Early morning card show report

 Card show!!  I got there very early, because I had kid activities early in the day.  In fact, I had to wait outside the mall for a bit until the security guard opened the doors to let the dealers start setting up.  But that just meant that I got first crack at the boxes!

I made purchases from dime boxes, 20 cent boxes, 50 cent boxes and dollar boxes.  And I even bought a few cards that I had to pay more than a dollar for!!  Does that mean I'm finally growing up? Maybe...  Probably not, the cheap stuff is where I live and that won't likely change.

Anyway, here are some of the cards I grabbed from the 10 and 20 cent boxes:

Four from the Home of the Whopper...

Six from the Great White North...

The cards in both of those first two scans were no brainers for me.  Very cool cards.  I got a few dupes of some of the O-Pee-Chees if anyone is interested. The Schmidt, Franco and Yount, I think.  Not all are mint though.

Still in the cheapest boxes, I grabbed some beat up 70s cards and a bunch of shine and color.

I was super, super happy to find early refractors of Buhner and Larkin for so cheap! Especially the Larkin, that thing was in a 20 cent box??   And a Gossage RC, even as beat up as it is, was a steal!

Before we move on to the higher priced boxes, let's take a moment to talk about Juan Gonzalez.  I don't know if you like him, but for a while, he was a pretty big guy in the hobby.  Now that some time has passed, not so much.  But there were a ton of interesting cards made of him back then.  And I seem to run across them pretty often.  Juan Gone makes a lot of appearances in my Cuts & Colors collection because 1.) He was in all the cool insert sets and 2.) He isn't such a hobby darling that people hide his cards away in their collections, never to see the light of day again.

So I have slowly created a burgeoning collection of Gonzalez, and this show had a ton.  I kind of got carried away, but oh well.  The Gonzalez's below were all from 20 and 50 cent boxes, and the non-Juan cards are all from 50 cent bins.

Some highlights here.  The awesome Pacific die cut in the middle.  The minor league card.  And my favorite, that monstrosity in the lower right.  If you have never seen one of those (I hadn't), each of those black dots is heat sensitive.  So when you touch them for a moment with your finger, they turn transparent to show a number underneath.  I guess you are supposed to find the number of home runs Juan hit that year or something.  So strange.  Leave it to Pacific to come up with that!

Super shiny!!!  Too many good ones here to call out, but my favorite is the Chrome refractor in the center!

Non-Juan 50 centers...

All wonderful cards.  I needed the Grieve for my set build.  It is the first Diamond King I have added for a set build in well over a year.  Those things just don't show up often for me.

Those Ozzie Smith's there are 1996 Pinnacle Starburst and Starburst Artist's Proofs.  Amazing finds for half a buck!

Dollar boxes

Sweet 90s refractor of a HOFer, cool minor league card and an old Fregosi RC!

More!  This stuff, I paid a little more for.  But still great deals in my opinion!  Aren't these sweet?

What I paid (according to my horrible memory):

Fidrych RC - $2 (always wanted one, surprised it took so long)

John RC - $3 (a huge upgrade to my scribbled on copy!)

Mays/Rigney - $3 (Vintage Mays for $3?)

Griffey - $2 (!!! #d /10000)

Griffey gold signature - $2 (Not the prettiest card, but seems like a really good deal)

Masa RC - $3 (an iconic card, if only in certain circles)

Mays catch $4 (Total steal!.  It has a good crease, but how else could I have gotten it for $4?)

And the last card(s) for today, this panel of Hostess was a throw in on another purchase which I might get around to scanning in later.  I paid $15 for a couple of items, but I was not sure, so I asked if the dealer would throw this in.  He said yes!  Pretty sure this alone could go for $15 some places.

It's kind of blurry, but I like it.

Thanks for reading!

Flash freebie 2

  Got this idea from Jon at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts. Flash freebie!

Rules:

1. First to comment that they want it gets it.

2. If you have ever picked a Flash freebie from me, you are no longer eligible.  One per person!

3. When you claim it, send me your mailing address in an email.  My email address can be found in my profile on the sidebar.

These will go out 'as is', and in a simple PWE.  If condition is a concern, look closely before claiming.

The second flash freebie....

2021 Finest Shohei Ohtani

I don't know how many of these I will end up doing, this is an experiment for me to see if I can keep myself doing giveaways as long as I can.  But I have to feel good about it, so I will try this method out!

The card is already in an envelope, ready to be mailed.  Just need someone to claim it!

Flash freebie

 Got this idea from Jon at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts. Flash freebie!

Rules:

1. First to comment that they want it gets it.

2. If you have ever picked a Flash freebie from me, you are no longer eligible.  One per person!

3. When you claim it, send me your mailing address in an email.  My email address can be found in my profile on the sidebar.

These will go out 'as is', and in a simple PWE.  If condition is a concern, look closely before claiming.

The first flash freebie....

1973 Topps #66 - NL Victory Leaders

I don't know how many of these I will end up doing, this is an experiment for me to see if I can keep myself doing giveaways as long as I can.  But I have to feel good about it, so I will try this method out!

The card is already in an envelope, ready to be mailed.  Just need someone to claim it!

Five from Maddux

 In my last "5 From" post I asked if anyone had a player they would like to see featured on a "5 From" post.  I got a few suggestions and will be going through them in the order they were suggested.  So first up is Greg Maddux!

Now if you are expecting amazing auto's, patches or 1/1s in my Maddux collection, you will probably be disappointed with these five cards.  They aren't big money cards or anything like that.  Instead, they emphasize my enjoyment of bright, sparkly colors and die cuts.  Oh, and I always think of Maddux as a Brave, so there isn't going to be much for you Cubs, Padres and Dodgers fans here. 

First up!

5. 1998 Pinnacle - Epix Play - a sweet, crazy card!!  As you may be able to tell from the scan, this thing shines!  The purple is an interesting choice, but its hard to argue with how much pop this card has.

4. 1999 Topps - Lords of the Diamond - another card with pop!  This one scanned strangely.  Not that there isn't some purple to be seen when you move the card around, bit it isn't as predominant as what the scan shows.  I love this set, and am actively collecting it.

3. 1987 Leaf RC - OK, one Cubs card!!  I picked this one out of all his RCs because it is a Leaf card.  And back in the 80s, I saw very few Leaf cards!!  So I always figured that they would be more valuable.  Nowadays, not so much, but maybe a small premium.  I can remember a Leaf Kirby Puckett RC being a prized possession at one point.

2. 1996 Fleer Ultra - Season Crowns - I like this insert set a lot, but I don't really know why.  It is an acetate card, which I always love, and is see through on the outer edges:

Here is the card with an 87 Fleer Maddux RC behind it so you can see that better.

And the #1 favorite Maddux card in my collection???

1. 1996 Leaf Studio - Stained-Glass Stars - I love all the stained glass cards out there, and while this one isn't quite as awesome as the Gallery of Heroes sets from 1997-2000 and 2013, it is still quite nice.  And I definitely love how 'professor-y' Greg looks here.  Doing some calculus in his head on how to get the batter out!

Thanks to gcrl for suggesting Maddux for this!

Garage sale debacle

** no need to read this post, its a bit of a grouse session, and I probably shouldn't have even written it.  That said, I posted it, so if you feel the need, read on...

Things have been going really well on the card front lately.  I have had some wonderful trades and have found some nice deals on cards I like.  Things are getting back to normal, and card shows are popping up.  In fact I had a really good time a couple of days ago at the local show, post to come soon, hopefully.

But... 

Speaking of getting back to normal, my wife and a couple of her friends decided to do the cliché summer cleaning thing and combined some of their old junk in a three family garage sale the weekend before last. They held it over at one of the friends houses (thankfully, I hate people wandering around my place) a couple of doors down from us.

Inspired by some stories I have heard recently about people getting good money for what used to be considered 'low end' or 'junk wax' cards, I send a 3000 count box of those kinds of cards down to see if I would get any bites. 

Well, 10 minutes after the sale opened, I did get a bite, but not exactly what I was looking for.  My wife came back saying that a guy was asking if I had anything a little better that he could look at.  Well, I did! I have a box of stuff that is a step above junk wax.  Not top notch stuff, or I would be keeping it, but decent trade fodder.  Think Trout and Tatis base cards, common refractors, early 80s stars like Ozzie Smith and Mike Schmidt. Serial #d stuff.  Fun inserts. RCs of recent players that have not yet become superstars. There were probably a few cards that were a little bigger, but not many.  All in all, a wide variety of fun and decent cards. 

Not my actual box of cards, image stolen from the googlebox

So I took the 3000 count box of that stuff down and sat with the guy while he looked through them.  Turns out, he was looking for a little more of a bargain than I was willing to offer, so other than about 20 cards that he bought, the rest of the box was left.

Now is where the story takes a turn.  I am lazy.  No, me being lazy isn't the turn, that's just a fact of my life.  The turn is that I decided, due to my laziness, to leave the better box of cards at the sale, I just put them back into the garage itself where the money was being kept.  I guess I figured that if someone else wanted to ask about better cards like the first guy, that I wouldn't have to carry them back and forth. And leaving them right next to the money seemed like a safe place.

With that buildup, I imagine you can guess what happened.  My wife ended up selling the junk wax box for exactly what I was asking, but nobody ever asked to see the 'good' stuff again.  After everything was over, I helped my wife drag the many items that didn't sell back to our house.  And at some point, I remembered the box of cards.  But it was nowhere to be found.  Nobody could find it, and nobody who was involved in the sale remembered anyone taking it, or even looking at it.  But gone is gone.

I was pretty mad.  Not as much because I lost those cards, though that sure does sting!  They were great for when I needed to add a few cards to a trade, or for free card giveaways.  My main source of anger was that someone was so low that they would steal from a garage sale.  And if I am being honest, I was kind of mad at myself for being so lazy that I created the situation that made it possible.

So I am ticked.  And I hoped that writing about it would be therapeutic, but so far, it hasn't helped.  Hopefully in a day or two, I'll feel better.  And it doesn't help that this is bringing back strong memories of a huge card theft that happened to me back in high school.  But that is a story for another day, or maybe never.

On similar notes, I know that one of the 2 card shops in my town was broken into recently.  And at the card show I try to attend, one of my favorite dealers lost some really big cards to a thief recently.  Think graded Jordans.

Not a fun time.  Hopefully I am the only one seeing these kinds of things.  I want the hobby to get back to normal.

Five from Rolen

 It's been quite a while since I did a "5 From" post. I know, they are cheesy, but they are easy too, and I needed a nice easy post to write.  Here are my previous "5 From" posts if anyone wants to look back:

Albert Pujols
Stan Musial
Rod Carew
Willie Mays
Pete Rose
Robin Yount
Juan Gonzalez

Today, we look at the five favorite Scott Rolen cards in my collection. Rolen fits into my love of defensive studs, and his hustle and grit were awesome too.  I have very few of his cooler cards, but am always looking for more!

The top 5!

#5 - 1997 Bowman Chrome - Scout's Honor Roll - Refractor

These can be found pretty cheap, but I really love 90s refractors, and this one shines nicely in hand!  Not so much in the scan.

#4 - 1997 EX 2000 - Star Date 2000

What a great card!!  Everyone knows I love colorful and gaudy.  This is right in the wheelhouse!  And you can see that he has already been on base earlier in the game by the dirt on his leg...

#3 - 2007 Upper Deck Artifacts - MLB Apparel /199

Just a solid, simple relic card.  It looks nice.  It has a ding in the upper corner, but that reminds me of how Rolen played the game, so its OK.

#2 - 1998 Ultra

OK, it's not often a base card makes it in to these 5 card posts, but this one is awesome!!  He must have slid into all 4 bases to get this dirty!

#1 - 1995 Bowman RC

Yeah, the hard to find RC claims the top spot.  Not a big surprise, probably, but I am very glad to have this card in my collection!

Thanks for reading...

Any players anyone wants to nominate for future "5 From" posts???

Musings on Free Card offerings

 Anyone miss all the Free Card Friday's and various flavors of that which were everywhere for a while?  I kind of do.  But this post isn't about trying to get anyone to start up on them again.  It's actually just me talking through things to understand why I stopped.  Because I still have the urge to do Free Card days.  But I don't.  Why??

I'm going to just spray out random thoughts of why someone (or me) might be discouraged from doing a free card thing.  In no particular order:

Reason 1 - You don't feel like you have anything others would want

This can be a valid concern, but it isn't really a big factor for me.  You aren't going to please everyone unless you are giving away some pretty great stuff.  And if nobody claims your offerings, well then you get to keep your cards.  No harm here.

And there are all kinds of collectors out there. I have found with my free card posts, that team collectors can be the most interested, even in cards that nobody else wants.  You don't have to offer Trouts and vintage treasures.  Just throw some Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox or whatever team out there and you will get takers.

Reason 2 - You don't want to give away your hard earned collection

Another valid concern.  If you feel this way, definitely don't do a free card thing.  But I have lots of cards I would love to give to someone that would appreciate them.

In fact, along those lines, since I have returned to the hobby, I have always wanted to have another blogger meet up with me and go through my boxes of non-keepers so they could pull out some free cards! In person would be awesome, and then the person on the receiving end wouldn't have to rely on me to choose the cards they would want the most!

Reason 3 - You don't want to pay the postage

OK, now we are hitting closer to where my mind lives.  I have pretty limited card funds as it is.  So if I were to do a free card post once a week, and say,  8 people claimed each time, I would spend about $16 on the postage for a given month.  A little more for the envelopes and supplies.  Doesn't sound like much, but it adds up.  Often I only have $20 a month to spend in a month, though recently I have had a little more.

Reason 4 - You don't want to take the time to mail stuff out.  Sort/envelope/secure cards/tape/stamp/address/return address/seal/trip to the mailbox

I think this is the biggest reason for me.  I work hard.  And it's high stress.  Because of that, I often find myself without the energy to do much at all once I get home.  I'm sure that is a big contributor to the large gaps between my blog posts.  And most of the time, the thought of packaging up a bunch of cards and getting them mailed out just doesn't appeal.

Reason 5 - You feel like you are being taken advantage of

OK, so I could see this affecting people once they have done a few free card giveaways.  There are a few factors at work here.  Free card posts always get more views.  Duh.  And that can make us feel like our other posts are not appreciated.  Do we put effort into our posts just so that people who rarely read them can swoop in and pick up the free stuff?  Not likely.  Also I think some of us have noticed that the same few people are the ones claiming cards.  And sometimes it feels like maybe those people should pay it forward or something.

Those are valid ways to look at it, but they don't give me any real pause.  If I am offering free stuff, then it is really free, no strings or expectations attached.

*********************************************************

I'm sure there are lots of other reasons bloggers might have.  If you have any, feel free to leave them in the comments.  Or anything else you have to add!!  So that was at least a little therapeutic for me.  Not sure that anyone else will even care about this stuff.

I'm hoping that this exercise will prompt me to give free card giveaways another go sometime soon.  I do like sending cards to people who read!!  So stay tuned.  Hopefully. 

Card show part 2 - vintage

 A few days ago, I posted my recent modern card pickups from a recent card show.  Today, you'll see the hammered vintage finds!

First up are these 1974 Topps Hank Aaron Specials.  There are 5 of these, now I have 4 of them!  These are not in perfect condition, but they only cost me $2 apiece.  I still need #3 if anyone has one!

These next 'cards' were the items that originally drew me in to the table where most of the cards in this post were purchased.  

These are: 

1947-66 Exhibits Jim Hegan

1947-66 Exhibits George Kell

1947-66 Exhibits Pete Reiser

1939-46 Exhibits Salutations Bob Feller

If you aren't familiar with these, they are oversized (about 3.5x5.5 in) with nothing on the backs.  The three lesser known players ran me $2 apiece, while the hammered hall of famer Feller only cost me $3!  They are kind of great, and obviously old.  Kind of annoying to store though.

I cant really tell the difference between the 39-46 and 47-66 sets, I'm sure there is one though.

The George Kell card has this writing on the back:

Looks like a kid was making a positional depth chart of the Yankees!  I love it!  Sometime around 1960, I would guess by the players.

After I picked out the Exhibits cards, the guy brought out a wooden box full of totally beat up vintage stars for me to look at.  And I mean beat up!  Check these out...

The Post cards are cut fairly nicely on half of the card, but the other halves look like someone was trying to learn how to use an exacto-knife with a paralyzed hand.  Kind of the same for the Maury Wills along the bottom.  The Campanella has major paper damage from tape or something, with more on the back.  And the Boog Powell RC is probably in the best condition of them all, getting away with just the number 16 written on it.

And I didn't care, because I am way too cheap to buy any of these cards in good condition!!  Been wanting a Powell RC for a long time, the Campy is my first and only playing days card of his, and the Wills is just awesome.

The Koufax has already flown the coop to a fellow blogger, as I found when I got home that I already had a copy.

And the last card I grabbed, from a completely different seller is this monstrosity:

I had never heard of this set, the 1967 Topps 'Who am I' set.  I thought some kid had just written all over some weird oddball Babe Ruth, so I asked the seller what he wanted.  He hemmed and hawed for a minute and said "2 bucks". I forked it over.

Well, if you aren't familiar with this set like me, it turns out that this set contained a bunch of pop culture figures from presidents to monarchs to Shakespeare.  But they all looked like the one above, with the subject's face obscured by writing.  The clue on front might give away who the subject is, but on the backs there were more clues in case you couldn't figure it out:

And once you figured it out, you could scratch off the front of the card to reveal a more normal looking pic.  I'm not planning on scratching mine off, but this is what it would look like when scratched:

All in all, I am thrilled to add all of these 'off condition' cards to my collection!!!

Card show part 1 - non-vintage

 I got to go to a card show, like many of you have recently.  I did not have high hopes.  The last show I went to at this location was swamped with high end graded cards, and the low end boxes I did run into seemed quite underwhelming.

And this one certainly had a lot of those problems.  But...  I was also happily surprised by some .10, .20, .50 and $1.00 boxes that held a lot of value!!  I ended up spending a lot more than I usually do ($65), but the majority of those dollars will come in the next post where I will show the beat up vintage I acquired.

This post is about the non-vintage cards I found!  Let's get to it.

I'm pretty sure all of the cards in this first scan were in either the dime boxes or the 20 cent boxes.

Vlad/Andruw Jones RC for 20 cents???  Oh, yes!  I actually grabbed 2 of these.  I know they aren't super desirable, but I needed them!

The Gooden batting and Niekro Coors cards are really cool, well worth the dimes I spent.

The Reggie is actually a soccer card!  And it is the Gold version, don't know how much difference that makes.  But it is pretty cool.

The rest, I won't bore you with my ramblings, but at 20 cents apiece, I'm pretty happy.

Next is a hodgepodge, no real theme here!

I pick up any of the Topps Micro cards I see for cheap, same with the Negative Refractors.  I know the Lofton RC was a dime.  Then the Ohtani/Ichiro card.  I'm pretty sure that was 20 cents, but maybe it was 50.  Either way, with the way Ohtani is selling right now, seems like a bargain!  The Mantle, I don't even know what set that is from.  But it looked nice and was cheap.

Pretty good cheapie boxes, right?  I grabbed about 30 other cards from them that didn't get scanned. 

This next group, I think were all in a dollar box.

I really like them all!!  The Tatis and Vlad definitely add to my tiny collections of those guys, while the sepia Ichiro for a dollar seems like a steal!

And last up, I found a "Jerseys and Autos" box that was actually reasonable!  

I love, love the Odom Auto!  Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown just showed one off the other day.  We only live about 6 miles apart, weird that we both grabbed the same card at about the same time.  The Pujols and Pudge cards look beautiful, and they are 2 of my favorites.  The Pedro is a hefty and shiny card!  Serial numbered too.  And the card that drew me to the box in the first place was that awesome Andre!  Just a great looking card!  No matter what you think of manu-cards, it's a keeper.  Love that he's in the awesome Expos colors.  The Dawson ran me $2, and I think the whole 5 card lot was $16.

Like I said, I spent a little more, but I am pretty happy with the results!

Come back in a few days when I will be showing off my loot from a dealer who had a lot of wonderful vintage stars.  Unfortunately, they were beat up vintage stars.  And when I say beat up, I really mean it!  Come back and take a look!

A-Z Wrap Up

 

Wow, its been an awful long time since I posted!  Better get back to it!

I wanted to do a wrap-up of the A-Z Player Challenge.  So far there have been 21 total participants, including me!  That's waaaay more than I thought this would get, but a big thank you to everyone who participated, read or commented!

**Bloggers who participated:  Fuji, Johnny, Elliptical Man, Johns Big League Baseball Blog, Night Owl, gcrl, Nachos Grande, Card Buzz, Baseball Every Night, Wax Pack Wonders, Topps Cards That Never Were, Wrigley Wax, Waiting 'til Next Year, The Collective Mind, Diamond Jesters, Bump and Run Football Card Blog, Japanese Baseball Cards, The Shlabotnik Report, Dime Boxes, Royal Card Review

I really appreciated the diversity of the picks.  We got a lot of unique picks from loyal team collectors, old timers and many others.  These picks may have been obscure, or they may have had cult followings.  But when you aggregate the picks, you tend to come out with the all timers, the hall of famers and the all time greats.

Here's the wrap-up:  **I apologize for the lack of pics, the busy life is still holding me back**

A  

I picked: Henry Aaron

Winner: Henry Aaron (7)

2nd most votes: Jim Abbott (3)

Total different players picked: 13

Abbot made a strong showing, but there was no dethroning Aaron.  Probably as it should be.  13 different players picked may seem like a lot, but as you will see, it's about average.

B

I picked: George Brett

Winner:  Ernie Banks (4)

2nd most votes: George Brett (3)

Total different players picked: 16

Mr. Cub over Mr. Royal!  This one had 16 different players picked, tied for 2nd most!

C

I picked: Rod Carew

Winner:  Roberto Clemente (6)

2nd most votes: Carew, Carlton, Cey, Clemens (2 each)

Total different players picked: 14

Third all time great in a row, no surprise.  Clemente is followed up by a strong group tied for 2nd!

D

I picked: Eric Davis

Winner:  Andre Dawson (6)

2nd most votes: Dave Dravecky (3)

Total different players picked: 13

The Hawk for the win!  And just in time, I picked up a kind of cool Dawson card I hope to show soon.  In 2nd, Dravecky is an awesome, lesser known pick.  I wonder how much him breaking his arm while pitching elevated his long term popularity.

E

I picked: Dennis Eckersley

Winner:  Dennis Eckersley (6)

2nd most votes: E. Encarnacion, Edmonds, D. Evans (2 each)

Total different players picked: 13

The Eck ran away with the E's.  But there were lots of fun picks after him.

F

I picked: George Foster

Winner: Mark Fidrych (4)

2nd most votes: Fisk, Francona, Feller (3 each)

Total different players picked: 13

The Bird!!  Our first non Hall of Famer to win.  One trend that was strong in the picks was quirky guys, and Fidrych certainly fits the bill.  

G

I picked: Lou Gehrig

Winner: Ken Griffey Jr. (4)

2nd most votes: Mark Grace (3)

Total different players picked: 14

Hard to imagine Griffey not winning this one, given his popularity among collectors.  I think my only surprise was that he only got 4 votes!

H

I picked: Rickey Henderson

Winner:  Rickey Henderson (5)

2nd most votes: Orel Hershiser (3)

Total different players picked: 16

I was pretty happy with this one, Henderson was one of my faves.  Hershiser getting three was cool too, always a class act.

I

I picked: Monte Irvin

Winner:  Monte Irvin (6)

2nd most votes: Cesar Izturis and Ichiro* (3 each)

Total different players picked: 11

The I's didn't have a lot to pick from, but that doesn't mean Irvin wasn't deserving!  Underrated.  It was also awesome to see 3 'illegal' picks for Ichiro here!

J

I picked: Randy Johnson

Winner:  Derek Jeter (5)

2nd most votes: Randy Johnson (3)

Total different players picked: 13

Jeter was a collectors no-brainer when it comes to popularity.  Hard to argue with.

K

I picked: Sandy Koufax

Winner:  Sandy Koufax (4)

2nd most votes: Kershaw, Kimbrel, Kaline, Kruk (2 each)

Total different players picked: 15

Another player I recently picked up a fun card of!  Very deserving, and a super strong batch of guys in 2nd.

L

I picked: Kenny Lofton

Winner:  Kenny Lofton (5)

2nd most votes: Barry Larkin (3)

Total different players picked: 13

The Lofton win surprised me, even though I picked him myself.  I figured Larkin would take this one.

M

I picked: Willie Mays

Winner:  Greg Maddux (5)

2nd most votes: Pedro Martinez (3)

Total different players picked: 15

The 2 best pitchers of the nineties to me (sorry Clemens and Big Unit!) finished 1-2 here.  That's some amazing pitching love in a hobby that doesn't seem to value pitchers quite as highly.  And over Mays??  Heresy!  Lol.

N

I picked: Phil Niekro

Winner:  Phil Niekro (5)

2nd most votes: Hideo Nomo (4)

Total different players picked: 15

A tight race with 2 very different pitchers.  The ancient knuckleballer takes it over the smooth Japanese barrier breaker.

O

I picked: Shohei Ohtani

Winner:  Shohei Ohtani (4)

2nd most votes: David Ortiz (3)

Total different players picked: 15

Well I was wrong!  When I picked Ohtani, I figured that pick would be ridiculed, and that he wouldn't really get any more votes.  Guess not.  And this was before he got so hot!  We were so close to back to back Japanese pitchers!

P

I picked: Albert Pujols

Winner:  Albert Pujols (4)

2nd most votes: Mike Piazza (3)

Total different players picked: 16

Yay, Pujols is near and dear to me, thrilled he won.  

Q

I picked: Dan Quisenberry

Winner:  Dan Quisenberry (10)

2nd most votes: Jamie Quirk (3)

Total different players picked: 9

A total no-brainer.  Not only was he quirky as well as really good, the Q's were pretty sparse, obviously.  I was interested to see Jamie Quirk get three votes, I didn't realize he had that kind of following.

R

I picked: Jackie Robinson

Winner:  Jackie Robinson (6)

2nd most votes: Cal Ripken Jr. (4)

Total different players picked: 14

What is there to say here?  Jackie had to win, and that he did over fan fave Ripken shows his popularity.

S

I picked: Ichiro Suzuki

Winner:  Ryne Sandberg (5)

2nd most votes: Ichiro Suzuki (3)

Total different players picked: 16

The Cubbies great edges Ichiro here.  Though the 3 illegal ballots cast for Ichiro in the I's could have put him one vote up.  No matter, Sandberg is a very deserving winner!

T

I picked: Mike Trout

Winner:  Tie!! Mike Trout, Jim Thome and Luis Tiant (3 each)

Semi-shocking no votes: 

Total different players picked: 13

Our only tie!  Great picks, all of them.

U

I picked: Chase Utley

Winner:  Bob Uecker (8)

2nd most votes: Chase Utley (5)

Total different players picked: 8

U didn't have a lot to choose from, resulting in the fewest unique players chosen, 8.  Uecker was probably chosen for his post MLB career, but that's OK.  He's a beloved character!

V

I picked: Fernando Valenzuela

Winner:  Fernando Valenzuela (6)

2nd most votes: Justin Verlander (5)

Total different players picked: 10

Valenzuela over Verlander in a nail biter.  I like to think it was Fernando's 'nod to the heavens' on each pitch was the difference here.

W

I picked: Ted Williams

Winner:  Ted Williams (5)

2nd most votes: Kerry Wood (2)

Total different players picked: 17

The most total unique picks!  17!  The only players who got more than 1 pick were Teddy Ballgame and Kerry Wood.

X

I picked: Joe Xavier

This one was fun.  No 'X' players, but we got some write in votes:  Joe Jackson, Xavier Paul, Nellie Fox (backwards), Xavier Nady, Jimmie Foxx, Xander Boagerts, Xavier Hernandez

Y

I picked: Carl Yastrzemski

Winner:  Carl Yastrzemski (7)

2nd most votes: Robin Yount (5)

Total different players picked: 11

Yaz and Yount dominated here.  The 70's and 80's seemed to have a slight advantage in general in these picks.

Z

I picked: Gus Zernial

Winner:  Ben Zobrist (6)

2nd most votes: Ryan Zimmerman (4)

Total different players picked: 10

Benny Z, utility player extraordinaire.  I love this pick.

So out of 25 letters, my pick was the consensus 'winner' 15/25.  Guess I'm a front runner!

Thanks to everyone who wrote or read!!

From the Dime Box

 Who doesn't have a good dime box story?  For a lot of us bloggers, they can be stuff of legend.  I've heard of some pretty amazing dime box finds, and have had quite a few myself!

This is a different kind of dime box gold story.  It involves a trade I made recently with Nick of the awesome blog Dime Boxes: The Low End Baseball Card Collector's Journey.  As you know, (because Nick is rightly famous) or if you don't know, you can tell from his blog name, Nick is a dime box fan. Since I am too, we decided to throw some cards each others way.  

I honestly can't really remember what I sent to Nick.  I have sent a number of packages out recently and they are all blurring together in my head.  It was stuff off of his wantlists, hopefully stuff he could use.  I say hopefully for two reasons.  1.) I absolutely hate for a trade partner to feel bad about a trade.  And 2.) He sent me some pretty great stuff!!  

Check it out...

First up are two of the seemingly endless parade of Mark McGwire's in the recent Topps products.  Hard to believe that in 2011 only 5 McGwire cards were made (according to TCDB).  In 2012, only 8.  In 2020 a whopping 811!  Anyway, I will take them!

Then Nick started peppering me with inserts of some of today's hottest young stars:

What's that, the young star in the lower left isn't so young anymore?  Well, maybe not, but he sure is young there.  That card is from SCD Price Guide from back in 1989.  Phenomenal card!

Here's another one I wanted to spotlight.  My two favorite Angels of all time on one card?  Old guy in sepia, Rod Carew...

And new guy in full color, Mikey Trout!  Both of these guys made my list in the A-Z player challenge.

Nick just kept on going, helping my tiny collection of the current hot Rookies and young bucks.

That Tucker is pretty shiny!

And here's where things went off the rails.  I have bemoaned my lack of RCs from the 2010s several times on this blog.  I just don't buy packs, so the only 'hot' RCs I pick up are after they are no longer hot, and I find them in dime boxes. I also, in my most recent post, mentioned that I was probably too late to get in on Vlad Jr RCs!  Nick took laser aim at those problems and obliterated them!!

Check these beauties

Cool action shot on the Baez RC!  Everyone is still talking about his recent heads up baserunning play.

Here's Vladdy!!  I guess its never too late when the blogger community is involved.  Happy to have this card!

Woah!  This one knocked me off my chair, so totally unexpected.  I've liked Arenado for a while now.  I love strong defensive 3B, and his offense is not shabby either.

And the hits keep coming!  My first Acuna RC, very happy to have one.  Kids a beast.

And then the last 2 cards.  Nick had mentioned in an email that he had a Mookie Betts RC that he was sending, which I thought was EXTREMELY nice of him.  So I was expecting one with some sense of glee.  But what I did not expect was this:

Two Betts RCs!!!  Wow!  Beautiful cards of one of the games best.  I really love having RCs of all the studs that make up the history of the game.  And Betts has solidified his position as one of them.  Thanks so much Nick, these were very, very appreciated.  Go Dime Boxes!

The Impaler

 Perhaps no player represents how my collection has come together over the years better than Vladimir Guerrero.  Not Vlad Junior, but his old man.  Here's what I mean by that statement.  I don't think of Vladdy as one of the players I really go after, but when I see a card of his that is nice, I will pick it up as long as it is cheap. And for some reason, around here nobody seems to hold Vlad in high regard, so I have been able to find a lot of cool Impaler cards on the cheap over the years.  But of course, no RCs, not for cheap!

And that is how Vlad represents my collection.  I have a good number of cards of his I really enjoy, but not the key biggies.  Same for a lot of players.  Mike Piazza comes to mind.  Derek Jeter. Lots of others.

Sometimes not having the 'big money' cards bums me out a little, but then I look at what I do have.  And I really like it.  So without further rambling, check out my low end, but still awesome Vladimir Guerrero Sr. collection!

I can't believe how Expos heavy my Vlad collection is.  He spent pretty much exactly half of his career in Montreal, but almost all of my keepers are Expos cards.  I especially like the High Voltage cards here.  So much color and pop.  That's going to be a theme for this whole post!

Like I said, color and pop!

Our first Angels card, and it is #d /100.  So shiny.

More of the same...

Remember when Artists Proofs were actually desirable parallels?  

When I picked up the Bowman's Best and Donruss Preferred cards here, I was hoping at least one of them was a RC.  But nope, the 1995 Bowman and Bowman's Best are the only Vlad RCs out there.  Hopefully one day I can get my hands on one!

And now I have probably missed the window to get me some Vladdy Jr RCs too!  Oops.