At Least He Still Has His Hot Sauce

40 year old David Race of Ohio recently tied the world record score of 3,333,360 on Pac-Man, once held by 2008 A&G cardholder and hot sauce mogul, Billy Mitchell, only he did it almost 2 hours faster and 42 seconds faster than Billy’s best friend and former record holder, Chris Ayra.  That’s right, in 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 22 seconds Mr. Race managed to devour every dot, bonus fruit, and blue ghost in every one of 256 levels of Pac-Man.  And people think we’re silly for collecting baseball cards!

“Obak” To Business

I apologize for the horrible pun, but I want to get back to baseball cards and away from the garbage from the last few days.  While shopping at the local Wally World I was surprised to see a gravity feeder full of packs of Obak.  At first I thought this set was going to be an Allen & Ginter knockoff full of minor leaguers.  After buying three packs I realize this set is so much more.  The first thing that surprised me was I only pulled two current minor leaguers from the three packs.

I pulled Atlanta’s #1 prospect Jason Heyward and Texas Rangers prospect and Matt Wieters high school teammate Justin Smoak.  I was kind of excited because I have actually heard of both of these guys.  The rest of the cards were what really got me interested in this set.

I now am the proud owner of a card featuring Gregg Jefferies doing some sort of rain dance.  By the looks of the clouds in the background it’s working.  I also pulled a great card of Project ’62’s favorite Ryne Sandberg.  Who’d a thunk that in 2009 I would buy a pack of baseball cards and pull a Gregg Jefferies and a Ryne Sandberg card?  Not me that’s for sure.  The rest of the cards are a bit of a history lesson of the minor leagues.

I now realize there are baseball facts I don’t know, but should know.  The first is about the guy on the first card, Ron Necciai.  This is my new favorite card of a guy I have never heard of.  Apparently back in 1952, Ron struck out 27 batters in a 9 inning game.  I’m no mathematician, but I think that means every out was made by a strike out.  Pretty damn impressive!  The second card features a young Wesley Rickey, better known as Branch Rickey.  I knew he was responsible for signing Jackie Robinson and breaking the color barrier that stood strong for many years.  What I did not know was that he was a pro ball player in the early 1900’s and he also created the framework for the modern minor league farm system. Here are the scans of the rest of the cards.

They include the inventor of baseball, the guy they named that one trophy after, and a women who played minor league ball in the ’30’s who once struck out Ruth and Gehrig in an exhibition game.  Who knew?

Here you go MattR……

I Crown Thee, King Of The Douce Baggery

No, not you Dick.

If you don’t know my history with the Beckett website or it’s message board members you can catch up HERE, HERE, and HERE.  Most of the members are great and helpful people, but there seems to be a couple of them who go out of their way to be assholes.

The short and curly of it is that I’ve had issues with a couple of members causing one of them to turn me in for “spamming” and creating more than one account.  One of them was The CardboardFan.  He turned out to be a pretty cool guy and after this whole fiasco, I probably owe him a small apology.  The other member is known as RiceLynnEvans75.  It turns out that not only is he a dick, he is also a huge pole, hypocrite and a bit of a liar.

If you have visited this site lately you would have noticed a couple of assholish comments left by “Jake McComb”.  He doesn’t like me very much, but he must be a huge fan of the site because he has visited it a couple of dozen times in the last couple of days.  He leaves a comment and then checks back until I come up with something new to say back.  I thought I would entertain him and devote a whole post to him.  The only problem is that he isn’t him.  What I mean is, Jake McComb is really RiceLynnEvans75, who’s real name is actually Bill.  My question is why disguise yourself?  Why, when asked the question “Were the Beckett boards down again?” you make the statement “Beckett boards are useless. I wouldn’t know.”  That’s a flat out lie, not the useless part but the part about you not knowing, you of all people should know, you are just over 1,700 post on the old Beckett boards, including your latest display of jackassery.  HERE. Do you practice being a dick or does it just come naturally?  You drip with hypocrisy. You claim you hate spam, yet here you are bombarding me with unwanted and unnecessary comments.  You turn me in for creating a second account and turn around and pretend to be someone else when leaving me comments.  You weasel.  Own up to it and call me out by who you really are.  Did you really think I wouldn’t figure out it was you?  See, when you are as big of an asshole as you seem to be, people line up to sell you out.  You might want to check some of your good buddies over on the Beckett boards.  They were all to friendly to help me connect the dots.  I know it’s you, I know your real name, I know your IP address, I know your email address, which, by the way, is not sumone28@yahoo.com, I even know the city in which you live.  Go ahead and hide behind “Jake McComb” if you want.  I’ll be here, hiding behind nothing, eagerly awaiting your response.  Just remember there are no Mods to run to on here.  I run this shit.  So continue your shenanigans, you will only slowly reveal who you really are.  The King Of The Douce Baggery.

I Haven’t Done An Allen & Ginter Post Yet

I may be the last blogger to do an Allen & Ginter post.  This is the first year I have attempted to collect this set and for the most part I would say it has been a positive collecting experience.  I bought my original box for the Gint-a-cuffs competition but soon realized I was too lazy to mix algebra with card collecting.  From there I decided to try and complete the set.  Four blasters later I’m still left with what seems like a shit ton of missing cards.  In the hobby box I didn’t really hit it big, but my Colorado Rockie’s curse of hits has continued.

Helton, Rockies.  Holliday, former Rockies.  Teter, snowboards in the Rockies.  It seems every “hit” I get has some connection to the Rockies.  Other than a couple of black bordered mini’s this is what the hobby box yielded.

The blasters were a little interesting.  The local Wally World had three blasters.  I always let the kids pick out which one I buy.  So the first one I picked up had some messed up packaging.  The packs were all different sizes and sealed funny.  Some packs had two National Treasures, some had missing mini’s, one had three cards, and one had a non Rockie “hit” and a little surprise.

The Dye card is nice but he plays for the Sox, and I’m not a big fan of the Eastern Elk card either.  Honestly I never knew there was such a thing as an Eastern Elk.  From what I can tell these Extinct Creatures were seeded 1 per hobby case, so pulling one of these from a retail blaster should be next to impossible, let alone being placed next to a game used card in the same pack.  This will end up on eBay when the time is right so I can try to recoup some of the expense of this set.  This blaster left a nice taste in my mouth so I returned a couple of days later and picked up another.  Nothing jumped out at me at first.  It wasn’t until I started to sort through the cards that I noticed this.

And then there was this.

Nothing out of ordinary really, except for the Pence doubles.  Just a nice little selection of mini’s, right?

All eight of them are A&G backs, including three SP’s in which two of those are the same guy.  Not exactly pay dirt, but odd and interesting none the less.  After this blaster I felt compelled to go and pick up the last one they had.  I had thoughts of maybe a cut sig or a magical unicorn relic.  As you can see there are no scans of the third and fourth box because that is exactly what I got out of them, nothing.  I think my Allen & Ginter buying days are over for now.  I’m going to try and rely on you the reader and fellow bloggers to complete the set.  I have a ton of doubles, maybe more doubles than I have of the base set.  I even have doubles, triples, and even in Jeff Samardzija’s case, quadruples of many of the SP’s for trade.  I will be looking through many of the want lists out there to see what I have for some of you as well as posting my own needs.  If you have anything or want anything in this post drop me a line.  Here’s what I have left………..

2, 8, 14, 16, 24, 26, 33, 36, 52, 62, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 99, 112, 114, 116, 123, 134, 137, 139, 146, 149, 151, 160, 161, 166, 174, 175, 176, 177, 184, 186, 192, 193, 194, 197, 199, 212, 214, 216,  232, 237,  246, 247, 252, 259, 260, 262, 264, 266, 267, 269, 273, 277, 278, 283, 291, 292, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308, 313, 314, 318, 321, 323, 326, 327, 328, 329, 333, 334, 336, 338, 339, 340, 341, 344, 346, 350.

Milton Sezzzzzz…….

Milton Bradley has decided as of late to be the new team spokesman of sorts.  It seems after having a miserable season on the field and keeping quiet to the media, he has felt the urge to start saying all kinds of stupid shit.  Like his latest and my favorite little gem so far……..

“Strange as it may seem, what people don’t understand is you play baseball your whole life, and you’re on teams that play mostly night games, you’re getting up at 2 in the afternoon to come in and do whatever you do. Here, you’ve got to get up at 8 o’clock in the morning and get ready. It’s an adjustment for your body. You may be ready for it and say, ‘I can do that, I can handle that.’ Your body’s going to tell you something different.“

Are you kidding me?  This prick has a $30,000,000 contract and is blaming his shit play on having to wake up in the MORNING?  He can’t hit because he is forced to get up before the crack of 2:00 pm?  Really?  I honestly tried hard to like the guy and even root for him on occasion, but after revealing why he was horrible, I’d be happy with a Sosa/Canseco platoon in right next season.  If my daughter can get up and get to school at 8:30 in the morning for free, I think this guy can get up and get ready for whatever it is he does for $30,000,000.  What a Schmuck!  He now has a new home on the sidebar.

Contest: Guess The Sketch

Here is the latest sketch card drawn by 5 yr. old Ms. Addison Gitz.  She wants to make a contest out of it.  She is willing to make a custom sketch card for who ever is the first person to guess which card this is.  All you have to do is leave your answer in the comments section.  All guesses are welcome, the more guesses the better.  I will put together a small prize package from a team of your choice and Addison will make a sketch card from a card of your choice.  If no one comes close, I will release a few clues to help out.  The only clue I will give out now is that it is from an ‘09 release.  I also promised her I would post her rendition of the 1992 UD Rick Wilkins card, so here it is.  Thanks and good luck!

Winner:

Paul from Carl Crawford Cards is the winner.  That went a lot quicker than I had thought it would.   Paul, I need to know what card you would like a 1/1 sketch done of,  and as soon as it is finished it will be sent your way.  Thanks for playing along, she got a big kick out of it.

Junk Wax Group Break: List Of Junk

I have put together a shopping list for the group break.  Interest hasn’t been overwhelming, but with out details I didn’t expect it to be.  Here’s a list of what will be broken.  I’m also going to try and get this break sponsored if it happens, so more product may be added if it happens.  For the cost of an Upper Deck X blaster, you could receive your favorite team’s cards from the following junk boxes.

• ‘81 Fleer Vending Box
• ‘84 Topps Celo Box
• ‘88 Score Wax Box
• ‘94 Fleer Ultra Series 1
• ‘96 Topps Lazer Series 2
• ‘97 Pinnacle Totally Certified
• ‘97 Topps Screenplays
• ‘98 Topps Chrome Series 1
• ‘98 Bowman Chrome Series 1
• ‘98 Bowman Chrome Series 2
• ‘98 Topps Finest Series 2 Jumbo
• ‘99 UD Holografx
• ‘00 UD Black Diamond
• ‘01 UD Decade of the ’70s
• ‘02 UD Vintage
• ‘53 Topps Archives
• ‘05 Topps All Time Fan Favorites

That’s a total of 17 wax boxes.  If you would like to sign up you can do so here or leave a comment on this post.

Punk Rock Saved My Life

A big thanks goes out to Travis of PunkRockPaint Enterprises, LLC for designing my new header.  He came through huge in very little time.  For his hard work, he shall be rewarded with a giant pile of Padre’s cards.  They will be in the mail early this week.

Junk Wax Group Break

I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing a junk wax group break.  I need to know how many, if any, would be interested.  The plan is for everyone to kick in $20 a team, first come first serve.  What I’m looking to buy is pure junk wax.  My plan is to pick up a couple of early ’80s wax boxes and vending boxes, maybe a couple packs from the ’70s, and round it out with some cheap wax from the ’90s and 2000’s.  All in all I plan on picking up between 15 and 20 wax boxes and as many junk packs as I can find.  What I need is a preliminary list of who’s interested.  After the list is full, or close to full, I will figure out just exactly what it is I’m going to buy.  I will publish this list and if you are still interested I will take payment through paypal, other forms will be accepted but paypal is the easiest.  I’m taking money for all 30 spots.  I don’t know exactly how many cards will be pulled from the expansion teams since some of the boxes will be from the early ’80’s.  For this reason I will only charge $15 for the Marlins, Rockies, Rays, and the D-Backs.  The Nats will be combined with the Expos at full price.  I’m going to try and pick out some boxes that I hope people don’t already have a shit ton of, like ‘87 Topps or ‘89 Donruss, I know I have too many of those laying around and really don’t want anymore.  All cards will be shipped shortly after the break.  I won’t be able to post every break but I will do my best to showoff some of the better cards pulled.  Who’s with me?  Leave a comment with your team if your interested.

Los Angeles Angels
Oakland Atletics
Texas Rangers
Seattle Mariners
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians……………………….Baseball Dad
Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins
Detroit Tigers……………………………..Don S.
Boston Red Sox…………………………..packaddict
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Chicago Cubs………………………………gritz76
St. Louis Cardinals
Milwaukee Brewers.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Houston Astros
Cincinnati Reds
San Diego Padres
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants
Colorado Rockies
Atlanta Braves……………………………Captain Canuck
Nationals\Expos
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies…………………….deal
Florida Marlins

What I Want To See From Topps In 2010

So we have all heard the news, Topps is king.  I don’t know if this is a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing.  Honestly, I’m glad we are stuck with Topps instead of just UD.  In my opinion Upper Deck has done this to themselves and they only have themselves to blame.  Anyone who knows anything about the behind the scenes of the hobby knows UD hasn’t been the most honest company in the biz.  I walked away from the hobby in the early ’90’s partly due to UD.  They were the reason pack prices skyrocketed and the hobby turned strictly into a business.  I couldn’t afford to be a casual collector anymore nor did I want to.  If you wanted to pull anything worth pulling you had to buy the more expensive UD, Stadium Club, or Ultra.  Regular plain old cards were just not worth collecting and the more expensive brands were out of my reach.  From what I can tell from a lot of my bloggers, this happened to many of us.  Fast forward twenty years and now that I have the money to spend, I can’t find anything worth spending it on but vintage.  Even with the current competition the innovation of the hobby has become stale.  If Topps really wants us to continue to buy their cards, they better come strong with some new ideas in 2010.   Here is what I would like to see in 2010.

#1    Wax packs! If you want kids to flock to baseball cards like they once did, sell them like you once did. I remember mowing a lawn for $10 and being able to buy an ass load of packs at the nearest gas station and still had enough money left over for an Orange Faygo and some Corn Nuts.  Why not produce a throwback set that has a new design with current players.  I’m talking no gloss, no foil, and wrapped in actual wax.  Tuck in a few low priced autographs of solid players.  Just enough so it won’t jack up the price.  Include some chrome parallels to entice the kiddies.  That’s it.  Simple.  Make a good looking design with just enough bells and whistles that it won’t jack up the price of production.  They need to get the price of these packs at or around a dollar and sell them everywhere they can possibly sell them.

#2 Get old collectors back! From what I can tell, there are a mass of people returning to collecting that left in the early to mid ’90’s.  These people generally are in their late 20’s or early 30’s.  Many are fathers of young children.  If you want to hook the kids,  hook the parents too.  What I would like to see is a set aimed at us who collected heavy during the junk wax era.  What I would like to see instead of these sets based on 40 and 100 year old designs is something maybe 20 years old.  Maybe not a whole set but a subset of chrome versions of the big pulls of the ’80s.  I for one would love to buy a pack and have a chance of pulling a chrome autographed Boggs or Gwynn rookie card.  How great would that look next to the original card.  If enough collectors from yester year would catch a glimpse of those cards, I think many of them might take a chance on a pack or two and then turn into a full blown collector again.  It worked on me.

#3 Something new! I have been buying wax for the last couple of years now and I haven’t seen one single innovation introduced.  Yeah we have Topps Town with 3D cards and stuff like that but what are we supposed to do with that after the initial cool factor wears off.  Dazzle me, I dare ya.

#4    No lazy photography! I do not want to see the same photo twice in 2010.  There is no excuse for it.  I seen a 40 gb SD card in production, load that shit up.  In a time when you can take a picture, and seconds later, decide if you want to keep it or delete without costing a dime, there is no reason why a photo should be used more than once.  A professional photographer should be able to get more than one keeper per player per game.  If you are running low on photographers, set up a system where fans can submit a photo and have the chance of getting it  used on a card.  If I buy a pack of stadium club, I do not want to see a photo from Series 1 with a different border.  It is unacceptable.

#5    Chill with the gimmicks! I have to admit I like a few of the gimmicks, but for the most part they are dumb.  Turn the gimmicks into something that will hold value for more than two weeks.   Instead of upside down Fukudome’s, give me an alternate Chunichi Dragons card of Kosuke.  Instead of cards of fictitious 16 yr old pitchers, give me a card of a 16 yr old Lincecum.  If your going to force gimmicks upon us, and I know you will, step up your game a little.

Most importantly, I want to see something I want to buy.  It’s as simple as that.