ignorable filler post: 1991 Cardboard Dreams #9 Mickey Mantle (time capsule post from 2020)

(This is a post I originally drafted back in mid 2000, I think, and for the sake of doing something different, thought I'd make it a "time capsule post" by scheduling it to be posted well in the future. So here it is, a year and a half later, the long-awaited return of this "ignorable filler post" series. LOL)

Mickey Mantle is #9 in this oddball set.

The action pic doesn't look much like him, but the headshot is a decent likeness. Maybe a little Edward Norton in there.

Always love the creepy doodles on the back. I didn't realize he was a high school football star, but it's no surprise.

- "Mickey says: 'Work hard, play harder.'"
Mickey later disavowed his hard partying, blaming alcoholism for relationship issues and health problems that caught up to him in retirement.

- "Mickey holds the World Series record with 18 home runs"
Many old school postseason career records have fallen thanks to more rounds in the expanded playoffs these days, but this World Series record is still intact and no active player is anywhere close. Chase Utley with 7 is the closest anyone's gotten in recent decades. Mickey's other standing WS records include most walks (43), extra base hits (26), RBI (40), and runs scored (42).

- "Mickey started out as a shortstop"
He played in 7 MLB games at short (just 1 start, in 1954). As far as other infield action, he also got into one game each at 2nd base (1 inning, also in '54) and 3rd base (4 innings in 1952). But otherwise he patrolled the outfield most of his career (mostly in center), then 1st base for his last couple seasons.

- "Mickey, in the minors, once played in the same outfield with his two brothers"
I wasn't able to find much more about this tidbit, but there were 3 Mantles who played for the 1954 McAlester Rockets: Maxie Mantle, Ray Mantle, and Roy Mantle. No Mickey, though.

As for me, he was before my time, but Mickey Mantle was a mythic figure when I was a kid. He was the favorite player of my best friend Doug's dad, which helped build up the legend for me even more. I know describing feelings is tough, but man, Mickey had a special feeling.

Once I got back into card collecting as an adult, scoring myself a vintage Mantle was a top priority. My first "big" card purchase (3 digits) was a sharp '64 Topps Mantle. Then I followed that up with a fuzzy corner '65 and a beat-up '57 (still my oldest card of his) and then a '68, and then a '69 (as part of a '69 Topps lot). More recently I picked up a slabbed '63 Topps Mantle at a card show last year. I'd love to one day complete a Topps base card run for him, but of course that '52 throws a wrinkle. And his '53 Topps is pretty tough too. (No '54 or '55 Topps card released.) And I hate his '56 Topps card (I think he looks like a creepy ventriloquist dummy on it). But a 1957-1969 run is a realistic goal for me. I used to try to land one need per year, but got a little relaxed in that pursuit lately. Bored "Covid Collectors" (investors) got prices running a bit high these days, but I'll eventually add another vintage Mantle along my quest.

But the pride and joy of my Mickey Mantle collection is this Score certified autograph I picked up a year ago. Love it!

(This whole post was drafted up earlier this month, but waited on taking this photo here later in August 2020 to be published.)

Now's the time of the ignorable post when I drunkenly ramble on about stupid shit.

Cute pix aside, I hate my dog. Looking to trade her for any 1990 Donruss needs. (nah, she's fine.)

Back to the Beach is one of my favorite summertime flicks. It's cheesy as hell, but I love it so. The random Pee-Wee scene is the cherry on top.

Look at this tough antifa motherfu*ker!
Nah, it's just me! :)
I forgot my mask when I got dropped off at work. Luckily I had a spare pair of (clean) underwear in my desk that worked as a mask in a pinch on my ride on public transportation on my way home.

You might be saying to yourself, wow you must shit yourself a lot to have backup underwear on hand, but no, the thing is in the winter I often wear long underwear ("lounge pants"), so the back up briefs are just in case I need to change into something for my workout shorts. Sigh.. I miss my 2:30 workouts, catching Pardon The Interruption in the work gym. Haven't "worked out" in months, though keeping active with bike rides (to the post office for work) and often running around dealing with this shitty dog.

But I have some good updates for you!

My old buddy who was probably moving up to Portland? (ref)

Yes, he did move up to my current home of Portland!

My attempt to get my 1991 MusiCard blog included on the popular sports card blogroll? (ref)

Yes, he did finally add my blog to the popular blogroll!

My attempt to get Johngy to comment on my blog? (ref)

Yes, he did comment on my blog!

So there are 3 nice "wins" for me to revel in. I should have done a giveaway contest to celebrate, but I've just been so busy/stressed lately that I don't want to take on too much. (Missed celebrating my blogoversarvy this year too.) Seriously, don't be surprised if I get struck down by a heart attack or something one of these days. Hopefully my wife will be able to pass on the news to my cardboard homies. I don't want to create any mystery about it if it happens. But if I don't post for a month, assume I'm dead. I would never go a month without a post. Never!

But no, I'm just being a diva, don't listen to me. I even have to make my favorite movies more stressful than they need to be.

Thanks to @Extension765 and @disnalldat, I now have a thing I do where I give my favorite movies a "remix" when I watch by playing them in black & white with only audio from Trent Reznor scores. It's weird and I kinda love it. pic.twitter.com/eqTJZvUhso

— Baseball Card Breakdown (@breakdowncards) August 3, 2020

#Goonies

This dog is a lot of work.

Thanks for reading!

p.s. UPDATE: I put another Ruby pic at the top on today, 9/25/2020, because I was sick of looking at that poor artistic rendering of Mickey Mantle as the thumbnail picture for this draft at the top of my Blogger post list because this post is scheduled for many months from now, so it's gonna be there a long time. So I'd rather it be a cute pup to look at. Maybe I'm tough on Ruby, but she is getting better and I bet by the time this post is eventually published I will think she's a good girl and love her a bunch. But we'll see. Hello from 2020.

12/31/2021 UPDATE: Yeah, Ruby is still more "!!!" than I'm looking for in a dog, ideally, but we love the cute shit-for-brains pit-wolf.

On high alert for scraps at my birthday/Christmas Eve dinner. (Great cut of beef this year.)

In other animal news, after closing for the summer, my hummingbird hangout is back open for business now that the temperatures have dropped.

Drink up, little guy!

The googly-eyed Bip featured earlier in the post has since been turned into a fridge magnet. It's fun.

I've still got this jumbo refractor on the wall and it always makes me smile when I notice it.

That's it for this post. While I'd like to eventually cover all 16 cards in the crazy little set, it's anyone's guess if/when the next in the ignorable filler post: 1991 Cardboard Dreams series ever comes out, but stay tuned! Or don't! LOL

ignorable filler post: 1991 Cardboard Dreams #7 Bo Jackson

Dang it, guys.. I did it again! I accidentally went out of order with this set. I jumped to #8 Michael Jordan in the previous installment, skipping over #7 Bo Jackson. Wasn't on purpose, but I guess I was swept up in The Last Dance hype, lol. I suppose card number doesn't really matter much unless you're working on the set, or maybe a frankenset, or maybe you're one of the very few collectors who collect certain numbers, like the No. 5 Collector guy and how Tom at Angels In Order likes cards that are #444. But for most of us, card number is rarely something we worry much about. But I still feel like a bad set-blogger for the taboo faux pas of going out of order. I have not yet made such a mistake on my 1991 MusiCards blog, thankfully.

Not the best likeness of Bo, but overall a neat two-sport card. Funny how I was just talking in my latest post (editor's note: the first part of this post was drafted a while back; I've posted a few times since) about the White Sox rehauling their uniforms several times over the years until finally finding a fit with colors most equated in sports to the NFL Raiders. This card shows both for ya. I never thought about it, but it sure is funny that 1991, the year they switched to those uniforms, was the year they signed Bo after he had recently retired from football. Having a former Raiders hero on the squad really must've helped embolden and validate their gutsy uniform decision. I don't know about you guys, but at my middle school around '91-92, the new black White Sox stuff was considered the coolest. Probably also because popular rappers wore it sometimes. I never had a Sox hat (which still fills me with a gentle wave of regret to this day), though I did have a black White Sox shirt back then which I wore when I needed to impress the ladies. Worked every time. Nah, I'm just kidding. But I thought I looked cool, at least. I think I've even posted an awkward-age photo of me wearing it in an older post but I don't think I'll dig it out this time.

Some nightmare fuel on the back with a demonic clown playing guitar. Yikes! But seriously, I wonder if Bo kept up practicing guitar? Talented guy like that could do damn near anything he set his mind to, so I bet he could learn to really shred if he worked at it.

Anyways, now time for the randomness.

Isn't this a cool painting? Looks like a fun night at the Sugar Shack.

Speaking of sugar, I'm a dessert guy. I've got a sweet tooth and the curiosity to hunt for new dessert ideas to blow my mind. One I found that I will highly recommend is eating chocolate pudding not with a spoon but with nutty buddies. Oh man, that's heaven!

Another good one: sandwich of butterscotch pudding between a couple snickerdoodles, with fresh strawberries on the side. Very nice!

What the hell is this? I think it's a Twinkie dipped in the last of the butterscotch pudding with some strawberries thrown in for good measure. Yeah, this was fine. But let's be honest, these 3 desserts I've shown here are in descending order and this was the least best.

Shadow box tribute to my amazing pup Annie Lou who left us last year. Features a dual auto and some game-used memorabilia (collar and her favorite toy). Turned out pretty well.

The wild bunnies who've been enjoying free reign of our backyard in the months since Annie's passing have been a godsend to us, providing the cuteness needed to help keep our hearts from turning to dust given the events of 2020. But the backyard has a new ruler on the horizon, with Dog #3 less than a week away from joining our household. Pretty excited about it. Stay tuned.

Ladybugs are cool too. Snapped this nice close-up a week or so back.

This baby ladybug was found inside on the wall of my wife's home office, but I successfully rehomed it to the overgrown garden. Seemed to be pretty happy to have leaves to crawl around on instead of a boring wall.

No luck on the TTM request I sent to Mark McGwire a couple springs ago, but here's a version of it with a facsimile auto. Maybe someday!

Here's a McGwire mashup ("bash up") I made in photoshop (this is not a real photo). 1987 Topps meets 1991 Fleer Pro Visions for a Project 2020-style "art card".

I thought this was a fun one! Would love to see Topps and Panini (or Upper Deck) come together to offer a special card or set of cards along these lines with proceeds going to charity... covid, BLM, or something. But that's just me pie-in-the-skying over here on my computer relaxing at the end of a stressful Q2 at work.

And here's a dumb gif I made of Bert Blyleven's 1975 Topps card. LOL

Can't remember if I shared this here yet or not, but here's another dumb thing I made for Twitter recently.. brings us back to Bo, tying up the post nicely. It's a 3-way mashup of cards: 1971 Topps Nolan Ryan, 1986 Topps Traded Bo Jackson, and 1990 Classic "Nolan Knows Bo".. all in one crazy image.

That's it for this ignorable shitpost. See ya next time!

ignorable filler post: 1991 Cardboard Dreams #8 Michael Jordan

Oh man, I just did a post featuring my Jordan PC, but I forgot about this one.

Like with all the cards in the oddball 1991 Cardboard Dreams set, the artwork is in the range of "better than the average person could do, but not necessarily great."

And here's the back. Cute (?) doodle of a helmet-less Jordan taking a cut for the Pale Hose.

Here's where I'd normally do some research/writing about the subject of the card, but at this point there's nothing more I can say about Michael Jordan that hasn't already been said. A very, very good basketball playing man. Possibly would have eventually been good at baseball had the '94 strike not thrown a wrench in his rapid progress.

With that out of the way, now's the time in the "ignorable filler post" where I ramble about whatever. Ooh, these posts are fun for me. Just spew out whatever I'm feeling at the moment.

I've seen a few bloggers saying that during this health crisis, they are reluctant to trade because they don't want to have to go to the post office to mail cards. Well, please allow me to present a reminder plug for the Definitive Guide to Shipping Sports Cards Safely and Cheaply I did back in 2018. It's got you covered for the best ways to send out packages (and PWEs) without ever having to step inside a post office. Check it out! Maybe some of you old-fashioned guys were reluctant to get on board back then, but now with the whole virus thing, perhaps you're ready to take the plunge and stop waiting in line.

In my MJ post, I mentioned I'd like to add an autograph at some point. 

The closest thing I've got currently is a Dennis Rodman stickergraph I picked up years back, mostly because of its 12/25 serial numbering. It's not much for penmanship, but still a neat card in my Christmas Card collection. I couldn't find it mentioned while searching my blog's archives, so either I never got around to posting it, or Blogger's search function wasn't working properly (which happens sometimes).

Hey, that's a good segue to rant about Blogger for a bit!

Ok, when I first started drafting this post a week+ ago I had plenty to rant about, because I had been forced onto the "New Blogger" and it suuucks. But then I eventually figured out how to revert back to the old Blogger and everything's good for now. But if you're tempted to click the "Try the new Blogger" button.. don't. Or if you do, be sure to then also click the button to "give feedback" to Blogger to tell them how much the new version sucks so hopefully they go back to the drawing board and fix all the issues (issues that the new version created that are "fixed" by the old version) and hopefully all us Blogger-cardbloggers don't get forced into permanently using the terrible new version. I really hate it. It's like blogging with one hand tied behind your back.

With the hobby being bonkers right now (mostly MJ and Project 2020 lifting the waters), figured I'd give another shot at selling my all-time best pull, a 1/1 Ken Griffey Jr auto. Optimistically asking $5k but open to hear offers or intriguing trade propositions.

I baked a cake. ...Actually, my wife baked it, but I frosted/decorated it. It says "Yay 2020". It's sardonic.

It's gone now. Eaten in 3 days. Surprisingly I haven't noticeably put on any weight during this crisis even though I haven't been to the gym since mid March. Been riding my bike a few times a week, though. That's something.

I'm not much for sports video games, but the one I've always loved is Bases Loaded 2 for the original Nintendo. I've been playing through a season this year (not quite the real thing, but it's something!) and the other day I hit a walkoff dinger in the bottom of the 10th. Woot! Left a lot of guys on base, but managed to come out on top.

Oh! There's been a baby bunny stopping by our backyard recently. Super cute.
I call it Moon Child due to the white marking on its forehead.

Speaking of cute critters, looks like we've got a line on a new puppers finally, but it'll be a few more weeks till we get it since it's not old enough to leave its mama yet. No rush! Hopefully that all works out.

Here's a weird picture I took last week.

Don't look down.

I bought a Garfield card. Can you guess why?

Snipped from my 8th grade yearbook. Coach Love was a sweetheart PE instructor. Lost an ear to cancer, which was kinda creepy for us kids at first, but we all grew be fans of the guy pretty quickly.

I've got regret over not being a part of my 8th grade Sports Card Club. Don't recall being aware of it at the time. I wonder if any of these guys still collect. Maybe one or two of them have even browsed my blog at some point? Only guy I could name off the top of my head is Clayton, the kid in the back far left. Don't know the teacher.

Back to the topic of video games, my wife and I play 2 games together on a somewhat regular basis: Dr. Mario and Wario's Woods (both SNES). We're pretty evenly matched, with her winning Dr. Mario about 60% of the time, and me winning Wario's Woods about 60% of the time. In a very rare occurrence, we tied in Wario's Woods the other day and I had to take a photo. It's just the first or maybe second draw we've ever had.

My latest sketch card. I made this for mr. haverkamp. It's supposed to be Dan Gladden on the Giants. I probably shouldn't have used a blue pen, but let's pretend it's a throwback Seals uniform or someshit.

It glows in the dark a little.

I'm generally not the type of person who takes pictures of their food, but a couple recent deserts creations of mine warranted it. The first one is cookies n cream ice cream with a brownie bite and some Froot Loops. The second one is an oatmeal cookie sandwich with pistachio pudding filling. Both very tasty.

Thanks for reading this ignorable filler post!