The best card EVER (for me)

Well with yesterdays Allen and Ginter fraud drama behind me (Paypal is looking into the transaction) I have decided to move forward with my happy little blog about the GOOD things about collecting cards! By the way,I am extremely jealous that everybody is blogging about new A&G cards, but am relieved that nobody has pulled Billy the Marlin yet (I still have a chance!).

So there was a little bit of fallout from the Paypal incident...I was a bit bummed about the whole deal so I decided to get a couple more of those 2007 UD Masterpieces to lift my spirits. Some go for comfort food, I go for baseball cards. Well the first pack, Mr Grouchy hobby shop owner says "looks like there is a jersey in this one". I stared at the pack and wondered how he could have figured that out just by looking...does he do that will all of his open boxes he puts out...hmmmm. ANYWAYS, the first pack turned out to be a dummy card for UD Store...so much for that hope.

The second pack, however, paid off nicely, here are the four cards in order

Ichiro. Ya know ever since the whole Ken Griffey Jr/ Ichiro tickle fight non-story, I sure do pull a lot of these cards. A lot of people wonder how I live in the Pacific Northwest and don't support the Mariners. The answer is "could you?". The main problem with the Mariners (as has been for many years) is that years when they have hitting they have no pitching, years when they have pitching they have no hitting. Also a main problem I have with the team is the lack of passion from the fans. My wife and I go up to Seattle each year to watch the Red Sox play and it is amazing to see fans sitting on their hands, chatting with their buddies, drinking their Starbucks, and completely oblivious to the action on the field. It just creates a rather dull atmosphere for a beautiful Stadium. Being a Mariner fan was always too much of a roller coaster ride for me to want to take.

Not a big surprise to pull Mr Rodriguez from the pack. What would my day without pulling a Yankee or two. You could say that this card represents ARod after a walk-off HR to win the game, flipping his helmet for the big home-plate celebration, BUT I offer you this...why are the fans sitting so mundane in the background? I guess one guy is clapping, but he is probably a Red Sox fan. My guess is that is card takes place after yet another game-ending Arod pop up. Hey, its my blog, right?

I saw the serialed 25/50 on the back before flipping over this beauty. Now mine has some sort of a greenish/bronze/gold color, while the one pictured is called "blue steel". This is the point in the blog where I go on a Beckett tangent. Ahem....okay, so I subscribe to Beckett Online, I have been around here long enough to know that there is an Anti-Beckett sediment in this hobby for price manipulation, etc. The reason I subscribe online is not so much for pricing information, but more for a fairly updated index of cards. When there are so many parallels and short prints, and subsets, etc, it can be pretty difficult for a new collector to keep it all straight. Here is my problem with the site. In many series, especially this one, there are a ton of parallels that make it incredibly difficult to figure out which you have. The card description is a little vague, but the worst part is that when you click on a card type, there is no image available at the top of the screen to compare your variation with a sample jpeg. The option is there to add a picture, but 80% of the time there is not one. Thanks for nothing Beckett. So anyways, this is a fantastic card and I have a rule that all serialed cards be put away, so it is nice to welcome Mr Koufax to the collection.

But, just like yesterday, the best was yet to come...

This one gave me the "WOW" that I needed. Talk about the pinnacle of my 2004 team collection, this is exactly the scene that I have ingrained in my head from that magical year. The only thing missing from this card is Drew and Jimmy snogging on the field. You also have a great shot of Caveman Johnny getting into the scrum, as well as what appears to be a ballboy or something immortalized on a card forever! Never even knew this card existed, and it will sit right next to Varitek holding the trophy.

So there you go, I guess not such a horrible day after all. I also took my first crack at the ginter code and it said "send in two taco bell bean burritos"....that can't be right. Back to the drawing board!