Minor League Goodness

Here are a few of the cards from my original collection I had as a kid.  I went to a lot of minor league ball when I was younger.  My Grandpa’s younger brother was the GM for the Beloit Brewers and later the Clinton Giants.  It was great.  I had field access for batting practice and even got to sub for the bat boy from time to time.  In the late ’80’s these cards were worth a shit ton in trade value.  I held onto most of the Cub’s cards but traded many of the other cards I had from the other teams.  I know I still have a ton of minor league cards from the late ’80’s in the storage shed that I can’t get to.  I also heard there might be a rat infestation in the shed.  Thankfully I was smart enough to keep the better ones with me at all times.  I still wonder what I actually have buried in that shed.  Hopefully some day I will find out.

I haven’t been to a minor league game in years.  We were planning a little family outing into Chicago in August and maybe a stay overnight.  I’m hoping to be able to go to “The Road to Wrigley’.  This year the AAA Iowa team will be playing Toronto’s AAA team, the Las Vegas 51’s at Wrigley on Aug. 9.  It will be a good chance to take the family to Wrigley with out all the craziness.  I’m also hoping to get a few autos and some good pictures too.  The best part is after the game the kids get to run the bases.  I’m going to try like hell to escort one of my kids around the bases and totally plan on sliding into home Charlie Hustle style.  Look forward to the pics.

I also just found out I get to go to Friday’s game against the Brewers.  The way the Cub’s have been playing and just the overall feel the fan’s have right now, it could get a little ugly this weekend.  I hope they can put together a little streak going into the weekend because it’s not a lot of fun being a Cub’s fan right now.  Our catcher is stoned, our ace can’t even hit the mitt on a pitch out, our overpaid left fielder got sent to his room without dinner, the guy he replaced just ended up with our league leading arch rivals, Soriano’s in left, they can’t score runs but all we hear about is Hendry trying to secure more pitching, and our manager looks like he’d rather be watching Matlock.

Oh well, Go Cubs!

There Are No Words

Random Dealings

I bought a blaster of ’09 Bowman today and pulled this beauty of a card.  I’ve seen Cuetos auto before, I think it was the ’08 Topps set.  I was hoping that maybe he didn’t understand that they would use this particular signature on the front of his card, but here it is again.  I know Night Owl is waiting ever so patiently for his Cueto redemption.  I too, am looking forward to seeing what his card will look like.  In my head I imagine it written in green crayon with the E T O of his name under the rest because he ran out of room.  At least that’s how my 5 yr old does it.

Above is the highlights of a trade with Ed from Roll Out The Barrel.  He is a Brewers fan, which I won’t hold against him, who was in need of some ’08 Masterpieces.   He sent in return a nice stack of Cub’s cards.  I like the Heritage sets.  I don’t collect them for the simple reason of the insane SP’s.  I do, however, love the Chrome versions of these cards.  If anyone has any Cub’s Chrome Heritage for trade, hit me up.  I want them.  Also included was the ’88 Score Highlights card of the first night game at Wrigley.  I can remember that night like it was yesterday.  I was riding my bike home from a friends house to watch the game and got stuck in the same storm that rained out the game.  I had welts from the hail, our power went out, I scrounged around the house to find enough C batteries to power our gigantic boom box only to find out the game was going to be rained out.  It’s almost an analogy of being a Cub’s fan.

In other news, I may or may not be getting reinstated on the Beckett boards.  I have my fingers crossed.  You will here more about this when I get the word.  Also this was on the front page of Yahoo so some of you I’m sure have seen it.  Anyone who hasn’t, it’s worth 2 minutes of your day.

Who Am I Contest

I have played 17 seasons in the Major Leagues.  I made it to the post season 11 out of those 17 seasons.  I have never won a World Series.  Houston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh are a few of the teams I have played for.  My Nephew was a Star Trek actor.  I made an appearance in the NCAA final four basketball tournament as a point guard, making me 1 of 2 people to appear in both the World Series and the Final Four.  I am a 6 time All Star, 4 time gold glover who has led the league in hits, triples, and at bats.

Who am I.

First with the correct answer in the comments wins a prize package of the team of their choice.  Good Luck!

Must See TV

Sunday night MLB network will be airing This Old Cub.  This is a must see for any Cubs fan or any fan of baseball in general.  It chronicles the life and career of Ron Santo and his fight with diabetes.  It includes some great rare footage of Ronny and the rest of the late ’60’s, early ’70’s Cubs.  There are some great interviews and commentary from the likes of Bill Murray, William Peterson, and others.  It will air at 9 pm ET, following their new original program The Pen, which is another show that I am excited to see.  If you want to learn more about Ron Santo you can check out the post I did a few months back before he got robbed of the HoF vote once again.

Trivia Question?

What took this man…..

7 years to do, that took this man…..

22 years to do?  Here’s a hint.  This man…..

will never do it in a million years.

The first to answer correctly will receive a prize package of the team of their choice.

Booted Off Beckett Again

The same two culprits got me booted again.  This time they enlisted the help of a mod.  I’m not sure why I got booted this time, the only guess is that they don’t like it when you tell the world that you easily hopped back on with a  new account.  The irony here is that while they are busy policing the boards for a blogger who disagrees with a couple of board members (and I mean people who use their message boards, not any one truly important or anything), there is post after post on their boards about people continuously ripping people off in trades.  Just about everyday there is a new post about it and once someone posts it several more come forward who have also been cheated out of their trades by the same guy.  Their seem to be several people taking advantage of the system there.  If someone posts any info on the culprit they are immediately asked to remove it.  All you have to do is change your screen name and you’re ready to rip some more people off.  If your account is banned, you can have a new one up in less than five minutes.  I had one set up before mine was officially banned.  Still nothing gets done about it.  This tells me I am more of a threat to Beckett than several of their customers getting ripped off by the system they use.  I know this is not true, but do they?

The irony doesn’t stop there.  While blasting me on their boards one of them posted my blog address and pointed them to the post where I called them pricks.  They also made fun of my Mom and even took a shot at the late great Pumpsie Green .  This made my readership nearly double!  Somebody even spent 4 hrs and 55 min. reading every post I’ve ever written, here’s a hint, it’s one of the guys posted above.  Now if you can remember back when I was booted the first time around, it was because I sent a PM to one of these guys telling them to check out Zistle.  He was looking for some answers to the many problems with their site so I simply suggested he check out Zistle.  He turned me in for spamming.  Instantly banned.  Here’s the kicker, Zistle had the highest number of outclicks the day he posted this.  If anybody doesn’t know, an outclick is the link they use to get away from your site.  So more people went to the site that I was supposedly spamming for that day because of him.   He single handedly told every one I called him a dick, doubled my readership, and sent several people who use Beckett to go and try Zistle.  How fucking great is that?

My last contact was with Mr. Fan.  His email read……..

Your’e a idiot, enjoy being the douce you are.

I responded with……..

It’s douche, you illiterate imbecile.

I think I won that one.  As I said, I already had an account set up Sunday night before I got the boot.  I’m going to let it sit and try to avoid these guys all together.  I still have a few contacts that I only have on Beckett.  I don’t think I will waste any more time on their boards, nothing ever good comes from it, haha.  These guys also tried to tell me to be careful when posting private information and the defamation of their character.   Apparently they don’t like being called names and having their profiles linked. WTF?

This brings me to the new feature on the side bar.  I call it “The Douche Baggery”.  Here you will find links to their Beckett profiles.  They tell me they are the most trusted traders on the site.  I, in no way doubt that, but do believe they belong in “The Douche Baggery.”

I will end this small rant with a poll, please pick which one you think has the bigger crush on Chris Olds.

Card Show Finds And Randy Wells

I was able to pick four more cards for my ’62 set.  I was really looking to add a Willie Mays to the mix but he was no where to be seen on this day.  I was able to add the Eddie Mathews card I’ve been looking to get for a while.  Every time I’ve bid on eBay for this one, I’ve been outbid by a couple of cents at the last second.  Total damage done for this lot was about $25.  The Eddie Bressound card is part of the hi number series, which carry a ridiculous price tag for who some of the players are.

These all ran me about a $1 a piece, even the ’83 Topps Traded Tom Seaver autograph.  The fighter jet card is for my son, I’m not real sure what set it is from.  If anyone knows, please drop a comment and let me know too.  I was able to pick up 45 of the ’61 Fleer Greats for less than $1 a piece.  I may try to complete this set or I may trade them away or I might sell them off, I haven’t really made up my mind yet on this one.

I also had to pick up some vintage Cubs for my binder.  And in other news, can somebody buy this kid a damn win already.

Randy Wells has started 5 games, has an ERA of 1.69, a W/K ratio of 7/27, and is 0-2.  This is how bad the Cubs have been playing this year!  He has pitched his ass off, only to let the bullpen piss away his leads or had the hitters get shutout behind him.  If I was him I would hate every single player in the locker room.

Mike Cameron TMM

That’s right TMM.  Through my Mom.  Last weekend my Mom left for Florida on a trip with some friends.  She told me that she would be staying at the same hotel as the Brewers while they were on the road playing the Marlins.  I naturally gave her a stack of cards to try and get autographs.  She only scored one, Mike Cameron, but it is a beauty.  Out of all the players on the Brewers he is about the only one I almost like.  This isn’t the first auto she has hooked me up with.  She has been lucky enough to win a Billy Williams autographed ball at Wrigley one year, which is now mine.  She also won a spot at a special meet and greet with the great Ron Santo.  She was nice enough to take me along on that one and we walked away with a boat load of autos from Ronny.  She once tried to get an auto from Magic Johnson in an airport but he walked right past her, no big loss really.  So a big thanks goes out to my Mom for boosting my autograph collection.  I should also thank her for buying me my first pack of cards way back in early 1986.  Where would we all be with out our Moms?

What The Hell Is This?