Life experiences...

So it was my birthday a week ago. There was also a trade night at one of the local shops this past Wednesday.

Those two events close together combined for an epic event.

Let me tell you. You haven't lived until 25 dudes at a sausage-fest sing you Happy Birthday.

Complete with Easter cupcakes and rainbow frosting with little pink and purple bunny rabbit toy rings on top.

Now that I describe it out loud..................................................................................

Anyways... on top of that, there was this. A custom card built by bamlinden.

 

 

and the back for posterity.

 

Good times.

A big thanks to all the perpetrators and enablers.

Parléz Vous?

for those of you lost in playoff hockey, or still trying to find day games in Spring baseball, this just in.

Chad Johnson, the wide receiver formally known as Chad OchoCinco, formally known as Chad Johnson, has come out of retirement and signed with the CFL's Montreal Alouettes.



No word as of yet whether he will be known as Chad Quatre-Vingt Cinq or not.

2014 Topps Heritage Baseball....... Anyone? Bueller?

for those of you who don't know.... I caved. I joined the twitters. So far, I've managed to avoid the idiots you hear so much about. Had some interesting give and take with people I would've never conversed with otherwise, and won a box of baseball cards.

Yes. I won a box of baseball cards on twitter. Worth the price of admission right there.

A friend (@yanxchick) sent out a tweet asking if I was going to watch the breaking of six boxes of the brand new 2014 Topps Heritage on Box Busters Live.
The first thing I had to do was figure out what Box Busters Live was.... thankfully with a few clicks of the trackball and I found my way to @chrisolds2009 and Beckett.

Yeah... that Beckett.

Turns out @toppscards sent @beckettmedia and @chrisolds2009 the boxes to be opened, AND GIVEN AWAY!

okay... no more twitter talk. Let's get down to brass tacks.

You've all seen mountains of Heritage by now.... so I'll just hit the mojo sickz that the kids are crazy about.

Box Topper, Kansas City A's pitcher John O'Donoghue. (yes kids, the A's used to play in Kansas City)

Here's an action variant SP, found one per box.

here's a logo variation, found one in almost six boxes.

a mini!!!! with max Scherzer's evil whacked out eyes.  Found one in nine and a half boxes. (the mini's, not Scherzer's eyes...)

You're supposed to get either an auto or a jersey card, one per box. I ended up with Chris Sale.
(any Sox fans out there, he's for trade.)

Most boxes will get two Chrome parallels. I ended up with Cliff Lee and..............

perhaps the worst hair in all of baseball.

oh, and this dude, who I seem to be a magnet for. Blacks are again, one per about every nine and a half boxes.

It's serial numbered 65/65

Of course I got the usual amount of high numbers and regular base cards. I'm trying to build this set, so if anyone has any swaps they don't want.... hit up my want lists. (link can be found on the right side)

A big thanks to Topps, Beckett, Chris Olds and The Sooz for the cards. Twitter might not be too bad after all.

Oh, and if you're a tweeter, hit me up @Mr_Wackypants

To no one's surprise, where Topps fails, friends succeed.

 

some of you may have been bored enough to read a post I wrote back on March 20 entitled Topps puts the screws to me again... LINK (if you haven't, there ya go)

 

Long story short, I pulled a relic card of one of my Braves, Julio Teheran, sans relic.

 

Yeah.

 

A simple white / grey jersey swatch, and the bungled it. And of course did nothing about it. Let's hear it for exclusives! Yay!

 

Well one person read my post for sure... because a few days later a PWE arrived in my mailbox.

 

Inside was a note from commish bob. He said he read my post and then opened a pack of Heritage to find this....

 

he thought I should have it.

Thanks friend. Never has a plain grey single jersey card meant so much.

More stuff for the burn pile.... or maybe not.

In my latest efforts to acquire actual cardboard, not that stuff they use today that is pretty much water proof, I have three more goodies to show off today.

from the 1955 Topps set, two cards. For some reason the 1955 set is very under rated among collectors. Almost the red headed stepchild of the '50's sets if you will.
Sure, there's no Mantle or Ford.... but it's still a great set. Anyone who thinks otherwise is more than welcome to send me their unwanted '55's to me, where they will be very much welcomed and appreciated.

David Jolly
paid - $2.10 (COMC)

I didn't know a lot about Jolly, so I went looking. He played in the bigs for five seasons. ('53-'57) All but one of his appearances were as a reliever. This card shows him coming off of his best year. In 1954 he went 11-6 with a 2.43 era. His finished in the top ten for winning percentage, appearances, games finished and saves.
In his five seasons (all with the Braves) he was second on the team in total appearances.
Dave passed away in 1963 at the age of 38.

Jim Pendleton
paid - $2.95 (COMC)

Jim was an outstanding shortstop in the Negro Leagues during the late '40's. By the time he got his shot as a rookie with the Braves, he was thirty years old. He hit seven homers that rookie year, eight in his last year as a pro, but only four in the six years between.
He was out of pro ball at the end of the 1959 season, but came back for one last season with the new expansion Houston Colt .45's.
Jim passed away in 1996 at the age of 72.

Now we move away from one of the least admired sets, to one of the most admired. Some call it the best. I certainly think it is. Definitely top two.

1953 Topps Sid Gordon.
paid - $4.00 (COMC)

There is nothing not to like about that card.

Sid was a damn good player, playing from 1941 through 1955. (save for taking a two year "vacation" in 1944-45 to travel Europe.)
1953 was Sid's last or four years with the Braves. In those four years, he hit 100 homers, 362 RBI's and batted .289

Sid passed on in 1975 at the age of 57.

Look! Actual cardboard! The kind that will actually burn!

another comc post. Yeah, I know. But hey! It's vintage! Everyone loves da vintage!

*ahem* Anyways... I managed to acquire six more 1956 Topps cards.

want to see them? Of course you do...

Gene Conley. All 6'8" of him. That's fairly commonplace now, but can you imagine seeing a 6'8" pitcher in 1956?
paid - $1.25

 by the way, Gene's cartoon mentions that he was a great basketball player in college. No doubt.

Chuck Tanner. Yeah the guy who managed the Pirates in the seventies. Oh, and Chuck is a #69 (giggity) and a gray back. According to the interwebs, #1-100 are more desirable in gray back form.
paid - $1.00

Ray Crone. Did you know that Ray had the game winning hit in the 10th inning to win his very first start? How many managers today would leave a rookie pitcher in his first start in that long?
paid - $2.30

Bob Roselli. ROOKIE CARD! You can tell by the monstrous rookie logo slapped willy nilly all over the front and back of the card.
Wait. What? There's no logo? Well then how did kids tell it was a valuable rookie card? Kinda like how did americans follow a black hockey puck on white ice before the Glowing Fox puck.
paid - $1.50

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny Logan!
paid $1.00

Danny O'Connell. Here we see second baseman O'Connell making the play at......... third? Huh?
Oh! That's actually Danny face down in the dirt. Looks like he's safe!
paid - $1.00

not a bad $8.05 if I do say so. I have no idea why I don't focus my entire comc sales money on buying the old stuff. Instead I grab all the shinies from the current players...... ah well. Every once in awhile I come to my senses and grab some old cardboard.