New Paul Blair Card

I know I am supposed to be sworn off buying cards until I am re-employed, but I couldn't let this one pass me by.


I have been wanting to add this card to my Paul Blair player collection for some time. Unfortunately, the only one I was ever able to find was on EBay and the seller had it set as a Buy It Now listing with a price of $12.99 plus $6.00 for shipping. Now I want this card, but it can't be worth more than a dollar. There is no way I would drop $12.99 on it and, frankly, six dollars for shipping a single card is outrageous. So, when an autographed version came up for auction with free shipping, I was obviously interested. After waiting nearly a year for one to come up that wasn't priced outrageously, I wasn't about to let a little matter like losing the farm (literally) stand in the way.

I kid. The final price was $8, which wouldn't break the bank one way or the other. And now I have it.

As far as my job search goes, this has been a positive week. My second interview on Monday for one job went well, and I was told they should be making a decision and offer next week. On Tuesday, I had a first interview at another company and it went well. One of the interviewers dropped some hints that they would probably be making an offer. I didn't get a real good vibe off the place, but beggars can't be chosers at this point. As it is, I have another interview scheduled tomorrow morning for a third job, so I hope to have some options here in the near future. I'm ready to be a productive member of society again.

Can't Afford Food? Buy Cards

Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration. I am generally swore off buying cards until I am employed again. I have bought a rack pack of Heritage, but felt guilty, so I am giving them away as the opportunity presents itself. So, what is the post about?

Well, when I knew that I was leaving my last job, I needed to get a cell phone as I have only ever had one through work. The phone I ended up getting came with a $50 dollar refund in the form of a VISA debit card. That debit card arrived last week and I had to figure out how best to use it. I started off buying Super-Mega prescription strength flea and tick collars for my dogs which came to $38.97. I spent another $4.97 on postage sending out some trade packages.

That left me $6.06 to go wild with. I didn't want to be one of those guys in line at Target saying "Put X dollars on this card and Y dollars on this other card, so I decided that 6 bucks wasn't going to be missed one way or the other. So, I splurged on one of those U-Pick-10 auctions on EBay and ended up winning. I focused on the 2011 Heritage inserts and my winning bid was $5.99 with free shipping. So, here they are:


Yeah, that is nine. That is all I can fit on the scanner and was feeling too lazy to scan the tenth card. If you really care to know, and I don't blame you if you don't, it was a News Flashback unrelated to baseball. As you have probably surmised I was also too lazy to shoop the scan down into individual cards.

Yeah, I phoned this one in.

See what I did there? Phoned it in. Get it? Phoned it in. Because I bought these cards with my phone rebate. Funny, huh?

No? I'll get my hat.

Trade with Baseball Dad

Today was another good day. Two packages arrived in the mail. One was a trade package from Baseball Dad and the other was from an EBay purchase. Now, the EBay purchase may be raising a few eyebrows since I said I wasn't spending any money on cards until I was back working. But, technically, I didn't spend any money, so it is all good. But, I'll explain that in another post.

Baseball Dad and I completed another trade recently. Since we are probably two of the few bloggers who are working on 2010 Tristar OBAK, so we swapped a few cards.


Self-explanatory. Frederick Thayer invented the catchers mask in 1877 and, at least according to the card back, James Tyng was the first to wear it. However, when you look up James Tyng on Baseball-Reference he is shown as a pitcher.


Caleb Bradham, founder of Pepsi-Cola.



T212 mini of Connie Mack, Tactician. Whenever I see this card, I always think of the following scene from one of the more underrated Coen Brothers movies, Intolerable Cruelty.

Jack also set three 2011 Heritage cards off my want list.





What is significant here is that all three are short prints. So, once again, I am overwhelmed by card blogger's generosity. When I get back going to card shows, I am going to need to keep an eye out for something nice for everyone's favorite Baseball Dad.

Thanks, Jack.

Recursive Memes

In response to the Cardboard Junkie / Stale Gum Challenge.

Opening Day

Yesterday was a good day! I was contacted about two job interviews. The first is a lunch interview this coming Monday with the CFO of the company I interviewed at last Friday. The second will be Tuesday morning at a local manufacturing site of a Fortune 50 corporation. But, even better, I got to go to the Oklahoma Redhawks home opener.

I had that going for me. Which is nice.

So, let's talk baseball. The Redhawks lost 4-3 to the Memphis Redbirds. Not much of a surprise that the top farm club of the World Series champs beat the top farm club of the worst team in the NL. We had fun nonetheless.


A statue of an Oklahoma adopted son, Warren Spahn. Those of you who read the Cardboard Junkie will recognize that he showed a photo of a similar statue at Turner Field the other day.


I didn't get many action shots. It was a cloudy evening and despite cranking up the ISO, I still wasn't able to get a fast enough shutter speed for decent action shots. I'd love to get one of those large aperture professional lenses, but they are way too expensive ($5000 and up), so I'll just have to live with what I have.


Cooper, one of the two mascots, the other being Ruby, a distaff version of Cooper. There is a little upset here in OKC. Yesterday, the Redhawks, owned by Mandalay Sports, announced that they awarded the naming rights to the stadium (built by the taxpayers and owned by the city) to Newcastle Casino. Most of the upset is that it was named after Newcastle, which is a backwater of a town within commuter distance of OKC. But, there is another dimension of this that my wife pointed out. Last year, Mandalay retired the previous mascot, Rowdy, in favor of Cooper and Ruby, which they felt were more family friendly. And what do they do to maintain the family atmosphere? That's right name the stadium after a casino. *eye roll*

Now, I couldn't really care less. I have no place in my life for moral scolds. If the city politicos are upset about this development then they probably never should have given the team the ability to sell the naming rights. And, frankly, I also remember when the stadium opened in 1997. Everyone was upset because the team had sold the naming rights to the ballbark to Southwestern Bell (now AT&T). But, no one ever called it the Southwestern Bell Ballpark at Bricktown. It was always The Bricktown Ballpark. It won't be any different now. All the folks that are strutting around in high dudgeon will get over this and move on to something else to be offended at.

Now this being minor league baseball, there was, of course, cheesy entertainment. Including baby races. They dress up toddlers as jungle animals and set them down on a mat with race lanes on it and then........pretty much nothing except cute overload.


Elephant just looked around.


Giraffe played with the grass.


So, by virtue of actually moving, Lion was our winner.


I think they are taking the curse of his glove.


Force play at the plate. The Redbirds backstop actually did a good job of snagging a high throw and getting back down on the plate for the out.

Free Cards from Night Owl

A short time back, the Dean of Baseball Card Blogging, Night Owl, asked for help naming some card sets. My contribution was to suggest that the 1959 Topps set (seen below), should be called the Knothole set.



Obviously, the suggestion started with the circular photo inset on the card. I remember growing up that the Rochester Red Wings had a kid's club, called the Knothole Gang and that is what the card design reminded me of. Unrelated question: will Night Owl get out his red pen and mark my post up for ending that last sentence with a preposition? This Wikipedia article has some history of the Knothole Gang. Apparently, Night Owl (also an Upstate NY boy) liked my suggestion and so it came to pass. 1959 Topps is now, and forever more, The Knothole Set.

Now, the royalty checks would have been sufficient compensation for my stroke of brilliance. However, Mr. Owl was also nice enough to send along some cards. Not expected, but definitely appreciated.


My first 2012 Flagship card. Phil Hughes is bouncing off a horrendous 2011 and has looked sharp so far in Spring Training. It will be nice to have him back in form this year as the Yankees have really put together a stellar rotation.


My first 2012 Opening Day card. Robbie is a steady, quiet presence in the Yankees lineup. One of these days, he is going to get that MVP award.


My second 2012 Opening Day card, but I hate, hate, HATE this card because of what Topps did. Now I understand Photoshopping cards to put recently traded players into the uniform of their new team. I can also understand Photoshopping cards to remove advertising logos. But, this I don't get. Why, why, WHY did Topps have to Photoshop this card to make CC look fat? That is just unnecessarily cruel.



This is an odd little card. It has a landscape image associated with a portrait orientation. I love the card (what is not to love about Mo, other than having to bat against him), but it is a little jarring to look at.


The look on CC's face here seems to be saying "You ain't pulling that Shooping shit on me again. No more full body shots or I'll sit on you and squish you into jelly.

And finally, the stars of the cards he sent. Two 1977 Topps Yankees:




Now, I had previously completed the 1977 set last year but, by golly, these cards are actually upgrades over what I had before. The Oscar Gamble card was in better condition than the one I had and the Dock Ellis card was about the same quality, but had better centering. So, these two cards are now living happily in my 1977 binder.

Thanks, Night Owl!

Cards from The Junkie, Part 3

So, if knocking cards of my 1976 Topps and 2001/2 Heritage want list wasn't enough (it was enough. More than enough), dayf also sent along a sampler of 10 cards from each Topps Heritage set that I haven't started. Since I haven't started 2003 through 2010 yet, that means he sent along 80 cars. 80. Eighty. Eight-zero. 1010000. I am a little embarrassed to get such a return for my amateurish Pony card.

Since what little creative ability I have has been sucked out of me by waiting to hear if I got the job I interviewed for (and replaying the interview in my head pretty much continuously,) I decided to pull one card out of each year's sampler that I like and show it. Yeah, I know. Boooooooring. So sue me.



2003 Heritage Bartolo Colon - I love Bartolo. He was a godsend to the Yankees last year. I was disappointed that they didn't resign him, but I am glad that he caught on with the A's. I didn't see any of the A's - Mariners games from Japan, but I understand he pitched 8 innings of three-hit ball (86 total pitches, which implies his control was pretty good) in his first start of the regular season. He is one of the few non-Yankees I want to see do well this year.


2004 Heritage Eric Chavez - Eric is starting his second year as a utility infielder for the Yankees.


2005 Heritage Carl Pavano - Being a Yankees fan, I read a lot of Yankees blogs. And they cannot stop talking about what a bad free agent signing Carl Pavano was, both in terms of productivity and as a team member. 2012 will be the fourth Pavano-free season in the Bronx. Let it go, guys, let it go.


2006 Heritage Tanyon Sturtze - Only being back into baseball for a couple years now, I had never heard of Tanyon Sturtze. Having looked at his career stats over at Baseball Reference I can see why. He is the epitome of the journeyman middle reliever(2 years of starting for Tampa Bay notwithstanding.)


2007 Heritage Chien Ming Wang / Mike Mussina - Yankee Aces. Of course this is the card I would show, even if neither are Yankees anymore.


2008 Heritage Jack Cust - The Yankees just signed Cust to a minor league deal. The thought is that they brought him on board as left handed DH insurance, since Raul Ibanez was sucking so bad in Spring Training. Ibanez has finally found his swing over the last week and has been tearing it up with 3 taters so far (and would have had a fourth except he was robbed by a highlight reel-worthy catch by Jason Heyward.)


2009 Heritage Mike Aviles - No idea why I chose this one.


2010 Heritage The Winners Celebrate - More beautiful than an Ansel Adams print, amirite?