Do You Follow Minor League Players?

That's the question. I'm not talking about the Strasburgs and Harpers of the world. Fox, ESPN and Topps force us to know about those guys.

I'm talking the A ball, AA ball, and AAA guys from your favourite team. Do you know who that hard hitting SS is down in High A?

I'm asking because when I was at the card shop last night, the owner handed me a gift from under his counter.

A nice, shiny card of Braves prospect Kyle Kubitza.

 An Artist's Proof card #/49. Very cool.

A buddy of mine immediately asked me if Kyle was any good. I had to admit I had no idea. He played rookie ball for our low A club in Danville last season after being drafted in the 3rd round of the 2011 draft.

Should I know this? Do you other Braves fans know of him?
Do you follow your team that closely?

Dollar goodness

My wife came home from the dollar store earlier today, and proudly presented me with this.

Sweet jesus.

I normally shy away from this type of thing. But it was a gift. My wife knew I was a big Warner fan, so she bought it. And as luck would have it, I didn't have that particular Kurt Warner until now.

Let's see what else is inside. 30 cards. 10 Football, 10 baseball, and 10 basketball. You get to see 9 of each, 'cause my scanner only holds nine at a time.

Football

 ZUBAZ!!! Star Pics! Pro Set!

Baseball

2011 A&G and Lineage, along with the usual assortment, but wait... Hello! Look at that Tom Glavine card! Awesome!

Basketball

meh.

Not sure if it was worth the buck, but it was cool to open. If anyone sees anything they like except the Warner and Glavine, speak up..... not all at once.... no pushing.

Gintery Fresh.

Awhile back I posted some new wantlists regarding my Allen & Ginter wants as well as Upper Deck. A couple of fellow bloggers answered my plea for help.

First up, all the way from the Nederlands, we have some Gintery Goodness that has found a permanent home.

Jeroen, the Dutch Card guy, sent me 8 A&G cards from three different years. I'll show you four of them...

The King of Kansas City...

 CHIPPAH!

 Mr 40HR

 Tommy Gun

 Thanks Jeroen! He also happens to be neighbours with Edwin van der Sar, the greatest keeper in the world and my personal fave. Jeroen may have a house guest very soon................

Scott from Hand Collated sent me some hockey stuff... and snuck in 12 Upper Deck Braves needs.
One from 2010...
Derek Lowe seems to be wondering how to get to Cleveland.

 the other 11 came from UD's debut set... I'll show off 3 to keep it brief.

A Lemmer rookie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Tommy... probably in the midst of striking out a Met.

 And good ole Ed Olwine, still giggling that someone is paying him to play baseball.

I hope you had the time of your life Ed.

Thanks for the help with the lists guys!!! Mucho appreciato.

Another Wagner back in circulation...

Open up the freezer and crack open that block of ice you hid the credit card in.... starting tomorrow (tuesday) morning at 9am EST, This T206 Honus Wagner will be on the auction block.

Graded VG3 by SGGC, it was purchased by a Houston business man in the mid '80's, and has not been circulated since.
Starting bid is $300,000. The card is expected to fetch between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 by the end of auction, April 19,2012.

It wasn't announced, but I'm guessing the original buy price of this card was about $8,000 - $10,000.
Talk about a nice profit.
I know one thing for sure.... no card I bought in the mid '80's is going to fetch anywhere near this amount.

Waxing Avery.

I've been a wee busy lately. Unfortunately I haven't posted much over the last week. Thanks to the three of you who noticed. And yes, all is well. Aside from Chipper announcing his retirement at the end of the season and then having knee surgery to repair a torn MCL the next day.

I'll be posting a lot about Larry over the next few months. You Met fans may want to turn your heads for awhile.

But not today.

Today we'll clean up a couple of things. First, is this amazing autograph of Braves pitcher Steve Avery. Steve was the Strasburg of his era. And then he pitched 485 games and 8946523957 innings in his third year. His arm was never the same, although he did end up having a good career. And I will never forget the 1991 stretch drive and subsequent playoffs. One of the most dominating pitching performances I have ever seen.

Sid Bream and Francisco Cabrerra get a lot of the attention for the Braves worst to first year and of course John Smoltz and Jack Morris get most of the attention for that tremendous Game 7 of the World Series. (Kent Hrbek is a cheater. Period.) But without Steve's pitching in the last month of the season and throughout the playoffs, there is no World Series, there is no playoffs. He was the man.

I got this autographed card a loooong time ago from the Wicked One himself down in F.L.A. No fan fare, it just arrived stuffed in amongst a bunch of other cards he sent. But I've always treasured this one over the others. The reason I bring it up now is I was looking through a binder of Tom Glavine cards and I found this one mis-filed. And like all favourite cards of mine, it brought back a tonne of memories.

I always liked Steve. Maybe because he is exactly one day younger than I am. I always thought that was cool too.

In other and more recent news, I've recieved a few gift packages from fellow bloggers over the last couple of weeks.

Big thanks go to Ryan from Another Orioles blog, Oscar at Stealing Home, Cynicalbuddah of Collector's Crack and for these cards from Ryan of Ryan's Pitch.

I had sent Ryan a box of about 250 '91 Fleer. No, no! It's ok! He requested them! Really! He has a wantlist and everything. Please don't burn crosses on my lawn. Dayf has threatened that and more if I ever send him anymore '91 Hoops basketball. (Speaking of that, I'm about due to send him another package...)

Anyways.. where was I? oh yeah, Ryan sent back a package of Braves. He couldn't help much with my wantlists, but he sent a nice stack of Bravos including some oddball sets like Topps American Pie, Topps Super Teams, and Topps Archives.

He also sent these.

 No, this was NOT payback for sending him '91 Fleer. I actually wanted this card.

 See? It's from the traded set. I'm down to needing four more and my '86 Braves set is done. If you can help with that, or any other year, please checkout my wantlists. LINK HERE.

One card I almost missed because it was mixeed in with those others from the previously mentioned  Topps Archives set was this beauty of Lew Burdette.

 a nice 1957 Topps Lew Burdette to be exact. Very awesome. This was two years before Lew became a lefty. Some of you know what I'm talking about.

Who knew Lew's name was 'Selva'???? Yeah... you can call me Lew.

Thanks everyone for the great cards.

My 3 pack Heritage break

2012 Heritage is here! Yay! Woot woot! Hurrah!

Did I summon up enough excitement for you? You've probably all seen it by now, but I thought I'd show you the results of my 3 pack purchase anyways.

Three packs for $10. Here we go.

The wrapper. Nice and bright, but simple. I like it.

 I'll show off all of the hits first.
Braves pitcher Mike Minor. (yes, pulling a Brave = a hit.... my blog, my rules)

 Braves pitcher, and Rookie of the Year, Craig Kimbrel. The photographer seems to have convinced Craig to climb something very high for this shot...

 One of those useless shiny refractory inserts of Dan Haren. It's up for swap.

 A flashback from 1963... this one of John Kennedy's assassination.

 Dustin Pedroia's game used something or other.... I have to say, I'd have been happier pulling another Brave instead... but Jack Plumstead's luck came through

 On to the cards themselves.... (yeah, only two Braves for me out of three packs)

Floating Heads!

 Elvis seems happy even though either him or that light tower is about to be hit by lightning.

 Cliff Pennington rocking the casual look at some neighbourhood park. Is that a portapotty in the background??

 Kyle Weiland and a chain link fence. There are not enough  chain link fences on today's baseball cards.

 Yankee rookie Andrew Brackman. This is not a trick perspective of the camera. Andrew is almost as tall as that light tower. 6' 10" and still growing. Maybe they just gave him Randy Johnson's old uniform. Gotta save a buck here and there ya know!

 The backs are okay. A little write up, and some stats. The only issue I have is with the cartoons. See here on Kyle's card....

 and Andrew's card....

Out of 20 cards with cartoons on the back, this cartoon appeared four times. And another cartoon three times. Is it that hard to sketch something a little different? Talk about saving a buck or two.

I would really like to build this set... but doing it by pack is out. Maybe I can pick up a lot online or something. We'll see.
Anyone else going to build it?

before 2012 Allen & Ginter hits the shelves....

I thought maybe before the new Ginter arrives, I should try and finish some of the old Ginter. Makes sense, no?

I completed 2008 and 2009 no problem.... but didn't even attempt 2010 or 2011. So what to do? After some thought, I decided to just concentrate on my team sets from all the years. So if you have any Allen & Ginter laying around, please check out my wantlists and help a blogger out.  LINK

If you have any Upper Deck flagship in those overflowing boxes of yours.... I made that list as well. I've been busy. LINK  Any help is appreciated and of course if I can help you in return, no worries.

One day I'll start 2011 Ginter... but until I can get a good start, I'll finish my team set. Baby steps, right?

Thanks for looking, and Paul, your stickers go out in the morning. Thanks for the trade.