Trading music for cards / 2015 Update epic adventure

Back when I was in my long hiatus from card collecting, my "collecting fix" came by way of music. I had a pretty sizable collection of tapes and CDs as a teenager, and once mp3s became all the rage, my collection exploded exponentially. Never one to be content with whatever hit songs the radio or MTV fed me, I was always searching out obscure stuff, trying to find that unknown perfect song hidden in the gutter. That's not to say I totally ignored pop music, though, as I was definitely a fan of many big names.

A quick aside, my handle "defgav" comes from back around 6th grade when my best friend Doug and I liked to pretend we were a hip-hop act. He was MC Doolay and I was DJ Def Gav. It derived from the fact that my favorite rock band back then was Def Leppard. Plus we were also into mainstream rap of the time like MC Hammer, Tone Loc, and Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock. "Def" was a slang word for cool that those guys used a lot, like in Def Jam. And of course the Gav part comes from my name being Gavin. Flash-forward to many years later when one day I'm trying to think up a username to use on a message board or something. I wanted something short and that wasn't likely to be used already elsewhere on the web (so I'd hopefully never again have to spend time trying to think up a username). Boom, with a sentimental throwback to my imaginary DJ days, defgav was born anew. I've since used that for my username countless times when creating accounts online at various sites.

So that's the story behind the name defgav in case you were curious.

Back to music, in high school I got really into the band Jane's Addiction. My "collecting gene" was activated in full force, and I spent much of my free time tracking down live and rare recordings from the band and their side-projects. In cardboard terms, I was a Jane's Addiction supercollector, with nearly all their "oddballs" and "parallels" and even some very rare "one-of-one" items. (For the record: While I still dig the old stuff, I think the current incarnation of Jane's is a joke. Lead singer Perry Farrell's wife is a horrible person [seriously, follow her on Twitter or Facebook and just try to resist the urge to slap her] and has sadly steered him into mediocrity.)

But like with my card collecting, I had "PCs" of lots of different artists. A couple other bands I collected pretty heavily were Neutral Milk Hotel and Rilo Kiley. Oh, and I was a big Frank Black/Pixies fan. I suppose I still am. Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, and Pavement are some more popular bands I've got days of recordings from in my collection. Local favorites Rocket From The Crypt are another band I was a pretty hardcore fan of. I also collected some relatively obscure bands like Three Mile Pilot, Paw, Toadies, dig, Mercury Rev, John Frusciante, Hum, and Hopewell.

I did a lot of trading live recordings ("bootlegs") back in the late 90s and early 00s, first swapping cassette and VHS tapes with other traders, then moving up to CD-R and DVD-R once that technology caught on. It wasn't all that different from my card trading these days, with a few frequent trading partners, and the occasional one-off deal. Like today, I'd end up with something and be like, "So-and-so would really love this!" or see something on somebody's list and be like, "Ooh, I need that one!"

My live music collecting eventually mellowed out. I'll still pick up a show here and there, but nowadays it's all digital, rarely getting anything on disc anymore. I'm an active member on a private mp3 site, and I get most of my music from there. Every year or two, I generate an updated list of my music collection and share it with my ol' buddy, the aforementioned MC Doolay, and let him go nuts requesting stuff to be hooked up with, and give it to him for Christmas or whatever. Plus it's handy for me to have a current list so I can refer to it and hopefully avoid downloading stuff I already have. (Again, it's not that different from card collecting.)

I just recently got an updated list made, and figured I'd share it on the blog:
Gavin's digital music collection list

At 5000+ albums, I think it's safe to say I've got something for everyone. My taste leans towards indie/alternative rock, but I've also got a good helping of classic rock, pop, metal, rap, classical, even a little country. (I don't much like country music.) Feel free to peruse the list if you're really bored.

How is all this relevant to a baseball card blog? Well, back during my collecting hiatus, I still had a very casual interest in cards, and would mention on my music wantlist that I would consider trade offers for sportcards among other "barter" things I might be interested in, for guys who didn't have any recordings I wanted. Over the years, I got a handful of card packages this way, trading for music. The most notable card I can think of was a John Elway RC (sweet card, though unfortunately this copy had a "fish eye" printing flaw right between John's eyes that really hurts the card's eye appeal.) So even though I wasn't actively collecting cards, I still brought in a few cards here and there through such trades.

It had been years since I traded music for cards, but recently, a guy found my old, neglected bootlist and wanted to get me something off Amazon in exchange for a live Jane's DVD I have. Sounded good to me, but my Amazon wishlist didn't have many interesting items around the fair price range. So what did I do but of course load up my wishlist with unopened baseball card products! Amazon is rarely a good source for cards, with prices typically around 20% more than what you can easily find elsewhere online. But it's doable if you have a giftcard to burn and can finagle free shipping. It's also nice to have a wantlist there, because then people can buy stuff and have it sent directly to you if they choose.

I decided to ask the guy for a blaster of 2015 Topps Update in exchange for the DVD. While there were hobby boxes of many other products I was more interested in, I didn't want to push the guy's generosity, so I kept my request to a blaster. While I stated a while back that my interest in 2015 Update was mainly the Pride & Perseverance insert set which I already picked up for $5, I figured I'd take a chance on a blaster and hope for a cool parallel or something. (By the way, if you're interested, feel free to take a look at my Amazon wishlist.)

As I draft up this post, I haven't ripped the blaster yet, so let's do it "live" now...

I got shutout with coverboy Kris Bryant, but I did land a couple of the other big RCs in the set, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton. Alliteration.

Always love adding new Clementes to my collection.

Red Sox legends are well represented with a couple Ted Williams inserts and a Fisk.

These are a couple cool inserts.

The Todd Frazier Home Run Derby card was my only rainbow foil parallel. Plus a couple gold /2015 parallels.

Here are some more inserts. These are available for trade.

I noticed the Feliz Rookie Sensation insert has a little foil "star" on the right side. It's probably just a little printing flaw, but I'd like to believe it's a SSP sparkle variation or someshit.

My promised medallion was Edwin Encarnacion, unfortunately not a player I collect. Up for trade, if you want it.

I'm not trying to build the set, so if you are, please let me thin out some of this stack on you in a trade.

So that was the blaster. Not amazing, but totally worth copying a live DVD and mailing it out. Thanks, Frank, if you happen to stumble upon this post.

But this post has a bit of a twist! Between drafting up the rambling first part of this post and ripping the blaster a day or two later, I actually got myself some other 2015 Update. I was really enchanted with what I saw of the Chrome cards available in retail-only "holiday mega boxes" so I made a trip to Target on Saturday morning on a quest to find some.

They were in fact in stock and I grabbed a couple. I took a look at the clothes on the clearance rack, but nothing grabbed me and so the cards were the entirety of my purchase.

The first box had some Angels love with a nice Trout insert and a /50 Johnny Giavotella. You don't see many mauve cards these days. Wish it would have been a more desirable player, but them's the breaks.

Finally landed a Bryant, even if it's probably the least desirable of his several cards in this set.

And now for the headliner...

These Chrome cards did not disappoint in-hand. Kudos to Topps for making them all like this, and not a parallel where you're lucky to get just one or two in a box. I was happy to pull the Ted Williams (though the sparkly effect is a bit more subdued on these inserts), and a few decent RCs too.

But the big hit...

Sweet! My first ever Bryce Harper relic, and it's a nice one, with a bold red swatch from his All-Star Game workout jersey, and the rainbowy sparkles really making the card come alive. As somewhat of a "No Hit Wonder" with busting cards, this may be one of my better pulls ever.

Onto the 2nd holiday mega box...

Some horizontal highlights from the base.

Dodgers.

Inserts.

Maybe my favorite card of this break besides the Bryce relic, this Clemente looks incredible and tells the story of the only time in MLB history a player hit a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam. I hadn't heard that before, as if I could hold more awe for the guy.

The Chrome cards in the 2nd box couldn't compete with the Harper relic of the other box, but still some good stuff. The Kemp might be my favorite, but I was also happy to pull the Gallo.

So that wraps up my adventure with 2015 Update. I doubt I'll pick up any more, unless maybe the mega boxes find their way into the card section of my local grocery store (none there yesterday), in which case I may pick up another one. But as I said, I'm not looking to complete the set, just trying to land some decent cards of guys I collect. So again, please feel free to ask about shaking out a trade if anything caught your eye or you need base cards from this set.

Thanks for reading!

weekly trade roundup: ARPSmith and P-town Tom

Earlier this week, ARPSmith dropped some fine cards on me.

Nice! I'd been wanting a Dave Parker RC for a long time. Great card.

Here we've got some other big names from yesteryear. Love getting Yaz cards even if I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing another Prizm card. And that's a beautiful Stargell. I believe that Rickey is my first card from Panini's Diamond Kings reboot. Nice looking card, gotta say.

Here's a card I was excited to get. Adam posted about pulling a Kaline parallel #'d 12/25 a little while back, and I spoke up as a willing suitor if he were looking to re-home it.

But wait a minute!...

21/25?! That's not a Christmas card. Bummer. But still, it's a nice looking Kaline parallel /25, so I'm definitely not complaining.

Inexplicably, Adam also threw some used batteries into the package. What the F?! (Fun)

Nah, I'm just playing; he didn't really send me batteries.

Great cards.. thanks again for the trade, Adam!

And then just today, P-Town Tom surprised me with a mailer full of cards.

"Call me King of the Blue Tape!," proclaimed Rollie Fingers, unprompted.

Some McCovies and Williamses. Very cool.
These photos mark the debut of my new coffee table, btw. Momentous! $5 from my work's lobby. That's real California mahogany*. (* may not be mahogany. may also be from Indonesia.)

Mad Dog DK. Rollie returns. And a star-studded 72 LL.

My bro Tom also hooked me up with a fat stack of 2011 Topps parallels for my frankenset. One of these rainy days I'm going to get a spreadsheet going and see what my progress is.

Very appreciated! Thanks, Tom.. I'll get some Cubbies sent out your way soon.

Keep on rocking, all you guys!

Cards from the Conroy household

I told the story last month of how posting a photoshop custom of Sean Conroy lead to an email exchange with his mom and how I was able to gift a few printouts of the fake card to Sean, and he was kind enough to sign and return 3 of them for me. But the story doesn't end there.

His mom asked if I could print out a few more copies of the card for her to give to friends and family during the holidays, and I was happy to oblige. She also told me my gesture inspired them to dig through her husband's old card collection and come up with a lot I might be interested in. We agreed to a fair price and now I've ended up with a few cards from the Conroy household, which I think is pretty cool. I know it isn't easy to part with cards you've had since the early 70s, and I really appreciate the kindness to offer them to me.

Let's take a look at the cards!

A couple nice HOFers in Killebrew and Jenkins.

Great lot of 71 stars. I think I had these in my setbuild already, but they're some nice upgrades, or failing that, PC additions. Not pictured, Earl Weaver.

And how about the two biggest name rookie cards in the set? Sweet! Never noticed the slightly similar poses on these two.

Closing it out with a few 72s. Despite the boyhood photo, I still don't believe Stargell was ever young; he was always "Pops" right? Likewise, Darrell Evans was middle-aged when he was born, I'm sure. Don't let this early photo where he's not wearing his glasses fool you. Same with Bobby Grich sans mustache.

A big thank you to the Conroy family for these cards!
Have a great weekend, everybody.

Black Sheep minicollection 2: Chip off the old Rock

This is the second installment of my Black Sheep minicollection series. To refresh you on the premise, these are cards of less successful relatives of star athletes. For my full intro spiel, check out the first post. But basically if you share a last name with an All-Star relative, and have played in less than 162 games in the majors (or 162 innings pitched), you're eligible for inclusion in this minicollection.

Tim Raines, Jr.

Tim Raines, Jr. was drafted by the Orioles in the 6th round of the 1998 draft. His father put together a terrific career and arguably belongs in the Hall of Fame. Tim, Jr. was a similar type of player: a switch-hitter who threw right-handed, had a solid bat and excellent speed. Unlike his dad, Jr wasn't able to put it all together in the bigs. He was a late-season call-up in 2001, and on October 4, he played center while his father played left. They became the second major league father-son duo to play in the same game, with the Griffeys in 1990 being the first.

But this Junior would see the end of his MLB career in 2004 with only 75 games under his belt. He bounced around in several organizations before retiring after the 2011 season. His final stop was pretty cool, though, as he played for the independent Newark Bears, managed by his father.

Another baseball relative, Uncle Ned, Rock's brother, played in the low minors, 1978-1980.

Hunter Harvey

Bryan Harvey was a dominant closer for a few years in the late 80s and early 90s with the Angels and Marlins. His son Hunter Harvey was a 1st round pick by the Orioles in 2013. After a promising start to his professional career-- striking out 139 while walking 39 in 113 innings over 2013-2014-- Hunter was shut down for all of 2015. There was hope he could see action in the fall instructional league, but was again shut down with arm discomfort, visions of Tommy John haunting his big league dreams.

It might be a while till we see if he's able to overcome injuries and fulfill his potential, or if he's destined to remain in the Black Sheep minicollection for all eternity. Good luck, guy.

Ryan Ripken

Honestly, it's not by design that this post is so Orioles-centric, but coincidentally, here's Ryan Ripken, son of Baltimore legend Cal Ripken, Jr. Ryan was originally drafted by the Orioles in the 20th round of the 2012 draft, but chose to attend college instead. Then in 2014, the Nationals drafted him in the 15th round, successfully signing him. While his dad was known for his glove on the left side of the infield, Ryan plays first base.

Though still young, he's been slow getting on track down in rookie league, hitting .217 in 44 games over the past two seasons. So it looks like measuring up to the career of Uncle Billy may be a more realistic goal than emulating his Hall of Fame father, the Iron Man. Grampa Ripken also had a long baseball career, playing minor league ball in the late 50s and early 60s before coaching with the Orioles for many years.

Dustin Yount

Screw it, let's close it out today with yet more O's content. For baseball fans, the name Yount is linked forever with Milwaukee, but here we have Hall of Famer Robin Yount's son, Dustin Yount, decked in his Baltimore best. Dustin played on the farm for a decade, but never made it past AA. While his dad patrolled short or center most of his career, Dustin was a first baseman. He hung them up after spending 2010 in the Dodgers organization, hitting .260 for his pro career.

There are other Younts who could fit into the Black Sheep minicollection, too. Uncle Larry (Robin's brother) has the distinction of technically playing in 1 major league game in 1971, but left with elbow soreness after a couple warm-up pitches and never got another shot. Larry's son, Austin Yount, was drafted by the Dodgers in 2008, but never got above A ball before retiring after the 2011 season. There was a little Yount Family Reunion in 2010, as cousins Dustin and Austin briefly played together on the same team in the California League.

That's it for this time. More sons of famous dudes later. Thanks for reading!

Pride and Perseverance insert set from 2015 Topps Update

I didn't really have much interest in Update this year, though there were 2 or 3 insert sets that looked like winners. I went ahead and picked up the complete Pride and Perseverance insert set from a seller on eBay for a tick under 5 bucks. Great to see Topps come out with an interesting bunch of guys to feature, rather than the typical excuse to get extra Trout, Koufax, et al into a product checklist.

There's a nice post on the set on the Topps blog here.

I don't really have much more to say about it other than it's a cool group of cards, so I'll just post the cards fronts and backs and leave it at that:

I feel compelled to make a supplemental custom here just because this post doesn't have much to it, but I can't really think of any other players who overcame disabilities. Can you think of anyone Topps missed?

Maybe Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, who lost part of several fingers in a childhood farming accident. Similarly, Bob Wickman lost part of his right index finger in a childhood farming accident.

Perhaps Topps could have stretched the Pride and Perseverance concept to include other obstacles. Guys like Jackie Robinson and Masanori Murakami could be featured for breaking racial barriers (Not that Topps needs an excuse to put out yet another card of Jackie). And I'd love to see Topps come out with cards spotlighting gay players like Glenn Burke, Billy Bean, David Denson, and Sean Conroy. With the name Pride and Perseverance, they'd fit right into that set.

Introducing the Black Sheep minicollection

It's gotta be hard living in the shadow of your famous dad, brother, or uncle if you're a ballplayer. On one hand, you've got an invaluable mentor right there. And if you've got a last name that's respected in the game, you might get a longer look from scouts than you would otherwise thanks to your lineage. But once you get signed, the pressure is on you to live up to your name. And the odds are pretty overwhelming that you won't end up the most successful athlete in your family.

I'm always a little fascinated when pulling cards of lesser-known kin (usually from Bowman), so it was about time I made it an official collecting pursuit. I figured I'd keep with my Hundred Card Club method of collecting and set the longterm goal at 100 different players to "complete" this minicollection. I'm really just looking for 1 card from each player.. I won't be PCing all these guys.. just one card each.

My requirements to be included in the Black Sheep minicollection:

• player must share a last name with and be related to someone who was an All-Star at least once.
• player must have not exceeded 162 total games (or 162 innings pitched) in the major leagues.

So we're not talking about Ken Griffey, Jr.. we're talking about Craig Griffey.
Even guys like Chris Gwynn and Tony Gwynn, Jr aren't included. Sure, their careers can't come close to Tony Sr, but they were still able to put together decent major league careers, seeing plenty of action in several different seasons.

This will be a recurring series on the blog, with each post covering a handful of players.
All right, here we go!

Craig Griffey

Let's begin with the aforementioned Craig Griffey, perhaps the least accomplished athlete to ever get a hologram sportscards of his own. He's a double-whammy for the Black Sheep minicollection, as not only was his dad an excellent baseball player, his big brother Ken, Jr. was perhaps the biggest star in the game during the 90s and into the 00s.

To his credit, Craig played football at Ohio State, so he was no slouch, but baseball was just an afterthought. Seattle took him as a 42nd round pick of the 1991 draft, ostensibly as a favor to the family. Craig played in the Mariners minor league system for a few years and appeared with his brother in the outfield during some Cactus League games. The highest level he reached was a brief 3-game stint in AAA with the Tacoma Rainiers. Overall he hit .224 with good speed and not much power. I'll bet a few of his 11 career MiLB home runs were inside-the-park jobs, as he also had 18 career triples. He retired after the 1997 season, which happened to be the year his brother won the AL MVP award. I couldn't find much additional info on Craig Griffey, though here's a bizarre article which I'm pretty sure someone just made up.

Edgard Clemente

Edgard Clemente did his best to keep the legacy of his uncle Roberto Clemente alive on the diamond. I'll admit he's the reason my max MLB games limit for this minicollection is 162 instead of 100 (Edgard played in 114 games). His professional career stretched a whopping 21 seasons, originally drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 10th round of the 1993 MLB June Amateur Draft out of Puerto Rico. In his first taste of major league action, he batted a sharp .353 as a September call-up in 1998. He was back down to earth in 1999, but hit a respectable .253 with 8 home runs.

He was traded to the Angels in 2000, but hit just .218 in 46 games in what would be the end of this major league career. As an outfielder, he just didn't hit enough to stick around, plus he was slow, without a single stolen base to his credit. He bounced around in AAA with Boston and Milwaukee for the next couple years, then saw the next decade playing in Independent and Foreign leagues, not hanging them up until after 2013. All told, he racked up 1841 professional hits, which isn't too shabby, but a far cry from the legendary Roberto Clemente.

Mike Yastrzemski

The grandson of Carl, Mike Yastrzemski is still active, so he's got a shot to make it out of this minicollection at some point. He was drafted by the Orioles in the 14th round of the 2013 draft from Vanderbilt, after earlier being drafted but not signing with the Red Sox and Mariners. He had a nice 2014 season displaying good pop and speed, but his numbers dipped in 2015, hitting .246 in AA with single-digit totals for HR and SB. It'll be interesting to see if he continues to progress and we eventually see another Yaz in the bigs.

It's worth noting that Mike's dad, Carl Michael Yastrzemski Jr, also went by the name Mike and played in the minors in the 80s with the Braves and White Sox organizations, so he'd fit into this minicollection too if I rounded up one of his cards.

Trevor Gretzky

We're crossing sports with this one. Trevor Gretzky is the son of Wayne Gretzky, the leading scorer in NHL history. Trevor signed a letter of intent in 2010 to play baseball for San Diego State University, but decided to turn pro after he was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 2011 MLB draft; his $375,000 signing bonus was negotiated by then-Cubs GM Jim Hendry and Wayne himself.

Trevor was traded to the Angels on March 20, 2014 for another guy who could fit in this minicollection: Matthew Scioscia, son of Mike Scioscia. Trevor played in A-ball during 2015, hitting .242 with a couple dingers. So it doesn't look like we'll be calling him "The Great One" of baseball, but he's still young and could potentially make the majors someday.

That's it for today. What do you guys think of this series? Well, love it or hate it, I'll be back with some more cards of lesser-known relatives of star athletes soon.

End of October trade recaps

A big chunk of my Halloween was spent whipping up custom cards, and I'm happy to say the prize packages from my recent contest are now in the capable hands of the USPS.

Two trade packages showed up for me this past week, and now I'm going to show off the cards I got.

First up was a stuffed PWE from Mr. Mark Hoyle...

Nice selection of 76 Topps of dudes I collect. Good stuff!

And some 74s goodness too. Reggie's 74 base card still eludes me, but these couple other cards with him are pretty cool. Also a nice 2nd-year Goose and a Kitty.

Mr. Hoyle rounded out the package with some more recent stuff.

Thanks again for the trade, Mark! Hope my return has shown up by now.


Next up was a sweet bunch of cards from Lonestarr.

I love Rod Beck.. tempted to round up all 9799 numbered copies of this parallel. Plus nice additions to my Vlad and Giancarlo PCs.

Pete Rose lot. A couple cool shots here.

Lonestarr snuck in some neat American Football cards, including a couple Gavin Escobar cards and a Reggie Bush.

'89 Bowman in the house.

These Padres cards lit up my eyes. Austin Hedges melty insert and Gyorko DK. Awesome!

We close it out with some Dodgers. Actually, the Piazza is a Padres card featuring a Mets photo. And the Kemp says it's a Padres card, but I'm not convinced.

Big thanks, Lonestarr! I'm very happy with the cards. Put some in the mail to you recently, so they should show up soon.

Thanks for stopping by.