I Went To A Card Show & A Trade Fest Broke Out

Hey everybody,

(The below post was written last night and finished too late to post...but here it is in its original form.) 

LtoR: Ernest, Zawkin, StealingHome, Spiegel

 Today's post about the card show out in Culver City is going up a bit late because I went to the card show with a friend.  After the show we hopped over to Santa Monica and I just got home.

What a cool card show it was!  It was held in a city auditorium...

 You can read Spiegel's review of the show as a dealer  here.

Here's our dealer hero now!

 I left before the end of the show, so I don't know if Spiegel was able to sell off all the rest of this below, but he did tell me he had already made back his table fee and every sale from there on was Champagne Money! Woo-Hoo!

As Spiegel mentioned, it was more than a card show, because it was a great chance for several Dodger bloggers to get together, talk cards and get a couple of trades going.

It was extra cool for me because even though I have been blogging for a little more than a year now, I'm still a relative newbie when it comes to meeting up with my fellow Dodger bloggers. As a matter of fact, I'm such a newb that I met Ernest from Dodgers Blue Heaven today and I thought I had simply met a cool guy.

Ernest, I apologize I didn't make the connection that you're the guy behind that great resource blog of all things Dodger Blue.  I'm looking forward to the next time we meet and talking a bit more.

How about a couple more shots from the show...

It wasn't a huge card show, but vintage was well represented.

Speaking of vintage, there were some very cool old-time bats here. Zawkin said he held Hack Wilson's bat.

 My friend who joined me at the show today doesn't know much about baseball, but this guy was definitely a familiar face...

 Did I mention some trades took place?  First up was a card exchange between Spiegel and myself.  He gave me a great stack of cards; here are just a few highlights...

Above is a very cool -and new for me - shiny card honoring the best third baseman the Dodgers have had in a decade.  A DECADE !  Do you hear me, Ned Colletti????

THIS was the best card of the trade for me.  My first card of the Dodgers new K-Kid. 

How about this one? Dodger pitcher relics are cool, but I really appreciate a bat relic from a pitcher.  Nice one, Michael.

 There was also a quickie trade between Zawkin, from the great blog,  Plashke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle and myself.  First of all, I've gotta say the only thing I expected to get was the cold shoulder because of the way I've chewed up Zawkin's favorite player, Matt Bison Kemp here at ATBATT in the past.

Well, because Zawkin's cool like that, he dropped a very nice card on me...

  

I now have my very own Mickey Hatcher autograph.  A-way back in March, Zawkin posted about a trade that netted him the above Hatcher card, and I commented that I've gotta get one of my own.  Zawkin is such an awesome dude that today he gave me THAT very card because as he said, he knew, "I liked it"!  Zawkin, THANKS, man.

Most of you non-Dodger fans are probably thinking who-the-heck is Mickey Hatcher?  Some of you probably know him as the dude with the giant baseball mitt from his '86 Fleer and '91 Upper Deck cards, or as the former batting coach for Mike Scioscia's Angels.

Mickey is much more than that.  To me, Hatch is the unsung hero of the 1988 World Series.  Everybody remembers Kirk Gibson's 9th inning heroics from Game 1, but that never woulda had a chance to happen if it wasn't for Hatcher's 1st inning, 2-run HR off of A's ace, Dave Stewart.  Hatcher and Gibson's homers were the only ones for the Dodgers that night.

That wasn't all for Hatcher.  After Gibby knocked out that legendary HR, he never appeared in the series again.  Who replaced him?  Yup, Mickey Hatcher.   He provided a great spark of enthusiasm and fire for that Dodgers team that ran hard on Tommy Lasorda's unique brand of baseball spark.

Nobody hit another home run for the Dodgers in that series again until Game 5.  Like he was placing bookends on the WS, once again Hatcher stepped up and blasted a 2-run HR in the 1st inning to help lead the Dodgers to win that 5th and final game of the series.

After hitting only 1 homer all season, Hatcher replaced Gibson in the freakin' World Series, no less, and went on to bat .368 with 2 homers and 5 RBI's. When Baseball's Spotlight shone the brightest and hottest, Hatch delivered and he truly became a World Series hero.

Oh yeah, there was a card show today, which means I also bought a few cards.  That post is yet to come.

What was the secret joke that made us all laugh in this shot?

THANKS for reading everybody!