Happy Thanksgiving, all! We've been alternating between MST3K (for me) and Gilmore Girls (for my wife).. we typically have common ground between our all-time favorite TV shows, but these are a couple notable exceptions. Then it's off to the in-laws for the big dinner.
2013 Bowman Football sure did have a ridiculous number of parallels. I don't think this is even anywhere close to the full rainbow. The lowest #'d card here is /99.
The Cowboys have been surprisingly good this year. Dak Prescott stepped up and has done a great job filling in for an injured Tony Romo.
That concludes everything I know about the 2016 Dallas Cowboys.
I haven't heard anything about Gavin Escobar's performance this year.
Googling him just now, I found that a) he's been growing out his beard. b) his father died just a few days ago and as such he's questionable for the Thanksgiving Day game vs. Washington. Very sorry for your loss, Mr. Escobar.
Here are his stats:
Best of luck, Gavin!
And here's a new Gavin added to my Greatest Gavins minicollection recently. Gavin Dickey played in the Mariners' chain for a few years, never making it above AA before calling it quits after the 2011 season. Oh well, he's welcome in my collection! Certainly one of the silliest names of all the Gavins I've got cards of. *hu hu... Dickey.. hu*
That's gonna do it for today. Again, hope you're all having/had a Happy Thanksgiving!
I hardly ever have the foresight to plan out a post for a special day in the future, such as featuring a player on his birthday. But I had been thinking of doing another Retired Refractor Review post today, and this morning I saw a tweet from Mark Hoyle that it was Luis Tiant's birthday, so that helped me decide on a card for today's post and I snapped a few pics before heading out to work.
Tiant is often noted as one of the greatest players not to be in the HOF. Hall of Stats agrees, calculating a very strong score of 130, good for ranking him as the 34th best pitcher of all-time (..well, of those eligible). And he doesn't just have the numbers, as El Tiante was also a colorful character adding spice to the game during his 19 years in the big leagues. Gotta love the guy.
My Tiant PC isn't very big, so I went ahead and took pictures of the few other cards of him I got.
Some cards from the 60s including his rookie card from 1965.
Some cards from the early/mid 70s. I've also got his 73 Topps card in that complete set, not pictured.
Finally a Burger King oddball and a modern Upper Deck card #'d 3/100. And yes, I did print out little paper tabs to help me keep track of which cards are Burger King variations, since they often look the same as regular 1979 Topps only with a different card number on the back. This one actually is a photo variation, though, with flagship showing him still with the Red Sox.
So there you go, a decent little PC highlighted by a shiny /25 autograph. If anyone has any other Tiant cards to part with, I'd love to add to my collection.
Thanks for visiting and have a great Thanksgiving, everybody!
A couple nice PWEs from Mark Hoyle have shown up for me recently.
If it's standard-sized cards you're looking for, you've come to the wrong place. Here we've got a couple Drakes panels. First is a trio of top pitchers, highlighted by Nolan Ryan. Then the second panel features George Brett and Tim Raines. Rock has been in the news again lately due to his final shot on the regular HOF ballot coming up. I'd vote for him. When unsure, I defer to Hall of Stats.. and sure enough, Raines comfortably makes it in there based on his numbers. Back to the panel, I looked it up to see if a 3rd guy was cut off, but nope, seems this one was just a 2-card panel originally.
More 2-card panels, these being from Kraft mac & cheese boxes in 1987. I collect all 4 of these guys, so the question is which PCs to sort them into? Ha, screw it, they won't fit well in my normal PC boxes anyways, so I'll just put them in the shoebox with my other oversized cards. Problem solved!
Topps Big, on the other hand, do fit ok in the PC boxes. I recently sorted/cleaned-out my card storage supplies. Ended up tossing many dirty top-loaders and penny sleeves. I also ended up tossing a lot of cloudy card savers, but as for the clean/good ones, I've taken to cutting them up to use as like backing boards for minis and slightly-big cards (in team bags). Works pretty well.
Anyways, when I get Topps Big in trades, they usually have beat up corners, thanks to sticking out among a stack of regular cards, but Mark must've busted a couple packs or something, because these are still pretty sharp.
As for the Hernandez/Gwynn Drake's panel, it also seems to be a 2-player panel originally.
Ah, here we go, back to normal sized cards. Nice PC additions for me here.
Going old school here. Dick Williams is a guy I collect.. HOF Padres manager. Gary Bell, on the other hand, is kind of an odd inclusion, as I don't collect him nor am I working on that Topps set. But hey, I'll never complain about random vintage thrown into trades.
Here's a cool one to finish off the post with. Mark's nephew Joey Rogers is an amateur ballplayer who helped his team win the Massachusetts Division 2 state title this past summer. Mark was nice enough to get this custom signed for me. Looks great! Best of luck to you, Joey!
While it's not something I had done before, funny enough, just the other day I sent out a couple more autograph requests through the help of third-party intermediaries, and am excited for those to hopefully come back successfully before too long.
Big thanks for the cards, Mark! I'll shoot you back some more Sox soon.
Ok, the remainder of my pickups from last weekend.. let's bust this out.
I was stoked to find a rich deposit of 2011 Chrome parallels during a dimebox dig. Brought home a healthy stack of Xfractors, regular refractors, and even 3 purple refractors (which are #'d /499). Some decent names, too. Thanks to this lot, I've passed the 1/4 complete milestone with my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset, the Chrome section of which was lagging behind, so this was a great help there.
Here are a few all-timers. Ernie Banks is a guy I kinda collect, but am willing to part with cards of if my trader buddies holla at them. Hank Aaron on the other hand, nah, sorry Braves buddies.
And a closer look at the Satchel Paige base card from 2016 Topps Tribute. Very nice. Sometimes I think I should kick my Satchel PC into gear. Such a cool dude. Would love to pick up his '53 Topps someday.
Some more miscellaneous cards. Adrian Gonzalez makes his second shiny appearance of the post. John Donaldson is a bit of a sleeper PC for me (though I recently picked up a 12/25 auto but forgot to include it in my latest Christmas Card post). I might need to start a Francisco Lindor PC.. he just won't be denied. I picked up that Rolling Stones card with OM/Stealing Home in mind (He's one of those freaks who vastly prefers the Stones over the Beatles). I probably already have that Khalil Greene diecut, but it was worth the risk from the dimebox. AJ Reed wasn't able to duplicate his past success in the minors up in Houston last season (.164 over 45 games? ouch), but he's still got time to prove himself.
Some Bowman inserts from a few years ago.
That's pretty much it.. not counting lots of trade fodder that I won't bother posting because it's already pegged for trader buddies.
I threw a few cards onto my stack at the latest card show pretty much just because they made me crack a smile.. and they were cheap so why not?
When I see a Booty this nice, I just have to grab it. Aren't you jealous of my awesome Booty?!
I saw this one and read the bottom as "GOD DOUBLES" and I'm like... Damn, Topps! I know you've been sucking Ortiz's little papi all year long, but to deify the man?!
My favorite Nick Toon is probably Sponge-Bob. I used to kinda like The Fairly Odd-Parents, too. Rocko's Modern Life, if you wanna go old-school.
Isaiah Pead. When you say his name, it's a sentence. Coincidentally, I just watched an episode of The League last night from a few years ago where this guy's name was mentioned dozens of times. Is he still a good sleeper pick?
Ok, Chris Polk and Johnathan Franklin aren't really funny names, but I'm posting them here along with the other Crusade cards I picked up. They really are nice looking cards, regardless if Panini or the modern Leaf knockoffs. (The cards in this post are all available for trade, btw.)
This post has a ton of baseball cards in it, but first give me a moment to eulogize the end of an era for me.
Yesterday, my favorite website got shutdown by the man. It was an mp3 site responsible for the vast majority of my music collection over the past decade. Out of all the gut-punches delivered by 2016 so far, this one hit the closest to home for me. I discovered so much great music there. Though I'm pushing 40, I've never felt the dreaded "out of touch with today's music" or falling into a rut of just liking the same few bands I've always liked. I might not like a lot of what's popular these days, at least I was familiar with it. And believe it or not, other old guys, there still are many new artists out there creating great songs to hunt down and fall head over heels over, regardless of your preferred genre(s). Not to mention all the hidden gems you've missed from years past.
I know the music-listening landscape is becoming streaming focused these days, but as card collectors, I'm sure you guys understand how obtaining an mp3 to add to your collection is much more rewarding than streaming a song. It's not too unlike holding a physical card in your hand verses having a Bunt digital version. (Some of you older guys might feel the same way about vinyl records or CDs verses mp3s.) Just something about streaming music that's fine is certain settings, but ultimately unsatisfying as far as your collection goes. My wife has a Spotify account and loves it. Maybe once I finally get a smartphone, I'll give it a shot.
I recently started maxing out the capacity of my 160gb iPod, finding it hard to cram on more songs and having to make some tough choices about what to delete to free up space (currently at 23,599 songs on the thing). So maybe it's for the best that my mp3 supply has been severed. It would only get more frustrating for me as my collection grew too big to get a handle on. But still, it's a sad time for me, realizing my days of new music at my fingertips are finally coming to an end. And with the current climate, there's not much hope thinking, "oh well, a new site will come along and take the place of the old one." As far as buying stuff on Apple Music or wherever, that's an option for the occasional album I know I really want, but the selection is much more limited (I dig plenty of obscure shit), not to mention I don't have nearly the funds to check out everything I have a cursory interest in.
Anyways, back to the cards... I got sidetracked for a few days with contest wins n' such, but now let's continue recapping card show haul from last weekend.
I paired up a bunch of cards for today.
A pair of shiny Bowman refractor reprints.
A pair of Rizzo cards.. the shameful trade haunting Padres fans everywhere.
A pair of Wil Myers cards.. slightly less shameful deal for Padres fans than the Rizzo trade, though Trea Turner seems to be the real deal (2016 NL ROY runner-up behind Corey Seager) and we shoved him out the door.
A pair of Clint Frazier Bowman diecuts. Perhaps he'll end up being the Indians' Rizzo-esque shameful one-that-got-away. It's worked out well for them so far, though, seeing as Andrew Miller carried the team to the cusp of a championship.
A pair of Stantons.
A pair of hometown parallels. Adam Jones and Bartolo.
A pair of co-signers. Maddux and D. Lee. Dunn and Griffey. Yep, scored a cheap, low-numbered Junior, sneakily masquerading as an Adam Dunn card.
A pair of Rangers hurlers.
A pair of Cespedes refractors. Where do you think he'll end up for 2017? Back with the Mets or someplace new?
A pair of shiny Beltres.
A pair of pointing Correas.
A pair of hot young Bowman's Bests.
A pair of autos. Chris Jones was a solid player (though not the white guy [from Granite] from the 80s with the same name whom I need an auto from) and an oddball 73-style Joe Garagiola (which isn't a certified auto, but sure seems to be legit).
A pair of Goldschmidts, with a Chrome rookie and a #'d Tribute green parallel.
A pair of Griffeys. Sorry, my camera got mistakenly switched on a wack setting, resulting in a blurry photo. But yeah, it's a gold parallel Fleer Ultra checklist and an Etch-A-Sketch insert.
A pair of Xanders. (I'd say he won that "duel". Never even heard of the other guy.)
A pair of Bowman "1st" cards.
A pair of Bowman refractors.
A pair of Clemente reprints with films over them.
A pair of modern cards of legends.
And we close with a couple neat-looking cards of young dudes. Addison Russell was a big part of the Cubs' success in 2016. Dylan Bundy had his first full season in the bigs and put up decent numbers. I would have probably snagged this Bowman black wave refractor regardless who it was, to be honest. Just love the look of these. I almost expect them to be electrically powered somehow. (Seriously, how long till a card company makes a thick hit card that lights up or something with a battery embedded in it?)
All the cards in this post were comfortably less than a buck each.. many were from a dimebox (I think the guy let me have 108 cards for $10) and the others were from the 7-for-$5 bins.
Still more to show off from the haul, but that's enough for today.
Thanks for swinging by.. Have a great weekend, everybody.
