Candy, Dogfood and Hardware

Once I started trading on a regular basis I began associating certain types of cards with the people I trade with. Whether it be team, player or card type I immediately tie it to another blog. For instance when it comes to oddballs Tony is the man who has hooked me from our very first trade.

Tony has multiple card shows at his disposal so he makes for a great trade partner. While he has hooked me up with all types of cards, oddballs are usually the central theme. For this shipment of cards Tony went big time and sent me a whole priority mail box full of Pirate goodness. Here is sample of my favorites.

 A 2 for 1 deal with this conjoined Joyner/Pena M&M's card.

 I think this may be my first Purina card. If I do have anymore it was probably sent by Tony. It always seems like as soon as I have a grasp of what oddballs are out there something else pops up that I've never seen before.

Now these store centric cards are ones I'm pretty familiar with. Growing up my parents would always buy me these for birthdays and holidays. I still own many Kmart, Ames and Kay Bee toy cards.

This may be my favorite of the group Tony sent my way. Some non licensed cards that True Value hardware stores gave away. The funny thing is I had several of these stores around my neck of the woods but don't ever remember getting these. I wonder if you had to send away for the cards. Anybody know? I'm too lazy to Google search right now. 

 Words really don't do this card justice.

 Tony sent me a ton of multi-player cards. The Fleer Bonds/Griffey card was quite the sought after card in my house growing up. Always fun to see skinny Bonds before he transformed into a mutant.

 A lot of star power is this group with the likes of Clemente, Rose and Stargell. I think any card that features Clemente automatically wins as the favorite of the bunch.

 I've been on a nice quick lately adding some Parker's and Madlocks to my collection. Both are super affordable and have some of the best looking cardboard out there.

While oddballs and vintage were the main focus that doesn't stop Tony from sending some recent releases. I think we decided a while back that the green refractors should be called Matrix refractors. The Marte is numbered so that is a nice addition!

 Some minor league Buccos! Carlos Garcia is probably the most notable as he played for the Buccos in the early and mid 90's. He also coached the AA team in Altoona, but was fired in 2014.

This is actually full of candy. I'm thinking about cleaning it out and putting my synthroid that I take daily in place. Seems like a fitting pill case for me.

More Cobra! 

 I just recently showcased another Wagner modern card. I love all his modern cards.

 I do like cards of women.....

Thanks for the cards Tony. I already have enough Brewers put aside to send you something soon.  Just need to find time to do a mass mailing. 

Thanks for reading! 

Free Shirt Friday

The Pirates run a promotion every year called free shirt Friday.  It was a pretty cool promotion in which a ticket to a Friday home game would also net you a t-shirt.  The shirt is usually sponsored by an area business so the downfall is you would have some type of company logo placed prominently on the back. While most of the shirts are pretty nice, some funny ones pop up.

Usually the more outrageous shirts are the ones that feature an actual player. If you want a good gag gift may I suggest this AJ Burnett shirt.

The crazy thing is this shirt actually sells well on the secondary market.  I've been trying to buy it for one of my friends because we made so much fun of it, but it goes for way more than I would be willing the spend. 

When they first started this promotion I would make it a point to try and go to as many as possible.  In recent years the traffic to get to a Pirates game on a Friday has been outrageous because of construction so I've missed out on many of the cool shirts. 

Last month I was searching for something on eBay and a nice lot of some of the better shirts from last season popped up. 

I ended up winning the auction for around $27 if I recall so it turned out to be a cheap way to update the Pirate t-shirt collection. 

Let me know if you guys would like an AJ Burnett tshirt to wear around.......

Thanks for reading! 

Brad is a Cowboy Astronaut Millionaire

A couple weeks back Brad from Brad's Blog was getting rid of some excess cards.  The only requirement was you had to list your collecting interests. So I told him I collected Mike Trout autos and pre war, graded 10 tobacco cards. While Brad couldn't deliver any of those he sent me something twice as good.

 Four cards of the legend! Brad was just showing off by sending two 91 Fleers. I guess that makes sense since he is a cowboy astronaut millionaire!

 The highlight of this bunch is the 96 Pinnacle rookie of Jason Kendall. Supposedly Kendall was a huge asshole, but he was fun to watch. His skillset was so unique for the position as he had great speed to go along with a high obp and gap power.

 The core of the early 90's Buccos.

 A lot of cool cardboard here. The Van Slyke is a Sunoco oddball which is pretty cool. I've received a few of these since I started the blog. Not many Sunoco's in my area so it was nice to receive them.

I saw that Jay Bell still ranks in the Dbacks top 5 free agent valued contracts of all time. Obviously Mr. Grienke sits on the very top.

 Legends! I've always been partial to that Honus tops card. One of my favorites.

 A gaggle of Cutch cards.

 Not quite sure what the plan is for Josh Bell next season. The Pirates non tendered Pedro Alvarez and don't have much in the way of a major league first baseman. I'm sure at some point during the season the job will be his to win.

The Cole Train!

 The Hanrahan card in which he is doing his best Bo Jackson impersonation is pretty cool.

The Pirates tend to turn over their roster pretty quick in order to keep costs down. Only Liriano and Cole remain from this group of 2013 Topps Buccos.

This was only about half of what Brad sent. It was a nice mix of old and new in which I only had to leave a comment to have them sent my way. Thanks so much for your generosity Brad, as I'm sure that was a good bit of work to put all those packages together. I'll hit you up with some Phillies soon!

Thanks for reading.

Happy Rabbit

I believe I'm done traveling for the year which is fine by me. It is always nice to get to see new places, but I was ready to come home. See, when I go away I'm always travelling solo so it gets old eating all your meals alone and not getting to experience a new place with either friends or family.

On a programming note, boy did my mailbox take a pounding this week. I'm sitting on packages from Tony and Brad that will be posted this week and Julie added one to the mix while I was gone. They arrived safe and sound. The other packages were random eBay purchases I made over the Thanksgiving holiday. Being off work sometimes causes me to spend a little too much time shopping for cardboard.

Here is one of the cooler cards I picked up.

1949 Bowman Stan Rojek 

I must have been scouring eBay with a generic search in to come across this card. Obviously this card sticks out as it features Stan Rojek's nickname "Happy Rabbit" which is one of the main reasons I purchased the card. After a little research it seems he got the nickname because of his projecting front teeth. 

Turns out Stan is a pretty interesting guy. He debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1942 as a pinch runner, but then had to wait 3 years because of WWII. A shortstop by trade he thought he would have a chance to start with Brooklyn, but was blocked by Pee Wee Reese. During his career his only extended playing time came with the Pirates in 48 and 49.  His offense declined after being hit by a pitch which he said lead him to being a fraction of second slower with his swing. 

The other interesting tidbit was after retirement he went opened a bowling alley in his hometown and the first person to break in the new alley was hall of fame manager Joe Mccarthy. The idea for the bowling alley must likely came from Stan Musial who was a close friend and would visit Rojek often. 

It is always fun to research a guy like Rojek. One of the many pleasure our fun hobby can provide! You can get sucked in by pages like Baseball Reference and SABR. 

Thanks for reading.

Ready for Cardboard

I usually make the most of my work trips by trying to leave some time to do touristy things. Since I'm sitting in a very quiet Savannah airport I figured I would go ahead and share some pictures from my trip. The bad thing is I'm usually flying solo on my trips so the pictures are poor quality. I rely on my wife to document.  If she would have been with me my 10 pictures would easily be 100.

 One of my favorite of the local beers I found.  Plus it was a pretty funny bottle.

 A view from River St.

 More from River St

 Oh my was this good. Pork chop, mac n cheese and collard greens.

 Kind of hard to see, but I was wandering aimlessly and found this cool old cemetery. Most of the stones date in the 1700's. I later found out this graveyard was in disarray in the early 1900's, but the daughters of the American Revolution cleaned it up.

Some views of the Spanish moss trees that are so abundant in Savannah.

Overall it was a good trip. Always nice to see a new place, but I'm ready to be home and hang with the family. Also, I have a serious case of cardboard withdrawal.

Trade: GCRL

While Jim may have retired a few months back he is still very active in the blogosphere. He is a frequent commenter and is still an active trader. He and Mark Hoyle can rule the land of non bloggers together.

Jim and I have had an ongoing blind trade since I started blogging and the latest installment just hit my mailbox this past week.

This card may have been the smallest in the bunch, but it sure packs a punch. Murtaugh played for a handful of season, but obviously is best known as the manager of the 60 and 71 World Series Bucco teams.

Leaf Signature Series has a pretty important place in the hobby. One of these years when I have more money than I know what to do with I'm going to bust a box. The Jeff King is probably my favorite out of the bunch just because he was such an interesting guy. Long story short the guy hated baseball and retired well within his prime earning years.

The Gorzelanny jersey is the main attraction in this lot of Ginter Bucoo jerseys. It looks to be from the Red alternate jersey that was worn in 2007.  

I'm still trying to find a few Laroche Pirate issued cards so it is nice to receive some relics to add to the collection. Laroche is one of those guys you miss more after he is gone. It was a hyped up trade when the Buccos got him from the Braves but he never really put it all together during his tenure. 

I'm a huge fan of the Classics set. I was a little disappointed that Panini decided to drop it after one year. It had one of the best checklists you will find.

 Nyjer was a hockey player growing up and picked up baseball a little later in life. He managed to carve out a pretty decent career considering his talent level. He got just about everything out of his small frame that he could.  I believe he is playing in Japan..

 Some Bowman Chrome tall boys. Both Taillon and Glasnow are expected to help the Buccos at some point this year. Glasnow has developed into the Pirates biggest prospect and projects to be a front line pitcher. His main issue is command which makes sense because I believe he is around 6"8.

 Candelaria is cardboard gold.  Jim also continued with the managerial theme by sending this Chuck Tanner.

 If you follow my blog you have probably noticed I'm a big fan of this years Update. I've been trying to add as many of the printing plates of the more obscure Buccos as I can (I just added one this past week!) Best name ever....Arquimedes Caminero....

 Some Heritage High numbers and a Josh Harrison archives. I've finally started to add some Harrison cards to my collection as he was priced way out of control for the longest time.

 I love the MlB Showdown Pokey Reese card.

 A young Aramis Ramirez.

Another set that I've been paying close attention to lately has been Topps Gold Label. In the past month I've won a handful of parallels from the set. I was pumped to see some of these in the trade package.

Well I guess it is my turn Jim. I would expect a mega package soon....If you didn't notice you were one of my contest winners so I'm on the hunt for some nice cards for your collection.  I'm already sitting on 5 nice cards, but I need at least a couple more to account for the contest win as well.

Thanks for reading.

Travel, Beer and Promotion

I'm currently in Savannah Georgia for work. I got to walk around a good bit yesterday exploring, but Friday will be my day to do tourist type of stuff. I'll take any recommendations for people who have been here.

 I got to try some local beer.  Not all pictured all local, but I tried most that the place had to offer.

My hotel is right on the water so these huge ships go by often. The first one woke me up around 630 this morning. 

I'll have more pictures when I get home Saturday.

Also, my buddy Kevin wants to give you cards. You should take him up on his offer. Use it as an excuse to trade with someone from France. Your friends will be impressed you know someone from France.