Not much change from the prior year as far as my collecting habits, as I try to sample a little of every baseball card pack PB's has available, though I tend to stick to the major releases. I also buy a lot of "old" packs that the card shop has on the shelves, as I look to "diversify" my collection, including several each from 1986 Leaf (bizarro Donruss!) and 1982 Topps (so vintage!), the latter of which ends up giving me the best pull of my life up to that point, as I rip a wax pack while crossing Jamacha Boulevard and get a Cal Ripken rookie, excitedly showing my bud Doug. I'm floating on air as we make our way back home.
♫ 1992 - I gotta give my mom a lot of credit for shaping my taste in music.. Among the albums I listen to this year are a lot of artists I became familiar with through my mom's record/CD collection, including Paul Simon, Talking Heads, and the Beatles.
1993 - My intense baseball card collecting fascination for the past 3 years has finally started to ease up. I buy a handful of packs, mostly 1993 Topps, but apart from the thrill of pulling a Frank Thomas Black Gold insert, am just not getting the enjoyment from the hobby I once did. Once I'm in high school, my friends and the rest of the guys at school have pretty much stopped collecting cards, too, so I don't really have anyone to connect with there. For the first time, comic books take priority for my allowance money, with my favorite monthly titles being Spider-Man 2099 and Image's The Maxx. But by the end of the year, I lose interest in them too, as I get my first serious girlfriend and most of my interest/money goes toward that relationship.
♫ 1993 - Actually, what really starts taking priority for my allowance money in 1993 is my music collection, buying lots of CDs. Something about starting high school and music suddenly having a much more important role in your life. My favorite band is now Jane's Addiction (and their new offshoot Porno For Pyros). Also listen to lots of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Catherine Wheel, Lemonheads' Shame About Ray, and Matthew Sweet's Altered Beast.
♫ 1994 thru 2004 - My cards and comics are packed away in boxes, with no new additions over the next decade save for maybe a random oddball found in a box of cereal or something. I instead get my collecting fix by tracking down every live recording I can find from my favorite bands, mainly Jane's Addiction and related side projects. Pixies, Frank Black, Paw, Dig, and John Frusciante are also among my top artists. Lots of buying bootlegs and trading fellow collectors for live tapes, eventually building up an impressive collection.
2005 - After many years, I stick my toe back into the card collecting waters in the summer of 2005. I'm impressed by how easy it is to find/buy specific cards now thanks to the rise of eBay. Among the earliest cards I pick up online are a 1986 Donruss Fred McGriff rated rookie (which I had always hoped to pull from those '86 Leaf packs as a kid back in the day, but came up short)-- and not only that, it's my first ever graded card-- which is a concept that kinda blows my mind. I also buy singles of 1980 Topps Ozzie Smith, 1974 Dave Winfield rookie, 1972 Topps Harmon Killebrew (base card + his In Action card), a lot of few '73 Topps cards (my favorite vintage set), and I also relive the thrill of opening packs for the first time in years with a lot of 20 unopened packs of 1984 Topps, a set I've never had much of (they weren't carried at my LCS in the early 90s), so I figure they'd be somewhat "fresh" for me, and they're cheap. I spread them out over a few days and pull a Boggs and Ripken and feel pretty good about it. I also end up trading live recordings to a guy for a few good cards including a John Elway rookie and a Ryne Sandberg Fleer rookie. But despite this flurry of card-collecting activity, it doesn't really take, and I then go dormant a few more years.
♫ 2005 - I'm no longer into Jane's Addiction that much (though I never really turn my back on music I once enjoyed; hell, I still listen to MC Hammer, Roxette and Paula Abdul every once in a while to this day), with the title of my favorite band now belonging to Neutral Milk Hotel. Again, the collector in me compels me to hunt down every circulating live & rare recording of theirs out there. I even spend much of my spare time working on a fansite for the band. I finally finish up college and briefly get a job at a computer shop with my buddy Chris. My days are generally very lonely, having no luck with the ladies or making new friends. My best friend Doug got married a few years back and no longer has much time for hanging out with me other than occasionally having me over to watch a Chargers game. I write and record a lot of my own songs, though no one listen to them. Seriously, 1994 through 2007 were dark times for me.
2008 - I'm at Target and notice a box of current baseball cards near the checkout and throw one in my basket on a whim. It's my first pack of new/current cards in 15 years. When I get home and rip the pack, I'm not all that impressed by them. A CC Sabathia insert is the only card that stands out in the slightest. I later do make one eBay card purchase this year, though (Saturday, Nov 22, 2008, to be specific.. yeah, that's not from memory but thanks to searching old emails), spending $3.14 + $1 S&H on a Topps 1973 Roberto Clemente. I get a thrill reminiscent of my early collecting days landing a vintage card of the great Roberto Clemente, a mythical figure if there ever was one. Me as a kid would have been blown away! But again, my interest in the hobby is fleeting and I step away for a few more years.
♫ 2008 - My favorite band now would probably have to be Rilo Kiley. I've been listening to them for a few years now. I've got a fansite for them too. I'm also a moderator on a popular fan message board for the band. One night the year prior, I drunkenly flirted with a certain female regular on the forum I had thought was really cool for a while. We ended up sparking a relationship, but she lives way up in Portland, so the long-distance thing is a strain.
2012 - Yep, I live in Portland now, moving away from San Diego in 2009 to be with my special lady. I've finally got a job with some extra money to spend (just a temp job, but still). I take a curious look on eBay at the current state of baseball cards. I'm intrigued by this new Topps Archives product, with its comforting familiar designs for me and a nice mix of active players and favorites from the past. I buy a blaster, then a couple more, and before I know it, I'm back in the hobby. I'm thrilled by pulling a Roberto Clemente rookie reprint during a very rough period (our awesome dog Lucy is dying of cancer) and it gives me strength and reminds me what a positive force card collecting can be. Around this time, the band message boards I moderate fall apart and I find myself without an online community to be a part of. It's a hole in my life to not have a bunch of buds to check in with everyday. I somehow stumble upon an old blog dedicated to 1988 Topps-- while that's always been among my least favorite sets, I still find it fascinating reading the author's take on the cards and players. From the commentators on that blog, I find a guy named Night Owl who seems to have some interesting things to add, too. I find out he has his own daily card blog, and I become a loyal reader of it.
♫ 2012 - Man, music-wise, everything seems to blur together around these years. I'm not sure what I was listening to in particular. I'll go with Metric here. I would still find new bands online from time to time, but mostly I got to the point where I stuck to listening to stuff I already liked. I guess that comes with getting old.
2013 - Ok, I've been reading card blogs for a while now. I'm really impressed by how cool the community is, sharing info about cards and trading and generally being great people of all ages and backgrounds. I even take the plunge and start writing my own blog in June of 2013, and soon do my first cards-for-cards trade in over 20 years (trading Marcus an extra McGriff rated rookie I ended up with). I must be on the right track, as I narrowly squeak out a win for "Best new blog of 2013" in awards voted on at another blog. As for my collection, I rarely spend real money on cards, though am active on Listia, selling crap for credits that I can turn around and spend on cards. One particular card I win on Listia is a really sharp looking autograph of Bill Madlock, a guy I got an in-person autograph from as a kid. Turns out the set is called 2004 Topps Retired Signature Edition and I'm in love with everything about it. I think I'll try to get some more of these cards. Yeah, maybe! Speaking of being in love, I ask that girl I've been shacking up with to marry me and she says yes!
2014 - I have pretty much focused my collection on retired greats and fan favorites from yesteryear up to this point, but inspired by reading card blogs, I finally come around to the current state of baseball and slowly start collecting some active players in addition to my old favorites. Funny enough, there are a few active card blogs that focus on the Padres, and they help teach me about the current lineup, and even though the team has broken my heart so many times in the past, I slide back into being a fan, for better or worse. Speaking of for better or worse, we get married over the summer.
2015 - I kick off the year by posting The game of Wallet Card, an idea I had come up with at the end of the previous year which I think is a fun concept for the cardsphere. It damn near goes viral and gets attention of collectors online far beyond my blog's normal reach. Feels like I've "made it" as a part of the baseball card collecting scene. My collecting habits expand further as I enter the world of working on vintage sets, deciding to make a run at my favorite set, 1973 Topps.
2016 - My dream of making my own baseball cards sort of comes true as I start toying with designing/printing my own custom cards. I have lot of fun coming up with various "cards that never were" and cards of hot rookies. I fly a little too close to the sun and start trying to make a little extra card-spending money by selling my custom cards online. After scary (though honestly a little flattering) legal threats from Topps and a Texas newspaper, I give up any intentions of making money off my customs. It doesn't matter much to me, though, as I'm lucky enough to score a good job with the company my wife works for. I no longer need to pinch my pennies quite so much, and start splurging on adding nice cards to my collection here and there.
2032 - I die of heart failure in a storage unit I've been crashing in since the money ran out. Alone with nothing to my name besides my beloved card collection boxed up all around my lifeless body, with no next-of-kin to be found, my collection is auctioned off for a few hundred bucks to a pawn shop asshole who turns a tidy profit on them and then puts a down payment on a mid-priced new card for his teenage son.
And I guess that's pretty much it. These days I've got lots of various collecting project in the works, with my focus for the first time being less on player collections and more on vintage sets and other fun/off-the-wall stuff. Still going strong with the blogging here as 2018 winds down, fortunate to have kind folks reading and interacting, both on the blog and twitter. Lots of incoming cards. Enjoying the hobby very much.
It's done! A couple letter cards in my latest COMC order finished off this project for me. Behold the new header for Baseball Card Breakdown:
Labor Day 2016 - ???
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. That's 21 auto letter patch cards spelling out the blog name. A couple dupes, but hey, I was mostly just trying to find the cheapest specimens I could find. I filled up the blank space with my pride n' joys, 2004 Topps Retired refractors. Go ahead, give it a long look, lingering from card to card over the span of several minutes. You know those bumper stickers that say "Ask me about my grandchildren"? I need a bumper sticker that says "Ask me about my 2004 Topps Retired refractors".
And as we pass the torch, let's pay respects to the blog's previous banner...
January 2014 - Labor Day 2016
This is a photo of my little "card display" area from my old place. I haven't lived there for well over two years, so I was probably overdue to make a new banner. I always felt a little guilty having such a big header, as I feel they make your readers have to scroll down a little extra every time they visit your blog. I'm happy my new one is a bit smaller. Though, sure, I'll miss this image. I'm the type of guy who typically isn't a fan of change for change's sake.
And the original..
Day 1 (June 15, 2013) thru January 2014
This is a sparser image of the same display area. The autos are Marcus Giles and Gaylord Perry. Ah... simpler times. I was just getting back into the hobby then. One thing I love about looking at my banners is each card holds a story for me. That '66 Gaylord in the upper right is the spoils of an epic Listia battle, fought hard and won (I remember lying in bed stressing out over it while the auction was going, becoming downright obsessed with winning the card). The adjacent Clemente RC reprint is also very meaningful to me, somewhat of a representation of my first dog Lucy, as she was so great and an embodiment of awesomeness just as Clemente was... and similarly taken too soon, as we had to put her down due to an extended fight with cancer not long after I pulled that card from a blaster of Archives.
Sorry for the sentimental tangent. But thanks for being here for the dawn of a new era for the blog, at least as far as the banner image goes. Hopefully I'll have plenty of good content and cards for you to check out over these next few years until I get bored with this banner and make a new one.
Before I started reading baseball card blogs, I had no idea what a "blaster" was. Hell, I'm still not exactly sure. But I think I recently bought one on eBay for $20. I don't really mess with new cards much at all. I haven't bought a pack of any current Topps flagship set since 1993 (not counting a single 2008 pack I bought at the dollar store).
But I'm drawn to Topps Archives, what with the classic designs from yesteryear and the old school retired players mixed in with guys from today. I've never heard of half of the current guys (I don't really follow baseball much these days), but the old guys are cool. Man, I flushed damn near $100 last year on 2012 Topps Archives packs. I was really hoping to pull a certified autograph. Even a "common" auto like Wally Backman would have been ok, but preferably a badass like Bob Gibson. But I got shut out. The best I got out of, what, 20-something packs was a jersey Andy Peditte. Also a jersey of some Braves dude (Jason Heyward, I think? Oh, and I should mention I don't really care about jersey cards and fully expect them to be "fake" but whatever, still cool to pull) and a gold parallel of Josh Hamilton. ("Parallel", there's another baseball card term I wasn't familiar with until I recently got back into the hobby a few years ago.) So, yeah, my 2012 Archives "chase" was not, in fact, caught. It's ok, though. I like the cards, especially the old guys, like I said. And I was going through some tough times around the time I was ripping packs (somewhat of a "breakdown", if you will-- See tying in the blog name! lol), so they were a nice little distraction. I remember the day my super amazing dog Lucy died (no fooling, she was such a great dog-- I know everybody loves their own dog n' all, but damn, I can't overstate how much she enriched our lives, and everyone she met, really; imagine Winnie The Pooh as a dog; like a sweet, cuddly living teddy bear; so sad to lose her so soon), but anyways, that night, in the lowest depths of my sadness, I pulled a Roberto Clemente rookie reprint from an Archives pack. Of course I couldn't help but see a parallel (I need to learn how to spell that word without spellcheck's help) but yeah, the parallel between one of the greatest humans of all time and one of the greatest pooches of all time, both taken from us too soon. Now I always think of Lucy and smile when I see that card. I think it's currently visible on display in the header pic of this blog.
man, we still miss her everyday.
some of my 2012 Archives bounty
So anyways, I think Topps Archives is kinda cool. The 2 or 3 reviews by other bloggers I've seen are not crazy about the 2013 set. I'm definitely not planning on buying a bunch this year like I did last year, though; just this one blaster will likely do me fine.
So what did I get brag-worthy this year? Not much. A jersey card of Hanley Ramirez is my only real "hit" so far (I've currently got 1 more pack to rip). Also got a couple mini tall boys which don't do much for me to begin with, but especially not Braun and Strasburg. Other short prints include All-Star cards of Fisk and Schmidt (I like those guys, but not these cards-- blah) and a '68-style Denny McLain. So yeah, nothing to really get excited over. As far as base cards I'm happy to have pulled: non-actives Griffey Jr, Eddie Mathews, Yogi, Jackie, Ryne, and Stargell. For current guys, there's Adrian Gonzales (my Padres allegiances cause me to still like the guy, even in a Dodger uni) and Dylan Bundy, who I must admit I'm not really familiar with, but is supposed to be a semi-hot prospect.. maybe?
could be worse
Ok, for some blog excitement, let's open my last pack here "live"! whee!! HEeeer Weee GOOOOOOO!!!!
Card back on the back of the pack.. Babe Ruth! Hey, the game's all-time greatest player! I'll take it. Topps gave him #1 placement. Nice. Turning the pack around..
Kyle Seager.. never heard of him
Doug Fister.. never heard of him, but cracked a smile at his vaguely obscene name
oh, a 4-player sticker peeked out at me from later in the pack.. joy! can't wait!
Todd Frazier.. never heard of him
ok, here's the 4-shot.. Cobb, Mays, Griffey, Trout. not bad.
next up, Carlos Gonzalez.. never heard of him
Dustin Pedroia.. yep, I've heard of this guy
Giancalo Stanton.. never heard of him.. wow, this guy puts up decent power numbers, I must be really out of the loop.
and finally, here's the front of the Babe card whose back greeted me when I opened the pack. Love the tiny full stats on the back, even the crappy last year with the Boston Braves!
So anyways, looks like I'm shut out once again for any Archives fan favorite autos. Bummer. Maybe next year.
I'll pick out some of these cards to add to my collection and the rest will go into the "for Listia" stack. Maybe if this here blog ever gains traction, someday I'll start trading with other guys from the blog community. I don't think I've ever traded cards over the internet with anyone. I've gotten some card in exchange for music bootlegs (I've got a pretty big selection of live/rare music from a select few bands I like, and make it known that I'll trade copies for cards). But yeah, I haven't done much trading. I guess Listia is basically trading, since I auction off cards for credits, then use those credits to bid on other cards, but that's not quite the same. Oh man, this would be the perfect time to post my referral link in case anyone reading this hasn't signed up for Listia yet! If you're not familiar, it's like a "free eBay" marketplace where you buy and sell stuff for credits (instead of money). Sorry for the spam-ish end to this long, rambling post, but yeah, if you want to sign up for Listia, pretty please use this link because that'll get me some bonus credits and potentially pull me back from the brink of another breakdown (see, tied it all back into the blog title! score!)
