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! 

Top 20 Movies In Cardboard - Part 2

 Hey everybody,

 The movie/baseball card countdown continues...

 14. A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
It's not easy choosing just one of Clint's cowboy classics.  I chose this one because director Sergio Leone seamlessly recreated a Japanese Samurai film as a Western, which Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken later re-recreated as a 1930's gangster piece. 

"My mistake, 4 coffins."

The Dodgers have had no shortage of high priced mercenaries such as this guy...

...i think we all know this dollar chaser.

That said, aside from what they were paid, both of our mercenaries here did well enough wearing Dodger Blue.  They were certainly not high priced busts like Andrew Jones.   I would show a card of Jones, but criteria #2 for this post demands the card shown must come from my collection.  Andrew Jones cards have no place in my collection. 


 13. ENTER THE DRAGON
 This film took Bruce Lee - and martial arts movies - out of the obscure 3 movies for $2 movie theaters (that's where I first discovered him) and brought them into mainstream American culture like gangbusters.  Although Bruce Lee had a short film career, and died tragically at the height of his popularity and talent decades ago, he endures as an iconic figure to this day. 

"My style?  You can call it the art of fighting without fighting."

Much like Bruce Lee, Clemente had a short, brilliant career that was cut short by a sudden, unexpected death. And like Lee, he is spoken of in almost god-like terms.

12. SCARFACE (Paul Muni and Al Pacino versions)
Who don't know Scarface?

"You want a war? Hokay - I take you to war!" 

You cant see it from this card, but good ol' uncle Robbie here sported a Tina Fey-sized cheek scar.

 11.ROBOCOP
I love sci-fi movies, and I really love director Paul Verhoven's science-fiction visions.  For the longest time, I couldn't watch "That 70's Show" because I knew the dad on the show as the bad guy in Robocop.  I just couldn't see him as anything other than a brutal, bad man.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me." 

Of all the Dodger catchers I saw play, nobody - and I mean NOBODY - wore the Blue armor and protected the plate as well as rock solid Scioscia.

10. PATHS OF GLORY 

Stanly Kubrik's totally awesome WWI anti-war film starring Kirk Douglas kicking ass in glorious black and white.  If you've never seen this one, by all means, treat yourself and watch these great actors paired with a legendary director and a brilliant script. 

"We will take the Anthill."

It's an unspoken secret here in LA that in order for the Dodgers to occupy Chavez Ravine, well, the current occupants would have to be removed.  An entire community had Eminent Domain dropped on them and had to go live somewhere else because MLB was comin' to town!

I'm torn by this part of my city's history.  On one hand, I hate that the residents of Chavez Ravine got a raw deal, and on the other hand...I can't wait to get my hands on Opening Day 2013 tickets!


9. THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

Laugh out loud comedy that doubles as a love story.

" Is that hair gel? Can I have some?" 

There was definitely something about Mari - lyn Monroe.  Back in the day, every Red-Blooded American over the age of 13 wanted to give Marilyn a right-rogering.  And how!  Joe D married the sexiest girl in America, and oh yeah, he had some kinda hitting streak as well. 


 8. HEAT 
Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro play cat and mouse as the leaders of adversarial detective and thief teams, featuring the expansive backdrop of LA as an equal player.  Director Michael Mann is at his best.

The film climaxes in an awesome shootout through the streets of downtown LA. that foresaw (inspired?)  the real-life shootout that many of us watched live on TV as bank robbers in body armor and using automatic weapons fought the ENTIRE LAPD.

"I'm not selling anything, baby.  This sh*t sells itself."

The Ryan Express.  'nuff said.

 7. CABIN BOY
An obscure, funny as hell, Chris Elliot  comedy that nobody saw.  It's Elliot's twisted take on Rudyard Kipling's classic, Captains Courageous, which was also made into a Spencer Tracy film. In Elliot's vision, Cabin Boy is a rich, spoiled idiot, bumbling obliviously through life. 

"These pipes are CLEEEAAANNN !!!"

Sure the Dodgers gave us the first African -American in the major leagues.  Then Al Campanis decided we should give that progressive thinking a wake-up call by declaring on national TV, there are so few African-American managers in MLB because, you know, they can't float."  SAY WHAT????!!!!

THANKS for reading, everybody!

Next Post: Movies 6- 1