Well, It's Been a Long Time...

Aloha, everybody, 

My friend and long-tiime trading partner, Gavin, from the fantastic blog Baseball Card Breakdown, and I had a potential trade percolating. It was just waiting for the right final pieces to fall into place. 

That happened when I won a bronze replica of Roberto Alomar's RC. It's a cool enough piece, but it fit better into Gavin's collection than mine, so a trade was born. 

Let's check out what Gav sent over to me. Leading off are a cool couple of customs from Gavin's workshop: 

 Of course, blame my lousy scanning skills for the cut off card. Than ignore that, and revel in the goodness that is two of the game's young superstars together on one card. Bonus: reading left to right, Bellinger is first! :) 

Next up is Belli going solo in old school Upper Deck style: 

Well-chosen photos of Cody adorn both sides of the card. I love seeing hard-luck story, Andrew Toles there in the dugout. Injury ruined Tolesy's 2017 season before it could begin, but I'm looking forward to him returning in 2018. 

Great customs! Here come the cards the original trade was built around. Vintage is the watchword here. 

My first RC from the famed Dodgers infield of the 70's. Welcome, Mr. Lopes. It seems I have a new project. Now I have to rope in 1970 Bill Russell, 1971 Steve Garvey and the Penguin's RC from '72 Topps.  

At least I can be satisfied for now with this 1971 Lou Brock...

...and a foldable 1971 Richie Allen with a vintage Dodger Stadium backdrop...

Sweet stuff from down south Gavin. THANKS for the trade, buddy! BTW, I noticed you put up some trade bait from the Legends of New York set. I'm down for those. If nobody has claimed them yet, set them aside for lil' ol' me, and let's get our next trade piles started! 

I have an honorable mention: Recently, mi hermano Wes, sent a surprise package out to me. Trouble is, I sorted those cards into my general card population before I scanned them. Thought I scanned 'em, but I didn't. 

Unfortunately, it's going to take some detective (and de-sorting) work before I can figure out what all cards came from where. So I just want to send a shout out to Wes and say THANKS!, but it may take a while before that post can go up. My bad - and I feel appropriately bad. 

Life goes on. Aloha! 

Cardboard Countdown to Opening Day - Only Two Days to Go!

Aloha, everybody, 

It's getting close! Can ya feel it? Opening Day is just around the corner. Let's celebrate with some cardboard number twos...

All I see is the "2", so this one makes the cut...

 

Besides, getting creative with these twos is a good excuse to show off some cool cardboard...
 

 

Amirite? 

 

Finally, a full-on two, with a full-on smile, which also expresses how I feel about Opening Day being almost here...
 

Aloha!

Prizes, Trades and Gifts Are What Makes The Cardboard World Go Round

Hey everybody,

Gotta get in a post about more great cards that graced my mail lately...

First up is a thanks, (but no pics this time).  HUGE THANKS go out to Patrick, the mastermind behind The Card Hobbyist.  If you like a blog that also features cool games with da shite prizes, Patrick's place is definitely in your wheelhouse.  As a matter of fact, I'm happy to say this is the second time I won a contest over there.

But why no pics?  Two reasons:

1. I won basically the same A & G Dodger cards in a box break at Tribecards a couple of weeks ago and I've already  posted them.  Yes, they were essentially doubles, but they were also doubly great because they were 2013 Dodgers, and they contained a second Puig RC!

2. Since they were doubles, I gave the cards from Patrick right over to my son, who was stoked to have his own Puig rookie.  Thus, those particular cards were not scanned are now stashed away securely in his binder. No pics, but double thanks for the great prize, Patrick.

The next batch does have pics. These are the result of my first trade with Nate, who is kinda new on the blogs.  Nate's site is Big 44 Sports Cards.  Nate's a stone Pittsburgh collector, so that means, you best have some Pirates or Steelers for trade.  But no Penguins, Nate?  To each his own.

Heck, I don't collect hockey myself, but here's a note for all you hockey collectors out there. I would love a hockey card from one of the baddest L.A. Kings to ever wear the uni...Tiger Williams.  I grew up on Tiger in the days the Kings wore the Purple and Gold of the L.A. Forum.  Did you know Tiger holds the all-time record for most penalty minutes?  Yeah, back in those days, the Kings were doormats of the league, but Tiger wasn't one. Tiger was bad- ass personified.

So I shipped some black and gold Pirates to Nate, and he sent over some cool stuff to me...

You can never go wrong with golden sparkle Kershaw

And you can't ever go wrong with Cobb on cardboard.  Here we get a fantastic portrait of the Georgia Peach. That sly glance of Cobb's says everything, but reveals nothing.  Also, limited number.  Sweet card that I hadda have.

Finally, comes a great gift I received a while back.   A gift - unexpected and out of the blue.  This was no simple PWE.

Supercool Bert, from Swing And a Pop-Up, came through once again and sent me another fistful of cardboard from the 1987 Hy-Grade "Baseball's All-time Greats" set.  Bert has now helped me to get the chase to under 10 cards.  I can't believe it!  Just 9 cards to completion.  Check my "What I Collect" page if you have any extra Hy-Grades lying around.  You just might have those final 9.

This Hy-Grade set is very cool.  It's big limitations are the simplified green border and cardstock thinner than Topps.  But the upsides are a checklist of baseball history and royalty, and the photography is mostly great.  It features quality early color photo technology and lots of close up photography.   In addition, the players are often shown in their primes and we get more than a few legendary stadiums in the background. 

Since the Dodgers are opening a 4-game series against the ELIMINATED team from the bay, let's start off with a Dodgers/Giants face off.

 You're gonna feel like you're walking down a wing in the baseball Hall of Fame...

How's about all that cardboard?  Pretty good, thanks to my fellow collectors.

Trade Me (Almost) Anything: St. Louis Cardinals

Hey everybody,

Whew! What a week it's been for the Dodgers.  We had everything - and now, here comes the kitchen sink - the best team in the bigs, the Cardinals.

While Chris Capuaono is showing he currently doesn't have enough grit to shut down those Cards, let's see if these cards have enough grit to garner up a quick trade:
 

Here's a sparkplug that Angels fans know as well.

Nice card, Most Saves - Rookie

He's so good, he merits two cards.

Here's another former Angel, Jim Edmonds

Waitaminute - Yet Another Angel???!!?? Wow

 THANKS for reading, everybody!

 

The Doctor Is In - volved In An Awesome Trade

Hey everybody,

Is it too early for me to start griping about Don Mattingly's (yet once again) inept handling of a line up?

Let's take a quick look at his decision making...

Opening Day: Lead off batter Carl Crawford goes 2 for 4 with a double and a run scored in his Dodger Stadium debut, helping Clayton Kershaw seal a fantastic Dodgers first-game-feel-good-fest.

Game Two: You're the manager.  What would you do with all that rah-rah momentum created on Opening Day?  What would you do with your lead off batter?  Well, Mattingly decided to bench him. 

Still Game Two, 8th inning: Dodgers behind, but mounting a threat. Mattingly looks down the bench for a pinch hitter to keep the rally going.  He bypasses Crawford in order to use...yup, you got it...Juan Uribe.

Later, in the 9th, Mattingly finally used Crawford in a bid to conjure up a game-tying 3-run HR with no one on base.  I suppose if all that had worked, I'd now be calling him a genius. *sigh*

On a brighter note, Dr. Vealtone from the incredible blog, Coot Veal and the Vealtones, and I put together a fantastic trade, which included vintage, vintage Dodgers, HOFers and more.  What a trade!  Dustin sent me so many cool cards that I could have easily used two posts just covering highlights. 

I decided, however, to edit things down to one.  Check these cards out...

Dustin did a great job of observing the players I collect; but of course the doctor would be thorough.  Here's a 1960 Topps Bill Mazeroski.  I love the old time baseball photography on these cards the way I love movies shot on old time celluloid.   1960 is the year Maz sealed himself in baseball folklore by hitting that Game 7 World Series winning home run.  It's the homer that we all grew up dreaming about - Maz actually hit it.

 I received a couple of vintage Don Suttons in the package.  Sutton was the ace of the staff during my teenage years as a Dodger fan.  Now that I notice Sutton's ears, I finally understand why he grew that Phil Spector afro in his later career as a TV announcer for the Braves.

 Eddie Murray cranking one out at Chavez Ravine!.  I know all you O's fans think of Eddie as an Oriole.  I always think of him as a Dodger as well.  The yellow frame works very nicely here.

More Dodgers vintage!  Another World Series Game 7 Hero ! Podres pitched a shutout in Game 7 and was the World Series MVP for that  magical 1955 Brooklyn squad.  He later went on to win a total of 4 WS rings. This is my favorite card from the trade. 

Did somebody order up another couple of old time ass-kickers?   I'm digging the vintage era unis.

When Dustin wasn't blowing me away with the coolest vintage, he was doing it with modern era shininess.  This card is all kinds of awesomeness, despite the generic "uni".

 Cards with Schmidt in live game action are always welcome.  Even his mustache is daring the defense to throw over there. 

How about some young Mike Scioscia in action?  Uber cool card!

 Speaking of uber cool - we come a card I've been chasing around seemingly forever. Never mind the butcher job my crooked scanning did here.  This card's got Koufax and Drysdale!  Sweeeeet!

Check out young Reggie! This looks exactly like the type of photo Gypsy queen loves to use.  Have they ?

This card should be titled "Dodgers Future Bad Asses - and Perconte".

Did I mention the doctor really studied my want lists?  Here's a very cool reprint of a subset I'm chasing.  It's a reprint - yet I love this card just as much as any of the other "originals" I received.

Many thanks for a fantastic trade, Dustin, and THANKS for readin', everyone.