Going Above and Beyond

Peter has been destroying my White Whale list the last couple of months. This marks the fourth card he has sent my way on the current list. That is impressive stuff.  You are now immortalized on my found white whale page. 

The current delivery is a Kevin Young card I had my eye on for a while.  I'm a sucker for the Ultra Platinum Medallion cards.  I have several Pirates in my collection but this one had avoided me for a long time. Between losing auctions and talking myself out of overpaying for BIN eBay versions, I decided to put it on the whale list.  Peter to the rescue! 

The card looks better in person than in scan. It has a nice shiny look to it.  These are numbered to 99 so they do have a certain amount of rarity as well.  These are some of my favorite cards to collect and thankfully the Pirates had no one of note in terms of card value so they are attainable if you are patient.

Peter even threw in some extras....

Always happy to see relievers get some love.

Peter even found some old Steelers.  Every old time football player looks 15 years older than their actual age.

Thanks again for finding the White Whale Peter.  I nominate you as king harpooner.

Thanks for reading!

I Like Surprises

This is music to my collecting ears...."Hey can I have your address, I have some cards for you."  Such was the case when Nick Vossbrink shot me a message on Twitter.  Give his blog and Twitter account a follow. 

Nick was involved in a couple of breaks where the randomizer gave him the Buccos.  Big virtual high five for thinking of me.  Maybe looking at my Pirate gibberish brainwashed you.  Either way these were awesome to sort through. 

For obvious reasons the Sport Illustrated cards have a Fleer look.  Depending on your feelings of Fleer releases in the late 90's to mid 2000's probably shapes your view of the set.  I've believe SI cards started out as inserts and then moved to stand alone sets later on.

I like variety so I'm a fan.  They had retired players, interesting photos, cool autos and Ricardo Rincon!

It looks like someone told Kevin a joke right as he caught this ball.  Maybe the first base coach was just finishing the "Aristocrats" joke.

Future Stars cards of the Pirates were just soooo sad for such a long stretch.  With that being said I love collecting them.  Makes for a good talking point.

This was my favorite bunch of the group.  Giles walking off, Jack doing Jumping Jack Flash stuff, cardboard legend Jason Kendall and Hermansen showing off the cannon.

PACIFIC! A while back I wrote and ode to Pacific. It's quirky and I love it.

Obviously this is tame Pacific and before all the designers got addicted to cocaine and acid.

Good way to learn Spanish! From now on pitchers can only be called lanzadors

The legend oriented sets from Panini always seem like their best effort.  Checklist wise this is where they blow Topps out of the water.  Always lots of prewar players who don't get near as much hobby love.  

I often times fall into rabbit hole of looking a player up on baseball reference or some similar site and sure enough I waste 30 minutes to an hour.  When looking up Taveras you get a nice glimpse of how the game has changed and rosters are constructed. 

He played in the majors for 11 years, 6 of which he received close to regular playing time.  In those 11 years he accumulated about 2 WAR.  Yikes!  

Richie Hebner still has one of the greatest nicknames of all time....GRAVEDIGGER!

Stadium Club is always awesome, so I really dig the Glasnow rookie.  It took me a while to get some of the Gold Label cards, but my last handful of trades has netted me most of the team set.

Thanks for all the cards Nick.  You are a 10 WAR trader.  So much better than Frank Taveras :)

Thanks for reading!

Robbing Rob

KO Rob doesn't blog, but we actively communicate via my blog, email and Untappd.  Rob and I share the love beer and card collecting so we make a pretty good trade team.  Our last trade was beer, this time we went back to our roots.  

This is a quality start for sure. While not listed on the box it does come complete with stunning good looks and rocket arm throwing action.  

I actually have a good bit of Starting Lineups in my collection.  I've been contemplating taking them out of the box to save space.  Not sure what I'm going to do.  

"Hey Ladies"

Rob showing off....

Rob must have unlimited funds.  He can throw around 90 UD Walk's like it is nothing. Definitely explains how he sent me so much great beer at one time.  He is obviously an astronaut cowboy millionaire.

Rob knows my collection all to well....

The logo is obviously a welcome addition.

West is kind of like Gene Hackman.  He always looked old, but then just stopped aging.

This one is much nicer in person.

Now for some cards of my youth....

90 UD for the win here. I have a soft spot for Diamond Kings, but I love the unique photo.

Bobby Bonilla is not fondly remembered by most of his former employers, but I would say the one exception would be Pirate fans. He had his best years as a Pirate and played on some great teams.

Skinny Bonds galore!

The Shawn Harvey card is super cool  He played at super small West Virginia State University! Earl Lloyd went to school there...He would go on to be the first African American to have played in an NBA game.

Now we get into the super sexy portion of the program.

Card reeks of world class athleticism.

I talk about Spanky all the time.  Hard to not like the guy.

Now for a card that I put on Twitter as soon as I saw it.

Now that my friend is a gum stain.  Little did Topps know that this would be a prelude to a Heritage variation 20 years later. The stain adds some great character to an already great card.  Manager cards are already awesome, the gum made it legendary.

Thanks for all the great cards Rob.  They were a blast to sort through.  We need to trade some beer soon!

Thanks for reading.

Predictions

Thursday is opening day! Figured I better get bad predictions up again so I can make fun of myself in October.

AL East - Yankees
AL Central - Indians
AL West - Astros

Wildcard 1 - Red Sox
Wildcard 2 - Twins

Best Record in the AL - Astros
ALCS - Astros over Indians

NL East - Nats
NL Central - Cubs
NL West - Dodgers

Wildcard 1 Cardinals
Wildcard 2 Rockies

Best Record in the NL - Nats
NLCS - Dodgers over Nats

World Series - Dodgers over Astros (7 games) This was my prediction last year and I was soooo close.  Not hard to imagine these two going at it again.

Like most years I'm sure a team will come out of the woodwork and be better than expected.  Hard to imagine a scenario in which the Nats, Cubs and Dodgers don't make the playoffs.  Same holds true with the Astros in the AL. The NL Wildcards seems like a fun race.  I'm not confident in either of my picks.

AL MVP - Mike Trout
NL MVP - Bryce Harper

AL Cy Young - Chris Sale
NL Cy Young - Clayton Kershaw

AL ROY - Austin Hays
NL ROY - Ronald Ocuna

Lots of potentially good NL rookies this year.  Have no idea in the AL as the best guys don't have as clear of a path.  Could have picked Ohtani, but decided to find a darkhorse.

Help From All Over

Wes should run for political office the way he can get people to come together for one goal.  One of the main themes of the latest crate of cards and memorabilia was getting assists from other bloggers. I already featured Gavin's customs, now lets take a look at the main cardboard portion.  

Thinking about starting a Go Fund Me for a storage unit....  

When I was taking my initial glance at the cards I just thought Wes had sent me a ton of cards like his usual madman self.  When I started to dig a little deeper I noticed 3 of the above boxes had some very thorough organization. Not that Wes isn't organized, but these cards were almost all WVU and sorted by player.  Either Wes bought out someones WVU collection or he got an assist from an avid WVU fan.  I have an idea who it is, but Wes ultimately will have to be the one to disclose the identity of the masked Mountaineer enthusiast.  

All I know for a fact is that this was the biggest shipment of WVU cards I've ever received at one time. The cards I've scanned is only a sampling.  I'm guessing it was around 500 cards.

I've shown a few of these over the years....so classy! 

Gyorko is the most notable baseball alum WVU has had in quite sometime.  I think here soon we will start producing more now that we have nice facilities and play in a good college conference.

This was the first sign that I thought I was dealing with an inside job.  We are getting into obscure WVU baseball players.  The weird thing about JR House on the bottom left is that he actually played WVU football and not baseball.

Rasheed was our first notable quarterback in the Rich Rodriguez era.

Getting cards of obscure guys like Darius Reynad and Antonio Brown (not the Steelers one) is what made this group of cards so much fun.

All three of these guys saw extended NFL time.

It is crazy how many cards a first round pick like Austin gets.  Even if the guy busts out, you are hundreds of cards to chase.

Kicker alert! WVU has had a nice history of producing long time NFL kickers.  Guys like Vanderjagt, Todd Sauerbrun and Pat Mcafee.

Anthony Becht works as a commentator for ESPN after having a long career as a tight end in the NFL.

Drewrey is an interesting guy in that he was rostered 9 seasons but the most receptions he had in one was 26.  In today's game you probably don't last that long.

I have fond memories of both Wilson and Cobourne.  Both played while I was in high school/early college so I watched them a ton.  Cobourne found nice success in Canada.

Stedman was a promising wide receiver for the Rams, but his career was derailed after suffering a gun shot to the head.  He miraculously survived and now is even fighting his way back to the league.  He is participating in WVU's pro day.

Porter got paid by the Jaguars big time in free agency, but never really did anything.  He had some pretty nice years with the Raiders around the same time they had Jerry Rice.

Tons of great Bulger cards.  He has big time ties to WVU as his sisters also played basketball for the Mountaineers.  Good athletic genes in that family.

Ultra cards featuring players in the college uniforms are among my favorite to collect.  Chris Henry tragically passed away during a domestic incident with his girlfriend.  He fell off the back of a moving truck.  Sad stuff.

Irvin has been WVU's most successful defensive player in the NFL in recent memory.  I'm guessing Karl Joseph will eventually get there.

Not many cards featuring the random WVU grey uniforms.  I think the Metal and UD cards are my favorite.

In terms of WVU collection Pat White and Steve Slaton are the most represented.  Both entered the draft when about 10,000 sets existed. To this day I'm still finding cards I had no idea existed.

Last but not least is Charles Sims who has found a nice niche as 3rd down back for the Bucs.

This didn't even begin to put a dent in all the cards Wes (and possible mystery accomplice) sent.  It was truly a sight to behold.  The players that have big catalogs like Bulger, Geno and Slaton were individually team bagged.  So much great stuff!

Are you going to unveil the mystery accomplice Wes?

Thanks for reading!