Merry Ho Ho!

All my best...

from me to you. See you in a few days.

Trade Night Success! and an update....

My 'local' card shop has a trade night every month. Nothing too special, just a bunch of guys getting together to generally belittle each other's choice in sports teams, with pizza and pack wars thrown in. Surprisingly, very little trading occurs. But a lot of wax gets busted.

This time, there was a lot of trading. Usually when someone comes up to me around here and says; 'You're that Braves fan, right?' It isn't a good thing. This time it turned out to be.

I was able to trade a couple of Martin Brodeur inserts for this baby....

 On card /99. Doesn't get much better than that. Thanks for the swap Mike.
I also traded for a bunch of hockey stuff, but you can see that on Just A Bit Offside when I get around to it. Maybe tonite. Maybe.

Also a small envelope from Darkship arrived. Todd had one of the last two stickers I needed for the 2010 Panini World Cup Sticker Book.

 Shiny!

Chris Harris had sent me two of the last four I needed....

So now I'm just down to #36. From what I hear, dayf has it on the way. I can't wait. I just might finish this sucker in 2010. Awesome.

What $17 and the last card show of the year brought me...

I went out to the local rec centre for the last card show of the year. I took my usual $20. Let's see what I procured.

I actually bought quite a few cards this time, which is unusual. Normally I come home with 4 or 5 cards. 15 cards came home in my pocket. All for $17.

Maybe the best of which is this beauty. A 1967 Philadelphia Dan Reeves Rookie.

 A wee off center and a couple of creases... but for $2 I could not say no. This makes 3 cards I have out of the 11 card team set. Only 8 more to go!!!! The seller said he'll bring more Cowboys next time for me to go through....

Hmmm... I need a coin to find out the answer. Or I could Google it. How times have changed.
Not too bad though... 16 touchdowns and over 1300 yards. And to think you just thought he was a Hall of Fame coach.

For the rest of my card show booty, you'll have to cross over to my other blog, Just A Bit Offside. Thanks. See you there.

Why doesn't this ever happen to me???

The rules are simple... if you never went pro, you can sign a contract on a moments notice, and play right away. Maybe I need to get my phone number out there more....



Phoenix Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov became ill Thursday morning leaving backup Jason LaBarbara alone against the Rangers. Needing a backup, the Coyotes tried to turn to goalie coach and former NHL All Star goalie Sean Burke. But being a former pro, Sean would have to clear waivers before signing. So they went the amateur route.
The Coyotes signed Tom Fenton, who works in the community relations department at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y. Fenton played four years of ice hockey at American International College in Springfield, Mass. The native of Sarnia, Ontario, had a 1-12-1 record, a 3.60 goals-against average and .886 save percentage during his senior season of 2008-09.

How the hell did the Coyotes even know about this guy???


This is the third time something like this has happened in the last couple of years.... hopefully my turn is coming. Maybe if the starting goalies ate more shrimp or something......

I know this one! I know this one!!!

Thanks to our friends at Versus (they try SO hard...) we have the trivia question of the week.

Don't try and out think this one... go with your gut....

The best part was the announcers didn't even clue in to the absurdity of it all, and then later actually reposted the question and gave out the answer.

I can't make this stuff up....


Oh, and check out the contest over at Drop The Gloves while you're at it....

The Spirit of Christmas..

December 12th brought us the 16th Annual Calgary Hitmen Teddy Bear Toss. What the hell is that? Well, each year the Calgary Hitmen designate one game a year to giving back and helping those in need at Christmas. We're talking about the kids here, as Christmas is always about the kids.
The rules are simple. Bring a stuffed Teddy Bear, or Dog, Cat, or Woobie, and when the Hitmen score their first goal of the night.... let fly with your toy.


(pay attention at the 3:30 mark as several trucks try to cart off all of the toys)

This year brought over 23,000 stuffed toys to be given to the kids at Alberta Children's Hospital, shelters, soup kitchens and the like.
Thanks to all who participated... it's always a lot of fun.

Card of the Week How to, and How Not to.....

This week's cards are courtesy Chris from Stale Gum. He sent these, and a bunch of others over a little while ago.

Today we feature triple relic football cards from two high end Topps products. Unique and Triple Threads.

First, we see what Unique has to offer. And it is The Awesome.

 Good use of team colours, nice symetry. And Game Used swatches. In my dreams I can see the spaces to the right filled with on card autos in silver sharpie. I know one of you enterprising readers out there will tell me that Unique does horrible sticker autos, but until then, my dream has on card. In silver. Awesome. If only I knew someone near Arlington who could do the in person auto thing for me....

Secondly, we see the much maligned and disliked Triple Threads. Here we have three 'quarterbacks' from the '09 draft. I put 'quarterbacks' in quotations because two of these rooks aren't in football anymore.
Pat White, a second round pick of the Dolphins was cut this past year and is currently the towel boy for one of the Kansas City Royals AA teams....
Nate Davis, drafted in the 5th round by the 49'ers..... didn't even make the team in training camp. A FIFTH round pick... really??? And on top of that he didn't even make the team???? He's currently driving a UPS truck in Dubuque, Iowa.
Stephen McGee, a 4th round pick of the Cowboys, is at least still in football, serving as the third string Qb on the Cowboys. While showing a lot of talent in preseason games, the only way Steve sees the field is a plane crash on Tony Romo's house.

oh, and of course, player worn swatches. It doesn't even guarantee which players.... On the plus side, unlike most Triple Threads crap, I can at least understand what the die cut windows are trying to say, so there's that.

simple is better....

Trading cards over the internet is not an easy activity. You don't know the other person, and they don't know you. You might think you have valuble cards, they might think you have junk. Your idea of value and theirs are never the same.

This is why I really don't trade with members of the blogging sphere. I've been doing this for a long time, and back then it was if I had cards you liked, I sent them to you. If you had something you thought I might want, you sent it to me.

I still do this to this day. I'll send Marlins to Wicked, Braves and Hoops basketball to dayf, Dodgers get split between gcrl and Night Owl, Rays to Troll, BoSox to John in the U.K. etc... etc........ and every once in awhile, I'll get something from them.

But lately, everyone wants to trade. I don't have time for that. The back and forth emailing, keeping track of what's what. Remembering to include everything in the envelope. Oy. I'm just not that smart.

So for instances when I need to trade, simple is best. Thankfully Dave over at é rayhahn, rayhahn felt sympathy for me and concluded a simple one for one swap.

He posted this beauty in a trade post awhile ago....

and after very brief negotiations, I sent him a 2007 Bowman's Best Glen Perkins auto.
Clean.
Simple.

Thanks David!

My favourite Cowboy....

Don Meredith 1938-2010


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Legendary Cowboys, SMU quarterback Don Meredith dies

09:36 AM CST on Monday, December 6, 2010

By BRAD TOWNSEND/The Dallas Morning News

btownsend@dallasnews.com

Don Meredith, the Dallas Cowboys and SMU quarterback and Monday Night Football icon, died Sunday evening in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 72.

Meredith died at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, a hospital spokesman confirmed this morning. The Meredith family's attorney, Lisa Fine Moses, said his wife, Susan, and daughter Mary were at his side.

Meredith had battled emphysema in recent years and suffered a minor stroke in 2004.

He was the only living Cowboys Ring of Honor member unable to attend the franchise's September 2009 inaugural game at Cowboys Stadium.


Meredith was the original Dallas Cowboy, signing a personal services contract on Nov. 28, 1959, two months before the franchise officially gained admittance into the NFL.

Hailing from Mount Vernon in East Texas, the quarterback nicknamed "Dandy Don" had the unique distinction of playing all of his home high school, college and professional football games within 100 miles of Dallas.

"I'm very thankful," said Meredith, when a reporter from The News visited him in Santa Fe last October for a profile commemorating the 50th anniversary of his signing with the Cowboys. "I'm very thankful about where I'm from and who I am."

He had given few interviews since leaving the Monday Night Football booth in 1984, preferring to remain largely out of the public eye while residing in Santa Fe with Susan, to whom he was married for 38 years.

Meredith was a two-time All-American at SMU and played for the Cowboys from 1960 to 1968. He led the Cowboys to the 1966 and 1967 NFL title games, both defeats to the Green Bay Packers, but he abruptly retired from pro football at age 31.


Already famous in his native Texas, he quickly became a national celebrity through his work on Monday Night Football, starting in 1970. Millions tuned in each week to hear Meredith's quick wit, homespun stories and needling of intellectual booth-mate Howard Cosell.

And, famously, Meredith would croon "The Party's Over" to viewers when he determined that the game was out of reach.

Of his Cowboys career, Meredith once mused, "I don't know how badly I'd feel if I wasn't remembered at all."

Despite being the first quarterback to lead the Cowboys to a winning season, then the two NFL title game appearances, Meredith was often booed by fans who blamed him for not taking the franchise to the top.

"He took too much of the blame, and I think the press blamed him way too much," teammate Lee Roy Jordan said. "I'm disappointed that we – the coaching staff and all of us other players – didn't take a more responsible role in taking on some of that negative press."

Longtime Cowboys president and general manager Tex Schramm once said of Meredith: "He had a wonderful sense of humor and a very laid-back personality. But he was an absolutely intense competitor who could rally a team. He was very charismatic, maybe the most charismatic player we had."

Despite the championship losses to the Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi and the awful performance against the New York Giants that deprived him of the passing championship, Meredith is the football player turned folk hero. He was the country kid who left tiny Mount Vernon in East Texas for college stardom at SMU and a celebrated NFL career with the Cowboys, one commemorated with his induction into the team's Ring of Honor in 1976.

He was born and raised in Mount Vernon but moved to a spacious adobe house in Santa Fe in 1982.

"My home is in Santa Fe, but I'm gonna always be from Mount Vernon," he said. "I like that a lot."

Meredith played impressively in his important role in Cowboys history while setting records for a team and a town that much preferred championship rings. While Meredith never delivered the Cowboys to the Super Bowl, he performed for them at an incredibly high level as they inched their way from wretched ineptitude toward the championships of the future, enduring immense pressure and incredible punishment in the process. He probably suffered more cruelty and injuries than any other Cowboys player because of a lack of support.

But Meredith was also maybe the most charismatic quarterback the franchise has known, a man who occasionally broke into song while huddling on the field with his teammates.

His profile increased after he threw his last pass. Meredith teamed with timid Frank Gifford and acerbic Cosell as announcers for ABC's Monday Night Football and later was featured in television commercials for Lipton Tea.

Meredith was acclaimed as a broadcaster less for his insight than for his homespun sense of humor and penchant for country music, which prompted his immensely popular rendition of, "Turn out the lights, the party's over ..." whenever the outcome had been determined. He once headlined a country music show with Roger Miller and Willie Nelson.

But Meredith was the first legitimate quarterback the Cowboys had, a player of such importance that owner Clint Murchison signed him and halfback Don Perkins to personal services contracts before being awarded the NFL expansion team.

The situation was almost perfect for Meredith, who once stood with his father outside the Cotton Bowl as they visited the State Fair of Texas. Meredith remembered that as a prophetic occasion.

"I looked up at that big old thing," he said, "and just knew I was gonna play ball there someday."

That, in fact, happened many times. Meredith probably made more appearances there as a player through his 12 seasons than any other athlete. The Cowboys played their home games at the facility throughout Meredith's nine seasons. The team announced plans to relocate to the Texas Stadium site Meredith found so contemptible a few months before his abrupt and shocking retirement from professional football in 1968.

He was 31, in the prime of his career. His decision was announced during a news conference in which Meredith, who had finished second in passing in the NFL, simply explained he had lost the desire to compete.


Roger Staubach was released from the Navy the same day.

"He never reached his full potential because he was only 31 when he quit and that's when the team was becoming the great power," Schramm said. "It would have been very interesting competition between him and Roger Staubach."

While Meredith performed the difficult task of providing the Cowboys credibility, he never delivered the championships like Staubach. Meredith holds the record for the longest touchdown pass in Cowboys history, a 95-yarder to Bob Hayes against the Washington Redskins.

However, Meredith was also reknowned for his misdirected passes as well as two losses in NFL Championship Games to the Green Bay Packers. Meredith threw a key interception that prevented the Cowboys from tying the Packers and perhaps forcing overtime as they suffered a 34-27 loss in the 1966 NFL Championship Game that kept the team from Super Bowl I. Their opponents there would have been the Kansas City Chiefs , the former Dallas Texans of Lamar Hunt, who drafted Meredith but never offered a contract.

The Packers similarly prevailed over the Cowboys the next year, winning their Ice Bowl matchup, 21-17, as Bart Starr scored on a quarterback sneak in 13-below-zero temperatures at the 1967 NFL Championship Game.

If not for those defeats, Meredith possibly could have been the premier quarterback of his time, a reputation Starr, Johnny Unitas , Sonny Jurgenson and Joe Namath commanded. As it was, Meredith's inability to win a championship prompted vocal criticism of him sometimes during home games.


"Don brought a lot of that on himself," Landry once said.

The relationship between Meredith and Landry was odd. Landry found Meredith's glib attitude the source of annoyance. Meredith could never understand his coach's stoicism and serious nature. Meredith stubbornly resisted Landry's attempts to control and influence him. But Landry maintained a devout respect for Meredith and desperately wanted him to succeed.

"Don and I were never real close," Landry said. "Not that I (didn't) like Don; I liked him fine. But you'd have to say we were really on different wave lengths. In defense of Don, he came up with some very poor teams. Gosh, they were awful. He took some tremendous punishment. I never had a player take more punishment or show more courage than Don.


"But Don just didn't have the dedication to be the best quarterback in the business. He was very, very talented, maybe the most talented quarterback I've ever coached. Therefore, he could get by ... without tremendous dedication. He didn't have to do what he had to do to become great. And he could have been great."

Said Schramm: "He could be a practical joker. He could do just about anything in that huddle or on the practice field, and that drove the head coach crazy. But put him in a uniform, and he played like hell."

Once, Meredith threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to Dan Reeves against the Redskins, the score occuring one play after Washington linebacker Chris Hanburger delivered a thunderous direct shot that rendered Meredith semi-conscious.

When that was mentioned to Landry in the locker room afterward, the coach pretended to be unaware Meredith was unsteady.

"He kind of acts like that all the time," Landry said.

Meredith found the standards of acceptable performance set so impossibly high he sometimes misinterpreted the tenor of an interview with a reporter who approached after he had completed 12 of 14 passes.

Asked if he realized he had done so, Meredith shrugged almost apologetically. "Well," he said, "No one is perfect."

Meredith led the Cowboys past the Minnesota Vikings , 17-13, in the 1968 Playoff Bowl and won the most valuable player award without receiving a single vote from members of the Dallas-Fort Worth media in attendance.

Meredith once theorized he had simply played too long in Dallas to be appreciated. As a high school junior, Meredith, 16, scored a record 50 points in the Dr Pepper high school basketball tournament in Dallas.

His career with the Cowboys came after Meredith had been a two-time All-America quarterback at SMU. He chose the Mustangs after narrowly opting to turn down Bear Bryant's scholarship offer to attend Texas A&M.

"I told him I wanted to throw the ball, and he said, 'Son, if you can throw well enough to win games for us, we'll throw the ball all you please.' If he had been coaching anywhere but Texas A&M, I'd have gone with him."

Meredith chose SMU, where he began his career as an outside linebacker because the school had seven quarterbacks on its roster. But Meredith became the starter his sophomore season against Texas, threw two touchdown passes and ran for another score as the Mustangs prevailed. Meredith led the nation in passing that season as the key component in a rather undisciplined offensive system reliant on his abilities as a playmaker.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is/was/and always will be my collecting white whale. I've wanted this card so bad for so long.... now even a little more so than before...