When a Swing and a Pop Up Gets You Closer to Home

Aloha, everybody, 

First of all, my hat's off to all you bloggers out there who blog it day in and day out. You know who you are. I don't know how you do it. 

There was a time in my blogging life when ATBATT was putting out fairly regular posts, at least twice a week. I was able to carry that flag for a couple of years, but as much as I want to, I just cannot squeeze in as much time for the ol' blog as I used to. 

2013 Bowman Prospects

Oh, I plan posts in my head. I know you blogomaniacs do that in your walking life, the same as me. I'll be walking along - or more often because I live in LA - driving along, and something will stir an idea for a post. 

So my heart's in the right place, but I just can't find the keyboard time to keep up with the rest of you on the blogroll treadmill. So congrats and thanks to all of you who regularly bring it to the blogosphere.

2010 Bowman Platinum

All that said, let's get to the point of this precious post. A few days ago I received a surprise PWE from Bert over at Swing and a Pop Up. 

2012 Bowman Chrome Prospects

Good ol' Bert remembered I'm chasing some sets and sent me some awesome cardboard to get me closer to the goal - because he's cool like that. 

These cards are awesome for a few reasons:

A week ago I was nine cards away from completing the 1987 Hygrade Baseball's All-Time Greats set.  Bert's PWE took me from nine to a magic seven to go. 

They also rock because of their amazing condition. The Hygrade set was printed on fairly thin stock, so while many of the commons are common, they often show wear and tear. 

They also had the bad luck of being made with below average materials and processes, which led to plenty of cards with lackluster finishes. These babies have neither of those limitations. 

Sharp base colors, sharp corners, and bright inks on the photos make these primo cards. 

You know what else is primo? Getting cards of these guys. Any day Mr. Robinson and Mr. Spahn show up in my mailbox is primo! 

Thanks for checking my wantlists Bert and getting me to just seven to go on the Hygrades! I'll be putting together a little sumthin' for you too. 

Aloha!

Pop Up One Trade And A Chunter Trade May Come Down

Hey everybody,

Like many of you, I've been falling a bit behind in trade posts.  However, that's due to good reasons, 

1.  I've been making enough trades to have a backlog, and

2.  I've had a surplus of additional topics to write about. 

This post is a combination of two trades.  Let's start with my first ever trade with Chunter, who is behind the cool blog, Chipp 'n' Dale.  Chunter really did me right in this trade because he sent over a bunch of Hall of Famers that I just cannot collect enough cards of.  Sure, they're tribute cards, but I love 'em when they have a great design or they are reprints of cards I could never own otherwise. 

This first card is a great example. Here we have a Topps 2011 reprint of a beautiful card, the 1933 DeLong.  I have a couple of these DeLong reprints, and they are always welcome in any trade package to me.

 While I'm not a huge fan of cards from the short-lived Ted Williams Card Company, this is from a great player whom I collect, and the chosen photos absolutely work with this design...

Harmon "Killer" Killabrew. 

I think you all know how I feel about this guy.

More Rickey Henderson?  Yes, sir.  My first Blue Jays issue of Rickey.

I recently watched that "Cobb" movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.  While I'm not sure if I liked the movie enough to ever watch it again, I'm pretty darn sure Tommy Lee didn't look anything like the real Georgia Peach...

Above is a card which goes right into my Mike Schmidt collection.  It seems one day in the Houston Astrodome Schmidtty crushed what looked like a three run HR - but the ball hit a public address monstrosity hanging 300 feet away and 100 feet up.  Scratch one home run, pencil in a single.

Next up isn't technically a new trade, rather it's a continuation of generosity from Bert over at Swing And A Pop Up.  Bert had a fistful of extras from the Hy-Grade set which I'm chasing, and he sent them over to me.  This batch got me to less than 23 cards to completion of the set, so I'm stoked.  Here's some of the baseball greats that I caught...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

 The guy below knows a bit about beanball wars with the Dodgers, and ironically, Dodger Stadium lurks in the background...

BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Enos here holds a special place with me because the first mitt I ever owned was an Enos Slaughter model.  

THANKS for the great cards, Chunter and Bert. 

THANKS for reading, everybody! 

Trade Me (Almost) Anything: Atlanta Braves

Hey everybody,

The Dodgers begin a road trip today out east and kick it off with 3 games against the Braves. 

Those of you who have been following this series of trade bait know that I've been offering up blocks of cards grouped by teams expecting to ship off the whole enchilada to anyone who wants them.

However, after reading Bert's review from a Swing And A Pop Up , I got to thinking, while this concept might be a pretty good treat for team collectors, I didn't really consider set or player collectors might not want ALL those cards.

So I just want to let everyone know that if you want only one or two cards from the post, simply mention it and I'll be happy to send out singles. Speaking of cards, here come the Braves...

How about a Glavine RC?

Here's a blue mirror Lineage parallel.

The real Home Run King.

Hey old time Braves fans.  Remember this guy?

A couple of great youngsters on this one.

Yet even more good early stuff. 

THANKS for reading everybody!

I Swung - And Up Popped A Trade

Hey everybody,

Clayton Kershaw dominated once again last night.

Kershaw is definitely the real deal.  You just know the team's gonna win when he takes the mound.  I was born too late to see Koufax pitch, but I've been lucky enough to see some of the other great Dodger dominators such as Don Sutton, Orel Hershiser, Fernando, Ramon Martinez, and Hideo Nomo; now, Kershaw.  It's a beautiful thing when guys like this pitch for your team.

A couple of posts ago, I started the "Trade Me (Almost) Anything" series, and the first post dominated like Kershaw.  That post helped introduce me to a new trade partner, Bert, and his blog, Swing And A Pop Up .  That might not seem like dominating stuff, but that was just the beginning.

Bert checked into what I collect and he noticed I was chasing the 1987 Hygrade Baseball's All-Time Greats set. 

* WHAM!! *  In one fell swoop of blogo-generosity and coolness, Bert absolutely crushed those set needs by sending me a  hy-stack of those Hygrades.

IMHO this is a an overlooked and undervalued set.  Perhaps it's not undervalued in a monetary way because the card stock is not very thick and printing standards seemed to vary as some card runs seem to have washed out colors.  That's OK to me because the positives of the set far outweigh those small negs.

There are 103 cards in the set and the checklist reads like the walls of the Hall of Fame.

There are the usual suspects, sure...

But there are also plenty of guys that I would never get a chance to get a card of, due to their cards being overpriced, simply not available, or being ignored while Topps prints tribute cards of the same 6 or 7 players over and over.  Bert's generosity and this set helped me to get cards of guys like Three-Finger Brown, Dizzy Dean and Pie Traynor, just to name a few.

Here's what the backs look like:

Here's one more great...

THANKS for a dominating trade, Bert!

Trade Me (Almost) Anything: Arizona Diamondbacks Edition

Hey everybody,

My first ever Trade Me Anything post has produced my first ever trade with Bert over at Swing And A Pop Up  .   Cool, right?   I say that's downright fantastic!

This all plays into a couple of the themes I read about on my travels through our blog community today.  Our buddy Night Owl wrote about "The ever expanding circle"   of trades and traders out there thanks to the blogosphere.  That post was spot on and matched  my newly expanded circle, thanks to Bert.

In another post on yet another blog, Nick, the prolific writer over at Dime Boxes , encouraged readers on the fence out there to create new blogs, while contemplating the personal reasons behind his own.  Nick, you declared you're not a "mainstream" collector.  Heck, whom among us is?  And that ever expanding variety of collectors, blogs and cards, my friends, is what makes our hobby so great. 

As my loyal readers know, I started this blog with the sole intent of generating trades and working on my collection.  Sure, I stretch my blogger wings a bit and occasionally post about the state of  my team, or on the state of the hobby, but trading is what I really love about blogging.  And that's been working out marvelously, thanks to all of you out there.

Continuing with tradition, here's the latest batch of cards for your trade approval.  It's the current opponents out here in Dodger Stadium, the Arizona Diamondbacks!

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Here's how it works:  In each post I'll offer cards from one particular ballclub.  I'm starting the offer at 9 cards, since 9 is what fits onto my scanner plate, and I can comfortably shoot 9 cards to you in a PWE. 

What do I want in return?  I'll accept whatever and however many cards you want to shoot back. It doesn't have to be 9 cards in return and they don't have to be all Dodgers.  My only request is you check out my "What I collect" or "Sets I'm chasing" pages here and use them as guides.

Once again, you don't have to match me for numbers of cards or perceived monetary value.  Say I send you 9 cards and you send me 1insert or vintage card.  Cool!

The intent here is simply to  TRADE, BABY, TRADE!
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THANKS for reading, everybody!